Vista Opinions
- Thread starter linthat22
- Start date
I have to take back some of my earlier praise of the start menu: Flabbergastingly, it seems to only search from the beginning of the shortcut texts, and not everywhere in them. That means that if the shortcut is named "Play Heroes of Might and Magic 5", then you can't just write "hero 5" like in LuXr. So, get that 
Well I'm giving build 5728 (the latest as of this post) a go. I haven't tried any of the previous builds so this was a Vista cherry popping if you will. My first impression: hey this is kind of nice. But when I ask myself, "How is this making me more productive?" I really can't come up with anything. I've got the x64 build installed on my junker box which is pretty much the minimum hardware needed to run Vista all out. It's a Sempron 64 2600+ (ok, overclocked to 2.4) and a passively cooled eVGA FX5500 with a gig of DDR1 @ 1T 2-3-3-8. All devices are working fine EXCEPT the onboard sound. Sound driver issues seem to be the order of the day up to this point though.
Aero is very nice looking, although a bit sticky. Thats understandable though since this is just about the slowest SM 2.0 card on God's green earth. Does it seem to add to productivity in any meaningful way? I don't think so. Ok maybe the taskbar thumbnails could help some people.
For whatever reason the 32-bit build of IE7 is the default, thats rather strange. Otherwise the new browser revision seems like a decent step forward in adopting various modern browser conventions such as tabbed browsing, integrated RSS etc. Will I use it? Of course not. I figured it was a good time to try out Firefox v2.0 RC1 and it is running nicely. Although you really have to look to find much of a difference in the UI, hopefully there is a lot of optimization under the hood.
I'm liking the new start menu so far, although if you think about it its not all that different from the XP start menu. The search bar is there and the menu's don't pop out but otherwise its more or less the same design. The prominent placement of the hibernate button catches one's eye, MS must be trying to get this notoriously underused feature more mindshare.
User Account Control is an absolute nightmare. I'm in total disagreement with this method of protecting users from themselves. After grandma clicks through about a dozen of those things, she'll stop giving a damn about them or even noticing them. And since that is the case, what have you added? Annoyance and a noteable decrease in efficiency, thats all. This is going to be by far the most disabled feature in a windows version ever. It'll be the return of XPs MS Messenger but 10x worse.
Big thumbs up for the scheduled by default HDD defrag! Isn't it funny how simple little things like this can make some of our lives so much easier? That makes one less thing I have to worry about when I'm cleaning up somebody else's mess they call a computer.
Ok so there are some initial thoughts. One question I have for you guys is, what do you recommend I look for to make Vista a better or more efficient OS over XP? What new features have you found to be the most useful? And since I know some of you are thinking it, I'll say it, "The best way to get the most out of Vista is to go back to XP."
Aero is very nice looking, although a bit sticky. Thats understandable though since this is just about the slowest SM 2.0 card on God's green earth. Does it seem to add to productivity in any meaningful way? I don't think so. Ok maybe the taskbar thumbnails could help some people.
For whatever reason the 32-bit build of IE7 is the default, thats rather strange. Otherwise the new browser revision seems like a decent step forward in adopting various modern browser conventions such as tabbed browsing, integrated RSS etc. Will I use it? Of course not. I figured it was a good time to try out Firefox v2.0 RC1 and it is running nicely. Although you really have to look to find much of a difference in the UI, hopefully there is a lot of optimization under the hood.
I'm liking the new start menu so far, although if you think about it its not all that different from the XP start menu. The search bar is there and the menu's don't pop out but otherwise its more or less the same design. The prominent placement of the hibernate button catches one's eye, MS must be trying to get this notoriously underused feature more mindshare.
User Account Control is an absolute nightmare. I'm in total disagreement with this method of protecting users from themselves. After grandma clicks through about a dozen of those things, she'll stop giving a damn about them or even noticing them. And since that is the case, what have you added? Annoyance and a noteable decrease in efficiency, thats all. This is going to be by far the most disabled feature in a windows version ever. It'll be the return of XPs MS Messenger but 10x worse.
Big thumbs up for the scheduled by default HDD defrag! Isn't it funny how simple little things like this can make some of our lives so much easier? That makes one less thing I have to worry about when I'm cleaning up somebody else's mess they call a computer.
Ok so there are some initial thoughts. One question I have for you guys is, what do you recommend I look for to make Vista a better or more efficient OS over XP? What new features have you found to be the most useful? And since I know some of you are thinking it, I'll say it, "The best way to get the most out of Vista is to go back to XP."
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Tried playing with Vista x64, that thing waste considerable resources for itself, going against the task of an OS to provide as many resources as possible to programs.
1GB is not enough to play HL2 w/o considerable load time (>=1 minute).
Lots of compatibility issues, Nero and ACDSee comes to mind, also Trillian disable Aero, couldn't set my apps to be default apps, the checkbox in firefox and my email client were useless...
Overall, I'd say Vista is a small step forward, the main thing is that it has AT LAST a not shitty DirectX driver model, making better use of the hardware.
1GB is not enough to play HL2 w/o considerable load time (>=1 minute).
Lots of compatibility issues, Nero and ACDSee comes to mind, also Trillian disable Aero, couldn't set my apps to be default apps, the checkbox in firefox and my email client were useless...
Overall, I'd say Vista is a small step forward, the main thing is that it has AT LAST a not shitty DirectX driver model, making better use of the hardware.
I'm using Vista build 5728 as my main, and only, OS - used 5600 before this.
I, TBH, see no reason whatsoever to go back to XP - unless I get a sudden urge of playing some OpenGL title, which I'm not sure if I can really get working on Vista (when I have time I'll check if the XP OGL driver will work, even though it will surely disable Aero, too)
Everything I want to work, works, only program needing compatibility mode is Irssi for Win32 (running on Cygwin), but I think it might be solved by updating the Cygwin platform, too.
I, TBH, see no reason whatsoever to go back to XP - unless I get a sudden urge of playing some OpenGL title, which I'm not sure if I can really get working on Vista (when I have time I'll check if the XP OGL driver will work, even though it will surely disable Aero, too)
Everything I want to work, works, only program needing compatibility mode is Irssi for Win32 (running on Cygwin), but I think it might be solved by updating the Cygwin platform, too.
Vista seems to be pretty good. I like quite a few things about it, mainly the sidebar. The OS seems to be a bit more responsive than XP. AS a RC, this OS is showing itself pretty good.
epic
epic
Yes I know it will work as soon as the IHV's provide the drivers, but ATM the ATI drivers do not provide OpenGL driver.
Scanning through user agent (browser) tokens in my site log here at work, it appears Vista does indeed declare itself proudly to be "Windows NT 6.0."
But 5.3 does make more sense... :smile:DudeMiester
Regular
Scanning through user agent (browser) tokens in my site log here at work, it appears Vista does indeed declare itself proudly to be "Windows NT 6.0."
You really think so? Looking at all the changes under the hood, I think it deserves it. Didn't they rewrite the kernal and everything else, as well as make the registry unnecessary except for BC?
It might. As soon as the commercial versions include all those kernel changes. Most of which are scrapped. Bundling a large amount of other, random, external and optional tools and other nice stuff shouldn't change the version number of the core.
ChronoReverse
Newcomer
There are a lot of serious changes.
The entire new graphics subsystem shoves most of everything into the user space.
UAC actually does require some flipping of switches to catch administrative access.
Patchguard prevents any attempts to patch the kernel.
The entire sound subsystem has been rewritten to allow for goodies like per-application volume setting.
The TCP/IP stack has been rewritten and IPV6 support enabled by default.
Ongoing tweaking has been and is still being done to make low priority IO processes not run when the user is doing stuff (this part is still not working that well for everyone although I haven't run into it yet).
Memory management has been revamped with a much smarter (linux-like) caching scheme that instead of emphasizing free memory (a really STUPID idea that has been ingrained into a lot of people who don't know better because of certain "ram doubling" companies in the past) empasizes cache hits.
Removing the really outdated GDI(+) and replacing it with a new unified graphics subsystem where the APIs are unified.
Modifying how the registry is stored and accessed such that each user effectively has their own registry WHILE maintaining a great deal of backwards compatibility.
My own testing have found some older programs that launch other programs and then access and modified the child's memory space no longer work. Very likely due to a more secure partitioning of processes from each other.
And these are just off the top of my head. None of them are trivial changes that could easily be jury-rigged onto XP.
The entire new graphics subsystem shoves most of everything into the user space.
UAC actually does require some flipping of switches to catch administrative access.
Patchguard prevents any attempts to patch the kernel.
The entire sound subsystem has been rewritten to allow for goodies like per-application volume setting.
The TCP/IP stack has been rewritten and IPV6 support enabled by default.
Ongoing tweaking has been and is still being done to make low priority IO processes not run when the user is doing stuff (this part is still not working that well for everyone although I haven't run into it yet).
Memory management has been revamped with a much smarter (linux-like) caching scheme that instead of emphasizing free memory (a really STUPID idea that has been ingrained into a lot of people who don't know better because of certain "ram doubling" companies in the past) empasizes cache hits.
Removing the really outdated GDI(+) and replacing it with a new unified graphics subsystem where the APIs are unified.
Modifying how the registry is stored and accessed such that each user effectively has their own registry WHILE maintaining a great deal of backwards compatibility.
My own testing have found some older programs that launch other programs and then access and modified the child's memory space no longer work. Very likely due to a more secure partitioning of processes from each other.
And these are just off the top of my head. None of them are trivial changes that could easily be jury-rigged onto XP.
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Has anybody heard much about the new licensing scheme that is supposed to come out with Vista?
From what I have heard
Home versions allow you to transfer the license once to new hardware then you are sol.
Corp versions have a couple of options. One being you register it once but it grabs your network information. If you leave that network it locks you out. The other option is to run a license server and the OS reactivates itself every 180 days.
I have to admit RC2 is very nice. I was actually thinking of getting a version of Vista on launch day. But this licensing scheme sounds oppressive enough for me to stay clear and look for other alternatives.
From what I have heard
Home versions allow you to transfer the license once to new hardware then you are sol.
Corp versions have a couple of options. One being you register it once but it grabs your network information. If you leave that network it locks you out. The other option is to run a license server and the OS reactivates itself every 180 days.
I have to admit RC2 is very nice. I was actually thinking of getting a version of Vista on launch day. But this licensing scheme sounds oppressive enough for me to stay clear and look for other alternatives.
And many other drivers with it. Sure it will speed things up a bit, but expect many more blue screens and other unpleasanties.
At what users is that aimed? Do I care?
Great! Does that include dll's and stuff as well? What other efforts do I have to make to get software distributed to users?
Is that why no sound drivers work?
Did they exchange the BSD source code for the Linux one?
So, you have to press a button multiple times after a minute of inactivity?
Ok. Although that is going to generate very many calls to helpdesks worldwide.
And not backporting it to XP et al. That makes it into a marketing gimmick.
Hm. More packaging and distribution worries.
Hm. More software compatibility tests. And I don't care: I use Firefox.
Disregarding XP SP 2? Those changes were pretty far-fetching. I would call it a draw.
But yes, no matter if I want to, I know it's going to be forced down my throat. Many people will want it, because "it looks nice, and it's new!".
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I switched to Ubuntu recently. Although I'm having the usual issues (media players and Flash sound), I'm in no hurry to switch to a Windows OS. I thought I'd lose a lot of functionality, but honestly, between Open Office, Firefox, and the basic management tools, I'm totally set. I realized the only thing I was using Windows for was games, and paying massive $$$ for a new OS, graphics board, motherboard, and CPU just to play games when console games suit me fine just seems like a waste of money.
Between my old Linux-equipped rig and a coupla games consoles, I can do everything I want to.
Between my old Linux-equipped rig and a coupla games consoles, I can do everything I want to.
ChronoReverse
Newcomer
And that's MS's fault how? And that's different from the current situation how? Except since it's in the USER SPACE, it's less likely to bring down the system.
If you are incapable of turning it off, maybe you should consider having it on after all. Because that clearly indicates you don't know enough about computers to be trusted to secure it.
Thus you demonstrate you have no idea what this is and why it's important. It has nothing to do with DLLs and software distribution and everything to do with keeping malware from hacking in their own "goodies" into the kernel.
If you mean OLD drivers then yes. Even Creative has gotten off their asses and just released a new XiFI driver.
A glib and useless response. How trite.
No, if you sit there, Windows will do something useful. If you do something, you get the full attention. It's called not wasting resources.
Yeah, people are going to call MS about not having as much memory free? When clearly upgrading to a new Windows will obviously use more memory?
Right. A sweeping change that involves rewriting and entire subsystem and providing entirely new APIs. A marketing gimmick. How about you understanding what this implies for developers who no longer have to deal with a half dozen APIs.
Bullshit. You say that without even knowing what it is from this comment since there's nothing to do with that. This is all about making sure each user only screws themselves up and not the entire Windows installation or other users.
Again this just shows your ignorance in what this actually means. It's a GOOD thing to properly partition memory so that malware can't go and mess about with some other program's memory. And then you bring up Firefox when that has absolutely nothing to do with it.
Tell me which subsystem in SP2 was rewritten from scratch and I'll get back to you.
Why on earth would you buy Vista if you don't have a use for it?
I've been adamant in all my other posts about how nobody should really UPGRADE to Vista. However, if you get a new computer, there's no good reason NOT to get Vista with it.
I'm personally waiting to see what the final EULA for Vista is though. It'll be worth boycotting MS if the terms end up as draconian as being rumoured right now. Especially the VM clauses since I need that for work.
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