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.

[gufu]

All you need to know what sit's a failure which kills computers, period.

[Roani52]

Vista, the best looking OS, but the most crappy one if you're going to talk about supporting drivers and other programs.
*Vista not supported* *64 bit's version of Vista not supported* *ONLY 98, ME, NT and XP* BLA Bla blaa bla... and 1 on 84029: *Vista fully supported*
1 on 389528732085730758375: * Vista ONLY*

And I think there are 389528732085730758374 programs, so... None which only supports Vista

[The DvD]

I didn't have problems running anything on vista, but i'm used to programs not supporting my Windows XP x64 Edition (which i use atm), so it's no wonder Vista was a better experience..

One thing's for sure, the OS is snappy as hell, provided you have enough RAM (think 2 GB).

[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.

[Roani52]

I think Vista still has some buggs, but as far as I know not many.
It's too bad that 64 bits versions aren't many supported... Else you don't use the capacity of your system completily

[ChielScape]

the crappy thing is, DX 10 games are already out, and increasing in numbers rapidly.
if you want to play those, you have no choice. working with multiple PC's, i think, is the best solution for the problem. if you already have a PC running XP, get vista for your new one, and if anything doesnt work on vista, theres always your older XP-PC.

[Clazzy]

the crappy thing is, DX 10 games are already out, and increasing in numbers rapidly.

Actually, none of the games on the market (at least that I know of, anyway) support DX10. Supreme Commander will have a DX10 patch released in the future but other games (Crysis, Bioshock, UT3, Hellgate: London) aren't out. They're still going to run on DX9 and they still look good. No game is DX10 only, that would be suicidal. Chances are it will probably be 2-3 years before there are many DX10-only games so I don't see any reason to worry. Considering DX10 has been backported to XP you may never need Vista to play DX10 games.

[ChielScape]

sweet, that means i'll install 5 OSs instead of just 2 ^^
(gotta go save for some HDDs )

and i thought supcom already featured DX10?

EDIT: looks like an amateur project, that right?

This post has been edited by ChielScape: Apr 28 2007, 05:59 PM

[Roani52]

[offtopic]About DX10, Chiel I know you have it, with your 8800 GTX.
What is so special about it?? Why does every card support DX9 and only those newest cards DX10??
And I've a problem with a DX7 .dll, but I'll post that in Support[/offtopic]

[Clazzy]

and i thought supcom already featured DX10?

Not to my knowledge, it certainly wasn't released with it and they announced that they would release a patch featuring DX10 support.

[tomb]

[quote name='Clazzy' post='20634' date='Apr 28 2007, 01:45 PM']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.[/quote]
What about starting any (non-registered) EXE or other executable? Annoying little basterd.[/quote]

BTW - I've got Vista complaining me about that permission setting being disabled, but it hasn't even once poked me about not having an anti-virus program installed!

[quote]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.[/quote]Yes you can. Right-click on desktop and select... don't know exact English translation of this, but it'll probably be something like: "setup personal preference" (Aan persoonlijke voorkeur aanpassen).

About the menu: I hardly use it. I just use the search function to start something... And I got me a bunch of short-cuts in my taskbar. However, I don't like how they set up the "My Documents" and related folders. The icon on your desktop gets you to what used to be "C:\Documents & Settings\[username]\" instead of the actual My Documents folder. It's an extra click I could do without.

[quote]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.[/quote]

I have to say that I kinda like the new Explorer (not IE, but the MyComputer one) interface. Especially the bit in the "adress bar" where you can just click on a folder-name to get you several folders up. Got to get used to it first though. Overall, the interface is OK. It takes some serious getting-used-to. And a few things are annoying. But if you find the proper settings, you can get it working less annoying.

As for 64-bit Windows:
Right now, I've got an AMD 64 X2 w/ 4GB RAM... I can't make full use of it because a lot of things don't support the 64 bit version of Vista. And this isn't the only unsupported thing... Vista x86 doesn't support more that 2GB RAM either!!! They probably did this intentionally for reasons unknown to me. XP x86 didn't support more than 2GB either, but XP x64 did. Now they came with Vista, with the same problem!

And I wouldn't know how Vista runs on the bare minimum system requirements (those stated by Mickysoft), I haven't tried it yet.

[ChielScape]

vista ultimate & business run up to 128GB ram.
you got home basic or something?

[DeathRay2K]

and i thought supcom already featured DX10?

No, and some devs are now saying that it probably never will.

[offtopic]About DX10, Chiel I know you have it, with your 8800 GTX.
What is so special about it?? Why does every card support DX9 and only those newest cards DX10??
And I've a problem with a DX7 .dll, but I'll post that in Support[/offtopic]

Because DX10 is newer, the cards that don't support it don't support it because they came out before they could support it.

As for 64-bit Windows:
Right now, I've got an AMD 64 X2 w/ 4GB RAM... I can't make full use of it because a lot of things don't support the 64 bit version of Vista. And this isn't the only unsupported thing... Vista x86 doesn't support more that 2GB RAM either!!! They probably did this intentionally for reasons unknown to me. XP x86 didn't support more than 2GB either, but XP x64 did. Now they came with Vista, with the same problem!

That's because a 32bit OS only supports 32bit memory access, meaning 4GB. However, 2GB of that is reserved for device interfaces.
There is a way to use an extra GB, just Google it.


I fully recommend Vista, but I would recommend getting the retail copy so you can use the 32bit version now and the 64bit version later when its better supported.

[Bittah Commander]

BTW - I've got Vista complaining me about that permission setting being disabled, but it hasn't even once poked me about not having an anti-virus program installed!

You can easily get rid of those messages by going to the security center, clicking "Change warnings from security center" ("Waarschuwingen van Beveiligingscentrum wijzigen") on the left and clicking "Don't show notification and warning icon (not recommended)".

I have to say that I kinda like the new Explorer (not IE, but the MyComputer one) interface. Especially the bit in the "adress bar" where you can just click on a folder-name to get you several folders up. Got to get used to it first though. Overall, the interface is OK. It takes some serious getting-used-to. And a few things are annoying. But if you find the proper settings, you can get it working less annoying.

XP had that too. In XP it's automatically opened when you open the windows explorer by hitting the Start + E keys on your keyboard and you can open it by clicking folders on the top of the screen while browsing any window. In XP it displays certain information on that spot normally, but in Vista you can only view the folders there.

[ChielScape]

dude... 98 had it, and i think 95 as well...

[tomb]

I got Home Premium (upgrade). I got it because the Business or Ultimate versions were a bit overkill for me as far as features go. Especially for the price they were asking.

Oh, and at least in the case of the upgrade versions (dunno about full retail or OEM versions); the disk for the x64 version isn't supplied with it - you just get the 32bit version on DVD-ROM. You'll have to order the x64 disk on-line from Microsoft for an extra €10,-. You can also order the 32bit version on CD-ROMs there too. The 64bit version IS supplied with the Ultimate upgrade though.

I don't think you understood what I meant with the My Computer address bar buttons.. I meant this:
http://stuff.tombs-stuff.org/mycomputer_vista.jpg

The folders shown in the address bar are actually buttons to click.

I knew the directory tree was shown when you open Explorer with Win+E. BTW - you can also click your Start button with the right mouse-button and select "Explore" for the same effect.

[ChielScape]

looks usefull indeed.

[Bittah Commander]

Ah, that's what you mean. Yeah, I agree it's useful at times, but you don't really need it... You can just hit back (to go back to the folder from which you got there) or backspace (which sends you to higher directory in the tree). Aside from that you can of course always just type it in yourself, but I suppose it's useful for people who don't know their way around with the windows explorer very well yet.

[ChielScape]

its usefull for ppl who are as lazy as i am, and dont want to click more than once to go somewhere.
for the sole purpose of lazyness, i actually programmed my mouse to have an Enter and Del button, (i used the 2 on the side for that) so that i'm able to edit my "anime-I-need-to-download"-list and others, without touching my keyboard, leaving my left hand for more important matters. (no, not "that")

EDIT: ...why is "size=1" still large?

This post has been edited by ChielScape: Apr 29 2007, 06:26 PM

[Sir Modsalot]

Personally I don't think Vista will be worth it until great Vista-only games are released (and SP1). In all honesty I've had more hardware problems than Windows XP problems.

This post has been edited by Sir Modsalot: Apr 29 2007, 11:36 PM

[Tartan Bunny]

might just get tranformation pack for my 2000 pc, and maybe get a XP asap?
thx for all the support

[ChielScape]

Personally I don't think Vista will be worth it until great Vista-only games are released (and SP1). In all honesty I've had more hardware problems than Windows XP problems.

well, XP isnt ChielScape-proof either. i've f*cked it up many times, and actually need to reinstall after formatting, but i need to backup my data first.

[Sir Modsalot]

Lol, what's "ChielScape-proof" supposed to mean? If by formatting you mean formatting the hard drive, then of course you would need to reinstall and make backups; that's just how it is. I've been lucky enough to have not needed reformatting after some of my more serious screw-ups... >_>

[ChielScape]

it not just 1 screwup.
countless times i feared not being able to solve the problem, and i never run any malware-scans.
and since i make use of my lack of download-limits from my provider, i dont think that's such a good idea. (i keep forgetting it)

[offtopic] BTW, i tried to include one of those paypal links in my last post here, just for fun, rather than actually gathering donations for an external drive (though i'd happily accept those) , i wasnt really able to. tell me how plz. might be usefull to know how, for when i might need it. ^^ [/offtopic]

This post has been edited by ChielScape: Apr 30 2007, 01:49 PM

[gufu]

I wonder how many times I'll have to reboot computer with vista... this one was reboote 2 times... or three... in the same year...

[confactor]

I run vista and I like it. I wish I could compare vista to xp,
but my vista computer is much better than my xp one.
So far I have had none of those goofy error messages on vista
that happen for no obvious reason.

[ChielScape]

w00t, that just justified my scepticism about vista being bad.

[Aztek985]

Vista it worth the upgrade. I got it on my new PC, and it runs very smoothly, much smoother than XP does. It's the little things that I like about it, and I've had no problems with it yet. And think about it ... XP will be outdated before you know it.

[Sir Modsalot]

Yeah, you're right, MS is dropping support for OEM Pro editions of XP starting in January... but that doesn't mean it won't still have good use then.