Now that VISTA has been out for a year, has it improved or settled down with various updates? Tried it a year ago and hated it but surely it is now 'safe' to use as a reliable and bug free OS?

No, the first major Service Pack hasn't been released yet, but is due in the next month or two. I wouldn't really touch it until that's come out and settled down.

I have been running that Vista transformation pack on Windows XP base just to get used to the interface, as will have to change one day......not sure if I like it or not to be honest....

Vista is definitely a lot more stable now, compared to when it was released and it still felt like a BETA release.
I was pretty much forced to install it after getting a DX10 GPU, and was really dreading installing it, but it isnt AS bad as some people make out...:)

Apparently it borders on tolerable now you can strip (http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/01/29/vista-bloat-stripper-released) it down...

I bought a new PC for Christmas, very high spec kinda machine . I put Vista Ultimate x64 on and almost straight away it was in deep doo doo. The OS is very quick for loading up programs and things like that. The thing that worried me was the Hard disk was busy 24/7, all i could hear was that thing ticking away :mad: Then to top it off i got no games to work at all, they either went black or lagged like i was on a 7 year old machine :rant: The other major issue was SLI support for me , it either worked or didn't. You installed WHQL passed drivers, enabled SLI then press apply and the drivers uninstalled them self with you having to reboot and re-install them. The Graphic drivers also took about 20mins per card to install too, leaving me to think the system had crashed when in fact it was in some strange loopy time thing while the drivers configured.

I'd also like to know why Vista took 1.8gb of my memory when sat idle with nothing running other than what booted with vista ?? It seems a crazy size when XP only uses about 250mb at the same point.

I may go back to Vista when SP1 has been tried and tested but until then i'll stick with XP X64 :thumbsup:

( i use 64bit os's as i have too much ram for 32bit, XP 32 only shows up to 2.50gb .)

as I keep saying, and as the above post commenting on SLI has proved..

its NOT VISTA that's the issue, its the fact that the companies haven't managed to release stable drives/software on vista yet, or haven't updated older software to work on vista, vista isn't just like an update to XP (like 98 to ME, was for example) its a whole new thing, from the ground up. it handles and talks to the hardware differently, so software, and drivers need to be totally re-written for it, they cant just be ported over.. and SLI has always been buggy even on XP

the coders just haven't got used to vista yet, and haven't learned all about it properly yet, Vista as 'VISTA' has no issues...

I ran Vista for several months after it came installed on my new laptop. I went back to XP after some conflict problems and I much prefer XP.

as I keep saying, and as the above post commenting on SLI has proved..

its NOT VISTA that's the issue, its the fact that the companies haven't managed to release stable drives/software on vista yet, or haven't updated older software to work on vista, vista isn't just like an update to XP (like 98 to ME, was for example) its a whole new thing, from the ground up. it handles and talks to the hardware differently, so software, and drivers need to be totally re-written for it, they cant just be ported over.. and SLI has always been buggy even on XP

the coders just haven't got used to vista yet, and haven't learned all about it properly yet, Vista as 'VISTA' has no issues...

It has loads of issues, it's overly complicated, badly written, requires a super computer to run it and it's totally unnecessary!

Other than that it's great!

Don't get me wrong, if your a joe bloggs type user and you shop at pc world and buy over priced and under spec E-machines then vista is fine, well more than fine it's ideal. If your into pushing the envelope of your PC and overclocking, modding,upgrading and kinda can think for yourself then XP is the better option.

Vista just gave me the feeling it was wrote for parents who drive 4x4's to school and buy ready meals from Marks & Spencer :hihi: 'cos it's safe

It has loads of issues, it's overly complicated, badly written, requires a super computer to run it and it's totally unnecessary!

Other than that it's great!

nah, not had an issue with it other than drivers, and that's ATI's problem not Vistas, and my computers by no means a super computer

I tried SP1 on a fresh install of Vista Business last week, whilst hard disk access seems to be improved, I have seen a few blue screen of death episodes :( These are not just any blue screen of death, these are super duper Vista SP1 type without any text just a lovely blue screen, no clue as to what has happened.

This was on a HP business desktop without odd hardware etc. So I would have expected it to run sweet, ah well.

it wants a lot of getting use too had hundreds of books on it just getting use to it

It's an absolute abortion of an operating system. Every time I have to use it (which fortunately, is not that often) it amazes me that it was even released. I don't have a single good word to say about it to be honest.

To think how long they took to develop it as well........................... oh dear.

It's an absolute abortion of an operating system. Every time I have to use it (which fortunately, is not that often) it amazes me that it was even released. I don't have a single good word to say about it to be honest.

To think how long they took to develop it as well........................... oh dear.
no truer word said


UTB

Microsoft have released this guide to improve performance:

http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/help/83EC0FFE-EE04-4D53-8B87-25D1F05C954E1033.mspx