Windows Vista - suprisingly impressed

BostonB

astrofool wrote: »

Been doing that a bit recently myself (syncing photo's between PC's) and haven't hit any of the problems you describe. I usually use the replace option and tick "apply to all items". What sorts of random files does it leave behind? Are you doing all this through explorer?....

Is there any other way?

If there was a pattern to the files I wouldn't have called it random.

I'll try and post a video of it.

tman

I had a strange screen corruption issue with Vista x64 that only becomes apparant after the pc has been running for 5+ hours which was resolved by a hotfix, I recently reinstalled Vista* and surprisingly this hotfix still isn't included in windows update.
Apart from that I adore Vista, I set up a dual boot with XP, but haven't bothered using that at all over the past month.


*due to excessive copy protection in a game that I actually bought, rather than any issues with windows itself

dulpit

I have vista on my laptop for about 4 months or so now, and i love it... Hate to have to use XP now... Before that I had vista on a machine at work, and i never had any problems there, only problem i had with vista on my laptop is when i tried to update the graphics card driver, didn't like that for a while, but it's ok now...

I think that there is a culture here on boards of people to bash vista which is why you might hear that it's rubbish & slow and so on... Also, people are more likely to post saying it's crap than if they like it...

conor2007

it is xrap and slow though - imo and others

wheresmybeaver

The Release Candidate of Vista SP1 is being released to the general public in the next few days. The changelog of fixes and improvements seems impressive.

Should I install it or wait for the final version in a few months? After doing a full backup, of course...

Grim.

what he said ^^

I've had no end of problems with it in my line of work. Just last week I had severe issues with SLI under x64... which almost prompted an industrial relations nightmare where I refused to work with Vista in future (after some cooling off time I realised that's not doable of course, but you weren't the one being driven mental by it). SuperFetch drives me spare, I end up turning it off because I don't like apps being preloaded on bootup, feels like the equivalent of having loads of apps loading via the registry.

I also hate the interface, there's no consistency to it even if you use the Windows 2000 style. But the one thing I hate beyond all others is the restrictions placed on the command prompt, running as admin forcing the working directory to system32 and disabling drag and drop. The former messes up a lot of my batch files, requiring me to use hard coded paths which is a bad idea. The latter makes changing directories more labour-intensive.

Part of me feels that Vista could be Microsoft's downfall. Sure they'll have the OEMs behind them but I can see the more tech-savvy users looking elsewhere. For years I was bordering on MS fanboy but that's certainly not the case now.

Steffano2002

I've been using Vista Ultimate (32-bit) on my new laptop for about 2 weeks and I found it very hard to find programs and folders. Sure it looks nice and it was running quite well but I just find it too messy... I also tried installing SP1 (RC) but I kept getting error messages every time I tried so I gave up, formatted and installed XP. Will be installing XP SP3 (RC) this evening to see if it does indeed help the performance.

cdebru

dubmick wrote: »

they'd really want to get SP1 out soon. I've a right pain in the hole with Vista crashing. Certain pages on Firefox, picture viewer and some in some cases my usb wireless adaptor have crashed it.

In fairness Firefox has been pretty ****e since version 2 the last decent version was 1.5 hopefully 3 will be better.

cdebru

David Michael wrote: »

I will be sticking with Vista though as it is going to be around and everyone is gonna have to get used to it some time.

That is what they said about ME

Grim.

anyone know when vista sp1 rc is released to the public?

digweed

I've just started using Vista and I have to say I'm quite happy with it. Took a while to set up the wireless alright but other than that I haven't had any problems, I'm on the 32-bit at the minute and wondering if I'll make the jump to 64-bit.

I have to say that I'm impressed with the way it works and I really like the media centre.

My only niggle with it is that I find that sometimes it's very hard drive happy and uses it alot, might be time to upgrade to sata.

D. :cool:

Stephen

If its only been installed a few days ago its probably indexing your drive whenever its idle to facilitate fast searching.

BostonB

Have to say I don't get the whole indexing, fast searching feature. I pretty much know where everything is on my disks. I don't need to slow my whole machine down to save me the hassle of navigation.

M450

BostonB wrote: »

Have to say I don't get the whole indexing, fast searching feature. I pretty much know where everything is on my disks. I don't need to slow my whole machine down to save me the hassle of navigation.

Indexing doesnt slow down your machine... no more than the System Idle Process in the task manager slows it down... It only uses idle processor time.

I find it extremely useful in the start menu... just click start and type the name of what you want to run and hit enter, no need to browse through the all programs folder

BostonB

M450 wrote: »

Indexing doesnt slow down your machine... no more than the System Idle Process in the task manager slows it down... It only uses idle processor time.

I find it extremely useful in the start menu... just click start and type the name of what you want to run and hit enter, no need to browse through the all programs folder

In my experience machines always seem faster when you turn it off. I'm sure it does nothing for battery life on a laptop either.

I have my apps in the quick launch so one click launches them.

If it works for you great.

Superfetch could also be partly to blame for the excessive disk activity.

In work I was looking at a laptop where the customer claims she only got about 45-50 minutes battery life out of it. My guess is Superfetch, Aero and indexing.

GBX

I think its great to use. The only issue I had was the file transfer being slow. did some searching online and found a way to microsoft page with a fix that they will email to you. Working grand since.

BostonB

I've yet to see a Vista or Server 2008 install that can merge folder trees without leaving being empty folders, and the odd file. Its still significantly slower on the same machine (decent spec) as XP (dual boot) even with all the fluff turned off. Slower as in general speed using the system and file copying. I kinda like it though, I like the little tweaks here and there. I'm using on a couple of machine. My main OS is still XP though.

axer

Vista is pretty much the ME of 98. MS Vienna will be the next XP.

I found Vista really annoying at first with the UAC and change in the start menu but after using it a while I found that those changes were actually beneficial.

The changes in vista are actually good and it is a more secure OS but there really isn't enough of a change or improvement to wipe out XP or to start a mass exodus considering XP is getting the SP3.

leninbenjamin

Running it on a Vostro1700 here and i'm relatively happy with it. I wasn't expecting to like it but now i've had a bit of time to get used to i can see why it's superior to XP, although the indexing did take a lot of getting used to. It's still a bit funky at times, mainly when playing games... which this comp isn't really designed or intended to be used for so i can't really complain about that. the only thing that really pisses me off about it is that i have to use IE7 at times, because at times Firefox just refuses to display a page (mainly with java applets) and goes off into the corner having a tantrum... but i'm guessing that's a firefox problem more than vista... still if that were fixed soon i'd be more than happy to use Vista in the long run.

As an economist in training though i have to say Microsoft ****ed up big time with Vista. it still fells like XP on steroids more than a new OS (occasional side effects included). It's certainly not enough of an improvement over XP to warrant anyone to upgrade under any circumstances i feel... they messd up with marketing and with the launch product. these days the only thing that MS has going for it is its monopoly over the market.

Stephen

^^ that's pretty much exactly what everyone said about Windows XP vs Windows 2000.

Capt'n Midnight

^^ that's pretty much exactly what everyone said about Windows 98 vs Windows 95.

BigEejit

I bought a new PC for the wife and daughter and it came with Vista Home Premium .... It works fine, no problems ... but I felt a little show considering the pc had a Q6600 and 3GB ram, however I helped the performance a lot by adding a 4GB usb stick as a readyboost...

I have no plans on bringing this PC down to XP, but I will be doing a full backup before loading SP1

M450

what's superfetch?

BigEejit

BigEejit wrote: »

I bought a new PC for the wife and daughter and it came with Vista Home Premium .... It works fine, no problems ... but I felt a little show considering the pc had a Q6600 and 3GB ram, however I helped the performance a lot by adding a 4GB usb stick as a readyboost...

I have no plans on bringing this PC down to XP, but I will be doing a full backup before loading SP1

ReadyBoost has virtually zero effect on a PC with that much RAM, its more beneficial with 512MB or 1GB.

M450 wrote: »

what's superfetch?

It's a caching system used by Vista which attempts to learn how you use your machine so it preloads applications that it thinks you'll use at any given time. For example, in an office environment it might preload Word or Excel into RAM so it starts quicker. But in my opinion (in situations where you need a lot of available RAM such as with games) it's a waste. I wouldn't like my games lagging just so my browser starts a second or two faster.

astrofool

Karsini wrote: »

I wouldn't like my games lagging just so my browser starts a second or two faster.

If your application needs lots of RAM, it gets lots of RAM, superfetch is used when RAM is going to waste, not when it's scarce. For example, if your game was played a lot, then it would be loaded into RAM and start quicker than if it had to be read from disk. The game devs can then get as much RAM as they want when running.

A lot has changed under the hood with Vista, it's a much more secure OS as a result, it also lets users move to 64bit and 4+GB of RAM. Unfortunately, people see Vista as a UI update and nothing more, when Aero is only a small part of the code changes.

For a fast moving industry, computer users are a conservative bunch, with very short memories

BostonB

Do most people need, 64bit, 4GB of Ram, UAC etc.

BostonB

BostonB wrote: »

Do most people need, 64bit, 4GB of Ram, UAC etc.

64-bit and 4GB of RAM go hand in hand, you can't really have 4GB without 64-bit. But with the way Vista is going, yes you will need that much in time.

UAC, yes, in a form. Giving all applications free reign is a recipie for disaster. But the current system is so chatty that it's a case of "boy who cried wolf syndrome." I've seen it myself, Vista machines infected with spyware because the user just accepts any UAC prompt he/she gets.

astrofool

astrofool wrote: »

For a fast moving industry, computer users are a conservative bunch, with very short memories

Well we're certainly resistant to change! But I do remember the hassle with XP, programs not working, graphics card incompatibilities (remember STOP:0x000000EA, driver stuck in an infinite loop), lower FPS in games that were designed for Win9x, problems with UDMA modes on some IDE controllers, the list was endless.