My Impression of Vista

romerojpg · Post by **romerojpg** » 25 Mar 2007, 16:10

I have always had computers, but not PC's until 4 years back. So started seriously with XP to be honest.

EvaUnit02 · Post by **EvaUnit02** » 25 Mar 2007, 16:13

romerojpg wrote:I have always had computers, but not PC's until 4 years back. So started seriously with XP to be honest.

WTF were you using up until then? Crap like Amigas? You poms really loved those pieces of shit and refused to accept that the format was a failure for several years after it had died.

You Europeans love being stuck in a time warp, eg still using SCART.

Kurgan · Post by **Kurgan** » 27 Mar 2007, 22:57

Has anyone else suffered from this problem?

slasher13 · Post by **slasher13** » 28 Mar 2007, 07:38

Ahh many thanks Kurgan, I think some of our clients are getting this issue.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 16 May 2007, 20:59

Windows Vista sells 40 million licenses in 100 days the fastest in history -

http://www.newlaunches.com/archives/win ... istory.php

EvaUnit02 wrote:You Europeans love being stuck in a time warp, eg still using SCART.

Coming from the country that still use Composite as the main video feed that doesn't mean much.

Kurgan wrote:Has anyone else suffered from this problem?

A hotfix has been released to fix that.

I'm more concerned right now why my System Restore on Vista HP periodically is completely wiping all SR points

Kurgan · Post by **Kurgan** » 16 May 2007, 22:19

bradavon wrote:
Kurgan wrote:Has anyone else suffered from this problem?
A hotfix has been released to fix that.

Yeah, I know, it said that in the original linked article. It also said that it was a pain to install.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 22 Jul 2007, 13:20

Vista a few months on:

I've no issues with it, it's overall easily a better OS to XP. I do have one beef with it, which is minor or large depending how you look at it. Volume shadow copy (which lets you copy open files) constantly breaks for me and the entire folder gets wiped, lasting no more than a week and thus taking the entire System Restore library with it.

So after 5-7 days (usually 4-5 days) my SR history is completely empty. I then need to start again. I've had this problem since I first used Vista. I've not managed to track down what it is or anyone else with the same problem. On the one hard I'm more than capable of fixing more problems myself but on the other hand every now and again it can be a very handy quick fix.

Seeing as that is a minor issue overall I'm happy with Vista. I wouldn't want to go back to XP long term. It's old and is missing some of the nice new features of Vista. Superfetch (aka memory management) being one of the biggest.

I've had zero hardware issues and only 2 software ones (both of which were fixed by ticking Run as Admin in the shortcut properties).

If you're buying a PC you'd be crazy to install XP on it. Office 2007 is much better too. I don't think MS will ever give us a leap as big as Win98 to Win2000 again, that one was so fundamental. At least not for any time soon.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 22 Jul 2007, 13:26

Windows 7 in 3 years: http://news.com.com/Next+version+of+Win ... g=nefd.top

It looks like MS has released they left it way to long to release Vista or more to the point leave us with XP.

romerojpg · Post by **romerojpg** » 08 Jan 2008, 18:01

So all this time on how are people doing with Vista? have you got it as well running as XP ever was? all sorted and not many bugs left to patch now?

I ask as I just done and gave in and ordered/made a new PC and Vista is on it, I was hopefull that Service Pack 1 would be officially out now, whats going on with that at the moment for peeps? have you loaded the beta/unfinished SP1?

Still after using Vista on my parents Laptop for a year now I do not mind Vista, but thats the thing their laptop aint a powerful thing for playing games and installing the latest stuff, so they experiece no problems ever to be honest, well nothing I cannot quickly fix.

I hope to god Vista is nice and stable and does not give me any probs, as I will be installling some major things on it, so many programes I need to install, its going to take weeks

Main reason I went and spent cash on a new one was my current PC is nearly 5 year old now! its been on its death legs for some time, and the other night backig up my stuff it went and stuffed the PC internal drive and external drive at the same time! thats 650 GB's of stuff well and truley buggered. Lucking saved most (if not all) from death thanks to my parents laptop and google

scared the shit out of me.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 08 Jan 2008, 22:16

romerojpg wrote:So all this time on how are people doing with Vista? have you got it as well running as XP ever was? all sorted and not many bugs left to patch now?

OMG!!!

The might Romero "I won't buy Vista, it's a Joke and a mess" JPG has actually bought Vista

. Try and get out of this one?

You do realise SP1 isn't out yet?

.

Seriously how much RAM has your new PC got? 2Gb is considered the sweet spot and any less than 1Gb is dumb. 4Gb is probably good if you're heavily into Gaming.

Which version did you opt for? I've heard a rumour Ultimate is going to be dropped. For 99% of people it's overkill.

I've been running Vista HP since May and find it as good as XP. No it's not as zippy as XP but with decent hardware it's still perfectly fine and speedy, just not as zippy. It's not remotely the leap Win2000 was from Win98 but it is worth using. Think of it as "XP Plus".

romerojpg wrote:I ask as I just done and gave in and ordered/made a new PC and Vista is on it, I was hopefull that Service Pack 1 would be officially out now, whats going on with that at the moment for peeps? have you loaded the beta/unfinished SP1?

Speaking of SP1 it's due out First Quarter so any month now, as is XP SP3.

As it sounds like you want a stable OS I'd strongly recommend against installing the Beta SP1. Personally I'd never install beta Operating Systems, Service Packs, Rollups, Hotfixes or Internet Explorer (as it's so integrated into Windows).

It will be out soon enough. I'll then install it.

romerojpg wrote:Still after using Vista on my parents Laptop for a year now I do not mind Vista, but thats the thing their laptop aint a powerful thing for playing games and installing the latest stuff.

I don't play Games (or more to the point new ones) so you may want to bare this in mind.

romerojpg wrote:so they experiece no problems ever to be honest, well nothing I cannot quickly fix.

The problems have largely been exaggerated, one person has a major problem and ten think it's shit.

Like I said it's XP Plus!

romerojpg wrote:as I will be installling some major things on it, so many programes I need to install, its going to take weeks

Out of 15 applications I installed only 3 had issues and all of them were fixed by "Running as Admin", 2 have since had software upgrades. All major software now has a Vista compatible version or worked anyway. What is your essential software? Have you looked on the web if it's Vista compatible?

Some things you may not know:

1. Run as Admin - Unless you break it, all Vista accounts are "Intelligent Limited Users" (that's not their official name). By that I mean no account (except the hidden Admin account) is a full administrator but Vista is clever enough to give setup programs higher rights automatically (for example). Historically a Limited User couldn't do shit.

2. All shortcuts have a Run as Admin option when you right click this forces the specific application to run with Admin rights. If you find an application fails try this first. If it fixes it go to the Shortcut Properties and tick "Run as Admin". This fixes many Vista compatibilities.

3. It's not perfect but Microsoft have tried to account for old software that tries write to parts of the registry it really shouldn't and tries to write user data to such places as Program Files by something called "Folder Virtualisation" and "Registry Virtualisation". This fools the program into thinking it's saving where it wants to but actually the file is somewhere else entirely. For example you'll probably find you can save a file in Firefox to the Windows\System32 folder (bad idea) and if you then go to Open you will see it there but it's actually there at all. Obviously Folder Virtualisation isn't active in Windows Explorer as that's a File Management tool. You can still copy data files into System32 if you want to.

4. When you first use Vista your inclination will be to disable UAC. This is however a very bad idea. One of the advantages of Vista is a much more secure basis to work from. You don't want to then just disable it because the extra prompts annoy you.

5. UAC is much more than just annoying prompts, which manually give stuff higher access rights. Disabling it takes "Folder Virtualisation" and "Registry Virtualisation" with it. It also disables Internet Explorer Protected Mode (which you can turn off too). Protected Mode is actually just an option to enable or disable Admin mode on IE (and make it an "added" marketable feature). If possible to give IE in XP exactly the same functionality. The odd website I've had to "Run as Admin" by right clicking the shortcut (which surprise surprise disables protected mode) but 99% of websites are none the wiser. If IE cannot access your System32 folder it's not possible for malicious code run within IE to either.

6. But my god the prompts are just so annoying I hear you say? They annoyed the hell out of me too and thus I use:

http://www.tweak-uac.com/

This allows you to leave UAC fully enabled (although Security Center isn't intelligent and claims it's disabled, not that you need it) but click YES/OK to continue you for you, and such no prompts appear BUT crucially UAC is still running and you're crucially running as a Limited User.

All TweakUAC does it edit some registry options but it makes it easier to switch between. I'd probably have disabled UAC if I didn't have this. I couldn't live with them. I work in ICT support. UAC isn't for me! My parents I'd definitely leave it enabled though.

That link also really well explains what UAC is intended for and protects against. There has been a lot of confusion of disabling UAC and suddenly being unprotected against viruses. Which is not what's it's intended for.

I hope that helps.

IronMonkey · Post by **IronMonkey** » 08 Jan 2008, 22:33

I heard that in Vista SP1 there's an update to UAC which gets rid of a lot of clicking - I think at the moment when something wants access you have to do about 3 clicks for some things, but this should be reduced to 1 or 2...

Still annoying though!

romerojpg · Post by **romerojpg** » 08 Jan 2008, 23:03

"I wont buy Vista" was back then, it was still teething badly for what I would use it for, drivers and updates seemed to have changed a lot, not all, but a lot

I know Vista SP1 is not out yet offically, I was not going to install Beta SP1, but had read a bit about others doing it and acctually finding it ok, but hell its their PC they are playing with

not for me that sort of thing.

Just Home Premium for me.

Will start with 2GB Ram, looking into taking it up to 3GB, consisting of adding 2 x 512MB of the same speed, so it can still run fast in duel mode.
Was tempted to just get another 1GB in one, but not sure about speed issues yet.

Still looking into it all really, would have went for 4GB but hey do not want Vista 64 very much, so did not bother.

Fingers crossed SP1 is out soon, they did say 1st quater 2008, so hell not many months left.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 08 Jan 2008, 23:21

I'd recommend signing up to this Windows forum Romero:

http://www.neowin.net/forum

UAC and Why it's important:

http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=557045

IronMonkey wrote:I heard that in Vista SP1 there's an update to UAC which gets rid of a lot of clicking - I think at the moment when something wants access you have to do about 3 clicks for some things, but this should be reduced to 1 or 2...

I've heard exactly the same too.

With UAC enabled when you delete a file in Program Files you get prompted for confirmation three times

1. Once to ask are you sure (like XP)
2. Then another to warn you you need to confirm, this one is designed to let you know you're about to do something which needs Admin rights, but as it doesn't say this it just looks like another prompt. Why do you need a prompt anyway? Surely UAC is doing that too.
3. And finally a third when UAC kick ins.

The middle one is definitely overkill. And 4 times if you create a folder in Programs Files and want to rename it (which is considered a separate action):

1. Click to create folder, the same as number 2 above appears.
2. UAC kicks in
3. Rename folder, press Enter and number 1 is repeated.
4. Click Continue and UAC kicks in.

Thankfully Microsoft seem to have realised this:

Brandon Live wrote:Yeah... let's just say your frustrating is known (and shared) and not being ignored

http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?s ... 917&st=109

I believe that guy works for Microsoft. You continue to get the second one with UAC in Silent Mode (TweakUAC) as TweakUAC works by silent clicking OK for you.

IronMonkey wrote:Still annoying though!

You've always been prompted once, one more doesn't bother me. I don't mind the two prompts (I just press enter quickly) but the REALLY fucking intrusive way UAC covers the whole screen annoyed me.

It's deliberate as it prevents a hidden malicious program from stealing the UAC window and saying OK silently but I just found it annoying. I know what I'm doing and will click OK/Yes 99% of the time anyway (as everyone else will).

Shingster · Post by **Shingster** » 09 Jan 2008, 00:59

EvaUnit02 wrote:You Europeans love being stuck in a time warp, eg still using SCART.

So says the guy living in a country where the population wouldn't match your average European district. It's a little harder to introduce new technology/phase out old when there's tens/hundreds of millions of people involved!

EvaUnit02 · Post by **EvaUnit02** » 09 Jan 2008, 06:57

I'll be downloading Vista Business x64 (academic) from MS over the weekend. I'd prefer Home Premium for the out-of-the-box HD disc format support, but then I'd have to pay for it. Free legal copy > paying for it.

I'll make a disc with SP1 slipstreamed and will install that once I've bought a DX10 vid card in a few months (SP1 Final should be out by then). Naturally I'll multi-boot with XP x64 and XP32 for obvious reasons. XP x64 will remain my primary OS for everyday usage and gaming.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 09 Jan 2008, 19:48

You'll be running 3 OS's? My god that's overkill. 2 at most.

Shingster wrote:So says the guy living in a country where the population wouldn't match your average European district. It's a little harder to introduce new technology/phase out old when there's tens/hundreds of millions of people involved!

There are over 3 times the people living in London than the whole of New Zealand, despite New Zealand being much bigger than Britain.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 09 Jan 2008, 19:50

I had a feeling I was the only member who'd been properly running Vista for some time now. I think IM has only recently gone to it.

romerojpg · Post by **romerojpg** » 09 Jan 2008, 20:36

I cannot imagine installing Vista and XP, it just seems to bring up more problems. If it had done a big crash job like it did with Eva last time, no way I would go near it again.

Yi-Long · Post by **Yi-Long** » 09 Jan 2008, 22:21

When I was at my girlfriend's place last Xmas period, I played around a bit on her sister's lap(top), which had Vista on it.

Some stuff I liked, like the new interface, and chess on it (although checkers is gone

) , and the fact you can kinda chance the look of it all (in cooler ways than I could with XP) etc etc.

But those are just the non-important stuff.

I didnt like the new IE7, and I had some problems with having to click through a bunch of stuff when downloading or whatever.

Ofcourse, when I get my new PC with Vista, I'll just put Avant Browser on it (best browser in the world) so I wont have to deal with IE7 anymore, but still.

Anyway, I cant say I hate Vista, or even dislike it. I do need more time with it, and TBH I think XP is pretty much great for what it does, although now it IS starting to look a bit dated next to Vista.

Also, what's the deal with UBUNTU, which seems to be gaining in popularity somewhat...!?

romerojpg · Post by **romerojpg** » 09 Jan 2008, 23:29

UUrrgghh Internet Explorer

the devils work.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 09 Jan 2008, 23:42

romerojpg wrote:I cannot imagine installing Vista and XP, it just seems to bring up more problems. If it had done a big crash job like it did with Eva last time, no way I would go near it again.

I've got a feeling Eva was just unlucky.

I believe Eva runs it on separate partitions so there shouldn't be any issue. I'm going to install XP Pro soon (for MSCE usage) but will use a Virtual Machine. That is a bloody amazing tool!

Yi-Long wrote:I didnt like the new IE7, and I had some problems with having to click through a bunch of stuff when downloading or whatever.

Unlike Office 2003 IE7's new look really is a massive improvement. I bet you given time and actual proper usuage you won't be able to go back to IE6.

IE6's layout reminds me of Windows 3.1

. It's the main reason Firefox has done so well, there was a massive need in the market for something better. IE7 also has lots of other things better too.

I'd never want to go back to a browser without tabs. What do you mean downloading through a bunch of stuff to download? it's the same as IE6.

Yi-Long wrote:Ofcourse, when I get my new PC with Vista, I'll just put Avant Browser on it (best browser in the world) so I wont have to deal with IE7 anymore, but still.

You do realise that's completely IE under the hood? I thought it was shit.

Opera is very good but it's learning curve is too high after using Netscape then IE for year. Firefox is the big daddy though! Even if it's memory footprint is too high. It's fine on my PC but my work P4 1.6 it's a wee bit slow.

Yi-Long wrote:Anyway, I cant say I hate Vista, or even dislike it. I do need more time with it, and TBH I think XP is pretty much great for what it does, although now it IS starting to look a bit dated next to Vista.

It's interesting how a year on the opinion of Vista is starting to change. People have started to realise there was so much scaremongering back in January 2007.

I've said it a few times but it really isn't massively different from 2000 (or XP).

Yi-Long wrote:Also, what's the deal with UBUNTU, which seems to be gaining in popularity somewhat...!?

Ubuntu is the most user friendly Linux OS but crucially it's still Linux, so is much, much more complicated. You can download it for free and burn it to a CD. Linux has a wicked feature whereby you can entirely run it from a Boot CD. Yep with nothing at all installed.

I did this a while back and it allowed me to test it without putting anything on my PC. I thought the in-built software library was an excellent one, but otherwise I didn't see what the big deal is.

Back in the day sure Windows was VERY unreliable but 8 years ago Windows 2000 changed all that (well actually NT really changed it but prior to 2000 it was very un-user friendly). Unless you're a techie or run Linux/Unix in a business environment (there is strong evidence to say it's more stable) forget it. Linux (even in it's Ubuntu) just simply isn't a Home OS.

I don't think it ever will be, unlike Windows and MAC OS it has too many different people working on it and the documentation stinks. By all means give the Boot CD a go though, you can then see it for yourself.

Eva knows more about Linux than me. He told me about Linux's Live CD.

Yi-Long · Post by **Yi-Long** » 10 Jan 2008, 00:54

bradavon wrote:
Yi-Long wrote:I didnt like the new IE7, and I had some problems with having to click through a bunch of stuff when downloading or whatever.
Unlike Office 2003 IE7's new look really is a massive improvement. I bet you given time and actual proper usuage you won't be able to go back to IE6.

IE6's layout reminds me of Windows 3.1 . It's the main reason Firefox has done so well, there was a massive need in the market for something better. IE7 also has lots of other things better too.

I'd never want to go back to a browser without tabs. What do you mean downloading through a bunch of stuff to download? it's the same as IE6.

I didnt use IE6 either, Brad, so I wouldnt know

But you're talking about tabs, but when I used IE7 on my 'sister's' pc, I still had multiple IE window's instead of just tabs. For some pages it would load a new tab, but for others it would just open a whole new IE window, which sucked obviously.

Yi-Long wrote:Ofcourse, when I get my new PC with Vista, I'll just put Avant Browser on it (best browser in the world) so I wont have to deal with IE7 anymore, but still.
You do realise that's completely IE under the hood? I thought it was shit.

Opera is very good but it's learning curve is too high after using Netscape then IE for year. Firefox is the big daddy though! Even if it's memory footprint is too high. It's fine on my PC but my work P4 1.6 it's a wee bit slow.

I didnt realise that, but TBH I dont care much either. For me, Avant is the best and most user-friendly browser I have ever used. You can adjust and alter and make it just the way you want it, without having to download extra crap etc.

I used Opera on the Macs at school and at my internship, and didnt really care for it. Nothing special.
Firefox, I dont care for. I've tried it multiple times, including last Xmas period (it's also on my 'sisters' pc), and although it's certainly better than IE7, I didnt find it as user-friendly as Avant.

Yi-Long wrote:Anyway, I cant say I hate Vista, or even dislike it. I do need more time with it, and TBH I think XP is pretty much great for what it does, although now it IS starting to look a bit dated next to Vista.
It's interesting how a year on the opinion of Vista is starting to change. People have started to realise there was so much scaremongering back in January 2007.

I've said it a few times but it really isn't massively different from 2000 (or XP).

I dont believe I've ever 'dissed' Vista, although I was worried about if it would be as good as XP, and if it would still allow me to use downloaded (illegal) software, like Photoshop etc.
I dont believe I ever dismissed it.

Yi-Long wrote:Also, what's the deal with UBUNTU, which seems to be gaining in popularity somewhat...!?
Ubuntu is the most user friendly Linux OS but crucially it's still Linux, so is much, much more complicated. You can download it for free and burn it to a CD. Linux has a wicked feature whereby you can entirely run it from a Boot CD. Yep with nothing at all installed.

I did this a while back and it allowed me to test it without putting anything on my PC. I thought the in-built software library was an excellent one, but otherwise I didn't see what the big deal is.

Back in the day sure Windows was VERY unreliable but 8 years ago Windows 2000 changed all that (well actually NT really changed it but prior to 2000 it was very un-user friendly). Unless you're a techie or run Linux/Unix in a business environment (there is strong evidence to say it's more stable) forget it. Linux (even in it's Ubuntu) just simply isn't a Home OS.

I don't think it ever will be, unlike Windows and MAC OS it has too many different people working on it and the documentation stinks. By all means give the Boot CD a go though, you can then see it for yourself.

Aw oki, thanks. I might give it a try when I get my new pc.

Eva knows more about Linux than me. He told me about Linux's Live CD.

Wow... Linux does music-concerts now as well!? Awesome!

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 10 Jan 2008, 01:52

But you're talking about tabs, but when I used IE7 on my 'sister's' pc, I still had multiple IE window's instead of just tabs. For some pages it would load a new tab, but for others it would just open a whole new IE window, which sucked obviously.

Tools
Internet Options
General Tab
Tabs

Configure to your hearts content.

I didnt realise that, but TBH I dont care much either.

As you like the GUI I wouldn't either. I'm surprised you didn't notice though, the download box is the same, as are all the options underneath (such as Properties). It's a front end for IE.

You can adjust and alter and make it just the way you want it, without having to download extra crap etc.

Firefox (and IE7 to a lesser extent) supports add-ons so can be altered way more than Avant and Opera ever could, but if it already has all you want then fair enough.

Firefox, I dont care for. I've tried it multiple times, including last Xmas period (it's also on my 'sisters' pc), and although it's certainly better than IE7, I didnt find it as user-friendly as Avant.

The great thing about Firefox is the fact you can not only configure it loads but access stacks of hidden options and install so different many extensions it turns into an almost entirely different project.

My Firefox setup looks so different from the basic default install. Did you play with Extensions (now called Add-ons)? That's what sets Firefox apart from all others.

I dont believe I've ever 'dissed' Vista, although I was worried about if it would be as good as XP.

That was a general comment, sorry.

and if it would still allow me to use downloaded (illegal) software, like Photoshop etc.

Did someone tell you you couldn't? You may need an upgrade to make it Vista compatible but otherwise if it works on XP it's 99.9% likely to work on Vista.

Aw oki, thanks. I might give it a try when I get my new pc.

Linux's spec. is considerably lower than Windows, it's bound to work fine. That and like I said nothing gets installed at all. Reboot, take the CD out and it's as it was before.

Wow... Linux does music-concerts now as well!? Awesome!

It's called a Live CD

It's a really bloody clever idea. It takes a little longer to load obviously but just the idea of being able to run an entire OS from a CD is just nuts. You burn the image, plonk it in and then let it load. You don't have to configure shit.

As the CD is read only you cannot do everything but most things. As I wasn't all that impressed I didn't bother to install it.

romerojpg · Post by **romerojpg** » 10 Jan 2008, 18:15

I just hope I get the full hang of Vista quickly, I have only really ever used XP properly, Vista I can use on others PC's, but its not like I do anything more than surf the net etc..

I was wondering about Updates, seems the PC will be new and newly installed Vista, would that mean I would have hundreds of MB's of updates that I need? that could take some time to install them lot.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 10 Jan 2008, 18:56

2000, XP, Vista are all the same from a day to day perspective. It will take you a good few minutes to get used to the new Control Panel layout (not better just different) you'll be fine.