Vista, or waiting for Windows 7

[Simplicity]

I like Vista except for a couple of issues. Lots of hardware just doesn't work well with it. My printer needs to be rebooted after a paper jam. My monitor stopped working after a nVidia driver update. At this point though, most hardware is going to have Vista as a primary platform, so it shouldn't be as much of an issue.

Lots of people don't like UAC (the security prompts). They're wrong. UAC is necessary, although it's perhaps not implemented as securely as it should have been. XP boxes turn to malware-covered slag after too much web browsing. Vista boxes are much more resistant.

Vista does include some REALLY nice features. Network mapping is sweet (sure, you could add that to XP too, but it's slightly more work to do).

So I'd say go for Vista for now.

 

[Aus_Snow]

Hold out for 7. Vista was a disastrous mistake on Microsoft's behalf. Hopefully the replacement will be significantly superior in every way, and Vista will be left behind - but not forgotten - sooner rather than later.

Vista 64 is particularly toxic, as I've discovered time and time again, when fixing other people's computer problems in recent times.

 

[Thanee]

It's a 64-bit world now.

While I agree, that this is where things are heading, it's still a veeeery long way until you can say that.

To this day, there is practically no software for 64-bit available. The only actual advantage is the > 4 GB of address space. That hardly outweighs the potential driver issues. Not yet.

Bye
Thanee

 

[drothgery]

Hold out for 7. Vista was a disastrous mistake on Microsoft's behalf. Hopefully the replacement will be significantly superior in every way, and Vista will be left behind - but not forgotten - sooner rather than later.

Windows 7 is Vista SP2 + some cosmetic UI changes and some minor tweaks in how UAC works. It's going to get a much better reception because hardware manufacturers have had 3 years to write Vista drivers, and stuff that doesn't have Vista drivers is 3 years older now and some more likely to have been replaced.

 

[drothgery]

While I agree, that this is where things are heading, it's still a veeeery long way until you can say that.

It's almost impossible to get a non-netbook with a 32-bit CPU, and has been since early 2007 (in 2006, Pentium M/Core 1 desktops were still common enough to be worth mentioning). 64-bit is the default on servers and high-end desktops. Microsoft requires that 64-bit drivers exist to get WHQL certified.

Going with 32-bit Windows now is like going with Win ME instead of Win2K Pro in 2000 was (and I didn't do that, either). It's extremely short-sighted, and will come back to bite you.

 

[meleeman]

I currently have both the 32-bit and 64-bit Vista versions on my computer. I'm a gamer, and it basically just in case I get a game that hates 64-bit, or if something should crash repeatedly on one of the versions. However, i haven't had much trouble at all yet. Some things with WoW, but I think it's the game and not Vista. I'm kinda excited about Win7. Hopefully it will be a combination of 64 and 32 bit, so the compatibility issue will dissolve for most of the newer stuff.

Basically, run the Vista checker on your software, make sure it'll work, if so, go Vista. I love the interface, just make sure and turn off the stupid UAC thing...man that's annoying. lol

 

[Thanee]

It's almost impossible to get a non-netbook with a 32-bit CPU, and has been since early 2007 (in 2006, Pentium M/Core 1 desktops were still common enough to be worth mentioning). 64-bit is the default on servers and high-end desktops.

Only because of the RAM, though.

Going with 32-bit Windows now is like going with Win ME instead of Win2K Pro in 2000 was (and I didn't do that, either). It's extremely short-sighted, and will come back to bite you.

You can always upgrade to a 64-bit OS, once it is actually required. It's not like that's a big problem.

Right now, I don't see the advantage (unless you NEED more than 4 GB RAM, which 99.9% of PC users do not) as compared to the potential trouble with incompatibilities, since virtually all software is still 32-bit.

In a year or two... probably. But today? Not yet.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Felon]

With RAM, hard drives, and very powerful CPUs insanely cheap and the Vista driver situation and early bugs mostly worked out at this point, there's no reason not to go 64-bit Vista on a new home machine unless you've got something that absolutely doesn't work if you do.

Well, the reason would be that people have differing opinion's on what's "insanely cheap". You can get a decent PC for about $1000 and a rockin' one for maybe $2000. That's been the norm for the last decade. Laying out an extra grand for a powerhouse machine just to have adequate resources to run Vista (64 or otherwise) just to play the occasional game will probably lead to buyer's remorse at some point.

Graphic cards remain a consistently expensive component, unfortunately.

 

[drothgery]

Well, the reason would be that people have differing opinion's on what's "insanely cheap". You can get a decent PC for about $1000 and a rockin' one for maybe $2000.

You can get a decent PC for $500 and one with anything short of an i7 and a bleeding edge GPU for $1000. I mean, I'm not making this stuff up; I picked up a $550 Dell desktop last month because my laptop has been flaky -- 2.66 GHz Core 2 Duo, 4 GB of RAM, ~300GB HD, a low-end discrete graphics card (I pretty much only game on my 360), and Vista Home Premium x64.

I mean, seriously, even if you're getting RAM from crucial.com, not some random bargain outlet, 2GB DDR2-800 DIMMs are less than $25. There's no reason not to get 4GB at those prices. 750GB hard drives are less than $100.

Graphic cards remain a consistently expensive component, unfortunately.

I suppose you live in some bizarro universe where Radeon 4850s and GeForce GTX 260s (a very small step down from ATi and nVidia's best single-GPU cards) aren't well under $200? Graphics card prices completely collapsed when the Radeon 4xxx line came out last year. Heck, a 4670 is more than adequate for all but the most demanding games at high resolutions -- and you can get one for $70 from NewEgg.

 

[TwistedBishop]

I suppose you live in some bizarro universe where Radeon 4850s and GeForce GTX 260s (a very small step down from ATi and nVidia's best single-GPU cards) aren't well under $200?

While I agree that Felon is greatly overexaggerating prices, the GTX 260s aren't under $200. You'll be spending ~$250 for one. But as you say, building a great gaming PC in no way costs over $1000. Even if you demanded an i7 -- which has no real mainstream version yet -- to have a current upgrade path, it would at most add another $300 between extra CPU, RAM and motherboard costs.