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So How Bad is Vista, Really?

post #1 of 88
8/19/07 at 4:58am
Thread Starter 
The powers that be have been brainwashed by the Best Buy staff, so it looks like no matter what, I'll have to use a Vista computer.

Most of the things I've heard about Vista have fallen into two very radical camps:there's the "Vista is the worst OS ever conceived, I'd rather go without a computer than use it!" people, and the "I don't know what everyone's complaining about, Vista is awesome!" people. So needless to say I wanted to see if I could get some more... level-headed opinions on what Vista is like.
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post #2 of 88
8/19/07 at 8:26am
sometimes the most valuable opinion is your own, im going to say this is one of those times.. and its mostly a preference thing.. what do you plan on doing with your computer? if you say games, then yes, vista is a pain. If your looking for a an elegant, simplified, easy to use OS i would say go with a mac, but if your like 93% of the consumer market and want windows, then i would say vista is a good option.

I found the main gripes i have with vista are mostly performance issues, however i did run into a few compatibility issues but most things you can make work. So basically if you don't have any programs where every frame per second counts or have an urge to kill when a program locks up from time to time ... then i wouldn't worry a whole lot about vista.

the best idea would be to find a friend who has vista, try your apps on it and see how it goes....
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post #3 of 88
8/19/07 at 8:50pm
I used my cousins HP that has vista. It has an Nvidia 6150 and I think 1GB ram and everything ran fine. I just did causal stuff and it ran silk smooth. I was a little disappointed. After about a week of using it, I wasnt sure what all the gripe/hype was about. I didnt run any games on it so i cant help you in that department. But all in all, Vista was just an eye candy experience for me.

With time, Vista will only get better.
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post #4 of 88
8/19/07 at 9:14pm
hes right vista will get better, im triple booting with xp and linux. but i find myself in vista most of the time because i just like working with new stuff (even if its worse) i do the same things with other products to, i have to upgrade even if it sucks compared to the old one. but thats just me

to me vista is ok for day to day use, terrible for gaming

XP will do almost everything you need and it will be supported for a long time.

linux if you are willing to try seomthing new but i highly suggest you try it
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post #5 of 88
8/19/07 at 9:27pm
Thread Starter 
Yeah, I'm not a PC gamer, so performance in that vein isn't an issue for me.

As to Linux, I've tried it in the past on my Desktop, in fact I have a Xubuntu install sitting on my other partition. But I got tired of constantly learning and forgetting fixes (I couldn't even figure out how to properly install a program), and I can only imagine it's even worse on laptops and wireless connectivity. I heard a lot of problems were resolved in Ubuntu Feisty, but I wasted a bunch of CD's trying to make a live cd (every time I'd get some strange error, even the Ubuntu forums couldn't figure out what it was), even though I've done it without a hitch several times before.
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post #6 of 88
8/20/07 at 1:07pm
as long as they continue to support XP there is no real reason to upgrade. The appeal Vista has to me is DX10 which i will primarily be using in gaming. The lack of DX10 games on the market today makes it a very unnecessary and hopeless upgrade for me.
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post #7 of 88
8/20/07 at 3:39pm
i dont really care for vista just because it is a pure memory hog..from what im at best buy it takes about 500+mb of RAM to run...so i just stick with good ole windows xp
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post #8 of 88
8/20/07 at 6:25pm
I ran XP on my laptop for 9 months, it came installed. after the hard drive died, and i re installed from the factory disc, and it died AGAIN after a perfect install and two months of time, i decided XP was history. that day i put the copy of 32-bit Vista Ultimate i had from school as a freebie on the laptop and the laptop has been rock solid and stable as can be ever since. and if you tweak vista its FASTER than XP.

And as for it being a memory hog, then explain to me how it have NEVER used more than 1 gig of ram out of my two gigs, even when i run huge programs concurrently? i run autocad, Visio, Photoshop and several other seriously big intense programs and Vista does it more smoothly, and faster than XP ever did.

The reason Vista uses memory is because its STORING YOUR MOST USED PROGRAMS IN MEMORY, so you dont have to WAIT for the programs to be LOADED into MEMORY WHILE YOU WAIT. this makes programs faster and more responsive. Vista is better.

ev
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post #9 of 88
8/20/07 at 7:18pm
vista was extremely slow and unstable for me.


as for linux, i have found laptop support to be reasonable, and there are more wireless drivers now then there have ever been, and basically if all else fails ndiswrapper fills in the gaps that said...to properly install apps in ubuntu all you needed to do was open "Package Manager" (synaptic) seems pretty straight forward and simple to me.
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post #10 of 88
8/21/07 at 2:28am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by abf View Post
to properly install apps in ubuntu all you needed to do was open "Package Manager" (synaptic) seems pretty straight forward and simple to me.

But i wanted to learn how to do it the "real" way, through the command line. I felt like I was cheating whenever I used synaptic. I felt like I wasn't a real Linux user whenever I'd take advantage of Ubuntu's efforts to make things easier.
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post #11 of 88
8/21/07 at 2:41am
Quote:
Originally Posted by slickhare View Post
But i wanted to learn how to do it the "real" way, through the command line. I felt like I was cheating whenever I used synaptic. I felt like I wasn't a real Linux user whenever I'd take advantage of Ubuntu's efforts to make things easier.

apt-get install appname
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post #12 of 88
8/21/07 at 3:00am
Quote:
Originally Posted by ghazgull013 View Post
I used my cousins HP that has vista. It has an Nvidia 6150 and I think 1GB ram and everything ran fine.
So I could fool around with Linux and try out anything else prior to installing on another, nicer machine, I bought an extremely cheap eMachines desktop a couple of nights ago. Same basic specs as your cousin's HP though my processor is probably slower: AMD 3800+. First boot was so slow I thought it actually wasn't going to come alive and fire up. After removing TWENTY-TWO apps, bunches of startup programs and a bazillion processes, it's still slow to boot! I installed Ubuntu and though it took forever to get the screen resolution corrected (as usual for me ) it boots quicker, runs faster, and is much more impressive than Vista - which I don't like at all. If a choice were available, I'd have asked for XP. @OP: The worst OS I ever used was ME, but Vista is probably a very close second.
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post #13 of 88
8/21/07 at 5:18pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by abf View Post
apt-get install appname

i meant un tarring, or compiling from source
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post #14 of 88
8/21/07 at 6:34pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by slickhare View Post
i meant un tarring, or compiling from source

./configure && make && make install


the question is WHY unless you are doing LFS. There is a reason most distros include package managers. Save you teh BS of trying to find endless strands of dependencies, gets you the most recent stable (or unstable or testing) version of the app, and makes removal of said app easy when its no longer needed.
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post #15 of 88
8/21/07 at 8:41pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by abf View Post
./configure && make && make install


the question is WHY unless you are doing LFS. There is a reason most distros include package managers. Save you teh BS of trying to find endless strands of dependencies, gets you the most recent stable (or unstable or testing) version of the app, and makes removal of said app easy when its no longer needed.


I tried those commands numerous times, never worked entirely. I might get to make, but make install always yielded errors. The whole point of linux (imo) is to learn more about what makes your computer tick and in the process run a much more stable and efficient system. If i'm just hiding behind the gui 90% of the time, I don't feel like i'm actually using linux. If something goes wrong, I want to know how to fix it, instead of running to a forum every 10 minutes.
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post #16 of 88
8/21/07 at 8:59pm
I worked there for almost 10 years (from WFW 3.11 through XP) and I won't run Vista other than dual-booting into it to play DX10 games once some are out that I want to play. It's XP and Linux all the way for me, and the only reason I use XP is for games. :-)

Why won't I run Vista? Because MS has gone off the deep end.

No, I am not going to debate the contents of that link here in the forums. Read it all the way through before deciding what you think about it. Everything can be verified by reading Microsoft's own documentation. Start with the article's FAQ if it makes you feel better.

-Doc
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post #17 of 88
8/21/07 at 9:06pm
My cousin also had an AMD x2 dual core in that HP, but not sure of clock speed. Probelably in the 1.66 area
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post #18 of 88
8/22/07 at 5:28am
I use Vista with minimal problems. Seems just a tad slower but would imagine things will be smooth once SP1 comes out. I do notice some lag in CS Source, it isnt major but just barely more noticable than XP. The eye candy in Vista makes it worth it for me to stay.
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post #19 of 88
8/22/07 at 12:16pm
i just read somewhere that keeping aero enabled (assuming you have a capable graphics card) will improve performance b/c the old gui actually uses more cpu power and ram. dunno if this is true tho, but i turned aero back on, there is a minor performance boost, but its noticeable. i thought it would be the other way around...
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post #20 of 88
8/22/07 at 1:09pm
bluetooth support sucks in vista though.. i can't get OBEX file transfers to work with my phone, it worked flawlessly in XP
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