NationStates Jolt Archive

Picked it up on Monday. And before you say anything, I'm not one of those noobs who just slapped it on over XP; I have XP and Vista on separate drives.

Well, if you have it, what's your opinion of it?

IMO:

The Good:
- Fancy, shiny features
- Nice new organisation system

The Bad:
- Those damn security alerts
- About as stable as a house of cards
- Many programs don't work
- Doesn't seem to like sharing a partitioned HDD with XP

I've got Madotate (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?referrerid=756788&t=519902), Google Desktop Search (http://desktop.google.com/), and the Google Desktop Sidebar (http://desktop.google.com/images/sidebar_gd5.jpg)... and all for free, too. Good enough for me. :cool:

I won't allow it on the networks which is pissing off some of the engineers as they bought it at home.

I always offer give me a "valid" reason for installing it and I will. Eye candy is not a valid reason.

We use opensource and I have heard a few horror stories about vista and GNU.

Our micro rep is pissed because no matter what they argue I keep hitting them with "That is a benefit for Microsoft."

Ughhh, OPEN SOURCE. It's good enough for browsers and stuff, but open source OSs are looking for trouble. Tried to play around with Ubuntu once, and it DESTROYED MY HDD.

Waiting for the first Service Pack before I get Vista. At that point, it will be worth buying. Until then, XP is fine.

Ughhh, OPEN SOURCE. It's good enough for browsers and stuff, but open source OSs are looking for trouble. Tried to play around with Ubuntu once, and it DESTROYED MY HDD.

Really? I used it for months without a single problem.

Just don't use it if you like gaming.

Ughhh, OPEN SOURCE. It's good enough for browsers and stuff, but open source OSs are looking for trouble. Tried to play around with Ubuntu once, and it DESTROYED MY HDD.
You destroyed your HDD, Ubuntu just gave you the tools to do so.


Anyways, I had Vista (from the beta days). The OS itself was nice, but anything third party tended to be utter crap. Graphics drivers and wireless were much worse than on Linux. I have since moved completely to Linux since using Vista however.

Really? I used it for months without a single problem.

Just don't use it if you like gaming.
Cedega is good enough for me. *nod*

I did, since January 30th I might add. It's more stable then you might imagine if you actually <know> what you are doing.

Before you start flaming, I also run OpenSolaris and NetBSD so I am not a total MS fanboy ;).

Me and the wife tried to find a really good media computer that didn't have Vista and ended up buying one with it already installed. It was pretty much forced on us. If I could find a good Linux way of editing video I might switch it to that.

I tried Linux for a year and hated it. It takes way too much research and tinkering to get it to do every little simple thing. I just don't have that kind of time.

I did, since January 30th I might add. It's more stable then you might imagine if you actually <know> what you are doing.

Before you start flaming, I also run OpenSolaris and NetBSD so I am not a total MS fanboy ;).

Nexenta == OpenSolaris + 10

Not I, but I tell you what I do have - £200! That's the RRP for the most basic version isn't it?

Me and the wife tried to find a really good media computer that didn't have Vista and ended up buying one with it already installed. It was pretty much forced on us. If I could find a good Linux way of editing video I might switch it to that.

I tried Linux for a year and hated it. It takes way too much research and tinkering to get it to do every little simple thing. I just don't have that kind of time.
IMO, some Linux builds are easy right out of the box...

... hey, I thought Macs were standard for video editing work.

Me and the wife tried to find a really good media computer that didn't have Vista and ended up buying one with it already installed. It was pretty much forced on us. If I could find a good Linux way of editing video I might switch it to that.

I tried Linux for a year and hated it. It takes way too much research and tinkering to get it to do every little simple thing. I just don't have that kind of time.

was out last week looking for just XP to put on my mum's PC that was made for her
we did not find it till the sixth store we went to as all the other's sent there's back

I have DOS 6.22.

You destroyed your HDD, Ubuntu just gave you the tools to do so.

Hahahaha :D

Hahahaha :DProlly true too.

I should be getting Vista mailed to me sometime soon (I bought a laptop when they had the free Vista stuff), but I'm not installing it until they have at least a optional fix for all the "We assume all our customers are incompetent buffoons" bullshit.

IMO, some Linux builds are easy right out of the box...

... hey, I thought Macs were standard for video editing work.

And sound. ProTools was designed for the Mac, not for the PC. It's because all the pretentious artiste types can't resist the urge to mock one abusive "monopoly" by buying from another multi-million dollar business. It makes them feel counterculture.

And sound. ProTools was designed for the Mac, not for the PC. It's because all the pretentious artiste types can't resist the urge to mock one abusive "monopoly" by buying from another multi-million dollar business. It makes them feel counterculture.
Or because Macs have historically been better at it and Apple isn't gonna let that change without a good deal of kicking and screaming.

I are noob and slaped it over my windows XP

It works fine for me. maybe a few bumps, but it's windows; they are like the same word

Bah, no need to get Vista just yet. I'm still happy with my Windows 2000.

I should be getting Vista mailed to me sometime soon (I bought a laptop when they had the free Vista stuff), but I'm not installing it until they have at least a optional fix for all the "We assume all our customers are incompetent buffoons" bullshit.

Most of them are.

I've had the dubious pleasure of using a Athlong 64 bit 3800+ based Dell Rig.

It has 1gb Ram and an Ati X1300 256mb and a 250gb HD

Vista is a huge pretty, glossy slug of an operating system. It's bloated beyond belief and requires twice as many clicks to do anything as XP did. I could probably turn that rubbish off but the subtle differences between Vista and XP means that nothing works quite how I expect it to (so much for "intuitive" and "familiarity"). It also eats up a whopping 9gb of space on the drive.

Now onto the way it handles the drive

Drive = 250gb Sata 2
It is partitioned (by Vista or Dell) into 2 partitions, one of 222 gb (formatted) and one of 10gb (formatted) which is the recovery partition.

With a fresh install of Vista, Runescape and MS Flight simulator 2004 there is 186gb of free disk space. The total space on the drive is 222gb if you remember. This means that the used drive space is 36gb. Now here's the kicker - If I change the folder options to allow me to view hidden folders and system files and so on so I can see the entire contents of the C volume and then select all and properties I can see that there are a total of ~97,000 files in ~9900 directories and the total disk space used is 16.5gb (used on disk, not actual file size, space on disk is always the bigger one)

Soooooo 222 - 16.5gb = 205.5 Free space. Yet Vista reports just 186gb free space. It seems there is a discrepancy of 19.5gb which is totally unaccounted for. What's more disturbing is this figure seems to be gradually increasing. It's not the system restore folder increasing because nothing is being restored. There is either something radically wrong with the file system under vista or there is something else going on that MS don't want you to know about for some reason. Try not to read that in a too conspiracy theory tone - it could be a "you just dont need to know" thing but I'd like the option to know if I want to.

As for performance - The computer that this new Dell Replaces was an Athlon 1800+ with 500mb ram and a GF3 Ti 200 running XP. There is little difference running MSFS 2004 and the operating system on the old system actually feels faster and more responsive.

In Conclusion Vista is a huge, cumbersome slug that doesn't take advantage of modern computing power - it abuses it. The ONLY reason I will make the switch eventually is that sooner or later Im going to want to play a newer game and that game will need DX10 and that will ONLY run under Vista.

It's possibly the visuals in Vista that are slowing the whole thing down, because by rights, a 64 bit OS running on a 64 bit Processor should run faster than a 32 bit OS running on a 32bit OS, especially given that the 64bit processor is way faster than its predecessor on clock speed. Taking that assumption as a fact then it would be interesting to see MS release a purely Functional OS, keep the layout and way of doing things but turn the glossy crap off. Given that a Vista is a beautiful view they could call the Functional Version of Whistler(?) something like .. Stonewall - yep a less appealing view but that's exactly what Vista does at every given opportunity.

I rate Vista 2/5

On the Linux note - I have Ubuntu dual booting totally problem free with Windows XP.

It seems there is a discrepancy of 19.5gb which is totally unaccounted for.

I take it that you aren't reading the manufacturer's specification. They will typically use 1 GB = 10^9 B, while the OS consider 1 GB = 2^30 B.

If not then the loss is probably due to NTFS, not Windows. Basically all filesystems will do that.

And before you say anything, I'm not one of those noobs who just slapped it on over XP

- Doesn't seem to like sharing a partitioned HDD with XP

This makes me laugh a lot. :p

Ughhh, OPEN SOURCE. It's good enough for browsers and stuff, but open source OSs are looking for trouble. Tried to play around with Ubuntu once, and it DESTROYED MY HDD.
Installed it and had no idea about partitioning? meeeh....

If not then the loss is probably due to NTFS, not Windows. Basically all filesystems will do that.
Not really! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tail_packing) Modern FSes can circuumvent this!

I have DOS 6.22.

Ah yes, the good ol' days. ;)

I still had some DOS 6.0 and 7.0 disks laying around until recently. I'm not sure where they went. :confused:

I take it that you aren't reading the manufacturer's specification. They will typically use 1 GB = 10^9 B, while the OS consider 1 GB = 2^30 B.

If not then the loss is probably due to NTFS, not Windows. Basically all filesystems will do that.I don't think you thought that through properly. The difference between 10^9 and 2^30 is 7%. Mogtaria is claiming that there Vista is reporting twice as much space being used than actually is being used. Effectively making a 250Gb drive the size of a 125Gb drive.

Ah yes, the good ol' days. ;)

I still had some DOS 6.0 and 7.0 disks laying around until recently. I'm not sure where they went. :confused:
Get FreeDOS? :)

Picked it up on Monday. And before you say anything, I'm not one of those noobs who just slapped it on over XP; I have XP and Vista on separate drives.

Well, if you have it, what's your opinion of it?

IMO:

The Good:
- Fancy, shiny features
- Nice new organisation system

The Bad:
- Those damn security alerts
- About as stable as a house of cards
- Many programs don't work
- Doesn't seem to like sharing a partitioned HDD with XP

For your bad the UAC can be turned off (those security alerts)
Have had absolutely no stability issues I have about a 10 day up time right now because of the last patch but I have never had to restart for any of the crazyness that I do at work

There are only 2 applications I have had any issue with at work or home SAV (which now has a vista version 10.2) and VmwareServer (understandable with all the wacky networking crap it does)

We have a TONE of home brewed applications and un supported or out of support software that was not even designed for XP around here that STILL has no issue with vista

I also dual booted at home for 2 months with the beta ... not a single issue with multipule partitions on the same HDD

I don't think you thought that through properly. The difference between 10^9 and 2^30 is 7%. Mogtaria is claiming that there Vista is reporting twice as much space being used than actually is being used. Effectively making a 250Gb drive the size of a 125Gb drive.

It does seem to be an excessive case of "missing space". I doubt the filesystem is using that much just to keep track of stuff... My suggestion is to run Scandisk, as Vista might've got its filesystem in a twist.

I won't allow it on the networks which is pissing off some of the engineers as they bought it at home.

I always offer give me a "valid" reason for installing it and I will. Eye candy is not a valid reason.

We use opensource and I have heard a few horror stories about vista and GNU.

Our micro rep is pissed because no matter what they argue I keep hitting them with "That is a benefit for Microsoft."
Depending on your organization


Roaming profile changes are enough to take a look at it absolutly, the new roaming profiles with vista are incredibly powerfull (and a bit tricky to work with blended networks, it IS possible to get XP and Vista roaming profiles to work together ... just not fun)

This makes me laugh a lot. :p

Well to be fair it sounds like he was saying he did not do an upgrade rather a dual boot ... At least thats what I took from it

who needs vista?

who needs vista?

Microsoft ;p

who needs vista?

I defiantly don't mind the troubleshooting tools it gives me on students computers

Also appreciate their new networking auto detect that is able to auto configure Enterprise WPA setup automatically ... reducing my work load by a lot actually

I should be getting Vista mailed to me sometime soon (I bought a laptop when they had the free Vista stuff), but I'm not installing it until they have at least a optional fix for all the "We assume all our customers are incompetent buffoons" bullshit.

I assume you are talking about the UAC? ... you have been able to turn that off sense the beta's

You destroyed your HDD, Ubuntu just gave you the tools to do so.

Oh yeah? I booted up a Ubuntu disc, I select "Run from CD", it gave me an error, my HDD never worked again.

Well, it did, but it gave me trouble Windows never has.

Cedega is good enough for me. *nod*

Same Cedaga (when my primary gaming computer was Linux) was always a good choice for me as well

Well to be fair it sounds like he was saying he did not do an upgrade rather a dual boot ... At least thats what I took from it

Of course I didn't do a damn upgrade. In what UNIVERSE is "sharing" synonymous with "upgrade"? I had two partitions, one XP, the other Vista.

Of course I didn't do a damn upgrade. In what UNIVERSE is "sharing" synonymous with "upgrade"? I have two partitions, one XP, the other Vista.

Where did I say you did? ... The poster I quoted sounded like he misunderstood by how he had pulled two quotes out of your OP ... I was trying to point out what you had actually done

Which is just what you explained

Me thinks you are getting mad at the wrong person

Where did I say you did? ... The poster I quoted sounded like he misunderstood by how he had pulled two quotes out of your OP ... I was trying to point out what you had actually done

Which is just what you explained

Me thinks you are getting mad at the wrong person

I'm using your quote to get mad at him.

I'm using your quote to get mad at him.

Lol ok I was like woah I thought I explained it right (I worked all night lol)

Picked it up on Monday. And before you say anything, I'm not one of those noobs who just slapped it on over XP; I have XP and Vista on separate drives.

Well, if you have it, what's your opinion of it?

IMO:

The Good:
- Fancy, shiny features
- Nice new organisation system

The Bad:
- Those damn security alerts
- About as stable as a house of cards
- Many programs don't work
- Doesn't seem to like sharing a partitioned HDD with XP

You poor bastard. :D

I have Windows Me. And I dont care.

I have Windows Me. And I dont care.

I've got a bunch of NT3.51 install disks somewhere around here :p

Just a note. Apparently almost programmes would work if you choose the Run as Administrator mode.

Kinda make you wonder why they don't just put that as the Windows XP SP2 compatibility mode.....

I've got a bunch of NT3.51 install disks somewhere around here :p

you have to know that joke is lost on me.

All I know is my computer is fast and does what I need it to do right now.

Well I've been using Vista Ultimate for about 3 weeks - built myself a new pc from scratch and bought an OEM version of Ultimate for £110 ($200 ?).
Main problem so far has been dodgy drivers for the GeForce card and stability issues ... Vista crashes at least once per day and for no apparent reason either.

It sure does "look nice", the aero interface is pretty neat to look at but you have to ask yourself whether it's any better than simply switching between tabs ... it does use an awful lot of memory ... I saw 16Gb mentioned earlier in the thread & I do agree with that, my stats are similar. But memory is cheap as chips. I'm pretty wary now of downloading third party software, there's simply no guarantee it's going to work on Vista ... altho the Open Office suite seems to work just fine ...

I dunno. I'd say if you're going to upgrade your PC in the immediate future then consider sticking to XP and buying yourself a pretty decent PC at a bargain price (my local retailer has slashed prices on new PC's with XP) ... or consider the DIY route if you know what you're doing and give Vista a try - the OEM version of Vista & Norton I bought have saved a small fortune.

But if I were running a business I'd give Vista a wide berth at the moment. Might look good but it's just not as reliable as XP.

I've got a bunch of NT3.51 install disks somewhere around here :p

Ohhh I remember when that came out, I had to slip in some extra Ram to make it work, that's right folx I went up to a blistereing 48MB!

Yeah I have Vista, but it's running off a virtual machine. My computer's primary OS is XP. I haven't played around much with Vista yet though.

Steven

you have to know that joke is lost on me.

All I know is my computer is fast and does what I need it to do right now.

To keep it simple and such...

Well ME is considered to be the worst MS OS out there for home use (or any use). NT3.51 was considered to be a total nightmare for business computing. Luckily NT4 cames out not that much later.

At the end of the day its whatever you're comfortable with...I use W2K because its stable and far too common to die out in the forthcoming years.

/geek

you guys are doing it all wrong. what you need is a mate who is a certified microsoft engineer who can give it to you for free and is entirely legal! I have good friends!

I use XP only grudgingly, it'll be a cold day in hell before Vista goes near any computer I'm using. It's also not touching the network here at work. I don't see why Microsoft has to inflate and massively screw up their OS every few years and call it an upgrade.

Ohhh I remember when that came out, I had to slip in some extra Ram to make it work, that's right folx I went up to a blistereing 48MB!
Wow! that much?!?!? but... I thought... 640kB ought to be enough!

Ohhh I remember when that came out, I had to slip in some extra Ram to make it work, that's right folx I went up to a blistereing 48MB!

I remember when PC's measured RAM in Kb ;)

Wow! that much?!?!? but... I thought... 640kB ought to be enough!

Or 2K....

http://oldcomputers.net/ts1000.html

To keep it simple and such...

Well ME is considered to be the worst MS OS out there for home use (or any use). NT3.51 was considered to be a total nightmare for business computing. Luckily NT4 cames out not that much later.

At the end of the day its whatever you're comfortable with...I use W2K because its stable and far too common to die out in the forthcoming years.

/geek

I wont call you a geek-You know what you need to know.

I havent had any trouble at all with Windows Me, for my applications. I do use it to work between 6 and 10 hours a day.

My brother built this computer for me 4 years ago and is now suggesting I at least go up to Windows XP. I'm agreeing as long as it doesnt foul anything up.
So-I dont play games or download music or anything,just access work site,and run various searches. My effort is always to keep it simple.
We have two other computers in the house for anything else-one my wife uses and one for the kids
I dont want to contaminate the one I make a living on with any other un-needed junk.

Same Cedaga (when my primary gaming computer was Linux) was always a good choice for me as well
It gets the job done.

I wonder how it runs on 64-bit....

It gets the job done.

I wonder how it runs on 64-bit....

Had enough hardware ... issues with most *nix distros (though that was before my GC swap) that I just sucked it up and use windows on my main gaming machine ... Though that was a while back when my hardware was brand spankign new probably would run like a bat out of hell now