Go Vista?

[Forgotten]

I have a friend who works at a business and has obtained a spare legal copy of vista for me. It sounds promising but I worry on what vista will take away that XP offers.

I use lots of programs that are pretty specific and I like being able to tweak my computer to my liking. Will vista take away from that experience?

And what of compatibility? What are the odds my nVidia, Intel Pro Wireless, and various other hardwares will work / have working drivers available? I have heard Vista is a bit of a nuisance when it comes to that.

Will its new naming system break installs for certain programs? And has Microsoft locked up some tweak-able features?

My final question is, should I switch to vista? I have the time, requirements, but no knowledge if it is a wise choice.

Thank you.

[Rab]

check those manufacturer websites for vista drivers, if they have them you'll probably be alright... but you'll almost certainly run into incompatibility with something else down the line.

[moonlit]

I dunno about the specifics of what you do, but using my Radeon 9250 in Vista (unsupported, but a driver is provided) failed miserably... however, switching to my nVidia 5200FX gave much better results... so as far as nVidia cards go, anything above a 5200FX will be fine (though not necessarily optimal).

Networking wasn't a problem for me, though I'm on wired ethernet... my 10Mbps NIC was way too old to have a driver but to my surprise an XP driver for it worked flawlessly, though I was using Vista 32-bit and apparently the 64-bit version of Vista does not support XP drivers, even if they're XP64 compatible. I've not tested this, I don't have a 64-bit system.

[hsncorrosion]

You may want to play it safe. Us VMWare or a spare machine.

Or just wait a few months for the patches to come out.

[SomeoneE1se]

Wait for SP1 and if you don't know what that means. Wait for a while anyway.

[a5an0]

Go Vista?

Fuck Vista

Edit: Sorry, I'm drunk, and therefore belligerent towards vista. Sorry Vista.

[psychokiller]

ok am i've been using Vista for couple of dayz nw and it's really cool this .NET FrameWork 3.0 they made and i can tell you that Vista is allready made for USer Simplicty and User Attraction rather than the normal things + for ur customizations u can make ur own gadgets and it's really simple.

for Driver Support By Default Vista has a wide support of drivers and yet no new drivers have been launched for it but those with it are gr888

i guess Vista is a Good Choice but am really Addicted to MS interfaces

[linux_n0ob]

Upgrading to Vista knowing that you use a lot of specific programs is definitely a BIG NO!!!!

Vista right now is having some big issues with compatiblity such as video cards, soundcards, and even well used programs. For example iTunes, a VERY popular program does function right. Vista has issues with many CD and DVD burning software, and last i knew couldn't make use of hardware audio because of issues with DirectSouend 3D ( Which is used by tons of games.

Like SomeoneElse said wait for at least SP1. I wouldn't risk installing it until you know your stuff will work 100%. Even if ATI of NVidia has released Vista Drivers for you video cards DOES NOT guarantee that they will work.

If you have a spare HD pull your XP one and replace it test out Vista and if it works than you can do what you like. However if it doesn't then you can just pop you XP Hard Drive back in with no worries.

Ultimately it's your choice but take you time and chose carefully. The last thing you want is for you stuff not to work and have no backup. Hope it goes well

[Guest ABC]

well i did and los tthe ability to OC my GFX card .. so i dual booted vista and XP so i can have bot XP for games Vista for other media/general use.

this aloso works good because the windows reg. will not become clogged

[Kateweb]

IMHO Vista sucks balls and it doesn't even do that well - it's just a bad copy of OS X - and nothing really works all that well in vista your more screwed in a 64 bit environment. I already gave my free bug report copy away but it was someone who I kinda owed anyway.

[Forgotten]

*Was on vacation*

Yes, it seems that I will wait for the service pack, but with a recent wipe of the harddrive (Dual-booted Mac OS X), I am left with a very plain vanilla XP. I am not bothering to install anything that I usually have because I know I will nix the harddrive again.

Good thing for my backups!

A lot of magazines seem to be showing off some rather impressive features of the new vista. Apparently there is a program within windows that monitors and gives a detailed analysis of its stability. Its features like these that make me want to switch. But I am a bit of a gamer, and therefore wary of the slowdowns I may experience, especially since I am on a laptop.

DirectX 10, as I've been told, is a great leap ahead but with a drawback: GFX support (Leave it to microsoft for legacy systems). Apparently in order for DX10 to preform at its best you need a gpu that supports its new way of processing threads. Hopefully my "Vista Compatible" laptop with a fairly new nVidia graphics card will accept the new DX10.

Any final pieces of information I should know about?

[Freakish]

Install it. Everyone bitches about Windows but after a week Vista feels great. The only programs that I haven't been able to run are not compatible with 64x.

[Deveant]

i went with the brute force option, deleted every thinkg and installed it on my main machien (well the one in my office) and i must say Vista trualy isnt that bad, atm im only working on Vista Home Pre, but it seems rather fair, and plays nice.

It hogs a fair amount of res, well a bit more than XP, i upgraded my RAM from 2bg -> 4gb, and it really helped alot, as for the drive issues, i has no problem. though i supos most of my parts are mainstream common brands (Asus, ATI/AMD)

[unasoto]

I'm waiting for a new computer before I get vista and I cant afford that until about when SP2 will come out. I don't see any reason to upgrade OS for any machine if it ain't broke don't fix it :) lol

[Shaun]

I think some people are being a bit hysterical about Vista, it's not really too bad. It has problems, but then so did XP when that first came out - it's just something that happens when a new version of Windows comes out. It does have some security benefits too, a lot of the recent Windows vulnerabilties that affect 2000, XP and Server 2003 don't affect Vista and it is designed to make it somewhat more possible to run as a normal user instead of an administrator.

In regard to compatability with your hardware and software, I can only say do some research first to find out if there are any problems you might encounter.

[DLSS]

sparda pls get on here and tell them how bad vista really is , the provacy issues , the built in DRM , the huge security flaws , the problems of vista not allowing half the av developers to its core , the problem with unsighned drivers , ....

[kickarse]

If you have 1gb of ram it's almost worth it, with 2gb your much better off. It'll run on 512mb but it sucks. PLUS, nvidia drivers are no where near good enough yet.

[Shaun]

sparda pls get on here and tell them how bad vista really is , the provacy issues , the built in DRM , the huge security flaws , the problems of vista not allowing half the av developers to its core , the problem with unsighned drivers , ....

Not sure what the privacy issues you refer to are.

I've been using Vista for a few months on my laptop and I still haven't encountered any of the evil Vista DRM since the new additions to DRM are in supporting DRM features for HDCP and I don't have a HD-DVD of Bluray drive plus I don't like DRM so I avoid getting any content with it. I know a quite lot of stuff Peter Gutmann originally said in his white paper about the DRM wasn't quite right (he's actually updated it to correct those errors though).

There haven't really been any huge vulnerabilties yet, and if you look at Security Focus's list of Windows vulnerabilities you'll see most recent vulnerabilites affect XP, but not Vista. That's not to say Vista won't have more vulnerabilties found (there probably will considering how much of the OS has been written from scratch - some people and companies have said certain areas are likely to be vulnerable but it's still to be seen how that will play out), it could be that people haven't started looking hard at Vista yet.

The thing about anti-virus software not being about to get into the OS is based on a claim by McAfee, but Sophos, Kapersky and others have said they are wrong and that anti-virus software can still work as effectively. Also it wasn't like Microsoft decided to implement that system to make it harder for anti-virus companies, it is just a side effect of stopping malicious software from fucking with the OS as easily.

The not allowing unsigned drivers thing sucks for people who actually know how to keep their PC safe, I hope they get rid of it or an easy way to get around it comes out (I know it can be done with messing about with the page file, but it's not particularly simple. It's only for 64-bit Vista though, and I have 32-bit Vista installed so I haven't ecountered this either.

Don't get me wrong, I'm certainly not a fan of Microsoft, but some people are just negative to the point of irrationality and parrot anything negative they hear without doing any research into it.

[nixgeek]

Vista.. i've been using it since RTM hit.

Points:

Install - Quick, easy, painless. 30 minutes or so depending.

UAC - You'll either love it or hate it. Imagine XP asking you EVERY time you do something if it's ok. Multiple times. You can turn this feature off but Microsoft "does not recommend it" as it makes the PC insecure. This is good as it essentially nags you when something wants to run/be installed on your machine. So if you always click Allow without looking at what's being installed, the viruses/spyware is your fault.

Aero - Is it pretty? Yes! Do you need it to function on a daily basis? No. Can we say eyecandy?

Compatability - So far, so good. I haven't really had Vista complain about any of the software I installed. I'm a gamer and Vista has held it's own as far as gameplay is concerned.

Hardware - This is a sticking point for most people. I installed clean Vista Ultimate on my Inspiron E1505 and needed to get my wireless card driver. Wasn't on the disk. Was it a terrible inconvenience? Not really. After the driver was installed i just upgraded some drivers from Dell's support site.

Readyboost - interesting little addition to how windows runs. Readyboost lets you use a USB Key, SD Card, etc as a "swap" device. We all know that xfer rates are better off USBkeys and SD cards so Vista lets you use that extra space to increase system performace. Does it work? I've noticed without Readyboost there is a slight hit in performace. Do you "need" Readyboost? No but it's a great idea and worth assigning a USB Key or SD card to the task.

IE7 - It's IE7, big whoop. Looks different, decided to go tabbed browsing a gazillion years after all the other browsers. Security holes anyone?

DX10 - Big big big plus for gamers. Not much in the way of native DX10 games out yet that i've noticed but it'll come.

Other nice things - Media Center Built in (at least in Ultimate), Windows DVD maker, Windows Defender built in. Browsing a folder with many media files, Vista does not take 5 minutes to load thumbnails. I have yet to see Vista BSOD (*knocks on wood*) Integrated Pocket PC support.

Things that bothered me -

Disk Defrag - Now i don't know about you but I liked to watch the progress of the defragment. I don't trust Microsoft's ability to estimate time. Well the old defrag screen is gone.

Sidebar - Really neat idea, although done already by some company with fruit as it's logo. It eats system resources, my cpu usage shoots up when sidebar is loaded. The Gadgets are starting to become more plentiful but, there were very little that i was actualy interested in.

Install size - Ultimate - We're talking 4gig plus. Now space is not a premium on a 60gig drive but, 4 gig for an OS?

Conclusion:

All in all, Vista is a decent OS. Do you need to upgrade to it? No. It's more of a want. I however hear whispers of Microsoft releasing the OS after Vista in 3 years, so take that into account. Anyway, i hope this helps prospective Vista pre-converts. Seeya on IRC!

- nixgeek