Windows Vista

[Rick V]

I have been dreading having to change from my XP to Vista, but I was forced to do it. My old lappy went belly up and had to be replaced. Yup Vista. After about 3 days of fiddling with it, and setting it up the way I want it, I like it. Just goes to show ya not to be afraid to try new things.

[HardDrive]

Instructions for new Microsoft operating system configuration

1) Turn on computer.

2) Examine Microsoft marketing literature, looking for all features labled 'Revolutionary'.

3) Turn these features off.

4) Enjoy.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

There's a reason my office runs on Windows 2000 still.

I use XP Pro at home... for now... My next "upgrade" will be converting these systems to Linux if/when XP is no longer supported and my next computers will all be Macs when these finally die.

WAY too many problems with Vista and Micro$oft's nonsensical constant need to shove "updates" down the public's throats for me to play along anymore. The competition has gotten good enough (arguably it's always been...) to feel like one has to embrace M$ junk anymore "just because".

[masraum]

I've been running XP Pro at home and work for years. I like it. It works well.

I just got a new PC that has Vista. Vista does kick butt. I haven't had any problem. It's really fast. Yes, my new PC has much higher specs than the old, so it should be fast, but wow, despite the new "pretty" features, Vista is still really fast.

I was browsing the web looking for ways to tweak vista to make it as fast as possible (I alwasy do that with all software). I found a few sites that said "turn off this, and turn off that". I then found this article that explains why turning off a lot of the new features is either unecessary or counter productive.
http://www.tweakguides.com/VA_1.html

I went ahead and turned most of the stuff back on that I had turned off and didn't notice a speed hit.

So far, Vista seems pretty good.

[Rick V]

I should add that the first thing I did was to switch to firefox and kill IE.

[Moses]

Originally Posted by masraum

I just got a new PC that has Vista. Vista does kick but. I haven't had any problem. It's really fast.

I'm pretty sure you're using the NEW operating system. Windows Mojave...

[SlowToady]

I think that's probably a joke, but for technical relevance, Windows 7 doesn't come out until mid 2009 (up from mid-late 2010).

Seriously, Vista isn't really as bad as people make it out to be. Well, the 64 bit version at least. The 32bit version sucked for me, and many others. You know, the interesting part is the research MS did. The research all said to dump all the legacy crap, make it more secure, and so on. So they did. They dumped a lot of backwards computability to result in a better, newer code base, beefed up the security a bit and.....all anyone does it ***** about it! MS finally got their act together, gave the people what the people said they wanted, and then the people complained about it. You can't eat your cake, and have it, too.

Also don't know why everyone gets hardon for FF and hates IE. IE7 actually isn't too bad, and is on par with the 2.x series of FF. Seriously, FF is NOT that great of a browser. Opera, on the other hand, is a good browser and bounds above either FF or IE.

POP, just out of curiosity, which competition has always been "good enough?" Certainly not GNU/Linux. It's only just now becoming desktop ready, and I'd say it's still not. OS X? Definitely a worthy contender, but until it, Mac OS didn't even have a protected memory model. WTF? BeOS? Maybe, but it's long dead. OS/2? Mmmyea, by the time 4.0 Warp rolled around I guess. MS products aren't the best, but then no other software company is producing the holy grail, either.

Originally Posted by Moses

I'm pretty sure you're using the NEW operating system. Windows Mojave...

[Moses]

Originally Posted by SlowToady

I think that's probably a joke...

It is.

[Rick V]

[QUOTE=SlowToady;429100

Also don't know why everyone gets hardon for FF and hates IE. [/QUOTE]
Because EI has thrown me under the wheels of the bus too many times. I'm just glad it was a short bus.

[Zero10]

Pfft, using vista? I'm already on windows 7. :P

Seriously though, I switched one box over to see how it was and I'm not really all that impressed (of course, this is still an early release). I still use linux as my primary OS on all computers I own.

[masraum]

I've been using Netscape, the Mozilla/Firefox since I hit the web in 95. I've always had both browsers and tried IE, but, except for about 6 months (I think, Netscape 3 or 4), I've always prefered the usability/ergonomics of Netscape/FF.

Even now, IE isn't necessarily slower, but I don't think it's nearly as customizable. I like that I can make FF my own (mostly through functional mods, not aesthetic changes.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by Zero10

Pfft, using vista? I'm already on windows 7. :P

Seriously though, I switched one box over to see how it was and I'm not really all that impressed (of course, this is still an early release). I still use linux as my primary OS on all computers I own.

I've tried Linux off and on over the years. I enjoy trying out the alternatives to the mainstream. The last time I installed Linux (Fedora about 5-6 months ago) I was really impressed. Linux has really come far and, I think, is about ready for prime time, at least for moderately savvy folks.

Still, the majority of PC users out there want a PC to have the functionality of a toaster, TV, or 'fridge -- just stick your stuff in it, get your stuff out, push a button, wait for a ding.

For that user, something like Windows or MAC is necessary.

[450knotOffice]

I've had very few, if any, issues with Vista on my new laptop. It's been a very stable, easy to use OS. It IS a memory hog, but that's fine because I've got 3G of RAM anyway.

[lm6y]

I had Vista Ultimate setup with XP Pro on a dual boot system, and loved it. When XP crashed after SP3 update, I posted here from the Vista boot, and got help here.

If my NERO software would work with it, I'd ditch XP Pro.

[Halm]

Here is a good link for Vista tweaks: http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=2238. Hope it helps.

[nynor]

hackintosh, baby. read it and weep, microshaft.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by Halm

Here is a good link for Vista tweaks: http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=2238. Hope it helps.

Here's another good one that's very comprehensive and tells you why you're changing the stuff that you're changing.
http://www.tweakguides.com/TGTC.html

[masraum]

Originally Posted by 450knotOffice

I've had very few, if any, issues with Vista on my new laptop. It's been a very stable, easy to use OS. It IS a memory hog, but that's fine because I've got 3G of RAM anyway.

Here's a bit of info about that from: http://www.tweakguides.com/VA_5.html

Many Vista users are horrified to see that shortly after booting up Vista, no matter how much system RAM they have, Vista seems to gobble up most of it straight away. They instantly assume that Vista's eye candy or some other "bloated" new feature must be very memory-intensive. What's actually happening is that the SuperFetch feature - covered under the 'Constant Hard Drive Activity' annoyance further above - starts filling any free memory with portions of your most commonly used programs right after Vista boots up. By using otherwise idle RAM as a data cache in this way, Vista greatly improves your application startup times and responsiveness. As the saying goes, "Free RAM is wasted RAM". The concern of course is that by taking up all this RAM, Vista will somehow slow down your system or "hog" the RAM should other programs require it. In practice this is a myth - the moment SuperFetch detects that your system requires the RAM for other purposes, it frees it up instantly.

In general Vista manages memory much more efficiently than XP, juggling RAM, Cached and Virtual Memory much more smoothly, with less stuttering or noticeable slowdowns. SuperFetch and Vista's Memory Management are covered in detail in the Memory Optimization chapter of the TGTC.

Here's a link to the whole article.
http://www.tweakguides.com/VA_1.html

[SlowToady]

Overclock your CPU, Memory and Videocard? Yea. Take everything that website says with a grain of salt.

In addition, a lot of performance tweaks out there for most Windows versions are VERY wrong. It doesn't take much googling to find out. Primarily, running without a pagefile does NOT boost performance, and is *not* recommended (for example).

Always do a good bit of research before implementing "tweaks," a lot of them are just snake oil.

[dd74]

I wish there was a Linux software that was as easy to install as Mac OSX.5.5, or XP.

I'd like it to install, recognize all my peripherals, and be done. I mean, is an internet connection and printing capability so hard for a non-tech guy to get with Linux?

I've been through something like five Linux versions, and finally just threw in the towel.