Vista isn't so bad after all

[madasahatter]

I think the most accurate measure of whether XP or Vista is the preferred choice of experienced Windows users is to look at which the pirates are downloading most, after all they have a full choice of the options and don't worry about cost.   

The pirates prefer XP and you can bet your bottom dollar they will have tried Vista.

Perhaps a fair point Alan, a lot of them perhaps will have tried Vista - but how many gave it a fair crack of the whip, and how many installed it, couldn't find something because they are so used to XP (as Simon has posted above) and gave up?

At the end of the day, it is obviously each to their own - in my experience Vista does exactly what it says on the tin, and does it very well. I'm not trying to be an evangelist for Vista here, and I'm not saying Vista good XP bad - just that there has been so much total and absolute rubbish talked about it that a lot of peeps won't even give it a fair chance.

Exactly Noreen, I think we would all accept that XP was a significant improvement over previous OS's ..however, Vista isn't really that much of an improvement to justify investing in, unless, like you circumstances dictate a change.

Tbh In, I've never used any OS before XP, so I wouldn't know how much of an improvement it was over 2000 or Me, but I think you raise a valid point there - I come from the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" school.

The reason I'm on Vista now is firstly because I bought a laptop last year - never had a lappy before. having read and heard all about how bad Vista is, i was all ready with my XP disc, but thought I'd give it a chance first. you know what? The more I used Vista the more I liked it.

A few weeks ago I replaced my desktop - it was old and well past it's sell by date. So now I'm totally Vista, and happy as a sand boy.

My point in all this is how many peeps bought a new PC/laptop for whatever reason and taking notice of all they had read and heard (a lot of it from my experience utter bunkum), didn't even give Vista more than a cursory glance - just bunged XP on there without spending any time even thinking about it?

I've heard several peeps say things like "O I hate Vista - can't find anything on it". that's not a fault with Vista - it's just that it's in a different place to XP, and some peeps can't be bothered giving anything 5 minutes before moaning and whinging.

[Inactive]

All fair comment Mad, I went from W98 to XP and there were dramatic improvements, the main one being plug & play USB, as far as I recall, also the almost constant BSOD's that happened with W98 all went away.

I guess if I was forced in to Vista like Noreen, I would live with it, however I cannot justify spending money on it.

[Simon]

I'm not sure if it's what you want Si', but you can always right-click your Main Drive Icon and create a shortcut that you can put where you want. 


Mo

I've done that already, thanks Mo, but even that requires getting back to the Desktop to use the shortcut. 

[Simon]

I guess if I was forced in to Vista like Noreen, I would live with it, however I cannot justify spending money on it.

That's my view, In.  Vista came on my laptop, and it seemed silly to pay out for another XP license.  I also wanted to have experience of Vista, so as to possibly be of some help to others.  For the most part it's OK, but given the choice, I would install XP on a new machine, as indeed I did on my new Desktop. 

[kinmel]

Perhaps a fair point Alan, a lot of them perhaps will have tried Vista - but how many gave it a fair crack of the whip, and how many installed it, couldn't find something because they are so used to XP (as Simon has posted above) and gave up?

I've heard several peeps say things like "O I hate Vista - can't find anything on it". that's not a fault with Vista - it's just that it's in a different place to XP, and some peeps can't be bothered giving anything 5 minutes before moaning and whinging.

I am sure you are right, but new software needs to be significantly better than the last one before people are prepared to make the effort of learning how to use it.

I am a first adopter of all things computing and I have XP and Vista as dual boot on a top spec machine and there is next to no difference in performance and abilities between the two, except for the fancy Aero, which was the first thing turned off.

So I stick with XP and have not bothered to put Vista on my other machines and when talking to people I recommend what I use.

It seems many others do the same.

[madasahatter]

and there is next to no difference in performance and abilities between the two, except for the fancy Aero, which was the first thing turned off.

Interesting - I love the Aero, which quite possibly is the main "on the surface" difference between the two. Can I ask why you turned it off? It runs great on my machine.

[kinmel]

Interesting - I love the Aero, which quite possibly is the main "on the surface" difference between the two. Can I ask why you turned it off? It runs great on my machine.

Same reason as in XP, first thing I do on a new install is turn off all the bells & whistles in Appearance, except for Cleartype, kill all unused apps in MSConfig  etc.  All of it is just slowing down the machine, yours would run so much faster without the glitter.

As for Aero being the main difference, you can achieve a similar effect in XP with much lower spec hardware.

Once all the promised improvements were abandoned, Vista was just not different enough to bother with.

It will end up like the Millennium Edition, which made it onto some OEM equipment and died without ever displacing Windows 2000; there are more copies of Win98 in use than Millennium.

[madasahatter]

are more copies of Win98 in use than Millennium.

Peeps are still using Win98? 

[Rik]

Yes, rather a lot of them. I agree with Alan, I see Vista as following the same path as Me.

[madasahatter]

Yes, rather a lot of them. I agree with Alan, I see Vista as following the same path as Me.

Possibly so - all I know is that I personally like it - it does everything for me that XP ever did, but with more style 

Interesting that MS are keeping so quiet about Windows 7

[Inactive]

I predict that Vista will be replaced in the next 12 / 18 months, it isn't the money spinner that MS had hoped for.

[Rik]

That's my view, In. I think it will become a marketing 'bridge' with 7 being the OS vista was meant to be.

[madasahatter]

I predict that Vista will be replaced in the next 12 / 18 months, it isn't the money spinner that MS had hoped for.

there were rumours going around that MS were bringing the release date forward......

[Den]

Well I bought my Assus laptop with Vista Home Premium a few months ago and could not understand what every one was moaning about so I have now changed over to a new desktop computer running the same and so far love it. In the main it is used as a bussiness machine and I can not fault it. 

[Inactive]

I hate it Den, it is bloated, overloaded with junk that I don't want or need.

XP for me until something really worthwhile turns up.

[vitriol]

I have two laptops at work, both the same specifiaction, one XP and one Vista

Celeron 1.6Ghz CPU
512MB Ram
Ati Xpress200 Graphics chipset
80GB HDD

Nothing fancy.


The XP laptop is miles faster than the Vista one.  So much so that the Vista laptop only gets used when it is required.


A friend of mine also purchased a new laptop recently, it has Vista Home Premium on it.  It has a decent CPU ~2.0GHz but is not a dual core, decent graphics chip in it, 120GB HDD, but only 512MB ram.  He called me up a couple of days after he got it.  "This laptop is rubbish, it takes ages to do anything with it.  I open Windows Media Player and Internet Explorer and it just stops doing anything.  Can you do anything with it?

First thing I did was order 2GB Crucial RAM.  Put that in and the system runs alot better.  A few tweaks to the appearance and his system is much faster now and he seems to be happy with it.

I think that some OEM's should stop crippling their machines by skimping on RAM.  In my experience Vista likes a large amount of ram.  Anything less than 1GB and the page file just gets hammered.  XP runs very well on 512MB, why can't Vista?

Sure it looks pretty but it'll take more than that for me to give up on XP.

[Rik]

MS have given XP an extra six months, I hear.

[vitriol]

I'll need to see some major improvement before I decide to jump ship on my personal machines. DX10 is not enough to warrant that jump at the moment.

[Rik]

I'm the same, Vit. I'm not saying Vista is bad, just that what it adds I don't need, so why change. Heck, I still run XP with 'classic' menus and everything but clear type turned off. I'm a memory miser.

[Inactive]

I'm the same, Vit. I'm not saying Vista is bad, just that what it adds I don't need,

Exactly Rik...

[cavillas]

I have used Dos, windows 3, 3.11, 95, 98, 98e,Me(Yuk), 200, xp pro and Home.  Each one was a vast improvement over the previous OS but there was still some relearning and tweaking to do. In all that time I have never got a Virus etc because Of anti-virus stuff and judicious use of browsing.  Each OS seemed to be slower until the hardware was updated but then performed much faster and they have always been stable.  I would not upgrade my old machine to Vista because it was not really capable, that Motherboard failed so rather than buy a new MoBo I bought a Gateway Emachine from Bigpockets for £150.00.  This had Vista Home Basic, Backup partition and disks etc and so far I have been really pleased with the OS, I installed SP1 and all the latest updates and it works flawlessly. It also had Office 2007 tried it, didn't like it so off it came.

Like the previous OS's it takes a bit of getting used to but is quite easily adapted to.  I can install all my old hardware and most importantly Photoshop 7 , Office xp and other essential applications.  The only problem Has Been Outlook which will not hold email passwords otherwise no problems with it.

This machine came with 512Mb memory which runs Vista well enough but more memory will be better as will a dedicated graphics card rather than the intergrated on.  That will be rectified in the near future though.

So as an experienced user of XP I find the change to Vista quite easy and it will be as good an OS as XP when I have all the tweaks and upgrades completed.  I find that I no longer need all the extras of XP Pro and Vista Basic is more than adequate.  It found my home network easily and set itself up quickly.

[Noreen]

My laptop runs Vista Ultimate, it's fast and I love it.

[Glenn]

Mine does too 

[BrianM]

I'm on windows XP and only go back as far as windows 98 so thanks for your post Alf, interesting 

[Den]

I started life with a Comodore 64 then the 128 then the Amiga 1200 and then to the wonderland of Windows 95 which was like stepping backwards in time as it was noware near as good as Workbench on the Amiga but would run a decent accounts package. Then of course onto W98 and from there to XP. Each stage was a learning curve but I felt that with all the bad vibes coming out about Vista I would wait awhile.

As I have it on both the laptop and desktop and both with 2gb of memory I can truly say I don't know what all the fuss is about.