I came across this random article about windows vista and though it was pretty good

It gives a good "non tech" overview of the enhancements and comparisons with XP (for those non-belivers like anonymouse)

If anyone has a spare few mins its worth a read... also has some solutions and explanations to common vista annoyances.. the folder one was one of mine.. now sorted

Link

I've had vista with SP1 for about 24hrs. Not had any problems, other that not liking Nero 6. All my usb gubbins have worked fine, worked with all programs except nero 6 (even worked with my 2003 Cool Edit!!). All in all, I haven't found it too bad.

(for those non-belivers like anonymouse)

:orb_sleep

I quite like Vista, have had Ultimate for nearly a year on a home built desktop and have recently got a laptop with home premium. Haven't had any problems which I haven't found a solution for, though I still have 2 desktops running XP. I have even got iphoto plus 4 from 1999 to work with it.

i had to reinstall (as per other thread) vista as it picked up a problem that wouldnt allow me to delete anything. prefer xp personally to it.

I only had issues with Vista when it was new, as I couldnt get drivers for half my stuff, so I reinstalled XP. A few months later, I reinstalled Vista, all the drivers worked, and it's been faultless ever since. On SP1 now too, with no issues.

Cant see all the fuss about slating it to be honest. I'm not a geek though :confused:

I like it overall, some useful and worthwhile additions IMO. I'm still plagued by USB issues with my Shuttle though. Can't decide whether it's Shuttle's fault, or Microsoft's

I'm running a wired LAN at present, because all the USB wireless devices kept dropping connections. And accessing USB HDDs etc is often quite hit and miss. Just haven't had chance to properly investigate it

Steve

I'm running mine on a desktop. It's not had issues with a wireless PCI card, nor with my Seagate external HD. Also connected to the xbox through wired lan socket no probs. Have you installed SP1?

Yup. Home Premium SP1 was installed out of the box...

Have to say that Vista seems slower than XP for most tasks, e.g. opening applications, copying files, etc. even though my laptop (Vista Home Premium SP1) has twice the ram and a much faster Intel processor.

It doesn't feel as big a step forward over XP as XP was over Win 98/ME.

The article is useful, though a little wordy.

I was sceptical of Vista, bought 2 laptops and opted for XP over Vista despite the advice of dell not to, and was recently given a new PC at work with the full version of Windows Vista on it. I really, really like the new interface, haven't had any problems with application compatibility or stability, and am actually beginning to regret "downgrading" to XP on the laptops I purchased a few months back.

I have Vista Business for my laptop. But I run XP. Vista with 2Gb was just as quick as XP but a bit of pain to use. I found the security 'features' very annoying and the OS made the fan run constantly on the laptop and ran the battery down far quicker than XP.

The killer really is that Vista doesn't offer all that much over XP for the cash.

It doesn't feel as big a step forward over XP as XP was over Win 98/ME.

The article is useful, though a little wordy.

XP was just NT 5.1 which offered very little and a very big speed decrease and massive resource requirement increase over NT5 (Windows 2000).

Vista is more of the same, and to be fair I'd rather have windows 2000 or Vista over XP.

i hate Vista. The interface is full of meaningless toys. The security features do nothing for security, and it needs at least 2G of RAM, where XP flies with 1GB. My boss upgraded his work PC to vista, only to go back the other way 3 months later. I just don't see any worthwhile improvements, and lots of disadvantages.

XP was just NT 5.1 which offered very little and a very big speed decrease and massive resource requirement increase over NT5 (Windows 2000).

Vista is more of the same, and to be fair I'd rather have windows 2000 or Vista over XP.

I don't think XP was a massive resource hog over 2k, but you do have a point. 2K (workstation & server) was a real step up from NT4/9x/ME, XP and server 2k3 less so, vista pointless.

2k would run more than happy on a 64 MB Pentium Pro 200Mhz. With 96MB I could run as many office and other apps as I wanted with no obvious effect/

XP wouldn't run properly on that as it needed a minimum 256MB and realistically 512MB RAM and more processing power. I can remember 1Ghz machines being what was considered a sensible minimum for XP to be all happy.

True, now you mention it. In my last job we were Win2k early adopters- we went to MS seminars- and we had P90 PCs with 128M that were useable (just) with Win2k.

i have windows vista basic, is it worth upgrading to the next one up? the machine has more than enough power or is the next one up just toys and gimics?

i hate Vista. The interface is full of meaningless toys. The security features do nothing for security, and it needs at least 2G of RAM, where XP flies with 1GB. My boss upgraded his work PC to vista, only to go back the other way 3 months later. I just don't see any worthwhile improvements, and lots of disadvantages.

but RAM is cheap, modern CPUs have spare cycles out their *** and even a half decent "cheap" gfx card will be sat twiddling it's thumbs during general windows tasks/apps - why not take advantage of all that good ****?

but RAM is cheap, modern CPUs have spare cycles out their *** and even a half decent "cheap" gfx card will be sat twiddling it's thumbs during general windows tasks/apps - why not take advantage of all that good ****?

Thing is if you are trying to build a low noise, low heat and most importantly low energy PC, that hardware might have some spare during idle, but when it's doing something the OS shouldn't be eating up large numbers of cycles.

A context switch is very very expensive to do.

My laptop came with Vista Home Premium.

I might have to read that guide as the media centre seems to be troublesome sometimes.

Apart from that I have had no major issue with Vista yet.

Thing is if you are trying to build a low noise, low heat and most importantly low energy PC, that hardware might have some spare during idle, but when it's doing something the OS shouldn't be eating up large numbers of cycles.

A context switch is very very expensive to do.

very true, but you'd choose both the OS and the components according to your requirements

That you would

your not going to have a choice in the not to distant future anyway as things will require vista and not work without it, vista by design is a far more stable platform than xp ever could be and made the world of difference to our less than reliable desktop PC we used to have as when things crashed the system didn't fall over we simply got a message saying that a certain piece of hardware had crashed but not to worry as windows had just restarted the device.

my old laptop is a 1Gb pentiumM 1.5 which came with XP and suffered no speed decrease what so ever when i installed vista on it but i ended up sticking 2Gb into it anyway and my current laptop (core2duo 2GHz with 2Gb ram) ran sweetly on the vista it came with but being the techno slut i am it now has 4Gb in it not that its made mch difference

Brother runs a laptop with a P4 3.0 and 1Gb of ram on vista with no worries what so ever.

If the pretty bits of Vista upset then you can always turn them off

why not take advantage of all that good ****?

Because I'm a tightfisted git with an old PC, and the toys annoy me?

your not going to have a choice in the not to distant future anyway as things will require vista and not work without it

Eventually, but proably not for a while. I'm not a gadget freak or gamer, so I have no need for the bleeding edge.

vista by design is a far more stable platform than xp ever could be and made the world of difference to our less than reliable desktop PC

My experience with new, out-of-the-box business PCs is the opposite. Perhaps you had buggy XP drivers? For the record, I'm no great fan of XP either, but it at least works most of the time. If you're happy with Vista, and it works for you, then that's good.

my old laptop is a 1Gb pentiumM 1.5 which came with XP and suffered no speed decrease what so ever when i installed vista on it but i ended up sticking 2Gb into it anyway and my current laptop (core2duo 2GHz with 2Gb ram) ran sweetly on the vista it came with but being the techno slut i am it now has 4Gb in it not that its made mch difference

Brother runs a laptop with a P4 3.0 and 1Gb of ram on vista with no worries what so ever.

My home PCs are less powerful than that

If the pretty bits of Vista upset then you can always turn them off

Indeed. But when I did that with a Thinkpad x60s at work (a not overly powerful, but very nice, portable notebook), it still performed noticeably slower than an identical model with XP.

I shall probably shift more to Linux as XP support diminishes- as you say, it will, one day, but not for a long time.

Edited 2 September, 200817 yr by cjb

XP support officially finishes quite soon actually i think, it mentions it in the article linked i believe.