Jan 30 - Vista Release!

[Mr. Analog]

And media files without worrying about quality degradation.

I think the files you'd be playing on Win 98 are already degraded

[Tom]

Though this might be mildly amusing to some:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxQm3IsSKAo

[Cova]

Purple text on a pink background - now that offends me.  It just downright hurts the eye's.

[Lazybones]

Ugg, just got through installing Vista and Office 2007 on my workstation/laptop... WHAT a resource hog! Forget 1Gig of RAM , it demands 2 if you want to run Aero Glass without your apps paging all the time..

[Melbosa]

Ugg, just got through installing Vista and Office 2007 on my workstation/laptop... WHAT a resource hog! Forget 1Gig of RAM , it demands 2 if you want to run Aero Glass without your apps paging all the time..

Hmmm not having that issue here.  My system ram is usually under 40% with many applications running, including O2K7, Virtual Center, IE, and various others.  Spikes every once and while, or if DX stuff kicks in.  And yes I am running Aero.  What is your system rating?  Mine is 3.9 at work.  I would assume it is the video driver for your system (probably nVidia chip?).

[Lazybones]

Ugg, just got through installing Vista and Office 2007 on my workstation/laptop... WHAT a resource hog! Forget 1Gig of RAM , it demands 2 if you want to run Aero Glass without your apps paging all the time..

Hmmm not having that issue here.  My system ram is usually under 40% with many applications running, including O2K7, Virtual Center, IE, and various others.  Spikes every once and while, or if DX stuff kicks in.  And yes I am running Aero.  What is your system rating?  Mine is 3.9 at work.  I would assume it is the video driver for your system (probably nVidia chip?).

Probably the embedded Intel video, DWM (Desktop Window manager)  seems to use between 55 and 100 MB of ram.. Beggers can't be choosers, out of all the laptops with ATI video, I ended up with one that has and Intel chip set. At least it has a Core Duo CPU.

[Melbosa]

Yeah we have 2 guys with HP laptops here running over 2 years old, and Aero just about craters their systems.  Had to have it disabled even to run the OS.  Similar problems as you said, cept that they are running Geforce 4 Gos I believe.

[Melbosa]

My own experience, having run Ultimate for about 3 months now at work is the lack of support for common applications I use daily.

• Vistual Studio 2005 - Not supported, although you can work with it, until SP1 for the product
• SQL 2005 - Not supported, until the same above
• Active Directory tools - Not available yet, although through some workarounds you can get the W2K3 Admin Pak to install
• PeopleTools - Not Supported period yet
• DirectX 9 - As I posted in another thread, you have to keep a library of DX9 dlls around for your games to work properly if the manufacturer did not include them in the game install dir.  Don't try and put these into your system folders, bad, bad, bad idea.  And gawd, don't try to install DX9 = SYSTEM CRASH
• Virus Scanner - McAfee didn't have a release of a version that worked until end of Jan, although had beta this whole time
• Nero - Had to install Nero Lite, which is a ripped down version of nero (still requires valid key for nero), as Nero from the website required DX9 for their codec support in videos
• Telnet - was disabled by default, but found how to turn it on
• UAC - Took a bit to finally disable the whole thing.  This is a great feature for your home user that doesn't really know much about their system - will protect them from themselves (those accidental click Oks and such), but is a problem right now for 2 reasons: a) If you are an IT person, this is a huge pain and barrier to day to day use; gets in your way, frustrates and as some of you have pointed out is more pain than it is worth.  b) Until all software installers are Vista Aware, UAC may allow certain installers to complete, but not function properly for "your protection"; Firefox and SmartFTP are an example of this. They install, but won't uninstall and throw exceptions due to "missing" files (which UAC virtualized the Reg/File installs as they looked malicious to it).

Being a early adopter, and doing much research on every problem I've come across, I have begun to really understand the new security layers and barriers that Vista has, and how they work, and why.  I think giving it a 6 month grow period and industry adoption, this will start to become a worthy upgrade for business and home environments alike.  For me, now that UAC isn't an issue, and I have a VM for those tools that don't completely work they way they should under Vista, I find it a decent step forward.  There are features I really enjoy as well, in both Vista and Office 2007, which I know would be missed if I ever go back to Windows XP and Office 2003.

[Lazybones]

Yeah we have 2 guys with HP laptops here running over 2 years old, and Aero just about craters their systems.  Had to have it disabled even to run the OS.  Similar problems as you said, cept that they are running Geforce 4 Gos I believe.

Updated my core drivers for almost everything since there where very recent ones posted, seems to have improved things.. my base scrore is 3.1.

Memory use seems to be due to the resolutions I am running combined with the fact I am using dual monitors.

[Lazybones]

Ugg, day two.. I have decided that Areo Glass is too much for this laptop.. 100MB of memory... Don't bother with Areo if your video card uses shared memory or if you don't have gobs of RAM..

Sad thing is that the system is still VERY sluggish compaired to when it ran XP, other than the video chipset this is a fairly fast laptop.

Windows Experience Index is 3.1 Determined by Lowest sub score
Processor: 4.7
Memory: 4.5
Graphics:3.2
Gaming graphics:3.1
Primary hard disk: 4.7

[Darren Dirt]

Windows Vista: more than five years in the making, more than 50 million lines of code. The result? A vista slightly more inspiring than the one over the town dump. The new slogan is: "The 'Wow' Starts Now," and Microsoft touts new features, many filched shamelessly from Apple's Macintosh. But as with every previous version, there's no wow here, not even in ironic quotes. Vista is at best mildly annoying and at worst makes you want to rush to Redmond, Wash. and rip somebody's liver out.

^ no, this isn't a half-satirical review of Vista along the lines of "Television Without Pity".


It's from FORBES.com.

[Darren Dirt]

from FORBES.com.

I suggested to one Windows product manager that if the company were truly serious about security, Vista might offer a simple way to delete files securely and eliminate all traces of identity and passwords so you could safely pass the machine on or sell it years from now. His reply: "Does any other operating system do that?" That tells you all you need to know about Microsoft. The real slogan: "No innovation here."

[Melbosa]

Alright, although it is nice to read about every bash and hit Vista is going to take, I can only stomache so much negative.  You are all welcome to your opinions, and views, so I won't stiffle that in any thread, but can we at least try and bring this topic back to more constructive and less links to "hate Vista" topics.  Questions, concerns about the OS, information (the good and the bad) if you have experience with it is more what I am interested in seeing, not another article why someone hates the change or can't comprehend what M$ is doing.  Seen enough of that.

I know how you guys feel, and I like seeing Lazy's posts about his experiences.  I've just been noticing a bit of a negative posture with some posts that leave no room for constructive converstation and more lean towards the flame ware beginning all over again.  I don't want to see that again.

[Ustauk]

Alright, although it is nice to read about every bash and hit Vista is going to take, I can only stomache so much negative.  You are all welcome to your opinions, and views, so I won't stiffle that in any thread, but can we at least try and bring this topic back to more constructive and less links to "hate Vista" topics.  Questions, concerns about the OS, information (the good and the bad) if you have experience with it is more what I am interested in seeing, not another article why someone hates the change or can't comprehend what M$ is doing.  Seen enough of that.

I know how you guys feel, and I like seeing Lazy's posts about his experiences.  I've just been noticing a bit of a negative posture with some posts that leave no room for constructive converstation and more lean towards the flame ware beginning all over again.  I don't want to see that again.

Anger, fear, aggression. The dark side are they. Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny.

As to Vista, I don't think I'll upgrade for a while.  I stuck with Windows 2000 for a while after XP came out, and will likely do the same here.  I'll probably upgrade when a compelling enough game requires DirectX 10.  I figure it should more stable and refined by then as well.  I don't have anything against Vista, but nothing about it is enough for me to want to upgrade to it.

[Lazybones]

How about a smilie based review. 

I currently rate Vista  out of 5.

Well in truth my disgust has mostly washed away into disappointment.

Pros:
- the search built into the start menu is nice
- the side bar works reasonably well
- the improved mobile features are nice, including presentation control for secondary video out, and WiFi control
- local shadow copy services is a great feature

Cons:
- Areo glass requires considerable 3D performance and memory yet yields next to no useabliity benefit over the plain 2D mode.
- Vista does not seems to play well with many current genration programs and services, using the Vista computer managment snap in to remote manage a server or workstation some time results in missing options.
- User Account Control, is not as bad as it was in previous betas, but insanely annoying for even day to day tasks. First time around, 2 prompts for a CD that has auto play. Deleting executables will sometimes trigger an extra prompt as well and that is just normal user tasks. I can't see anyone whom does admin work leaving this feature on, as access to almost every control panel item, system setting, ect triggers the damn thing. It is like surfing without a popup blocker, the damn things kep jumping in your face.
- The organization has of the control panel has been further fragmented, and doesn't even seem to maintain much of the order that was introduced in XP, however you can still dump down to classic mode.


I can't really tell if I have just become a bitter tech, or if the OS is failing me in some way. I would like to think that I am good at adapting to change having moved through DOS, 3.1, 95, 98, 2000 and XP something just feels wrong...

I am not giving up yet, I need more time to be exposed to various features.. I will give it a few weeks or a month and see if my views changed, but so far I would say Vista is more of a WTF than WOW.