Windows Vista Should I buy Windows Vista when it gets released?

Hello Evan,

I just got an additional system and installed RC1 on it to see what Vista looked like and to see how stable it is at that stage.

After very little time, it seems stable enough with a few minor glitches with dual booting issues, which I think I have solved. I woud agree with Steve - don't burn your bridges. If you have another machine, do that, or dual boot it with XP.

Regards - Charles

 

Have a look at Aries article. From what I understand, it's the X64 version of XP that can't be upgraded. XP Home and XP Pro 32 bit versions can both be upgraded to Ultimate without starting over. That's the way I read it anyway.

 

Microsoft does not normally releases new versions of its OS, unless there is something terribly wrong with the old one. What you get are instead patches (on second Tuesday of every month) and if you are really lucky, an update (like SP2).

Any new program would have certain problems (bugs ) in the beginning. Its better not to install it on your main computer - you may never know if some feature or some combination of the OS & the program you must use don't like each other & are show stoppers .

Better be safe than sorry.

 

I agree. The CD you buy 6 months from now is going to be the same as the one you purchace now. Eventually, the CD will probably be updated but that won't happen until SP1 is released for it and that will more than likely be a while. Until then, it'll just be patches.

 

Hi Evan,

I'll get a free copy from HP as part of the deal for buying a computer from them.

As I mentioned, Ill replace the RC running with the final when I get it.

I mentioned not burning bridges, I've run in to the first DRM issue with Vista. I tried to burn out some of the images installed as part of Vista demo for a friend that liked the pictiures and recieved a "you do not have permission to burn" message, running as Admin. I did not install any 3rd burn software on Vista, this is thru WMP v11. Whether this happens with 3rd party burn apps, I don't know. Since I dual boot with MCE, I burned the images in XP.

So take heed, I don't know how many issues like this I'll run to.

Regards - Charles

 

Well, I guess I'll probably hold off for a while. I'm dual booting now with XP and Vista RC1. Vista is quite stable on my computer. I've never had it go down except for one time when I tried to force some drivers on it for a PCI SATA controller card. It wouldn't boot no matter what I tried. So, I ended up booting to XP and used Windows Explorer to delete the driver files in the system32 folder on the vista drive. After that, it booted just like always. I'll not try that again. Not with that card anyway.

So, anyway, I think I'll bide my time and just run that for a while. I'm a pretty patient guy. I would guess I'll wait at least 6 months, maybe more. But then again, I might just get the urge all of a sudden and ........

 

I know that in this case with an XP Upgrade asked for the previous version of Windows CD it wont accept a computer manufacturers compressed CD (Restore Disk) So with that said I assume Vista wont do the same. Either have XP already installed or have a real Microsoft Windows CD ready.

 

I've used x86 Vista Ultimate (RTM) since shortly after it's release as my primary OS. Only a couple of issues with it:

1) It does not like apps that weren't designed with Vista in mind - but I've coaxed mine to work for me.
2) It's blue screened on me twice - both times playing FEAR Extraction Point. An update of the video drivers from the nVidia site solved this and let me finish the game.

Interestingly, I have pcAnywhere (v11.0) installed. Vista complains mightily that it's incompatible. Then it lets me run it - and it runs without issues every night via the Task Scheduler. Go figger!

 

If anyone needs a games/utilities listing of what is comaptible with Vista then visit here occasionly...

http://www.iexbeta.com/wiki/index.php/Windows_Vista_Software_Compatibility_List

With regards to Vista i don't think i'll bother. What people don't realise or have forgotten, that many features that were meant to be a part of Vista when it came to light, have fallen by the wayside during its build....with most dropping in the last year leading to release.

My XP machine looks and runs like Vista and Stardock was the only thing i'd paid for, for the look.....the other utilities were free. Yes, you can even set up XP to act the same way as the security is set on Vista now...many people don't realise that.

Sometine this year, like .Net, Microsoft are going to release their new file system (one of the items dropped from Vista) to Vista & XP Op systems.

The only thing i will miss, by not having Vista Ultimate, is the additions that MS will be bringing out for the Ultimate version. However, i can live with that but when i do upgrade it will be when MS stop supporting XP and by then VU will be much cheaper.

The impression i get from the press, TV etc and from people i know from companies, friends etc, is that they are not interested in upgrading to Vista and are happy with XP; Office 2007 is another matter though and the interest in this from comapnies is looking very good indeed.