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Should I go with Vista?
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Tom.W




Joined: 09 Mar 2006
Posts: 6637



PostLink    Posted: Sat Dec 29, 2007 7:42 am    Post subject: Reply with quote


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MikeEby




Joined: 24 Jun 2007
Posts: 5238
Location: Osceola, Indiana


PostLink    Posted: Sat Dec 29, 2007 8:16 am    Post subject: Go with Vista! If your buying legit. Reply with quote

The only reason not to use Vista IMO is if your a not buying your software legit. Why would you even consider buying a 7 year old OS like XP?

I was very negative on Vista up to a week ago until one of my co-workers was asked to select a new notebook for the company owner we both work for. He was not able to find a notebook with XP preloaded. I write custom software for our company and do some hardware support so I figured it was time to learn something about this Vista thing. I didn’t want to get called into the owner’s office to fix his PC and know nothing about the operating system. So leaving my XP hard drives in tact popped a new drive into my notebook and HTPC loaded Vista over the Holidays.

My first impression was running the install and this is probably one of my most liked features. The setup program asks all questions in the beginning and very end of the setup. So you kick it off and go away for 20-30 minutes. When you come back answer a few questions and you’re done with a basic install. With XP you had to hold its hand and all the way through the process and answer questions about every 10 minutes or so. Yes you could create a scripted automated install with XP but it really wasn’t practical for just loading a few machines. Most of the other new features are “Window Dressing”, pardon the pun. The new interface is really slick. The preview thumbnail of the window on the task bar is really handy when you work with a lot of open windows like I do during application development. The window stack button is also slick it shows a 3D image of windows in the Z axis and is very cool. Just the general look is very pleasing and modern looking, more like a Aqua on OSX. When you go back to an XP machine after running Vista for a week, XP looks like Windows 3.1.

So my way of thinking about it is. If you’re going to buy it, do Vista now if you’re going to use an existing copy of XP then maybe use XP for now then upgrade to Vista later but to say you will never upgrade I think I said that with Windows 3.1.

No I don't work or live anywhere near Redmond, WA. Smile

Mike


Last edited by MikeEby on Sun Dec 30, 2007 4:28 am; edited 2 times in total
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jask




Joined: 17 Mar 2006
Posts: 10164
Location: kamloops BC


PostLink    Posted: Sat Dec 29, 2007 8:47 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

oliverg wrote:
jask wrote:
Thank you Ladies and Gentleman! Oliver will be appearing here at the Redmond Travellodge all week long,enjoy your drinks,the next show is in an Hour!! another big round of applause for our sponsor Microsoft"


You have zero (self admitted) experience with Vista, but you seemingly know all about it?

Virgin Smile


I have it running on a Q6600/C2Q,would never say I know "all about it" but what would you like to know?

fanboy Very Happy
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Spanky Ham




Joined: 22 Mar 2006
Posts: 5643
Location: Comedy Central


PostLink    Posted: Sun Dec 30, 2007 2:57 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ben,
Are you buying a new computer or sticking with the one you have?
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benareeno




Joined: 22 Mar 2006
Posts: 1614
Location: ottawa, canada


PostLink    Posted: Sun Dec 30, 2007 4:08 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

well...I already bought a oem copy of Vista...and it's going on this AMD 4200X2 with 2gig of ram and a 8500GT video card....should be plenty of horsepower to do anything I need. Now, I have to get a combo drive at a good price!

Ben
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AnalogRocks
Forum Moderator



Joined: 08 Mar 2006
Posts: 26690
Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada

TV/Projector: Sony 1252Q, AMPRO 4000G


PostLink    Posted: Sun Dec 30, 2007 4:18 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Where are you located Ben?
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benareeno




Joined: 22 Mar 2006
Posts: 1614
Location: ottawa, canada


PostLink    Posted: Sun Dec 30, 2007 8:48 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ottawa...
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AnalogRocks
Forum Moderator



Joined: 08 Mar 2006
Posts: 26690
Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada

TV/Projector: Sony 1252Q, AMPRO 4000G


PostLink    Posted: Sun Dec 30, 2007 8:51 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Canada computers may still have some. They were on sale this week for $244.99 (which figures cause I got mine last week for $275 lol ).

Here's the link:

http://www.canadacomputers.com/main.php?do=ShowProduct&cmd=pd&pid=016042&cid=CR.405

Might be worth the drive to Kingston.

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jask




Joined: 17 Mar 2006
Posts: 10164
Location: kamloops BC


PostLink    Posted: Sun Dec 30, 2007 10:03 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

AnalogRocks wrote:
Canada computers may still have some. They were on sale this week for $244.99 (which figures cause I got mine last week for $275 lol ).

Here's the link:

http://www.canadacomputers.com/main.php?do=ShowProduct&cmd=pd&pid=016042&cid=CR.405

Might be worth the drive to Kingston.


Or call Greyhound courier for the door to door service and watch a movie Thumbs Up
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garyfritz




Joined: 08 Apr 2006
Posts: 12024
Location: Fort Collins, CO


PostLink    Posted: Sun Dec 30, 2007 4:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Oliver, I *DO* have personal experience with it. My wife has a brand new laptop that unfortunately came with Vista. It has a 3GHz dual-core processor, 4GB of RAM -- that is NOT an inadequate or under-spec'd system. Vista performance sucks. The "are you sure you want to do this?" every few minutes is a PITA but bearable. But after fighting with it for over a month she is just about ready to wipe the system and install XP on it because there are so many things she simply cannot get to work on Vista. Everything from applications that apparently aren't Vista-ready (in spite of their claims) to an inability to access things like shared network drives or just about anything under c:\Program Files.

I think the DRM concerns are real. They are voiced by people with much more computer experience than all 3 of us combined (and I've been programming computers since 1974). Just because you aren't aware of them doesn't mean they don't exist.
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greg_mitch




Joined: 03 May 2006
Posts: 5321



PostLink    Posted: Sun Dec 30, 2007 8:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I am not aware of them and they are not affecting what I do on my computer. Maybe I use my computer differently than you guys. Surprised

Internet porn doesn't care what OS you have. Thumbs Up

I am pretty sure you can disable the pop up questions gary. I haven't had one of those in about 5 months.
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jask




Joined: 17 Mar 2006
Posts: 10164
Location: kamloops BC


PostLink    Posted: Sun Dec 30, 2007 8:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

garyfritz wrote:
Oliver, I *DO* have personal experience with it. My wife has a brand new laptop that unfortunately came with Vista. It has a 3GHz dual-core processor, 4GB of RAM -- that is NOT an inadequate or under-spec'd system. Vista performance sucks. The "are you sure you want to do this?" every few minutes is a PITA but bearable. But after fighting with it for over a month she is just about ready to wipe the system and install XP on it because there are so many things she simply cannot get to work on Vista. Everything from applications that apparently aren't Vista-ready (in spite of their claims) to an inability to access things like shared network drives or just about anything under c:\Program Files.

I think the DRM concerns are real. They are voiced by people with much more computer experience than all 3 of us combined (and I've been programming computers since 1974). Just because you aren't aware of them doesn't mean they don't exist.


In fairness to Oliver,we all went through a similar situation with the XP rollout/public Beta test. I think the key difference here is that XP provided substantial enhancements over 95 (I am ignoring ME/2000) that could be tailored to the users need.I have found that Vista is a repack of a lot of existing features but with some serious structural changes that do not benefit the owner of the software. I have a good system running Vista (Q6600/C2Q) and it is far slower that the 2 year old XP box it replaced,the nags make me feel like a visitor on my own computer and installing an app. or executable is about as fun as going through Customs...
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MikeEby




Joined: 24 Jun 2007
Posts: 5238
Location: Osceola, Indiana


PostLink    Posted: Sun Dec 30, 2007 8:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Microsoft is between a rock and a hard place when it comes to security. People complain because Windows is insecure, to resolve this they crank up protection to the max, people then whine about that! I do find the UAC (User Account Control) in Vista a bit much so I have it turned off. For idiots that go online to sites they should not probably go to, it could save their OS from being infected with malware.

Your drive sharing problems most likely are caused because permissions not setup correctly, Vista is very picky about user rights, in most cases the security is simply working the way it should.

In regards to preloaded system performance, IMO most preloaded systems are a joke, epically the consumer models sold through big box stores, they are so often loaded down with un-needed software it’s a wonder they work at all. Often the sales clerk will attempt to sell you a package to remove the manufactures crap and replace it with their crap. Try just doing a clean load with Vista on modern hardware & light weight malware protection and you will see no noticeable difference in performance between XP and Vista, if anything Vista seems faster.

Personally I feel Windows is over-priced, The OEM Home editions should be around $50 with every editions upgrade adding about $20. But realistically if I were asked to take a 25% salary cut I would go kicking as screaming also it’s a free market economy we live in but I do agree Microsoft is in the grey area of a monopoly however I feel the same way about the oil companies. The retail versions of Windows are grossly inflated, but anyone that pays those kinds of prices are just poor consumers that get what they paid for. A few years ago Microsoft modified the OEM requirements that allow just about any type of hardware purchase to qualify for an OEM license this made sense to me.

Since XP was introduced in 2001 I have gone through, three motherboard , six CPU and countless video cards all that time I retained the same XP Pro license, which is really a pretty good value when you compare the cash for the hardware I laid out. Sometimes an upgrade would trip the activation switch and it was a real pain calling to get a new code but I was never denied one.

I would love to use Linux as my HTPC OS, and perhaps sometimes I will, but until that time Windows is the only solution that makes sense for me. I think of Vista as just putting new paint on the walls, after 7 years it’s probably time for a new coat.

Flame away Smile

Mike

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WanMan




Joined: 19 Mar 2006
Posts: 10273



PostLink    Posted: Sun Dec 30, 2007 9:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Whomever is complaining obviously should take care of themselves first, and how they conduct their sh!t on the Internet. I would no more open an email blindly than I would answering the door without checking through the side window first.

I think the biggest part of an evaluation between XP and Vista should be how someone plans on using it and will there be potential headaches for how Vista does things (or allows for things to be done) vs. how XP does things.

For someone looking to create something the majority of Windows users wouldn't do, which is build, customize, and operate an HTPC, I would think you should look toward which is more flexible and which has more support. I have both and Ubuntu in my home.

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garyfritz




Joined: 08 Apr 2006
Posts: 12024
Location: Fort Collins, CO


PostLink    Posted: Sun Dec 30, 2007 9:56 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

jask wrote:
In fairness to Oliver,we all went through a similar situation with the XP rollout/public Beta test.

Only in that 1) they were both buggy, and 2) they were both bloated pigs that took about 2-4x more CPU and RAM to accomplish roughly what the older system did.

I don't remember XP breaking as many things as Vista has. I also don't remember companies "upgrading" from XP to W2000 because XP was so bad. I don't recall if Microsoft offered an "upgrade" path from XP to W2000 they way they do from Vista to XP.

As you said, XP offered some significant improvements, especially over the Win9x family. Vista's major "improvements" seem to be meaningless eye candy, ham-handed security changes, and draconian and performance-sapping DRM measures.

The real pisser is that staying with the older OS is not an option, even if it solves your problems better and more efficiently than the new OS. Microsoft drops support for older systems quickly enough that the best you can do is drag your feet for a few years. Then, unless you're willing to go without regular patches for Microsoft's buggy unsecure messes, you're stuck with going to the newer system. For something like an HTPC that wasn't on the Internet, I'd stick with an older OS if the necessary drivers are available.

BTW Mike, my wife's laptop wasn't bought at a big-box. She ordered it directly from HP. It's basically configured as a professional product. It has very little crapware on it. (Other than Vista, of course. Very Happy)
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MikeEby




Joined: 24 Jun 2007
Posts: 5238
Location: Osceola, Indiana


PostLink    Posted: Sun Dec 30, 2007 10:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

garyfritz wrote:
BTW Mike, my wife's laptop wasn't bought at a big-box. She ordered it directly from HP. It's basically configured as a professional product. It has very little crapware on it. (Other than Vista, of course. Very Happy)


That is very interesting Gary, because I just installed Vista on my IBM ThinkPad, it’s just a 2.0 GHz Core2 w/2GB ram. I did a clean install and with a new 7200 RPM hard drive w/16Mb cache, the OEM drive was a 5400 with 8Mb cache. Realistically that is why I see the improvement I also did NOT install the bloated Trend AV, this was a good product at one time but it seems the later releases are awful.

You may want to check what drive is installed on your wife’s unit. Many even high end notebooks still have 5400RPM drives. For me I would trade a CPU upgrade for a hard drive upgrade in a minute, it is so important to overall performance in these days of admittedly puffy operating systems. I just replaced a 4200 RPM drive with 7200 in a 1 year old Acer tablet belonging to my brother and the machine sings, with the 4200 it was DOG.

Mike
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garyfritz




Joined: 08 Apr 2006
Posts: 12024
Location: Fort Collins, CO


PostLink    Posted: Sun Dec 30, 2007 11:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

If it's the model I think it is, it has a 5400rpm SATA. No Trend, but I think it has Symantec NIS (another piece of junk).

If it needs an upgraded disk to run the factory-installed OS acceptably, that seems like a problem. But it's an HP problem if so.
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james69




Joined: 02 Nov 2007
Posts: 20



PostLink    Posted: Mon Dec 31, 2007 12:17 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

i have 3 computers here .. one of them is an old celeron with 128mb of ram - vista home premium works fine on it

its not having any issues at all with regards to speed.. what are you doing with your pc that is so different to me????

garyfritz... if the uac bothers you so much... turn it off.. also... what bugs???? on all 3 machines vista has been bug free with no weird behaviour.. if you have been 'programming' pcs since 1974 like you say you have you should have no problems setting vista up, turning off uac and making it work for you without crashing... make up your mind, was it symantec or vista? so tell me.. what bugs have you seen? how is vista insecure? how is your pefromance issues measured.. do you use actual benchmarking or is it more of a seat of your pants type measurement?

the way im seeing your argument is that you havent even worked out how to turn uac off so you are getting frustrated and instead of learning about how vista works.. you are here telling us all how bad it is... im betting you didnt give it a chance right????

it takes a good few weeks to learn but once you do... you wont go back to xp

guys guys ... lets face reality here... microsoft isnt going to be supporting xp for much longer... but just like 2000.. xp wont be supported for much longer and i for one prefer to have something that will work as i want it to if vista was as bad as a lot of you are making it out to be... there wouldnt be so many people who are happy with it would there???

one last thing .. you guys should try sdd disks ... i have one in my dell xps and it is awesomely fast.. with vista
also... try readyboost.. it speeds load times up
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MikeEby




Joined: 24 Jun 2007
Posts: 5238
Location: Osceola, Indiana


PostLink    Posted: Mon Dec 31, 2007 1:33 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

james69 wrote:
what bugs have you seen?


Early on with Vista I did see some issues with "Network Discovery". If you moved the machine from a wired network connection with a private IP address to a cable or DSL modem with a public address it would have problems connecting. I fought that for about 1/2 hour the first time and had to reboot the cable modem and dink around with the network settings for it to connect. It was not an isolated case because I saw it twice once with Comcast and once with ATT DSL. The problem must have been patched because I haven't seen it since, but it did cool me off on Vista for a while.

No operating system that supports such a wide array of hardware will ever be completely bug free. Apples claim that OSX is less buggy then Windows is probably true statement, but it also is very limited in hardware supported.

I have a question for Linux users, from the time a new piece of hardware is released how long does it take before it is supported by the OS? I'm not trying to be cute...I am curious.

Mike


Last edited by MikeEby on Mon Dec 31, 2007 6:24 am; edited 1 time in total
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jask




Joined: 17 Mar 2006
Posts: 10164
Location: kamloops BC


PostLink    Posted: Mon Dec 31, 2007 6:07 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

james69 wrote:
i have 3 computers here .. one of them is an old celeron with 128mb of ram - vista home premium works fine on it

its not having any issues at all with regards to speed.. what are you doing with your pc that is so different to me????


Um, HTPC??
are you running your celeron in the Theater. not with 128....

What I am doing different is the same things I used to do with my XP box before the "upgrade",with the exception of playing HD/BD off of the LG-GGC drive.My only problem is that this new and improved system is not the thing of beauty it should be, and this rekindles the fond memories of the last time Microsoft punted us into the future,the hardware problems,software problems,drivers,updates,patches,upgrades..etc
That Vista is here to stay is not a question,but given the time and resources microsoft had to implement this I am underwhelmed by the product of nearly half a decade of development.
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