Windows Vista, so... whats it like? Options

[Tartan Bunny]

I might get a new laptop with Vista.
Someone persaude/dissaude me.
Found something useful called vista transformation.
downloads the toolbars, screensaver etc. from vista.

[Clazzy]

In my honest, biased opinion, it's not worth it. I've been watching the Vista development since it was announced as Longhorn all those years ago and they promised so much, a better filesystem, some fundamental security changes, a shell, more. Years went by and Vista was developed with many features cut to bring the release out sooner. In the end, it looks fairly shiny but because Microsoft have taken so long to release Vista, Aero is now quite standard among other operating systems (Apple's had effects for years and it's taken off recently in Linux with Compiz and Beryl). As well, I believe the effects can be emulated in some form on XP. Comparing a base XP system (my laptop) to a base Vista system (my mum's desktop) Vista uses about three times as much RAM (mine uses 150MB when idling, hers uses 420MB). I find it quite quick but it is running on a dual core processor compared to my single core which will make a massive difference.

The UAC permissions system, quite frankly, is VERY ANNOYING. You can't do much without it popping up and asking if you actually did ask the computer to do that. Every time you delete a shortcut, try and view system files, edit files, etc. it pops up and checks that you actually did that. It's fine if it's every now and then but when it's every third mouse click that you're clicking ok then it gets quite naggy. It took me 20 minutes to find out how to disable it and even then it popped up with two windows asking if I really wanted to turn it off then constantly warned me about it until I turned that off too. This brings me to another point, the reorganised menu system. The XP/2000/98/95 menus and submenus weren't perfect but they made sense. Vista has now come along and effectively made everything inside masses and masses of submenus. Change resolution? It's something like Start > Control Panel > Visual Settings > Graphical Settings > Screen Resolution. You can't right click on the desktop and do it there any more.

All in all, Vista isn't a particularly bad operating system but the bloat and annoying features (in my mind, anyway) make me think that people should really wait for SP1 first before upgrading. XP will do everything you need and will probably do it quicker than Vista anyway. It looks shiny and I must admit when you compare it to XP and most Linux distros out there it looks polished and well-integrated. However, I wouldn't consider that a priority when using a computer. If you want a nice theme, fair enough. Just add that later. First of all, I want an OS that is just happy to let me do what I want with minimal effort.