tabath Posted January 17, 2009 Share Posted January 17, 2009 Well just bought a new dell for the kids - first new purchase that will come with vista preinstalled. All my other computers are either running linux, win2k or winxp. I haven't used vista before so am considering leaving it on there. My questions are: Is vista past its teething phase now? Any links for reading I should do Vista , securing it, what utilities I should be loading and how to set up? Any advice greatfully appreciated from a vista newbie Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VaKo Posted January 17, 2009 Share Posted January 17, 2009 Vista SP1 is good, very stable and lots of driver support now. I've found that on some Dell laptops, Vista is faster than XP (D430 for example). A good tip is lots of memory and x64, also use an SD card for ReadyBoost, it does help. It likes to index lots of stuff and uses caches heavily, so its not designed to be turned on and off, its best to use the sleep or hibernate features. UAC is quite useful, it only really kicks in when your setting the system up, other wise its fairly quiet. And with kids, it might help avoid viruses and such. It does take a bit of getting used to, but given time you will like it. It does work differently from XP. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WhollyMindless Posted January 20, 2009 Share Posted January 20, 2009 Image Image Image Image. Now that I've got your attention. IMAGE that machine! When they just accept UAC for everything you'll wish you had an... IMAGE! (Sorry, just got finished reimaging another machine because people don't watch what they're doing) Does "Steady State" work with Vista? That might be an option. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vector Posted January 20, 2009 Share Posted January 20, 2009 yeah im going to agree with VaKo. vista is just fine, especially when youre using an oem version with all the correct hardware drivers and configurations. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gadwil Posted January 20, 2009 Share Posted January 20, 2009 Steady-State does work with Vista so I suggest playing around with that a bit, so you can set exact time limits for them to be on. Use it with the controls from the Control Panel and it is a powerful tool combination. Just make sure they are a non-administrator account and your account is password protected. That way when the UAC pop's up they need you to type in your password for them to do anything. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
h3%5kr3w Posted January 22, 2009 Share Posted January 22, 2009 I will also have to agree with everyone that Vista (Veestah) IS stable and running well. Actually it has been running for about 6 months straight on my desktop compy (which I believe is DEFINITELY a new record for me on my own computers with a first install) One thing to say about computers that come with Vista: This depends on the manufacturer of the computer and the parts manufacturers that participated, but Alot of computers that come with vista now-adays (such as my laptop [compaq cq50-215nr]) Do not have equivalent drivers for XP, and even if you get some equivalent drivers, strange things happen from time to time, Such as my laptop which blazes on xp, BUT (and this is an intermittent problem, but a known one) with my sound card on xp drivers, you get hiss and background noise like crazy from the speakers. And some computers it is just a plain No-go. I will also say that Vista IS a memory hog. If you have 2 gigs, get one more, unless your fortunate enough to get ahold of 64bit wow ed. (which I have... but I still only have 2 gigs, want to get more) But if your system can run smooth with the memory you will most probably have no problems. One Last Thing: If something just doesnt seem to work in vista (i.e. File Sharing!) Go ahead and read up on the issue because chances are there is something else you need to tweak to get it to work (file sharing is a b*#ch in vista between a vista/ and xp machine) Oh and btw, if your going to file share off the vista machine to an xp or lower system, or a linux/unix/MacOS system, then by all means CREATE THE USER ACCOUNTS AND BE THOUROUGH! You could say in this respect, Vista is by default locked up tighter than a drum and you might as well treat it as if it is Windows Server 08 w/out active directory. On the whole though, Vista is a good stable system, and truthfully, I LOVE the resource Monitor! (if you havent tried it, alt-ctrl-del, start task manager, click the performance tab, and then click the resource monitor button) If you have a memory/cpu/processor/and/or bandwidth hog running and it's a service or a process your not seeing, then chances are you can find it here and it is basically a do-all as far as processor, memory, network, and disk resources. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jrwcmj Posted January 24, 2009 Share Posted January 24, 2009 install firefox and a child resicor add on such as kidzui or any like that i forgot the over one if you live the uk get webuser it has a guide who to set up kidzui it only cost £2.99 and it has lots of apps listed that are free Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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