Windows Vista...

I'm thinking of upgrading my computer from XP to Vista (Home Premium). Who here has it? Tell me what you like, don't like, etc! I want to know. I don't really know anyone who has it, so I can't get feedback from my real life friends or go over someone house to check it out..

I would not get vista if microsoft paid me. I personally use Windows XP Service Pack 2. My girls new laptop has vista and she has compatability problems with a lot of stuff. Not to mention her browser randomly vibrates like an earthquake is going on. I would at least wait a little before upgrading until they can work out the kinks in the software.

What I like -- it looks nice, it works wonderfully
What I don't like -- It wouldn't let me use SLI for the first few months so I ended up selling my video cards and it was incompatible with a good bit of software I had.. But I think this has changed recently.. And remember going from NT to 95? That's what it's like going from XP or older to Vista, you have to learn things over again. It was quite frustrating for me at first and I considered reverting to XP, but now I'm more comfortable with it.

I have it and love it! :sunny:

But this computer came with it.... I think there is a list of what is compatible and what's not. My tablet loaded right up, and that's all I was really worried about! :oops:

i have heard goods and bads, mostly bads. A good friend of mine recently upgraded and he noticed stability issues and an extreme drop in his computer speed overall, from opening programs to download and upload speeds.

Personally i am waiting for a while, the main reason behind me even wanting to upgrade is because of DirectX 10. The new games comming out will all be directX 10 and there wont be a directX 10 for XP

I have heard that even though it says it only needs 512MB's of RAM that you will need atleast 1G of RAM for it to run smooth and not lag or freeze up. True? My computer is pretty new and has all the requirements for it... but I do not have 1G of RAM so I'm not wondering about that.

I would definetly run it with 1GB. Memory is dirt cheap right now so it shouldn't cost you much to upgrade.

yeh u do need a lot of ram because it's graphic intensive. It's a memory hog.

I'm still running XP and will be for a little while longer. I was the same way when XP came out, and now it's the most stable. Vista will be stable on of these days :)

preferably, you should have 2gb of ram. it will greatly improve your performance and experience with vista

Coming from a cable/computer technician, I highly recommend you DO NOT GET VISTA. Micro$haft couldn't pay me enough money to put that blasted program on my computer. For the sake of your computer PLEASE keep XP on your machine and avoid Vista at all cost. Only when games are upgraded and are ALL using DirectX X will I get Vista. Until then, which is 2-3 years away, I will stay as far as possible from Vista.

Vista itself needs 1Gig of ram to run. What kind of OS needs a gig of ram?! That is a complete waste of memory, especially when most people don't even have 2 gig, and if your like me and have a built machine, i have 2 gig of really expensive gaming ram, my games are incredable, and Vista wants me to give up a full gig of that to the OS, they are out of their mind!

Speaking as a technologically ignorant user, I like it. It's pretty, it gives me cool animated desktop wallpaper, and it remembers things for me. I like the little desktop thing on the side too. Buuuuuuuut....I have a very tech-savvy boyfriend who keeps it all running, and I generally don't notice problems because he catches them first and fixes them.

Go with Linux instead.

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Originally Posted by brainman1000

Go with Linux instead.

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I've never used Linux...what are the pros and cons of Linux? it's free...open source....but what about compatibility issues with software, such as Adobe?

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Originally Posted by nathanledet

....but what about compatibility issues with software, such as Adobe?

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Sorry senor, no go on this as of yet. I was running Ubuntu for a while, but had to go back to XP for all my Photoshop, Flash, Dreamweaver needs. Linux has some nifty little programs to compensate, but imho they can't hold a candle to the big guns.

I prefer Linux as a server environment as opposed to using it for my desktop needs...may decide to go with a mac one of these days and can windows for good. ;)

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Originally Posted by nathanledet

I've never used Linux...what are the pros and cons of Linux? it's free...open source....but what about compatibility issues with software, such as Adobe?

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There are some software titles that can run on linux and many that can't. However, there are many FREE equivalent software titles out there for many different things like Adobe and Office etc.

It is a very efficient and smooth OS that requires little RAM to run.

The only cons that I can think of are software and hardware compatibility.

I was talking to my dad's friend yesterday about his computer having Vesta. He said it lags big time now.

I don't have any person experiences however, and Iam not computer smart.

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Originally Posted by iceman25

I prefer Linux as a server environment as opposed to using it for my desktop needs..

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absolutely. All of my web sites are run in a Linux based server.

skip vista and get a Mac... leopard ships in october!!!

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Originally Posted by Kagez28

skip vista and get a Mac... leopard ships in october!!!

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The reason I don't have a Mac is because I spent half the money on a PC that runs twice as fast as any Mac on the market. With Mac's..ya get what ya get...not to completely shun Macs...they do have their pros and cons, just like PC's..but the 'pc vs mac' debate is old and endless....it's our 'f/t vs live' debate...

Unless you have a serious problem with Windows XP 2, do not upgrade to Vista. YOU must have over 1gb of memory in order to use such things like iTunes or QuickTime.


I have a friend that has a BRAND NEW machine that came with Vista installed but only 512mb ram. It is constantly BLUE screening. Absolutely, terrible. I am going to upgrade her memory soon, hoping this will solve her problem.

I would suggest that you stick with Windows XP2. If you want to upgrade get the professional version it has several advantages over the home version.

Vista is new so there are bound to be some issues...XP wasn't perfect the year it came out...and it still isn't necessarily. I recently built a machine for my brother and DID go with Vista. My thoughts were either to try and buy XP which is going to wayside support wise or go with Vista and whatever risks if any. I have had zero issues personally so far on the machine with vista (home premium). EVERY piece of hardware was detected and working however I always go to the manufacturer's sites and get the latest drivers (still no issues when doing this). I did turn off some things like the "gadget bar" (seems like I've seen something like this before haha!). Anyway the computer runs great with vista and even the games I've "tested" on it. It does have 2gb of ram but I don't generally build with any less than that especially when its primary purpose will be games or multimedia. When monitoring the system resources it was using around 512mb of ram which isn't really that bad. Video cards is where alot of people complain...and what causes the "lag". Vista is MUCH more visual than previous OS's. Simple fix for that: TURN OFF THE EYE CANDY! I have nothing I can tell anyone I don't like so far. It is different internally and seems to be for the better (directory structures, etc.)

I will be running vista soon along side OSX on my macbook pro and I know it will do fine. The thing you need to think about again is do you want to buy what's current and be as up to date as you can for as long as possible...or do you want to run an OS that is at or near its end of life?

Do not upgrade just for the sake of upgrading. Vista offers nothing worthwhile over XP worth going through the hassle of dealing with the problems Vista has.
I have an IT friend who put Vista on one of his pc's and went back to XP the next day.

My new machine came with Vista on it. I like it well enough. It's a much cleaner, sharper look than the older Windows versions...with a lot more gadgets and goodies to play with. I haven't had any issues with incompatibility, except that a few programs I have will cause it to bump my custom color schemes back to the default Windows color scheme, but I barely even notice that. I also haven't had a single performance issue, except that it takes forever to shut down and boot up. That's it. I haven't had any "shaking" or a single blue screen or any problems running the programs I want to use.


Keep in mind, I'm a pretty simple user. I do mostly internet work...some graphics work...and have maybe one graphic-intensive game that I focus on at any given time. People who do lots of process-intensive work, use lots of older or obscure programs, or play a variety of hardcore video games may not get along so well with Vista.

I also like the look and feel of vista, but it requires a bunch of memory to run.

I don't know why anyone would be running only 512mb of RAM on a newer system anymore anyway. I run 3, although I am a gamer.

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Originally Posted by darkangel

I don't know why anyone would be running only 512mb of RAM on a newer system anymore anyway. I run 3, although I am a gamer.

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b/c notebooks come standard with 512mb. and upgrading is very expensive. On desktops it is quite different. Most come with 1gb and upgrading is very easy and not so expensive.

OK! Didn't realize we were talking about notebooks. Agreed. Wouldn't touch Vista in a notebook with a 10 foot pole.

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Originally Posted by AkivaSmith

b/c notebooks come standard with 512mb. and upgrading is very expensive. On desktops it is quite different. Most come with 1gb and upgrading is very easy and not so expensive.

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I can tell you this is NOT the case. There is absolutely no "standard" that notebooks come with 512mb of ram. Of the laptops I purchased for my staff in the last year or two I have never placed an order with the specs of less than 1gb of ram. I spec/purchase laptops as well as desktops with 2gb, at this point in time its more than most users need however it really keeps the performance aspect up and generally prolongs the usability time of the system. I will agree that laptop memory *can* be expensive but it does not have be. Most big name manufacturers will definitely gouge the price of any additional memory but I still have not seen less than 1gb in basic specs these days. When purchased separately by other vendors laptop memory can be found at very reasonable costs. Installing laptop memory is easier than a desktop in most cases. I can take any laptop in operation here at work, flip it over remove one or two small screws, pop off a panel and wala! the memory is right there. Nothing like a desktop where you have to open/remove the case panels and work around cables and other hardware.

-not trying to sound like an arse but I've been doing this type of work all my life and try and give as correct and accurate info as I can to those who inquire.

I still think its funny seeing all the vista haters...people said the same thing about XP and they will say the same thing about whatever the next OS is called. 9 times out of 10 their dislike is not even formed by their own opinion but by someone "who knows computers" or the like and really have idea about the underlying platform improvements.

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Originally Posted by TekWarren

I still think its funny seeing all the vista haters...people said the same thing about XP and they will say the same thing about whatever the next OS is called. 9 times out of 10 their dislike is not even formed by their own opinion but by someone "who knows computers" or the like and really have idea about the underlying platform improvements.

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But we aren't down the road are we? We are at now, and right now Vista sucks. Trying to find software compatible with it is a pita. Look at all the software out there, they use "COMPATIBLE WITH WINDOWS VISTA!!" as a perk for a selling point, which goes to show you its rare to find something that will work with Vista. Needing a gig of ram to run "smoothly" is flat out ridiculous and no OS should need that much just "run smoothly", or run at all.

If he said he was looking to upgrade to a new OS in 2-3 years, then you would have a valid point, but hes not, hes looking to upgrade NOW, and right NOW Vista isn't worth the time, effort, headaches, stress, and pain to get working.

And this is all of course, my own opinion :D

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Originally Posted by sw204me

But we aren't down the road are we? We are at now, and right now Vista sucks. Trying to find software compatible with it is a pita. Look at all the software out there, they use "COMPATIBLE WITH WINDOWS VISTA!!" as a perk for a selling point, which goes to show you its rare to find something that will work with Vista. Needing a gig of ram to run "smoothly" is flat out ridiculous and no OS should need that much just "run smoothly", or run at all.

If he said he was looking to upgrade to a new OS in 2-3 years, then you would have a valid point, but hes not, hes looking to upgrade NOW, and right NOW Vista isn't worth the time, effort, headaches, stress, and pain to get working.

And this is all of course, my own opinion :D

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This kinda brings back my other point doesn't it...You can buy something now that the general public is used to and "says" works...something that is at its end of life development wise. OR you can purchase what IS NOW and IS current. I won't argue with anyone, especially who is blindly against change and new things however I do see things from a very different angle than "users".

Think of it in terms of breeding reptile morphs...some are compatible some are not. Some will produce killer combos some will produce nothing special, and even some lose offspring...that doesn't stop those willing to try new things from moving forward to get the next greatest thing. And then once one person shows what can be done...then all the others jump on the wagon.

Now before this conversation gets "silly" no I'm not comparing reptiles to computers (but leave it to me to try!). I am simply explaining the idea of something new. Things are very visual these days and that's all most people "see". Most don't have a clue about the REAL changes.

Lastly: No I am not some Microsoft fanboy freak. In fact I post this sitting behind an Apple macbook pro running OSX of course. Until I convinced myself that I need to get up to speed on apple technologies I had similar thoughts and a bias opinion of Macs. Part of my job now includes supporting apple technology which was something I had never really worked with much and so had little use for. Low and behold I pulled this shiny laptop out if its box and never looked back! Of course I still use windows also but my point is that even IT professionals can gain something from trying something new!

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Originally Posted by nathanledet

The reason I don't have a Mac is because I spent half the money on a PC that runs twice as fast as any Mac on the market. With Mac's..ya get what ya get...not to completely shun Macs...they do have their pros and cons, just like PC's..but the 'pc vs mac' debate is old and endless....it's our 'f/t vs live' debate...

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There's a lot more to it than simply processing speed. It's all about how it's used by the underlying system. Windows has been famous since 3.1 for it's terrible use of available resources. Besides that, clock speeds aren't particularly good identifiers of the "speed" of computer either. The SPARC architecture used clocks speeds WAY lower than x86, but the underlying systems were a great deal faster than anything made to run Windows.

I'm stuck dual-booting Linux and Windows, and a Mac on top of it. Although, with Mac's change to the x86 arch that won't be for much longer (woohoo). I still think as far as speed and optimization goes, BSD and Linux reign number one, Mac as number 2 and PC/Windows as a distant third. And of course, they go in reverse order for hardware and software compatibility.

I personally won't touch Vista until I can only run must-have software on it.

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Originally Posted by TekWarren

I can tell you this is NOT the case. There is absolutely no "standard" that notebooks come with 512mb of ram. Of the laptops I purchased for my staff in the last year or two I have never placed an order with the specs of less than 1gb of ram.
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9 times out of 10 their dislike is not even formed by their own opinion but by someone "who knows computers" or the like and really have idea about the underlying platform improvements.

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Well I am glad that your company/customers have the cash to buy laptops with good specs. However, the company I work for is very cheap -- and our laptops come with 512 mb ram standard, period.

I installed MS-Dos with 5.25 inch floppys at Walter Reade Institute of Research in 1982 -- that is my credentials for saying that I don't like Vista.

I haven't heard great things about Vista--and I'm leery about it. I'm probably going to run this PC into the ground (or until XP is so outdated that I'll need to upgrade) and then buy a Mac.

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Originally Posted by AkivaSmith

Well I am glad that your company/customers have the cash to buy laptops with good specs. However, the company I work for is very cheap -- and our laptops come with 512 mb ram standard, period.

I installed MS-Dos with 5.25 inch floppys at Walter Reade Institute of Research in 1982 -- that is my credentials for saying that I don't like Vista.

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I was not disputing what your place of employment chooses to purchase but rather clearing up the fact that it is not a global "standard" like it sounded like in your post. Also nearly all of my years in IT has been with schools and educational organizations so no its not like money is falling off the trees here.

-I'm not sure what your trying to tell me about your credentials, Vista is a long ways away from DOS :P But sounds like an cool experience from the "old school days" (no disrespect meant). After installing Vista one of the first things I found myself doing was looking for the command prompt! :rofl:

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Originally Posted by TekWarren

IVista is a long ways away from DOS :P But sounds like an cool experience from the "old school days" (no disrespect meant). After installing Vista one of the first things I found myself doing was looking for the command prompt! :rofl:

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No offense taken! I have been installing new software, so much lately that I wonder why everyone needs to be on the bleeding edge. What do you really get from Vista any way. Except giving Microsoft more money...

It looks pretty! Seriously there are some big improvements/changes but I think the best experience to be had with vista at this point is on the most recent hardware as it is more demanding. I'm finally breaking down and will probably install it this weekend on my macbook pro, some things I do at work I still need windows for...that and gaming when I actually do game.

post back with what you think of it, really think your gonna regret putting it on such an awesome mac though.

I've used vista some before putting it on my mac tonight (as dual boot with OSX). I have yet to regret it. Installation didn't take long at all, most of the time was setting up boot camp and creating the partition.

I haven't installed anything besides firefox, and hardware drivers. I have yet to see my memory usage hit 512mb even with firefox open and a few other various windows and menus open. At this very moment its sitting at a cool 506mb of memory in use and I'm showing that firefox is a little over 30mb of that. This is with both firefox and task manager open, so if firefox was closed I would be using a mere 466mb of ram. That is far from "memory hog" range if you ask me. I also have all the default eye candy turned ON, if I changed over to the "classic mode" theme I would bet I could shave off another large chunk of used memory. I like to disable my virtual memory or pagefile on machines with 2gig of ram. There is a slight performance increase forcing the system to use RAM only as well as keeping the hard drive from getting fragmented as much or as often. The only other "optimizations" I have done is turned off the indexing service and run a defrag. These two things are a given for any machine I touch, the more maintenance you do the better the system will perform. Even after a fresh "clean" install these things need to be done.

There are several other little things I can think of off the top of my head to free up even more system resources but the above should give most people the general idea of how much ram is used "out of the box".

Vista reports that my Windows Experience Index score is 4.7 based on the lowest score:

Processor Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU T7600 @ 2.33GHz Score: 5.2

Memory (RAM) 1.98(2GB actual) GB Score: 4.7

Graphics ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 (Microsoft Corporation - WDDM) Score: 4.9

Gaming graphics 1016 MB (256mb actual / 256mb shared system ram) Total available graphics memory Score: 4.9

Primary hard disk 31GB Free (41GB Total on this partition) Score: 5.0

I'm going to do the other "tweaks" I mentioned and if they make a significant difference I will post with the results as well as a list of what I did.

This mornings memory usage report (LOL):

Ok here is a list of things I did that disabled or changed in favor of recovering overall system resources:

Services disabled:
-windows search
-windows defender
-automatic updates
-firewall
-remote assistance

System changes:
-Theme set to classic mode/Adjust for best performance
-user account control set to off
-installed all current windows vista updates
-ran disk clean up and defrag again

At this moment system memory used is at 489mb with both firefox and task manager open. Firefox is showing that it is currently using just over 49mb. If firefox was closed the system would be sitting at about 440mb used at idle. Task manager in both cases uses only about 1-2mb so you can subtract that also as it wouldn't normally be constantly running visibly.

This is decent difference from the "out of the box" memory usage readings. When your looking at general system resources used every little bit helps. These are just a few things I changed off the top of my head there are more things I chose not to mess with and not being a vista expert yet I'm sure there even more things I don't even know about.

This is just one of the ways Vista can be evaluated and in my opinion at idle "out of the box" resources used is no "worse" than windows XP. Yes I do have a fairly new system with some pretty beefy hardware in it but this was one of my comments earlier. This is a newer more robust OS and in most cases users will not get the most enjoyable experience out of it if using it on older hardware. However I see no reason why it could not still run on less than current systems. I think someone mentioned 512mb of memory being the requirements or maybe I read that somewhere. This yes I would say is a load of crap I would personally suggest no less than 1gb of ram -although this has always been my recommendation with windows XP systems also. To beat memory headaches (and when money allows) 1.5-2gb of memory is just about perfect if you want to keep performance at its peak. Performing regular maintenance tasks such as those that I mentioned before also will really keep your system running smooth.

"Thanks for watching another episode of TekWarren's Technology Review! Tune in next week when Heath tries to get a life!"

:rofl: :P

I would wait till it has been out for one to two years then all the bugs will be fixed.
I bought a new computer from Dell with vista sad to say multiple crashes and anytime U used any program that utilized the video card the driver for the video card stopped responding. Which resulted in screen going black. then coming back when it recovered.
After multiple uninstalls of the driver and re-downloading and installing the most up to date driver I still had the problem
After 5+ hours with tech support still wasnt working, random crashes of windows of the computer just locking up.
No was I returned the computer and forked out $400 more for the xps700 gaming system because it had XP on it.

wait from what I have heard they are supposed to have a big update in October.

Of course I could just be lucky and have a anti-technology virus that makes anything that can go wrong go wrong.
I think technology is allergic to me.

Forgot to say its very sytem resourse intesive so I would make sure you have at least 2gb of ram memory

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 :)