Vista

[Lee Bartholomew]

Anyone else using Vista yet?

Just got a machine for work to test the new os on for compatability etc.


Got to say, I had alot of reservations about windows Vista after hearing some horror stories about it and incompatability but everything I have put on it from custom software to office (97-2003 versions) runs fine.

Has yet to crash and looks really really nice (esp with Aero on). It needs a fair spec machine to run but is sooo much quicker in the way it works, its worth it.

You can tell memory and task management have improved you can use it straight from load rather than waiting for services to start etc.

[straycat]

Our experience is so far limited, but...
Our brand-new Vista machine crashed on startup on its first boot attempt.
Next try was OK(ish) - but it keeps pausing to think about things, and its memory footprint is scarily large. It behaves a lot better if you turn Aero off though, so there is some hope. A colleage is currently scouring the machine of everything that isn't needed, and removing it all - we'll see how it runs after that.

When it's not having to think about things, it seems faster and slicker than my XP machine, which is good. Certainly it looks nice - there's quite a Mac-inspired feel to the appearance, which can't be a bad thing.

Personally, I think I'll stick to XP (at least until my boss gets me a much higher-spec machine. Or preferrably a Mac)
At home, not a chance. My PC is over five years old, so I don't rate its chances of even installing Vista, let alone running it.

[Lee Bartholomew]

lol, can tell your a mac man.

Tomorrow i'll start rolling out across all our machines.

[straycat]

lol, can tell your a mac man.

And I thought I'd hidden it so well...

Tomorrow i'll start rolling out across all our machines.

Keep us updated - I'd be interested to know how it goes.

[Wuzzle]

Well I got vista at work. Oh dear.... I should be like a bug maker or something. When it crashes its very annoying. No blue screen but cant even make it to the task manager. And it crashed a lot at the start.

Doesnt like the network either so cant really print.

The mac site has it down to a T when it comes down to
annoying factor of Vista's new security feature.

Apple - Get a Mac - Watch The TV Ads

Still waiting for Mr Jobs to release his spotty OS think that will be my next laptop I fancy a change.

Think they could of stayed off Vista a little longer just to get a few more kinks out of it. I'll probably upgrade but my machine is fairly new and that was my intention.

Having had it work i am reconsidering if i should upgrade

I wouldnt upgrade to this less i was maybe buying a new machine. 1 or more gig memory needed.

Our experience is so far limited, but...
Our brand-new Vista machine crashed on startup on its first boot attempt.
Next try was OK(ish) - but it keeps pausing to think about things, and its memory footprint is scarily large. It behaves a lot better if you turn Aero off though, so there is some hope. A colleage is currently scouring the machine of everything that isn't needed, and removing it all - we'll see how it runs after that.

When it's not having to think about things, it seems faster and slicker than my XP machine, which is good. Certainly it looks nice - there's quite a Mac-inspired feel to the appearance, which can't be a bad thing.

Personally, I think I'll stick to XP (at least until my boss gets me a much higher-spec machine. Or preferrably a Mac)
At home, not a chance. My PC is over five years old, so I don't rate its chances of even installing Vista, let alone running it.

[Mr Darcy]

Anyone else using Vista yet?

I've been running the 32bit version at home and 64bit version at work since December, both on Dell systems.

No problems, I love it. I'm doing development work using WPF/.net3, running aero on multiple high-res displays. All works fine.

When I have to use XP the explorer and file handling seems so old now, it's so much easier to navigate the filesystem with Vista.

I'm also using some USB keys for ReadyBoost (it caches .exe and .dll images on the lower access time flash memory to speed application loads/switches) and that's pretty good.

Only glitches seem to have been with suspend resume, but there have been less of those than I had with XP.

[jiveoholic]

I have just got a new Dell with Vista. All in all I think it is great and comes on and goes off much faster.

I have turned off the user account control because either I forgot to "run as administrator" various installations or, even doing that, they fell over.

I did like the networking, it "just worked" without running wizards.

Not sure about the new locations for music etc.

Found sharing files with the network impossible other than using the public areas. Perhaps I am not clever enough to use the full permissions thingy stuff.

The control panel has moved about a lot too.

Not much problem with incompatibility, just had to find all the right drivers.

I like the gadgets on the right hand side.

All in all, things seem more in the right place.

[Lee Bartholomew]

The gadgets are great. You been on the download more gadgets site yet? Loads of really good ones.

I was impressed when I joint the machine on to the domain, It correctly auto mapped drives !!!!!!

[Shodan]

I have Vista 64bit on my parents new computer at home. Its a quick computer, but Vista is jolly slow and for some reason is always crunching the hard disk even when nothing is loaded. (it has 1gb of dual channel memory in it and a SATA II HD)

Any ideas as to what it is that keeps grinding the HD? Its a fresh build of Vista on it.

The only thing I've found won't run on it are my parents old Windows Card Games. The old "Windows Entertainment Pack" card games. Worked fine all the way to Win XP but not on Vista 64bit as I assume they are 16-bit games.

[Lee Bartholomew]

No idea what the drive crunching is.

Running a 3ghz machine with 2gig mem and sata II raid HD's. Graphics card is only a Radion x600 but you cant have everything.

Found it to run quicker than XP.

The security when browsing is annoying though esp when downloading stuff.
"do you want to down load this file" YES
"down loading this file may hard your computer" CONTINUE
"where do you want to download this file?" DESKTOP
"This file is about to download, are you sure?" YES
"do you want to run this file" YES
"are you sure?" YES
"Running this file may harm your computer" YES

"file is corrupt"

[Shodan]

Oh yes, that annoying security thing. Every time I was installing and setting it up:

"Do you wish to run this?" YES, I just double clicked it moron
"Do you want this user profile to run this?" YES, see above

Twas annoying, but as its my folks machines and they are NOT Computer Savvy I thought I'd leave it all active. When I get Vista on my own pooter it'll be nicely trimmed and made to run quickly.

[RedFox]

Didn't think it worth starting a new thread, but the following made me smile

[Barry Shnikov]

I first installed Vista over an XP set up. It was the most appalling mess. Every folder was protected - I couldn't access some of my own sub-folders in My Documents! UAC popped up when I looked at the screen - I didn't even have to do anything more than think about pressing a key combination or clicking the mouse.

After a week, the only thing I could do was to throw out the whole thing, scrub the HD and reinstall fresh Vista from scratch. That worked.

Of course, I switched off Windows Update - thanks, Microsoft, but I prefer me to be the person who decides what fiddling is done with my set-up, and when. (I remember how furious I was when XP SP2 automatically made IE my default web-browser...) Then, just before Christmas, I thought that it might be time to let WU tart up the system. I checked what stuff was going to be installed and it looked OK.

Big mistake. Doing a simple thing like deleting a file could lock the computer up for hours - literally, hours. In the end I had to do a system restore.

Originally I had thought that Vista SP1 will sort out the few bugs that remained after I re-installed Vista back in August. Now I don't think I dare let it on the computer at all...

[straycat]

Originally I had thought that Vista SP1 will sort out the few bugs that remained after I re-installed Vista back in August. Now I don't think I dare let it on the computer at all...

Luckily, there does seem to be a pretty decent upgrade to Vista now which fixes a great many of the inherent problems. It's reviewed here.

[Mr Darcy]

Just to give a little balance to this thread..

I am still using Vista x64 at work, developing using VS2008/.net 3.5/WPF now and not having any problems with it. I install all the updates (but when I choose) and not had any problems there. I like the new explorer and find it easy to manipulate my files, xp just seems like hard work whenever I have to use it now.

At home I have the 32bit version on a quad core system, with the window fade effects turned off everything just snaps open near instantly, no real problems there either. Works great on my laptop too.

There seems a lot of negative press around Vista, which seems just like all the negative press there was for xp when it came out too (for which the upgrade back then was of course Win2000 or even Win98 ).

[batnurse]

I have Vista on my new laptop at home, no choice in the matter as I was told I couldn't buy a new laptop with anything but. If I ever meet Bill Gates in person, I shall punch him on the nose

[martingold]

I have Vista on my new laptop at home, no choice in the matter as I was told I couldn't buy a new laptop with anything but. If I ever meet Bill Gates in person, I shall punch him on the nose

I thought mr gates' mob were doing free xp downgrades for people who didnt get on with vista
i use a lot of PLC programming software at work and as yet the japanese havent upgraded that to work on vista it was bad enough when we upgraded to xp
At the moment all works well with xp i am not gonna fix it cos its not broke

[bigdjiver]

Old IT rule :- New systems take longer, cost more, and do not work until they are obsolete.

[Barry Shnikov]

Luckily, there does seem to be a pretty decent upgrade to Vista now which fixes a great many of the inherent problems. It's reviewed here.

Ho ho!

[Lee Bartholomew]

Have been running it for aile now and only 1 crash. Seems to run a hell of alot quicker than Xp ever did.

I can understand how some people dont like it as it's differnent to xp (I only got my mum off win 98 and to XP a few months back because "she didn't like it'!) but it really is worth sticking with.

Alot of the backlash against it is purely because it is a MS product. They could release the most perfect os ever imaginable (I doubt it) and people would still moan.