Windows Vista Review

[ozcal]

HI All

I've installed a program from the Net that sort'a transforms XP to look like Vista; for my money it generally works well, adding a Vista-like appearance, but without big-V's system demands.

Over on the other hard-drive, my RC1 version of Vista Ultimate seems to run well. But it loves its RAM: even though the machine has 1Gig of SD133, it slows down, to the point where running DVD movies on Windows Media Player is a no-no, 'though it's ok on the Nero player.

And like Rass, I can't see anything to make me fork out dollars for upgraded hardware, in order to pay extra dollars for Vista ... well, not yet, anyway.

Cheers

NOEL GORDON

Hi Noel , I downloaded the Vista transformation pack also and several Aero themes and I agree it really is very pretty.Little to no impact on performance for standard net and office duties

Gordon

[FlashGordon]

Been using Vista since December - I'll go out on a limb and claim its the best release since Windows 95.

Stuff just works, without fuss.

Got to agree there....been running Vista for 4 weeks now and its great.

Initially tried to upgrade XP....it really didn't like that...so as I had backed up all important stuff and emails....formatted it and clean installed Vista Ultimate.

It takes hours to upgrade - I kid you not - but only about 30 minutes to clean install with formatting, etc.

Install then was an absolute breeze compared to other Windows versions.

But having said that...some of the review warnings were very real...quite a number of programs didn't work straight off if they installed at all...and some of the so called compatible ones didn't work either.

Even if they were "made" compatible to Win XP (it has this function)...

The good news...most of those programs have now been upgraded - better late than never - and seem to work seemlessly.

Many people have had and are still having issues with drivers though....and Windows Live Messenger.

I include myself in that list too.

Again slowly but surely the updated drivers - if not already included in Vista - are being released.

Also I have found not using the very latest of Windows Live Messenger (but a previous build) also worked without problems.

Although quite a number of printer drivers are not being updated for some reason....so this could cause printer problems.

I was lucky drivers for my printers were already in Vista.

After all that - one big issue that I hope will eventually be resolved.....the Vista Search feature.

It is totally new to Windows - but you can download it for use with XP - and based on forums is causing quite a stir.

I myself have had problems with it, in that it can't find my Outlook PST files on the C drive...no matter what search locations are used or how many times I rebuild the index. However it does find the backups on the external HD in mere seconds....very very fast.

The MSVP "elite" reckon its syntax problems and wrong search locations, etc...but if it is that difficult then a better help file or tutorial is required for us average people.

A big plus is it finds stuff - in the Vista equivalent of "My Documents" - in millisecs after initial indexing - this indexing in your specified search locations can take some time first time out.

But so far I am very impressed with Vista Ultimate full version.

So far...

Cheers

FG

[lieb39]

Hm it's nice but no placement for me.. no one really I reckon.. ah well.

Cheers

[mitch01]

One thing I really REALLY hate about Vista. User Access Control.. That and the fact if you create an administrator account it locks all other admin accounts (e.g local administrator).

Best part about vista is Chess Titans

[Felix..]

One thing I really REALLY hate about Vista. User Access Control.

You know this can be easily disabled Mitch? It's the old trade-off between security and convenience. Mac users are use to it and are prompted to enter a password to make system changes, as are those running many distros of Linux. I find UAC annoying too and trust my own security awareness so switch UAC off on my own installs of Vista.

[Guest JimboTHX1138]

I've been using Vista for a couple a weeks and i think it's great. I did a clean install and it was all done within half an hour. It installs very smoothly, with no formatting screens etc. You just pop the disc in and half an hour later it's ready to go. To my surprise i didn't have to install any drivers or anything, Vista did it all for me. Also it seems a lot smoother, faster and stable than XP, on my machine anyway. The only thing is it needs a lot of RAM. I have 1GB of RAM and if i go into Task Manager just after booting up, the RAM is nearly maxed out with over 800MB being used and once fully loaded it is always using between 500-600 MB. So 2GB of RAM would be great for Vista, which is what i'll be upgrading to soon.

[djOS]

The only thing is it needs a lot of RAM. I have 1GB of RAM and if i go into Task Manager just after booting up, the RAM is nearly maxed out with over 800MB being used and once fully loaded it is always using between 500-600 MB. So 2GB of RAM would be great for Vista, which is what i'll be upgrading to soon.

Actually this isn't quite true, the correct thing to say is that "Vista uses a lot of RAM" - the reason is that unlike XP, which tries to leave as much memory available for apps as it can, Vista actually uses any unused RAM to cache frequently used apps and other bits and pieces via an Intelligent Pre-fetching cache system. It actually keeps track of your average usage, eg: if everyday @ 4pm you open up Excel 2007, it will pre-cache it before 4pm (providing RAM is available), to speed up the application launch and usage.

I hope this makes sense?

Btw, 1Gb RAM works quite well for the average user, but power users and gamers will definitely get gains from 2Gb of RAM.

[Guest JimboTHX1138]

Well i figure, if uses it then it needs it, but i see your point.

Thanks for the explanation.

[djOS]

Well i figure, if uses it then it needs it, but i see your point.

Thanks for the explanation.

There is a big difference between needing RAM to run an App and preemptively using available RAM to boost system performance (Caching), the latter is not "needed" per se but is possible due to "spare" RAM being available at that particular moment in time.

[Guest JimboTHX1138]

There is a big difference between needing RAM to run an App and preemptively using available RAM to boost system performance (Caching), the latter is not "needed" per se but is possible due to "spare" RAM being available at that particular moment in time.

I see what you are saying but i doubt if i installed 2GB of RAM it would be using 1600-1800MB of it at boot up.

[djOS]

I see what you are saying but i doubt if i installed 2GB of RAM it would be using 1600-1800MB of it at boot up.

Like I said before, It's designed to be intelligent caching; that implies that if Vista doesn't think something needs to be cached based on your usage patterns, then it wont cache something. In effect it is unlikely that 1.5Gb+ of RAM would be used if your typical usage at that moment doesn't justify it.

[Guest JimboTHX1138]

Like I said before, It's designed to be intelligent caching; that implies that if Vista doesn't think something needs to be cached based on your usage patterns, then it wont cache something. In effect it is unlikely that 1.5Gb+ of RAM would be used if your typical usage at that moment doesn't justify it.

That's why i'm suggesting 2GB of RAM. So that there is some reserved RAM instead of being almost maxed out. It constantly uses half of your RAM with 1GB, and is basically maxed out on boot up. It's almost impossible to play a decent game with 1GB as Vista's constantly using half of it. I would definately recommend 2GB of RAM for Vista.

[VanTT]

i heard that vista x64 demo version, on a dual core amazingly faster compared to wndows xp . anyone here experienced that?

[JoshH]

Running Vista on a dual core 2.33 Ghz. laptop with 2 gig ram, Quadro FX 2500GO 512mb video card and Loving it - VERY fast. Very happy with Vista so far - apart from the fact that the Marantz Wiz It software doesnt run on VISTA.

[Austen]

Seems like a good a place as any to post this problem ............................

I've got a video file that GSpot identifies as a mp4v.

When playing it in (Vistas) Media Player it plays OK, and indeed you would think that there was nothing wrong with it.

However, Playing the same file in Media Player Classic reveals that WMP is showing you what looks to me to be a 4:3 version of the video, while MPC plays a "widescreen" version.

Eyeballing the two, it seems to me that about 25% is missing from each side when using WMP, but like I said, if you hadn't seen the file play in MPC, you'd never know the sides were missing !!!!

Any thoughts ????

Many thanks,

Austen.

[djOS]

yep, in MCE press "i" and cycle through the "Zoom" modes.