Windows XP SP3. Much better than Vista SP1

[abcdefg]

Also hilarious that you would trash Vista's interface. I guess you prefer the Fisher-Price style interface that looks like it's meant for 5 year olds. It would explain a whole lot, given your opinions.

Well Vista's interface is a mess. WTF are those pre Win-95 icons doing in Vista? Why does OS X look much more refined and professional than

transparent candybar-Vi$ta? Ugly dialog boxes from stoneage that you can't resize? LoL.

Maybe M$ better invent time machine to catch up Apple. Oh wait Apple did time machine already. :laugh:

XP + NEW UI + FATSUIT = VI$TA

The WOW Starts Now!

[NEVER85]

Well Vista's interface is a mess. WTF are those pre Win-95 icons doing in Vista? Why does OS X look much more refined and professional than

transparent candybar-Vi$ta? Ugly dialog boxes from stoneage that you can't resize? LoL.

Maybe M$ better invent time machine to catch up Apple. Oh wait Apple did time machine already. :laugh:

XP + NEW UI + FATSUIT = VI$TA

The WOW Starts Now!

I never said Vista's interface was perfect, but it's leaps and bounds better than XP's clunky mess. Also, replacing the S in Vista and MS with a dollar sign isn't clever or funny, it just demonstrates your lack of maturity. Transparent candybar is funny, given Leopard has a transparent bar at the top of its desktop as well.

The anti-Vista trolls on this forum would be more entertaining to debate with if their arguments weren't based in 2006.

[bloodrain]

I never said Vista's interface was perfect, but it's leaps and bounds better than XP's clunky mess. Also, replacing the S in Vista and MS with a dollar sign isn't clever or funny, it just demonstrates your lack of maturity. Transparent candybar is funny, given Leopard has a transparent bar at the top of its desktop as well.

The anti-Vista trolls on this forum would be more entertaining to debate with if their arguments weren't based in 2006.

you will never hear the end of the vista trolls, next up, the Windows 7 trolls, then windows 8. It wont go away. Some people just have to feel special by pretending they are superior to others.

[Linkinfamous]

Why does OS X look much more refined and professional than

transparent candybar-Vi$ta? Ugly dialog boxes from stoneage that you can't resize? LoL.

At least you can resize most things in Windows. Have you used OSX lately? Those dialogs that you can resize can only be resized from that one stupid corner.

Of course, this seems very off topic, and you're just flamebaiting....

[Chicane-UK Veteran]

Because of a continued feeling that somehow despite years of being a Windows user that somehow i'd missed out on something, I relented (for about the 5th time) and installed Vista Enterprise x64 SP1 on my work PC. It's a 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo, 4GB RAM, Nvidia 7600GS and a pair of 7200RPM disks in RAID0.

So far it is working out ok - the smoothest ride i've had with Vista so far after trying it on countless occasions. A few comments I feel I need to make though:

* Windows Backup just isn't a patch on Time Machine. Those who ranted on about Vista having had 'Time Machine' like features are flat out wrong. Yes I have nice nightly backups on Vista now and they seem to be working ok, but they simply are not a patch on the ease of configuration (and use) of Time Machine. Anyone who's used both will know.

* Still begrudge the hardware requirements. Massively. I'm not afraid to spend money on beefing up my PC and neither is my place of work. But i'm only JUST happy with the performance i'm getting from Vista now even with that sort of specification.

* 32bit / 64bit is a massive debacle. For Windows 7, Microsoft just need to say it's 64bit or nothing. There is no excuse any more. I genuinely feel the only reason they kept 32bit alive this long is to make the customer base as wide as possible. By Windows 7, they NEED to change this. It's a pain in the butt for experienced IT folks - I can't imagine how confusing it must be for your average home user.

All in all I still don't like Vista any more than OSX Leopard but the improvements they've made since its launch nearly 2 years ago help considerably. I personally like it purely for having a pretty version of Windows, and a version of Windows where I have recent drivers for all but the newest hardware.. I also like a handful of new features - if I wasn't an eye candy ###### I don't think i'd use it to be honest!

[PermaSt0ne]

And for the record, yes, OSX is better than Windows. By far. In terms of being a fast, stable, accessible OS, XP and Vista are miles behind. Downside, is the lack of software in some areas. Linux has gotten pretty good too, but rough around the edges, and not for typical users.

that's because like most things with apple it only runs on a pre-set configuration. you can't start swapping out whatever you want on your mac. you buy your mac, let it sit there for wait 3-4 years and buy a new one. vista has to be able to run on anything and everything

if you don't like the interface there's these things called msstyles and they are free :rolleyes:

i have had one bsod or problem on vista. i knew i'd have to wait for my software to be vista compatible and i had the common sense to not try and run vista on 6 year old components. plus Vista x64 beats XP x64 hands down any day. the only problem i have with vista (like most people who've used it for more than a day) is the folder view bug, which ALSO exists in XP btw

[Linkinfamous]

* Windows Backup just isn't a patch on Time Machine. Those who ranted on about Vista having had 'Time Machine' like features are flat out wrong. Yes I have nice nightly backups on Vista now and they seem to be working ok, but they simply are not a patch on the ease of configuration (and use) of Time Machine. Anyone who's used both will know.

Who claimed that it was?

"Previous Versions" (Shadow Volume Copy) is what has similar functionality to Time Machine.

* 32bit / 64bit is a massive debacle. For Windows 7, Microsoft just need to say it's 64bit or nothing. There is no excuse any more. I genuinely feel the only reason they kept 32bit alive this long is to make the customer base as wide as possible. By Windows 7, they NEED to change this. It's a pain in the butt for experienced IT folks - I can't imagine how confusing it must be for your average home user.

Yeah. It's not like there are modern processors out there that are 32-bit only.

Oh wait! Even the first MacBook Pros had 32-bit processors in them...

[Chicane-UK Veteran]

Yeah. It's not like there are modern processors out there that are 32-bit only.

Oh wait! Even the first MacBook Pros had 32-bit processors in them...

Whatever you feel about Apple (positive or negative) its impossible to look at the way Windows is offered up for 32bit and 64bit systems, and compare it favourably to the way Apple handles it. For heavens sake, they can package up binaries that work on two different physical processor architectures (PPC / x86) and make them run on 32bit and 64bit CPU's. All seemlessly to the end user.

Sure, running PPC native apps under Rosetta on Intel is a little lethargic but it still works.

[andy2004]

i totally agree. 32bit needs to die, its holding progress back and manufacturers, driver makers, hardware makes etc need to focus on 64bit. I know people say 64bit offers nothing over 32bit but i know from personal experience 2 machines with the same config/hardware/software etc and 2GB ram in each 64bit feels alot faster/smoother than 32bit. Microsoft need to grow some cahunas and end 32bit.

[Linkinfamous]

Whatever you feel about Apple (positive or negative) its impossible to look at the way Windows is offered up for 32bit and 64bit systems, and compare it favourably to the way Apple handles it. For heavens sake, they can package up binaries that work on two different physical processor architectures (PPC / x86) and make them run on 32bit and 64bit CPU's. All seemlessly to the end user.

Sure, running PPC native apps under Rosetta on Intel is a little lethargic but it still works.

My point had absolutely nothing to do with Apple. It was just that there are many very fast 32-bit processors out there. I just said the first gen MBPs because I thought that more people would recognize it, it would click, and they'd say "Hey. That wasn't that long ago! Those processors were only 32-bit?"

The mobile Core Duo processor does not support 64bits, and will likely be more than adequate for speed for handling Windows 7.

[Deletedforeverhaha]

What's wrong with Vista? I don't see anything wrong with it. I used to get at least 4 BSOD's for absolutely no reason. When I switched to Vista, everything's perfect. No hitches, no glitches, no problems whatsoever.

[NEVER85]

What's wrong with Vista? I don't see anything wrong with it. I used to get at least 4 BSOD's for absolutely no reason. When I switched to Vista, everything's perfect. No hitches, no glitches, no problems whatsoever.

There isn't anything wrong with it. The people that continue to trash it to this day either:

A) Installed it on an old computer yet expected it to be blazing fast, so OMFG VI$TA SUX!

B) Never used it themselves and go by the opinions of blogs posted in late 2006.

C) Are just clueless and have no idea what they're talking about. The sad thing is, evidently some of these types work in the computer business. I feel bad for their clients.

[freeza]

Interesting how i've had Vista installed since...

Windows Vista? Ultimate 64-bit SP1 Was Installed On March 20, 2007 At 3:58 AM.

Not one format, bluescreen, lockup, or problem since....

Well, no i've had tons of bluescreens, and lockups, but they were due to overclocking. And now that i've found a medium between overclocking and stability, no issues to report.

Vista has been the best OS experience i've ever had to date.

[dmd3x]

Of course, it's impossible that anyone with actual I.T. skills or knowledge knows anything about how much Vista is a lemon. After all, they are only computer geeks who spend their lives on computers right?

Oh, I forgot. Computer geeks minus the irritating "fanboy" attributes. :p

I have used Vista while it was in Beta, while it was Gold and SP1. I was excited for it to come out even, but I found out that it still sucks. I'm glad that it works on your Dual Core system with 4GB RAM, but it should work fine on my Pentium 4 1.6GHz 2GB RAM with 400MB HD and ATI Radeon 9000 video. No, that's not screaming specs but it should be enough for a basic operating system to at least work fine. Yes, I've downloaded the latest drivers and it still dogs. I have been working in I.T. for six years, and have been a hobbiest since 1992, starting with DOS and then Windows 3.11, and Slackware Linux. I have been pretty satisfied with Windows, although Linux is my preference. Windows 95, Windows 2000 and Windows XP are among my favorites (2000 Server and 2003 Server for servers, didn't like NT 4.0 too much). Windows Me and Windows Vista I absolutely detest. But what do I know? I only spend my life on computers.

[mollick2]

my thoughts, vista is fine. i've never had a problem with vista. i have had a problem with drivers for vista, but thats a drivers issue, not vista. only reason im back on xp is because creative drivers suck for vista. but by no means is it windows vista's fault.

one thing i hate hearing about vista is that it take up to much memory and xp performs so much better, well no duh. i sure the hell hope a 7 year old program runs better then a two year old program on current hardware. when xp came out, a northwood P4 and 64-128mb of ram was typical in comuters. your saying that it runs great on a Q6700 with 2gb of ram. go run xp on that northwood with 128mb of ram, then compare it to how vista runs on a 4500 with 1gb of ram. as time goes on, the baseline for requirements goes up, thats what moore's law is all about.

theres also an arguement that vista isn't compatable with older programs. which while sometimes this is true, most of the time its because people can't right click, go to properties and set compatability modes or run as administrator. which if you turn uac off you dont have to bother ticking the "run as administrator" box. and yes UAC can be turned off. if you don't like it turn it off and quit whining.

[NateB1]

Finally! It seems the tide is turning. :)

I felt like I was the only one enjoying Vista last year - I've had no major issues with it at all. I would go into these topics, and it seemed like everyone was ranting about how horrible it was.

Vista has been my best OS experience to date. I can't stand working on XP anymore. it just feels so old and clunky. I especially miss the start menu searchbar...

The only issues I've had were with drivers (nVidia and Creative, I'm looking at you).

[NateB1]

Of course, it's impossible that anyone with actual I.T. skills or knowledge knows anything about how much Vista is a lemon. After all, they are only computer geeks who spend their lives on computers right?

Oh, I forgot. Computer geeks minus the irritating "fanboy" attributes. :p

I have used Vista while it was in Beta, while it was Gold and SP1. I was excited for it to come out even, but I found out that it still sucks. I'm glad that it works on your Dual Core system with 4GB RAM, but it should work fine on my Pentium 4 1.6GHz 2GB RAM with 400MB HD and ATI Radeon 9000 video. No, that's not screaming specs but it should be enough for a basic operating system to at least work fine. Yes, I've downloaded the latest drivers and it still dogs. I have been working in I.T. for six years, and have been a hobbiest since 1992, starting with DOS and then Windows 3.11, and Slackware Linux. I have been pretty satisfied with Windows, although Linux is my preference. Windows 95, Windows 2000 and Windows XP are among my favorites (2000 Server and 2003 Server for servers, didn't like NT 4.0 too much). Windows Me and Windows Vista I absolutely detest. But what do I know? I only spend my life on computers.

Surely you meant a 400 Gb HDD? :| 400 Mb is awfully small...

Um, I've been working with computers nearly all my life, and I completely disagree with your statement. I've had Vista installed since before Beta 2. The betas were slow, yes, but since the final came out, I've never looked back. I had it originally installed on a P4 2.2 Ghz CPU with 512 Mb of RAM and it worked just fine. Aero wasn't enabled, but that was perfectly OK with me.

It's great you prefer Linux, but please don't go around saying that your opinion counts more than mine or anyone else's. Whatever works for you is great! I'm glad you are able to work on an older computer - with the stuff I do, that computer simply wouldn't work for me at all.

[dmd3x]

Surely you meant a 400 Gb HDD? :| 400 Mb is awfully small...

Um, I've been working with computers nearly all my life, and I completely disagree with your statement. I've had Vista installed since before Beta 2. The betas were slow, yes, but since the final came out, I've never looked back. I had it originally installed on a P4 2.2 Ghz CPU with 512 Mb of RAM and it worked just fine. Aero wasn't enabled, but that was perfectly OK with me.

It's great you prefer Linux, but please don't go around saying that your opinion counts more than mine or anyone else's. Whatever works for you is great! I'm glad you are able to work on an older computer - with the stuff I do, that computer simply wouldn't work for me at all.

EDIT: My Windows 3.11 computer was 400MB, sorry for the confusion. My new one is 400GB lol.

You say older as if it's dated by five+ years, its two and a half years old, with recent upgrades. I was not saying that my opinion counts more than yours or anyone elses, I was saying that it counts, and that I don't fit the following criteria:

There isn't anything wrong with it. The people that continue to trash it to this day either:

A) Installed it on an old computer yet expected it to be blazing fast, so OMFG VI$TA SUX!

B) Never used it themselves and go by the opinions of blogs posted in late 2006.

C) Are just clueless and have no idea what they're talking about. The sad thing is, evidently some of these types work in the computer business. I feel bad for their clients.

I was directly responding to this one, which quite frankly I found bigoted and insulting. I should have quoted.

I wasn't expecting it to be blazing fast, I was expecting it to be fast - reasonable especially since it's been in development for so long. I think that this is reasonable. If it takes twice as long to launch IE or Notepad, VERY basic applications, this is unacceptable.

Edited July 18, 2008 by dmd3x

[freeza]

Of course, it's impossible that anyone with actual I.T. skills or knowledge knows anything about how much Vista is a lemon. After all, they are only computer geeks who spend their lives on computers right?

Oh, I forgot. Computer geeks minus the irritating "fanboy" attributes. :p

I have used Vista while it was in Beta, while it was Gold and SP1. I was excited for it to come out even, but I found out that it still sucks. I'm glad that it works on your Dual Core system with 4GB RAM, but it should work fine on my Pentium 4 1.6GHz 2GB RAM with 400MB HD and ATI Radeon 9000 video. No, that's not screaming specs but it should be enough for a basic operating system to at least work fine. Yes, I've downloaded the latest drivers and it still dogs. I have been working in I.T. for six years, and have been a hobbiest since 1992, starting with DOS and then Windows 3.11, and Slackware Linux. I have been pretty satisfied with Windows, although Linux is my preference. Windows 95, Windows 2000 and Windows XP are among my favorites (2000 Server and 2003 Server for servers, didn't like NT 4.0 too much). Windows Me and Windows Vista I absolutely detest. But what do I know? I only spend my life on computers.

User error. All your years of working in the IT field and with computers hasn't done you very well.

I would expect you to have an updated system at the least ........ lol.

How is it possible that one person has had a flawless experience with Vista and yet you have had nothing but problems? I'm going to go ahead and recommend you actually update your hardware. Outdated hardware with buggy drivers is not Microsoft's fault.

[dmd3x]

User error. All your years of working in the IT field and with computers hasn't done you very well.

I would expect you to have an updated system at the least ........ lol.

How is it possible that one person has had a flawless experience with Vista and yet you have had nothing but problems? I'm going to go ahead and recommend you actually update your hardware. Outdated hardware with buggy drivers is not Microsoft's fault.

It could be that I'm getting too old fashioned... my standards for legacy support (hardware that is three or less years old) is obviously no longer acceptable in the Windows world.

Edited July 18, 2008 by dmd3x

[dmd3x]

The trend seems to be, if you are a fanboy with the latest and greatest hardware you are happy as a clam. If you have a slightly aged system, you are SOL.

[ANova]

The trend seems to be, if you are a fanboy with the latest and greatest hardware you are happy as a clam. If you have a slightly aged system, you are SOL.

The key word being fanboy. I do have a newer quad core system but I still choose to run XP on it, Vista sucks in more areas than just performance imo.

[freeza]

Not really.......

I have Vista Business running on a 3.4E GHz Pentium 4 (prescott) with an all-in-wonder 9600 and 4gb of DDR400 ram and it runs fine as well.... lol

Seriously RAM prices are fairly cheap now a days. Try it.

I guess the "in" thing now a days is to have 2GB of RAM because of statements like "what do you need 4gb of ram for? "you should be just fine with 2gb" "4gb is overkill"

We're in 2008...Vista is the current "next-gen" OS. Why would you expect it to run anything like XP did on outdated hardware? Seriously... they call it an upgrade for a reason.

If you're going to get an OS that requires more, you should probably also get the hardware to make it run optimal....

[abcdefg]

If you're going to get an OS that requires more, you should probably also get the hardware to make it run optimal....

Who said we are getting it. Maybe if they'll take the fatsuit off... like Adobe did with Acrobat Reader 9.

[dmd3x]

Not really.......

I have Vista Business running on a 3.4E GHz Pentium 4 (prescott) with an all-in-wonder 9600 and 4gb of DDR400 ram and it runs fine as well.... lol

Seriously RAM prices are fairly cheap now a days. Try it.

I guess the "in" thing now a days is to have 2GB of RAM because of statements like "what do you need 4gb of ram for? "you should be just fine with 2gb" "4gb is overkill"

We're in 2008...Vista is the current "next-gen" OS. Why would you expect it to run anything like XP did on outdated hardware? Seriously... they call it an upgrade for a reason.

If you're going to get an OS that requires more, you should probably also get the hardware to make it run optimal....

It also is that my current hardware does everything I want it to do, so if an OS upgrade is going to slow everything down, it's not worth it. The thing that I find mind boggling is how much slower it is. I remember upgrading computers from Windows 95 to 98 without taking too much of a performance hit, if at all. I also remember the same thing upgrading others from 98 to 2000, or from 98 or 2000 to XP, also not significantly degrading the performance.

Picky, picky me, I suppose :-D