Windows Vista Discussion Thread

[tacho]

Originally Posted by vivekiny2k

oh, I thought u had 2GB.

He probably meant he couldn't afford the upgrade to Windows 7

[s0uljah]

Originally Posted by tacho

He probably meant he couldn't afford the upgrade to Windows 7

Yeah thats it!!

I added Transcend 1gb ddr2 @ Rs 1320/-

[anku94]

Originally Posted by s0uljah

Yeah thats it!!

I added Transcend 1gb ddr2 @ Rs 1320/-

1.3k bucks for a GB of DDR2 is pretty high. Was that a performance chip ?? AFAIK, an average DDR2 1GB chip is about 0.8k....

[IronH4WK]

if folks are tired of Vista and want to upgrade/downgrade, here's a comparison (from the moment you press the power button till the "Press Ctrl+Alt+Del" thingy) :

boot time: Windows Vista Ultimate x86 - 6:45secs
boot time Windows 7 Ultimate x86 - 48secs (this may vary a bit depending on the things you have installed an how fragmented your drive is and of course the speed of your HDD)

this is not run on some high end desktop. the config is Intel T7200 2Ghz with 2GB RAM (Compaq nc6400 business laptop). although, i've copy of Windows 7 Ultimate x64 running on my home computer, which has higher specs.

another crappy feature of Vista is that every driver it installed, it keeps a copy of it. if the driver is uninstalled, Vista doesn't clean up, it keeps it. hence, if you take notice, you'll slowly run of disc space (lets say on a 60Gb HDD).

also, the standard installation of Vista takes about 25GB of your HDD (which is pretty huge if you're short on real estate). Win7 takes only 16GB.

as vivekiny2k mentioned, it may not be wise to go back to WinXP as there is no more developments being made there and if installed, it could be a security risk.

bottom line: Windows 7 is the best Windows ever made after.. umm.. lets see.. [/b]Windows 3.11 for Workgroups[/b]!

[vivekiny2k]

Originally Posted by IronH4WK

if folks are tired of Vista and want to upgrade/downgrade, here's a comparison (from the moment you press the power button till the "Press Ctrl+Alt+Del" thingy) :

boot time: Windows Vista Ultimate x86 - 6:45secs
boot time Windows 7 Ultimate x86 - 48secs (this may vary a bit depending on the things you have installed an how fragmented your drive is and of course the speed of your HDD)

this is not run on some high end desktop. the config is Intel T7200 2Ghz with 2GB RAM (Compaq nc6400 business laptop). although, i've copy of Windows 7 Ultimate x64 running on my home computer, which has higher specs.

another crappy feature of Vista is that every driver it installed, it keeps a copy of it. if the driver is uninstalled, Vista doesn't clean up, it keeps it. hence, if you take notice, you'll slowly run of disc space (lets say on a 60Gb HDD).

also, the standard installation of Vista takes about 25GB of your HDD (which is pretty huge if you're short on real estate). Win7 takes only 16GB.

as vivekiny2k mentioned, it may not be wise to go back to WinXP as there is no more developments being made there and if installed, it could be a security risk.

bottom line: Windows 7 is the best Windows ever made after.. umm.. lets see.. [/b]Windows 3.11 for Workgroups[/b]!

I find it a little exaggerated. vista took less than 2 mins, probably less than 1, I never timed it. But that was removing all the bloatware and some services. running services and startup apps took another 30 secs.

a fresh install took around 17 GB, again, minimal with all drivers, no system restore and my necessary programs including MS office etc. system restore automatically adds around 20%to usage whether it's vista or windows 7.

[IronH4WK]

Originally Posted by vivekiny2k

I find it a little exaggerated. vista took less than 2 mins, probably less than 1, I never timed it. But that was removing all the bloatware and some services. running services and startup apps took another 30 secs.

i've no need to exaggerate here, don't have anything to gain by it. try it for yourself, if you will.

the boot times i've given are timed. the timing for Vista i've given are from a system that's been running it for more than a year and lots of stuff installed.

Vista, on a clean install will boot within in 5mins (it varies until all the patches are installed - trust me on this, i did this on a HP Elitebook 6930 last week). once all the patches and stuff are done, then and only then you get the "under 2mins" boot time. but remember, this is bare-bone installation.

in a perfect world, Vista or any other Windows OS, will boot very fast (i remember when Win2k used to be fast!), but then we don't live in a perfect world, do we. we all have our little programs, utilities and games we install. in the long run, the OS clogs up and that's when you get horrendous boot times. and i'm not talking about systems that are low spec.

once you start installing programs and devices and their drivers, the registry starts to become bigger and bigger and the system will slowly become sluggish. add to this people carelessness in putting data in the System Area (drive's root) , rather than User Area (creating folders and then putting stuff in them) of the HDD.

not many people know that putting files directly under the root of the drive (for e.g., "c:\hello_there.mpg" or "c:\blah_blah.ppt") can cause their system to run slower. i've seen people even unzipping program installations directly in the root! frequently adding/deleting stuff from the HDD can cause problems too. keep your wi-fi/bluetooth on while booting and that will add to the boot time.

anyways, i just thought i'll share some info, that's about it.

btw, that 48sec Win7 of mine is kinda getting slower since i installed McAffee Encryption.

[vivekiny2k]

Originally Posted by IronH4WK

i've no need to exaggerate here, don't have anything to gain by it. try it for yourself, if you will.

wrong choice of words from me

I didn't mean to say you exaggerated it, What I meant to say is if you want, you can tune it to a fast startup, and I am talking about a real world, although I keep refreshing my system every few days.

[IronH4WK]

Originally Posted by vivekiny2k

wrong choice of words from me

I didn't mean to say you exaggerated it, What I meant to say is if you want, you can tune it to a fast startup, and I am talking about a real world, although I keep refreshing my system every few days.

no sweat mate. no offense taken. what you said is true, you can tweak it a bit, but then again, the performance gain is not much

one can get information on how to tweak one's system here.

[Samurai]

Today my almost 3 year old Vista PC asked me to activate the OS. I was puzzled why... until I remembered that my defective motherboard was replaced under warranty early this week.

That means the MAC address and processor id, and whatever else Vista uses to identify the PC has changed. So it needs to authenticate again.

[IronH4WK]

Originally Posted by Samurai

Today my almost 3 year old Vista PC asked me to activate the OS. I was puzzled why... until I remembered that my defective motherboard was replaced under warranty early this week.

That means the MAC address and processor id, and whatever else Vista uses to identify the PC has changed. So it needs to authenticate again.

did the authentication go through without any hitches or did you have to call MS support? i had that problem once with XP Pro

[vasudeva]

Originally Posted by IronH4WK

did the authentication go through without any hitches or did you have to call MS support? i had that problem once with XP Pro

I have had to call up MS phone 1-2 times and regardless of whatever is said about them, it went off without a problem. The only problem is giving the custom installation id (huge number set) and getting their confirmatory installation id.

[clevermax]

Today I decided to do the long pending IE8 upgrade on my laptop running Vista Home Premium, legit.

1) I run windows update, it shoes IE8 as important update, and I click install.

2) After downloading about 25MB of stuff, it says "Preparing to install"
I wait wait and wait - the screen doesn't change. So I restart the PC.

3) After restarting, ran the update again, it started installing IE8.

4) Installation complete, prompted to restart - I click ok

5) While shutting down, it shows "Configuring updates - stage 1 - 100%"

6) System starts up and I get to see this


after sometime, this


after that




Again restarts, and I see a series of registry keys displayed like this for few seconds


after that


and this again


and finally I see the login screen after more than 15 minutes!


7) I run internet explorer to check the version -


I wonder why the whole update thing is so so complex and unreliable, Microsoft, are you listening?

[Thad E Ginathom]

A typical microsoft experience! At least it used to be very common, they have improved a lot.

I dread any kind of update or installation that has anything to do with MS .Net. I just know that it means a huge download that will take ages, followed by an installation that will, for some reason only MS could make, take even longer. And, all for something that, as a mere user, I have no idea why I should need!

Last few days, I've been working with Ubuntu. The last time I looked at Linux was Red Hat in about 2003 and, despite being a Unix man at that time, I really didn't like it much. Ubuntu is aeons ahead. Usability by the non-geek is in sight, but it isn't there yet.

[SirAlec]

people are still using buggy Vista.??

i am surprised.

[IronH4WK]

if you can afford it, please move on to Windows 7! not marketing for MS, but TBH, Windows 7 is the best OS since Windows 3.11 for Workgroups!