So we have people reporting great experiences, and people reporting horrible experiences. How can this be? I have a theory, as you might expect. Apologies in advance for length... :8

Vista was "rushed out": which might be a strange thing to say, considering it was expected a year before it arrived. The hardware manufacturers have a lot to do with it, in my opinion. I ran two separate Vista installs, though both are gone, and had drastically different experiences:

- home PC with AMD64, NForce4-based motherboard, GeForce 6600 video. I installed the 64-bit version, not long after Vista was released. As you can imagine, hardware support was a big problem: video OK, but it was months before NVidia released any Vista-specific drivers. I have "only" 2GB in this PC, and I found Vista to be a hog. It spent a lot of time writing to disk (which was a bit old), even after I stopped Indexing services. Since I use that PC to run a few games and as a "backup server" for my laptop, it doesn't need Vista or a 64-bit OS, so I've had XP SP2 back on for 6 months now.

- At work, months after the Vista release, the IT company I worked put out a beta of their internal Vista release, for business laptops. I installed it and had very few problems over the next 6 months before I left the company. Remote access (VPN) worked great, and it actually seemed faster than XP. A very old Window applications had a couple of interface problems, but nothing that stopped work. It was a business laptop, with a slightly old graphics chipset that Intel said they would not release full 3D graphics support for.

In both cases I had the well-documented problems copying large numbers of files in Explorer: I "worked around" the issue, as I tend to do: using a freeware Norton Commander clone. or the command line e.g. XCOPY and ROBOCOPY.

So I don't think it's as simple as "Vista is crap" - it never is. The work my company put in really made a difference, and other PC manufacturers can do the same. What I want to see from Microsoft in particular is testing, testing, and more testing, and a Service Pack that tightens the whole experience considerably.

That's why I say Vista was rushed out, despite being used internally at Microsoft - what they call "eating their own dog food" - it hasn't been enough, in my opinion. On the other hand, our varying experiences illustrate the role that hardware manufacturers have to play, because so much of the Vista experience depends on how well it works with a huge range of hardware.

Gonzo,

I've run DOSbox on XP just to see how it runs. Runs??? Walks would be a better description. I would imagine that the combination of Vista and DOSbox could work as a last resort, but it would be slow on "lesser" hardware.

DOSbox is slow since it does a full emulation of the X86 instruction set as well as DOS. I gather that there is somewhere something to allow running DOS applications on X86 hardware that just intercepts the DOS calls and uses the underlying X86 hardware instead of emulating it.

seacue

I have been running Vista for 3 months now, admittedly on quite a powerful machine (Dell XPS Quad Core).

In the early days I was considering throwing it away and putting XP on the box, 3 months in and having got round the UAC niggle (which is not actually a bad idea if you consider the rationale behind it) I'm quite happy to keep Vista.

There is nothing I have tried to do with it that I have not been able to in terms of software or peripherals although I believe this has not been the universal experience.

Microsoft is the only company I know that spends billions of $ in development to make products that are more obnoxious with each generation.

The reason seems to be that MSFT is playing to the parasites. These mostly are the advertising and marketing schemes that benefit from knowing everything possible about their sales prospect in giant databases.

The customer who pays for software with money and time, just seems to get the ever more finely targeted shaft. A trap thats easy to get in, can't get out.

Well. having read the threads on Vista here I'm not really much wiser! My problem is Mrs B has declared she would like a basic laptop for Xmas. Standalone thing just needing a wifi internet link, Word etc. I cannot find any 'good deals' for XP Pro laptops any more - the cheap ones are all punting 'Vista Premium'. As cheap as £250 for an HP machine. I am looking at a 512mb/80GB wireless machine which will more than do what she needs with XP.

Here's the big problem - No 1 son (ITwhiz:rolleyes:) has threatened 'violence' :) if I get a Vista machine (I use XP Pro). His latest go at 'Dad' is

BOAC,

If you have access to XP installation media (and a license), then you can presumably buy what you want, irrespective of what pre-installed OS there is on it.

Frankly, I wouldn't bother backing up Vista before trashing it and installing either XP or Ubuntu.

Anything for familial harmony!

Oh yes - if you have got an XP installation CD, make SEVERAL backup copies!! :ouch: I have 2 backup copies of mine, just in case.

SD

ps - I think that your son and I would get along very well! What an excellent summary of Vista.

2 back-ups - good advice I fancy! The only reason for backing up a Vista installation would be to keep the licence for when...............

I'm sure the answer is here somewhere, but is reloading XP on a Vista laptop just a case of reformat and install, or are there traps lurking for the unwary?

Yes

No

SD

XP on laptops preinstalled with Vista......
 

It may not be as easy to install XP on a laptop supplied with Vista as you think - at work we had some Sony Vaio laptops delivered with Vista preinstalled. We were going to wipe them to install XP but couldn't as XP wouldn't detect the hard disk in them!

Searched on Vaio link but Sony don't supply XP drivers for laptops preinstalled with Vista so couldn'y even get XP installed let alone the extra drivers!

Other manufacturers may supply drivers but its something to watch out for so be careful and make sure you have install/repair disks (with Sony Vaio's and some other brands you have to make your own) before you try to install XP.

As for my opinions of Vista - well I hated it at first but am slowly starting to get used to it. Have no desire to move off XP till I'm forced to though.

Switching off UAC definetly helps but it still has some annoying traits - copying a shortcut to the All Users desktop becomes a struggle (after you find where the all users folder is hidden if you try to copy a shortcut straight from a network drive it will fail but will work if you copy to your desktop first then from there to all users desktop).

Also it seems like Microsoft have tried too hard to make it different from XP (moving things about / changing standard pratices etc) in order to try and convince people to upgrade. As an example in XP, NT, 2000 etc you can log in to a network PC without using the mouse (Alt-U then type username, Alt-P then type password, press enter). On Vista this is a struggle as there are no keyboard shortcuts for this.

I'm just glad the powers that be at my work decided not to roll out Vista this year - wish me luck next summer!

Jay

:mad: Back on the origial question:
I run Vista Ultimate on a desktop and on a laptop. In both cases I find it a fascist piece of sh1t.

If you can use Linux, do so. If you can't, go to XP SP2 until further gatesware drags you, kicking and screaming, to Vista.

RMV

"....should I hunt around for an XP machine?"

Get a good preinstalled Linux certified laptop.

http://www.linuxcertified.com/linux_laptops.html

It'll do all she needs to do and more.

Mac

Alternatively, buy her a MacBook

:ok:

Apparently Vista is still under construction :eek:

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquir...mmed-attacking

and

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/12/04/vista_piracy/

comments make interesting reading

I think I'll have to refrain from commenting on Vista any further: it's six months since I removed it from my systems and went back to XP. The only way I'll get it again is if it comes as standard on a laptop, and even that's unlikely. Until then, I'm talking through my ... ear ... when it comes to the current state of Vista. :hmm:

I think it has potential, on future hardware, but I'm basing that on my XP experience - I had very few problems, mostly hardware-related, and none since SP2 came out. My hardware is old and "settled" now, with solid XP driver support. But I could be wrong about that - e.g. this.

I've spent so much time with UNIX systems now that I think that's the way to go. Linux for me, but I can see how Mac OS X makes sense as a "friendly UNIX". I don't think they should be taking credit for the security benefits they gained by choosing a UNIX architecture, but I expect nothing less from Apple these days. :rolleyes:

Did you know they put this in it?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7126902.stm

It would not surprise me if MS attempt to use XP SP3 to "cripple" XP to make it as slow as Vista. In an attempt to "persuade" people to upgrade. Of course it would be dressed up as "Security".

And then force SP3 by making MS Updates (and even apps) only available for SP3...

I'm not saying that they will, just that it wouldn't surprise me at all.

SD

Ignore my post 44 above, I was suffering from a momentary delusion, my other thread on this forum will explain.

Avoid Vista like the plague.......

Avoid Vista like the plague.......

Avoid Vista like the plague.......

Avoid Vista like the plague.......

Avoid Vista like the plague.......

Avoid Vista like the plague.......

"It would not surprise me if MS attempt to use XP SP3 to "cripple" XP......."

I predicted this some time ago and it would be well in line with MS's approach. But whether they would dare to I'm not so sure, for

a) There are so many eyes on MS that it would be rapidly detected and publicised (not that MS care but the DOJ might).

b) It would accelerate the flight to other increasingly popular non-MS OSes such as Linux, OpenSolaris, BSD and Mac. Better that the punters should use XP rather than that.

c) Early tests of SP3 beta releases show a speed increase of 5-7% over SP2.

:ok:

Having used Vista for about six months now, on a far superior machine than my old XP dinosaur, I have come to the conclusion that it is f:mad:ing slow. Just asking it to switch on seems to send it in to convulsions. Going to buy a Mac and burn this S:mad:t thing I have. On a side note, Samsung laptops are quite robust. Mine has flown across the room several times now...:*

Hambleite
 

I have just given up on Vista for reasons similar to yours, very slow on a fairly hi spec machine plus various driver and software issues.

I've now set up dual booting with XP on one drive and Vista on another. I'm keeping Vista to see how any 'improvements' may work out in practice.


Regards
Exeng

It's probably fair to say that Vista wins the Turkey of the year award for 2007, narrowly beating the Western Digital NAS box that won't store any kind of media lest it be pirated:p

However, my Vista machine is superior to my XP boxes in every way & I'm delighted (so far) with it. It's homebuilt though & I made it with Vista in mind - E440 dual core, 2 gigs ddr2 & nearly 850 gigs hdd on an Asus P5L-VM mobo & it flies along, absolutely no problems at all, except for sleep. There's a known issue where just about any background process will wake it up, so you can't put it into sleep mode, fix due SP1 apparently.

It seems to me from this thread that Vista is just fine, provided it's on the right machine, yet my guess is MS have cajoled, coerced & enticed the volume suppliers into shoe horning it into new boxes irrespective of the suitability of the system.