Your experiences of Vista?

GSDog

GSDog

GSDog

Soldato
Joined
12 Jun 2004
Posts
5,475
Location
Exeter
Hi all.

At the moment I am dual booting Windows XP and Ubuntu (Linux). I am completely new to Ubuntu and I was impressed at first, but now I just find it incredibly hard to do simple things, like installing my printer, which I still have not managed to do after a week.
I am using Windows XP for games, and it is getting frustrating having to boot between operating systems all the time.
I do have Windows Vista Premium which I got for free as an upgrade from Dell.

Do you think I should scrap XP and Ubuntu and go for Vista?
Has the gaming improved on Vista?
Are you happy with it?

Thanks.
 
Vista works fine, just take 5 minutes to look for the drivers you need for your hardware first, then install it.
In fact if you look for 6 minutes you can find the right software to full use of an X-fi sound car under vista.
 
no complaints with vista here. creative drivers suck but apart from that i'm happy enough. but regardless of how many positive/negative answers you get in this thread, it really won't have much bearing on how vista will perform on your pc. even people with similar hardware configs are having very different experiences. best way is to suck it and see. :)
 
I have a copy of Vista Ultimate which I installed, then went back to XP Pro.

Its now being used on a test box.

For me Vista just wasn't ready to be used full time on my main rig. There were far to many issues and annoyances which drove me mad.

Given time the problems will be addressed and I'll eventually switch, but for now I wont put myself through the pain of Vista.
 
Zildjian said:
Hi all.

At the moment I am dual booting Windows XP and Ubuntu (Linux). I am completely new to Ubuntu and I was impressed at first, but now I just find it incredibly hard to do simple things, like installing my printer, which I still have not managed to do after a week.
I am using Windows XP for games, and it is getting frustrating having to boot between operating systems all the time.
I do have Windows Vista Premium which I got for free as an upgrade from Dell.

Do you think I should scrap XP and Ubuntu and go for Vista?
Has the gaming improved on Vista?
Are you happy with it?

Thanks.
Click to expand...

Vista was what made me install Ubuntu. I got it as a free upgrade from Dell with my laptop, but little things like editing the hosts file, my touchpad no longer working and the way it was handling memory was annoying he hell out of me, allong with the whole changing of permissions of files existing before Vista was installed. :mad:

Don't know why I upgraded from XP really, I was happy with that.
 
for me vista is great. i have all my drivers for vista. the creative drivers works fine for me, the software would be nice but the bass and treble controls in vista are ok for now. also i have EQ's on my 5 amps... the games run as fast as xp. and app load much quicker in vista...
 
Last edited:
waxapple said:
Vista was what made me install Ubuntu. I got it as a free upgrade from Dell with my laptop, but little things like editing the hosts file, my touchpad no longer working and the way it was handling memory was annoying he hell out of me, allong with the whole changing of permissions of files existing before Vista was installed. :mad:

Don't know why I upgraded from XP really, I was happy with that.
Click to expand...
They sound rather like non-problems.

You can still edit the hosts file - not quite sure what you mean. The touchpad drivers are on the Dell website (I've got a Dell laptop). Vista's memory management is much better than XP's too.

Doing an upgrade from XP is never really recommended though.
 
Being using Vista Ultimate since it first got shipped, and couldn’t recommended it enough :) My experience just gets better by day.

Edit: Have had one or 2 hiccups in the early days but these are now long gone :p
 
csmager said:
They sound rather like non-problems.

You can still edit the hosts file - not quite sure what you mean. The touchpad drivers are on the Dell website (I've got a Dell laptop). Vista's memory management is much better than XP's too.

Doing an upgrade from XP is never really recommended though.
Click to expand...

It's just my personal experience. :)
My laptop ran more slowly after installing Vista, and the handy widget on the right hand side told me when my memory was getting max'd out. (only have 1gb though)
You have to create a new instance of the hosts file each time and save over the top of the existing one, you can't simply open it in notepad, update it and save.

The (working) drivers weren't there two weeks ago when I did an upgrade - they may be now, but check the Dell forums, other people had had the same issue.

I'm not a fan of the new user directories \user\username\documents rather than \documents and settings\username\

The permissions issue is a huge annoyance if you do an upgrade, and it's a pity that an efficient upgrade process isn't available yet rather than a clean install.

Also, I the last thing that happened on my laptop prior to preparing to ninsall Vista was the blue screen of death. :(

I liked being able to surf the net whilst installing Ubuntu. :)
I'm MCDST qualified (70-271 & 70-272), and will hopefully be working on the MCSE next year - so I'm not a complete tool :)
 
Last edited:
We had a system in for repair from a large manufacturer, which had Vista on it. It was running 512MB, shared with onboard, so about 480MB. It took 12 minutes to boot and idle with no major HD activity :eek:

I've used it on a few higher spec systems and it seems okay, but for me XP still does everything I need, so I won't be changing for at least 12 months.
 
Vista on a laptop machine benefits a lot from a USB stick with ReadyBoost enabled.

Also even on desktop machines... if you get fed up of your hard drive always doing stuff (90% caused by Superfetch) then plug in a USB memory stick and setup ReadyBoost and you're idle hard drive activity will be greatly reduced :)
 
waxapple said:
You have to create a new instance of the hosts file each time and save over the top of the existing one, you can't simply open it in notepad, update it and save.
Click to expand...

well i don't. i edit my hosts file and do it exactly the same way i did in xp. start, run/search

notepad %windir%\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

:p
 
waxapple said:
You have to create a new instance of the hosts file each time and save over the top of the existing one, you can't simply open it in notepad, update it and save.
Click to expand...
I've edited the hosts file on around 5+ Vista PCs. It works. If you have UAC on, then you'll need to run notepad as administrator for it to work - as C:\windows\system32 is, unsurprisingly, protected.
 
marc2003 said:
well i don't. i edit my hosts file and do it exactly the same way i did in xp. start, run/search

notepad %windir%\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

:p
Click to expand...

Ah, I left UAC on for some strange reason. My workaround was making a shortcut in the sendto folder.

I was an admin account though, so it shouldn't've been a problem, unless you have to specifically be logged on as ¨administrator¨ rather than an administrator. :confused:
 
Last edited:
waxapple said:
Ah, I left UAC on for some strange reason. My workaround was making a shortcut in the sendto folder.

I was an admin account though, so it shouldn't've been a problem, unless you have to specifically be logged on as ¨administrator¨ rather than an administrator. :confused:
Click to expand...
No, you have to run as administrator even if you are an administrator.

UAC means all tasks are performed as standard user, unless they request elevation (or you give them elevation). This is an inherently more secure way of operating.
 
waxapple said:
Ah, I left UAC on for some strange reason. My workaround was making a shortcut in the sendto folder.

I was an admin account though, so it shouldn't've been a problem, unless you have to specifically be logged on as ¨administrator¨ rather than an administrator. :confused:
Click to expand...

i keep forgetting i've stripped out uac completely. i must remember that when posting about such things. sorry.... :)
 
I've had a pretty good experience with vista on my dual core laptop. The only niggle I have had is to do with my wireless drivers. Everything else is running very nicely.

Will purchase a 2gig x133 cd card soon and run ready boost all time. :cool:
 
I've been using vista for 2 months, because a) i got it for free and b) XP locks up about 3 times per day on my laptop (NO idea why, i've spent days trying to troubleshoot it)

the laptop is a IBM T42 1.8 ghz Pentium M with 1gb ram.

It's slow.
Very slow

I have EVERYTHING turned off... It's still slow.

Other than that, it works fine, no issues.

But i wouldn't recommend unless you have a dual core CPU and 2gb ram tbh
 
Trann said:
I've been using vista for 2 months, because a) i got it for free and b) XP locks up about 3 times per day on my laptop (NO idea why, i've spent days trying to troubleshoot it)

the laptop is a IBM T42 1.8 ghz Pentium M with 1gb ram.

It's slow.
Very slow

I have EVERYTHING turned off... It's still slow.

Other than that, it works fine, no issues.

But i wouldn't recommend unless you have a dual core CPU and 2gb ram tbh
Click to expand...
It should be quite nippy on that specification laptop. Especially with everything and presumably Aero Glass turned off.

Have you installed the latest drivers etc? Also try getting a USB stick and setting it up with ReadyBoost. Vista benefits a lot from ReadyBoost on laptops due to their slow hard drives.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom