Windows Vista...

I have been using Vista for 5 months now. I have the 64 bit version.

It installed just fine, however, I found the 64 bit version does have some issues. The issues seem to revolve around hardware suppliers ability to create a driver that will work in 64 bit. To get my internet up and running, I had to use a driver that IS NOT for my wireless net card, but I did get it going, and within 10 minutes vista wanted to d/l the correct driver and install, it did, since then, no issues.

Here is my windows experience specs:
My base score is 4.4

Processor: (AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 5200+) 5.1
Memory: (XMS Corsair Dominator DDR6400 2GIG Total) 5.9
Graphics: (Radeon X1650 Series) 4.4
Hard Disk: (MAIN Drive SATA WD) 5.5

I would have thought my graphics would be better than what windows rated it, but I suspect it is because I use the eye candy bar with all the nifty gadgets.

I have found that there are alot of programs that I used in XP that will not work correctly in the 64 bit of vista. I gave alot of them up to find others that would work, I was pretty successful in acheiving this, however, it took time and patience. Vista runs my Sims 2 just fine, in fact it is greatly improved on vista compared to xp. It also runs the flight simulators by MS just fine. My new system came with xp, at least thats what I chose, b/c I was leary of vista. I wanted to try vista, and knew even if it has issues MS would fix it in time to enable me to use vista, so I bought vista separately from the new computer.

Honestly, I dont have too much complaint over vista... it was a pain because I had to "find" things again that I used in xp, the menus seem less redundant. Over all, I like vista and it was worth my money.

The system I run vista on is a brand new system purchased from IBUYPOWER.COM..... I love the system, however, I did not love the experience with the company I chose to buy from, and I do not reccommend this company to anyone. When the system was shipped to me, it would not even run, even though they sent paperwork with it saying it was bench tested. In fact, the paperwork that was sent as being the diag. for the bench test interestingly enough, is not even showing the correct spec for my system. Therefor, it could not have been my system that was bench tested.

I was able to get my system up and running, without the help of the companies techies, as they were unavailable on a Saturday. The CPU was not fastened down correctly, it was hanging loosely off the MB, luckily, no damage in shipping. The video card that I purchased with this system I did not like, upgraded within 48 hours to the Radeon I currently run... the purchased video card was an Nvidia PCI express and I was not thrilled with the graphics it gave me, but then again, I am an avid Radeon purchaser as that is what has never given me issues with any of my Sims games. On the front of my case, there is a digi display for temp of cpu and fan speeds, etc, it has never worked since I purchased this computer, here I sit still waiting to see the part they promised to send me out months ago. Customer service, yeah right. I have spent alot of time playing phone tag with these bozos on hold for hours, yes, I said hours. Plus the hang ups on me while I wait for someone to take me off hold. I will NEVER purchase from IBUYPOWER.COM again. They suck. Honestly, I could have bought all the same components and built the computer myself like I normally do, this time I decided to try letting others build it for me. It cost me about $350 more to let them build it, only to end up with crappy workmenship that I had to fix myself.

Lesson Learned: Dont buy from IBUYPOWER.COM unless you dont care about crappy workmanship or seriously lacking customer service. Furthermore, dont pay for their so called pro wiring, because really, they dont bother hooking everything up that should be and that was not worth my money either considering I had to re-do it all myself to get the computer running at all.

Sorry to hear of your bad experience. Outside of work I would never go with a pre-built system especially anything "custom" what a joke that usually ends up being. Building your own gives you a sense of accomplishment not to mention you really know the "in's" of "your" system. I usually go with Newegg and/or Tiger Direct depending on prices and shipping times. I've recently gotten some great LCD's from Tiger on the cheap. For my brother's build I got him a 23" wide samsung...absolutely beautiful! Recently I also ordered an LCD to go with my macbook pro to use here at work. I ordered through HP which is what all of our systems are here. After waiting several weeks with no update I find out the unit is on back order and it would still be a few weeks. I dropped the order and went to Newegg with my handy "procurement" card and ordered a 20.1" LCD, DVI cable, and a stand for the laptop all for less than what the 19" LCD from hp cost and was going to take a month to get! I had my new order here in 3 days!

Glad to see at least one other person not spitting on Vista just because they where told "it sucks". I wanted to go with the 64bit version but as you said not all software is written compatible yet so I'll wait a bit. Thanks again for your report :)