Do most people use Vista now?

TechieSooner said:
I do believe I'm going to bed now, had enough Vista FUD debunking for one day.
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If it bothers you so much then why do you bother? Any little inkling of criticism aimed at Vista and there you are proclaiming it the greatest thing since sliced bread was invented.
 
I'm not "most" people either ..but I use it on my main rig (Vista Ultimate 64bit)..but I also have an XP 64-bit box, an XP Pro and XP Home box ..and Ubutntu box ..and a Smoothwall Express 3.0 box ..

I used to run a lab consisting of about 20 computers ranging from xp1900+'s to P4 2.6c most of them running only 512megs of ram ..and all of them ran great on the 5744 build of Vista doing older games and running Open Office and media player..

I was "iffy" about the new layout at first in Vista because I wasn't used to it ..but now I like it.



[F]old|[H]ard
 
For the traffic I get for my Unreal Engine mods, I'm getting within the last week or so 57% XP and 35% Vista with various smaller % for Linux, OSX, and some Windows Server variations. Granted, this is in specifically the Windows PC gamer demographic, but the switch is occuring pretty rapidly compared to this time last year.
 
I still use XP Pro mostly... out of my 7 machines, I have xp on all of them except my server, and one is dualbooted to Vista enterprise. While I don't particularly like the enormous amount of diskspace it hogs, or the massive amounts of memory it uses, or the fact that because of all of the above it runs like mud on my system(the system's fault, not vista... crappy pentium M), the real reason I don't run it is because there's still a fair amount of software I use that won't run correctly in vista.

If you're just doing productivity/photos/web/other similar stuff, I'd say go for it. You'll wind up with vista eventually, and it does have advantages for that kind of thing (better security, etc)
 
Aside from people like those found at this forum, most people do not ever upgrade their OS. They buy a computer and use the OS that came with it until they buy a new PC. So I would say, more people are still on Xp than pretty much everything else combined. A few years from now, as more and more people buy a new computer, with Vista already installed, that will change.

We will have this same discussion again when the next version of Windows comes out.
 
I love Vista. Hard to go back to XP after using Vista for the last long while.

I have Business x64 on my desktop and Home Premium x64 on my laptop. Both run fast and perfectly.

My parents just switched to a Vista install and it works great even on an older P4 system.

Only thing with XP are a few older laptops that would not like Vista much as they are slower.
 
I've been using Vista64 since November '07 and don't think I could ever go back to XP unless forced (tied up, gagged, and held at gun point - even then it might be a hard decision). Once you get passed the Aero look and feel, its really hard to go back especially with all the useful features that I still haven't really used to their full potential. I agree that many here are probably using Vista but the majority of the market is still using XP - some stubborn who are afraid of change, others forced for whatever reason.
 
Shut This Thread Down! Too many damn arguments. This is the internet people.
 
Chilly said:
2 posts ago you were complaining that it was too obstructive, now your complaining its not obstructive enough? I am willing to bet $10 that you did not use vista for more than a week tops, if that.

EG, I challenged one of my best friends who HATED Vista, and LOVED XP to try it for 1 month., if he hated it I'd give him $50, it seemed like easy money to him at the time. (he was just like you, and had used Vista, but for no more than a week or 2 till this bet)

I didn't end up giving him the $50... Why? because he ended up falling in love with *MOST* things he hated. (I agree with you, as does this friend about how the ruined the classic theme in Vista, I personally LOVE the 2k/xp classic look, bit its simply not there in Vista :( )

Side note, this friend uses Linux now exclusively, mainly because he was testing it out, and his windows install got hosed by accident, he was too lazy to re install windows at the time, and thru his massive use of linux, hes now a penguin lover and hates windows, but :p my point remains.
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Cleartype in Vista is enough to make me not want to use it. The fuzzy screen fonts gives me headaches.
 
firebane said:
Cleartype in Vista is enough to make me not want to use it. The fuzzy screen fonts gives me headaches.
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ClearType does seem to polarise people.. obviously it's down to personal preferences, but I've always thought that it looks amazingly clear compared to the jagginess of text without it. I was one of the Windows 2000 holdouts ("XP is just 2000 with more eye candy"), but was so impressed by the text when I got a Windows XP laptop and turned ClearType on that I found it hard to use Windows 2000 any more.
 
spooksmcgee said:
I remember one of the huge problems I had with Vista was with Explorer and the My Documents folder. It seemed like it sorted thing by users (I was the only user), and it also seemed like everything in the My Docs folder wasn't an actual file but a link or shortcut to the file, which was stored in some other location. It drove me crazy. I would try to delete something from the My Docs folder and Windows would refuse to let me do it. When I reinstall I will probably move everything into a new folder not called My Docs and just use that instead until I can figure it out.
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Well there is no "My documents" folder. It is split up (like it should have been all along) by user and then documents,music,pictures.... This is how all modern o/s's are set up.
 
spooksmcgee said:
I remember one of the huge problems I had with Vista was with Explorer and the My Documents folder.
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Like he said:

zmjone2992 said:
Well there is no "My documents" folder. It is split up (like it should have been all along) by user and then documents,music,pictures.... This is how all modern o/s's are set up.
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There is no My Documents anymore.
Instead, under your user name, you've got Documents, Pictures, Music, etc... Like the above poster said- it should have been done like this a long time ago.

Part of the problem with the OLD file structure (and their input from over 100,000 users), it was too confusing. Vista's way of doing this is a hell of alot easier.


GORANKAR said:
Aside from people like those found at this forum, most people do not ever upgrade their OS. They buy a computer and use the OS that came with it until they buy a new PC.
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Exactly. Hit the nail on the head.
And this is EXACTLY why these Vista doom-and-gloom stories are pure shit. Fact of the matter is Vista is installed on new machines after June 30. Fact of the matter is Vista will start replacing XP as folks buy new machines.

Very little, minute amounts of "transitions" will be to actual upgrades. Most of them are REPLACEMENTS.
 
If Microsoft had developed and included the improvements over XP that they originally planned, Vista adoption would have been a lot quicker. The problem is simply that Vista's improvements aren't enough for most people to upgrade over XP. Also is the problem of the DRM implementation in Vista, which is my biggest beef. It causes way too much overhead for the OS.
 
voigts said:
Also is the problem of the DRM implementation in Vista, which is my biggest beef. It causes way too much overhead for the OS.
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Gah, can we have one friggin' Vista thread without this mess being posted? What overhead does DRM cause in Vista, especially what overhead is present when you ARE NOT playing any DRM protected files? Let's move passed that drivel and on to the logical question. I'm not saying that the ability to play DRM causes any overheard, but would you rather be told that your shiny new Blu-Ray discs can't be played on your computer? :rolleyes:

Do you want to know one BIG reason so many people haven't gone to Vista? Because it is much easier to buy into some bullshit rumor, than do your own research, reading, and learning.
 
firebane said:
Cleartype in Vista is enough to make me not want to use it. The fuzzy screen fonts gives me headaches.
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Um, Cleartype is optional. I just tested both cleartype and standard and cleartype looks better to me. That has to be the lamest reason not to use Vista I have ever read.
 
DeaconFrost said:
would you rather be told that your shiny new Blu-Ray discs can't be played on your computer?
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This is the bottom line.
I get tired of this DRM nonsense.

It isn't a Microsoft thing. Either Microsoft had to support it, to attract a larger customer base with BlueRay and DRM support, or they don't. End of story.



DeaconFrost said:
Because it is much easier to buy into some bullshit rumor, than do your own research, reading, and learning.
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Quoted for absolute freaking total truth.
 
milkweg said:
Um, Cleartype is optional. I just tested both cleartype and standard and cleartype looks better to me. That has to be the lamest reason not to use Vista I have ever read.
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In my post a few back I was originally going to write "And you can just turn it off" or something, but to be fair you don't really want to disable ClearType in Vista, because Segoe UI looks horrible without it (and it's not so easy to change the UI font everywhere).

Then again, I just found this, which claims to be a way to change to Tahoma or Arial everywhere:
http://steve.fsxtreme.com/blogs/2008/01/16/say-no-to-segoe-and-cleartype-on-vista/
 
I use XP, my work uses XP, my wife has Vista because it came on her laptop and I can't find drivers for XP... My parents have Vista on one PC because it came on their laptop and I can't find drivers for XP (see a pattern here). XP Foreva!
 
There's nothing out there realistically that can't be made to work with XP, even sometimes using the drivers that are supposed to be designed for Vista with XP can resolve that issue.
 
I did have Vista installed for a few months but I recently decided (since I needed a format) to go back to XP has it does seem to use way less resources, when I upgrade me ram n cpu I might go back to Vista, but for now XP is fine.
 
"way less resources"

I hear that a lot, read it a lot, and even after all these years of working with PCs I have to wonder if people really understand what it means.

Say you've got 1GB of RAM in a machine. XP might consume roughly 200-300MB to get to the Desktop when booting because of drivers, files, the OS itself, whatever. Vista - meaning just the OS itself - really doesn't consume much more than that either, but people watch Vista show 500MB or more after it gets to the Desktop and think "My god, that's horrible, so many of my resources are gone..." and they never seem to put 2 + 2 together and find out that equals better performance with Vista. Vista uses more RAM to get there because of SuperFetch and other technologies to improve performance - spend money on RAM that sits idle? Why? That's like having a Ferrari that can go 190 MPH and never driving over 55 - what's the point?

As I've been saying since long before Vista came out: It's not XP, it doesn't work like XP, it won't ever be like XP, it was never meant to be like XP, and so on. It's the new kid on the block, and people are still hating it and I can't really figure out why. If you're running Vista on a computer that came out less than 6 months before the time Vista did, you should not have a single issue with running Vista aside from maybe adding more RAM to enhance/improve performance (meaning a machine made or built after August of 2006, and depending on the age of the hardware the machine is composed of).

If you're running Vista on hardware that pre-dates August 2006, especially by a considerable margin, you can expect some issues. The same exact thing happened with XP when it was released: hardware and machines that came out within 6 months of XP's release worked just fine (before release, I mean - anything afterwards worked fine obviously). But stuff prior to the 6 month cutoff had issues: driver issues (which aren't REALLY the fault of the OS nor a problem with the OS), basic hardware compatibility (again, not REALLY the fault of the OS because of driver issues - the OS can't talk to the hardware without the drivers, yanno), and lackluster performance (XP did have "steep" requirements in those days, actually, compared to Win2K or Win98/98SE machines).

At some point a company like Microsoft is just going to have to say "Sorry, we're not spending billions of dollars just to let people keep running their old DOS-based stuff, and we're sorry your 16 bit software doesn't work in a 64 bit environment, but guess what: there's a ton of places like eBay, Craig's List, and thrift stores in your area where you can pick up old PCs really cheap and use them as dedicated "Old PCs" to run all that old ass code. We're focusing on the future, you can either come along for the ride or we'll drive over your toes in the process..."

Or words to that effect. ;)
 
I've dabbled with Vista Ultimate x64 on a couple of occasions (as the secondary OS in a dual-boot with XP/x64 at the time). From an operational standpoint, it was actually fairly well-behaved for me and never did anything blatantly strange; my only problem with it was a certain subjective...slowness...in desktop tasks. I don't know if that was Aero being a pain or what, but that's the only thing that really aggravated me about Vista in really casual use...now, if I reinstall it and try to start using it as much as my primary OS--Office 2007 installs and all--then it could change. I don't know. I may find out when my 4850 arrives later this week...
 
the gamer said:
XP has it does seem to use way less resources,
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I'm not sure why people still don't understand this point, even after Vista has been out for well over a year. What good is it having your 2 GB of system memory, if you try to use as little as possible. Wouldn't you rather have an OS that will use the memory effectively and with a purpose?
 
The only reason you should not use vista is if you don't have drivers for hardware you must use or your place of work uses a program that can't run on vista (I read that someone doesn't use vista at their workplace because vista won't allow them to directly access the gpu).

If that's not you just install and enjoy. All this fud is microsofts fault for having an os for 5 years (95, 98, 2000 never lived this long) and people will use any excuse not to change. Vista uses more resources than XP?. Well XP uses more resources than 2000, 2000 uses more than 98, we can continue all the way to 3.1.

I won't be suprised if windows 7 managed to use more.
 
DrVal said:
I use XP, my work uses XP, my wife has Vista because it came on her laptop and I can't find drivers for XP... My parents have Vista on one PC because it came on their laptop and I can't find drivers for XP (see a pattern here). XP Foreva!
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Windows 95 Forever!!! (See how ridiculous that sounds?)
 
DeaconFrost said:
I'm not sure why people still don't understand this point, even after Vista has been out for well over a year. What good is it having your 2 GB of system memory, if you try to use as little as possible. Wouldn't you rather have an OS that will use the memory effectively and with a purpose?
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Probably because they think that means less memory for their apps and games. I have 4GB of ram on my Vista PC so don't worry about it but that is where I think they are coming from. If the OS uses more memory then that leaves less memory for the games is their thinking.
 
spooksmcgee said:
I'm building a new system this weekend. Last year when Vista came out, I installed it for a week, then hated it and uninstalled it. I didn't like the user control stuff and how I had to give it permission to do every single task. Also, it seemed fairly slow on my 2 Ghz AMD with 2GB of memory.

My new computer will be a 3 Ghz dual core with 4gb of memory. Should I installed my copy of Vista Business on it? Does the service pack that came out address a lot of the complaints people had with it, or do most people still hate it and use XP?
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http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=10

15% Vista, 72% XP as of May.
 
Joe Average said:
I myself don't run Vista, and I have no intentions of doing so anytime soon. The fact that Microsoft - and they are to blame for this, no one else - ripped out DirectSound (and I'm an audio production engineer) which is/was the very basis for audio software for just shy of a solid decade since Win95 came out. The fact that I've spent thousands of bucks on applications, plugins, and assorted tools and hardware that were built on the very principle of DirectSound as the API for sound production in Windows and now have issues with some (actually most) of the products is something I simply can't tolerate in Vista.
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Microsoft is not to blame for this. Creative and their crappy drivers are. Microsoft gave driver writers years to figure out how to not crash their OS and the driver writers failed. The only solution was to move audio processing out of Kernel mode, which it should have never been there in the first place. When windows BSOD's, everyone blames Microsoft so they decided to fix the problem in the only way they could: protect themselves from horrible software writers.
 
milkweg said:
Probably because they think that means less memory for their apps and games. I have 4GB of ram on my Vista PC so don't worry about it but that is where I think they are coming from. If the OS uses more memory then that leaves less memory for the games is their thinking.
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You're probably right and I think you are.

As DeaconFrost stated, if you have memory that's not being used then it becomes wasted memory. Vista and SuperFetch puts to use your memory accordingly.
 
sirsad said:
Microsoft is not to blame for this. Creative and their crappy drivers are. Microsoft gave driver writers years to figure out how to not crash their OS and the driver writers failed. The only solution was to move audio processing out of Kernel mode, which it should have never been there in the first place. When windows BSOD's, everyone blames Microsoft so they decided to fix the problem in the only way they could: protect themselves from horrible software writers.
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Just for the record, I don't own any Creative hardware anymore. :)

"It's the drivers... it's always the damned drivers..." is relevant. In all the years I've owned sound processing/production hardware, I will admit that I have owned some Creative hardware and never really had any issues at all with it, regardless of what audio production work I was doing at the given time. I can honestly say, however, that on hundreds of my own machines (I go through hardware fast) and with all the soundcards from Creative I've used, I've never encountered 1 single BSOD that was attributable to a driver from Creative for their products. Go figure...

But I stopped messing with Creative maybe around 2003 or so after the SB Live! cards just failed to make any impression on me. It's been M-Audio products ever since, and yes they do know how to write drivers, but even so, for me I simply won't use Vista for the reasons I mentioned already. I've made the attempts in the past, with Vista x86 and x64, and I'm simply not impressed or satisfied enough with the results, so as I stated, it's XP Pro x64 ftw for many years to come.
 
TechieSooner said:
NO- Most people don't use Vista.

The vast majority of anything new going in right now: Yes.

But marketshare? No. XP still way ahead.
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commercial marketshare of course... but i wouldnt be surprised if vista is already in 50% of former XP households already... everyone i know is on vista, including my PARENTS! yikes!
 
i simply cannot understand why anyone would favor XP over vista nowadays. am i the only one who wasn't overly impressed with XP and was DYING for the ever-postponed longhorn to arrive? hacked and crippled it was, yes, but those missing features are overshadowed by excellent usability and the best reliability any windows os has seen to date. i know its a vague statement but it is my experiences...
 
krupted said:
i simply cannot understand why anyone would favor XP over vista nowadays. am i the only one who wasn't overly impressed with XP and was DYING for the ever-postponed longhorn to arrive? hacked and crippled it was, yes, but those missing features are overshadowed by excellent usability and the best reliability any windows os has seen to date. i know its a vague statement but it is my experiences...
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The thing is, your experiences are not the majority. XP is still heavily more used because businesses will not (or cannot) adapt for one reason or another. The typical 'enthusiast' user on these forums accounts for 1% of 1% of the overall users out there in the world.

The business that I work for is a prime example - we have many software packages that simply do not play with vista. Is that M$'s fault? No, its the software developers fault, but recoding to support vista is very expensive and impractical considering that a vast majority of their customers still use XP and older.

Vista is indeed superior, but it was too drastic of a change for many businesses to adapt to.
 
At home I am all Vista, and at work we are about 50% Vista. Though one machine is going to be downgraded back to XP because the enduser of the machine "simply doesn't like the way Vista looks or works" and I have orders from the owner (Mac zealot type) to downgrade him.

I prefer Vista and believe it is the superior platform, but sometimes I just have to pick my battles. Now if only I could build a new OS with my favorite Vista, XP, Mac OS, Linux, and Unix features I'd be set.

XP has much deeper market penetration compared to Vista right now, but on an interesting side note for a client of mine (for my sidebusiness) their website hits are approximately 50% Vista, 48% XP, 1.5% Mac OS, and 0.5% Linux.

Also as a side note, most of my non-Vista machines are not going to move to to Vista. They are either too old or have some software requirement that prevents Vista from being an option. I still have 1 NT4 box, 1 2k Box, and 2 DOS boxes in action (one DOS box is going away soon though, being replaced by a Linux machine).

Total systems breakdown at work: 44% Vista, 39% XP, 13% Mac OS X (50/50 split between 10.4 and 10.5), 2% Unix (Solaris), 1% older Windows or DOS, 1% Linux. Yay platform diversity!
 
krupted said:
i simply cannot understand why anyone would favor XP over vista nowadays. am i the only one who wasn't overly impressed with XP and was DYING for the ever-postponed longhorn to arrive? hacked and crippled it was, yes, but those missing features are overshadowed by excellent usability and the best reliability any windows os has seen to date. i know its a vague statement but it is my experiences...
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Most gamers would favour XP over Vista for the simple fact that 100% of their games will work on XP and only about 90% on Vista.
 
I don't like Vist because of the video issues I have seen on several of my friends systems. While playing a game it goes black for about 8 seconds and then comes back with a error. This is with several diferent systems and on both home and office versions of Vista. I know people are going to say WELL UPDATE THE DRIVERS!!! yea ok whatever... first getting new drivers for vista is a pain in the ass from what I have seen and second in XP I don't have to do anything but play :) :) Heck in XP you can have old OR new drivers and still play games just fine :)

My point is untill Vista grows up more i'll stick to XP.
 
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