I just ordered a cheap Amilo laptop for a friend who just wanted something basic to watch films and use autoroute when he is off in his truck and it came with Vista basic installed. It's awful! Just to top it off you can't even watch a bloody DVD without upgrading to the next version. I just wanted to moan really, does anyone actually like Vista? I don't generally get involved in these o/s debates but it just seems a bit of a nightmare.

I got a laptop that came with Vista Home Premium, it lasted about 20 minutes at lunch before I was reaching for an alternative OS.

I was that impressed I didn't even bother to burn the 8GB re-install partition onto DVDs first.

I've also looked at Vista Ultimate, neither really present any compelling reasons to keep them, quite the opposite in fact. Yes, it sucks...

It's just a poor attempt at cloning the Mac OS / Linux.

Microsoft have made a very serious mistake with the design and operation of Vista and Office 2007.

Some suppliers will give you details of an option to 'downgrade' your copy of Vista to XP. I'd seriously consider that.

My girlfriend`s laptop came with Vista installed, I am (allegedly) a computer professional (who works with unix and all flavours of windows - except vista at moment) I and couldnt even make it do a simple search of the hard drive for a file that had gone walkabout - I ended up downloading something to do it!!! (agent ransack free)

Also the number of prompts it gives you just to create a new folder for example - it drives me to the point of insanity every time I use it.

She hates it but needs windows, I was already a linux convert now I am an evangalist:hihi:

If that is all the laptop needs to do, why not install xp or 2000 over the vista?

I love vista and would never revert backwards, its stable, the networking is very good, looks are excellent.

I must admit the popups were annoying but you can turn them off, once you have finnished setting it all up properly it runs like a treat.

As it' a fujitsu Siemens computer and my own laptop which came with XP is also a Fujitsu machine I know I can install my copy of XP and it will never ask me to register it, as a result the whale is no more!!!
:banana:

One of the best thing i ever did was get a Mac. I got it out the box, plugged it in, and its worked ever since. That was almost a year ago, never had a bit of trouble.

Goodbye, Microsoft!

Mine isn't that stable actually- it has so many attacks of 'program not responding' when you try to close anything that it's getting pretty tedious now (and I'm talking about legit MS products too- and not with 20 of them open at the same time either).

It also constantly uses the internet connection when this happens (allegedly searching for a solution to the problem) and throws a bit of a wobbly when it can't, like when it's not connected. In this instance the only solution was a forced reboot, since I couldn't get any sense out of it whilst it was trying to 'find a solution' for 10 minutes.

My lappy has got a core2 duo processor and 1gig of DDR fast RAM, but it still has moments when it gets so stalled in thinking about everything that Vista is asking it to do. If I could get away with formatting it and installing 2000 or XP I would, but I will need to be able to teach with Vista soon so it's in my interests to learn and be comfortable with it- but that doesn't mean that I've got to like it.

At work there is a single Vista (business) box for application testing.

I needed to resize the primary partition and add a FAT32 partition in the free space.

This would normally take me 7-8 minutes on:
* Windows XP
* Windows 2000
* Windows NT
* Windows ME
* Windows 98SE
* Windows 98
* Windows 95
* Windows 3.11
* Windows 3.1
* Solaris 7
* Solaris 8
* Solaris 9
* Solaris 10
* BeOS
* Slackware
* RHEL
* Fedora
* SuSE
* Mandriva
* CentOS
* Caldera DR-DOS
* OS X
* etc..

So we're clear yes? In ANY operating system that would run on the hardware, it would take no more than 10 minutes for me to complete the job of resizing (down) a defragmented NTFS partition by 10GB (of 160GB) and then creating a 10GB FAT32 partition in the new space.


How long did it take using Vista?

40 Minutes.....


Would be lying!! After 40 minutes, I ended up having to start from scratch with a fresh Acronis image of the OS. All in all it took about an hour.

1. Vista BSODd on me about 4 times.
2. The only part of the job Vista will do is resize it's own partition. Badly.
3. Vista WILL NOT create a non-NTFS partition.
4. Partition Magic 8.0 (never got to trying 8.5) will NOT run on Vista.
5. PM8 will, for reasons I am as yet not able to explain - not knowing exactly what Vista has done to the partition table, not read a Vista partition correctly and fails to boot, EVEN FROM RESCUE FLOPPIES ON CALDERA!

In the end I had to use Vista to resize the primary partition and then (the wonderful) Ranish Partition Manager to create and format the FAT32 partition.

Vista is a cold, hard piece of crap with colours

Sub note:

There are many many many many many other things I have to say that are not in favour of Vista.. but when you can't even properly re-partition your disk in a brand-spanking new operating system.. do I even need to?

I'm just going on my own experiences, ive tried on a desktop Specs:C2D 2G ram 7600gt, no issues at all.

And on a FSC LI 1718 laptop which also had no issues either, networking, wireless, program times and access times all no problems.

I must just be the lucky one when it comes to Vista

I like it... My favourite bit is the search bar on the start menu - type whatever you like and it does it. I had something similar in XP but it wasn't a Microsoft option. I also like the sidebar, again you could do it in XP but it's there as standard now. I don't know why but I have to have a bandwidth, CPU and memory monitor to look at all the time! I like the look of it too. It runs fine for me on a fairly standard new laptop. I didn't like the warning messages it displays whenever you do anything but after turning them off it's fine. Hibernation seems to work a lot better than it ever did in XP, I hardly ever shut it down fully now so its from off to desktop in about 15 seconds. Sometimes copying files can be very slow, but only sometimes and it should be fixed with an update at some point.

Yes it uses a load of memory but you can reduce it if you turn the fancy bits off, in any OS fancy bits use memory. Plus the usage isn't as bad as it seems as I think it holds memory that it doesn't need that it will release to other applications if required.

the whole vista thing is a nightmare, bad drivers, software not working, hardware not working, things moved, things changed.. the only good thing I do like about it is a couple of the UI enhancements, which i now have under XP, so thats no issue :)

Cynic talked about the look of it, the side bar, etc -- I have all these in XP, and as for XP hibernate, Desktop to off in 6.3 seconds (I timed it) and then from when i turn it on, to being back at desktop in under 15 seconds (including all the bios start screens)

What really annoyed me was that you can't even watch a bloody dvd on media player with out paying for an upgrade. The fact it's over complicated was not going to be a problem as he won't use it for much else but not even including a DVD player is such a con.

Unless you move away from Windows completely Vista is coming whether you like it or not. XP will be completely phased out over the next few years. It is only mainly the driver situation that is likely to improve that's why I am getting used to it now. It did take a while but I find it much better than xp.

What really annoyed me was that you can't even watch a bloody dvd on media player with out paying for an upgrade

Media Player with XP was exactly the same on a fresh install, most manufacturers included the required codec on preinstallations and most of the dodgy copies of XP included the decoder, but if you tried installing a fresh copy of XP retail you'd get exactly the same thing when you inserted a dvd.

Usually your DVD drive comes with a DVD decoder, check if the drive came with a disk, if not try their website. If you still can't play it installing something like powerdvd or interactual will install a dvd decoder (that you can use from windows media player).

Install some codecs on XP and it will play DVD's, the Vista basic edition won't unless you upgrade to Vista slightly less basic. Or so it seems. Anyway, XP is on it now so screw them all.
:)

Can't you install VLC media player and/or klite codec pack (media player classic) on Vista, they will play anything. Realise this is now a mute point as it is now an XP machine.

I am sure I installed Klite of my girlsfriend's machine, but am getting senile.

I don't care any more, I just think it's bloody cheeky not including a basic media player that plays media!

just installed vista home premium on a friends computer (amd x2 3800, 2gb ram), no issues so far. it seems a little slow to say its running on a pretty good new computer, the popups are annoying & i cant find any real improvements, but its not crashed yet.

if you're getting bluescreens, theres either a hardware problem, or a driver problem.

If you have vista there is a patch to improve performance you can get it from here it is beta mind but i have it on and works a treat
http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=1686


There is a leaked SP1 beta for Vista knocking around aswell see review here
http://apcmag.com/6929/vista_sp1_in_depth

Unless you move away from Windows completely Vista is coming whether you like it or not. XP will be completely phased out over the next few years.

Well, the 'new' Windows currently codenamed Vienna is due out in 2009... which is coincidentally the same year that SP1 for Vista is meant to come out.
Although knowing Microsoft timetables, it's more likely to be 2012!

Well, the 'new' Windows currently codenamed Vienna is due out in 2009... which is coincidentally the same year that SP1 for Vista is meant to come out.
Although knowing Microsoft timetables, it's more likely to be 2012!

See previous post i would say next year

I like Vista, although I do suffer from fairly frequent BSODs, and have had to system restore once because it wouldn't restart without another BSOD. It's a brand new laptop with appropriate spec so I really hope it is just a Vista problem!

If you have vista there is a patch to improve performance you can get it from here it is beta mind but i have it on and works a treat
http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=1686


There is a leaked SP1 beta for Vista knocking around aswell see review here
http://apcmag.com/6929/vista_sp1_in_depth

Just installed the 2 performance fixes and it makes a major difference, it was annoying when sometimes copying large files took for ever, but the patches fixed that, thanks

Unless you move away from Windows completely Vista is coming whether you like it or not. XP will be completely phased out over the next few years.

I disagree.. 9 years on, they've only just phased out support for Windows 98. They will do their best to prevent new sales of XP in favour of Vista, but it's not going to stop people buying it and running, even if as a second hand license.

I can safely say that I will be doing everything in my power to prevent the need to move to Vista within the Business in the same way that we are standardised on Office 2000 because it does what we need it to without being too bloated.

IFF the next version of Windows proves itself feasible, then we will skip over Vista in the same way everyone skipped over ME.

If the next version is unfeasible, then we may need to rethink the whole thing and put everyone on Linux instead of just the engineers. Or, we simply run XP into the ground until we have no choice hoping that at some point in the next 6-7 years Micro$oft get their act together.

I see no futility in fighting Vista - it will only take over if you let it.

Just installed the 2 performance fixes and it makes a major difference, it was annoying when sometimes copying large files took for ever, but the patches fixed that, thanks

So let me get this right, in your first post you say...

...I love vista and would never revert backwards, its stable, the networking is very good, looks are excellent...

& then all of a sudden you're thanking someone for linking to a patch which lets you do something as basic as copying files around without problems?

Microsoft, re-defining stability since 1983. :hihi:

Stable my rear-facing donkey euphemism. :rolleyes:

I had a look at Vista for my new PC, but after Googling around and reading that M$oft are to continue support for XP until 2014, Vista seemed too much potential hassle - I want to use my PC, not fight it.

If I'd been able to get 98SE drivers for my new motherboard I would probably have stuck with that, but I've managed to get my XP desktop looking exactly like my old one and XP seems just as stable as was 98SE and certainly no more hassle for a home user.

XP seems a little faster than 98SE but with a SATA300 hard drive and 2GB of DDR2 RAM it ought to :)

The fact is its not going away and sooner or later you will have to switch as new software/hardware stops working on XP.
Also new games are coming out in DX10, which ms says will not be working on XP becouse of some driver architecture and these are starting to come this xmas.
A good thing may come out as more people adopt it, 'the scene' should get its dirty paws into its workings and remove some kinks (DRM), so there is still hope!

The latest Steam Hardware Survey from Valve shows that DX10 capable PCs are currently less than 2% of their customer base. No games company will produce DX10 only games for quite a while yet unless they're totally bankrolled by Microsoft.

The hotest titles coming out will work on dx9 but to get the full shebang u will need dx10. These include Crysis (get yourself an hd trailer!), Bioshock, Unreal Tournament 3, Hellgate: London, Lost Planet: Extreme Condition, Flight Simulator X, World in Conflict, Starcraft 2 ...

The fact is its not going away and sooner or later you will have to switch as new software/hardware stops working on XP.


I'll be 75 in 2014 and my own 'hardware' could well have stopped working by then :P

UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUbuntu!

I'll be 75 in 2014 and my own 'hardware' could well have stopped working by then :P
Viagra released some driver upgrades for that now, keep up mate! :D

UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUbuntu!

:hihi: :hihi: :hihi:

Who spilled your pint?

Bioshock

Completely off topic but I just played a demo of Bioshock and it lives up to the hype. Hope crysis does too.

Also new games are coming out in DX10, which ms says will not be working on XP becouse of some driver architecture and these are starting to come this xmas.
DirectX 10 is doable on Windows XP and supposedly 3rd party efforts are underway to get it working. I suspect MS will eventually have to backpedal on the issue or risk killing off PC gaming altogether.

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=40913

There are already DX 10 only games, and DX10 remakes of current games...

Personally I love Vista. Seem to be in the minority though!
I remember when XP came out (I was an early adopter as usual) and it was being slagged off everywhere, with many win9x users saying 'It's crap. It'll never take off. It crashes all the time.' It still became massively popular in the end.

I don't understand this Windows crashes all the time malarkey. My systems XP and Vista are wonderfully stable, I am a bit of a nerd though. I reckon a lot of it is user error. I've seen Macs crash more than my PC ever has - and that's not made up.

There are already DX 10 only games, and DX10 remakes of current games...

... and anything less than DX10 (apparently) runs quite slowly under Vista. So games using DX7 will chug a bit (though you may not notice, cos if you have vista, you'll probably have it on a high-spec PC).