Windows Vista So I'm Thinking About Vista...

Well, in short, I need to get a copy of Windows -- and I need to choose between XP and Vista.

I've heard nothing bad about Vista with almost no positives about it. My two roomates, on the other hand, love Vista and have had no problems.

Vista is expensive and I'll be spending thousands of dollars (it's a long, long story...) so I'm trying to get the right one. XP has always treated me good and I've never actually used Vista.

 

I second that motion. Get Vista, as XP will not be supported by Microsoft anymore in the near future.

Download this: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...83-C24F-4863-A389-3FFC194924F8&displaylang=en

It's the Vista Upgrade Advisor, and it will tell you as to whether your system can "handle" Vista.

Follow this link... http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/editions/choose.mspx

...for a side-by-side comparison for all editions.

However, also consider this: http://blogs.cnet.com/8301-13505_1-9823042-16.html?tag=blog.1

....from a more impartial look at Vista. I've personally been using Vista Ultimate since Nevember 2006 when it was still in testing (Release Candidate 2). I liked it then, and I love it now. Although I've had a dual-boot configuration with XP, in case of an "emergency ", as my business depends on a WORKING computer at ALL times. For the past six months, however, I have only booted into Vista, so as far as I'm concerned, XP is in the past.

One thing I think we can all agree on. Stay away from the Home Basic edition. So now you have 5 to choose from.

 

If you are upgradeing then IMO I would not pick vista due to the lack of support for older hardware.
If your buying a new pc then go all out and get Vista Ultimate.

 

I have two newish Vista machines, one Business and one Home Premium. I love it, I have had no problems with it. It runs all of my older printers and scanners, etc, with all bells and whistles installed from the original CD's.

But I must say, I seem to be an experienced guy, you're into the forums, you do some crunching (I think) which absolutely sets you apart in my book.

With all of that said, if you have not seen loads of bad press about Vista like at PCMag, PCWorld, ZDnet, ECT, all over the place, why, you must be living under a rock.

I do not agree with any of it. I am very happy with Vista.

 

XP Pro

I had to install Vista (business) on my home machine (5.5 Vista performance experience) only because I have to support it @ work, and need to learn it's nuances.The only good I have to say about this OS is the quicker boot and shutdown times. I would much rather have kept XP Pro.

 

Vista Side bar and desktop

I upgraded using Business Vista on an older machine after a hard disc crash (1.5GHz Athlon CPU). It required 2.5Gb of RAM to make it tolerably fast and the Side Bar is a CPU hog so I disabled it. I also ditched the fancy desk top for the same reason. The computer will take 3 Gb of memory but Vista blue screened every time with that amount of memory. Use for business does not require these gimmicks, just speed and reliability.

 

Video RAM!

Well, if that's the case (BSOD's), something's not right with your machine. I don't use the Sidebar but I like it. I don't use it due to bandwidth issues only, NOT because it would slow down my system.

Everything ran just fine on my last laptop, which had the Core Duo T2500 (2GHz) and 2GB of RAM. What kind of video card do you have? That's one thing you want to have for Vista. A high-end video card, with at least 128MB of dedicated VRAM, but ideally 256MB.

I have a T2600 (2.16GHz) now because I changed laptops for completely unrelated reasons (BOE-Hydis IPS LCD), and I want to say I feel a slight difference in boot-up and application execution. Everything is exactly the same, including the video card. The ATI FireGL V5200 with 256MB of VRAM, which also uses Hypermemory and shares the main RAM up to a maximum of 512MB on XP and 1GB on Vista. However, I've read in more than one place that Hypermemory is supposedly not really that effective, so it's dedicated VRAM you want as much of as possible!

 

Vista upgrade

NVIDIA Geforce FX5200 running on a Microsoft driver (Vista issue). It has cost a relative fortune for my business to upgrade as a consequence of Vistas advised "hardware driver not available" issues. One thing that Bill Gates has yet to learn is that ripped off clients remember like elephants with similar responses to opportunities.

 

Very well put! Lenovo's new T61/T61p series switched from the ATI Open GL/Radeon cards to nVidia (for political reasons, although the official reason stated was, and get this,...BETTER DRIVERS and AVAILABLE NOW (over ATI LOL). They also "liked better" the direction that NVidia was "going ". AMD's acquisition of ATI had nothing to do with it!? NAAAAAAH. haha

It's a MESS. LOTS of issues with Vista as you pointed out, and their new LCD's BLOW anyway. No more of IBM's now legendary IPS Flexview's. Some of them even wobble. LOL...I'm waiting for posts about lead coming out of the USB ports.