Which version of Vista do you use? Tell the truth. Don't be embarrassed.

[DereX888]

I just feel bad for the vast majority of people who has to put up with a "forced" DRM/WGA/Activation or whatever MS wants to throw on its legit customers, simply because these people doesn't know that there are ways to circumvent these and enjoy true computing with freedom.

You can't just 'circumvent' them; theyre there in the OS'es code.
All you do with i.e. WGA cracks is you just 'squash' them, but youre not getting rid of it - its there until next patch or Service Pack at most will 'unsquash it' and you have to play with it again.
Even though I have legitimate XP, I used activation crack too when I played with XP, of course Its none of Msoft business what Im doing on *MY* computer, obviously. Sue me for having my legitimate Windows with crack securing my privacy LOL

[gll99]

When I installed XP on a win98 machine to have a dual boot, they always said to do it in that order. Win98 first and then XP.

Does it matter with XP and Vista?

If I get an oem version of vista with my pc will installing XP for a dual boot damage the Vista Install.

If I install Vista on a computer that has an XP installled will that affect the XP that's installed?

Which way works best for dual boot.

[redwudz]

You can do it in either order but having XP on the machine first is the easiest. Vista has a built in tool to shrink down the XP boot drive partition to make room for a Vista partition. It's fairly easy. Here's one tutorial and there are several more available with a Google search for ' vista dual boot ': http://apcmag.com/5023/dual_booting_xp_with_vista

[TBoneit]

I still prefer two OSes on two physical drives.

[nTekka]

You can't just 'circumvent' them; theyre there in the OS'es code.
All you do with i.e. WGA cracks is you just 'squash' them, but youre not getting rid of it - its there until next patch or Service Pack at most will 'unsquash it' and you have to play with it again.
Even though I have legitimate XP, I used activation crack too when I played with XP, of course Its none of Msoft business what Im doing on *MY* computer, obviously. Sue me for having my legitimate Windows with crack securing my privacy LOL

LOL...Have you heard recently? MS is doing more than "unsquash", Vista will be "downgraded" if it doesn't have WGA running to detect if it is a legit copy... some downgrade includes missing start button, task bar, black screen after 2 hours of usage, etc etc...

Wow talk about going anal on piracy... like pirated copies doesn't already have cracks to bypass most of those? I wonder who comes up with these ideas on how to stop/slow down piracy? Its obviously not the solution. I think the topic should be changed to "Which crappy version of Vista do you use? Tell the truth, it will only be embarrassing for a life time or until you switch OS"

[gll99]

@redwudz

You can do it in either order but having XP on the machine first is the easiest. Vista has a built in tool to shrink down the XP boot drive partition to make room for a Vista partition.

I hope that's fully user optional because I wouldn't want the xp partition touched at all. I also want to decide on which drive and parttion the OS is installed.

[redwudz]

I believe Vista gives you several options for dual boot/partitions. I prefer separate drives for two OS's myself, as mentioned. I don't like the idea of repartitioning a active drive. Too much chance of error. I believe you can also choose the partition size. On the one machine I tested it on, I had a 320GB boot drive, so it was easy enough to give Vista half of that. It also had a second drive just for data storage. I've since reformatted and have Vista by itself on the computer as I have XP on other computers.

[gll99]

I don't want to crosspost on myself but in another thread I'm looking to upgrade my computer so I'm asking about mobos and cpus.

https://forum.videohelp.com/topic336144.html

I'll either go cheap and no Vista or if if I spend more dollars on the hardware I might as well spring for Vista if I get a deal at the same time. All my questions are interrelated because similarly to when I moved from Win98se to XP I lost one piece of hardware and a few favorite programs so I kept a dual boot just for those. Eventually found equal or better and moved on. The same thing may happen here also it's just a matter of whether I take the plunge now or go cheap on the hardware now (max $300 - $400 all inclusive) and redo the whole thing in 2 years when Vista has matured or spend close to $1000 now. There's a mid option but that's for the other thread.

Since I only have one xp license and it appears I can't move OEM Vista temporarily to my P4 , the question I also have to decide is do I dual boot or save xp for my P4 1.6. Buying XP again would just add an extra cost so I'd like to avoid that.

Understanding Vista licenses, hardware and software compatibility, setup options and features are all important in the overall decision to be made. I'm really eager to get this over with but every time I read something new I'm glad I didn't rush into things.

[redwudz]

Just my opinion, but you might wait on Vista for maybe a few months. By then the SP1 should be out and some 'problems' may be corrected. I have other computers running XP, so I don't have to depend on the OS. With that said, I do like it better than XP.

Software issues have been very minor. Considering that older programs like VD Mod and Shrink run fine, I can't complain. Hardware issues are almost entirely from older cards or devices where the manufacturer hasn't or won't write new device drivers or software. And there is likely some hardware that can't be made compatible. But I would rarely run old hardware with a newer computer. This same issue occurred when XP was introduced.

Vista is a resource hog. No doubt about it. As was XP compared to W98 or even W2000. But I like those 'extra' features, like Aero and others. What I wouldn't do is try to run Vista on one of my older computers, like a Socket A 1800+ with a AGP video card and PC3200 memory. It will run, but not the way it should. Even upgrading my DDR2 RAM to 2GB made a marked improvement in Vista's performance.

For entry level into Vista, I would consider a micro ATX MB with audio and video on board, along with 1394A and lots of USB ports, 2GB DDR2-800 RAM. Most of the newer micro ATX MBs do fairly well at Vista. I put in a PCI-E video card (Nvidia 7300GS) in one and I got about 1 point more on the Vista performance score. Hardly worth it. And no discernible difference except a demo game played better. But I'm not a gamer. Apparently to get a '5' score for graphics, you need a ~$300 card. Not for me. The combination of DDR-2 RAM, PCI-E bus, SATA II HDs, and a CPU running near 3GHz seems to be what Vista likes. BTW. all my other Vista 'scores' for memory, hard drive speed and CPU speed were between 5 and 6. On board video was about 3.

[JohnnyMalaria]

For entry level into Vista...

Don't forget to also factor in which version of Vista. I've seen some poor souls who were fooled into buying "bargain PCs" only to end up with Home Basic. Home Premium is the minimum. Ultimate is, well, the name says it. And if you are building your own, you want the best, right?!!

[gll99]

For entry level into Vista...

Don't forget to also factor in which version of Vista. I've seen some poor souls who were fooled into buying "bargain PCs" only to end up with Home Basic. Home Premium is the minimum. Ultimate is, well, the name says it. And if you are building your own, you want the best, right?!!

The oem Home Premium version is the one that came installed with a full pc but it's built into the price. One vendor offers it for purchase with a system not pre-installed for $99. He claims it's normally valued at $149 or $169 which is strange if it oem only sells with hardware how can it have a special price. I might be able to get it if I buy enough parts like mobo, cpu and ram from him but I'd have to see if this deal on the os is built-in to the component prices he charges or if he will match the best price I can get on the hardware from another local vendor who doesn't have this "special"..

[JohnnyMalaria]

Premium's fine.

See http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/editions/choose.mspx for feature comparisons.

What Ultimate has that Premium doesn't:

Windows Complete PC Backup and Restore
Windows Fax and Scan
Remote Desktop Connection
Windows BitLocker Drive Encryption

I make no judgement on the usefulness or otherwise of these.

Look at Home Basic - Oh dear!

[TBoneit]

If you are thinking of Vista make sure the motherboard comes with a Driver Disc. I installed it on a Asrock. No Vista drivers for that current selling model from Asrock. Installing on a Asus that had a drivers disc. What a difference.

[redwudz]

One thing I noticed with Vista is that the drivers that come with it seem very good. On my last install, the only one I added from the MB driver disc was the video card driver, and I probably didn't need that. Vista had supplied the LAN, audio and motherboard drivers already when I checked in 'Device Manager' to see what I needed to add. Basically, I didn't need to add anything. That might be the big advantage of having a Vista compliant motherboard.

JohnnyMalaria mentioned 'Bargain PC's'. That got me to thinking..... Didn't Vista come out in a 'Economy' version of the OS for third world countries? Or am I imagining that.? I was trying to think what a stripped down version of Vista Home would be like.

[stiltman]

No that was XP...just above the embedded version

[DereX888]

I don't want to crosspost on myself but in another thread I'm looking to upgrade my computer so I'm asking about mobos and cpus.

https://forum.videohelp.com/topic336144.html

I'll either go cheap and no Vista or if if I spend more dollars on the hardware I might as well spring for Vista if I get a deal at the same time. All my questions are interrelated because similarly to when I moved from Win98se to XP I lost one piece of hardware and a few favorite programs so I kept a dual boot just for those. Eventually found equal or better and moved on. The same thing may happen here also it's just a matter of whether I take the plunge now or go cheap on the hardware now (max $300 - $400 all inclusive) and redo the whole thing in 2 years when Vista has matured or spend close to $1000 now. There's a mid option but that's for the other thread.

Since I only have one xp license and it appears I can't move OEM Vista temporarily to my P4 , the question I also have to decide is do I dual boot or save xp for my P4 1.6. Buying XP again would just add an extra cost so I'd like to avoid that.

Understanding Vista licenses, hardware and software compatibility, setup options and features are all important in the overall decision to be made. I'm really eager to get this over with but every time I read something new I'm glad I didn't rush into things.

If its not a machine to do video, go 'cheap' - use whatever linux flavor is most appaling to you... I guarantee you no headaches with any of that Microsoft crap

[JohnnyMalaria]

JohnnyMalaria mentioned 'Bargain PC's'. That got me to thinking..... Didn't Vista come out in a 'Economy' version of the OS for third world countries? Or am I imagining that.? I was trying to think what a stripped down version of Vista Home would be like.

Windows Vista Starter = "not available in developed technology markets" - a polite way of saying third world. "Choose us over Malboro and Coke!"

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/editions/starter/default.mspx

Seems like a re-badged linux to me :P

(tongue-in-cheek, of course)

[DereX888]

You can't just 'circumvent' them; theyre there in the OS'es code.
All you do with i.e. WGA cracks is you just 'squash' them, but youre not getting rid of it - its there until next patch or Service Pack at most will 'unsquash it' and you have to play with it again.
Even though I have legitimate XP, I used activation crack too when I played with XP, of course Its none of Msoft business what Im doing on *MY* computer, obviously. Sue me for having my legitimate Windows with crack securing my privacy LOL

LOL...Have you heard recently? MS is doing more than "unsquash", Vista will be "downgraded" if it doesn't have WGA running to detect if it is a legit copy... some downgrade includes missing start button, task bar, black screen after 2 hours of usage, etc etc...

Wow talk about going anal on piracy... like pirated copies doesn't already have cracks to bypass most of those? I wonder who comes up with these ideas on how to stop/slow down piracy? Its obviously not the solution. I think the topic should be changed to "Which crappy version of Vista do you use? Tell the truth, it will only be embarrassing for a life time or until you switch OS"

Well, as we all know Microsoft has the largest army of ~20,000 coders in the world, but fortunately they are not the brightest ones
I'm sure bunch of your friendly (web)neighbourhood geeks will come up with apropiate solution and cure for those headaches 8)

BTW the company I work for (has many offices around the world) issued internal info few mths ago that move to Windows Vista is not even considered We have mixture of Windows and Linux desktops, slowly moving towards linuxes from what I can tell (in past 3 years linux desktops boosted to almost 1/3 of all the machines and not one new Windows machine has been added; some of our european offices run in pure linux/unix environments only)

[JohnnyMalaria]

BTW the company I work for (has many offices around the world) issued internal info few mths ago that move to Windows Vista is not even considered

I'm not surprised. I also work for a huge global company (>100K employees in 40 countries). We used NT4 until XP SP1 - bypassing Win2K.

Today I spent a fun 5 hours partly on the phone to our support in India (using external line$$$$) and with my local tech support guy. We need something to talk about while he tries to resolve yet another problem with my wanky Dell Latitude D620 - pile of crap. I half-jokingly said that we would stay with XP SP2 until Windows 7 comes out. He agreed. He doubts even one Vista installation will ever happen.

I know Windows inside out and yet I get very frustrated at the "nothing's ever less than 5 clicks away!" with Vista whereas it's usually one or two with XP. I dread to think how the average employee would deal with it....I fail to understand why MS have buried so many things deep within Vista.

[DereX888]

BTW the company I work for (has many offices around the world) issued internal info few mths ago that move to Windows Vista is not even considered

I'm not surprised. I also work for a huge global company (>100K employees in 40 countries). We used NT4 until XP SP1 - bypassing Win2K.

Today I spent a fun 5 hours partly on the phone to our support in India (using external line$$$$) and with my local tech support guy. We need something to talk about while he tries to resolve yet another problem with my wanky Dell Latitude D620 - pile of crap. I half-jokingly said that we would stay with XP SP2 until Windows 7 comes out. He agreed. He doubts even one Vista installation will ever happen.

I know Windows inside out and yet I get very frustrated at the "nothing's ever less than 5 clicks away!" with Vista whereas it's usually one or two with XP. I dread to think how the average employee would deal with it....I fail to understand why MS have buried so many things deep within Vista.

Similarly here, my local office had bunch of NT4, Win2000 and few flavors of Linuxes when I started here my 'practice'
Since they replaced NT4s with XP SP1 (I think it was free or low-cost upgrade within the contract) but no one touched 2K boxes.
The largest 'battle' was on the server front though.
After problems with W2K3 servers in many offices they completely abandon them, even though they were paid and 'supported' for 5 years or such (talking about wasting taxpayers money LOL). All servers are now linux-based AFAIK.
But I admit I really like W2K3 server as a desktop. My own main desktop in the office is exactly that. Too bad thats the only Windows I never got for free from Microsoft

[Soopafresh]

I still laugh when I see the title of this post.

[DereX888]

I still laugh when I see the title of this post.

I laughed too.
But I realized that it actually is true, many people feel bad using i.e. older version of Windows than the latest on the market. Most of people are so brainwashed by advertising and the current 'buy more' deviation of our western culture, that they are indeed embarassed when they still use something that is not the 'latest' (version, model, fashion etc etc). It doesn't matter do they need 'latest' or they don't - they just gotta have it because it is advertised.
For past few generations its the television what shapes the minds of the people (or sheeple as they've become).
Unfortunately the television is just the propaganda delivery device, lately transformed to a social spending enforcement of the 'shopping culture'.
In general it is designed to work that way: "You dont use Vista?! Wow, are you that poor? Can't afford latest PC?" and you know, being 'poor' is a shameful status (God obviously doesn't love you since youre poor ) (replace words Vista and PC with whatever else is being promoted by corporations)

My own Parents were embarassed when I set their computers once with Windows 2000 instead of XP (because all their sheeple friends had XP...). I had to lie and disguise their W2Ks as XP so they would feel better Its sad but true. Sheeple generation...

[JohnnyMalaria]

And that's why I have a 20yr old car and live in a 200yr old house! Plus a 19yr old cat until not so long ago.

[DereX888]

And that's why I have a 20yr old car and live in a 200yr old house! Plus a 19yr old cat until not so long ago.

I prefer 19yr old girls instead



Im sorry about your cat. I know how u feel. I lost dog once too. Its damn terrible that our pets can't live as long as we do :/

[gll99]

I added the last part of the title to draw out comments. I was hoping for input from the average Joe not just the guy who buys only the Cadillac of all Vistas. Even if you have Vista home basic I'd like to know how you like it and how you use it. Since this is in many ways, a technical forum, some might be shy to comment unless they have the top business version but I'm really after comments from anyone who uses it and their experience with it.

Even those who don't use it have reasons and it's good to hear what those are. It's always a learning experience to hear the pros and cons about a product and it's various flavors.

[JohnnyMalaria]

Even if you have Vista home basic I'd like to know how you like it and how you use it.

I have a rather complex setup because I develop software. My main system has a number of versions of Windows installed on it:

XP MCE 2003 - that's how it came from Gateway. Use it for every day stuff (email, office etc)
XP Pro SP2 - for development until I moved to Vista
XP Pro SP2 (Dutch) - I need a non-English version to test for localization issues
XP Pro x64 - for fun really and to test my software on a 64-bit platform

Now the bit you want to hear:

Vista Ultimate (32-bit) - I use this primarily for the software development. I want to ensure my software works on XP and Vista, so it makes most sense to test it on Vista as I go along

Vista Ultimate (64-bit) - I was going to get Vista Logo Certified and you have to test on both 32- and 64-bit. But I've abandoned it because I don't agree with some of the requirements (they actually lessen the user experience).

I also have Vista Home Premium (32-bit) as a virtual machine.

Because I sit at my Vista while developing, I end up using it for other stuff - surfing, checking email, posting to video forums(!). Frankly, I find Vista a pain in the bottom. Things that were simple in XP are complicated and not easy to remember in Vista. Silly things like checking network connection settings to get the IP address. It's easier to go to the command prompt and do ipconfig. The network status window that is one right-click on XP is about 5 layers of various dialogs on Vista. And so it goes throughout the OS.

I find it a shame because some things I do like. I prefer the appearance especially in my development software - the color scheme isn't as harsh so it's less wearing on the eyes.

All in all, the only real reason I use Vista is so that anyone using my software on Vista won't run into problems that I have no idea about! Along the way, I have had to overcome some serious hurdles due to the way Vista does certain things differently - like audio and networking. Consequently, I have built Vista-awareness into my software to behave "correctly".

As a side note, my wife's company finally gave her a laptop (she's been using one of my older Thinkpads for their business Well, it's Dell and is preinstalled with Vista

She hasn't used it (she got it two months ago) and some of her business-critical application won't work. I've installed Virtual PC and created an XP machine but the mouse is erratic, so it's unusable. I tried to install XP on a separate partition but it complains of not detecting a hard drive - it's SATA. So I slipstreamed all the mobo drivers into a new installation CD - no good. I spoke to Dell today and I have to talk to someone else about getting the Dell XP Recovery CDs....

What an f-ing nightmare. So I'm not happy with Vista right now!

[gll99]

Based on what you guys have said I feel comfortable with getting Vista Home Premium (32-bit) since most of what I do is related to programs featured on this site.

Whether I get it now or later is another matter but at least now I know which version is best for me.

Thanks