VISTA

[Dcan]

Has anyone installed it yet and what are your thoughts thanks

[GhostBecon]

I've tried it since the beta 2 release and looks like its the same crap wrapped in candy paper. Not worth the trouble. I'll stick with XP.

[silent_op]

I have not installed it yet. I would suggest you wait at least a year or longer. A year would give some time for bugs to be worked out and developers to utilize Direct X 10. From what I've read, Vista right now does not perform faster than XP.


silent_op

[Krow]

User Reviews are not overly enthusiastic....

http://reviews.cnet.com/Windows_Vista_RTM/4852-3672_7-32137426.html?tag=uolst
45 user reviews

Average Score: 5,9 out of 10




Maybe there will be a MOD for Vista to make it as we would want it? ;) ;) ;)


This review seems very relevant: (Highlights in Bold Yellow, by me)



"Wait for the next version and hope it's better"
by Alanwea (see profile) (http://reviews.cnet.com/5270-4_1-0-2.html?tag=uolst&userID=675599) - November 27, 2006


9 out of 9 people found this review helpful. (See all 4 comments) (http://reviews.cnet.com/Windows_Vista_RTM/4864-3672_7-32137426.html?ctype=msgid&messageSiteID=7&messageID=2325874&cval=2325874&tag=uolst#comments).
Pros:
It's prettier than XP


Cons:
Only a corporate IT administrator could love it


Full user opinion

What's wrong with Vista? Behind the translucent windows, sharp graphics and desktop "gadgets" lies Vista security to prevent you from easily doing anything that Vista/Microsoft deems as insecure. Sure,
XP was insecure unless a user maintained constant vigilance and installed all updates, but at least you still felt like you controlled your own fate. With Vista the feeling of control is gone, now Vista controls you and everything you want to do on your computer.

Say you are a bit of a techie and want to take a hard drive from your old computer and put it into your new Vista compatible machine running Vista. After you get it installed Vista sees it, you can see it, but Vista prevents you from reading the drive saying that it is "not accessible" and "access is denied". In typical Microsoft OS fashion there's no information about why access is denied, no link to more information, nothing except for the sparse error message.

Go into Control Panel and choose "Add Hardware"; an annoying dialog box is displayed requiring that you give your permission to continue. Get used to this dialog box, you will see it over and over and over again and be required to click the "Continue" button each time. In Vista's security run amok world, things you could do in XP are now considered possible security violations and require your explicit go ahead.

What about new features? Oh, they are there and some of them are good ideas, but Microsoft has missed the boat on usability. New features are worthless without an intuitive user interface that works with you, provides help when you need it and links to additional helpful information. In Vista's case the UI suffers the same, if not worse problems, than XP's. Error messages are vague, UI paths to features are convoluted, help text is, for the most part, written in the same garbled techie language that plagued XP (and ME, 98, 95, for that matter).

I can hear Microsoft now exclaiming that they've rewritten help from scratch and it's the most comprehensive ever.Maybe so, but Vista help (like XP's) mostly just tells you what's wrong and then tells you to go fix it on some menu without telling you exactly how to get there.

The shame in Vista is that after 25 years of writing operating systems and supposedly improving on Windows, Microsoft is still making the same usability mistakes that have wasted our time and taxed our patience before. You'd think they'd get the idea that the UI and the user experience is at least as important as new features.

So, what has Microsoft been doing for the last 5 years besides making Vista hard to use for the common user? They've been adding features for the the IT staff at corporations. The IT staff will love the Vista features that give them new found control over every aspect of the computers they manage. Think of Vista as the secret police working on behalf of the IT department as they seek to lower the digital curtain (my apologies to whoever coined "iron curtain").

Should you purchase Vista? Not if you want to feel like you control your computer instead of the other way around. Your best course of action is to complain loud, long and repeatedly to Microsoft about their lack of regard for Vista users. Demand they do something about it instead of throwing a bunch of features together under a pretty, but incomprehensible UI, and calling it Vista.

If you complain enough maybe you'll find someone at Microsoft that still knows what "user friendy", "it just works" and "business at the speed of thought" really means. Otherwise, just buy a Mac (and being a long-time Windows user I don't say that easily), it will save you a lot of time in the long run.

[Ghost]

Vista has made some big changes to the underlying system architecture, mostly around the way device drivers are handled. In time this should increase stability as many device drivers will work without tapping directly into the OS kernel. With the kernel being the heart of the OS any failure of a driver which uses it means a catastrophic failure of the whole OS.

The is a 'user API' and a 'kernel API' and drivers can be devided between the two. Theoretically this means a problem with a device can result in the device being stopped and restarted without a crash... we'll see. It should also (theoretically) make the OS more secure.

There is also in the more expensive versions of Vista a system for enhancing game (ie 3D) performance. This is not likely to be of use until DX10 games and the hardware that takes advantage of DX10 fully are available.

Our old friend Zink has been using it and although he's got a nice quick machine, he's had to turn the 'Aero' GUI off as it's too jerky.

In effect it's currently eye-candy. Get it when XP no longer supports the stuff you want to run.

[GhostBecon]

Vista has made some big changes to the underlying system architecture, mostly around the way device drivers are handled. In time this should increase stability as many device drivers will work without tapping directly into the OS kernel. With the kernel being the heart of the OS any failure of a driver which uses it means a catastrophic failure of the whole OS.
Thus making it eat more memory and work slower at the same time ..
Filesystem, registry etc.. remain the same and will corrupt in time just like all previous versions of Windows Operation Suspends .. or what was the MS version of OS ;)


The is a 'user API' and a 'kernel API' and drivers can be devided between the two. Theoretically this means a problem with a device can result in the device being stopped and restarted without a crash... we'll see. It should also (theoretically) make the OS more secure.
Haha .. nothing new there. This has been on unix/linux forever and OSx (from mac's). You're expecting too much... bad driver coding can still cause bad system calls and crash the box. Problem is the heterogenic hardware just as it has been always with intel based systems (not counting MAC's). Now we just have to live through the same bugs and headaches with Vista while waiting the vendors to fix some drivers to Vista.


In effect it's currently eye-candy. Get it when XP no longer supports the stuff you want to run.
I agree ... or don't get it at all and wait for next version of it with some real news.

Here's my favourite from Krow's links:

http://reviews.cnet.com/Windows_Vista_RTM/4864-3672_7-32137426.html?ctype=msgid&messageSiteID=7&messageID=2347528&cval=2347528&tag=uolst

[BlueBaron]

I only just upgraded to XP Professional a couple of months ago, just before Vista released.

Thats my way of operating PC's with Bill Gates crap OS.

As for VISTA maybe in 5 years.

[Droyd]

Installing it right now, for a customer. I need to download all kinds of drivers, none of the drivers on the mobo cd work on vista. Other than that it looks pretty cool... can't say much as it is so new.

[Ghost]

GB, no question that the OS sucks and there are some other OS's out there with massive advantages... I still have an Amiga 2000 myself! However 90% of computer users are still tied to Microsocks and memory is cheap.

Fact is if XP no longer supports the software you want to run the linux OS (cheap) or a mac (expensive) is still a dubious option. Personally I'll make the move when I have to and I'll use linux for my media server in the meantime.

[GhostBecon]

GB, no question that the OS sucks and there are some other OS's out there with massive advantages... I still have an Amiga 2000 myself! However 90% of computer users are still tied to Microsocks and memory is cheap.

Fact is if XP no longer supports the software you want to run the linux OS (cheap) or a mac (expensive) is still a dubious option. Personally I'll make the move when I have to and I'll use linux for my media server in the meantime.

Yea m8.. don't get me wrong. I hate all operating systems because the just suck too much.
But one over the others... I'll definately recommend MAC for Media purposes.. You wouldn't wanna be patching your DVD-players either for couple of hours everytime you wanna watch a movie

br,

-G:DB-

[BlueBaron]

I here Win doze VISTA zzzzz has already been hacked it was in a news paper here in London. Win Doze Vista zzzz is supposed to be the most secure win doze zzz yet. ! ! !

Think again Bill, the only thing Vista is more...............is more of a Resource hog. :(

[GhostBecon]

Dejavu!

"most secure windows yet" ... like i've heard that during every update since winDoS whatever version..
Although that sentence is not promising a lot since all of the versions have been wide open for unauthorized use through times...
Be extremely critical wen reading sentenced with words microsoft & secure in it. Its most likely just some more marketing bullshit. After all that is the one thing that Micro$oft does best.

[Archangel]

If you take all the pre and post release hype from Vista and just copy paste and substitute "Windows XP" for "Vista", you'll find that it matches the XP release hype basically verbatim about 90% of the time. Microsoft operating systems have always been released with all the tact of a 15 year old virgin walking into a whorehouse with a suitcase full of 100 dollar bills. I found a nice compromise. I run a Vista GUI emulator for XP. I retain XP's functionality and years of polished and patched features but it looks just like Vista Aero's sexy interface. I guess it's like getting a 40 year old MILF enough plastic surgery to make her look 20 again. Here's a link if you're interested in trying it out...

http://www.crystalxp.net/

:salute:


P.S. I would never even consider touching a copy of Vista until at least June of 2008. That should be enough time for Macrosloth to get Vista "working".

[GhostBecon]

hehe .. I think there's already too much eye candy in XP.. :D

[Toniezz]

hehe .. I think there's already too much eye candy in XP.. :DI tatally agree with that. As in games for me playabillity/workabillity, performance and Multitasking are more important than appearance. I think these days too many things aime at looks. Also in XP I always tweak it to performance settings (ao. old windows looks/start menu, turn all eye-candy off etc.)