Thread: Windows Vista--Thumbs up or thumbs down?

Originally Posted by BrianB

That being said, I'll probably stick with XP until it's discontinued. Stability is a major issue with me and I know that any new-fangled contraption is wobbly straight from the gate. Personally I'd stick with XP.

Same here, probably wont touch vista until I have to.

Originally Posted by poona

Vista has a function which enables it to use a 'pen-drive' (removeable memory stick or usb pen) as extra memory. Handy if your machine is struggling.

Wow, what does this remind me of? Oh! A crutch. Who wants to bet that microsoft will start making thumb-drives that are required to use this feature, haha?

Hi, I'm a Mac to.

Actually, It is called readyboost.
Vista can use a USB flash device to store small chunks of data instead of moving them to the page file on the hard disk.
So regardless of how much memory you have, this can lead to a serious performance boost.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Readyboost

Originally Posted by Bruno

Actually, It is called readyboost.
Vista can use a USB flash device to store small chunks of data instead of moving them to the page file on the hard disk.

Yeah, but it can't use mine Only drives with enough write and read speed are "Vista ready". Too bad my Kingston Data Traveler 1GB isn't. Check before you buy...

Nenad

sooooo.....how do you check?

-whatever

-Lou

EDIT: Never mind....I found it....the NEW Flash Drives that are Vista ready are advertised
as, well, 'Vista Ready'.....

...which tells me that the two flash drives I currently own probably AREN'T Vista ready....










...so.....we're pretty much back to SUCKS again!

(...funny how we never seem to get FAR from there!...)

Somehow I knew that'd be a problem after I read that you'd either need a new "Vista-ready" computer or you'd have to have a pretty high-end newer computer with enough "umph" to run Vista. I'd give it another year, maybe two, before everything made will be compatible. That or Vista is going to have to make major strides to allow for that backwards compatibility.

I know as a gamer it's important to me that any new system, like the XBox 360, is made to handle it's older model XBox disks as well. It's really all I ask for.

So... until Vista is made stable and capable of using older equipment, it's XP for me.

A little tip: if you are going to buy any hardware from now on, make sure that it is Vista 64 bit capable.
Vista is (very probably) the last 32 bit OS that Microsoft will release. So anything that is only supported on 32 bit platforms is a waste of money in the long run.

I ordered new computers for my business which came with Vista on them. The system had a lot of problems running the propiretary trading software we use. Unfortunately Dell is little help in resolving anything, and they told me I had to purchase seperate licenses for XP to switch back, as they no longer support XP installation! Seemed a bit fishy, but in the end after hours on the phone with them they ended up giving me a big rebate on the order.

I first tried Vista (Business) a couple weeks after it came out and wasnt really impressed much. Then after finding that it didnt support my on-board Sata connections, my IDE/Sata expansion card, or my PCI video card I decided that it sucked and didnt want anything to do with it. This was helped along by a system crash approx 3 min after the install finished. Not Vista's fault, I blame that one on ATI and their shoddy drivers.

A month later I gave it another go since I had used a spare hard drive and just unplugged it and set it aside. While starting it detected the 'problem' hardware and this time found drivers so I could access all of my drives. No love with the video card though, ATI says they'll never support it. This time I stayed with Vista long enough to disable Windows Defender and get rid of a few other settings designed to protect the click-anything crowd.
The UI has been freshened up and I really like it.
Their widget bar seemed to be poor and was quickly disposed of.
Third party software has been slow release in some areas (ie, firewall) and some of these things are critical to me.

Fortunately XP makes it easy for me to wait. I used to format 2-4 times a year just to get that fresh install feeling (installing, playing with, then removing lots of software in between), but for some reason I've gone about a year and a half without getting the itch to do it over again. I guess I've just found the setup that works for me.

I will go to Vista eventually, probably if I feel that something's gone wrong with my current XP install. I just don't see it happening all that soon.

(It's a student copy given out by my university, not having to pay for it probably helps me keep an open mind about it.)

Reformatting 2-4 times a year--now that's hardcore.

I read a few things in Popular Photography magazine last night that make me inclined to keep Vista... Sounds like Microsoft has finally decided that digital photography is here to stay, so they developed a half-decent photo archiving system.

Think I'll give it a try, anyway...

Josh