Vista Service Pack 1 - released tomorrow

[Twilight]

Apparently this has been confirmed - this wasn't supposed to be released until the 15th...

Just FYI.

http://www.stltoday.com/blogzone/web-sig...a-coming-feb-4/


No need to head to any link tomorrow - your computer will automatically start complaining that you should update.

 

[Brolan]

I've got a copy of Vista Ultimate sitting on my shelf. Do you think it is safe to use yet?

 

[Twilight]

Oh, definitely.

Vista gets something of an undeserved bad rap, but it's just a heavily skinned XP with a few bug fixes and rapidly disappearing compatibility issues.

So I'm not sure why so many people heap shit on Vista while singing XP's praises. If you don't like XP, you won't like Vista. But if you like XP, you're really not warranted in criticizing Vista (with the important exception of system resource usage), because it's effectively the same operating system.

There's not much that warrants spending the cash to upgrade from XP, but if it's on your shelf already, why not? It's marginally more stable (I crashed XP all the time, and I've never once crashed Vista).

So yeah, Vista is a mediocre but fully useable operating system. There's no real "risk" to it, particularly if you're comparing it to XP.

 

[USS KG5]

Vista is like any new Microsoft OS - its much better on the newest hardware, BUT - why bother upgrading anyhow, it brings very little new to your PC.

For a business user it brings little of positive benefit which is the reason for awful sales so far, no-one is mass upgrading as there is no reason to.

Eventually however everyone will upgrade as they get new PCs with OEM Vista on at home and businesses want to use the latest software, give it a few years.

 

[scotthm]

Twilight said:
I'm not sure why so many people heap shit on Vista while singing XP's praises.

Because XP is much faster than Vista?

I've been using Vista Ultimate 64 on a PC with 8GB RAM since May, and so far its performance is its least impressive feature.

---------------

 

[Plecostomus]

I use Linux.

*hops on motercycle and blasts sand in ur face*

http://xkcd.com/272/

 

[BriGuy]

I received a free Vista "upgrade" with the XP HP I bought back at Thanksgiving 2006. I've never used it. My computer works just fine. I can't see any reason to change to Vista. I can't see what I would gain, besides the aero interface, and I'd be too worried about whatever would stop working or not work as well.

I primarily run Firefox, Thunderbird, and iTunes. I play mostly fps games, most recently Half Life 2 and HL2 Ep 1.

How well could it handle Vista? It's an Athlon 64X2 4200, 2 gig ram, 7900GS graphics.

I mean, if I knew going in it would run at least as well as it does now, that I wouldn't lose anything, and give me the slick new interface, maybe I'd do it. But I guess there's no way to be sure. And that leads to ... if it ain't broke, don't fix it..

 

[Peacemaker]

scotthm said:

Twilight said:
I'm not sure why so many people heap shit on Vista while singing XP's praises.

Because XP is much faster than Vista?

I've been using Vista Ultimate 64 on a PC with 8GB RAM since May, and so far its performance is its least impressive feature.

---------------

Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner! Yup, this is the problem. XP runs faster, that's the big difference. I have Vista on my laptop, and it's tweaked like a meth addict, and it's STILL slow. So, we'll see if SP1 improves it. If not, I may "upgrade"...to XP.

 

[Brent]

Eh, I've been using Vista for a year, sure it has its problems, but it isn't as bad as many make out. I suggest using the x64 version, much more stable. I look forward to SP1.

 

[rType]

I can't say that Vista offers any real advantages over XP, but I've had no issues with it either, and it's nice to legally own Windows for the first time in a decade.

 

[ialfan]

Vista runs faster on my Athlon X2 4000+ @ 2.81GHz, 2GB DDR2 800 Ram, Geforce 8600GTS 256MB computer than XP.

Vista isn't meant for older computers really but if you have one that's less than a year or two old it's a nice upgrade if you can get past the bloat.

 

[Marc]

Peacemaker said:

scotthm said:

Twilight said:
I'm not sure why so many people heap shit on Vista while singing XP's praises.

Because XP is much faster than Vista?

I've been using Vista Ultimate 64 on a PC with 8GB RAM since May, and so far its performance is its least impressive feature.

---------------

Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner! Yup, this is the problem. XP runs faster, that's the big difference. I have Vista on my laptop, and it's tweaked like a meth addict, and it's STILL slow. So, we'll see if SP1 improves it. If not, I may "upgrade"...to XP.

There is also a service pack 3 for XP that's nearing release. The reports have been that it gives XP a nice turn of speed.

In comparison the reports on Vista SP1 have been it does bumpkiss for the performace.

As a result XP SP3 hasn't been getting much coverage.

And wonder how much of a headache Vista SP1 will cause for Apple users with bootcamp and VMwareFusion or Parallels.

Hopefully a client of mine won't jump to SP1 on his Mac too quickly..

 

[Jimilu]

I just use vista so i can use windows media center with my xbox 360. My machine is much slower than before, i had to upgrade the ram to 2 gigas. I hope that the service pack improves the sistem. I just bought a macbook on Compusa, i think i will never buy windows again. MacOs is much better and practical. Windows should drop the registry sistem and redesign windows entirely.

 

[crookeddy]

Vista has been a total nightmare for me. It just doesn't work. I had to buy 3 gigs of RAM just for Aero to stop crashing every 10-15 minutes. Now it crashes every 10-15 hours anyway. It makes my PC feel like a 5 year old machine. It's only a year old. Not to mention that CD Burning became amazingly unstable, and all the torrent clients I have ever tried crash when left minimized for more then a couple of hours. Vista doesn't suck. It just doesn't work. It's the new Window ME. I now have a dual boot with Vista and XP.

 

[Arrqh]

crookeddy said:
Vista has been a total nightmare for me. It just doesn't work. I had to buy 3 gigs of RAM just for Aero to stop crashing every 10-15 minutes. Now it crashes every 10-15 hours anyway. It makes my PC feel like a 5 year old machine. It's only a year old. Not to mention that CD Burning became amazingly unstable, and all the torrent clients I have ever tried crash when left minimized for more then a couple of hours. Vista doesn't suck. It just doesn't work. It's the new Window ME. I now have a dual boot with Vista and XP.

Sounds like a driver issue to me, which is the fault of whoever made the part that has a crappy Vista driver, not Vista itself.

 

[Twilight]

Eh, the reports I read were WAY misleading.

Vista SP1 went gold today, it's NOT released yet. It'll be released early march.

Sorry about that folks!

http://blogs.pcworld.com/staffblog/archives/006433.html

 

[scotthm]

ialfan said:
Vista isn't meant for older computers really but if you have one that's less than a year or two old it's a nice upgrade if you can get past the bloat.

I built a new PC when I made the 'upgrade' to Vista. It's got an EVGA 122-CK-NF68-A1 motherboard with an Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 CPU and 8GB of Kingston RAM. I'm running five WD Caviar 500GB HDDs in a RAID 5 array, and have an EVGA GeForce 8800GTS 320MB video card driving a Dell 2407WFP monitor. This workstation is connected to a gigabit port on a Cisco Catalyst 4507R switch. I've got the latest drivers. It copies and moves files, locally or via the network, substantially slower than XP did on my old PC.

The hardware isn't the problem, it's Vista x64.

---------------

 

[The Doctor]

I've been through a rotation of Windows OS's recently. I tried XP Pro x32 and x64 and Vista Business x32 and x64.

Without any reservations, I would recommend XP Pro x32 to anyone. It simply is MS's best OS right now. Vista brings nothing new to the table that can't be found in a free download from Google and it creates compatibility issues galore thanks to its intrusive new security model. Even the much-vaunted DX10 is nothing more than code-bloat and visually imperceptible 'improvements' at a 30% performance penalty.

Stay away from Vista. It's the Windows ME of this decade.

 

[Saturn0660]

Brolan said:
I've got a copy of Vista Ultimate sitting on my shelf. Do you think it is safe to use yet?

Depends on how much ram you have....

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Anyone who is experiencing crashes with Vista does not have a problem with Vista, but with crappy hardware/software/drivers. Most likely the last one.

My wife has had a laptop loaded with Vista for the last year. She's had no issues with it. She's not much of a power user--she surfs the web, chats, plays the occasional game, makes videos, burns CDs/DVDs, etc. She's found Vista pretty easy to get around. The security features have also saved her bacon a few times, which means I didn't have to go back behind her and clean up spyware/trojans.

That said, Vista IS slower, and things have been moved around quite a bit. Then again, every incarnation of Microsoft Windows is a bit slower than the last--new features means additional overhead. XP is slower than 2000 (I still use both). 2000 was slower than 98 and Me. 95 was faster than any of them, but unstable as hell. And if you really want speed, try Windows 1.0!

Unfortunately, Microsoft doesn't have much incentive to speed up their operating systems, except at the server level, where trimming bloat is imperative. That's why Longhorn (the next server version) will have an option to install with no GUI at all.

I'm still convinced one of the biggest reasons for Vista's poor performance is the new programming API. The additional overhead of yet another API--in which much of this new Windows is written--has to count for something. But hey, whatever it takes to deprecate Win32.