What are your first impression of Windows Vista?

[lordsmurf]

I finally got some time to install the Pre-RC1 MS gave out. I installed mine inside VPC.

My first impression is that I'm using Windows XP SP2, maybe a couple of newer MS extras and a new IE7 (nothing not already available for XP), but with an Apple OS X style GUI. In other words, nothing is new. I don't see any major features that change the nature of computing.

I'm all for pretty, but we can do that already with 3rd-party software. I don't see anything special about the OS itself. It's not like the move to DOS->Win95 was.

Very lackluster.

[yoda313]

I use YO06


But seriously I haven't tested it yet. I don't want to spend the time dowloading it and I don't want to sacrifice space on my video capture harddrive on an os I'm not going to buy right away.

I'll probably get VISTA when I buy a new computer sometime nextyear or early '08.

EDIT - Are you using the 64bit version on a 64bit processor? That would be a true test of whether or not its worth it - with a 64bit capable app of coure....

[ViRaL1]

Nothing special. The one thing I did notice that I'd been hoping for are more forgiving options under explorer e.g. if you select all your temp files to delete and it hits one that it can't delete, it allows you to retry or skip it vs. the old way of having to deselect that file and start deleting the remaining files again. I haven't seen if it works with copy / move yet, but something like that would definitely come in handy when trying to backup entire profiles. I have it on my laptop with the graphics holding me back (32MB GeForce4 440 Go) but the rest is decent...
P4 2.53/533
1GB RAM
60GB HDD
DVD-RW

My biggest issue atm is finding compliant apps to see if I can continue to do all the things I was doing with XP.

I voted great but it's more along the line of good, a bit better than blah, but some improvement.

[guns1inger]

On the desktop - not a lot. Yes, it's prettier, although I have had a Vista skin on XP for the better part of a year, so visually it's not a big leap. If you have a widescreen monitor or laptop then the sidebar is nice eye candy, although again, there have been standalone variants of this for XP for sometime as well.

Microsoft have stripped so much out over the last 18 months in order to get it stable that really, the biggest differentiator between XP and Vista is now Aero - if you have the grunt to use it. And for most power users, it is the first thing they will turn off in order to better allocate those resources elsewhere.

The native handling or image and file previews have been improved, and the virtual folders concept has great potential, especially in a shared environment.

But most of the truely worth while extras aren't in the consumer or even business desktop versions, they are in the server versions only.

Hopefully time will show it to be a more stable platform, with improved security and networking, but even that isn't a big leap from XP. I have always found XP to be stable and to network pretty well. Security requires keeping up to date with Windows update, as well as a good firewall, AV and anti-spyware application. While Vista will hopefully be more secure out of the box, those three applications will still be the first I install if I go to Vista.

I agree with Viral1 - better than blah, but not reaching Great status. The desktop is a slight improvement of XP, but not enough to warrant paying for an upgrade. 2000 to Vista = Yes, XP to Vista = maybe.

Longhorn (Vista Server) looks like it will be a worthwhile upgrade to 2003 server, taking a lot of the 2003 R2 improvements and adding a lot more.

[offline]

This is the 1st time I have not been interested enough to test a new candidate beta release of windows. I'll go to the usual tech launches (because I have to) but thats all I'm planning for at the moment. It will be interesting to see the initial level of corporate take-up this time around. No doubt there will be the usual line of "early adopters" lining up at dawn for their copy.

The Apple OS / Intel combo is starting to look real good

[guns1inger]

Even Vista doesn't make OS X look appealing. Unfortunately, the School I look after will probably go Vista simply to look progressive to the parents. Instead of looking for a compelling reason to upgrade, I will be looking for a compelling reason not too. And there are a lot of amateur keyboard jockies who can change a hard drive and therefore consider themselves experts who will be towing the Microsoft line of vista leading to the brave new world . . . . . . . . .

[redwudz]

Considering the suggested retail prices I've seen for Vista, I'll be a XP user for some time to come.

[yoda313]

Wow - 20% don't know what Vista is! I find that suprising. The users on this website are pretty techno-literate........

[SingSing]

OS basic function is providing a set of hooks for applications to access hardwares, and common user interface.

YodaOS 2006 with SP313 is ahead of linux and OS X as Windows alternative.

Note : For video folks, Window's media codec and media player are always among the worst.

[yoda313]

Note : For video folks, Window's media codec and media player are always among the worst.

I don't know. Personally I find wmv quite suitable for online video. Just my opinion. However I did buy the full version of Divx 6.

[MeDiCo_BrUjO]

Any link to download the setup?

[redwudz]

According to MS concerning the Vista preview program:

The Customer Preview Program is now closed. We have reached our program capacity and no new orders are being accepted. We apologize for any inconvenience.

If you want to make XP look and work somewhat like Vista, here's one method: http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,125324-page,1/article.html

[gadgetguy]

Wow - 20% don't know what Vista is! I find that suprising. The users on this website are pretty techno-literate........

Well, there is no option for "I haven't seen it or cared enough to read much about it, so I have no impression yet".

[edDV]

Let me know when they have Vista SP1 out.

More important, let me know when they have XP SP3 out.

MS Vista may someday be as popular as the RCA Vista Series monochrome TV of the 60's.



Here's the manual

[BJ_M]

nt4 is still fine as far as GUI go , 2k was a bit better ... XP and Vista are just more bloated

[SingSing]

Wow - 20% don't know what Vista is! I find that suprising. The users on this website are pretty techno-literate........

Well, there is no option for "I haven't seen it or cared enough to read much about it, so I have no impression yet".

Most Window users like NT, but it lacks drivers and compatibility with Win98 programs. Windows XP solved that. But what will Vista solved ?

[yoda313]

Vista is the 64 bit solution. We'll see once there is enough market penetration for 64 bit processors and more importantly 64 bit applications.

The BLURAY-HDDVD factor will most likely be insignificant for now until one of the two wins the war.

[TBoneit]

Well I have installed both the 32bit and 64bit versions for a customer on a dual drive computer with high speed SATA 300 drives ASUS motherboard with 4 gig 1066 DDR2 memory, Intel 3.73 EE CPU and I have to say that I was less than impressed with the Speed of that computer once I replaced the XP Pro SP2 on the C: drive.

Did I mention very fancy Video card too?

Bleh on Vista!

Yoda313 Why call Vista the 64 bit solution as compared to XP 64bit?

I can usually make XP do anything I want. It may take a little research but that's another story. But Vista? Some things seemed changed for the sake of change.

Maybe the realease version will be better at keeping Viruses and Spyware/Malware out but Those authors have been proven to be pretty good at getting their crud into users computers. They seem to be as good at the social engineering aspects as they are at the code they create and making said crud hard to remove without sometimes replacing the Windows installation.

I think I do pretty good cleaning over 85% of the computers with spyware/adware & viruses. I could also be wrong.

Cheers

[wulf109]

Everybody who will buy XP has. Microsoft is just creating another pointless upgrade to get more of our money. It's the Blueray of OS's.

[dvdguy4]

Let me know when they have Vista SP1 out.

More important, let me know when they have XP SP3 out.

MS Vista may someday be as popular as the RCA Vista Series monochrome TV of the 60's.



Here's the manual

Damn . I havent seen one of those in a long time .
Im staying with XP.

[TBoneit]

I remember those RCA Adverts.... I also remember my Aunt bought a RCA Color Television. The first I'd ever seen, The one with the rounded sides on the picture because it had a round picture tube being they were easier to make and setup. Remember the "In Living Color" peacock?
I'll bet we have enough people here that remeber what network did that. My first personal TV set was a RCA, Huge tabletop with a 10" round B&W tube, seperate Sound and Video IF's so the fine tuning had to be accurate.

It is possible that Vista will turn out it the long run to be another Windows ME... ME had just enough changes to be called a new OS and I always believed the real reason for it was to get money from those that have to but the newest OS when it comes out.

[caernavon]

How about a new poll possibility called "How the heck should I know"?

[Sam Ontario]

Its got a lot features you can play around. 2 features that I found useful are: 1. prefectching - when startup, it loads at the background into memory what applications you have done in the past, so its ready when press an icon, i.e. good for the impatients and a lot of memories will help further. 2. you can design the startup page to include different kinds of your computer features and applications.

[Dv8ted2]

I use YodaOS SP313. I see no reason to change.

[ROF]

A monumental upgrade from XP and sure to convert the stalwarts using ancient NT based OSs. The new features of the OS are great for both productivity and security. UAC is by far the most intrusive and probably the best feature ever given to any OS to date. Combine that with windows defender and you have a one-two punch against virtually any threat(sans human ignorance or click happiness).

With Superfetch and Readyboost everything works faster. In the old days when your memory intensive application sluggishly moved along on your existing system RAM you needed to open you case and add more. Not with Vista, Simply plug in one, two, or ten USB Drives and in a single click this drive becomes system RAM.

Network troubleshooting has gotten much much easier. Anyone who has a router and a couple hubs realizes that when something is wrong you must check each device or in some cases perform a trial and error of unplugging one cable and finding out if you unplugged the right one. With the network map you can visually see how and where your device connects to your network and how the traffic is routed. Extremely useful for network admins. Actually the network center is a boon to productivity for any networking task.

Google search will seem extremely slow and lacking once you use the new search feature (which is everywhere in vista). A great addition.

If you are into an impressive graphical look to your desktop, Aero is for you. I personally turned it off because I found it annoying but for anyone who wants eyecandy it is there waiting for you.

Of course, these tools just barely scatch the surface of what Windows Vista has waiting for you. First impressions of Vista. WOW! Second impression is where can I buy it now and why have I been without it.

[TBoneit]

ROF, Do you really think memory plugged into the USB will be a fast as memory in the motherboard slots? Yes they'll be faster than Virtual memory using a hard drive and slower than Mobo memory just because it is on the USB bus.

Google search, do you mean the Internat one or their desktop? Never needed anything but the very infrequent use of Windows Xp, 200,98,ME search.

Eye candy, Heck I even turn off wallpaper/screensavers and use a black background for contrast and a suspicion that viewing on monitors you will not feel flicker as bad for a mostly black screen versus a all white screen for example. Superfetch will possibly be a help if all you use are a few applications. Will it reallly help the user that can't even wait for windows to finish loading before they are clicking and Word or AOL or a user that uses lots of non bloatware or simple little apps? My guess is no. Will it help a user that has tons of memory and turns on the computer and then does something else before sitting at the keyboard, probably. In my case I turn on the computer here at work, go get coffee and then I'm ready to go.

[ROF]

ROF, Do you really think memory plugged into the USB will be a fast as memory in the motherboard slots? Yes they'll be faster than Virtual memory using a hard drive and slower than Mobo memory just because it is on the USB bus.

Google search, do you mean the Internat one or their desktop? Never needed anything but the very infrequent use of Windows Xp, 200,98,ME search.

Eye candy, Heck I even turn off wallpaper/screensavers and use a black background for contrast and a suspicion that viewing on monitors you will not feel flicker as bad for a mostly black screen versus a all white screen for example. Superfetch will possibly be a help if all you use are a few applications. Will it reallly help the user that can't even wait for windows to finish loading before they are clicking and Word or AOL or a user that uses lots of non bloatware or simple little apps? My guess is no. Will it help a user that has tons of memory and turns on the computer and then does something else before sitting at the keyboard, probably. In my case I turn on the computer here at work, go get coffee and then I'm ready to go.

First off, Please do not use my name in your postings. The moderators at Videohelp have somehow deemed this a punishable offense. https://forum.videohelp.com/viewtopic.php?t=308357&start=30

No it is not meant to be as fast as system RAM but it is much better than using hard drive space. You can plug in a 2GB USB Key have 1GB of system RAM and then have 3GB of system RAM without the need to use hard drive space, open your system case, or defrag the system drive because of it's usage in that capacity. A handy addition. It is your choice whether you find it useful or not. As always you are entitled to your opinion based on your system usage. Is Windows Vista best for everybody? No. Heck, windows(any flavor) isn't best for everybody even those who use it.

[Sam Ontario]

Like XP SP2, when all bugs are ironed out, you will love Vista!

[ROF]

Like XP SP2, when all bugs are ironed out, you will love Vista!

When did all the bugs get ironed out?

[adam]

I think its obvious that he means when the new code becomes as stable and secure as the old code. Whenever a new OS comes out it is arguably less stable and less secure than the latest version of the last OS because it contains untested code. (By untested I mean it hasn't been subjected to the masses yet.) This hopefully is taken care of in the first or second service pack.