Windows Vista Thoughts

[Kougar]

Well, there is no shortage of articles on Vista Beta 2 anymore... this one was interesting though, and Morley's views happen to pretty well coincide with my own. Vista was designed for x64 processors and DX10 cards, and should work pretty well under them. ;)

After yesterday’s Windows Vista = Suckage? (http://consumer.hardocp.com/news.html?news=MTk4MTQsLCxoY29uc3VtZXIsLCwx) news posting, I got more than a few angry emails and some elated ones. Now obviously there are some out there think that the great Microsoft should not ever even be questioned and there are those that would not give Microsoft any credit even when they absolutely deserve it. I like to think of myself as being somewhere in the middle.


Vista Feedback

One email from Timothy Bowser yesterday contained some interesting quotes that he had pulled from his colleagues. These are no-holds-barred snippets of thought from guys that are currently using Windows Vista Beta.

I work as level 2 tech support at the ISP in my email address. (address withheld) We have three instances of the Vista Beta 2 running for advance training, and from men, the opinions of Vista have been, and I quote:


"It's Windows XP with a push-up bra, lip gloss and PMS"

"Gaming card to run the desktop? What kind of crap is that?"

"This is XP Service Pack 3, right?"


All of this got me thinking, and then I remembered that our own Chris Morley was working on a Vista Preview with a hardware twist thrown into the mix. Now everything that Chris has told me about using the Windows Vista Beta has been glowing. So I thought I would pin him down on he past comments and asked him exactly what he thought about Vista, but making sure he was keeping in mind that he would have to pay out his hard earned dollars just like you guys will. Unless of course you are a thief.


Full article is at http://consumer.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTA5NSwxLCxoY29uc3VtZXI= (http://consumer.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTA5NSwxLCxoY29uc3VtZXI=)

[tomato]

"It's Windows XP with a push-up bra, lip gloss and PMS"

"Gaming card to run the desktop? What kind of crap is that?"

"This is XP Service Pack 3, right?"

The first and third responses got an LOL out of me, while the second quote has me baffled... needing a video card to run the desktop?! While a video card is all but a given for today's computers, what happens if said card died and you don't have another "lying" around? Are you stuck without a display if using Vista?! crazy if true :(

[Das Capitolin]

Well, there is no shortage of articles on Vista Beta 2 anymore... this one was interesting though, and Morley's views happen to pretty well coincide with my own. Vista was designed for x64 processors and DX10 cards, and should work pretty well under them. ;)



Full article is at http://consumer.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTA5NSwxLCxoY29uc3VtZXI= (http://consumer.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTA5NSwxLCxoY29uc3VtZXI=)

I am really growing tired of the anti-Windows set throwing stones and Vista. How did they feel when Windows 98 moved to Windows ME? A better comparison is how people complained about XP as a replacement for 2000 and ME. Now it's Vista's turn through the gauntlet.

Sadly, most who have made their comments think that all operating systems are alike. They fail to understand that this is as much a technical advance as it was when Windows 3.11 was replaced with Windows 95. This is a 64-bit O/S, and people should stop looking at it as XP SP3 (which is one of the dumbest comments a person could make).

[1stStrike]

i dont know about this video card thing to run vista. i have it running on a older computer with no video card and it seems to be working fine for me. i do have a problem however with the stupid popups that require permision to run a program

[tomato]

I am really growing tired of the anti-Windows set throwing stones and Vista. How did they feel when Windows 98 moved to Windows ME?

Man, did you every give Windows ME a try? I actually went out and purchased a legitimate copy of ME, had it installed on my comp for a month, and then prompty uninstalled that piece of garbage and sold it as fast as I could.... ME was GARBAGE compared to 98 (which is a crazy thing to say, I know, as 98 wasn't anything to write home about). ME was so unstable to the point that I almost dreaded doing the simplist of tasks on my comp...

Vista looks like a good upgrade to me, but many of its features appear to have been "borrowed" from the Mac OS X... which is a good thing IMO. If they say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then by all means M$, go for it :)

[werty316]

ME was the one of the worest computer related products ever made and I hope M$ will never make another.

[Victor]

I just installed Vista on an aging system, p3 900 celeron, 512mb ram, at 9200, and 20gig of 5400 hd. Yep, i know the specs is like 10 years ago:), but to my amazement, vista installed without any hitch, though it takes a bit longer I think. But overall it's functional and the fact that ati 9200 actually works is quite amazing as we all know that ms demands to have dx9.

[mousiness]

vista to me is going to be amaizing when i get my new rig, but for now, i dont even wanna bother getting the beta, and werty i agree ME was so gay it was pointless to ever make, i really hope some company decides to make an amaizing OS so ill quit M$ and hopefully they wont make anoother OS for 10 years

[Kougar]

I am really growing tired of the anti-Windows set throwing stones and Vista. How did they feel when Windows 98 moved to Windows ME? A better comparison is how people complained about XP as a replacement for 2000 and ME. Now it's Vista's turn through the gauntlet.

Sadly, most who have made their comments think that all operating systems are alike. They fail to understand that this is as much a technical advance as it was when Windows 3.11 was replaced with Windows 95. This is a 64-bit O/S, and people should stop looking at it as XP SP3 (which is one of the dumbest comments a person could make).

That was why I posted this in the first place, because once you say the word "Microsoft", then combine it with "Windows" in one sentence, it doesn't matter what you were talking about but it developes a negative or mocking connotation... If MS didn't come along with windows to unify everything under the sun I'm sure the world wouldn't be quite as advanced as it's become. There are more flavors to Linux then there are kinds of candy in a candy store, and in fact Torvalds only wrote it because he didn't want to use Windows... Unix is on the way out, OS/2 never went anywhere. Maybe now that so many Mac users are dual-booting or using virtualization to run XP on their macs OS X might catch on a bit more, but less than 5% of the OS market isn't much even so.

As far as Windows Me goes... that was their attempt to combine win98se with the good features of windows 2000, since the underlying code base was physically incompatible. Only thing it did was pretty much bring to light the inherent flaws and limitations of the DOS based windows shell.

i do have a problem however with the stupid popups that require permision to run a program

It's called a beta for a reason... ;) That would be UAP, or User Access Protection, and MS has already toned it down in the latest major build upgrade from Beta one. This is probably the biggest reason I haven't switched to Vista already, as it is stable enough and the performance "difference" on my older PC is simply not there. It runs just fine, Areo Glass and all that jazz too...

[werty316]

Bill must have been in a drug induced phase to come up with ME.

[Bio-Hazard]

I've never had a problem running any of the differant versions of Windows, even ME worked great for the time I had it, never a problem. I ran it until XP came out in the Beta program, then I switched to that.
Vista on the other had is pretty power hungry, even with my rig and video card OC'd I only get a performance rating of 3. But it does run OK for the most part, the only major complaint I have is that Office 03 is the only program I own that seems to run correctly on it.

[werty316]

I know this is off topic but according to PCMag, M$ ME was #4 of the worst tech products of all time. I think this article was posted a while back.

http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,125772,pg,2,00.asp#millennium

Sorry for going off topic.

[Das Capitolin]

I know this is off topic but according to PCMag, M$ ME was #4 of the worst tech products of all time. I think this article was posted a while back.

http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,125772,pg,2,00.asp#millennium

Sorry for going off topic.


Watch as I co-mingle off-topic and on-topic disscussion, watch and learn (mousiness):

I remember attending a Microsoft seminar where the technicians hosting the seminar joked to the crowd that Windows ME was a mistake. As I recall, they said "Well Windows ME won't work properly with that technology. We know it should, but we admit Windows ME was one of our mistakes". I laughed at the joke because I have never owned a Windows ME system.
Yet, after some testing with Vista Beta 2, I have not seen any major drawbacks that would make me feel as though this would be another "mistake" O/S release.

[werty316]

I never tried the beta but if I like the final product and its not just XP with better visuals I might use it. I will definitely use it when XP is not longer supported of course.

[Das Capitolin]

I never tried the beta but if I like the final product and its not just XP with better visuals I might use it. I will definitely use it when XP is not longer supported of course.

I have tried the beta, and will probably plan to implement the new O/S on my own systems a few months after the initial release.

[Kougar]

I've never had a problem running any of the differant versions of Windows, even ME worked great for the time I had it, never a problem. I ran it until XP came out in the Beta program, then I switched to that.
Vista on the other had is pretty power hungry, even with my rig and video card OC'd I only get a performance rating of 3. But it does run OK for the most part, the only major complaint I have is that Office 03 is the only program I own that seems to run correctly on it.

I mentioned this in a different forum and thought I'd said so here... Vista gave my rig a 3, although all the numbers were 3.7 at the lowest and 5.1 at the highest... I thought 5 was the max for this scale? What should be noted is this "utility" measured the stock clock value for my processor though, which is 2.8ghz and not the 3.42ghz it was running at the time. So it's likely it did the same to yours, Sbrehm.

Because Vista was designed for DX10, with backwards compatibility for DX9 only then added in, I am sure this is a requirement to get a "5" rating.

[Bio-Hazard]

All I know is that even surfing the net, Vista is noticablely slower than XP, I'm running a dual boot on 2 differant HD's. I like the user interface of Vista, I just wish it wasn't a memory hog, notice in the pic in the upper right hand corner, it's showing 30% memory useage sitting idle in windows.

http://img160.imageshack.us/img160/7792/vista1te.th.jpg (http://img160.imageshack.us/my.php?image=vista1te.jpg)

[mousiness]

ME did not cause any PROBLEMS with me, just that it was almost an exact copy of windowns 98 almost except for the start screen and it was just a waste of money and time going out and purchasing that HP with ME built in, the worst OS ever

EDIT: yes vista is like unning CS 1.6 on steroids as memory usage thats why they suggest 2Gb for minimal performance and 4GB for best performance in review sites not from M$ sites, and BTW the xps 700 has 8GB of memory to upgrade :wink:

[Kougar]

All I know is that even surfing the net, Vista is noticablely slower than XP, I'm running a dual boot on 2 differant HD's. I like the user interface of Vista, I just wish it wasn't a memory hog, notice in the pic in the upper right hand corner, it's showing 30% memory useage sitting idle in windows.

http://img160.imageshack.us/img160/7792/vista1te.th.jpg (http://img160.imageshack.us/my.php?image=vista1te.jpg)

Interesting! Maybe I should turn off Hyperthreading... While HT can do anything from increase to decrease performance, it's always had the effect of smoothing out the OS for me, to the point it's the next best thing to dual-core... HT='s multitasking snappiness. :mrgreen: The only slowdowns seems to be from the inherent eyecandy, which takes time to display it's snazzy effects before doing what I requested (like a minimization or maximization).

Okay, I give... how did you enable those readings on your sidebar? I think I know, but I'll have to reactivate my sidebar and boot into Vista to find out... I'll post the numbers when I get 'em. See if the memory size makes any difference...

[Bio-Hazard]

That memory reading was at Vista default install settings........;) Switching everything off really speeds up everything, but then you're back to a Win 98 looking OS........

[werty316]

That memory reading was at Vista default install settings........;) Switching everything off really speeds up everything, but then you're back to a Win 98 looking OS........

Thats why I use themes as the OS theme is too bland and not to my liking.

[Das Capitolin]

It's kind of disturbing that people are installing the Vista beta on older systems; and not the 64-bit systems it was designed for. Thats like loading Windows XP on your old Windows 98 system. Sure the hardware requirements are met, but it will run like crap. Do yourselves a favor and use at least 2GB of RAM and a 64-bit CPU while running the 64-bit version of Vista. That would be the equivalent of running 1GB or RAM with Windows XP, and 512MB in Windows 98.

If anyone out there is technical, they will understand exactly what I am referring to there with that analogy.

[werty316]

I guess some users just wanted to see what the fuss Vista was all about.