My opinions on Vista SP1, 8 months later..

[Robert]

I bought Vista H.P. around 8 months ago.

First impressions were:

-General slugishness around windows (expanding, minimising etc)
-Terribly slow transfer speeds (hdd - hdd, network transfers etc)
-Lots of RAM usage compared with XP.
-Crashed quite a bit.
-Performance in new games was pretty bad (esp CoH)

-

-Slugishness

You have to be kidding? Have you turned off "Animate windows on expanding"?

That doesn't even look sluggish, it's very smooth and with it turned off it's instant.

- Transfer speeds

Well yeah, this was an issue but is now fixed

- Lots of RAM

Well I'm on 64 bit and the difference isn't huge. It's also down to superfetch which works really well.

- Crashed quite a bit

Check your PC, I haven't had a single BSOD (touch wood)

- Performance

On the whole it's equal to XP and video drivers are pretty good now.

What you should have done was install Vista and all of the updates (minus SP1) and tried it then and apart from the HD transfer you will still be happy.

 

[dirtydog]

So you've finally got it working nearly as well as XP does.

 

[[DOD]Asprilla]

So you've finally got it working nearly as well as XP does.

Yup, and it's only taken XP 3 service packs to be that good.......

 

[badbob]

Won't go to Vista until XP is phased out with no further security updates.

And XP SP2 has far less bugs than Vista, your comment about SP3 = Vista is a joke.

 

[marc2003]

So you've finally got it working nearly as well as XP does.

meh. vista with no updates runs better on my pc than xp sp2. of course YMMV.

 

[dirtydog]

Yup, and it's only taken XP 3 service packs to be that good.......

No it hasn't. XP didn't just get good recently. XP on release was less crap than Vista on release, and many of the 'by design' flaws with Vista which still exist now, did not exist in XP on its release.

 

[dirtydog]

Won't go to Vista until XP is phased out with no further security updates.

Same here and despite NathanE's love for Vista, most businesses and I gather IT professionals prefer XP*. I will ditch XP only if it becomes 'dangerous' re safety, to continue using it online.

*a quick googled article here which seems to support that: http://www.computerworlduk.com/management/infrastructure/applications/news/index.cfm?newsid=6258

and http://www.computerworlduk.com/tech...windows/news-analysis/index.cfm?articleid=754

 

[m4cc45]

No it hasn't. XP didn't just get good recently. XP on release was less crap than Vista on release, and many of the 'by design' flaws with Vista which still exist now, did not exist in XP on its release.

Are you kidding? On release XP was atrocious. Oh it looked pretty but the driver support was terrible. In fact most IT Professionals only moved over to it on SP2 (which is when the firewall came into it).

I'm not saying Vista is perfect on release, however it is a very solid operating system. I have used XP since release (and still do at work - well until we migrate later this year) and I have also used Vista since release I like both operating systems for various reasons. However if I had to install one now on a new PC then it would be Vista x64 all the way.

Personally I think the articles linked are rubbish do you really think after businesses have invested millions into a Windows based infrastructure that they'll go to SUSE or RedHat or Mac OS? Sorry but in a year or so pretty much most businesses will be on Vista.


M.

 

[barnettgs]

Are you kidding? On release XP was atrocious. Oh it looked pretty but the driver support was terrible.

Sorry but that was quite the opposite.

It was a massive leap over Win '98 and my friend installed it on old laptop and the default drivers for all the hardwares were covered without the need to download any 3rd party drivers. Thats how I remembered and for the new hardwares, it didn't take as long as Vista to get drivers support, never mind the buggy drivers with Vista!

 

[[DOD]Asprilla]

Snip

My point exactly. Everyone appears to remember XP as being excellent when it was released when that's not the case at all. It was painful and flawed. Vista is the same, but overall it's a much better product than XP.

I've only had Vista for a few months now but I've had not issues of any kind that would make me want to go back to XP. I was originally going to do a dual boot, but I've not seen the need since I installed.

 

[dirtydog]

Sorry but in a year or so pretty much most businesses will be on Vista.

We'll see. Loads of places are still on Windows 2000 or even older. Businesses don't 'upgrade' (debatable in the case of Vista) just for the sake of it - they need a reason.

 

[m4cc45]

Sorry but that was quite the opposite.

It was a massive leap over Win '98 and my friend installed it on old laptop and the default drivers for all the hardwares were covered without the need to download any 3rd party drivers. Thats how I remembered and for the new hardwares, it didn't take as long as Vista to get drivers support, never mind the buggy drivers with Vista!

The buggy vista drivers are down to the OEM's - nothing MS can do about that really.

When I was using Windows 95 then 98/SE and ME the driver support was okay - it wasn't brilliant but they worked from the box and I never really had to worry about updating the drivers unless it offered something specific I was after. Then moving to 2000 was a pain and not usable as a gamer. I then moved to XP and found the same problems as 2000 - the drivers were none existant.

Until people moved in there masses to the operating system (which was around SP1 time) the OEM's weren't bothered with actively providing support until they were forced to.

More and more hardware is becomming certified for Vista everyday and the drivers are getting better. As I've yet to have a system crash I'd say they were very stable as is.



M.

 

[dirtydog]

My point exactly. Everyone appears to remember XP as being excellent when it was released when that's not the case at all. It was painful and flawed. Vista is the same, but overall it's a much better product than XP.

I've only had Vista for a few months now but I've had not issues of any kind that would make me want to go back to XP. I was originally going to do a dual boot, but I've not seen the need since I installed.

Vista has flaws a-plenty BY DESIGN; XP didn't and doesn't. You can't compare deliberate design flaws with a few bugs or driver issues. The latter would always be fixed; the former won't ever be fixed because MS have lost the plot with Vista.

 

[m4cc45]

We'll see. Loads of places are still on Windows 2000 or even older. Businesses don't 'upgrade' (debatable in the case of Vista) just for the sake of it - they need a reason.

Aye we're on Windows 2000 for the majority of the stuff. As it's no longer supported we're forced to upgrade. Do you think we are going to go to XP though? It would be a pointless exercise now for us to go to XP as we want the OS to last as long as possible so we don't have to waste time replacing it.



M.

 

[m4cc45]

Vista has flaws a-plenty BY DESIGN; XP didn't and doesn't. You can't compare deliberate design flaws with a few bugs or driver issues. The latter would always be fixed; the former won't ever be fixed because MS have lost the plot with Vista.

That's just your opinion - I'm guessing you're on about UAC? Obviously a flaw to make the OS as secure as possible. And if you're not happy with it you can turn it off. Major flaw? I think not.



M.

 

[dirtydog]

Sorry but that was quite the opposite.

It was a massive leap over Win '98 and my friend installed it on old laptop and the default drivers for all the hardwares were covered without the need to download any 3rd party drivers. Thats how I remembered and for the new hardwares, it didn't take as long as Vista to get drivers support, never mind the buggy drivers with Vista!

Quite. Windows 9x was unstable and prone to crashing; XP (and 2000) were rock solid by comparison. This in itself, even without all the other benefits, was a hugely compelling reason to upgrade.

People saying Vista is stable so we should upgrade - well that's nice, but so is XP, so in the reliability department there is no reason to upgrade whatsoever.

 

[dirtydog]

Aye we're on Windows 2000 for the majority of the stuff. As it's no longer supported we're forced to upgrade. Do you think we are going to go to XP though? It would be a pointless exercise now for us to go to XP as we want the OS to last as long as possible so we don't have to waste time replacing it.



M.

Not pointless at all; chances are all your software would work with it, as most XP stuff is compatible with 2000.

 

[dirtydog]

That's just your opinion - I'm guessing you're on about UAC? Obviously a flaw to make the OS as secure as possible. And if you're not happy with it you can turn it off. Major flaw? I think not.



M.

UAC; superfetch; the indexing, whatever it's called now; the abysmal start menu; the lack of menubar and total lack of customisation options of the toolbar which every prior Windows version had; the non-functional network activity icon; the lack of an up button in explorer; the slow file copying speeds (fixed for some but not all people in SP1); there is a whole array of other faults which MS do not consider to be faults so will never be fixed.

 

[Steedie]

No it hasn't. XP didn't just get good recently. XP on release was less crap than Vista on release, and many of the 'by design' flaws with Vista which still exist now, did not exist in XP on its release.

ROFL!

Are you kidding? XP was shocking on release, far far worse than Vista was

 

[Burnsy2023]

UAC; superfetch; the indexing, whatever it's called now; the abysmal start menu; the lack of menubar and total lack of customisation options of the toolbar which every prior Windows version had; the non-functional network activity icon; the lack of an up button in explorer; the slow file copying speeds (fixed for some but not all people in SP1); there is a whole array of other faults which MS do not consider to be faults so will never be fixed.

Oh dear. Why is superfetch or indexing a flaw?

All the other things you have listed are just issues with yourself adjusting to change, nothing more. People had similar issues through pretty much every Windows release, it's called advancement.

Burnsy