How's Windows Vista been treating you?

[Jamie123]

Today, I finally got my free Upgrade Disc to Install Vista on my Notebook. When I ordered the free upgrade I didn't have the intention to actually install it but I haven't heard any real horror stories about it so far (apart from a few bugs) so I wonder, should I install it?
Anyone here that's been using it for a while and is happy/unhappy with it?

ps: Does anyone happen to know if Silverfast HDR 6.4 works on Vista?

[Mafufo Acilu]

been using Vista for a while now .... horror stories ? I am a professional developer, I work with the most up to date technologies .... no horror stories from this neck of the woods.
I can check how long exactly but it has been running 24 hrs a day, 7 days a week from February onwards, only restarting when a program which I installed requires it.

Personally I think windows Vista is a top product. Although I am a Mac fan.

Some reviewers and anti-Microsoft people will always complain, and if you look you will find, it's a bit slower than XP on comparible configurations I imagine, but this for the graphical interface which you can turn off, security wise it's well done, bug-wise, havent discovered any yet.

I use it for testing purposes not for the actual development. It's a no problem operating system, bulky heavy but easy, very much like Mac OSX.

[Socke]

I've heard enough horror storries, especialy when drivers for old hardware, say bought last year, are needed. If your notebook works with XP, why change it? I intend to buy Vista preinstalled when my old notebook needs to be replaced.

[Jamie123]

Originally Posted by Socke

I've heard enough horror storries, especialy when drivers for old hardware, say bought last year, are needed. If your notebook works with XP, why change it?

I think the hardware in my notebook is vista compatible and I will not be using it with any scanners, printers or any other external hardware so I'm not too worried about that.
Why change if it's not broken? Well, first of all out of mere curiosity. Since I have it I might aswell try it out. Second, my notebook makes an awfull high pitch noise when it's not "busy" so I thought Vista might help since it uses more system resources.

I'm really just using my notebook for school stuff and photo editing. On my desktop which I use 90% of the time I have XP and will stick with it (since the pc is rather old).

[vladhed]

My wife's new laptop came with Vista home premium. It's got some nice eye-candy which my wife insists on having turned on and that uses memory. But otherwise the laptop had four times as much memory as the XP laptop it replaced so it still appears to be faster to her.

I like the backup system - easy to configure and runs automatically

I like being able to add or resize disk partitions without having to reinstall anything - or buy partitionMagic

It can be "stripped down" to look like good old windows 95 with all the bells and whistles turned off - When I log in that's what it looks like.

The "ReadyBoost" really seems to work - put a 1GB SD card in the card slot and Vista will keeps common DLLs and other system files on it so the system will load a lot faster than if it had to load from disk.

Downside it does seem less stable that the XP laptop it replaced - from time to time peripherals such as the modem or the USB ports just stop working after coming out of hibernation and the system has to be rebooted.

The photo capabilities seem a lot better integrated - but that probably won't be important to any RFF'er who already has their workflow worked out.

[wintoid]

I've a friend who can't get Rawshooter to work under Vista, and being a discontinued product, there's no hope for a new version. He's the only person I know who's tried Vista.

[gregg]

My horror story is that I am currently (as I type!) reinstalling Windows XP after a pretty bad experience with Vista. Like you I bought a computer that came with XP and the promise of a free update.

I scoured the update docs to make sure everything was compatible. OK (so I thought...)

Vista drivers were available for my 2 printers and 2 scanners. I needed a beta driver for my video card. A few things that didn't work at all were deal breakers for going back to XP - BlueTooth portal, Video import (Canon ZR65MC) and some storage devices. No drivers and none planned by the manufacturers.

The user interface of Vista is cool - but the performance isn't better. My recommendation after having spent a day installing Vista and now 1/2 day installing XP is to be sure EVERYTHING is really compatible. Maybe try it out on a friend's machine first.

There is no "revert" process with Vista - you need to wipe the drive clean and reinstall XP and all your applications/drivers fresh if you need to go back.

My next computer will be a Mac...

[doitashimash1te]

Originally Posted by gregg

My next computer will be a Mac...

I recommend OS X to all you Windows users. Once you get the hang of that O.S., no doubt you will start wondering what took you so long! OS X just.. works!

[colyn]

Originally Posted by Mafufo Acilu

I use it for testing purposes not for the actual development. It's a no problem operating system, bulky heavy but easy, very much like Mac OSX.

In what way is it like OSX??

I am a Mac user and do find it easy to use but it is in no way bulky..

[doitashimash1te]

Originally Posted by colyn

In what way is it like OSX??

I am a Mac user and do find it easy to use but it is in no way bulky..

As I understand it, only the "being easy" part refers to Mac OSX.

[colyn]

Originally Posted by doitashimash1te

As I understand it, only the "being easy" part refers to Mac OSX.

Mac is a lot easier to master than many believe.

One of the things I like about it is it does not use as much system resources as Windows does..

[doitashimash1te]

Originally Posted by colyn

Mac is a lot easier to master than many believe.

One of the things I like about it is it does not use as much system resources as Windows does..

That's for sure: I have several "prehistorical" slot loading iMacs here, 8 years old, with G3 processor, and they run OSX Tiger easily! Even the older (tray loading) 1998 iMacs run OSX if you want.

Now try to install Vista on a 8 year old PC! Good luck with that one...

I bought my 20" 2GHz Intel iMac in January last year, and I'm sure I will be able to use that machine for years to come, without having to worry if I could upgrade to newer O.S. versions or not.

[stefankr]

I will probably get vista when I get a new pc in a few years. The service packs will be out then, and stability and hardware compatibility should not be an issue anymore. I just bought a new pc in September, with XP, and everything runs smoothly, I'm really happy with my system. It certainly is capably of running vista, but I can wait. I need a stable system that allows me to run all my favorite software/hardware and games, and which does not give me a lot of hassle. Maybe my next computer will be a mac as well, who knows

[colyn]

Originally Posted by doitashimash1te

That's for sure: I have several "prehistorical" slot loading iMacs here, 8 years old, with G3 processor, and they run OSX Tiger easily! Even the older (tray loading) 1998 iMacs run OSX if you want.

Now try to install Vista on a 8 year old PC! Good luck with that one...

I bought my 20" 2GHz Intel iMac in January last year, and I'm sure I will be able to use that machine for years to come, without having to worry if I could upgrade to newer O.S. versions or not.

That's one of the problems with Windows PC's they are obsolete 2 months after hitting the market.

My iMac and Mac Book Pro will easily upgrade to Leopard without having to change out any hardware..

[john_nyc]

I've been running each release of Vista since the first beta.
All the while it's never screwed up my XP partition (just a few bruised MBR's along the way). I still run XP as my daily OS, though.

Currently I'm running the retail release of Ultimate 32bit.

All of my hardware works, but not all of my drivers are actual Vista drivers.

For example:

Nikon Coolscan 5000: XP driver with Compat. set to XP SP2
Epson R2400: Vista driver, but with XP firewire port drivers (because Epson didn't include them in the Vista package and I like the printer on my FW port)
Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Platinum: XP driver w/ XP SP2 compat (the Vista driver doesn't support Dolby decoding or DirectSound surround)

Otherwise all my drivers are Vista ones and are fully functional (including Colorvision Spyder2Pro). Cisco VPN works and so does all of the other software that I've tried (DIVX is kinda funky still).

I'd advise anyone thinking about 64 bit to stay away from it, though.
In my experience, even drivers that are specifically written for Vista 64 don't necessarily work. The XP driver trick is kind of touchy, too. 64 bit has a "driver certification" requirement. You have to disable this in the boot config, but it doesn't always seem to "stick". It was nice seeing all 4G of system memory, but with half of my devices disabled, it didn't seem worth it, especially since none of my regular apps are available in 64 bit.

What I'm really waiting for is MS to release the DX10 update for Flight Sim X. Then maybe I'll start running it as my normal OS.

Is anyone here actually using Vista regularly for digital darkroom work?

[Hibbs]

Interesting article here:

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39087

Apparently Dell is now offering WinXP again in many of their machines. Others to follow soon?

~hibbs

[350D_user]

Originally Posted by ErikFive

What is Windows Vista?

It's something we've been instructed not to use at work.

[Nando]

I teach business computer courses and computer science course at the high-school level and I tend to be the person that all the students and staff members come to when they're having trouble with their computers. I've come across so many cases of students and staff running into trouble with incompatible drivers since Vista's release. That's basically it though. Unless its something critical, then they just have to wait for the hardware companies to make the drivers available or revert back to XP. Very few problems with backwards compatibility with older software. The only person I've encountered that really had to no choice but to go back to XP was a student who constructed an XP-based HTPC to act as a personal video recorder. He had 2 identical PVR cards installed so he could watch TV while recording a show at the same time onto the hard drive. Either Vista or the Vista drivers just would play nice and he could not get both PVR cards to work at the same time. I couldn't figure it out either. So he reverted back to XP.

From my observations, the deal-breaker for Vista for most people is not the lack of support, its the price. The price for this operating system is absolutely ridiculous. $300+USD fo the Ultimate Edition?. No wonder piracy is so rampant. MacOS X costs $99 CDN at most retailers in my area and Linux, of course, is free. Also, MacOS X and Linux do not demand such high hardware specifications. I just installed MacOS X on a Mac Cube for a friend last week. The computer is probably around 10 years old but it runs like a top with MacOS X. Linux will run on basically anything.

Most of my students like the new eye-candy in the UI and want Vista for that very reason. Few realize how slow their computers will get with all the bells-and-whistles turned on, especially if they have older hardware.

When it comes to the UI eye-candy, Vista is way behind the MacOS and Linux. I run dual-boot WindowsXP/Ubuntu Linux (7.04 Feisty Fawn) on my desktop, which is a relatively fast system. I run Ubuntu Linux on my 3 year-old laptop that was designed as stripped-down, ultra-light. With XGL/Compiz on my laptop, I can really razzle-dazzle my students with the UI eye-candy even with basic IBM on-board 3D graphics. The slow-down with the eye-candy turned on is noticeable on my laptop but just barely since the video card handles most it. Linux with XGL/Compiz turned on actually runs faster than WindowsXP on the laptop. Does the XGL eye-candy on my laptop look cooler than Vista? My students definitely think so and a few of them have converted to Linux as a result. Whenever, I take out my laptop, I always get the inevitable request: "Mr. Semedo, please show us the cube again." I can't even run Vista on my laptop, yet I have cooler eye-candy with Linux. I think that's awesome. I got XGL/Beryl set up on my desktop and with my NVidia 7800GT. Beryl requires a hotter ATI or NVidia card than Compiz but the results are spectacular. The eye-candy with Beryl is absolutely breathtaking and even more capable than Quartz on the Mac.

To tell you the truth, I only run WindowsXP for Photoshop CS2 and for gaming. I also need Internet Exploder and Active-X for accessing my email from work but that's not critical. If Photoshop ever became available for Linux (even if it wasn't free), I'd be such a happy camper. My next desktop system will more than likely be a Mac so I can be Micro$oft free for the most part. For gaming, my recently purchased PS3 (my first console system since the Sega Genesis) is keeping me more than satisfied. (I can also run Linux on the PS3 if I wanted to).

[Nando]

Here's some videos of the Linux eyecandy:

Windows Vista Aero vs Ubuntu Linux with XGL/Beryl eyecandy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xC5uEe5OzNQ

Here's a good example of what Beryl can do with a decent video card:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CML98OPN6_4

[Hibbs]

This is a bit shocking:

[BLOCKQUOTE]Microsoft spent millions of dollars advertising its next generation OS 'Windows Vista' in China, in fact the IT juggernaut threw up the biggest Vista Ad on the 421 meter high Jin Mao tower in Shanghai China. However after 2 weeks (Jan 19 to Feb 2) from launch Microsoft managed to sell a mere 244 copies of Windows Vista. Software piracy is rampant in the middle kingdom and a pirated version of Vista sells for a mere $1 on the streets. The following numbers are quoted by Windows Vista chief distributor in Bejing.[/BLOCKQUOTE]

More info here.

[Hibbs]

This is a bit shocking:

Microsoft spent millions of dollars advertising its next generation OS 'Windows Vista' in China, in fact the IT juggernaut threw up the biggest Vista Ad on the 421 meter high Jin Mao tower in Shanghai China.

However after 2 weeks (Jan 19 to Feb 2) from launch Microsoft managed to sell a mere 244 copies of Windows Vista. Software piracy is rampant in the middle kingdom and a pirated version of Vista sells for a mere $1 on the streets.

The following numbers are quoted by Windows Vista chief distributor in Bejing.

More info here.

[dostacos]

well my work was in the process of creating a system wide medical program [ charting, ordering ICD9 coding etc] and they were using windows 98

they relented and upped it to windows 2000 when they found out Microsoft was no longer supporting windows 98

as for me I am on a Mac so it is a non event for me

[Ronald M]

No drivers for scanners etc. Then the operating sustem takes up all the computing power just to get it to look like a Mac.

I will just get the Mac and distance myself from windos as far as I can.

[Sparrow]

I’m not intending to ever use Vista, I have three family PC at home all have some “issues” and take up too much of my time as it is, as they die I’ll replace them with Macs, life is too short.

[Mafufo Acilu]

Originally Posted by Ronald M

No drivers for scanners etc. Then the operating sustem takes up all the computing power just to get it to look like a Mac.

I will just get the Mac and distance myself from windos as far as I can.

If you want to run office on a mac and things like CS3 don't forget to get a "big" mac. Both office and CS3 are no speed wonders under OSX.