What does the gang think of Windows Vista?

Question

Have just ordered a pricey SOTA Dell Desktop to get the ultimate Vista experience. Did I just waste my money or what?

Answer 1

Hello,

(ANS) First of all I have used every version of MS Windows since it was invented many many years ago now. So yes! I'm an old computer veteran. I've been running windows XP for the last 7years now on a high quality DELL Precision 330 workstation.

I have installed Vista Ultimate several times, I now have a duel bootable system (XP Pro & Vista). Frankly my hardware would be considered a low to medium specification machine for Vista.

**Personally I am still very torn about Vista, I do like the new Aero Glass interface but its very AppleMac like to be honest with you, it reminds me alot of MAC OS 10. However in other respects I find the interface as a whole VERY busy visually (theres far too much eye candy for my liking really). Many old features have been moved to new locations & buried 3 or 4 menu steps down so you really have to dig deep to find them. So sorry! I dont feel that this is an improvement over XP.

I do like the fact that MS have tightened up the security of the core operating system with a layered protection scheme but frankly even that appraoch isnt new as Linux & Apple have had that for a long time. But better late than never I guess.

**OK!! in summary, if your buying a spanking new computer with a top specification ( 3gig hrtz CPU, 1 GB RAM, a good quality graphics card with 512megs onboard, large hard drive of 80+ GB) then the hardware will probably run Vista Ultimate very nicely and probably quite responsively (with fast response times). So YES! your money is probably well spent.

**Vista on older hardware Sorry! guys it runs like toffee unless you have the precise hardware. Even with the hardare then software compatibility is still a problem, & drivers are even more of a problem but that should change in the next 6mths.

(10yrs+ in the computer industry, MCSE trained)

IR

Answer 2

Basic rule of life: Microsoft can't get a product right until it's been in public release for a couple years.

But, this is a special case... Vista is actually quite a bit different than XP. Putting aside all the advertising spin, Vista is the most consumer-unfriendly beast ever created, thanks to its unyielding devotion to DRM and digital media. They virtually disabled any kind of analog A/V communication with a PC in FEAR that you MIGHT try to misuse copywritten data. It is one of those few occasions in the history of invention when the maker has already decided that the user is probably a criminal. Good luck doing ANYTHING in HD (which is one of their selling points) since nobody makes HDCP video cards yet (it's not that it can't use existing component connections, it just refuses to). It also intentionally wastes the computer's power on repeated calculations encrypting and decrypting A/V info at every stage possible.

Ultimately, by the time XP is gone, Linux will have finally risen to be a viable desktop operating system and that's what everyone should use. Either that, or OSX, which is BSD anyway.

Answer 3

It's usually best to let other people fight with a new Microsoft OS until at least the first service pack comes out. I remember at times when everyone claimed Windows 98 SE was the end-all be-all of operating systems and there was no reason to change to Windows 2000. Slowly everyone was using Windows 2000. Then XP came out. Why would I use XP!? Windows 2000 is stable and does everything I need! Now XP is dominant and Vista will slowly take over.

Personally I would take your new PC and run Windows XP on it, then upgrade to Vista in a year or so. I run Windows XP for all my "important" things and I have another computer with Vista on it to "play around" and see how I like it.

The user interface is difficult to get used to. Just think of the default Windows XP GUI that everyone promptly changed to look like Windows 2000. There is something called UAC which gives you a popup window asking you if you are sure every time you want to do anything that could be construed as dangerous. It's ridiculous for a home user to deal with so most people get sick and disable it completely. At that point you're left with Windows XP with a different name stuck on it.

Answer 4

No you didn't waste your money. Vista has significant security improvements over XP so from that stand point alone, you made a wise decision. You might find some performance issues and a few glitches ( a few, what am I saying?!) I don't know what a state of the art Dell has in terms of features but you will probably need at least 2gig of RAM. And I wouldn't rely on Vista's firewall just yet - make sure you have a good third party firewall that is Vista compatible. Not all are, I'm afraid.Check out Vista's features here
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/features/default.mspx
Good luck.

Answer 5

well the ultimate version of vista is as its called"ultimate",you get all of the aero 3d apps and much more,in fact i am writing this answer using the beta version of ultimate and one thing i have noticed with vista is the speed of internet explorer 7
many users complained when it was a free download for xp,but it was actually designed for vista so that might explain all the problems xp user had
the same appplied to windows media player 11 and windows defender,although these were freely avalible for xp they were really vista designed,and you will notice how much they work better with vista when you get your new system
the only worrying part of your question is the word "dell",i know they do some good deals but the upgrades will cost you twice as much for example,a standard 80gb hard drive is around £30,but the same size drive for a dell machine is around £90
however investigate this,i believe this is just what dell recommend,i have heard you can put standard parts in a dell,look into this,anyway good luck with your new machine and i hope the change over goes smoothly
all the best.........brianthesnail...

Answer 6

My loyalties lie with xp at this moment. Vista was released way to early and because most computer companies hold vista as a standard now it is almost impossible to find new computers with preloaded XP.....Thats why i have my trusty copy of pro right by me. To try and answer your question although they do make walk arounds to play games like Halo 2 and Crysis the main reason why those games are "vista games" is because they generally use direct X 10 (unless your using "patches and walkarounds") the con to this is yes your playing the game but your not seeing the full details the higher graphics give you..........and just for another notice the only OS compatible with Direct X 10 is Vista. But as always im sticking with XP myself for a while

Answer 7

Anyone intending to specifically go out there and purchase Vista with a view to *upgrading* should listen to every *negative* comment in response to your question, because those that sound like they're written with an air of authority can be taken at face value: Windows Vista is, I'm afraid, only a marginal upgrade at best, and an exercise in corporate brainwashing at worst.

Vista has convinced me that Windows XP will likely be the last Microsoft operating system I will let near my personal computer, and has prompted me to consider a Linux distribution (probably Ubuntu, though I've ran a Debian-based distro along-side Windows for some time) as a likely near-term alternative.

(In my view, Microsoft does not listen to the consumer, nor do they particularly care what the consumer wants from an OS; they do not innovate - they duplicate and patent, then undermine and eradicate the competition.)

Anyway, the 'upgrade' impact of Vista will be ineffective with much of yesteryear's hardware, meaning folk will have little option than to upgrade their aging computers for something which actually offers less, in real-terms, than the likes of XP (in short, an upgrade to Windows Vista *will* end up costing the average user significantly more than just the software itself if your present hardware isn't up to the job *and* you want everything Uncle Bill has, er, offered). Couple this initial cost of ownership with Microsoft's ultimate desire of ousting the iPod in favour of its own portable media players - *forcing* Digital Rights Management on the user by implanting the technology within the heart of Vista (DRM is a means of limiting how you may distribute your *legitimately* acquired commercial digital media, like movies, music or ebooks) - and not only does the operating system leave a bad taste in my mouth but it stinks of the rot at the heart of monopolistic corporate culture.

Microsoft is not your friend. Vista is not *our* friend. However, it will be adopted en masse (forced upon us, actually, by companies like Dell, Hewlett Packard, Compaq, Gateway, PC World, Circuit City, Yahoo, the BBC, our employers, and so on and so forth). And we will all suffer because of it somewhere down the road.

Anyway, if you intend to purchase a whole new machine and you simply cannot do without Windows-based products (such as computer games or Windows-specific productivity software or hardware) then make sure you opt for the Ultimate version of Vista if you want all that the Microsoft propaganda machine has promised. Do not go for either of the Home editions - you *will* very likely regret it somewhere down the road.

As a final note, if you are out to purchase a brand new computer and you don't give a damn about cutting edge computer games or any particular Windows application, consider moving over to Apple's camp. Mac OS X is a worthy and viable alternative.

Answer 8

I was going to wait a bit until the inevitable bugs are fixed in it before considering buying it.

Also, I don't consider it much better than Windows XP. Basically, XP is great for me because it's easy to use and has all the functions I'll ever need. Vista looks just like XP but with a couple new tools which I would never use, like that multi desktop thing. I'd never need that unless I were a one-man company.

Answer 9

im sure they overcharged you on some of the components, threw in a few things to sweeten the deal which you didn't really want or need and will charge you a fortune for tech support.

ofcourse its not for everyone, but I would have considered building my own pc as you would get the exact same pc for probably £200 - £300 less.

If you don't mind the price your paying for it then you should be happy as long as the specs really are upto providing the ultimate vista experience. (2gb ram MIN and a top of the line video card)

vista is nice and a lot more user friendly than xp but it does need a powerful pc to run it properly.

Answer 10

Vista looks good and seems like a decent improvement.

However, I too have used every version of Windows that has come out, and remember how each new one was trumpeted as the best and latest thing. Even ME - briefly!

With a swift and capable machine it should run well, but it's far too new for me. I'll wait a while until Service Packs have come out to fix the many bugs and until software and drivers that are actually written for it are available.