Do you recomend Win Vista?yes,no. Why?

[SkepticLance]

I am very far from being a computer whiz kid. In fact, my old PC still runs windows 98. However, I now need to buy a new box. I have been asking around about vista.

 

Two gurus have told me that it has problems, and to go to XP Pro in the mean time. One problem not mentioned on this thread is that it is loaded to the gunwales with anti-piracy software. In fact, that is one of the reasons so much RAM is needed.

 

Microsoft has knuckled under to Hollywood. They have packaged enormous amounts of software so that if you buy vista, your own computer restricts your activities. The intent is to stop people playing pirate DVD's.

 

Sadly, it also seems to stop people playing a lot of legitimate DVD's also. For example ; what if you want to play the DVD of your own wedding, produced on a Sony Handicam, and copied to DVD? Just will not work! Your own software will stop you playing it on your own computer.

[Dave]

there are programs that don't work with Macs, though. Or is that not much of a problem anymore? Also, if you're used to a windows interface, than mac can be a bit getting used to. I know how to manipulate settings in windows much more easily than I can in Macs.

 

PS- I'm considering getting a Mac laptop, especially if the alternative is Vista.

 

To be honest, it's not that much of an issue. I'm buying a Mac in the summer, and I intend to have a moderately small XP partition for a few games, but everything else will be done under OS X. There's an excellent bundle of applications, plus my other main stuff (Photoshop, photo editing stuff etc) all runs under OS X natively.

 

I'm hoping that WINE (or Crossover Office) will progress enough in the next few months to run Windows apps without needing XP to be installed at all. But that may be asking too much for the time being

[Pangloss]

The Core 2 Duo Macs are pretty viable options these days, especially with Boot Camp (able to boot either OS X or Windows). I have an iBook G4 and even without the Windows capability it's still pretty useful. I picked it up cheap to replace an old laptop that my wife uses to do spreadsheet work, and we toss it around the entertainment room for internet access without having to get up and walk back to the computer room. It runs Excel, connects to my wireless access point, backs up to my NAS, and even lets me do a remote desktop to my Windows machines.

 

For non-computer-savvy types, I think it's a better option than Linux, if only for the durable, attractive hardware and overly simple interface. In fact in some ways it's a better option than Windows. Apple does "simple" really well.

 

But it's also a fun box to play with for computer-savvy types, and people who just like playing with operating systems. (Remember when that was cool?)

[Corillian]

Personally, i think it is too early to tell. Wait 6 months, and im sure we will know for sure. You can get all its features in xp, using some tricks and freeware. You can always dual boot with linux

[the tree]

I will continue to use Windows XP and Linux. Until I can figure out how to setup wifi in linux, I use Windows XP. But given the time and ability, I would readily stay with Linux.

What troubles are you having setting up your wifi?

 

Apple does "simple" really well.

This is true, it drives me mad.

[1veedo]

Or is that not much of a problem anymore?

It's not. The problem nowadays is running Linux programs on Windows. Application such as bluefish, gift, and amarok still havn't even begun to plan a port to Windows and I couldn't imagine going without any of them.

 

Note that all of these should run on Mac because Macs are awesome.

I know how to manipulate settings in windows much more easily than I can in Macs.

Well getting more to the point, there are hardly any settings in Windows to modify in the first place! Linux is difficult because it offers more customizability then Windows.

[weknowthewor]

it increases the speed, more no. of features, greater shortcuts, great compatibility, etc...

[ecoli]

Note that all of these should run on Mac because Macs are awesome.Well getting more to the point, there are hardly any settings in Windows to modify in the first place! Linux is difficult because it offers more customizability then Windows.

 

I was thinking more in terms of troubleshooting, I basically know where things are.

[Genecks]

I setup Vista on a computer a couple of weeks ago. I told the person, "I'll set it up, but there's not much I can do beyond that."

 

I set it up, but then I tried setting up a wireless network between Windows Millenium and Vista. I was trying to setup the printer from a different computer. I couldn't do it by myself, so I tried doing it with another person. We both couldn't do it in the end. I couldn't find anything about it on the Internet. I don't know what went wrong.

 

On a side note: I have never bought a Mac. I will never buy a Mac. I hope to God to never use a Mac for more than a couple of hours once a month.

 

I hate Macs. I don't like their file system. I'm accustomed to the Winfile.exe type setup. I'm from the days of DOS and Windows 3.1. I've never like Macintosh computers.

 

I'm not saying it would be a bad idea to learn how to use a Mac, but I would not use it. I'm already annoyed by how Linux and Mac share a filedirectory system that looks the same.

 

CD and DIR/P/W are all I really need

[Pangloss]

Pretty much anything you do with Millenium is a disaster. It's notoriously buggy about any kind of LAN file or printer sharing. Sorry you ran aground with it.

 

I'm starting to like Vista more and more. I've been using it on one box since release, but a couple more months and I may be at the point of converting the rest of my computers. It's really just a question of compatibiltiy in certain older programs at this point. I'm still recommending that people who aren't total power users wait until at least summer, but the full year I was recommending earlier is looking unnecessary at this point.

[Adrian]

Vista is a next-gen OS. It no longer runs on the GDI of Win95, but now uses hardware for its UI. OSX is the same way. Of course people will bitch about Vista...people bitched about XP when it first came out. Like pangloss said, use whatever fits your needs, but as a programmer, there are a lot of new features in Vista that I love.

[Dak]

vista's the first new windows OS in x years, so its obviously going to have a lot of new code (the kernel is new, for example) but that doesn't make the OS next-gen, it just makes it... well, next-windows-OS.

[Pangloss]

Word to the wise: There will be no fanboy nonsense in this thread. Serious criticism only. Posts have been removed and infractions issued. This is not Slashdot, kiddies.

[Phi for All]

BUMP!

 

 

My new company told me to get a good laptop and I noticed you can't get cash 'n carry from the traditional outlets like BestBuy or CircuitCity *without* getting Vista as the OS. My company asked me NOT to get a computer with Vista as they'd all had bad experiences. What's the latest word amongst the members here?

[doG]

Hold out until Service Pack 5 or 6 is available before moving to Vista...

[insane_alien]

still bum fluff. a couple of my friends asked me to hook them up with ubuntu because they were having so many issues.

 

its fine if all you want to do is browse the web while eating up an oodle of resources. nobody seems to be having problems with that.

[Pangloss]

BUMP!

 

My new company told me to get a good laptop and I noticed you can't get cash 'n carry from the traditional outlets like BestBuy or CircuitCity *without* getting Vista as the OS. My company asked me NOT to get a computer with Vista as they'd all had bad experiences. What's the latest word amongst the members here?

 

As IA points out above, if you're just browsing/typing, it's fine. The problems mostly revolve around driver issues and specific software. There are also issues revolving around group policies, which are very common in corporate network environments today. My school's group policy conflicted with Vista in such a way that Visual Studio 2005 wouldn't work even after the Vista patch was applied. But everyone got Vista, so for months we've had to run Visual Studio in a VirtualPC window. Yuck. (Fortunately Visual Studio 2008 is out now, which should resolve this, though I haven't tried it yet.)

 

Companies are reworking their group policy configurations, but it takes time, and as a user it can be difficult to determine what your company is doing in that area, and they're not likely to tell you for security reasons, so you end up having to either risk it or avoid Vista until they give the all-clear.

[MrMongoose]

How can anyone other than someone with far too much money and the desire to do nothing but hop from blog to blog justify using so much RAM just on an OS?!

[Pangloss]

Why not? RAM is cheap.

 

Vista does not use a full gig of RAM, btw. I'm running it right now and it's hovering around 620. Usually it's in the 500s. Is that a lot for an OS running little more than Internet Explorer? Sure it is. Personally I could care less. You wanna run a command prompt, more power to you, but I want my operating system to do MORE, not less. Managed code is one of the great enablers of the 21st century. More bloat, please!

 

My objection is to the fact that it breaks so often. Only reason I'm even running it on this particular computer is that I don't do much on it. Vista on my laptop was a total bust, and I won't load Vista on another PC until I convert over fully to Visual Studio 2008 AND determine that it has no Vista issues. Not before.

[Glider]

I had to buy a new laptop 6 weeks ago. My desktop was definitely past it, and as I'm living in a flat now, I have no office, so a good laptop was a better choice for me than a desktop. The laptop came with vista home premium installed, and so far, I have had no probelms with it. I've had to upgrade a few of my applications, but having done so, the system works very well.

 

I had heard a lot of bad things about vista but I didn't think it was worth re-formatting the drive and loading XP, as (I supposed) vista is the way things are going anyway, so I just went with it.

 

This system has a core 2 Duo at 2.2GHz, 4Gb Ram and a 160Gb HDD (7200rpm). On this system, vista seems very stable (so far) and smooth. It copes well with applications like SPSS (that are graphically more basic and less worried about appearance). When I start SPSS, vista automatically switches to basic graphics mode, and back to aero when I close the application. Everything I ran before, runs now, just as well.

 

One issue about upgrading RAM. 32 bit OSs can only address 4Gb of memory max (2 to the power of 32 is 4Bn). So given that it has to address all memory, including chache etc. a 32 bit OS will only recognize about 3.58Gb (on my system). The BIOS recognizes all RAM, but the OS is limited. 64 bit OSs don't have this issue as 2 to the power of 64 is way beyond what you could possibly install these days, but well cooked drivers for 64 bit OSs are still hard to come by.

 

Anyway, I use this system every day and in my experience, vista seems ok. I may not be a power user, or extreme gamer, but I rely on this system for my work and reliability is important. I use office apps, and some powerful graphics apps along with statistical spreadsheets with some quite huge data sets. I often have many of these apps open and running at the same time and there hasn't been a single hiccup in the 6 weeks I've had the system.

 

Having said that, I can't really tell the difference between vista and XP apart from vista is purty and has a new start-up chord. I have been told that the first service pack (out in Jan), should speed things up a bit. Not that it's particularly slow, but boot up times seem the same as with XP.

 

In short, I do what I need and want to do and I don't even notice vista. I suppose that's what it's about. I don't really want to notice the OS, it's only a platform from which I launch the things I need to use. It might be resource greedy, but as has been said, it's also flexible and will adapt to demand.

[Phi for All]

I appreciate the input. I ordered my laptop and I should get it early next week. It will have XP Pro loaded.

 

I'll wait for a few SPs to come out before investing in Vista. I'll also have a blast running XP on a machine capable of running Vista. Dual core, 7200RPM *and* 2G of RAM?! Wheeeeeee!

[Reaper]

Well if that's expensive to you then I guess I can empathize.

 

How does Vista "do less for more resources"? Aside from the current technical issues, I mean.

 

One example: it uses up substantially more space on your video card for the sake of graphics and aesthetics. You also need a high end video card to even run Vista. On the other hand, one can order Object Desktop (which I have), which gives the UI and the OS itself MORE features than vista comes with, and it doesn't take up nearly as much memory on your hard drive AND your video card.

 

Example 2: I have a friend who has vista on his laptop, and from the looks of it, Vista also eats up battery power rather quickly (my laptop can last on batteries more than twice as long as his can, while at the same time my laptop is much older and his battery can store more power).

[mooeypoo]

i don't have Vista myself, but my roomate does. As a very 'simple' user (she's not a programmer or net-kiddie.. she needs internet, music, movies and office for school work) she didn't have too many problems. She did notice, however, that sometimes the "automatic functions" are annoying.. it's a bit "too" automatic (even for her!) .. we had a problem with th WIFI connection and it took me about an hour to try and convince Vista to stop 'discovering the settings itself' (it was WRONG) but rather accept *my* settings.

 

So.. uhm.. though it's not QUITE first hand experience, it's another point.

 

It's also quite heavy.. the requirements of 1GB memory is something I find bizzar and quite worrying from an OS..

 

~moo

[SkepticLance]

When I bought my new computer, I had a real problem getting the old operating system. Vista comes pre-loaded with all sorts of anti-piracy software, which stops you playing DVD's that have been copied.

 

This sounds all very well. However, there are a heap of videos out there that do not have the Hollywood marker software. In my case, my hobby is making underwater videos. If I had Vista, I would not be able to play my own DVD's on my own computer. AAAArrrghhh!

[mooeypoo]

If I had Vista, I would not be able to play my own DVD's on my own computer. AAAArrrghhh!

 

 

In an ironic way, that's actually quite funny.... do Microsoft people know about this problem?