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Andu
13th Oct 2007, 10:35
I'm about to splash out and replace my ailing system, and just about everything half way decent comes with a Vista package. (Please, no "get a Mac/go Linux" suggestions; I'm too set in my ways.)

I see Microsoft says the'll drop XP next year, so I suppose I'll have to accept the inevitable and go Vista. However, I keep hearing from friends that they are having a terrible time with Vista, from incompatible drivers for many f their older programs to being unable to use it for work-related applications because our employer's site does not support Vista.

So, question: is a Vista 'Service pack 2' in the wind, that will hopefully resolve many of these problems, (and if so, when)? Also, is there anyone out there who is positive about Vista? From what little I've seen of it, it isn't a big enough step beyone XP to make it worth the inevitable grief that's so sure to follow if i get it.

PAPI-74
13th Oct 2007, 10:41
I have just got a laptop with Vista. Your friends are right...most of my old software will not work inc. my old antivirus.
It tends to predict what I want to do with anoying popups to link me to the wrong programme.
It is a step up from XP, but only just.

BRL
13th Oct 2007, 11:13
I much prefer XP. My old laptop that is broken is XP. My newish laptop is Vista and is a pain in the bum. I have issues with pretty much everthing I have loaded on it, as with most people I have 'old' software that needs to be upgraded with Vista drivers, this is really annoying!

I should have my old lappy repaired next week and I cant wait to be honest.

I am considering buying another laptop just purely for my photography stuff, if I do I will certainly go out and look for an XP Laptop.

I see Microsoft says the'll drop XP next year, so I suppose I'll have to accept the inevitable and go Vista.

It shouldn't matter if they drop XP. Millions of people use XP and will do for years too. It shouldn't have an effect on anyone really except all new computers will have Vista and new software will be released with suport for Vista instead of trawling around the internet looking for updates....

Fargoo
13th Oct 2007, 11:27
I have Vista now and after the first few frustrating weeks of getting stuff to work or finding alternatives I now actually prefer it to XP.
The only annoyance I still have is the permissions part where it always asks you again if you give it permission to install or run something.
Lots of neat features built in now and after running it daily for the majority of this year it hasn't once crashed.

frostbite
13th Oct 2007, 11:41
To answer your question just look at the number of equipment suppliers who have rapidly gone from 'Vista only' new equipment to 'Vista or XP' due to the very real concerns and reluctance over Vista.

Gonzo
13th Oct 2007, 11:47
I've been running Vista on my Core2Duo E6600 with 2GB RAM desktop for a few months now, and I much prefer it to XP. My install is very stable, and I have had no software or driver issues at all.

The only possible issue is a warning whenever I load up Photoshop Elements 4 and Vista warns that this application was not designed for Vista. I've never had any problems with it though.

My Celeron M 430 Laptop which came with Vista is sluggish, but again no problems with stability. However, I'm just about to put Ubuntu Linux on it, for no particular reason other than curiosity.

green granite
13th Oct 2007, 12:02
Microsoft has just issued SP1 for Vista in beta form, to its testers. So it wont be long before it's shrinked wrapped. Also released in beta is SP3 for XP.

seacue
13th Oct 2007, 13:04
My life is based on DOS programs which run fine under XP. I hear that they will not run under Vista, especially the ones with graphics. Is that true?

Don't suggest "get modern software". These are legacy database systems which would have to be entirely rewritten. They are important to a business.

I've tried DOSbox under XP. Will it run under Vista? Which Vista?

There are so many flavours of Vista that I fear there may not be a single answer.

seacue

john50uk
13th Oct 2007, 13:13
I recently splashed out on a new desktop system which came with Vista Pre-installed. I'm not impressed with Vista, and would like to remove it from my pc and install a new copy of XP.
What I would like to know is the best way to go about it. Previous experience has taught me that you can't always downgrade without doing something drastic to the hard drive.
Any help on this much appreciated.
John

batninth
13th Oct 2007, 13:23
GreenGranite,
Microsoft has just issued SP1 for Vista in beta form, to its testers. So it wont be long before it's shrinked wrapped. Also released in beta is SP3 for XP.

I would suggest a touch of caution here - many large organisations, and manufacturers, said that they would wait for the SP1 before they looked at rolling out Vista widely. This is mainly based on past experience that the SP1 tends to be a major upgrade to fix a load of the problems that got left in the original release.

In this case, I think Microsoft was a bit taken aback (certainly the Product Marketing guys I spoke to seemed to be genuinely shocked this time last year when they asked how many people would wait for SP1 & saw nearly all of the hands in the audience go up) so they have pushed forward an SP1 to get us all to move to Vista and I'm not sure that it has all of the content we'd like to see especially in regard to supporting legacy applications.

Of course we're now saying "We'll wait for a proper SP" but I guess it'll be like the first Vista release - we'll test it & make our own judgement based on how big an impact it will have on our support teams, SLAs etc.

That is the main reason why XP is going to SP3 - MS tried to can it earlier in the year & got a huge backlash against that, so SP3 is some of the features to help XP & Vista SP1 work better together.

Personally, I'm holding onto XP until I can see that Vista is as smooth & easy to use. And while I understand the comments about "Not Linux & not Mac", every Ubuntu Linux release gets smoother & easier and I figure the decision will soon get harder.

Mac the Knife
13th Oct 2007, 13:30
MS orginally intended to stop making XP available to Retail & OEMs after Jan 2008, but have have now extended this to June. System Builder License Availability end date is Jan 2009. Licenses will continue to be available through downgrade rights available in Volume Licensing programs after end of general availability.

Mainstream XP support will continue for 2 years after that, while extended (paid for) support will continue for a further 3 years (i.e. up to 2013). XP SP3 (which backports several of the better parts of Vista) will be available in January.

So your new system will be EOL long before XP is dead and gone.

My advice? Go for XP. Even on a high-end machine Vista is slower than XP most of the time. And it'll be a long time before peripheral makers stop including XP drivers.

:ok: Mac

Oh and seacue - "My life is based on DOS programs which run fine under XP. I hear that they will not run under Vista, especially the ones with graphics. Is that true?" - they won't if they try and talk directly to the hardware.

Either DosEMU or DosBox should run most of them fine under Linux.

green granite
13th Oct 2007, 14:12
My post about the service packs was meant purely as info, not as a suggestion that now SP1 is here it'll be ok batninth :)I too think it's a bit on the quick side and smacks of the "quick give them a service pack so they buy it" type exercise. I shall avoid it because of the DRM issues which tend to cripple the OS

Saab Dastard
13th Oct 2007, 14:49
I have a setup CD for XP SP2 - I have made TWO backup copies to ensure that I can continue to use it for the foreseeable future.

MS extended the extended support period for Win 2000 by 3 years (2007-2010) due to the demand / pressure to do so. I would not be AT ALL surprised if even mainstream support for XP were to be continued beyond 2010.

Vista? No thanks.

Parapunter
13th Oct 2007, 14:54
I have a stable fast install of Vista. I find it loads btter than xp, dx10 is great & I would not go back.

I really don't see that those working in a dos database environment are entitled to coplain about Vista - it wasn't made with that in mind. Those people should content themselves with 3.1.

Most problems that I see are caused by software & hardware vendors rather than MS itself, after all, vista was in development for five plus years - the 3rd party community are a little disingenous to come out & say they don't have compatible software, drivers etc when they've had plenty of time to patch/update theur products.

Fargoo, go to user accounts & switch off user account control & your vista experience will improve no end.

batninth
13th Oct 2007, 17:56
Parapunter

Most problems that I see are caused by software & hardware vendors rather than MS itself, after all, vista was in development for five plus years - the 3rd party community are a little disingenous to come out & say they don't have compatible software, drivers etc when they've had plenty of time to patch/update theur products.MS tend not to give too much notice on this stuff. Yes, you can get access to Beta & Release Candidate code, but they don't answer questions on it so when you hit a problem you're left waiting for the next version to see if it has gone away. In reality that means that the manufacturers get 2/10ths of naff-all time to actually test before full release.

Anyway - I thought there was supposed to be upward compatability - if it is .NET 2.0 code then it should run on Vista....pity it doesn't seem to. And the .NET 3.0 release is available for XP so they should be able to test applications on that. The fact is I've seen ordinary applications that run fine on XP yet don't seem to run on Vista- nothing to do with 5 years of advance warning at all.

Dark Star
13th Oct 2007, 18:23
Parapunter,

I don't really care who's fault it is, if my equipment and software work with XP and not with Vista then Vista is of no use to me.

BEagle
13th Oct 2007, 19:00
Quite so - I agree entirely.

Would that Gates' greedy geeks understood that.....

Mac the Knife
13th Oct 2007, 20:06
Parapunter said - "Most problems that I see are caused by software & hardware vendors rather than MS itself, after all, vista was in development for five plus years - the 3rd party community are a little disingenous to come out & say they don't have compatible software, drivers etc when they've had plenty of time to patch/update theur products."

Vista has been in dev for longer than that, but they decided the codebase was such a mess that they did a complete restart 3 years ago. It's now just a different kind of mess. Since MS only publishes a limited subset of the system APIs (and makes you pay for the SDK) and the codebase is closed, writing drivers is somewhat unpredictable. And, of course, you have to pay MS for driver signing (which doesn't mean they're bug free) before the OS will even attempt to load them.

MS is not particularly developer friendly.

Mac

PS: In fairness, many of the Linux kernel API's change with each new release. But at least the code is open and you can see what's and why. Much more dev friendly.

Gonzo
13th Oct 2007, 20:29
Anyone using 64-bit Vista, with its 'signed drivers only'?

Gertrude the Wombat
13th Oct 2007, 21:31
MS is not particularly developer friendly.
...
In fairness, many of the Linux kernel API's change with each new release. But at least the code is open and you can see what's and why. Much more dev friendly.

As a professional software engineer I have to profoundly disagree.

If you write to a specification, and can't look at the source code, you have a much better chance of writing an application that will work on the next version and the version after that than if you have to poke around the source code (at considerably more expense than just reading the API spec) to see what the API does because the documentation is crap or non-existent.

FlyingNikonian
13th Oct 2007, 21:40
Ran Vista for a while, but after a few updates, it got so slow and annoying that I just got fed up with it! I did like some of the features though.

Back on XP now, and back to being a happy camper! (....well, at least sort of...;) )
I must say I believe that Vista will be just fine one day, but until then I'll be going XP.

Parapunter
14th Oct 2007, 02:32
Well, I'll aquiesce to the brighter, smarter people than myself & I'm not being snippy or smart - I'm just a user although maybe a just about above average user, since I build my systems from scratch. My experience is like this: I built an Aopen epc 945 on XP media centre edition & it hummed from the word go, then I rebuilt it on Vista on the 30th January this year, so the day Vista came out & in hindsight, the system architecture wasn't designed for it but the one & only problem was the Creative Audigy drivers. No sound.

After three days, someone posted a work around & I had a Vista media centre with 1 Tb storage, a Dvico dual dvbt tv card, an xfx 6200 gpu & 5.1 surround sound - not at all shabby.

I've subsequentluy built an Antec fusion with 1tb hdd, Hauppauge dual dvbt tv card, the same sound card & an Asus 8500gt gpu & on loading Vista Home Premium & bunging on the Network Drivers, I hit device manager & right clicked update drivers for all the un-recognised devices - this installed every last device in five minutes flat & I know from experience that an equivalent xp machine takes hours of setting up from discs.

I'm aware that I tediously come across as an apologist for MS, but I have no connection to them, but I must be that rare thing - a user who has been positively delighted with Vista - I like Aero, I love dx10 & I like the automation of the mundane, but then again I built with 2 gb ram & plenty HDD space, but honestly, outside of the sound card probs, for me. it's all good:ok:

Mac the Knife
14th Oct 2007, 05:20
Gertrude

MS API documentations is awful (don't ask me, ask Neil Barrett, the MS approved EU technical advisor on compliance with the EU 2004 decision) and you certainly can't look at the source.

When a new Linux kernel is released any API changes are well documented and the source is there if you need it.

Mac

acbus1
14th Oct 2007, 06:27
Microsoft are a pain, and not just wrt operating systems. For too long they've behaved like a version of UK public services.....expensive, inefficient and self serving. All down to the same cause - no real competition!

I've been thinking about moving over to a Mac next time I need a new computer.

Saab Dastard
14th Oct 2007, 10:38
I know that the thread is originally about single-user non-commercial use of Vista, but I have been involved in a number of commercial projects over the last year, where the client was thinking about Vista, but has not implemented it because of:

the cost to upgrade PCs
the training cost (end user and support)
The lack of any perceived benefit (who cares what it LOOKS like!)
the lack of support for peripherals
the lack of support for business appsThe last is one of the biggest problems, with a number of applications (client side) from large vendors simply not being released yet for Vista (Oh, we'll probably have a beta by the end of the year...).

So I admit that much of my bias against Vista is based on corporate / commercial rather than home use.

SD

Gertrude the Wombat
14th Oct 2007, 11:14
Of course some bits of it are worse than others, but in a documentation set which must total tens of millions of pages

MS API documentations is awful

is a completely ludicrous over-generalisation.

I have had particular problems with some of the Microsoft crypto API documentation recently ... but the open source stuff really really really isn't any better! This seems to be simply a feature of the crypto world - one gets the impression that the geeks who understand the mathematics have been let loose on the API documentation, in both cases, which is obviously a recipe for disaster.

batninth
14th Oct 2007, 12:12
Parapunter

No need to apologise for liking something, and to be honest I'm pleased to hear of good experiences with Vista - it at least gives me some hope. If it works for you, do it. :8

I must confess that my thinking is as Saab D describes it - we're facing a multi-'000 roll-out and I don't think the time is right yet.

SaabD - if you don't mind I would like to add a couple more user-tiers here:

Personal-Use - I can put up with the disruption, after all I installed it so took the risk. Or maybe I enjoy playing with it.
Family-Use - They will call on me just at the exciting time in a film or TV program becuase something has gone wrong. How much can I live with the potential disruption and/or them being unable to complete a task because of what I have installed?
Commercial-Use - Exactly as SaabD describes it, it's the hidden costs of doing this stuff that you have to think of.Personal opinion is that Vista is OK at Tier1, and for some users at Tier2. I would say that Tier2 & Tier3 users are better served by XP still?

Interesting to map Linux & Mac onto these, but then I could see I'd get a :ouch:

Parapunter
14th Oct 2007, 12:33
Well, I use mine exclusively for media centre & for that, it's ideal, really very good. At work, I run XP only. Since I use it for media, I do care what it looks like! For me, that is a key benefit & vmc is a lot prettier than mce, helps with the missus acceptance index ratio you see.

I have met people who have expressed their disappointment with it, when it turns out they've put it on machines that are just insufficient.

stagger
14th Oct 2007, 12:53
Like Parapunter, at the moment, I also only use Vista on a PC that is functioning as a "media centre" (i.e. playing videos + music via TV and stereo).

However, I don't like it. Lots of annoying features - many of which you can turn off but of course you then lose some functionality/security. With file sharing for example, getting a balance between security and functionality was tricky.

I've been a Windows user for a long time. 3.0 > 3.1 > 95 > 98 > 2000 > XP. And NT 3.51 > NT 4.0

This is the first time I've been disappointed with a new version. Same story with Office - I think I'll give 2007 a miss for a while.

After over 15 years of rushing to upgrade to whatever Microsoft had to offer I'm finally getting off the train and looking elsewhere. Seriously considering using Linux for my media centre.

Mac the Knife
14th Oct 2007, 13:16
"....one gets the impression that the geeks who understand the mathematics have been let loose on the API documentation, in both cases..."

Got to agree with that, I'm afraid.

Just to throw a spanner in the works, I treacherously bought a MacBook not so long ago and am seriously seduced by OS X and the Mac world....

If only they weren't so damned expensive!

:ok: