Microsoft Vista

[Lord Zardoz]

I am likely to be buying a new computer soon. Most of the deals I am considering appear to only offer Vista, and not Windows XP Pro as I would prefer.

Most comments I have heard regarding Vista so far are negative. I was wondering if anyone has any positive reviews?

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[Bayushi Seikuro]

I have fairly limited experience with Vista so far, but I don't mind it.

The one thing I noticed is it cut out administrator accounts -- which, let's face it, only caused more problems for people who didn't know what they were doing, in my opinion. What Vista seems to do is give each user acct basically access to 90% of the stuff that you used to be able to do under Admin.

And it likes to double-check ALOT when it comes to shutting off security features.

Again, I don't mind it, but then again, my time with it was only really spent trying to get some proprietary stuff from my mom's workplace installed on there; the only difficulty was the tech from there I was on the phone with had little experience with Vista, so didn't know how to change access permissions. I figured it out, with a little tinkering -- like I told him, I'm good nuff with computers to figure out how I did something once, but not be able to repeat it.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

For the average user, it's probably an improvement. There are some nice usability enhancements and it's more secure out of the box. For a gamer it's usable, but there is a performance hit, and there are compatibility issues. As a hardcore tech who does this stuff for a living, I'm neutral. Every time I find something I like, I find something else that I don't to counterbalance it.

And there is still an administrator account. It's disabled by default, keeping the uninitiated from screwing things up too badly. It counts on UAC to keep people from doing things without at least nominally paying attention to what they are doing. There are things you need to enable the admin account to do, however.

You can still get computers pre-built with it, but you have to dig around a little more. And you can always buy an OEM copy and re-install yourself.

 

[jdrakeh]

I use Vista at work every day. The only two gripes that I have are that the old "Run As" hack for running dual instances of programs no longer works and that, when you have to restore from a back-up, you may need to call Microsoft to reactviate the software (which is a pain, though for security reasons, I'm happy with this arrangement).

[Edit: I'm the in-house tech for our company.]

 

[Lazybones]

I have been running Vista Home Premium for a few weeks now and I have almost no complaints. It has been very stable (not a single system crash yet, knock knock), and the only problems I have had have been related to driver issues (the Nvidia drivers in particular are still rather immature, but I'm running new beta drivers that have resolved most issues with the games I play). Those have all been fixed with a little tweaking, although I still have to shut off Aero to use the Neverwinter Nights 2 toolset. I'd say 90% of my applications have worked perfectly right out of the box.

I especially like the smooth connection between my Vista and XP computers and my Xbox 360. Media Center is awesome.

Installation was easy, although I did not like the fact that I had to order a 64-bit version of the OS from Microsoft (only 32-bit comes in the retail box, and you need the serial # to order the 64-bit DVD). They charged an extra $10 for that service. Also, Vista automatically recognized almost all of my components on startup, and set up my Internet connection without any work on my part. The one thing it didn't configure right (my AverMedia TV card) was fixed easily with a driver online. Transfer of my old computer settings and files was smooth although the file transfer speeds between machines on a LAN is slower than between 2 XP systems, for some reason.

 

[Mercule]

I've been running Vista Home Premium on one computer since January and Vista Ultimate on another since November. I rather like it. It's more secure and a lot of the administrative tasks are easier to perform, though I dislike the new way the "All Programs" menu works.

I don't really know what to say. For pretty much everything my wife or daughters do, there is no real difference between XP and Vista, other than Vista looks better. For myself, I occasionally run into an issue where I need to run something as an admin, but that doesn't really bother me and Vista handles that very, very well, IMO.

If you're getting a new machine that comes standard with Vista, you shouldn't have to worry about driver issues, which is the main reason I advise people not to upgrade their existing machines (and, even that falls into, "You may be spending money for a wash.").

For new machines, I tend to advise: Don't fear Vista.

I probably wouldn't go too far out of my way either way. Actually, I would, but that's because I like new toys. For the average user, Vista is just fine -- at least as good as XP on a new machine.

 

[ThirdWizard]

I've been running Business for 6-7 months and I've not had any problems with it. Not even driver incompatibilities (I'm running all default drivers). Some of my DOS games a decade or so old don't work, but I could probably get them to work with DOS-Box if it were important to me.

I have had problems getting Daemon tools to work without issues cropping up up, so I'd probably recommend avoiding installing that for the time being (I had to use a registry hack to get it to work in the first place). Other than that, I haven't noticed any problems installing anything.

I'm moving to Ultimate soon mostly for Media Center with my 360, but also for that cool dreamscene thing.

 

[Rl'Halsinor]

Most of the issues have been with driver support. I know plenty of people who are running both the 32 bit and the 64 bit versions and they love it, but a number of them -- certainly not the majority -- know how to optimize their experience with Vista.

If you are a gamer you'll most likely encounter issues with your oldies but goodies, especially with the 64 bit version. FYI, only the 64 bit version will recognize 4 gigs of RAM or more. Also, it seems Microsoft may be releasing Service Pack 1 at the end of July, but it might be a beta form.

I bought my daughter a laptop with Vista, loaded Office 2003 (and works without a flaw), and instead of utilizing Norton 360 that came in a 30 day trial I went ahead and downloaded Avast! Free anti-virus without issue (Avast! runs on Vista). Next I'll be loading Superantispyware. The only thing I have yet to find is a stand-alone firewall, so for now we'll utilize the one that comes with this OS.

By the way, after much reading it seems Norton has actually done a good job with 360. It is nowhere near the system hog previous incarnations are.


If you know someone who can build computers I strongly suggest buying your components and have him put them together. You can buy XP Pro with SP/2 OEM for $140.00.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

Thanks for the info. I am a very technically adept computer user (given that I am a programmer, I ought to be). I am hardly a 'balls out power user', but I generally know what I am doing.

If I do end up with Vista, it will be on a new computer purchased from Dell. The reason I am considering a Dell is simple. My place of employment has a perk wherein I can get a 10% discount, and getting the new computer will also let me get a nice, big, shiny new monitor. Ordinarily, I would not like the idea of Dell, since they are not as easy to upgrade or modify.

My concerns with Vista relate mostly to the ability to run existing software on it, and if the enhanced and flashy GUI enhancements are particularly annoying or not.

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[Mercule]

My concerns with Vista relate mostly to the ability to run existing software on it, and if the enhanced and flashy GUI enhancements are particularly annoying or not.

Existing software: usually. Really old stuff (my kids' Disney Flash games) are actually a little easier than under XP (assuming you were running them under a non-admin account). I don't know why, but I've had fewer issues. Other stuff might request admin access, but that's usually a matter of granting that user write access to the right folder. The only app that I've had insist on admin access is Visual Studio 2005, but I think they released a patch for that recently. Orcas doesn't have that issue, so I've been using the beta. I haven't had any flat out incompatibilities.

Enhanced GUI annoying: Not really. It's different, so there's a learning curve, but it isn't bad at all. It also really does look better (IMO). I've also found myself using "classic view" more rarely than I did with XP.

Oh, and don't let the stories about the permissions pop-ups bother you. It isn't bad at all. Really, it asks in a very natural way and only when it makes sense. I think they did a great job on it. It actually lets you run as a standard user, but keep the abilities of a power user when you need them.