Is Vista Good or Bad

Try it out for yourself and form your own opinion as you will find various comments on this, from people who have used it and like or loathe it to users who have not tried it but comment because they think its the clever and "in" thing to do!

You can get a feel for it here ( limitations are your net connection and speed of the OS will not be accurate and only available for users in US and Canada )
http://www.vistatestdrive.com


I personally think its an improvement on XP, but its not a have to get now Operating System, XP will suffice for all applications you need to run now, it will mature as XP has over time, so if your upgrading your PC now, then great get it, but if not wait until your building/buying a new PC.

But if your the type who likes to early adopt and doesnt mind tweaking and working out a new OS then go for it.

But form your own opinion is my best advice

 

Yes, be careful of opinions already formed. Also, remember negative people tend to be overly loud. My early opinion was that it was rushed and that it should have contained the new, promised filesystem.

I got it (Home Premium) yesterday and it is growing on me. I feel any average pc user should upgrade to it because it makes the computer so much more friendly to use for the casual person while offering extra protection. I remember telling a friend he needed XP because it was so easy to use compared to his 98. I finally convinced him, now I have to do it again because Vista is a quantum leap in ease of use over XP.

As for the more geeky people, it has its ups and downs. It makes XP feel a bit dated, so they did a nice job modernizing it. It lacks a few tools we are used to, but they can be replaced. It seems very smooth, though I have a very fast processor, ram and video card. All my drivers installed fine, Vista notified me of others and providing downloads and links if there was a problem. This makes the help center actually functional now. Instead of silly error codes, people will be able to solve some of their own problems easily.

The average user needs it, the geeky can't resist the urge to see the new os, regardless of what they say now. Im predicting this is going to eventually sell in large numbers, the OEM companies account for large numbers, plus all the upgrades from people who recently bought computers and everyone mentioned above.

Of course, a few loud mouths will only convince a handful of uninformed people that it sucks, sadly they only convince the ones who REALLY need it, showing that in reality, THEY probably need it themselves.

 

So you dont have Vista, didnt spend the money, according to your own post, but you have an opinion. As I said earlier, people should not listen to preconceived notions. Your complete post is based on what you have read somewhere. Lets take these one at a time.

I have not tested that and have a new machine and it is very smooth for me, but 98 uses more then 95, ME more the 98, XP more then 98. The object of most new operating systems is to take advantage of newer hardware and ram. If your still running a 1 gig with 512 megs of ram and an onboard 64 meg graphic card, Vista isnt for you. Neither is XP frankly. I would assume, based on your post that you are still using Windows 95 or 98 to avoid the extra resources of the newer operating systems in the past 9 years.

Exactly

More? To be running XP, you should have at least a 1 gig processor, 1 gig of ram and a 128-256 meg video card. This is 3 year old computer specs. Im betting its slow on this configuration, but many of the visuals and the sidebar can be shut off. Vista even helps you with this. I also refer you to my first post. If your happy with a typewrite that is Windows 98, then its all good. To each his own. But if you want the newest stuff, Vista is hard to pass up.[/quote]

I have the latest and greatest. Intel Duo, 2 gigs of ram and a512 meg video card. I fired up World of Warcraft, ran great. I open multiple windows and applications while doing this and no problem. This comment is the worst of all. If you have the latest and greatest hardware, having the latest and greatest software is a good idea as well.


Get back to me when you have tried it Im not 100% sold, but I have to say when I go back to XP (I am dual booting) I look forward to going back to Vista.

 

Too many are hung up with the cosmetic changes to Vista to see under the bonnet, XP was the same as many likened its GUI to a Kids Crayon drawing!

The interface to the user is much more user friendly, the start menu and programs no longer opens half way across your desktop if you have multiple folders with shortcuts to apps in but now opens in linear fashion, it also has a Start Seach box which is much easier to find your applications and files from, just start to type the letter of an application or file you want to run or locate and it lists all with same lettering.

Control Panel is much more organised into specific groups of tasks, Networking tools and troubleshooting is far superiour than those in XP, this will help many novices to networking to get setup easily.

Help and Support has been a welcome upgrade, it doesnt have technobabble in it which many found hard to understand, it goes in part back to basics for new comers to PCs and lists informantion in a plain simple language with links in the support text to the locations and applications you need to run to achieve a specific task, even has demo videos of what is a PC and the parts that make one up ( ok fine you know all this if your the geeky type.. but many users are not ), plus other tasks.

Search is now a powerful tool, with no blasted puppy gimmick, it now has many easy search options for conducting searches for various file types etc.

Problem Reports and Solutions, is a nice option as it will highlight a problem driver application and now when a solution is found at MSFT for this it gives you all the information needed to fix it be that a new driver or updated software version.

System Health Report is a handy tool, to help diagnose your PC.

Backup and Restore if you have Ultimate version now also doesnt just backup for fav files and folders but images the whole drive.

Snipping Tool is neat for capturing a full screenshot, a window or folder or the taskbar etc, small little tool but one I have used alot.


The security aspect is done to death and as many already know all about it, its not worth re-capping over whats changed. It will at some point like every OS, have exploits that could be taken advantage of, but it is most likely their most secure yet, dont think its as good as the hype, but its ok.

Does it use more memory than XP, not really as memory managment is fairly good and for me its uses no more % of available ram that XP did.


Yes it needs new hardware for most people who have a PC older than 2yrs+ but technology and advancement does this in all areas and not just PCs, the grouping that most suffer are gamers as and when new advanced games are released they generally need a new GFX card to run the game at its best, dont find many users blaming the game devs for forcing them to upgrade gfx cards to latest and greatest and also to SLI or Crossfire based PCs to play the game at its graphical best? so MSFT in releasing Vista are in my mind no different.

Its not perfect by a longshot, but perfection is never achievable...... it improves many things in a small way but those add up to larger improvements in usability.

It all comes down to choice, no one is forcing anyone to use Vista, if you try it and try it with open eyes and dont like it fine, but judge it for yourself and dont go on the word of others.

 

Couldnt have said that better myself Augie.

 

My task manager (which some like to argue is not accurate) is showinf 32% useage of my 2 gigs with one memory intensive program, IE, email, anti-virus all running. I went into World Of Warcraft which seemed a bity choppy at first, but stopped. That could have been anything. Im not seeing a problem and I believe that using 2 gigs is the way to go. Since many people are doing web, email, photos and video on their computers, these are not memory friendly things. Im always confused by the "memory" argument. Get a computer with enough memory or buy more. Us old school geeks can tell you memory used to be sick expensive, thats why so many "memory tweaking and releasing" utilities are still around, but rarely updated anymore. I think people buy their computers and believe the hype when they do so and dont add on memory, bigger hard drives, etc.

So far I am enjoying it. I had run the betas briefly, but decided to really run it this time migrating my apps over. My FTP program does not work because it wont write to the registry, of course this app is from 1995. Thats my sole application problem so far and about due for an upgrade anyhow, I got my 12 years use out of it Other is that Windows Update wants to install an Nvidia driver, then fails because mine is newer. I cant make it go away. What happens is people will take these problems, then bitch like mad, I on the otherhand, will find why this is happening and resolve it so I am prepared next time. Neither problem is earth shattering, but people LOVE to bitch.

 

I thought Windows ran beautifully. As mentioned, I was running multiple programs and tabbing back and forth from World Of Warcraft and back. IMHO, if they didnt buy their pc in the past 6 months, they should not have an opinion, nor should they be running Vista without making sure their hardware was up to snuff. Also, I dont believe in upgrades. Never had, Vista has not helped me any in that area. I made the same statement on XP, yes, it will run on older computers, but requirements are the same as games, minimum. Maximum rules. Really, like everyone else, they made it to run on any hardware, but its not that simple. A year or two from now, you wont hear complaints.

 

I wish I could compare Vista to Mac. MY assumption is Vista is intended to "catch up" to Mac in appearance and security. The appearance has it easily covered, it looks great. Security is always a losing battle unless MS loses a big chunk of market share making these smaller markets worth hacking because all OS's have holes.

Price, your dead on. I paid 239 for the full Home Premium. I would rather they just sold em all for 200 and let you decided what version to install or uninstall when you want.

Games is a good point, but so is all available software, something Mac does not have, again due to small market share.

 

P.S What Mac saves you on the operating system, they charge you for on the computer. Since PC's are not sold by Microsoft, they dont have the luxury of making it up in other areas.

 

The MS online test can help. Bottom line, you buy anything cutting edge, you need cutting edger hardware. In this case, I wouldnt run it on a 1 gig processer and a 1 gig of ram as they claim. Anything in the past year should be sufficient, though most people buy computers with 512 kb of ram, you want 2 gigs. 128 meg video card is ok, 256 is better.

As for fresh install, typically you can boot from the CD and it walks you through it, not overly difficult, though a bit scary for a novice.

 

Windows XP vs. Vista: The Benchmark Rundown

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/01/29/xp-vs-vista/index.html

This test uses, as I mentioned, newer hardware. 2 gigs of ram, 512 meg video card and an Intel Core 2 chipset.

 

Dell CD's should be modified as well making it simpler then normal Glad you found what you needed.