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View Full Version : A comment on Vista.


Cypherus
18th Mar 2007, 11:54
Would appear that someone, probably located in a basement closet in Redmond, has got this Vista thingy all wrong big style, that is as far as the consumer is concerned , but hey for the industry, and Bill’s boyz the future is rosy, money in the bank ect, I wonder if they actually care that the majority of computer users currently have invested billions of dollars in peripheral equipment that right now just will not work under vista.

I took the time this weekend to trawl through the news stands for magazines that dealt with computers, bought a selection at random that ranged from the hi end Pro area to the out and out ridiculous, chosen because each had a consumer help section, and I make no apology for outright plagiarism here, this was an issue of research and the material was at hand, anyway, looking through these helpful hints pages the thing that struck me was the number of items that dealt with Vista and it’s current incompatibility with even the most simple of things like Graphics and Sound cards, digital cameras, printer and MP3 players, all in essence got the same reply, ‘Sorry, your stuffed, go out and buy a new one that is compatible with Vista otherwise hang on and hope the company that produced the item will eventually get around to releasing a driver for it’.

Call me cynical if you wish but this all smacks of Microsoft again controlling the market place, creating as it has by the total lack of support in Vista for DX9 and scant inbuilt basic driver resources a major market boom in computer related hardware and software, the fact that so many people are having issues with this new all singing and dancing operating system in these areas make me wonder if the delays we saw in the release of this product were not as announced due to problems with the O/S itself but actually with Microsoft trying hard to ensure that the product was actually not compatible across the board with the majority of computer users current stock of equipment. The community recently saw a similar attempt to generate sales with the introduction of PCI-E and it’s requirement for upgraded components across the board which in the end after a shaky start generated billions of dollars in sales and a mountain of perfectly serviceable components being dumped to landfill,

Microsoft has also just announced the release of SP1 for Vista due later this year which will it is hoped address the issue of missing ‘Previously Advertised’ components being made available, currently denied in all but the highest value issues of Vista, Probably carrying the code name ‘Fiji’ the update will offer interface improvements to address the problem of resource sapping currently found with the main Vista interface, an option too change too the WinFS file system, again not available in lower price releases and more importantly, ‘Buried in the list of small print’ changes too the software that address ‘High Impact’ issues currently noted with Vista like hardware and software problems, question is what are these High Impact issues, nothing there and as for the incompatibility problems surely Microsoft was well aware of these at the time of release so why after everyone that bought copies of Vista or machines with it preinstalled and have now gone out and replaced the errant equipment or software have they now chosen to release a plethora of fixes for this problem, maybe rumblings of yet another class action against them has forced there hand, similarly IE 7 is slated to be removed from the Auto update suite as currently a lot of unsuspecting users not normally disposed to read the update listings are finding themselves presented without warning with a complete new browser that at times will set itself up as the primary utility over the much used Firefox., The update also includes greater association with Windows Live products as Microsoft ramps up it’s efforts to stave off Google.

Finally the announcement By Ben Fathi of the next O/S release, again a complete new system, on the stocks for the middle of 2009 has made some of us wonder, this date is significant as the time that XP support is due to be withdrawn and reading the specifications for this new O/S we still see significant back issue compatibility problems, an adherence to the Core NT and a requirement for a complete new interface and you have the same scenario currently being enjoyed by Microsoft, loads of money, little new in the box

planecrazy.eu
19th Mar 2007, 11:41
All i can say about Vista, having a higher and low performance computer/laptop is...

Dell, IBM, Acer, HP and the other should be ashamed of selling Vista on low end and budget PC's, to me its a joke. Yes they meet the "Minimum" standards, but no they dont meet the "Minimum" of what "IS" required to make Vista operate as smooth as XP.

Vista should be titled more like XP Premium or similar as its only good at running on computers that have at least 128 dedicated graphics, at least a gig of ram and at least a 3GHz processor. The most important thing to run Vista is a dedicated Graphics card, if you dont have one then its just not going to run as good as XP.

I have tested it out on both my laptop and desktop and have found my laptop is Flying with Vista on it, it benchmarks higher, hasnt crashed and all that, where as Vista was a nightmare on my desktop, so i have sent it back in time to XP.

My Laptop is well over a year old, and i paid £900 for it, so it wasnt really a massive high spec, but its got 256 Dedicated, 1028 Ram and 2400 CoreDuo and its great as Acer built it from componants that was obviously going to have Vista updates for drivers.

I know that 99% of the world are currently hating Vista, but on the right Machine its Brill, i get 4Fps more out of FSX too, not as i needed any more FPS...

Parapunter
19th Mar 2007, 11:42
Why have they got it wrong? I'm guessing you're a member of the Linux/unbuntu militia since you don't demonstrate much understanding of the issues. I'm no apologist for Microsoft either & I'm one of the vista users having problems with peripherals. But how do you back up the assertion that MS is controlling this? Hardly good business to deny 3rd party suppliers access to the data required to support their products is it? Nvidia who make my graphics card have fully functioning drivers & software suites.

Creative who provide my sound card otoh have just Beta drivers that don't work very well at all. I suggest you take a look at Creatives user forums before you point the finger - you'll find they were slow out the traps when XP was launched too.

The bottom line is if you're going to go with vista, check your suppliers websites carefully beforehand & work out yourself if your machine will run the thing. If not, stick with XP/Linux whatever.

blackace
19th Mar 2007, 15:39
i get 4Fps more out of FSX too

Surely you mean 40 fps ?

4 fps is simply unplayable. Anything less than about 20 fps is going to seriously spoil the fun.

It would be interesting to see how high graphics fps figures compare on XP and Vista platforms.

planecrazy.eu
19th Mar 2007, 18:44
Think your missing my point a little.

What i was trying to say is thats its wrong of the big boys to sell pcs that are not up to standards to run Vista, for example, low end and buget pc's.

As far as i can see Vista supports loads of hardware, i cant really see to many issues there, yes, nvidia support vista for all there products from the last few years.

As for FSX, i said "MORE" On average FSX is delivering 4FPS more on Vista than XP is.

I totally support MS, i am no linux fan more than an MS fan, they both have there goods and bads, at the end of the day, currently you cant beat MS so you just have to join them. Windows is great, but so is Linux, they just have there own strenghs and weaknesses.

Hardware vendors are always going to make there new drivers for newer products and then work backwards. MS give them Release candidate and beta versions of Windows but they only get around 180 days with the real thing to release fully functional drivers for new windows versions, so its obvious there will be a delay.

But as i tried to say, Vista should only be put on systems that can run it better than xp,

Check out the NVIDA website, they recommend dedicated graphics of at least 128 and A gig of ram to run vista well,

allthatglitters
20th Mar 2007, 03:15
Updates to fix some of the bugs.
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frostbite
20th Apr 2007, 16:54
ZDNet News: XP back on offer.

After adding it back as an option for small businesses, Dell has returned to offering the older OS on consumer machines in response to customer requests.

Now, there's a surprise!

Cornish Jack
21st Apr 2007, 12:13
As I mentioned in another thread, I recommended a Vista equipped machine to a friend on the (mistaken) assumption that it would be an up-to-date easy operation. I, unfortunately, failed to notice the lack of modem and thereby lay the problem. Dell, the suppliers, had no internal modems available on their site and, initially, I could find no Vista-compatible external modems. Eventually, I found a downloadable Vista driver set for the Zoom usb device and it worked.
It may be that if you are seduced by pretty front-ends (so-to-speak!!), Vista has something to offer, however its designed-in opacity to user input has lead to a lot of enamel being ground off my teeth and a determination to avoid this particular piece of overblown Redmond nonsense like the plague!!:mad: :mad: