I am wondering what is the general opinion on Vista now. I have been switching between for the past months. Sometime i feel XP is better sometimes i feel Vista is great and smooth.

So What do you think?

I think Vista works great if you have the system for it. Just ordered a ThinkPad T61 with 2.4 GHz C2D and 4 gigs of ram, 320 gig drive, so this should be great. I have it running on a 2.0 GHz C2D with 4 gigs of ram now and it works great. A few small application compatibility issues but other than that it's great, I have ways around them.

Wrong forum. I'm moving this to the Vista forum, since it belongs there more than any other area.

Topic Moved

After a 6 month trial on a P4 2.8GHz with 2GB RAM and a GeForce 7800, I re-installed XP a couple of days ago. I liked Vista, but it just wasn't fast enough with my older build. And there's still something wrong with file copy, because every now and then, a very small (kb) file will take minutes to copy.

I'll install it on my next system and see if things go better with a multi-core processor.

am running vista and xp on a dual boot system. I still prefer xp over vista, vista is smooth and feels good, but still there are many issues, and too many Unnecessary applications, services and too many Dependencies on each services. Vlite does the trick and makes it run better than XP, but i prefere a clean out of box stable fast OS, and thats not vista, its XP
XP SP3 MY VOTE!

Guys! Move foward vista, whatever you heard vista is great

[x] Vista

I agree with hannubys

I agree with luke.mccormick > If you have adequate hardware, then Vista is great.

Been running Vista since the 4000 builds and noticed the roadmap... It became my main OS for quite a while now and after SP1 my rig is flying, so Vista gets my vote

On a dual core box that's not memory starved? Vista SP1 for sure.

Older machines are likely better off with XP (never tried loading Vista on an old box)

if i had the cash spare i would now move to vista ultimate x64, considering that this is the way forward.

I've assessed two different Vista products on a range of hardware, took me nearly a month, and I would have to say it's not ready for the corporate environment. Even SP1 hasn't addressed more than a fraction of the issues I found. It's also horrendously overbloated with stuff that we will never use. It's far worse than W2k or XP in that regard. We will be sticking with W2k and XP for the forseeable future. We may even skip Vista altogether and wait for 'Windows 7'. Not that I expect that to be much better

waiting for windows 7 will not help you much since it will based on vista source code anyway. Problems you have with vista may or may not still present in Windows 7 and you will run into more compatibility problems in 7 as well if you wait to upgrade application/hardware etc. playing the waiting game with technology hoping the next version will be easier to use is a double edge sword.

i love my xp.

i've tried vista and i just cant get the feel for it. I find it so much harder to navigate through menus and even finding the easy stuff like network connections.

the bad thing is that I am in the IT field....so eventually i will have to get down and dirty with vista and learn all the new troubleshooting techniques that i've mastered with xp.

XP. My games are faster, runs fine otherwise. I only have a XP 3200+ (Barton) & Nforce 2.

Although there are some little things of Vista I like, like when copying multiple files the whole thing won't stop because of an error with one file, but I don't understand why something like that isn't in XP or why they haven't' fixed the tooltip problem in XP when the problem was known well before XP's release.

That's always a bit confusing really. Most new windows versions tend to shuffle things around like this and renaming some stuff.

The quickest thing I know of to get to network connections (not start > control panel > network and sharing center > manage network connections, nor right clicking on the systray icon > network and sharing center > manage network connections), is win+r, ncpa.cpl (but yes, you have to remember the name now)


And again, that's what it comes down to. We have to stay current It's not just a Vista thing. New desktop OS, new server OS, new Exchange, new SQL Server, new dev tools, new hardware, new technologies, new apps, new ways to do things, new everything... It's a VERY rapidly changing field, and we're all struggling to keep current with everything.

I have had XP Pro since day one . I installed Vista on a another drive 2 months ago , I can boot up with either XP or Vista . I'm using Vista all the time now . So far I haven't had any problems either . So its Vista for me .

Lol when i voted it was 50/50 (and yes i voted vista )

some people don't take the time to know vista, because of the change of interface, menu....pff are you so archaic! there are a lot of website that show how to tweak vista, this should help most of them.
some people test vista for only 2-3 days and they think they know it. oh my god!
move forward and stay up to date

Stop being such an arse hannubys. Some people tested it for considerably more than the 2-3 days you assumed and found it wasn't suitable for their purposes. Other people simply don't see the need to fix something which isn't broken, ie. Windows XP. This does not make them archaic, nor is moving to Vista necessarily a move forward in many cases.

In our case, we are waiting to see if the specific issues which concern us are going to be addressed before we re-evaluate it. Only then after a proper evaluation will a decision be made. At the moment we are leaning towards skipping Vista and waiting for Windows 7 which Microsoft has stated will be modular. That will suit our needs very nicely thank you

Seriously not everything new is supposed to be the greatest. There are lots of examples that can be given but I am not going to waste my time. I just dotn see anythign in Vista that requires me to lose that much hdd space adn that much performance. You can see my specs below and I am using XP x64 and the system flies. I tried Vista and it was just too slow and sluggish and I had those copying issues as well. It would just sit there like a jackass copying small files! WTF!

My roll in life, this one anyway, is to make things work better. It's what I've done for 44 years now.
I'm running Vista Ultimate 32 on a freebie PC that was given to me.
There are many ways to simplify Vista and make it run better and use less resources.
There are even some registry tweaks to enhance performance.

But I've found nothing to eliminate the HD bloat. Vista is just HUGE!
It definitely requires MORE HD space and even more RAM than XP.

On my test machine, it runs pretty well.
I'm still looking for new ways to eeeek out another percent or two of performance.
I havn't even started shutting down Services yet, but I'll bet there are a bunch.
On XP I shut down about a dozen, without crippling XP.

Vista will never be my favorite OS, but it can be made to work a lot better than it does,
right out of the box.

Good luck,
Andromeda

I am ok with a new OS taking up more ram and stuff and more hard drive space as well as long as it is doing SOMETHING beneficial that I can see or ntoice. Yet pretty much everyone even the Vista fans I am sure have had smoe negative experience adn then they did all these tweaks and fixes adn vlite and all that to get it to perform better. Sure there is nothign wrong with modding to get more performance. But even then its not quick enough. THe price is outrageous. There is absolutely no reason to use Vista right now. Someone may say DX 10 and I say show me benefits and advantages of it. Once again just because something is new does not make it better.

My package is a little bit old for vista

Not surprised to see xp is getting more votes. Even after vista sp1, vista is still slow and bloated and resource hungry. My system is op notch, 4gb ram with intel core duo, but still vista is sluggish when it come to speed, responsive, and reliability

At this point, if a well-powered system is running slow with Vista, something is wrong with the system.

Well you may have a point there subzero BUT if a well endowed system runs XP just fine and then you slap Vista on it with right drivers etc etc and SP1 before installing any other software and it is still sluggish and slow would it not imply something is wrong with the system?

I think and dont take this as flaming or badmouthing or anything bad at all but people always tend to think newer equals better especially when it comes to software and more often than not unfortunately that is not the case. That is just the unfortunate reality of software.

I'd go with Vista personally....Like what most guys said, it's got software compatibility issues but it'll fix from time to time via updates. I just hope MS will release SP2 sooon! and a patch for backwards compatible applications such as most games.

Cheers
Daora1984

If it's still sluggish something is wrong. Could be one of those "right drivers."


From your personal experience, please list off some games that you know for certain do not work in Vista. Specific titles please.

Its not driver problems, as i upgraded my video card and other stuffs, with the new raptor 300bg HDD, all my system componenets are vista compatible with full x86/x64 driver support.

Its just moving from xp sp3 to a resource hungry and bloated OS makes it feel slower than xp. But end of the day vista is not that bad after sp1, compatibility and stability has improved a lot. Its just the file copying issues still remain which really puts me off, and obviously other stuffs.

Surprisingly when i used vlite to strip down vista (did not remove too many components only few), the result was Vista is faster than XP SP3 in everything. So basically vista has potential to become the fastest OS, but its bloated stuffs and unnecessary services and its many dependency's on each services kills a good OS

You havent heard of vLite? Their forums are right here.

My package is just a little old

Drivers causing slowness overall? Well if I got the manufacturers drivers so if that is the root cause of the problem well then I would blame it on the drivers but that is not the case. Its still sluggish no matter what way you slice it. I am sure it will get better. SP1 was prob a step in the right direction and I am thinking by the time Windows 7 comes out a lot of fixes and stuff going into that next OS will be put into Vista as well. I am not saying it wont get better it will but its not worth the hassle for me to be beta testing an OS. I have better things to do than hack registries and vlite and hunt for the 'right' drivers.

The split is about 50/50. A year ago, it was like 99/1 in favor of XP. Give it 6 months to a year, and it'll be like 75/25 in favor of Vista. Nothing surprising here.


Exactly my setup (actually not even, my CPU isn't exactly top notch, it's just a lowly E2160), except it's not slow at all (it wasn't sluggish either back when it only had 2GB either). Very responsive, and way more reliable than XP.


Totally. Good drivers makes all the difference.


Also, criticizing gaming performance (how many FPS they get in games, as seen in benchmarks) isn't really a valid point anymore. Drivers have gotten better, and the problem is solved for the most part. As for software not working, I have to call FUD on that one. Just see how very little software ended up being added to this thread (no titles named here either)...

As much as I use the command line I never thought to try that.

Thanks!

I do not deny that drivers for Vista have gotten better. Its still slower compared to XP. Until that gets fixed I for sure and I am sure many others will just refuse to upgrade.

And for those who say good drives make the difference give me some examples of good drivers that are NOT from the manufacturers since thats where I got all my drivers from!

Vista is not that bad at all, and definitely it will be much better OS than xp in just few months, with MS releasing lots of hot fixes to fix vista every month

Its not that sluggish compare to xp, but multitasking makes it too sluggish, because of vista's many bloated services running in the background (kills my 4gb ram)
Just a bit tweaking and configuring makes it run better than xp, but as always i prefer speed, reliability, and responsive out of the box, and am pretty sure MS will have it this way when SP2 comes out

btw if you installed and used server 2008 and run it as wrokstation, you will see the difference. Vista and server use the same kernel, but server performs and runs smoother and faster, that is because MS tuned server for speed and reliability, and that just shows that vista can be the same in terms of speed and reliability, ONLY if MS took their time a bit more and tuned vista a little more to be better out of box

So based on your annecdode shahed if it IS sluggish why would one want to use it?

I use server 2008 x64, much better than vista and xp, i can have all the vista look and feel enabled on server, and run my apps and do multitasking without any sluggish performance. I used vista for about 3 weeks, and then switched back to xp. Now am running dual boot server x64 and xp. Server rocks!

Yes I have heard really good things with server. I think in general server OSes make a better OS because of all the xtra tuning and effort the companies will put in for the enterprises where performance is paramount. That is why I am using XP x64 which is based on WS2003. IMHO it is the best balance in performance and lightweightness.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=2245

In my own testing Server 2008 has not shown to have any kind of workstation level advantage over Vista SP1. The way it is tweaked to be a server may allude to some magical performance gain, but that would only be recognized if you're doing activities that are more server-ish anyway like heavy file I/O or network activity. For typical workstation tasks the two are identical.

I don't know what you're doing then, because I have it booting in 365MB of RAM, so that should leave you with like 3700MB for your apps. Unless you're referring SuperFetch preloading (caching) things in RAM as killing it? I don't know... It runs just fine even on 2GB. It might be worse if you're using media center or such, but overall it's quite good.


And Vista would be tuned for slowness and unreliability?

What makes the server versions more reliable is things like video acceleration disabled i.e. at the expense of speed, things like audio being disabled, and the lack of user apps running (and the user behind the keyboard doing strange things). Similarly, if you'd leave a XP or Vista box alone, just to serve files on your network or such, you'd see record uptimes too.


Ditto. It's basically Vista + extra server components (e.g. active directory) and some limits removed (e.g. IIS 7's conn limits). The extra server components sure don't make the system any faster. And it's definitely not worth the price tag. Plus, I remember back then trying to use Win 2003 as a desktop (needed IIS 6 to test stuff and XP comes with crippled 5.1) and it wasn't exactly a great experience. I had to edit msi's for installers to even run, I had to use compatibility mode on a lot of apps and all that -- not counting those that couldn't possibly work (using things that were incompatible with 2003), apps that refused to install (you need to buy the expensive server version of it), and those I've given up onto (didn't want to start using apps like TweakNT for them to run). And there was basically zero performance benefits. That's also not counting all the extra work to make win 2003 even usable as a desktop in the first place (enable sound, video acceleration, disable shutdown tracker, etc) -- that was certainly more work to configure than it is to get Vista "tuned" in the first place.

I do lots of multitasking, eg photoshop (takes huge amount of ram) and few video encoding as well. Without running these apps, vista runs just fine, but on server i can run these apps, and still use my system without any sluggish performance. Not only that, my games load faster and gives me slitghly more FPS (did not benchmark, but it runs much smoother compare to vista)

If MS did give us the freedom to choose which components to install during vista setup, then vista would have been much better, and less resource hungry, unless you decide to install all the bloat stuffs.

Same here. I've had firefox 2 + vmware + photoshop cs3 + visual studio 2008 + many more open at once (sometimes using them while encoding xvid's with VirtualDubMod), even on 2GB, and it worked just fine... 4GB should be a complete non-issue. Photoshop isn't really incredibly memory intensive anymore. It's not quite like it was back when we only had 3-digit RAM sizes (most of which being used by the kernel) where every MB counted... PS CS3 opens in 90MB of RAM and even with a decently sized pic loaded, it only shoots up to 110MB or so. Add a couple layers, and you still don't even hit 150MB. It's not a big concern by today's standards (especially not if you have 4GB+). Games wise I dunno, I don't play any, but then again you could basically buy a PS3 (40GB) + a Xbox360 Pro + a Wii for the price of a Win 2008 license. That should have most of your gaming needs met...


Perhaps, but then people would have a bunch more questions to answer during the install... And components installed shouldn't make much of a difference except for disk space. Services running by default perhaps would (then again, the same thing applies to XP). And realistically, it's not much more work to disable stuff post-install, just like we've been doing with XP anyways (like disabling system restore and such things). Personally I don't really disable much anyways (system restore, the defender stuff, and that's about it). Either ways, for those who want to do that, there's apps like vlite I guess.

Nah, Windows Server 2008 is (legally!) free for over half a year (240 days), and its not much hassle to format that often.

See http://support.microsoft.com/kb/948472 for the 240 day thing,
and see http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details...;displaylang=en
or http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008...l-software.aspx
for the ISOs, all geniune direct from Microsoft themselves

True, even i don't have a server 2008 license, (way too expensive), i usually format my hdd every 4-5 months, and that is exactly what i do to extend my trial time (LEGALLY), unless you use win2008 for server stuffs usage, then a license is a must.
For workstation use, i modified the whole install.wim for my personal use, so i have all the workstation stuffs out of box, eg sidebar, tweaks in registry by hiving the reg, and more stuffs, basically its all tuned to act and work as a workstation out of box.

Of course there are trials. Then again, you could use a WinXP eval on your box too. Same thing for Vista. And I suppose I could get the 30 day trial of every shareware too, and reformat when those expire. And then again, you could buy a HDTV from a large retailer with a 30 day money back warranty, and return it the 29th day, and do that year-round.

And resetting your trial period all the time + reformatting and reinstalling everything more than once a year sure is a big hassle if you ask me, considering all the time it takes to install & configure everything if you use a lot of apps (after 240 days, it finally has pretty much all I need installed, configured & tweaked how it want it...)

Besides, it's illegal to do so. Just read the EULA:
"Not for Production Use"
"Solely for purposes of demonstration and internal testing"
"After this time, you will need to uninstall the software or upgrade to a fully-licensed version of Windows Server 2008." -- as in, stop using it, or buying it (NOT reformat as a way to bypass the trial limit)

It's wrong on many levels. It's meant for testing ONLY, NOT perpetual use for free.

QFT

Surely if they cared that much, they would only allow 1 product key request from a person's "windows live" login? Thats what they did with Server 2003.

I would say that if you have a PC with XP installed, keep XP. Vista is not worth the hassle of a reinstall and investment.
Vista is suitable only on new computers. Pre-installed, on a new machine it's good, don't lose time reverting to Xp or dual booting (unless you real need to). Of course it's sad to know that it's slower, and not faster than XP, but with 3.4 Ghz dual cores, the difference is minimal.

However I prefer the look and feel of Vista over XP.

Sure there are a few more annoyances and absurdities than on XP, but when you know them, they are smalll details.

Everybody bashes UAC, even experts, but I do like it. It gives me a sens of safety, that my system is protected (I hope it's true). Unlike XP it allows you to install or modify stuffs without being permanently on Administrator privileges. On XP you need to switch usership to do that because running XP connected to the internet on Administrator account is suicide. I don't mind licking 3 or 4 times "Continue" when I install a soft once in a while. I don't understand why so many poeple disable it.

So far I'v met only one software (Encyclopedia Universalis) not running on Vista while running on XP and w98. I thought it was usualy old softs, but this one is not that old and much older things, even Windows 3.1 era programs, work surprisingly well.

I don't find Vista more difficult nor easier to configurate than XP (without external apps).
It needs maybe more customization, performance tweaks than XP, but XP was already like that. Nothing realy new here.