Vista So Far

[John]

I have had Vista for 10 days now. So far, it has a lot of good points, but
isn't as great a leap as XP was.

I see mixed reviews for Vista, XP got mostly raves.
That was probably because Windows 98 would lock up every few hours, and XP
was much more stable.
Moving to Windows XP was simply a no-brainer. Vista doesn't offer that
quantum leap in stability.
With XP being a very good OS, people are going to be slower to jump on the
Vista bandwagon.
If not stability, then people want the 'promised' performance. That means
64-bit software.

Alas, the promise of a 64-bit world just isn't going to happen for at least
a year.
That's when Vista will really come into it's own.

Today, we deal with 10 times the data we did in the Windows 98 era.
A 64-bit bus can move twice as much data per instruction (if the software is
properly written)

The 32-bit Windows 95 software applications quickly made 16-bit Windows 3.1
obsolete.
But it was performance, not user interface that made people want to upgrade.
When 64-bit software becomes common, people will then have justification to
leave XP.

Face it, Vista is expensive. When paying that kind of money, people want
more than Aero Glassware.
I got mine free for participating in a Microsoft survey. Had I paid $400, I
might feel different.

Vista has a lot of promise, but it's real performance value will be with
64-bit. We'll just have to wait.



John

 

[Mike Hall - MS MVP Windows Shell/User]

... and you think that 64bit MS Word is going to do what exactly? Vista is
way more than just Aeroglass.. it is a base from which MS will be better
able to deal with security issues as they arise.. it may look similar to XP,
but security is way better, memory management is way better, the graphics
engine is way better, many things are way better.. yes, one day, we will all
be using 64bit and higher, but your expectations of 64bit are ill-founded..

 

[Guest]

Aside from the MANY bugs out of the box it took me quite a few months to
realize how good Vista really is. There is a LOT under the hood.
I do think they should have waited another 6 months to release it though....

jf

 

[Ken Gardner]

I have had Vista for 10 days now. So far, it has a lot of good points, but
isn't as great a leap as XP was.

The new search features alone make Vista a HUGE improvement over XP. I love
being able to find just about anything on my computer by typing a word (or,
in many cases, part of a word) in the search box on the start menu. And the
new administrative and performace tools are way above anything in prior
versions of Windows. The memory management system is vastly better. So is
CPU usage. Plus Vista just plain looks good -- much better than XP.

[Insert "Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln" here.]

[...]

Ken

 

[Lang Murphy]

Well... I've been using Vista for about 10 months now. On a few different
"work" PC's here at home (telecommuter with 9 "work" PC's at home) and it's
been very stable for me. I've only done clean installs on PC's not running
legacy hw, so, yeah, I've been doing kind of a one-sided evaluation. I don't
intend to install Vista on either of my personal PC's until I can afford to
buy the necessary hw to make them both Vista friendly.

Vista has performed very well here. Even on a laptop running with 512MB RAM
and 64MB shared video memory I could get Aero fired up and the performance
was acceptable. Certainly for surfing or running an app or two but not for
media type stuff.

I've been working with Virtual Machines for the last couple of years. So...
I need a boat load of memory to host VM's. And so... Vista's higher memory
requirements don't twist my shorts in a knot. I've already got enough RAM to
run Vista on any box here. Maybe I'm lucky. Maybe not, I don't know.

I think that one of the more important changes in Vista is that the desktop
is now drawn by directx. Offloads drawing the desktop from the cpu and puts
it where it belongs; on the video card. Got buggy video drivers? Hmm...
wonder if that might not be a "performance issue?" Got a 128MB card but are
trying to run PhotoShop and play a video in Windows Media player
simultaneously? Hmm... that, too, might present a "performance issue." Not
saying that you have either of these issues... just thinking...

Anyway... good luck with Vista.

Lang

 

[mark.paul.campbell]

I've had vista for 2 hours on 1 comp and can't get NVIDIA drivers to
work for my
6600gt card but I do like vista a lot especially with music but will
have to wait
a while till some stable drivers for my video card and TV tuner card
before i
go the vista again.

 

[John Monahan]

I have been using Vista Business version now for about one week.
A few comments.
1. Do yourself a favor, do a clean install and load your program software in
one at a time. You get a clean directory structure and don't have to mess
around with folder moving/renaming and reg issues.
2. A number of drivers needed work for me but I got everything working int
he end. This included an old HP 4C scanner, an Adaptec USB to SCSI adaptor
and an old MultiTec modem.
3. Make sure your video card can handel things. The Aero needs DirectX V9 on
the card. It really looks nice!
4. But most of all the almost instant sutdown and startup (1 sec on my
system from power on) makes the whole experience worthwhile. That alone is
reason eough for me to switch. When you go back to XP systems taking minutes
to get going you really appreciate it.

All in all I really like it!

 

[Keith]

When you say your old HP 4C scanner to work, are you referring to an
HP4400C? If so, please enlighten me as to how you got it to work!

I've tried the XP drivers and luck. HP's site says they won't support that
scanner for Vista.

Thanks,
Keith

 

[Guest]

I agree with your assessment. There is a lot of unexplored territory in
Vista. Once the 3rd-parties get their WDDM drivers out, user experiences
should improve as well.

Stuart.
----------

 

[Rich]

isn't as great a leap as XP was.

XP was NOT a leap of any kind.
XP was a multimedia interface on Win2000
XP was/is the next logical step
XP has been around for 5 plus years.
3rd party drivers have had all that time to evolve

Visat is a LEAP.
things are done differently in Vista
(resist the urge for cheap blame shifting comments , for ye shall be known
by thy bullshit)

Do this:
keep track of all of your huh moments
where you find out that it works when you do it right
installing apps correctly
remembering that Admin / user rights are different
remembering that everything you want isn't necessarily everything that
works
where you find something cool you didn't know was there
where you finally got a driver from the manufacturer that works
where that information you heard thru the grapevine about Vista turned out
to be BOGUS


When you get past the tantrums throw by those who throw food at problems
because they want
what they want NOW and blame the biggest most handy name they can see,
the LEAP will becume the conventional wisdom.

The frist tool put in your toolbox and the first tool taken out to fix a
problem is:
"what did I do wrong?"

When you're expert status is based on smoke and mirrors
shifting blame keeps the mirrors polished and the smoke billowing

Rich

 

[Mr. I.M. Puss]

Aside from the MANY bugs out of the box it took me quite a few months to
realize how good Vista really is. There is a LOT under the hood.
I do think they should have waited another 6 months to release it though....

Oh no - that's just not realistic from a MARKETING perspective...

 

[Mike Hall - MS MVP Windows Shell/User]

That puts you 122nd in line for a claim on the fortune.. good luck..