Windows Vista Impression
Sledgehammer70
California Icrontian
Well I was able to score a grand copy of Windows Vista just a few short days ago, and I was able to have the time last night to convert my laptop to Windows Vista Ultimate 32bit edition. I opted for the 32bit version as I knew most of the drivers I need only have options for 32bit, so going 64bit right now doesn’t make sence.
The install went smooth taking about 25-30 minutes tops and booted into a sweet Aero layout
. I have installed all my programs I used for windows XP such as:
- Dreamweaver
- Adobe Photoshop CS2
- 3Ds Max 7 & 8
- Architectural Desktop 2003 & 2007
- Adobe Premier
- Adobe Acrobat Pro
- EA Link
- SmartFTP
- Firefox
- Winrar
- Windows Mobile Device Center
- Microsoft Office 2003
- MSN Messenger LIVE
- AIM 6.0
- Nvidia Control Panel
and a few other goodies.. Without a hitch
I was also able to install my slew of PC games which I won't even start to list. But so far I have only had 1 drive hiccup and that is for my laptops media slots for the 13 in 1 reader. HP has stated they will have drivers in the coming months, which doesn't really bother me as I never use them anyways.
But I have to say the system runs very smooth, and the look and feel has grown on me. I am not to sure what all the hub-bub is about that all these sites are complaining about, but overall Microsoft has delivered me a stable and solid OS that I already love.
I would say the only down side to Vista is the small learning curve needed to get back up to speed. A ton of items are in new places and just finding them all was a small task but like I said a learning curve is always needed when you jump into a new OS.
In all I can't really say if the upgrade was worth it as I got my copy for free from a great friend. But now that I have it, I don't think I will be going back to XP ever again. So maybe I can say the upgrade version is more than worth it…
The install went smooth taking about 25-30 minutes tops and booted into a sweet Aero layout
. I have installed all my programs I used for windows XP such as:- Dreamweaver
- Adobe Photoshop CS2
- 3Ds Max 7 & 8
- Architectural Desktop 2003 & 2007
- Adobe Premier
- Adobe Acrobat Pro
- EA Link
- SmartFTP
- Firefox
- Winrar
- Windows Mobile Device Center
- Microsoft Office 2003
- MSN Messenger LIVE
- AIM 6.0
- Nvidia Control Panel
and a few other goodies.. Without a hitch
I was also able to install my slew of PC games which I won't even start to list. But so far I have only had 1 drive hiccup and that is for my laptops media slots for the 13 in 1 reader. HP has stated they will have drivers in the coming months, which doesn't really bother me as I never use them anyways.
But I have to say the system runs very smooth, and the look and feel has grown on me. I am not to sure what all the hub-bub is about that all these sites are complaining about, but overall Microsoft has delivered me a stable and solid OS that I already love.
I would say the only down side to Vista is the small learning curve needed to get back up to speed. A ton of items are in new places and just finding them all was a small task but like I said a learning curve is always needed when you jump into a new OS.
In all I can't really say if the upgrade was worth it as I got my copy for free from a great friend. But now that I have it, I don't think I will be going back to XP ever again. So maybe I can say the upgrade version is more than worth it…
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Comments
DxO Optics Pro 4.1 (the latest version) simply will not work at all with Vista. This is one of my "daily" programs. I use it all the time. Dead in the water. DxO says "soon".
My camera - Canon EOS 300D (The original Digital Rebel) - This is a very popular camera. Why on earth it wouldn't be supported in Vista is beyond me, but it's not. Dead. I can't use my camera at all on the computer. I have to use my Mac for camera stuff now.
Adobe Creative Suite 2.3 (the latest) - alpha channel stuff seems flaky. Transparencies and opacity settings aren't being honored onscreen. This is probably more video driver related than software related.
itunes randomly crashes. Apple acknowledges, new version soon.
Quickbooks 2006 randomly crashes. Now they have updated it with a warning: "This software is not compatible with Vista blah blah blah". Sometimes it works, sometimes crashes in the middle of whatever. Very frustrating. Intuit's answer? Spend $300 on Quickbooks 2007, please. Kthx.
Other than that, everything's smooth. Worth upgrading from XP? Not for me.... but I have to stay modern to support my customers, so.... it has to be Vista
I have plugged my brother inlaws Kodak P712 and my Z612 with no snags... not really top of the line equipment like your Camera, but it was supported by Vista hmm...
I've already submitted half a dozen bugs to Microsoft, JUST in the windows OEM setup process. I can repeatedly make explorer.exe crash while performing menial tasks, Windows Defender doesn't back down when superior anti-spyware software is installed, I can get PS2 mouse and keyboards to stop working entirely in the OEM process just by clicking an icon in the wrong order, I've already had to completely restore three Windows Vista PCs straight out of the box because the setup procedure left a computer that wouldn't load windows, etc. etc.
Incredible isn't it? All the ersatz anti-establishment types who hate it just because its Microsoft. Its different. Give it time. But if you have a blog to write.....it doesn't really cut much to have an even handed approach.
Only had two problems:
Did you switch over from XP without multi booting?
That is exactly my feeling as well, and that's what irks me so much.
Not to sure what you mean? I inserted the Upgrade disc in my Windows XP Media Center Lappy, and choose to upgrade, ii than ran the install and was done with it. Once I finished inputting personal options I deleted the "Windows.old folder"
What is missing that makes it a non beta? I don't see it... As for your issues with your OEM, I can't comment as I didn't purchase an OEM copy of the software.
Also Prime I am trying to find the issues you were talking about in Adobe's programs. All seems to look good and function well.
I have no issues with OEM. I'm not using an OEM build, I'm using a full retail version that I paid for. That's what irks ME so much, is that I paid a lot of money for this upgrade-that-feels-like-a-downgrade.
There's nothing "missing". There are a lot of features and functions - more than I will ever need. It's not any missing feature that makes it seem like a beta.. It's the fact that I am experiencing random crashes and random problems with random applications - including, but not limited to, the shell itself. I've had explorer crash for no discernable reason. Sure, it restarts and the shell comes back up and life goes on, but my computer never did that with Windows XP. Is it a minor problem? Yes. Am I confident that it will be fixed via patch or driver update? Yes. The point is - those are all symptoms of beta software. Obviously it wasn't tested rigorously enough. Just like beta software. This release wasn't ready for prime time, that's all I'm saying.
This is $259 of my hard earned money, dude. I paid a lot for a product that doesn't quite work right, and took away some of the things I am used to doing, like my ability to get pictures off my 4 year old camera.
Sorry. I meant to ask if you preserved the original XP install before installing Vista. If you hadn't I would have asked if you found yourself booting to XP at all afterwards.
In retrospect I should have asked it in a better way. :o
Personally I can't get drivers for my TV card, and since it's an important device on my machine since I use my machine as a DVR as well as a gaming machine. I find I'm stuck in XP until I can replace the card with one which is Vista compatible (the card itself is almost 10 years old with the developer being out of business for the past 7 years, so I'm not too disappointed or surprised).
Otherwise I really like Vista. It would seem that the largest lost in FPS for any D3D game is around 10 FPS, and I can live with that 'till NVIDIA comes up with better drivers.
Honestly, the computer was completely idle, just sitting there, and this just popped up out of the blue:
wtf? Obviously this is an ATI driver thing, and it will be rectified with a patch, but this is what I mean when I say it feels beta. Obviously this is an extremely complex OS and everything, and errors like these aren't dealbreakers, but they are annoying, and they leave me with the impression of instability. Impression is everything
I mean, I was in the windows picture viewer - standard bundled software with every version of Vista... I clicked the help button and things went crazy. :shakehead
I never used ME but Loved 2000 and really like XP - I haven't seen that type of error since I did all of those Illegal Operations in Windows 98 SE.
I got a copy from my college since I work in IT, and I figured that I would just make Vista my main OS, but I don't really want to until some more of the bugs (like previously mentioned) are worked out. I figure that after service pack 1 comes out things will be a lot better.
I heard someone say it was coming at the end of March, and another person say it's not coming out until the summer. I assume that someone at SM knows since SM people know everything
I'm going to wait till SP1 before I truly decide if I want it on my system yet or not.
It is funny because I have had more issues with Windows XP in the first few days of ownership than i am with Vista. I guess everyone gets a different experience. From what I know and have seen is that Vista was tested way more than XP, but I could be wrong there.
I keep getting reminded by a coworker that people said XP sucked when it first came out, but I disagree.. XP was fairly decent out of the box for me, thanks to all the obstacles win2K had to overcome...
I'm giving the rest of the week to decide whether or not to put back XP on my laptop.. though my laptop wasn't really designed for Vista (intel 945 gfx)
and more importantly, the Cisco VPN client is a little shady, and I can't run Cisco IP Communicator!!!
From what I'm seeing- this is definitely not the Windows 95 revolution, or even the warm XP welcome. People I'm talking to are starting to say what I suspected- Vista is more expense and trouble than it's worth.
From the little evaluation I did of it in trying to migrate some legacy applications and games- I have to agree.
I don't disagree with these things. Replacing legacy code (like they did with the TCP/IP stack) and modernizing APIs like DirectX as well as making better framework for drivers are all important technological innovations. It never hurts to improve and move forward. My problem is with the execution. Vista to me, seems like Windows ME's big brother - maybe a few years from now we'll laugh at Vista and say "wtf were they thinking?" It seems like a platform that they rushed out in order to present all of these new technologies all at once. The theory was good, but the execution was poor.
Don't get me wrong. I like Vista - or at least I like what Vista will be. It has all the underpinnings of a great OS. This release is beta, that's all I'm saying.
I had one scare where I thought my computer reboot itself, but it was only Vista applying some updates (keyboard driver)
Everything is running very smoothly, I think I might just make this my primary boot, I was afraid that my audigy 2 zs drivers still wouldn't be out, so I kept an xp partition just in case.
-Edit- Nvm, I'm having major issues installing firefox
Vista is not the be-all-end-all for the consumer, it's an evolution, not a revolution for that. I love it, but I get under the hood more than even most of you S_Media-ers do.
However, what Vista does do, it does well.
There are issues for early adopters, there always are (ask me about nVidia drivers), but even with a mostly corporate targeted release of windows, it's working out quite well. Give it a try (legally) when you get a chance, you'll probably find you like a lot of it.
Now to update my /sig to show that everything I post is only my opinion, and not a statement by my employers present or past.
But you're back now, so all is forgiven.
Thanks for the disclosure on your job. Telling us was the right thing to do.
I remember the issues I had when XP came out ...called "infinite loop". It took months for that to be corrected while my "legal" software sat in a drawer unused. Finally I had to fork over a new video card to get it going. That meant a $700 refurbished card down the toilet just to get XP to run.
I think I'll like Vista ...I just don't want to get burned again.