Thoughts on Vista/What is Your Problem With Vista

[halo71]

I was just curious as to how 4 gigs was not enough memory.

 

[LaraPasfield]

Hi guys, I just bought a new laptop at 1.73 GHz speed, 1 GB Ram with Vista Premium. It's coincidence that these are the same specs as for my old one. (The new one was on a good special so I did not bother getting better specs than on my old one. ) After reading all the bad news about Vista, I was worried that it would be a lot slower than my old one and wondered if I'd wasted my money selecting the new Laptop because it was on special. And I thought that I probably should have spent more $ and bought e.g at least 2 GB of Ram.... But when I tested it with the stop watch, Vista is actually a little faster than my old PC which has Win XP.
It really surprised me! How to make sense out of this?

Also you'll probably laugh at me, but I am a woman and I really notice how PRETTY Vista is looking compared to XP - beautiful colours, no square Icons... (Please don't laugh for toooo long, I will get embarrassed!)

So at the moment, I am having more fun using Vista than XP.
I will let you know when the problems start however...
Nice to have you all for feedback!
Lara

 

[revjacques]

This interested me. Can you please elaborate on that statement some more? How is 4 gigs not enough?

My XP computer has 1 Gig of memory and it's plenty....
My Vista has 4 Gigs and it's not enough..that is a response to somone saying that Vista has:
..."Better memory management,"...
that is a joke.
Vista is uncontrollable Ram hog and nothing is ever enough..

 

[halo71]

I doubt very seriously that your 4 gig Vista machine is using all that memory all the time unless you are a graphics designer or doing video editing maybe. What do you do for a living?

 

[Mictlantecuhtli]

I thought that I probably should have spent more $ and bought e.g at least 2 GB of Ram.... But when I tested it with the stop watch, Vista is actually a little faster than my old PC which has Win XP.
It really surprised me! How to make sense out of this?

It probably doesn't have that much manufacturer-installed applications running. Increasing RAM won't hurt, it's very inexpensive these days ($26 / GB or so).

 

[SNGX1275]

My XP computer has 1 Gig of memory and it's plenty....
My Vista has 4 Gigs and it's not enough..that is a response to somone saying that Vista has:
..."Better memory management,"...
that is a joke.
Vista is uncontrollable Ram hog and nothing is ever enough..

It was a response to me, no wonder you couldn't find it though because you botched up your quoting in that post.

And if you think XP has better memory management than Vista then you need to do some reading. Microsoft wasn't just sitting on their thumbs since XP. Vista manages memory much more like OS X (and I guess other *Nix based platforms), look up Superfetch. It isn't like XP at all, and so many people get sucked into thinking its a memory hog because they see more RAM being used, in reality its just holding it there for that program incase its needed again, much faster than reloading it from disk. If something else needs that RAM then Vista will dump it. Its a bit more detailed than that but it is flat out wrong to compare memory usage by looking at free RAM in Vista vs XP and seeing a lower number in XP and saying that Vista manages memory worse than XP.



And LaraPasfield, looks are important. If they weren't then everyone would still be using desktop environments that looked like Windows 95 or worse. Vista's Aero and the 3d stuff you get from Windows+Tab, OS X's Expose, Linux's Beryl/Compiz all are out there because people want to look at something visually appealing. Luckily for us Aero looks nice, and not an extention of the bloated bubbly look XP has.

 

[revjacques]

I doubt very seriously that your 4 gig Vista machine is using all that memory all the time unless you are a graphics designer or doing video editing maybe. What do you do for a living?

I do video editing and 1 gig of memory was plenty om XP and 4 is not enough on Vista.......What i am saying is this:
I was forced ro spend over $2000 in order to buy operating sytem a LOT worse then the one I had before. that's it

 

[PBNinja101]

Vista, i got Home Premium - runs fine....locks up....runs fine, i could go on.

But recently i upgraded to 2gb Memory and got 1.7Ghz Dual Core and i found it locks up even more which i find odd till i found it was merely a virus that attempted to hijack the PC. Thanks to AVG, it got cleared in the act.

Simon

 

[wii-ste]

I have just changed back to XP on my laptop.

Graphics used to get so corrupted it was unusable (taskbar showing at top of screen but reacting to mouse at bottom, menus showing in wrong place, loss of window borders, uncontrollable flicker - all at same time).

Works fine on my desktop though, so I think it may be ATi's drivers for my laptop.

 

[Hennessy]

i hate vista, its too graphical. windows xp is a better OS

 

[prometeus]

most of the old games are runing pretty well on vista (i've played fear with all the options at their highest values and it had no problem; same for doom 3, same for ut2004, same for cossaks 2). the only game that i couldn't play on vista so far is age of empires 3. for all it was just a matter of small tweaks, but you should consider haveing installed the latest version of directx 9. as for the massive resourece consumption, you probably have an older release of vista (my version seems to manage my resources just fine: 0% cpu and 24% - 26% ram load when no program is opened)

 

[ThumperZ1]

I have Vista Ultimate32 installed. I had Vista Ultimate64, but got tired of lack of 64bit support for apps that I like. I have 2gb of ram and for what I do is enough for Vista.
Vista 32 can't use more than 3gb of ram. The 4th gig would be wasted. You have to have the 64bit OS to use it.

 

[AlbertLionheart]

I am normally a fan of Acer laptops and supply them to my clients where nothing is specified. I was asked by a new client to discuss why his new Acer (not supplied by me) was so slow.
In short, the laptop was barely capable of running at an acceptable speed - even with all the apps stripped off and settings at max performance it was a snail.
I am sticking to not having anything to do with until SP1 is out, but even that won't help this sad case.

 

[Cerberus]

My beef with Vista...

My beef with Vista is the severe lack of new / good quality drivers, incompatability issues and still no service pack. I am aware that one is due out soon and maybe when it is released i will find a new love for Vista.... but i doubt it. The one thing i do like is the help and support as i think this has been improved since XP.

 

[blinkdt]

I'm Diggin' Vista

I really don't understand what all the griping is about, folks. Forget about early release candidates for a moment and crappy hardware platforms, those who fall into that group should have anticipated problems, no doubt. Hey, you buy substandard hardware, you get substandard performance, yes? I haven't had a single issue with Vista: it starts up and shuts down faster than XP Pro did for me, has proven itself to be rock-solid stable, and driver installation is a no-brainer, especially for legacy hardware that I've encountered with clients.

Here's my rig: a Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R board and Intel E6750 Core2Duo with 3GB Corsair RAM and Gigabyte-branded NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GTS with SilentPipe 3 driving two monitors, a Samsung 22" in landscape mode and Samsung 19" in portrait. I have three WD Raptors in a RAID5 array on the Intel controller and two WD320GB/16MB in RAID1 on the Gigabyte controller. A WD 500GB/16MB for backup purposes and Samsung SATA DVD/RW round it out, together with a Seasonic 550w PSU. Put it all into a Lian Li case and the whole thing is virtually silent. Add an HP Color LaserJet 2600n and Epson Photo R220 for printing CDs, and I'm set! All for a LOT less than the cost of a Macbook Pro.

I'm networked with two other machines running XP Pro (a test box) and Server 2003 (Web/FTP) via GamerLounge router and Rosewill switches and getting giga transfer rates.

My bread-and-butter apps include Office 2007 Enterprise and Adobe CS3 (the whole tamale) and they load up a heck of a lot faster and perform more nimbly than they did when this rig was running a fresh XP Pro install. No Joke. As for UAC, I leave it on, it's a good learning experience on those rare occassions when I actually encounter it. Read up on it, it's actually pretty easy to work with. An anoyance? No, my friend, for the average user it's a life-saver.

There are simply too many new features that I have immediately benefited from to list here. You like XP? Maybe imagine Vista as XP on steroids. It's large and for the better, not bloated as too many here have claimed.

And to the dude who removed the help link on his Vista install . . . that's a shame, because it's really helpful. As I recall, I moved from Win98 to WinXP precisely because of the much improved help files. And now I am a computer instructor. Hmmm, apparently I'm the only one who bothered to read them?

P.S.: Blue screen, virus, spyware? What are those anyway? I've never encounter one, personally. Maybe drop a dime on some quality components and check your surfing habits. Remember, bad things happen to naughty people.

P.S.S: An Acer laptop? An you didn't anticipate problems? Yeesh.

 

[link590o]

blinkdt, as much as i agree with you, i've found that no matter how many times you try to convince people through logic and examples of machines that work perfectly, there will always be someone that walks up and smacks you in the face, shows you a crappy machine using it, and screams to everyone else not to use it.

we are plainly, and simply, a house divided. that's it. no ifs, ands, or buts. a bunch of us here have had a bad experience with vista, and have cited the negative features of vista as reasoning to never use it. and that's fine. don't use it then.

and the rest of us have had a good experience with it, it works great, and it outperforms XP in many cases. great. we'll keep using it.

i just wish that people would say "well, it didn't work for me because of this this and this. if you guys have the same setup, watch out." or offer ways to fix it rather than blaring on and on about how much it sucks and what went wrong.

it would at least be constructive criticism. who knows? maybe a microsoft employee is reading this thread, looking for ways to fix bugs or help design a service pack that will fix any huge issues like the ones you guys keep complaining about. you guys are smart. figure out a way to fix it, or get someone else to fix it and put out a patch or something.

and for those of you that refuse to be persuaded, there are still plenty of copies of XP and linux lying around. feel free to pick up a copy. i wish you the best of luck, and hope you find it a more stable platform. but ease up on the rest of us, would ya?

 

[blinkdt]

Thanks for That

@ link590o thanks for those constructive thoughts.

We use XP at work--an elementary school with about 170 machines--and will be doing so for a looooong time. Just this year we received a large donation of low-end P4 systems *hurray* and our hardware problems are over! I mean, running XP on a PII is just a pitiful eXPerience and not much better on a PIII. A few bad sticks of RAM were producing blue screens, but Microsoft's memory diagnostic ferreted them out and it's been smooth sailing since.

As for Vista, my students equipped our Computer Lab with Shuttle barebone units running P4 2.4GHz/533MHz FSB with 512MB RAM about 2/3 years ago. But even after doubling the RAM and adding a fairly robust AGP video card, the trade-off in performance vs. "Wow" factor just wasn't worth it. Darned shame, as we have legal license to Vista Ultimate as well as XP Pro.

Speaking of which, and I know you know who you are, you have absolutely no right even to post, in my opinion, if you are using anything less than a hologrammed version of the software. You're more than likely going to have to pay to play this time around--SP1 is gonna zap yah--or deal with the resulting problems. Quietly.

 

[windmill007]

YA Vista Sucks. Why we put it down? Cuz we don't want it to gain any more foothold then it has to (microsoft forcing it on all new machine) because it just plain sucks. I wish vista was around before and XP was the new vista. We would all be loving life about now Ahhh gotta love the speed. Down with bloatware!

 

[Rage_3K_Moiz]

YA Vista Sucks. Why we put it down? Cuz we don't want it to gain any more foothold then it has to (microsoft forcing it on all new machine) because it just plain sucks. I wish vista was around before and XP was the new vista. We would all be loving life about now Ahhh gotta love the speed. Down with bloatware!

Maybe you should switch to Linux...

 

[link590o]

clearly windmill didn't read my latest post in here...

thanks for telling us it sucks and not telling us...why?
quite a useless post if you ask me...

i'm with rage on that one...

 

[windmill007]

I was think of trying linux but right now XP works great for me. I am an avid gamer and linux is lacking in that reguard. Ya I did tell you why VISTA sucks. Its bloated and slow. Slower than xp on everything and also it makes you click more to do the same things as in XP. Really when will these companies realize were not all newbies and actually understand how to use a computer and we like to get things done fast. Maybe they should have Vista newbies (like it is) and Vista pro ( like xp but faster !!!)

 

[link590o]

they're trying to cater to everyone at once, and there are plenty of people that have never even used a computer before. they do realize we're not all n00bs.

one thing we need to realize is that our little group....the technically inclined....our group is quite small. on the broader scale, there are lots of people that only know that it works by hitting the power button. just look at some of the Mac commercials and you'll see the *****s we have to make computers for. one of them claimed he couldn't find the damn power button.

you can whine and harp all you wish. but because we're such a small group, then there is no reason to cater to US, and THEM. they make a better profit if they can nail us all at once.

and their reasoning is probably this: if you're so damn technical and smart with an OS, why aren't you using linux instead?

and thats our reasoning too. it works quite well indeed...

microsoft isn't a bunch of *****s. they can be really cold and calculating. there isn't much to do except use XP as long as you can and hold off on Vista, or boycott and use another OS. or buy a Mac or something.

 

[captaincranky]

Well.......

if you're so damn technical and smart with an OS, why aren't you using linux instead? and thats our reasoning too. it works quite well indeed...

The problem here is that software manufacturers pander to M$ well before we have the opportunity to tell them not to. Actually it's as you say, we don't have the clout, and the great majority of comsumers don't have the ability. So, as much as I'd like to use Linux exclusively, the half dozen or so programs I use for 90% of my computer work are Windows only. Principally Adobe Photoshop Elements. This is unavailable for Linux and while the XP/Vista version is at 6.0, even the Mac offering is only on 4.0 . Well, there's the "GIMP" you say? Dream on.

microsoft isn't a bunch of *****s. they can be really cold and calculating. there isn't much to do except use XP as long as you can and hold off on Vista, or boycott and use another OS. or buy a Mac or something.

"Cold and calculating" is unfathomably charitable. An understatement for the ages. I'll see your "cold and calculating" and raise you a "maybe Hitler wasn't such a bad guy". Bill Gates is probably the most annoying and duplicitous megalomaniac of a CEO I've ever seen summon the hubris to speak in pubilc. It rankles me almost to the point of needing institutionalization when I see that smarmy smug j*****s announcing how much he's going to give to charity. What you never hear is the fact he probably pays less (by percentage) in income taxes than the poor stiff working at McDonalds trying to save up $400.00 for a legit copy of his new OS. Then there's the manifestation of extreme paranoia, "Windows Genuine Advantage". Every time I mention this some brainwashed A****** will start with "well you just want to be able to steal Windows". No, I don't. I have 3 copies of XP, with a COA for every one. So, I can't have IE7. I use Firefox, at least with that I still have freedom of choice in software. My suggestion is that anyone who'd like this to rebut this, or accuse me of wanting to steal an OS, save yourself the trouble, since I have receipts for every piece of licensed software in my possession, and you stand zero chance of changing my mind. Instead, go install WGA on your computer and let M$ follow you around, at least they won't be annoying me.

There's no such thing as a benevolent monopoly, never has been one, never will be one. < feel free to rebut this, that might provoke a lively exchange or at least be good for a laugh.

 

[link590o]

i was kinda tired when i wrote that. so i wasn't exactly in a thinking mood. you're right. those words are certainly charitable. and you're right about bill being a douche. i'm surprised he has the gall not only to make public speeches, but appear on a talk show such as the Jon Stewart show of Stephen Colbert show.

i'll see your hitler comment, and raise you a stalin, pol pot, chairman mao, fidel castro, francisco franco, mussolini, mohammed atta, and saddam hussein. =D

 

[Kaleid]

Problem with Vista? Well, I do have a major problem, the thing refuses to install.

Tried everything, default bios settings, underclock, different sata/pata cables, different harddrives, different amount of RAM inserted and it still refuses to install.

The installation fails at "copying windows files"..it goes by very swiftly so it doesn't really do anything there at all.

Once I've had it installed I find the new windows explorer being a complete mess, too many strange default settings. I want all folders to be sorted after type and in list mode by default instead of thumbnails for folders conteining images.

It was only just recently that Creative released drivers that worked with X-fi extrememusic + Vista x64 without the only thing coming out of the analogue outputs being loud static noise.

Also, Vista is way too bloated.

Too bad I have to migrate to x64 soon, since I've hit the 32bit OS 2GB application cealing a couple of times.