Windows Vista Discussion Thread

[sabret00the]

Originally Posted by HappyWheels

i used Vista Ultimate for about 5 months (earlier this year) and have found it to be more friendly and much better interfaced that any other windows version including XP.

Yes, there are few driver issues and thing like that, but then these are just temporary problem which will get sorted out when the manufacturers come out with a driver.

I remember the first time I installed Vista on my laptop - took 40 minutes and end of it the dam laptop was ready to use. I mean - ready to use, no need for any drivers or anything. all the default drivers were installed and all working. With XP I had to install the drivers one after another!

I guess with SP1 of Vista, things will be much better.

I cannot but agree with you...I've been using Vista Ultimate since Beta stage and agreed that there have been driver issues in the past but now most of that is history and with the SP1 IMHO Vista is the sweetest OS from MS yet..I love the simplicity and inteligence of the OS when it comes to resolving network and internet related issues...I absolutely love Vista Ultimate over XP Pro or MCE, 2000 Pro or Ubuntu.

[jat]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

It is not the problem of the manufacturers and software authors to chase after Microsoft; it should be the problem of an OS supplier to support our hardware and our software.

I agree.

Vista is a better OS. So is CNG a better fuel. However if you car doesn't run on petrol, would you like to take it on a long drive between cities?
Think, if the colour TVs in did not support B&W format, what would have happened to its growth.

[vikram_d]

According to this logic and LCD TV should work if you fit a CRT into it?

Device drivers is a collaborative effort between the hardware manufacturers and the software companies.

The reason that Vista does not work with a lot of old hardware is that most of the times the hardware comapnies dont want to support it with that OS. I have seen this personally happen in the case of atleast three different hardware companies that I know of.

Inspite of this Vista has the most comprehensive driver database ever put in by any software company. Agreed that most of the old hardware will not work upto to its 100% potential but with the basic support coming in from Vista atleast it will get your work done.

Think about it. The hardware company wants to discontinue a product. What better way to do it?

I had this experience with Vista beta 1. My Pinnacle PCTV card would not work and upon contacting support they said that they will not be provideing Vista drivers for it and I should upgrade to a newer Vista compatible model. Who shall I blame for this mess?

[jat]

Originally Posted by vikram_d

According to this logic and LCD TV should work if you fit a CRT into it?

You got me wrong. I am talking about compatibility and not complete hardware change. It doesn't matter whether you have LCD or CRT. It should be able to play HDTV, B&W, colour on all the frequencies and if it is international model then PAL / SECAM / NTSC etc. Imagine somebody coming out with a better than LCD TV which will not support STAR and DDI but will support all others (If it happens, it will be real fun :-)

OK, I give another example: If MS was to develop DVD player then all DVD players may not be able to able to play CDs which will force all video market to change to DVD overnight. And all your CDs will become useless.

I said Vista is a good OS. But MS having a near monopoly in the market, is playing with market dynamics and decides on it own whom to upport properly and how much to support. And that is wrong. It should have developed software with continuity. If somebody hardware guys does not upgrade, his product would eventually die out. However the customers won't suffer that much and they will have some flexibility in buying products

[s0uljah]

Havent bothered reading through this thread really.

Just got a new setup (running a 3Ghz dualcore & 965ry motherboard + 2gb ram) so wondering whether to give vista shot?

Someone was saying a lot of older software and especially pirated/downloaded applications dont run too well on vista, any truth in this?

Also how difficult would it be for a person to get familiar with it since besides me the others using it would be borderline computer illiterate.

[abhibh]

Originally Posted by gopz

Can you share some tips on how you managed to get a 40 second boot?

Have you tweaked anything?

Some tweaks which i worked out:

1. Uninstall things you dont need in VISTA. Go to Control Panel and click on Uninstall a program. In the next window on left hand side there is Turn Windows Features On or Off. Click that and uncheck features u dont need. This wont delete them / free your HDD space but it will kinda uninstall them and they wont run any service in background eating memory.

2. type msconfig in run or in start search and disable all the programs u dont want to run in start up. Then again go to run and type in services.msc and disable the services u dont want to start automatically. Some services liek Tablet PC, Remote Registry, Remote Assistance, Offline Files, Computer browser are not needed so u can safely disable them.

3. Use ready boost. I dont use it but heard it helps.

4. If u have a SATA drive go to device manager and there expand the disk drive entries and right click on yer drive properties. Go to Policies tab and check the Enable Advanced performance

5. Decrease the visual effects!

I know i know these are basics and most of you must be knowing them.

[abhibh]

Originally Posted by s0uljah

Havent bothered reading through this thread really.

Just got a new setup (running a 3Ghz dualcore & 965ry motherboard + 2gb ram) so wondering whether to give vista shot?

Someone was saying a lot of older software and especially pirated/downloaded applications dont run too well on vista, any truth in this?

Also how difficult would it be for a person to get familiar with it since besides me the others using it would be borderline computer illiterate.

Yes OLD Nero wont work, 6 was one of the best version of NERO. OFFICE XP wont Work, 2003 will work after u have fixed the permissions. Dont know about pirated thing but i m running 1 pirated software on it and its working fine but its the latest version designed for vista

Getting familiar hmm...

Frankly i am OK OK at computers and i am finding it a bit difficult to cope up with VISTA as compared to XP. When i shifted from 98 to XP it was easy!

[HotChillyPepper]

Vista is a not an pgrade of any Windows versions , and its an Os from scratch. So there will be issues with respect to drivers. But how did you concluded that the OS crash is just because of Vista? It could be a RAM failure, HDD bad sector, Mother board issue ... Im using vista for the past 3 months with my Vaio FZ25N ( Business editoin) and never faced any issues.

Compatibility with programs is an issue, but it will be the case with any new OS. How many vendors will give you a Mac version of their program ? So till the time the OS Metured you have to wait.

[HotChillyPepper]

Originally Posted by abhibh

Yes OLD Nero wont work, 6 was one of the best version of NERO. OFFICE XP wont Work, 2003 will work after u have fixed the permissions. Dont know about pirated thing but i m running 1 pirated software on it and its working fine but its the latest version designed for vista

Getting familiar hmm...

Frankly i am OK OK at computers and i am finding it a bit difficult to cope up with VISTA as compared to XP. When i shifted from 98 to XP it was easy!

Nero is a waist of money and time guys. It just install 800Mb of stuffs in your pc and interrupt everything in your machine ( the new version). Stay away from it. If you are looking out for a solution for burning cd images check out this free tool: The Official ImgBurn Website Its better than any other 2 digit image burners in market

[merve_extreme]

Originally Posted by s0uljah

Also how difficult would it be for a person to get familiar with it since besides me the others using it would be borderline computer illiterate.

If you are familiar with XP,Vista wont take much time to adapt to.2-3 days.

Originally Posted by jat

Think, if the colour TVs in did not support B&W format, what would have happened to its growth.

It's like saying a microwave oven should support adding coal to it.

A format is different from an actual software.your argument would hold if Vista did not support BMP files etc.The thing is they have changed how the OS resources are handled and how applications use them for better performance,but specific older applications conflict with this arrangement and crash.

One more thing many people check their ram usage in task manager and go berserk seeing that out of 2GB ram only 20-20MB is free and tell that Vista is a resource hog.This is SuperFetch at work and it optimizes the applications response time,but do people bother reading.

[jat]

Originally Posted by merve_extreme

It's like saying a microwave oven should support adding coal to it.

That's a good logic I would say. However, if you do a market survey, you will find that microwave has not been able to replace the gas or coal. The gas did replace coal and kerosene. People are still having gas or electric equivalent even if they have microwave. Both of them co-exits in the market. None of them try to drive the other one out of market. It is left to people to choose what suits them. On the other hand gas has been able to overpower coal.

Similarly, although Mr. Bill Gates have brought very good products in the market, the way people are controlled due to his almost monopolistic attitude. (There was a famous case regarding engines - the German court forced one of the biggest company who brought diesel engine in the world to give up shares of another diesel engine maker so that former company won't have monopoly and customer won't be able to suffer).

Just imagine that there was another product which a inferior to Vista by a very small margin and had nearly same market as MS. However it tackled all the issues which are being discussed here. Now people would have had choice. Ultimtely the guys who did not upgrade there drivers, hardware etc etc. would lose market (the way old diesel engine is loosing to CRDI) but customer had some say in deciding what they want.

Under present situation, we land up with something which MS launches, whether we like it or not.

You will say that if you don't like it, don't buy it. Right. How many choices you have now in the market. If you don't want, the companies etc where you work will force you. The computer vendors try to force you to Vista. If you try to see behind the scene, there is lot more going on than what is put in developemnt of Vista or any of MS product. (Mr. Bill Gates is not alone, there are many others who are playing the same game, especially in the communication market as this one has got a real big money)

[merve_extreme]

You right when you say that competition will get us better operating systems,but criticizing Vista won't get anywhere.Its like the Symbian OS swamping the smartphone scene even though Mobile Linux OS is better.

Companies like Apple should be trying to compete with Microsoft instead of making touchscreen toys.But they wont,instead they make you eat the apple using only their cutlery because if you use different cutlery the apple turns into a lemon.

Originally Posted by jat

if you do a market survey, you will find that microwave has not been able to replace the gas or coal. The gas did replace coal and kerosene. People are still having gas or electric equivalent even if they have microwave. Both of them co-exits in the market. None of them try to drive the other one out of market. It is left to people to choose what suits them. On the other hand gas has been able to overpower coal

That is because a Microwave can't do all of what a Gas or an Electric burner can,but Vista can do everything XP does and more,it only differs in the way it is done.

[chvvkumar]

Completely agree with merve_extreme here. Vista is the best windows till date. I have been using it since the beta stages as m,y primary OS.

The gaming performance has improoved substantially since then and so is the stability. I agree that some stuff (like the network center) is a bit intimidating at first but I appreciate how things just work! Network management is infact a lot more easier for for new users.

The only hardware that I have that doesn't run on vista is a USB-Ethernet adapter by 'Enter Peripherals' which gives a BSOD if i plug it in.you can't blame MS for bad drivers now, can you? But my no name USB sound adaptor gets detected and works at first boot.

[vikram_d]

Also another thing when an application crashes in Vista how many of you send error reports thru its automated reporting system? Doing this helps the company know of the most popular errors being faced by windows users and helps them in prioritizing and fixing them.

Also how many people keep the system updated using the Windows or Microsoft update feature? Do this and you will find half of your problems solved.

[greenhorn]

Originally Posted by chvvkumar

Completely agree with merve_extreme here. Vista is the best windows till date. I have been using it since the beta stages as m,y primary OS.

The gaming performance has improoved substantially since then and so is the stability. I agree that some stuff (like the network center) is a bit intimidating at first but I appreciate how things just work! Network management is infact a lot more easier for for new users.

It might come as a rude shock to you, but there is *no* hardware acceleration for audio in vista . the whole thing has been moved to a software stack. Obvious possiblities of DRM aside, there is no EAX support. I had to end up choosing between good visuals (DX10) and good sound (EAX)
Rumour has it that Microsoft had EA put pressure on Crytek to code Crysis so that DX10 mode looks far better than DX9, in order to sell Vista. Just like it made Halo Vista only. If you factor in the tweak that allows you to use very high quality mode in DX9 systems , its obvious what i would choose.

PS : i dont see how network management is easy either . The useful dialog boxes are hidden under layers of menus