Windows Vista - suprisingly impressed

Capt'n Midnight

astrofool wrote:

it also lets users move to 64bit and 4+GB of RAM.

What about 64 bit XP ?
or Windows 2000 server which could use more than 4GB (datacentre is almost the same as workstation 2000 apart from a few files and added features)

The americans' have a saying - "if it works, it's obsolete"

BostonB

Karsini wrote: »

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.

Chicken and egg isn't it. I can see why some might need 4GB and 64bit. But also the majority of people don't need that to use the web, and a few office type applications. Needing it to run an OS that gives you so little advantages (for the office user) over XP I can't see the advantage of Vista myself. Obviously with application bloat eventually you always need more.

Karsini wrote: »

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.

So just like XP, if the user is educated on how to keep their machine clean on XP, that works just as well on Vista. Most people I know using Vista have turned UAC off completely.

Kinetic^

I've got Vista business on my laptop and Vista Ultimate on my Desktop, never had any problems running games.

cdebru

Kenny 5 wrote: »

I've got Vista business on my laptop and Vista Ultimate on my Desktop, never had any problems running games.

Karsini wrote: »

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.

Yeah a large part of the resistance to vista is because of the 7 year gap people have got comfortable with xp and dont want to move and xp was called a memory hog at the time as well and lots of hardware did not work with it.
UAC calms down after the first couple of weeks and just because some people are dumb and press yes at every prompt does not mean the xp model of having to run as admin is a good idea.

Sherifu

BostonB wrote: »

So just like XP, if the user is educated on how to keep their machine clean on XP, that works just as well on Vista. Most people I know using Vista have turned UAC off completely.

You have to go out of your way to make xp work like vista, it's not nicely built into xp like it is into vista. Disabling a security feature isn't the brightest thing to do either. I know a lot of people do it because they say they're tired of clicking all the time, perhaps that was true at the start but with the updates i'd be doing well to see 1 or 2 UAC pop ups per session. There are also ways to make it less intrusive like preventing it darkening the screen. Seems like a step in the right direction to me anyway. I don't want everything running as admin.

kaimera

tweakUAC ftw.

It's very advisable not to turn off uac completely.

0ubliette

Using it for the past week myself, vista home premium, have to say i love it, if for nothing more than the fact that it looks the ****ing sex

astrofool

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

What about 64 bit XP ?
or Windows 2000 server which could use more than 4GB (datacentre is almost the same as workstation 2000 apart from a few files and added features)

The americans' have a saying - "if it works, it's obsolete"

In just a few lines you've got rid of any credibility you have here

64bit XP is much more of a proof of concept then an OS, badly written, or non existant drivers, and program compatability problems, windows 2003 server x64 is ok for servers, but not for desktop, and windows 2008 server will replace it soon.

As for > 4GB Ram on a 32bit OS, performance was dog slow, you might as well have been running with SIMM's, constant paging in and out, at best a work around hack, necessitated by SQL, but by no means the optimal solution.

I'll be moving to 8GB RAM soon, and expect to be up to 16 within the next year and a half (hopefully paired to a minimum 6/12 core cpu)

astrofool

Karsini wrote: »

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.

Oh, certainly, XP had a lot of problems, I had that one too However I haven't had any such problems in my year+ with Vista, which is a first for a new OS.

BostonB

astrofool wrote: »

In just a few lines you've got rid of any credibility you have here

In fairness hes only responding to your comment.

astrofool wrote: »

....it also lets users move to 64bit and 4+GB of RAM. ....

Its not the first 64bit OS far from it.

astrofool wrote: »

I'll be moving to 8GB RAM soon, and expect to be up to 16 within the next year and a half (hopefully paired to a minimum 6/12 core cpu)

Curious. What are you doing that requires that hardware, and what software are you running that takes advantage of that?

I'm running with 4GB on XP but only because of the bloat thats in Vistual Studio and SQL Server 2005, especially the latter.

BostonB

kaimera wrote: »

tweakUAC ftw.

It's very advisable not to turn off uac completely.

I take that point. But if you've not had any problems for years using XP why would you suddenly start having them with Vista. Some machine I have left it on and others I've turned it off.

astrofool

BostonB wrote: »

In fairness hes only responding to your comment.

Its not the first 64bit OS far from it.

Curious. What are you doing that requires that hardware, and what software are you running that takes advantage of that?

I'm running with 4GB on XP but only because of the bloat thats in Vistual Studio and SQL Server 2005, especially the latter.

It's the first Windows OS that reasonably allows users to go 64bit.

As for memory, VS2008, SQL Server, Oracle, Crysis x64 , memory's cheap and it's nice to be ahead of the curve, it's also nice to be able to have a database load into RAM when needed.

BostonB

astrofool wrote: »

It's the first Windows OS that reasonably allows users to go 64bit.

As for memory, VS2008, SQL Server, Oracle, Crysis x64 , memory's cheap and it's nice to be ahead of the curve, it's also nice to be able to have a database load into RAM when needed.

I can see why you need it. I've noticed a big difference in SQL and VS with more RAM.