Tons of Potential. So far the only problem is XP drivers compatibility, but most companies are fixing that if you know how to find the solutions.

Pretty nifty actually...

7/31/2007 2:17:32 PM

Been running vista ultimate 64 bit for months now and i love it. Only issue i had was a driver for my HDTV tuner. Had to do a quick registry edit to get vista media center to recognize both the analog and digital aspects of the tuner. Should be fixed in SP1 though.

7/31/2007 2:19:25 PM

[Edited on July 31, 2007 at 2:45 PM. Reason : double]

7/31/2007 2:44:03 PM

I'm sure Microsoft will be pleased with your approval. I think they have a lot of potential, as you say, as a software company.

7/31/2007 2:44:43 PM

I've found it's not that fun to work with from a networking standpoint. It seems to pop up with a different issue once every few weeks. Just last week a windows update patch cleared out all the domain info that was on the computer. We also found that it had fucked up with network syncing and made itself default to save information to the server instead of locally and then backing up to the server.

7/31/2007 3:03:15 PM

i think i'm gonna keep windows xp forever

7/31/2007 3:05:42 PM

^^I can't really say much about Vista and networking. I haven't had issues in my house on our lan, but that's just moving files etc. In terms of everything else for personal use, i love vista. 64 bit even plays all the games i want it to.

^you tried vista?

[Edited on July 31, 2007 at 3:07 PM. Reason : .;]

7/31/2007 3:07:07 PM

"i think i'm gonna keep windows xp forever"

Just playing the cards here, but I said the same thing about Windows XP when I was running Win98se.

I absolutely loved that OS too.

Anyway I am sure I will start using Vista when I install it with a freshly built computer. I wouldn't dare try an upgrade.

7/31/2007 3:53:18 PM

^Yeah don't try to upgrade unless it's on a new computer. Going from 3.xx to 95 took some balls too. As did 95 to 98 if i remember correctly. It's sad i remember the jump to 95, as i was only like 10.

7/31/2007 3:59:05 PM

same i remember installing it on a few teacher's computers for them because they didnt know how to and we didnt have a full time tech guy back then (i was 11 i think)

7/31/2007 4:20:02 PM

Imagine that. A thread about Vista in which the first reply is neodata686 singing its praises and acting like it's the second coming of Christ.

You work for microsoft or something?

7/31/2007 5:33:15 PM

^haha thought you'd pop in. You got a problem with me saying i like vista?

Would you say the same thing about apple fans? Or Linux fans? I'm running fedora and kubunto. As well as having a couple macs in the house. I just usually have vista booted up the most. It's the only thing that'll run the game i'm currently playing.

Since when couldn't we approve of a piece of software? or praise it for how well it works? I love my HD DVR, and it's incredibly fast. Faster than any TWC HD box i've messed with.

Would you rather me just shut up about vista? I can site all the problems i have with vista too. I just find that the positive aspects i've experienced far outweight what few negative aspects i've found. Mostly with older drivers, and a couple port issues.

7/31/2007 6:13:47 PM

Honestly, we'd rather you just shut up, regardless of topic.

7/31/2007 6:52:07 PM

"we"? lol. You don't have any say in this. get out.

7/31/2007 7:00:50 PM

shit just got real dawg

7/31/2007 7:05:56 PM

Spider Pig, Spider Pig, does whatever Spider Pig does. Look out he is a Spider Pig!

7/31/2007 7:16:28 PM

Imagine that. A thread about some specific topic in which the first reply is some user posting a personal opinion / relating experiences about said specific topic.

7/31/2007 7:46:20 PM

ah, you don't post in tech talk nearly enough anymore dakota

7/31/2007 7:55:03 PM

Quote :

"Honestly, we'd rather you just shut up, regardless of topic."

7/31/2007 7:57:28 PM

Quote :

"Honestly, we'd rather you just shut up, regardless of topic."

7/31/2007 7:59:10 PM

VISTA FUCKING BLOWS.

constant windows update problems.

horrible handing with large amounts of files.

memory hog (even with 4gb).

shitty handling of folder views (doesn't remember half of them. chooses to change views even when you have previously told it not to with folder memory on).

etc.

etc.

7/31/2007 9:02:01 PM

even if it is a great OS, I'm sticking with XP until I get a new computer with vista installed already. XP works great for me.

7/31/2007 9:10:42 PM

Quote :

"Honestly, we'd rather you just shut up, regardless of topic."

Vista can suck my ball sack. Comparing it to the Migration from 3.x to 95, or from 98 to XP is retarded. Mostly because the 3.xx to 95 was an absolute joy. Because to migrate you pretty much HAD to buy new hardware, and there was very little differentiation in components. So you installed it and MAYBE had to install some modem drivers and a printer. That's about it.

I beta tested both Windows 2000 and XP (and Vista).

Let's compare:

Windows 2000 Beta 1: Installed it, it ran fine on my Win98SE machine, no issues with uptime, crashes, driver conflicts etc. I ran beta 1 until it went Gold. The ONLY problem I had was a lack of driver support from 2nd and 3rd tier vendors.

XP Beta 1: "ooh this looks pretty", turned off themes, ran it same as the 2000 beta, updated to beta 2 because they added more theme stuff. turned it off and ran it till gold.

Vista Alpha: Installed it, took 4 hours. Churned like hell. Crashed in the first 10 minutes. No driver support, no functioning network. Uninstalled it.

Vista Beta 1: Installed it, took over an hour. Churned like hell. Crashed in a couple of hours. Still no driver support, no wireless networking. Flaky wired networking, that stupid fucking security popup that I couldn't turn off. Uninstalled it.

Vista Beta 2: Installed it, same as beta 1. Still churned even after doubling my ram (1gb). DIDNT CRASH. Install the new drivers available for my video and sound. Crashed, hard. Reinstalled, didnt install new drivers. Flaky networking all around. Stupid security shit got worse. Uninstalled.

Vista Gold: Exact same problems as beta 2.

It's another windows millenium. They ran out of time, had to hit their 18 month cycle and put out some shit. It's really a completely garbage OS. It adds nothing to XP for the end user. Except complexity, uneccesary security blockages, and a TON of overhead to doing every task.

I mean for fucks sake, they didn't even include the new file system, which was THE reason for Longhorn in the first place. Anybody remember that? I don't know who else got to beta WinFS, but damn it was good for a beta filesystem. AND IT GOT CUT.

7/31/2007 11:33:45 PM

vista is smooth, i likes alot

7/31/2007 11:41:53 PM

I don't have nearly as many problems as apparently some of you have with vista. Granted I don't ever use it (would be waiting on vista support for some financial programs I rely on), but on the off chace I do, I kinda like it.

Noen, about the drivers, isn't Windows making it harder for hardware manufacturers to write compatible drivers on purpose (read: forcing Creative etc. to write decent drivers for a change)? Do you think this had anything to do with drivers issues you saw? Seems like I read some articles that made this point a while back, and if true, I'm all for it.

I agree with the security stuff getting in the way, though I kinda think MS is backed into a corner here - meaning I think the market is demanding Windows be as "secure" as MacOS X or whatever despite the ridiculous market share differences - and the vista security annoyances are a stab in the right direction.

And, I COMPLETELY agree about WinFS. That looked so badass

However, when I do decide to boot into vista, I really like it a lot. I can't use a couple of programs I have to use, but I like running it for a couple of days at a time for everything else.

8/1/2007 1:08:51 AM

Yep the drivers aren't Microsoft's fault at all. They have outlined much better standards.

But, it doesn't matter, because it reflects on the quality of the system.

And the problem is, the WHQL process is not cheap, and has to be revalidated with every single release. Even then, it's no guarantee of stability, it just means it's not going to completely destroy your system or carry some hidden virus.

8/1/2007 1:22:55 AM

Sorry you had so much trouble with it Noen. All i'm saying is it worked for me and other people. Vista beta 2 installed fine on my old pentium 4 dell laptop in under 30 minutes and didn't really have any issues with drivers except for the dell track pad. Switched back to xp on my laptop, and ran Vista 64 on my desktop when it came out. Didn't run into any BSODs or driver issues at all. Everything installed flawlessly and i simply turned off the security UAC features.

From what i remember it takes up less ram than when i ran the same set of programs on XP. I usually have itunes, FaH, couple browsers, and a couple other things open and i usually notice how much ram the system is taking. Was noticeably smaller with Vista. Not by much though. The only thing i did notice was IE7 took more ram than IE7 in XP, but that was the only program that had a higher memory usage.

I apologize, i'm in college and i enjoy playing games every now and then. I don't have the money to afford a new console, plus an HDTV, so i made the trade off and play some of the newer games on Vista, because they will only run on vista. I'm not going to stick with xp if i can't run any of the newer games i want to. I haven't run into ANY issues with newer games on vista 64, despite my previous notion that XP64 wasn't all that great for gaming.

If you want to criticize the OS as a whole then that's fine, but don't criticize me for giving praise to an OS that i have no problems with in a thread titled "Vista is actually not a bad OS". Just because you had a bad experience with it, doesn't mean everyone else did, and doesn't mean i did.

[Edited on August 1, 2007 at 8:52 AM. Reason : .]

8/1/2007 8:50:43 AM

Quote :

"it takes up less ram than when i ran the same set of programs on XP"

that's the exact opposite of what I've seen

8/1/2007 9:12:22 AM

Quote :

"From what i remember it takes up less ram than when i ran the same set of programs on XP"

you would be the one and ONLY person that i know that has ever said this about vista

8/1/2007 9:19:08 AM

^,^^I did say IE7 took up more ram, but everything else i noticed took up less ram. Mainly my torrent programs. I was downloading Fedora through bitcomet, and a game demo on utorrent and both clients took far less ram on vista. In xp bitcomet would hog almost twice as much ram. Utorrent is small to begin with but still took around 20-35 megs more on xp. Plus some of the newer games took much less ram on Vista, i'm assuming because they were designed to run natively on vista, not XP.

Most of my programs are released for Vista and these are the programs i'm talking about. Torrent clients, games, and PS CS3 vs CS2. So maybe older software may be a memory hog but the newer software i'm running isn't. For example windows media center edition running my HDTV tuner takes MUCH less ram in Vista than XP MC Edition. In XP MC edition the HD DVR would be slower and the menu would be choppy. But in Vista the HD DVR is fast, and very very responsive, as well as taking less ram.

See the issue i have with everyone criticizing an OS is that everyone doesn't use the OS for the same purposes. I fully acknowledge there are plenty of scenarios where Vista would be a horrible choice for a lot of you guys. On the other hand i use an OS for cad, gaming, analog/HD OTA DVR, photoshop, music, etc etc, and most of the programs I use for these purposes already have vista versions out, so maybe that's why they take up less ram.

But the thing people need to realize is the things I USE vista for work fine, and much better than XP (games, HD DVR, etc). But i also fully acknowledge that what you guys use it for, it may suck. So don't assume the sum total useage of an OS is for what you guys are using it for, because for me, and the stuff i run, it works great.

To make a comparison, how many of you guys have ran Vista 64 bit and tried out the newest games and the new media center edition with an HD tv tuner card? These are the two best features I enjoy in Vista, and if you guys haven't tested what i'm actually talking about, then i find it weird that you guys criticize my praise for an OS.

[Edited on August 1, 2007 at 9:35 AM. Reason : .]

8/1/2007 9:30:46 AM

Quote :

"From what i remember it takes up less ram than when i ran the same set of programs on XP"

W T F?!

I have found it to be noticeably slower doing the same tasks and requiring noticeably more memory. I have switched my work machine back to XP and will avoid Vista as long as I possibly can.

For all of the OS upgrades to this point (3.x -> 95 -> NT -> 2K -> XP) I can say that they added things that offered a better working environment. Vista doesn't add anything that makes my work any better, instead it actually has been a step back IMHO.

Quote :

"I fully acknowledge there are plenty of scenarios where Vista would be a horrible choice for a lot of you guys. On the other hand i use an OS for cad, gaming, analog/HD OTA DVR, photoshop, music, etc etc"

Yeah ... I run none of that for work.

[Edited on August 1, 2007 at 9:35 AM. Reason : .]

8/1/2007 9:32:31 AM

^Ok i fully agree it may suck for plenty of you guys. But since i am in school the only "work" related stuff i run on my computer is Solid Works, Autocad, and CS3 and none of these have had any issues at all. So the majority of stuff i do, most of you guys probably don't do (from what i've seen (gaming, HDDVR, etc)), so we use it for different purposes. I just find it odd that people get on ME for praising an OS when i use it for COMPLETELY different reasons than they do as i said ^^.

8/1/2007 9:39:35 AM

Quote :

"From what i remember it takes up less ram than when i ran the same set of programs on XP"

Wow. For me memory usage for Vista = memory usage for xp + 450.

8/1/2007 10:08:14 AM

Quote :

"I fully acknowledge there are plenty of scenarios where Vista would be a horrible choice for a lot of you guys. On the other hand i use an OS for cad, gaming, analog/HD OTA DVR, photoshop, music, etc etc"

id say that covers the general bases for memory intensive programs people on here use on a regular basis..

8/1/2007 10:21:46 AM

graphics, audio, design, and games...
except for word processing, programming and maybe video that pretty much includes everything you do with a computer...

8/1/2007 10:29:14 AM

^^hmm so you guys use CS3, have an HD tv tuner, and play games like Halo 2, Call of Juarez, Lost Planet, and Company of Heroes?

In regard to the memory i think i found what you guys are talking about.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/features/details/superfetch.mspx

http://blogs.technet.com/askperf/archive/2007/03/29/windows-vista-superfetch-readyboost.aspx

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000688.html

Quote :

"I'm perfectly fine letting SuperFetch have its way with my system memory. The question shouldn't be "Why does Vista use all my memory?", but "Why the heck did previous versions of Windows use my memory so ineffectively?" I don't know. Maybe the rules were different before 2 gigabytes was a mainstream memory configuration. The less free memory I have, the better; every byte of memory should be actively working on my behalf at all times. However, I do wish there was a way to tell SuperFetch to ixnay on the oadinglay when I'm gaming. "

That last link is a very good explanation of it. Vista handles memory differently and thus programs open, run, and close alot FASTER. I did program open tests for CS3, games, word 07, autocad, and solid works, and these programs opened/saved/closed significatly faster on Vista than XP. From what i noticed the programs i ran still took up less memory, but i noticed this superfetch sometimes with other programs that i don't run so much. So it's using ram more efficiently and everything runs faster. Is this a bad thing?

I mean you guys completely bashed Vista's ram usage methods without even doing the research. I find everything runs faster on Vista than XP, and i did some research as to why, and superfetch explains it. So basically if i'm running programs i'd rather them take up the ram i have and run MUCH faster than XP, then not take up the ram and be slower, or the same as XP.

You guys blamed Vista for taking up lots of ram but did any of you actually do the research to find out WHY?? It seems funny to me that we're in a tech thread about how "vista is actualy not a bad OS" and you guys gave examples of what you thought was bad memory allocation, but in fact you never actually stated WHY vista was using all that ram. How is that contributing to this thread?

[Edited on August 1, 2007 at 11:03 AM. Reason : .]

8/1/2007 10:34:59 AM

*slowly back outs of thread and alt-tabs into WoW*

8/1/2007 10:35:47 AM

^you play wow? Not really a fan. Although that southpark episode was hilarious.


[Edited on August 1, 2007 at 10:43 AM. Reason : .]

8/1/2007 10:37:17 AM

XP Media Center edition uses far fewer resources than Vista and would be a better option for you.

Gaming in vista vs xp, XP is faster across the board with any video card I've ever seen.

Yes actually I run CS3. CS3 DOES NOT FUNCTION PROPERLY on Vista. Opening a program doesn't do shit. Literally half the functionality is still broken.

AutoCAD only works through XP Compatibility mode and only with Vista Business and Premium versions, because you HAVE to turn off UAC for it to install and function (a huge no-no for the average user and the business user)

Solidworks only works with the newest version, which they had to specially release for Vista. The last thing I want to do after upgrading my OS is drop another 1500 bucks to update my modeling software.

You also forgot to mention EVERY GL MODELING PROGRAM.

Alias Maya doesn't work.
Alias Studio Tools doesn't work.
Rhinoceros 4 doesn't work.
3D studio Max has limited support with the new service pack.

Also superfetch is bullshit. You might want to look at every damn article about it. It's effectively just eating ram. There are no noticeable performance increases other than opening/closing often used programs, which I could give two shits about.

When I'm working, I have photoshop and illustrator open for 4-6 hours. I don't care if it takes 10 minutes to open. I DO care about having as much of my ram available for the scratch disc as possible. Under VISTA that goes to shit.

You are an absolute retard about this dude. Seriously.

8/1/2007 11:04:32 AM

Quote :

"XP Media Center edition uses far fewer resources than Vista and would be a better option for you."

XP Media Center is slow compared to Vista media center. You're welcome to come see that for youself if you want. If you don't trust me.

Quote :

"Gaming in vista vs xp, XP is faster across the board with any video card I've ever seen."

lol except for the fact that you CAN'T play the newer games on XP without a hack, and even then it's not native DX10. The games i play WON'T PLAY ON XP!

Quote :

"Yes actually I run CS3. CS3 DOES NOT FUNCTION PROPERLY on Vista. Opening a program doesn't do shit. Literally half the functionality is still broken. "

Worked fine for me, and ran faster than when my mom installed it on her XP Pro machine.

Quote :

"Also superfetch is bullshit. You might want to look at every damn article about it. It's effectively just eating ram. There are no noticeable performance increases other than opening/closing often used programs, which I could give two shits about."

For me opening/closing/saving etc are important parts of using my computer. I want these things to happen as fast as they can. They happen much faster in Vista, than XP. If i want to show someone an edited Pic in CS3, then i like how it opens in a couple seconds. Again, just personal preference.

Quote :

"I don't care if it takes 10 minutes to open."

Well some people do.

[Edited on August 1, 2007 at 11:12 AM. Reason : .]

8/1/2007 11:09:05 AM

Quote :

"so i made the trade off and play some of the newer games on Vista, because they will only run on vista"

what game do you own that won't run in win2k, let alone xp?

8/1/2007 11:11:54 AM

Lost planet, call of juarez, shadow run, halo 2, and company of heroes DX10 Patch for starters. Some of these games have been able to work in XP (with a crack) but you can't activate them, and you run into other issues.

So what would you have me do? Run them in XP w/ a crack that works only SOMETIMES, and not even have DX10 support, or run them in vista?

[Edited on August 1, 2007 at 11:16 AM. Reason : .]

8/1/2007 11:12:59 AM

neo: i still have CS2, CS3 wasnt worth an upgrade for me. i play a lot of games. its why i built my computer in the first place. i also do some video editing, listen to a ton of music pretty much nonstop when my computer is on (an itunes with over 6500 songs- after a big purging). I also use solid works, autocad, pehvac, and smartplant as far as CAD goes.

sure some of the absolute newest games might not run on my system but i have no problem running everything i just listed including having multiples of those open at the same time. the ONLY reason i would upgrade is to get the newest games and its not worth it for me atm.

[Edited on August 1, 2007 at 11:19 AM. Reason : ]

8/1/2007 11:18:26 AM

^ok i have nothing wrong with that. But do you think it's right for people to get on my back because i use vista for the newer games? and HD DVR. I want to play the newer games (as i don't have a console), and the media center works faster in Vista than xp. So why am i in the wrong here? That's what i don't understand?

I have dual boots with xp, and fedora and kubunto on other machines. Plus there's a mac book pro in the house. If i NEEDED to run stuff on any other OS i would, but from trial and error it seems Vista is the one i have running the most. Why is that wrong?

[Edited on August 1, 2007 at 11:22 AM. Reason : .]

8/1/2007 11:21:28 AM

i havent gotten a lot of time with vista (messed with a friends laptop in beta and thats about it) so i dono :/

ive mainly been a spectator here heh. i guess it really just depends on what you want to do, and how it works for you personally

8/1/2007 11:23:16 AM

^exactly and i find it hard to understand why people get on my back for running vista, when I use my computer for gaming and tv. Both of these things work far better in vista than xp. The games won't even run in XP without hacking and other shit, and the media center in vista is far superior to the one in xp. I'm sorry if something works for me. Jeez.

8/1/2007 11:25:00 AM

Quote :

"XP Media Center is slow compared to Vista media center. You're welcome to come see that for youself if you want. If you don't trust me. Lost planet, call of juarez, halo 2, and company of heroes DX10 Patch for starters."

It's not, plain and simple. I've used both, on multiple systems, in a lab environment.

Quote :

"lol except for the fact that you CAN'T play the newer games on XP without a hack, and even then it's not native DX10. The games i play WON'T PLAY ON XP! "

Yes, they will, with a simple patch. The games "you play" are all ARTIFICIALLY limited to XP. They play FASTER when patched on XP.

DirectX 10 is a flop. The only visual improvement is in shadows. And the performance hit is so great, not even the mighty 8800 can implement them. You can play faster at the same settings with DX9 in XP.

Quote :

"Worked fine for me, and ran faster than when my mom installed it on her XP Pro machine. For me opening/closing/saving etc are important parts of using my computer. I want these things to happen as fast as they can. They happen much faster in Vista, than XP. If i want to show someone an edited Pic in CS3, then i like how it opens in a couple seconds. Again, just personal preference. "

Different machine. Not only that, you've already established that you don't use it for ACTUAL work. I sit and churn on 300-500mb files on a daily basis.

Adobe has bridge to view pictures. Photoshop is the program, CS3 is the suite. Have you ever even used illustrator, bridge, indesign, flash, dreamweaver?

Just for you I just ran through open close tests:

IE7: 1/1 second open close
Firefox 2: 3/1
Thunderbird: 1/1
Quicktime: 4/1
Winamp: 1/1
Media Player: 1/1
Dreamweaver CS3: 8/1
Illustrator CS3: 5/1
Indesign CS3: 5/1
Photoshop CS3 Extended: 3/1
Bridge CS3: 2/1
Acrobat CS3: 2/1
Excel 2007: 1/1
Word 2007: 2/1
Project 2007: 3/1

Seriously dude. This is on my everyday WinXP machine. You are what, MAYBE a second faster if at all? What the fuck does that mean? I make up a second in the FIRST copy/paste I do in a file.

Also, maybe you don't realize this, but prefetch has been around since XP came out. Superfetch is nothing new, and it sure as shit isn't any better.

8/1/2007 11:27:20 AM

vista is not bad. just don't waste money on ultimate, it seems the ultimate extras are nonexistent (except for Dreamscene and Hold Em Poker game rofl)....

8/1/2007 11:27:36 AM

For me, it looks like M$ felt compelled that they HAD to change everything around. Let's re-organize the control panel, you know, make shit harder to find. Let's make it more annoying when you download a file by making you click on little arrows to navigate where you want to save the file. Let's make Windows ask me for permission every single time I want to rename/move/cut/delete a file in the Program Files folder.

And my experience with games is another story. Until I got a DX10 video card, nothing would run right. Oblivion would crash every now and then. Battlefield 2 wouldn't run at anything higher than 800x600. Granted, I was running 1.5GB of RAM and an older 6800GS, but that was more than enough to make it run smoothly on XP.

[Edited on August 1, 2007 at 11:31 AM. Reason : ]

8/1/2007 11:30:57 AM

meh, vista doesn't bother me...though comparing it to ME is what i thought about when it first came out...i haven't had that experience yet, though

8/1/2007 11:31:25 AM