Some feedback; for me at least, this proved to be the right decision. Having reverted from Vista Business to XP Pro SP2 I now have a blazingly fast laptop that behaves like it ought with 2.4Ghz core duo and 2GB RAM, drivers for everything I need to use, Cisco VPN that is totally reliable, and web browsing and remote file transfer that is a joy not a tediously slow chore. As it happens, after so many colleagues having experiences like mine, our employer has now put its Vista rollout programme on ice and as well as reverting existing Vista Users to XP Pro SP2, is also purchasing all new kit with this o/s installed.

Vista as we go along.
 

Further to my post #7 - AL1. This morning SWMBO came rushing through in a panic "Mayday!!
When she switched the computer on it came on in its "fresh-out-of-the-box mode"; all the data she'd spent hours putting in, address book, new accounts system,Firefox, photos etc all apparently gone. I tried system restore (which seems to be less flexible than that in XP) and it came up with an error notice that the restore had failed and did I want to try again. I was just about to launch into it when Madame noticed that all the icons were back in place and a couple of quick checks showed everything back to normal. Any ideas out there as to a cause? In my advancing years my heart can't stand many more 0630 shakings awake and panic cries for help with systems I don't REALLY understand. Maybe it's an aircrew thing - my mate who is still flying says that the commonest phrase heard on the flight decks of today is "what the bl66dy hell is it doing NOW??" (as opposed to the captain looking up from his crossword and asking "Was that for us?").
The Ancient Mariner

Microsoft Vista
 

After years and years of finding myself being driven mad by win 98, ME, 2000, XP and now Vista i did the only thing i could do to save my sanity:ugh:
I BOUGHT A MAC:O

Mac
 

Yeah! Right! I've spent a moderate amount from my tax paid pension buying a new computer and when I have a problem the answer is to buy a Mac costing twice as much?? Yeah! Right!
The Ancient Mariner

I have been using vista for a year. I have never wanted to throw a computer out if the window, but I have contemplated it many times since.
Vista is awful and very slow unless you can afford maximum processing power and memory.
I was told if you ask the manufacturer to install XP when you purchase, they will.
Must admit having seen a couple of friends Macs. I am tempted.

Vista on the new laptop computer, 2 gb ram, ugh, s o s l o w. and I could not imagine a computer with Vista and Norton.:ugh:

Vista Service Pack 1 problems
 

I was wondering if anyone has had problems with installing and using a computer with Vista Service Pack 1.
I was installing a new Flat screen monitor on my sister in law's computer yesterday noticed that some updates were waiting to be installed so installed them no problem then another update appeared which was the Vista Service Pack 1 downloaded Ok but when installing got to 65% then would go no further and locked up with the result that I found myself doing a system recovery.
Has anyone else had this or a similar problem ?
Should mention they have Nortons Security installed that came free with the machine.
I would be gratefull for any advice.
Thanks.

Did you temporarily disable the antivirus?

Bushfiva #post 30
 

To be honest I did not completely forgot on my own machine at home I don't at all never a problem but then I do not have Nortons on anything I run.

Grateful for your reply,
Many thanks.

Vista sp1 and XP sp3 - I got there and all is well....
 

The management, reliability and ease of use of updates for XP and Vista has gone downhill recently (yeah yeah, "how low can they go?" I hear you say).

I have bashed my way through an Vista sp1 update and an XP sp3 update and it is only through determination and domain expertise that I succeeded. How the average punter gets it done I just don't know.

Key solutions (apart from having the persistence of a starved dog) for me were:

- On the XP machine, droping Zone Alarm and McAfee in favour of combined Fortinet AntiVirus/Firewall etc was key.

- On the Vista box it was disabling many resource hungry features like search indexing and fancy desktop features that gave me half decent performance.

I seriously considered an alternative, but who wants a friggin' Mac? If M$ don't get better in the next 12-24 months I'll be forced to go Mac and put up with the vomiting in repulsion, albeit over a more stable but expensive and thoroughly unattractive machine/OS. Talk about being caught between a rock and a hard place...

I've just bought a new machine that comes with Vista basic home preinstalled (AMD dual core 4200+, 2Gb RAM, nothing special but a vast improvement over my current offering). I've heard nightmare stories about people trying to uninstall Vista and installing XP instead. Should I just swap out my old hard drive with XP installed then format the new one and use as a second storage area.

Or any suggestions as to a good way forward?

One of the reasons I'm upgrading is to get DirectX10 compatibility, does DirectX10 work with XP or will I need to keep Vista installed?

If you have no idea why you would prefer XP over Vista, and have no idea why you would prefer DirectX 10 over DirectX 9.0c, why install XP? Why do you need DirectX 10? My guess is, if you can't answer any of the questions convincingly, you have nothing sensitive to DirectX 10, DirectX 9.0x or DirectX anything.else on your computer.

You have some good points, I don't know enough about Vista except that there are a lot of complaints on the internet, even this thread alone. The only Vista I heard worth having is Ultimate. I have no problem with XP.

I can see why you asked the questions, rereading my post seems to have no point, clearly I was thinking ahead of my typing and not including all of my thoughts.

The question I missed asking is, is it worth having Vista, especially the lowest end of their range or should I keep XP? which then lends itself to the rest of my post.

Part of the reason for upgrading the machine is to get better performance, but if the operating system negates the hardware upgrades then it wouold seem to be a pointless purchase.

As to the directX 10 question, I know that compatible graphics cards have improved performance as it allows essentially multi core processing and hence utilizes the card to it's best potential. DirectX 10 was initially a Vista specific version of DirectX. If I'm upgrading the machine and graphics card to be compatible with DirectX 10 then I would like to make sure it is used for this capability. I've heard and read rumour that there is a DirectX 10 for XP but I've not found any evidence yet. So if there isn't DirectX 10 for XP then my question is answered and I'll need to see what I can do with Vista. Is 9.0c the XP equivalent of 10?

I use flight sims for recreation and would like the best performance out of them. I've held back from FSX mainly as it's a pointless upgrade over 2004 until I had the hardware to make use of it's features.

"I seriously considered an alternative, but who wants a friggin' Mac?"

The ARE other alternatives you know.....

My two main machines run Ubuntu Linux (Gutsy) and when I get a moment I'll take them up to Heron (the next Ubuntu incarnation). Do everything I'd want and more (I'm not a Linux purist).

The days then Linux was hard to install and maintain are long gone and we've now converted two of the girls in the office to Linux one their PCs and they made the transition effortlessly.

As for the Mac, well, I LOVE my Macbook.....oh and I run XP in a virtual machine on it for those few occasions when I need to test something for the Windows world.

:ok:

Linux has always intrigued me, unfortunately my first experience with that type of system was back when it was more DOS like. Where is a good site to go and find out more about Linux?

I now have three Vista machines running, an cumulative total of two and a half years. Not one crash.

Two issues:

• Adobe Photoshop Elements 4 says on loading that it is not compatible with Vista. Seems to work fine.
• My work VPN Outlook won't allow me to send emails from my work address. No biggie....in fact, it helps me in that I'm not constantly doing work from home!

Directx 10 was never released for XP, and never will be as long as MS desperately needs some reason for people to move to Vista!

There are some games and applications that require DX10, but not many (what developer is going to limit their sales unnecessarily?).

There is an unoffical "port" of DX10 available for XP, which may be worth trying.

SD

I've been reading as much as I can about Vista.

Out of curiosity, who is running on the 64-bit version and who is running the 32-bit version?

It seems that most of the driver and software problems stem from the 64-bit version. Most software and drivers being written in 32-bit. Some articles I've read also point to the processor in use, some 64-bit processors have difficulty in running 32-bit software, hence need patches or software downgrades (which kills the system speed). Apparently some run in 32-bit mode and have additional addresses for any 64-bit code that comes along - trying to find which processors currently are organised this way (seems to be AMD X2 chips).

I don't have a conclusion ... or really a point yet ... but as far as I can tell all of Vistas problems stem from incompatibility between 32 and 64 bit.
Either the processor is running in 32 or 64, the software is written in 32 or 64, the drivers are either 32 or 64 and none of them talk particularly well to each other.
It also seems that the 64-bit side of things can't read 16-bit applications.

Correction. What you meant was "consider UPGRADING your OS to XP" !

I suspect Mr. Gates and his hard working sales team would disagree with you - but I take your point!

P.P.