16 replies to this topic

[YounGMessiah]

So how many of yall own and have installed on your computer Windows Vista?
I do and must admit even though I read a lot of bad things more than good about Vista; I quite enjoy it and think its pretty awesome..

It does its job and far more than that, my experience has been good; havent had problems except the ones I cause lol..

My setup is Windows Vista Home Premium SP2 64bit with dedicated video card and AMD core(all the way!)..

[riven3d]

I have 4 computers in my house 3 of them have Vista on them. I dont have any problems on it except a couple programs that refuse to run on it. so i just use the XP computer for those.

[YounGMessiah]

I have 4 computers in my house 3 of them have Vista on them. I dont have any problems on it except a couple programs that refuse to run on it. so i just use the XP computer for those.

Did you change the compatibility mode for those programs by right clicking it and selecting properties?

And Michael why did you say no??

[riven3d]

not yet, its one of those programs you hardly ever use....

[Michael]

The only major experience I have with Vista is my wife's laptop, and just a little bit when it first came out at my previous job. From what I have seen with it, it is a horrible OS. It crashes much more often than XP ever did for her, or even 98. She can't print properly from it, despite assurances that our print driver is Vista compatible. It uses up resources like you wouldn't believe, even though she stays with the Classic layout.

All in all, given my experience with it, I would never use it. The University where I work won't use it either, we are all still on XP and will be skipping to Windows 7 when it comes out.

[Jekyll]

The University where I work won't use it either, we are all still on XP and will be skipping to Windows 7 when it comes out.

Are you using XP on your personal PC?


P.S. I am using XP SP3

[AndyF]

I won't vote as I have only ever been near Vista a couple of times so do not have enough experience of it to be able to vote fairly. I'll just post my thoughts, please don't read this post as Vista bashing, its not intended to be read like that.

I do like (sort of) Windows 7 RC though, I'm ( about 5 years now ) due new hardware so may treat myself to new Mainboard and CPU and buy 7 (after its been out as "Final" for a couple of months)

The only things I can say about Vista is its a bit of a mixed bag of opinions, some people seem to get on great with it and some hate it. I seem to remember (although this is not a fair comparison) something similar happened when ME came out to replace 98...

From what I read, it can be quite resource intensive (Win 7 is a bit less so, even more if you disable excess indexing etc) , although I do seem to remember when it was announced (as Longhorn) it was re-written again (things such as the new WinFS filesystem were dropped etc), and you`ll note if you have Vista Business or Ultimate, there is an option to "downgrade" to XP...

XP Pro SP3 here btw

[Michael]

Are you using XP on your personal PC?


P.S. I am using XP SP3

Yes.

[YounGMessiah]

The only major experience I have with Vista is my wife's laptop, and just a little bit when it first came out at my previous job. From what I have seen with it, it is a horrible OS. It crashes much more often than XP ever did for her, or even 98. She can't print properly from it, despite assurances that our print driver is Vista compatible. It uses up resources like you wouldn't believe, even though she stays with the Classic layout.

All in all, given my experience with it, I would never use it. The University where I work won't use it either, we are all still on XP and will be skipping to Windows 7 when it comes out.

Hmm yall most be doing something weird to make it crash because I do a lot with mine like tinkering, tweaking, changing, and running it to the max and have yet got any crashes.. The printing I am not sure what is going on with that; used mine a couple times even with the wireless function, but most of the times I have the whole print service disabled on here.. Yeah it is a bit of a resource hog.. Michael if you do not mind posting what setup is your computer? Which Vista is it? How much ram do you have? CPU & Processor? Dedicated or intregated video card? What kind of video card?

I won't vote as I have only ever been near Vista a couple of times so do not have enough experience of it to be able to vote fairly. I'll just post my thoughts, please don't read this post as Vista bashing, its not intended to be read like that.

I do like (sort of) Windows 7 RC though, I'm ( about 5 years now ) due new hardware so may treat myself to new Mainboard and CPU and buy 7 (after its been out as "Final" for a couple of months)

The only things I can say about Vista is its a bit of a mixed bag of opinions, some people seem to get on great with it and some hate it. I seem to remember (although this is not a fair comparison) something similar happened when ME came out to replace 98...

From what I read, it can be quite resource intensive (Win 7 is a bit less so, even more if you disable excess indexing etc) , although I do seem to remember when it was announced (as Longhorn) it was re-written again (things such as the new WinFS filesystem were dropped etc), and you`ll note if you have Vista Business or Ultimate, there is an option to "downgrade" to XP...

XP Pro SP3 here btw

Well since you said your a bit behind on hardware it is a good idea to wait till 7 then; you should have a decent or great experience. I have tried 7 and its a lot better than Vista.

We all know its "Windows" and its always gonna have something wrong or something we do not like, but for the purposes for what I use it for which can be high demands it works very well and better than when I had XP..

[Michael]

Evidently then you have to do a lot of tinkering with it to make it work right, since this computer and the Vista computers I worked with at my previous job were crap starting with fresh installs. I'm not interested in trying to figure out the reasons why her computer isn't working right, I know, it's Vista. I'm glad it works well for you, it has never worked well for me or anyone I've ever talked to professionally about it. XP has always been fine for me, Vista never has, end of story.

[YounGMessiah]

Evidently then you have to do a lot of tinkering with it to make it work right, since this computer and the Vista computers I worked with at my previous job were crap starting with fresh installs. I'm not interested in trying to figure out the reasons why her computer isn't working right, I know, it's Vista. I'm glad it works well for you, it has never worked well for me or anyone I've ever talked to professionally about it. XP has always been fine for me, Vista never has, end of story.

No I did not do tinkering to make it work right.. What I meant above was I changed a lot that is normally not recommended to change; it was done just so I can be happy since there are certain features that I do not need.. Examples like indexing, search function, networking, visibility, etc...

But fair enough its not for everyone and I respect that; hopefully 7 can be a better experience if you ever do try it.

[Luke]

I think it personally took me a while to get used to it, but I find I enjoy it better than my old XP rig. Granted my machine now is much better then the one I had running XP, but with vista, it makes a good rig look like an average one just after being installed x.x I find it ironic that after downloading the RC of windows 7 ultimate (one of my CIS profs bugged be to since the MSAA offered it through ELMS)and installing it, the system rand easily twice as good. Just like Microsoft to fix the issue after its already been shipped

[KeithK]

Like Luke, my vista came with quite a hardware upgrade for me. I bought a dell xps420 off of ebay for $400 that came with vista home. I was delighted at first to find out it was an early release and my license number worked on xp also. I set up multiboot with xp, vista and windows7 but I haven't booted to xp for months and that was just to see if it was still there
I'm going to wind up putting suse on that drive one of these days. I have it and ubuntu on my old rig and suse is really nice but that's another topic. Over all, I've had a pleasurable experience with vista but would also advise just waiting on windows 7 to release just out of gp. It is more efficient but my mouse scroll wheel is very slow on it, using the same driver, and that is about a deal breaker with me. I won't be going out and buying windows 7 over vista but even a hardware upgrade with the OS included would be better off waiting unless the deal is a killer.

[Garrett]

I bought my laptop on the 23rd of July, and it had Vista installed on it. Processor's x64, and I've heard nothing but bad about XP x64 (I also don't own a legal copy of it...), so I decided to give Vista a chance. While I've only been using it for just over 2 weeks now, I'd rate it about the same as I would XP. XP had problems that Vista doesn't, and Vista has problems that XP didn't. My biggest (and only) stability issue is that any game running on Valve's Source engine has a tendency to randomly crash. Before I upgraded to SP2, it would try and troubleshoot why programs "unexpectedly stopped running" immediately after I closed them, but that issue's gone.

Vista is a resource hog, yes. Luckily, my computer can handle it fairly well. I can't make a very good comparison because I changed machines when I changed to Vista, but I'm running a Core 2 Duo P7550 @ 2.3GHz, 4GB RAM, and an ATI Radeon HD 3470. I can boot in under a minute, and anything I have installed will load up before I even think about waiting.

In my opinion, if you spring for (the incredibly excessive) hardware requirements, Vista will be nice. But, compared to XP, the requirements are still incredibly excessive, and there aren't enough new/improved features to warrant it. I'd be perfectly content if I had skipped Vista completely and gone from XP to 7. There's really nothing you're not missing if you don't have Vista.

[Tarun]

Straight out of the box with no issues whatsoever.

[Woodsman]

I have been using Vista during the beta testing, Vista Business which came with my Microsoft Action pack updates, Vista home which came with my Gateway plus Ultimate 32 and 64 I purchased for 2 other systems I built. The only issue I have ever had with Vista were with my customers as others are the difficulties they were having with the security settings and getting past them or making them work for their needs and applications. With some people, walking them through the steps were a piece of cake, while others you wished the system was right there in front of you with the person out of site. Other than the fact Microsoft neglected to put out any form of security user guide and the knowledge bass is a bit of hell on the first timers mind Windows7 will soon change all that. I am still in the process of putting it through its paces which they will be getting my report hopefully before Octobers release date because of a few minor application load issues. I was told to make it crash well thus far I have not been able to do it under normal conditions but I have made it hiccup a few times. The load I have been dropping on it is more than you would run at one time as 2 Windows of IPB 2.36 (forum and admin) and 2 more of 3.0. Adobe Photoshop, Microsoft FrontPage 2003, Microsoft Expression, Paint.Net, DreamWeaver and a few other resource burners. Then there are the everyday apps like the browser and email word software etc. All in all I believe the Microsoft non believers will soon have a change of heart....

[Stormraven]

I used it, never had any major problems with it, it crashed once in a while, but what OS doesn't. But I have an apple iMac now so I'd never go back. Although Windows 7 was a success IMO.