Windows Vista Vista and what I thought of it

[floppybootstomp]

Mate of mine recently bought a new laptop with Windows Vista on it and he hated it, wiped the hard drive and installed XP Pro/SP2 on it and now he's a happy bunny.

I borrowed his Vista disk from him and installed it on my low spec computer with 5 hard disk caddy mounted hard drives (they all be swappable boot disks).

The serial number with the disk enabled me to try an evaluation copy of Ultimate, so I got to see all the bells and whistles of MS's new OS, albeit only briefly.

Brief specs:

Asrock K7S41GX motherboard (Socket A; SiS chipset; 266 (133) fsb; onboard sound (AC97) & LAN; onboard grafix (disabled).
XP3200 CPU, fsb set to 200 to give 2.2Ghz
One Gig Corsair Value Select DDR memory (2 x 512Mb)
PNY Nvidia 6200 256Mb AGP GRafix card

Vista software looked around and said this was a good enough spec to run Vista.

So I installed Vista, it took a long time, about an hour, got one BSOD on the second of three reboots during install, but that was all. It recognised my LAN so did not have to install drivers from motherboard CD.

Downloaded Nvidia video Vista drivers for card, although the card was set to a good res by Vista.

First impressions were it sure looks pretty, I really do like the look of it, have to admit.

It worked fine, even on such a low specced system, very fast and smooth.

There is a ton of crap included which I honestly didn't spend enough time on to know whether they were beneficial or bloat. And the whole install was 14.2Gb

Lots of things look very very different to XP and some things are in a new place.

There is more stuff in the Control Panel.

The numerous popups/warnings/requests really got on my bloody nerves, this is the part about Vista I hated the most, I didn't spend long enough messing about to find out whether you can disable these warnings or not.

I didn't appear to get a choice not to use a password when logging on.

I liked the Media Centre setup.

You don't actually get as many of those little games as you do with XP, lol

I swear MS has been influenced by some Linux Distros, for the better I might say.

I honestly, so far, can't see any real reason to 'upgrade' from XP other than it looks pretty.

And it does look good, I have to say, if it wasn't for all those popups, it would feel real good.

But here's the rub, my onboard sound won't work in Vista. The sound chip is just not recognised at all. I downloaded and tried the latest sound chip drivers from Asrock's site but they didn't work, Vista isn't supported.

Whether this is Asrock's or Microsoft's fault, I don't know, but it meant if I was serious about installing Vista on this machine, I'd have to buy a cheap soundcard like the Creative Audigy 2, which does have Vista drivers available.

An Audigy Two is about £15.00, which is reasonable.

Because I have no sound, I didn't try any games, which is a bit of a shame, I would liked to have seen if some games worked ok.

A full OEM version of Windows Vista Premium Home edition, which, if I was buying would be the one I would choose, costs around £68.00 inc postage from Amazon.co.uk.

I honestly don't think it's worth it just for a more attractive GUI, to be honest. But, to be fair, I did only play with it for about an hour, so these are first impressions.

When I can afford a flat screen TV, probably later this year, and I use this computer with it as a media centre, I may very well purchase Windows Vista mostly for the Home Media Centre content, then I think it may be worth it.

Until then - Win XP and PC LinuxOS 2007, and maybe I might load up Suse 10.2 again, although I must admit I'm starting to like PC LinuxOS 2007 quite a lot, getting to know the Office stuff now.

Anyways, I'm rambling OT a litle here, above is my honest, unbiased first impressions and opinion of Windows Vista

 

[PotGuy]

Very interesting Flops

I'm still amazed they managed to bloat it out to 15gb and not have any concise improvements!

The fact it is prettier and it has some good media options granted, how can it be a holw 10gb bigger?? Didn't know it was that huge. And on top of that it is incompatable with loads of legacy stuff.

If DX10 comes to XP, I won't upgrade ever









Ill havea peek at linux instead... shhh!

 

[Adywebb]

Nice first impressions Flops


To be honest, I still don't see any reason for me to ditch XP yet - maybe some time in the future if something needs it.

 

[TriplexDread]

I'm still using XP, I think I will be for a loong time yet.

Ideally I need to install XP x64 which I have had for a while but just been too lazy to get it on system.

1 day maybe

 

[Ian]

Something I have only realised today is the advanced search function. I'm busy referencing my thesis at the moment, and I needed to find a few quotes in a PDF file (actually within the text). Rather than having to browse manually, I could just type the quote into the search menu and it brought up each PDF within a couple of seconds. Excellent!

Bit of a shame about the sound card Flops, but you may find the old XP drivers work. I've had to do that with my scanner and it works with them (as there are no Vista drivers being made for it).

 

[floppybootstomp]

Bit of a shame about the sound card Flops, but you may find the old XP drivers work.

Nope, they didn't.

As I mentioned, I downloaded the latest drivers from Asrock's site in case they worked over the ones on the motherboard CD, but they didn't work either, I got a message saying the soundchip wasn't present

The drivers are listed on Asrock's site as being supported by Win 95; Win 98; Win ME; Win 2000 & Win XP but not Win Vista.

And this, I have read in lots of places and actually heard it from friends, is what's ticking a lot of people off.

I've just spent two hours playing Oblivion Elder Scrolls 4, I love this game, but hadn't actually played it for a coupla months. I can lose myself in that game

Ooops - I wuz off topic

 

[Alf]

one of my freinds has vista, it looks good with the areo glass enabled but otherwise.... ill pass
I use my computer to do one thing. Play games. even though vista is touted as a gaming OS, does anyone see any reason to play games on it (other than DX10)? but i suppose its not MS's fault, i think the blame goes to the nvidia/ati for there lousy drivers

 

[muckshifter]

I did only play with it for about an hour

Patience of a saint, aye ...

 

[floppybootstomp]

I did only play with it for about an hour

Patience of a saint, aye ...

Well, what I really wanted to find out was how games ran on it, I was going to load up a few, starting with an old game like Half LIfe, Trying UT2004 and CoD2, then maybe seeing if HL2 would run.

But, with no sound chip support from Vista, didn't seem much point, really.

But I haven't totally slagged Vista off, have I? I'm prepared, maybe, to give it a go, but look around, take note of what people are saying, it could very well be ME Mk II.

It must be the very first OS I've actually heard people comment on in the pub Not the sort of thing that usually gets discussed at one's watering hole.

That's how much it's cheesed some peeps off.

We shall see, as I said, I have an open mind, it does look gorgeous and it may very well suit my Home Media Centre setup-to-be.

 

[muckshifter]

But, with no sound chip support from Vista, didn't seem much point, really.

What has Vista got to do with sound support ? I didn't know MS made SiS chipset for Assrock ?


How many time has anyone blamed XP for 'crashing' because a sound driver screwed up? Mainly in games too.

There has been a radical change in the way Vista handles sound, not to mention the sound drivers ... One of the biggest changes is the fact that the vast majority of the audio stack runs in User Mode, not Kernel Mode. That means, if the driver crashes, it will NOT bring down the OS. The worst that should happen, in theory, is that the audio stack has to be restarted, which can happen in real-time without a reboot. So you can carry on "playing" your game.

It's a bit unfortunate, but Vista's audio stack is not hardware accelerated. Of course, neither is Windows XP's by default.

You should appreciate, as you love your music, the fact it is now all 32-bit floating point ... Quad would notice the difference.

If manufactures want to make a quick buck, they won't bother updating drivers, they tell you to go "spend" more money on the next, best, more expensive device.

There is also a hell of a lot more under the hood for Video to, not just pretty interface. Vista makes more use of the video card itself.

Vista uses DX10 and doesn't incorporate older versions of DirectX ... DirectX 9 is supported side-by-side, through DirectX 9.L (basically, that's DX9 for Vista). You gamers have all seen the hipe from game writers of what to expect from DX10. In DX10, either you meet the spec or you don't ... tuff.

Developers will be able to stream out data from the GPU and reuse it without needing the CPU to do a single thing, so a lot of the CPU load seen in current graphics drivers, and games, should be reduced. Well, you did want to actually use the hardware on that £300 graphics card, didn't you?

They is all on the bandwagon ... buy new kit, or moan with the rest of 'em.

money money money, in a PC World ...

 

[floppybootstomp]

What has Vista got to do with sound support ? I didn't know MS made SiS chipset for Assrock ?

I did point that out in my very first post, did I not? Where I said I'm not sure whose fault this was, Asrock's or Microsofts.

Have you ever wondered why Microsoft don't seem to have worked hand in hand with the hardware manufacturers? How come the majority of drivers were not available on the day Vista was released? With XP there were initially a few problems but most were sorted out in a couple of months, Vista has been available to the general public for over six months now and is still lacking support from many hardware manufacturers - why?

More to the point though - every Linux Distro I've loaded onto this machine has successfully loaded sound drivers that make this Asrock/AC 97 sound chip work.

Now tell me, why can't Microsoft do that?

 

[muckshifter]

MS do indeed supply thousands of drivers ... but if the hardware is not up to spec' then don't expect an ad-hock concoction ...


MS DO work with hardware manufacturers.

Come on, how many times have you posted about onboard sound ... AC/97 is pretty ancient, not surprised Linux can use it.

How come the majority of drivers were not available on the day Vista was released?

They were, you yourself admitted that Vista did a good job with your Vid card.


A story for you ...

I have a Logitech MX1000 laser guided heap of junk ... it is fecking crap, in Vista ... the drivers have to load at boot if I want to use any of the keys ... every time I have to reboot, not often, the bloody software goes of to connect to see if there are any updated drivers ... never finds any though.

Today, the battery was bit too flat, the logitech software stopped functioning, but the mouse still worked ... I ended up uninstalling it, I was close to throwing the bloody thing across the room.

Anywho, I decided I just had to have the button functions back, but as I did not have the original driver saved I pop on over to Logitech ... well blow me down with a feather ... there are new drivers to be had ... damn blast and little piggies ... you know what, they work, no reboot, no UAC popup, and the monitor will now turn off if I put the mouse in the charger.

Now, you gonna tell me that is MS fault ???

Naw, sorry Mr FBS, you is arguing with the wrong person ... I like Vista.

 

[floppybootstomp]

Odd, that, I'm using an MX1000 mouse on this system (Vista OS & several others, no probs at all).

I'm arguing with the wrong person because you like Vista?

I wasn't really aware I was arguing, to be honest, I'm just reportying on things as I see them - with no bias whatsoever.

Ok, I'll be honest, I'm really not keen on Microsoft's ethics, anti-trust lawsuits anybody? Monopoly with a forced captial M anybody? Blue Screen of Death? Vulnerabilities through sloppily written code? I could go on.

However, I will recognise their contribution to the computing world, without them I don't think we would be where we are today with computing. And I will also recognise something good when I see it, regardless of bias.

I think Win XP is a damn fine operating system.

I think Win Vista possibly has the makings, but it's flawed. There's no smoke without fire and six plus months down the line the problems should have been sorted.

And even if I had forked out money for Vista, I wouldn't let that influence me. I know when I've purchased a turkey, and I'll say so. My goodness I've bought a few pieces of poo in my time, I can promise you that.

I reported on things as I saw them. I will only say what I liked and what I didn't, which, obviously, is also your perogative. But I won't put on blinkers and try and make out everything is alright when it so obviously isn't.

What the hell good is some fancy arsed 32 bit floating system if the OS won't even play games or recognise drivers?

I was keeping an open mind but blind faith, unjustified loyalty, I hold no tack with.

You wait and see, I honestly hope I'm wrong, but it's very likely 'ME Mk II' could well be Vista's death knell.

Almost seven years in the making as well. How much profit did Microsoft squander on their bastid child?

 

[djlukew]

I have Vista Ultimate and I do like it. Im not going to write a big report on it, as peaole will know the ins and outs. But my favourite part of it, was how easy it was when I conencted my router and xbox 360 to the pc. in less than 5 mins it detected everything an dI was on xbox live.

In XP it took a lot more to set up the net and XboxLive....

Im a happy bunny anyways, if you have Ultimate use Windows update and get the latest patches and a new game or two! Texas Hold Em is really addictive