Vista Is Hitting Its Stride

[[Tripod]MajorPayne]

It really, really gets me when people complain that Vista is a resource hog. Hello? It's a NEW OS. When was XP released? 2002, I think? When was Vista released? The first official release for consumers was 2007. That's FIVE YEARS' time. In five years, the computer world has done a complete refresh and rebuild. In 2002, 512mb of RAM was a lot, and 1GB was ridiculous. In 2002, 64mb graphics cards were the norm. XP was designed to run on that kind of hardware. In 2007, 2GB of RAM is common and 512+ mb graphics cards are also pretty common. 256mb is pretty much a minimum for non-integrated solutions these days. Vista is designed to run on that hardware. Oh yeah, don't forget the revolution that was dual-core processors for average user desktops, not just servers. That's a tenfold increase in power and processing ability of the mid-to-high end desktop computer.

Don't expect a brand new, completely redone OS to work "just like" a five year old OS. If you had told me that XP was a resource hog as opposed to 98, I would have called you an idiot. That was about 5 years' difference. It's NEW technology, which utilizes the newer, more powerful components of computers.

Yes, XP is still fine, yes, it runs great, yes, it's been polished. It's been out for FIVE YEARS! I seem to recall that XP, before SP1, was not 100% popular. This same thing happens over and over...

Oh, and to those who say that nothing has changed from version to version of Windows: What about the NTFS file system, for one? I think that's pretty major. Unless you like 32GB hard drives.

 

[CptFalcon]

It really, really gets me when people complain that Vista is a resource hog. Hello? It's a NEW OS. When was XP released? 2002, I think? When was Vista released? The first official release for consumers was 2007. That's FIVE YEARS' time. In five years, the computer world has done a complete refresh and rebuild. In 2002, 512mb of RAM was a lot, and 1GB was ridiculous. In 2002, 64mb graphics cards were the norm. XP was designed to run on that kind of hardware. In 2007, 2GB of RAM is common and 512+ mb graphics cards are also pretty common. 256mb is pretty much a minimum for non-integrated solutions these days. Vista is designed to run on that hardware. Oh yeah, don't forget the revolution that was dual-core processors for average user desktops, not just servers. That's a tenfold increase in power and processing ability of the mid-to-high end desktop computer.

Don't expect a brand new, completely redone OS to work "just like" a five year old OS. If you had told me that XP was a resource hog as opposed to 98, I would have called you an idiot. That was about 5 years' difference. It's NEW technology, which utilizes the newer, more powerful components of computers.

Yes, XP is still fine, yes, it runs great, yes, it's been polished. It's been out for FIVE YEARS! I seem to recall that XP, before SP1, was not 100% popular. This same thing happens over and over...

Oh, and to those who say that nothing has changed from version to version of Windows: What about the NTFS file system, for one? I think that's pretty major. Unless you like 32GB hard drives.

^I'm going to jump in his bandwagon.

I'm not sure what you mean by no difference...
UAC protects the retarded masses from installing malware as often.
Superfetch speeds up your system.
Auto-defragging in the background.
Tighter security and (finally) some level of ditched legacy support.
Hard-drive encryption.
...ad nauseum (sp) ...

^ I knew their was a reason why our store sells a ton of PC's with Vista.

When it comes down to it, truly vista is what most people will be using. Period. Vista is not even remotely bad compared to what ME was so don't even try to bring it down to that. The only windows EVER made that made you go WOW I WANT THAT. DOS > Windows 3.1, And Windows 3.1 > Windows 95.

Windows vista is a complete rewrite making a much more solid kernel and trying to standardise the way they accomplish things better. Vista is significantly more stable, much faster, more intuitive. A tech savy person can find everything they want by putting it into classic mode menus, a person not so understanding can figure things out very easily by the menu layouts. Vista comes with more features that your avg joe might actually wish to have. IE basic photo editing with windows picture. Windows XP had no program to remove red-eye (MCE05 did tho).

Microsoft isn't trying to sell us Windows Vista. It's trying to sell it to average families who want things to be simple and included. Get over it. Denying vista has benefits is just mindless ranting.

^ What that guy said. My mom was completely computer illiterate when I introduced her to XP, however we managed to get a rebuilt PC off of Ebay, installed Vista and my mom was off to the races customizing everything. I was shocked when I learned that she changed the wallpaper and the color of the glass transparency.

 

[Benzino]

I'm an IT admin for a small non-profit group.
I don't even want to hear the word Vista where I work.
*shudders*

For my organization it would require:

• A new computer for every person running Windows 2000 (yes, we still have some)
• RAM Upgrades for anyone with 512 MB RAM (that being a lot of computers)
• Considering that I mainly work with older women, many whom are very fickle about how they use their computer, it would require me to train ~200 people. The people I work with are not very adept with their computers; they know enough to do their job and that is it.

I told my boss I will not consider Vista anywhere in the near future.

 

[mdburkey]

It really, really gets me when people complain that Vista is a resource hog. Hello? It's a NEW OS. When was XP released? 2002, I think? When was Vista released? The first official release for consumers was 2007. That's FIVE YEARS' time. In five years, the computer world has done a complete refresh and rebuild. In 2002, 512mb of RAM was a lot, and 1GB was ridiculous. In 2002, 64mb graphics cards were the norm. XP was designed to run on that kind of hardware. In 2007, 2GB of RAM is common and 512+ mb graphics cards are also pretty common. 256mb is pretty much a minimum for non-integrated solutions these days. Vista is designed to run on that hardware. Oh yeah, don't forget the revolution that was dual-core processors for average user desktops, not just servers. That's a tenfold increase in power and processing ability of the mid-to-high end desktop computer. .

Yes -- there was five years of difference in computers between XP and Vista -- that is not the point. And, yes, it is normal for a new OS to consume more resources than the old one. The point is, you generally want to GET SOMETHING for this increase in resources -- i.e. something besides eye candy. From a business/average home user standpoint, Vista really doesn't get you anything besides eye candy. Yes, the 256Mb graphics cards, etc. are now common for gaming -- but 99% of business desktops use integrated solutions and most home use machines are used primarily for web browsing, e-mail, and check book management -- NONE of which need a dedicated graphics card either. I'm sorry, but the gaming crowd is, quite frankly, a VERY small minority in the computer world. Out of all the people I do individual support for (not counting businesses) I know of exactly *3* who actually play high end games on their machines, and only 7 within the last year who have bothered to get anything other than integrated graphics (and 3 of those were Quadro boards for use with Solidworks/2020 Design/etc.). This is out of over 100 people!

And, yes, dual core processing is a bit of a revolution -- but it was a revolution that really arrived several years ago. Even NT worked quite nicely with Dual Processors -- and I know a LOT of ethusiasts who have been running dual for years. My first home "dual" unit was a Pentium 100Mhz circa 1994/95, and I am sure a LOT of people from HardOCP still remember running the Celeron 300/Abit BP6 dual combination!

Don't expect a brand new, completely redone OS to work "just like" a five year old OS. If you had told me that XP was a resource hog as opposed to 98, I would have called you an idiot. That was about 5 years' difference. It's NEW technology, which utilizes the newer, more powerful components of computers.

XP *was* a resource hog compared to 98 -- and it still is! But the upgrade to XP (or Win2K) actually got you something!
(a) USB support that WORKED.
(b) NTFS support in a consumer OS.
(c) System Restore
(d) the NT Kernel (removal of DOS) and greatly improved system stability
(e) multi-monitor support that worked (yes, 98SE had it, but it only Matrox got it right)
(f) multi-processor support
(g) encryption with XP Pro
etc....

These are ALL features that meant something to business.

Yes, XP is still fine, yes, it runs great, yes, it's been polished. It's been out for FIVE YEARS! I seem to recall that XP, before SP1, was not 100% popular. This same thing happens over and over...

To some extent, this is true. But even in Beta, XP offered more improvements over 98SE than Vista does over XP. Quite frankly, even to this day XP really is not that much better than Windows 2000. The biggest failures of Vista are due to the successes of 2K/XP. The other thing most people fail to remember is that XP had many fewer driver problems at release than Vista did -- primarily because the XP driver model is based almost 100% upon the Windows 2000 driver model. In essence, XP's drivers had already had 2 years in the field to get the bugs worked out with Windows 2000. Microsoft would have been well advised to try a phased release with an intermediate product between Vista and XP -- an "XP Reloaded" if you will with support for the basic Vista video driver model *and* the XP driver model.

Oh, and to those who say that nothing has changed from version to version of Windows: What about the NTFS file system, for one? I think that's pretty major. Unless you like 32GB hard drives.

I haven't heard anyone say nothing has changed from version to version -- things always change -- the question is, "Have they changed for the better?"

Also, FAT32 has absolutely no problems working with hard drives up to 2TB in size. It is inefficient as all get out with large drive sizes, but it works just fine. The only real headache with FAT32 is the 4Gb maximum file size limit and its lack of true security permissions.


What really gets *me* is all the relatively new users and casual/home "experts" who keep saying how the Vista rollout has been just like every other OS rollout over the years without having actually been through it themselves. My first PC was an IBM PC with a 4.77Mhz *AMD* 8088 CPU (who was Intel's licensed second source supplier -- mandated by IBM) and I've used every version of Windows from V1.0, /286, /386, V3.0, etc. and I've been in on the Beta program of every version since the first release of NT and I've had to support people with the transitition between every one of them. When you have 20 years of IT experience with the platform under your belt, then maybe I'll listen to you.

 

[verteron]

Vista on a new PC may be fine, but as an upgrade I usually do not recommend it. I've had people coming in with 900Mhz CPU's that wanted to upgrade to Vista. I wouldn't even recommend XP on their system, yet there it is. They figure that Vista is faster, forget the truth, this is what they believe. "Newer is always better" they believe. So instead of spending $200 on newer software, they just need to pony up a few extra for a $400 system, or settle on more RAM. As any entry system today is better than what they had.

Many people get used to their current system configuration. They can't get online if there is no "e" on the desktop. Firefox? What's that? A browser? Huh?

There are way too many menus now. There used to be display properties by itself, now how many are there? I used to rt click on my network places to get to the network connections, but I have yet to figure out the benefit of the network connection manager or whatever it is. It is just another window to wait for to click through. And I have waited five minutes for that damn window.

When XP was introduced, I knew 98 was bad. I bought WinME hoping for an improvement and used it for a month before I wiped it out and installed win2000. Sure the gamers still liked 98 since it was faster, but it was less stable. Win2000 gave us the management tools and robustness to manage errant tasks that 98 lacked. Though there are still games that refuse to play without Win98, we needed XP. We don't need Vista. DirectX 10? I think MS was looking for a reason for us upgrade themselves and couldn't find it, so they locked DX10 in to Vista only. It doesn't matter this year anyway. Regular people can't afford a system that can play DX10 games anyway.

UAC causes blind clicking among neophytes and it has already been proven that malware can bypass it anyway. I don't know what may have changed recently, but there have been a few reports.
From eweek:
"But as Whitehouse said to eWEEK at the time, UAC isn't a security boundary—not a hard one, at any rate. "UAC is not like a firewall, which is a hard security boundary, between your PC and the untrusted Internet," he said. "UAC seems to be more of a security function, but not a boundary. It's useful as a tool to help users but [shouldn't be] seen as impervious."
and
"that UAC serves a purpose—it prompts the user [before escalating privileges]—but the information the user relies on to judge whether the application should or shouldn't continue… can be undermined using this vector,"

Users should not bombarded with questions that they cannot answer, also, real control should not be hidden from those already familiar with managing their own systems behind a multitude of new, confusing windows.

I like the fact that Disk Defragmenter runs every Wednesday night, but with three hard drives, it gave me no indication of current status on any of them. Great for clueless users, bad for techies. But I have Diskeeper anyway, so it doesn't really matter.

Anyone who needs drive encryption either has it already, or still needs to pay extra for it as it only comes in the business and Ultimate versions. Might be useful for some companies, but as was previously stated here, there are other, more portable, more flexible options like Truecrypt. Maybe you can use it. But while it isn't really an advantage, it certainly isn't a disadvange.

I have found that system resources are more in use, and while that may not be a bad thing with proper management, I can no longer figure out what is actually causing my lag. Is it one of these background services running, or something else not showing usage in task manager? Like Explorer waiting for an election of the master browser.

I personally love the eye candy, but for business I fail to see a significant advantage for it. After testing Vista betas for a year, I installed it on my workstation. A month later I wiped it out and reinstalled XP. Now I have a Vista Desktop theme and Yahoo Widgets. It isn't Aero Glass, but it is close. My main problem was that I had to reboot every morning as I had lost my domain credentials.

XP is fine currently, better even than Win2000 was when XP came out. Vista may be fine, even great for some people, but not everyone. Just because it is the next generation doesn't mean does all things for all people better. And let's face it, if a user fails to understand a nifty new feature, does it really do them any good anyway?

We need to get over this rat race of constant upgrades. New features, new bugs, updates, upgrades, and the rat race continues. These computers are supposed to work for us, not the other way around. If Vista works for you, great. I am sticking with XP Pro because, "It just works."

 

[mdburkey]

We need to get over this rat race of constant upgrades. New features, new bugs, updates, upgrades, and the rat race continues. These computers are supposed to work for us, not the other way around. If Vista works for you, great. I am sticking with XP Pro because, "It just works."

Agreed 100%.

The problem with Vista isn't that it's terrible -- I LIKE the overall UI appearance (I'm running a Vista theme on XP right now) -- it's that it doesn't offer any "must have" new features vs XP. Considering it needs 2x the hardware resources to perform as well as XP does, I'd really like to know just what the heck it is really doing in the background!

Microsoft CAN still write a decent/efficient/stable OS -- Server 2003 R2 is proof of that -- unfortunately, Vista is not that OS. Honestly, once you turn everything back on (themes, sound, etc.) Server 2003 R2 makes a heck of a desktop OS.

Originally, I had high hopes for Vista -- especially after seeing some of the early stuff with Longhorn -- but as it got closer and closer to release, more and more features got dropped and my interest waned progressively. It was especially infuriating to see how Vista came together in the last year before release with quick hacks slapped onto it in place of the real features that were there before -- e.g. the file versioning/backup system that is there now -- which does work and was basically lifted from Server 2003 -- but is a pale comparison to the true Journaling File System that was promised for Longhorn. How the heck can Microsoft spend 5 years and not come up with a Journaling File System that works??? That would have been a feature that actually MEANT something to business users. Considering how well known JFFS and Ext3 are, it is not exactly an unknown science at this instance in time!

 

[ashmedai]

Don't expect a brand new, completely redone OS to work "just like" a five year old OS. If you had told me that XP was a resource hog as opposed to 98, I would have called you an idiot. That was about 5 years' difference. It's NEW technology, which utilizes the newer, more powerful components of computers.

Which is why I want to know what numbnuts forgot to make it so 32-bit Vista can access over 3GB of memory on my laptop. Only reason you can't in 32-bit XP is because the jerry-rigged way of getting at the extra doesn't work properly - but it works fine by Windows Server 2003 32-bit for up to 4GB. So why not Vista 32-bit?

 

[watertown28]

I disliked vista for the time I had it on. I went back to XP. Vista I had to look for things I used on a daily basis paired with the fact alot of my games didnt play well with it. to me it was a waisted investment. For only a handful of games most of which I wont even play , going back to XP was the best thing.

 

[verteron]

If this is Vista's Stride, then by the looks of it here it ain't gonna get far.

 

[DeaconFrost]

If this is Vista's Stride, then by the looks of it here it ain't gonna get far.

I'd say it would go plenty far, because it's been stable and ready for prime time for quite some time now. Roll your eyes all you want, but that doesn't change facts.

 

[firebane]

I'd say it would go plenty far, because it's been stable and ready for prime time for quite some time now. Roll your eyes all you want, but that doesn't change facts.

If its been ready for prime time why are a lot of corporate and small time companies not wanting to switch over? Because it hasn't proven itself to be useful or stable enough for that sort of environment.

 

[DeaconFrost]

If its been ready for prime time why are a lot of corporate and small time companies not wanting to switch over? Because it hasn't proven itself to be useful or stable enough for that sort of environment.

Actually, there are plenty of companies who have been making the switch. Don't buy so easily into the anti-Vista FUD floating around.

One of the top reasons cited for not switching, is the upgrade costs associated with the hardware. Not everyone in the corporate world is sitting with a multi-core processor, 2 GB of memory, and a dedicated video card.

A second reason for avoiding the switch is that many IT shops still buy into the "wait for SP1" mantra that isn't really justified in this case. That's how it was for XP, 2000, NT 4.0, etc.

What most people are forgetting is the history of new OSes. Vista's adoption rate has been quite fast when compared to previous OSes. That's why it's absolutely laughable when people make comments suggesting Vista isn't catching on.

 

[finalgt]

Personal Opinion:

Office 2007: Really, really cool. Useful redesign, looks gorgeous, runs well (though I haven't tested it on any old computers - but then, I don't care) and actually sort of makes doing massive spreadsheets bearable.
Vista: Sweet Jesus no. If there comes a point in the future where the choice is basically upgrade to Vista, or lose the Microsoft OS, I will switch to Ubuntu without a second thought. Or whatever distro is doing well at that point in time. I just can't stand it (personal experience extends to setting it up for my mom on her computer and testing it on some virtual servers at my job) and I cringe at the thought that my company will probably have to start shipping Server 2008 at some point.

 

[rantanamo]

LOL. Happy Vista user since day one. Those denying how much better Vista is are simply:

a.) blind

b.) stubborn

c.) have some old ass hardware.

d.) have some hate for microsoft

its that simple. If a much much much much(did I say much), more stable OS that can actually keep your tasks running smooth is somehow not increasing productivity then you need to check yourself as an administrator. How many times are you fixing someone's XP blue screen or freezing?

 

[jen4950]

I'm suprised no-one has mentioned 64-bit support..

You have 2 options, a hatchet job of a modified kernel with XP 64, or a ground-up re-design from what I understand with Vista 64.

I just bought a Dell Precision 690 Quad Core Xeon machine for my new workstation at work. Quadro graphics card, 2GB ram in the box (upgradeable to 64GB with included riser cards), 15k SAS HDD- ought to run well with Vista 64. I know 64 bit is not an XP vs. Vista issue per se'- but it is certainly something that will become more mainstream in the future and will likely be where Vista shines.

 

[firebane]

So tonite again I find out that amds cool and quiet doesn't always work with Vista..oh joy! So I have a customer not happy with their computer cause the cpu fan won't kick down

And in regards to XP 64 bit it works absolutely fine! I have been using it now for over a week and had absolutely no issues or problems aside from odd install from Auzentech with their drivers...

When it comes to Vista you either love it or hate it and thats all there really is to it.

 

[mdburkey]

LOL. Happy Vista user since day one. Those denying how much better Vista is are simply:

a.) blind
b.) stubborn
c.) have some old ass hardware.
d.) have some hate for microsoft

its that simple. If a much much much much(did I say much), more stable OS that can actually keep your tasks running smooth is somehow not increasing productivity then you need to check yourself as an administrator. How many times are you fixing someone's XP blue screen or freezing?

Uh...you are in a distinct minority and also quite insulting.

I am neither blind nor stubborn -- what I am is cautious and observant.
And, no, my own personal hardware is not "ass old" (considering that my slowest personal box is a Core 2 E4400 and my main unit a Q6600, with a smattering of other E6400/E6600's around the house).

I also do not hate Microsoft -- I don't trust them particularly -- but I definitely do not hate them. I do however long for the days of yore when Bill Gates and people with a bit of engineering talent took a more active role in the companies day to day management -- as opposed to the marketing/bean-counting bunch that is more or less running things today.

I *am* a system administrator and also do support for a LOT of people home PC's -- and to date I know of exactly ONE person who has been happy with Vista -- and I have had at least 7 people pay me hourly plus license cost to revert back to XP on new systems.

As far as Vista being more stable or fixing XP blue screens/freezing -- the only systems I see with XP crashes are ones that have been infested with Spyware/Trojans (or those where AOL Security Edition or McAfee have gotten loaded over another virus scanner at the same time) -- and those are only on systems that are older and were not setup by me to begin with. XP SP2+ installs that have been done within the last two years that are properly setup with a good AV solution and at least Windows Defender loaded have been basically rock solid. Not one of my own XP systems in my house has been rebooted in over A MONTH -- with my development machine at >3 months and going strong. My home server hasn't been rebooted since sometime last December (though its running Server 2003 rather than XP).

Conversely, my Vista test platform (a Dell Precision 390 Core 2) rarely stays USABLE for more than a 2-3 days without needing to be restarted -- and odd reboots still happen occasionally (though they occur less often that they used to -- they appear to usually be caused by bugs in Nvidia's drivers).

And don't even get me started on the DRM nightmares involved with getting Vista and HD-DVD to "play nice" with my LCD's (one of which is supposedly HDCP compliant and still won't work right) -- nor the sheer frustration I went through trying to migrate my Media Center to VHP -- to a 60" HDTV that is NOT HDCP compliant that I do NOT plan to replace for a while. XP MCE has DRM issues occasionally, but they can at least be worked around -- with Vista it is almost impossible,

 

[Monkey God]

I'm suprised no-one has mentioned 64-bit support..

You have 2 options, a hatchet job of a modified kernel with XP 64, or a ground-up re-design from what I understand with Vista 64.

I just bought a Dell Precision 690 Quad Core Xeon machine for my new workstation at work. Quadro graphics card, 2GB ram in the box (upgradeable to 64GB with included riser cards), 15k SAS HDD- ought to run well with Vista 64. I know 64 bit is not an XP vs. Vista issue per se'- but it is certainly something that will become more mainstream in the future and will likely be where Vista shines.

The main reason I wanted to try Vista at home was the 64bit support, and better memory management (I have 4gb, XP only sees 3gb of it, and each app can only use 2 at a time). I hate UAC, and turned it off. I hate Vistas janky file ownership/permissions nightmares. I do love the interface, and it does feel MUCH faster to me than XP for some reason. But the real reason I use it is because XP-64bit sucks.

Now if XP-64 was given the same level of attention and detail Vista has, as far as drivers and everything else, id use that.

 

[DOpamine]

Whats this all about :- defrag in the background is a feature o.0 ? , what would be a feature is if you didnt have to defrag in the first place

LOL. Happy Vista user since day one. Those denying how much better Vista is are simply:

a.) blind

b.) stubborn

c.) have some old ass hardware.

d.) have some hate for microsoft

its that simple. If a much much much much(did I say much), more stable OS that can actually keep your tasks running smooth is somehow not increasing productivity then you need to check yourself as an administrator. How many times are you fixing someone's XP blue screen or freezing?

vista and stable should not be used in the same sentence unless an un is infront of the stable or referring to a horse leaving , i've seen many BSODs on vista also and its not down to "old ass hardware" , the machines i've seen it on have more than met the minimum requirements for it

Vista is a resource hogging nightmare all for little things like windows flip (flop?) and a more efficient graphics api that doesnt produce as much performance as the previous version more efficient in what way ? , i see no benefits purchasing this failware and i shall never do so , there are many alternatives to vista and microsoft so it is NOT inevitable that you WILL have to up(down?)grade to this bloatware (just big boned?...glands perhaps?)

In a way i hope it does become the most popular OS on the planet then we'll start to see the virii and worms which will make me laugh hard from the comfort of my GNOME DE

 

[stoney_titan]

No blue screen of death since i built my machine. I forgot what it even looks like. :sarcasm: It's blue!

Paying 85 dollars or whatever for my Vista home premium was money well spent. I think I spent more on my keyboard and mouse.

I can compare vista and xp arguments to Ford vs. Chevy arguments i hear from douche gear heads at local stores. Love it or hate it.

 

[DOpamine]

ford ? chevy ?

if its going to be "like cars"

windows xp

windows vista

mac osx

what i use

 

[jen4950]

...
what i use

You use the gay-ass fairy flamer bike with flowers and rainbows OS? Which one is that?

 

[jen4950]

...

 

[DOpamine]

yes

whatever i like however i like

 

[bangmal]

LOL. Happy Vista user since day one. Those denying how much better Vista is are simply:

a.) blind

b.) stubborn

c.) have some old ass hardware.

d.) have some hate for microsoft

its that simple. If a much much much much(did I say much), more stable OS that can actually keep your tasks running smooth is somehow not increasing productivity then you need to check yourself as an administrator. How many times are you fixing someone's XP blue screen or freezing?

e) Those folks think it makes their stupid ass look smarter by bashing.

 

[bangmal]

Uh...you are in a distinct minority and also quite insulting.

I am neither blind nor stubborn -- what I am is cautious and observant.
And, no, my own personal hardware is not "ass old" (considering that my slowest personal box is a Core 2 E4400 and my main unit a Q6600, with a smattering of other E6400/E6600's around the house).

I also do not hate Microsoft -- I don't trust them particularly -- but I definitely do not hate them. I do however long for the days of yore when Bill Gates and people with a bit of engineering talent took a more active role in the companies day to day management -- as opposed to the marketing/bean-counting bunch that is more or less running things today.

I *am* a system administrator and also do support for a LOT of people home PC's -- and to date I know of exactly ONE person who has been happy with Vista -- and I have had at least 7 people pay me hourly plus license cost to revert back to XP on new systems.

As far as Vista being more stable or fixing XP blue screens/freezing -- the only systems I see with XP crashes are ones that have been infested with Spyware/Trojans (or those where AOL Security Edition or McAfee have gotten loaded over another virus scanner at the same time) -- and those are only on systems that are older and were not setup by me to begin with. XP SP2+ installs that have been done within the last two years that are properly setup with a good AV solution and at least Windows Defender loaded have been basically rock solid. Not one of my own XP systems in my house has been rebooted in over A MONTH -- with my development machine at >3 months and going strong. My home server hasn't been rebooted since sometime last December (though its running Server 2003 rather than XP).

Conversely, my Vista test platform (a Dell Precision 390 Core 2) rarely stays USABLE for more than a 2-3 days without needing to be restarted -- and odd reboots still happen occasionally (though they occur less often that they used to -- they appear to usually be caused by bugs in Nvidia's drivers).

And don't even get me started on the DRM nightmares involved with getting Vista and HD-DVD to "play nice" with my LCD's (one of which is supposedly HDCP compliant and still won't work right) -- nor the sheer frustration I went through trying to migrate my Media Center to VHP -- to a 60" HDTV that is NOT HDCP compliant that I do NOT plan to replace for a while. XP MCE has DRM issues occasionally, but they can at least be worked around -- with Vista it is almost impossible,

All your bullshitful post does is to show why all those vista basher bitching the best OS thus far: those morons need someone to blame on for their lacking of IQ to solve problem and learn new things.

I can see you vista-bashers' pain. It took you 6 years to learn how to make XP right, I can see your fear of new things. But it is wrong to blame the others just because you are retarded.

 

[mdburkey]

All your bullshitful post does is to show why all those vista basher bitching the best OS thus far: those morons need someone to blame on for their lacking of IQ to solve problem and learn new things.

I can see you vista-bashers' pain. It took you 6 years to learn how to make XP right, I can see your fear of new things. But it is wrong to blame the others just because you are retarded.

So, when someone makes a post against Vista that actually cites defects and problems rather than just blindly bashing it, you respond with insults and cursing? All you have done is show your youth, arrogance, and ignorance. You also might want to learn the proper use of the English language.

I would easily be willing to bet that I know far more about Vista and it's internal workings than you do. I am a part time system administrator, IT support rep, and full-time software engineer (embedded systems and device drivers). I have been doing this for over 20 years and I know full well what it takes to get Vista working as close to properly as it can at the present time. I am not a Mac follower nor a Linux zeolot (Linux is a very good OS, but it is not "consumer ready" for the average user) and I have no fear of trying new things -- almost daily.

Rather than simply throwing insults around, why don't you take the time to actually put in words exactly WHAT features of Vista are so compelling over XP? And perhaps explain exactly to what uses you put Vista (i.e. anything other than gaming or frivolity)? Or perhaps tell us how much experience do you have trying to actually integrate it into a mixed business network? Or what experience you have trying to get critical applications to actually run properly? In essence, put your money where your mouth is and make your case. The floor is yours....

 

[CptFalcon]

Uh...you are in a distinct minority and also quite insulting.

I am neither blind nor stubborn -- what I am is cautious and observant.
And, no, my own personal hardware is not "ass old" (considering that my slowest personal box is a Core 2 E4400 and my main unit a Q6600, with a smattering of other E6400/E6600's around the house).

I also do not hate Microsoft -- I don't trust them particularly -- but I definitely do not hate them. I do however long for the days of yore when Bill Gates and people with a bit of engineering talent took a more active role in the companies day to day management -- as opposed to the marketing/bean-counting bunch that is more or less running things today.

I *am* a system administrator and also do support for a LOT of people home PC's -- and to date I know of exactly ONE person who has been happy with Vista -- and I have had at least 7 people pay me hourly plus license cost to revert back to XP on new systems.

As far as Vista being more stable or fixing XP blue screens/freezing -- the only systems I see with XP crashes are ones that have been infested with Spyware/Trojans (or those where AOL Security Edition or McAfee have gotten loaded over another virus scanner at the same time) -- and those are only on systems that are older and were not setup by me to begin with. XP SP2+ installs that have been done within the last two years that are properly setup with a good AV solution and at least Windows Defender loaded have been basically rock solid. Not one of my own XP systems in my house has been rebooted in over A MONTH -- with my development machine at >3 months and going strong. My home server hasn't been rebooted since sometime last December (though its running Server 2003 rather than XP).

Conversely, my Vista test platform (a Dell Precision 390 Core 2) rarely stays USABLE for more than a 2-3 days without needing to be restarted -- and odd reboots still happen occasionally (though they occur less often that they used to -- they appear to usually be caused by bugs in Nvidia's drivers).

And don't even get me started on the DRM nightmares involved with getting Vista and HD-DVD to "play nice" with my LCD's (one of which is supposedly HDCP compliant and still won't work right) -- nor the sheer frustration I went through trying to migrate my Media Center to VHP -- to a 60" HDTV that is NOT HDCP compliant that I do NOT plan to replace for a while. XP MCE has DRM issues occasionally, but they can at least be worked around -- with Vista it is almost impossible,

One word: Drivers. They suck balls when they don't work right.

Here's an interesting tidbit for ya, I installed Vista on a 4 year old HP Pavillion and surprisingly it never crashed but it was slow. The specs on it were 512MB of RAM and a single core P4 w/o HT. I believe that even though people bash Vista b/c it BSODs like crazy, most of those prebuilts have plenty of shitware on them to get them to slow down. Mine has never BSOD'd but I have experienced a few crazy quirks but, nothing a few hotfixes won't fix. AND BTW I have my A+ and in the small shop that I work in everyone works on Vista and we are all liking it!

 

[svet-am]

Which is why I want to know what numbnuts forgot to make it so 32-bit Vista can access over 3GB of memory on my laptop. Only reason you can't in 32-bit XP is because the jerry-rigged way of getting at the extra doesn't work properly - but it works fine by Windows Server 2003 32-bit for up to 4GB. So why not Vista 32-bit?

WTF?!? You need to go back and review the limitations of the 32-bit PCI memory space and how memory-mapped IO works. Vistax32 is working exactly the same as XPx32. Neither is going to be able to address more than ~3.5GB tops and ~3.0GB in the case of most enthusiasts (due to the large amounts of memory mapped IO in enthusiast hardware). It's one thing to bitch about Vista for it's real faults, but this is just ridiculous.

 

[mdburkey]

One word: Drivers. They suck balls when they don't work right.

Here's an interesting tidbit for ya, I installed Vista on a 4 year old HP Pavillion and surprisingly it never crashed but it was slow. The specs on it were 512MB of RAM and a single core P4 w/o HT. I believe that even though people bash Vista b/c it BSODs like crazy, most of those prebuilts have plenty of shitware on them to get them to slow down. Mine has never BSOD'd but I have experienced a few crazy quirks but, nothing a few hotfixes won't fix. AND BTW I have my A+ and in the small shop that I work in everyone works on Vista and we are all liking it!

No arguments from me on this one. As I said in my earlier post, I squarely point most of the crash/lockup problems at Nvidia's drivers in my case. The older (non-Aero capable) units I have played with Vista on have generally tended to be more stable than newer hardware -- slow, but stable. That said, I do not blame the device driver writers at all. The amount of extra crap that they have been saddled with for driver certification -- especially with respect to the "secure path" concept and the DRM -- is insane and makes writing a stable driver a LOT harder. I think this has a lot to do with why Microsoft removed the video driver from the privileged kernel level with Vista -- it would have crashed even more often had they not done so. It also explains why now, with more recent drivers and all the patches from Microsoft, I see fewer crashes but cases where things just don't happen. It is almost as if the rendering for some display contexts is simply being routed to oblivion. The system hasn't crashed exactly, but it isn't usable either.

I agree with you as well on all the preloaded trialware/bloatware -- and the first thing I do on ANY box I get in or support is wipe it and do a clean, correct install from scratch (with all updates, most recent stable driver set, etc.). I also try to keep up with the current hotfixes that aren't yet automatically pushed out by Updated and install them if pertinent.

 

[mdburkey]

WTF?!? You need to go back and review the limitations of the 32-bit PCI memory space and how memory-mapped IO works. Vistax32 is working exactly the same as XPx32. Neither is going to be able to address more than ~3.5GB tops and ~3.0GB in the case of most enthusiasts (due to the large amounts of memory mapped IO in enthusiast hardware). It's one thing to bitch about Vista for it's real faults, but this is just ridiculous.

This is yet another reason I am not all that impressed with Vista -- especially in its 32-bit incarnation. To run as well as XP does, Vista needs at least 1.5x-2x as much memory. The problem is, if you have memory hungry applications which need 2Gb+ of memory, Vista is already pushing up against a hard limit at the PCI mapped memory space. 64-bit Vista truly does offers improvements -- but is not being adequately pushed by either Microsoft or anyone else -- and the driver/application support for it makes Vista32's driver support look like heaven on Earth.

That said, Microsoft has no one to blame for this mess but themselves. There is absolutely no reason that the PCI memory space has to always be mapped into a processes address space. The drivers memory space could -- and should -- be kept separate and only mapped in when requested by an application. Similarly, the 2Gb application limit was caused by shortcuts they took in the design of the original Windows subsystem. The thing is, a lot of these deficiencies have been rectified already even in a 32-bit environment. PAE mode works quite nicely for getting around this limit -- and requires a LOT less changes to existing code and drivers than full 64-bit mode does. That is one reason I use Server 2003 as a desktop OS in some cases -- the /3Gb switch allows applications to get up to 3Gb of memory rather than 2Gb -- plus it can actually take advantage of the aliased memory for other system level use even if the application can't. With the enterprise versions you can get full access to even more memory than that -- even though each process is still limited to no more than 3Gb. And that is a problem that could easily have been rectified via a very simple update to the way memory mapping is handled (i.e. bank switching). I was against Microsoft's decision to go with a flat memory map for NT from the git-go -- it didn't simplify coding enough to justify the hassles it would create later on. If they had not made this choice, then a decent bank switched/PAE system could have easily worked out to a 36-bit address space (64Gb) without having to make the full jump to 64-bit.

 

[mdburkey]

WTF?!? You need to go back and review the limitations of the 32-bit PCI memory space and how memory-mapped IO works. Vistax32 is working exactly the same as XPx32. Neither is going to be able to address more than ~3.5GB tops and ~3.0GB in the case of most enthusiasts (due to the large amounts of memory mapped IO in enthusiast hardware). It's one thing to bitch about Vista for it's real faults, but this is just ridiculous.

PS...

The original post you were responding to was actually addressing one of the faults of Vista -- specifically that it's memory handling works just like XP's does. Server 2003, which is still a 32-bit OS, does get access to all 4Gb of memory space via PAE mode and can allow individual applications access to up to 3Gb via an option switch (not all applications work properly with it). Microsoft would have been much better off to take the base level design for Vista32 from Server 2003 R2 than XP -- and it's driver model. It is a LOT easier to modify a driver to work properly with PAE mode than to rewrite it for 64-bit mode.

 

[svet-am]

That said, Microsoft has no one to blame for this mess but themselves. There is absolutely no reason that the PCI memory space has to always be mapped into a processes address space. The drivers memory space could -- and should -- be kept separate and only mapped in when requested by an application.

You really don't get how PCI works do you? If you're going to live in the world of hardware abstraction (and ease of use) and Plug and Play, then this is a necessary evil. And, this is not just a Windows problem. 32-bit Linux and 32-bit MacOS face the same issue.

 

[svet-am]

PS...

The original post you were responding to was actually addressing one of the faults of Vista -- specifically that it's memory handling works just like XP's does. Server 2003, which is still a 32-bit OS, does get access to all 4Gb of memory space via PAE mode and can allow individual applications access to up to 3Gb via an option switch (not all applications work properly with it). Microsoft would have been much better off to take the base level design for Vista32 from Server 2003 R2 than XP -- and it's driver model. It is a LOT easier to modify a driver to work properly with PAE mode than to rewrite it for 64-bit mode.

Oh, and stop using Gb when you mean GB. We're not talking about Gigabits of memory, we're talking about Gigabytes of memory.

 

[mdburkey]

You really don't get how PCI works do you? If you're going to live in the world of hardware abstraction (and ease of use) and Plug and Play, then this is a necessary evil. And, this is not just a Windows problem. 32-bit Linux and 32-bit MacOS face the same issue.

Uh...considering I happen to have the Solari book on PCI sitting on my desk at the moment and write device drivers, yes, I do understand how PCI works (and I am familiar with how PAE mode works and the x86 memory architecture at the processor level -- I've been to training classes by Intel that specifically emphasized this).

I also understand the difference between having a flat memory model and actually making use of the TLB's and setting up a properly paged memory scheme. Any Intel architecture processor since the 386 has the ability to remap memory pages dynamically and intercept specific addresses. An offshoot of this is how page faults are generated and used to implement virtual memory (page file/swap space) for both Windows and Linux.

The PCI memory space must reside where it is due to hardware limits of a 32-bit memory bus. However, the processor itself can easily map other memory into this address space from the perspective of a given process -- though that memory actually has to reside somewhere and may be hidden on the bus by the PCI memory. Due to the fact that the current 32-bit architecture is actually accessing 32-bit memory words you effectively have 36-bits of memory address coming out of the processor itself -- which means that you can actually access up to 64GB of memory (which is how Server 2003 Enterprise works).

Additionally, while some portions of the PCI memory space are permanently mapped to the chipset and basically untouchable (a small area typically), the other regions used by video cards and other add-in devices can be turned on and off via PCI configuration calls (either direct to hardware or through the rather inefficient PCI BIOS) . This means that even the memory aliased behind the PCI memory space can be accessed and remapped to a lower memory space for normal usage -- and could be used for program use or at least as cache space (this memory is slightly slower to access as a page fault has to be generated prior to an access to allow reconfiguring the PCI memory map temporarily while it is being accessed).

The basic problem is that people who write OS's (all of them) made some very poor design decisions about 15 years ago in the name of simplicity and it has come back to bite them in the rear. It all boils down to the fact that people did not like the paged memory design that the x86 architecture was originally designed around and effectively quit using it to switch to the effective 4GB flat memory model that we have now.

 

[Martyr]

No arguments from me on this one. As I said in my earlier post, I squarely point most of the crash/lockup problems at Nvidia's drivers in my case. The older (non-Aero capable) units I have played with Vista on have generally tended to be more stable than newer hardware -- slow, but stable. That said, I do not blame the device driver writers at all. The amount of extra crap that they have been saddled with for driver certification -- especially with respect to the "secure path" concept and the DRM -- is insane and makes writing a stable driver a LOT harder. I think this has a lot to do with why Microsoft removed the video driver from the privileged kernel level with Vista -- it would have crashed even more often had they not done so. It also explains why now, with more recent drivers and all the patches from Microsoft, I see fewer crashes but cases where things just don't happen. It is almost as if the rendering for some display contexts is simply being routed to oblivion. The system hasn't crashed exactly, but it isn't usable either.

I agree with you as well on all the preloaded trialware/bloatware -- and the first thing I do on ANY box I get in or support is wipe it and do a clean, correct install from scratch (with all updates, most recent stable driver set, etc.). I also try to keep up with the current hotfixes that aren't yet automatically pushed out by Updated and install them if pertinent.

hell, in the video driver sense vista is alot better than xp for me. i was overclocking my video card a bit (damn crysis) and what normally would have been a lockup, a nvsys.dll or whatever it is error, and a hard system restart, now i get about 20 secs of black, vista notices there is a problem, resets the driver, and even loads my damn game back up right where i was.

i likes.

 

[eeyrjmr]

meh market-speak

You know Microsoft count in their sales the free downloads provided to academics..
Thats gonna skew the sales figures, I mean what amount of profit was made from those "Sales"

 

[DeaconFrost]

You know Microsoft count in their sales the free downloads provided to academics..

You are aware that those academic institutions do pay a licensing fee for that, right? Much the same way that large corporations pay for a VLK license. Are you trying to say Microsoft shouldn't count those, either?

 

[eeyrjmr]

You are aware that those academic institutions do pay a licensing fee for that, right? Much the same way that large corporations pay for a VLK license. Are you trying to say Microsoft shouldn't count those, either?

I am aware of that BUT they are not EXPLICIT Vista sales now are they?

 

[DeaconFrost]

They aren't explicit in that someone didn't walk into a store, pick up a single copy of Vista, and purchase it. A sale is still a sale, though, and it's always been calculated this way. It's no different from Ford, for example, counting their cheap, discount volume sales to rental car companies, or corporate fleet services as cars sold in their grand total.