Do you have problems with Vista?

[SolidRage]

Every day my computer restarting automaticaly after vista installation!!!
I have all latest updates installed....
My old WinXP was really better....

Do you have problems with Vista too? :(

[nonchalant]

No problems here. Im running Vista Home Premium 64-bit.

Have you tried turning off automatically restart under My Computer, properties, advanced system settings? Also, Control Panel, Administrative tools, Reliability and Performance Monitor can be a good pointer to problems. And of course there is the built in Memory Diagnostics Tool.

Personally I used to loathe Vista. That all changed with the 64-Bit version and a new (high end) PC. The 32-bit version on a low-mid end PC is a whole different ballgame however.

[gunslinger]

The only thing Vista has going for it right now is the fact that its new and therefor more secure by default. The best way I can describe Vista at this point is like a buggy pre SP1 windows xp with a bunch of clunky 3rd party apps. hanging off of it. As one tech friend of mine put it " the more I use Vista the more I find I can't do".

[nonchalant]

The only thing Vista has going for it right now is the fact that its new and therefor more secure by default.

I find it easier to use than XP also being easier to set up (eg RAID install is seamless) and it has more driver support than XP. I also like the inbuilt diagnostics tools. And of course the GUI is much nicer.

I recall also once looking at a customers PC that showed a connection between the PC and modem in 'network' but a X between the modem and internet. I clicked the X and Vista resolved the problem automatically. I was quite impressed.

[gunslinger]

As I have stated before unless you are a gammer and need DX10 your much better off sticking with XP. There is nothing that Vista can do that XP cannot and without being a resource hog while doing it. Don't believe XP is faster? Use Vista for a while like I did and then go back to XP. The difference in speed and responsiveness will shock you. My system is running a 2.4 ghz intel core 2 duo and 4 gigs of RAM, yet with vista installed my kids computer running xp on a 1.5 ghz p4 and 800mb RAM was faster, a lot faster.


"I find it easier to use than XP also being easier to set up (eg RAID install is seamless) and it has more driver support than XP. I also like the inbuilt diagnostics tools. And of course the GUI is much nicer."

For me and most of my customers its not easier to use because they can't find things now.
More driver support than XP? um.....me thinks not. Thats the biggest problem with Vista is lack of driver support.
As far as the GUI being nicer, its nothing you can't already do on xp with 3rd party apps. and is certainly no reason to give up stability.

[nonchalant]

For me and most of my customers its not easier to use because they can't find things now.
The transition from 98 to xp was the same. It took a bit of getting used to but thats hardly a reason not to use it. More driver support than XP? um.....me thinks not. Thats the biggest problem with Vista is lack of driver support. I disagree. Vista saves me a lot of time with its driver support after formatting customers pc's.
As far as the GUI being nicer, its nothing you can't already do on xp with 3rd party apps. and is certainly no reason to give up stability. Im referring to the aero look, icons etc. You have to admit it looks a lot nicer. In comparison XP looks dull and bland. And as far as stability goes Vista (for me) is a lot more stable than XP.

[gunslinger]

The transition from 98 to xp was the same. It took a bit of getting used to but thats hardly a reason not to use it. I disagree. Vista saves me a lot of time with its driver support after formatting customers pc's.
Im referring to the aero look, icons etc. You have to admit it looks a lot nicer.


As far as the transition from 98 to xp, i'll give you that one.
As for driver support: everything I have plugged into an xp machine in the past year or so has worked. Not so with vista.
As far as the aero interface looking nice, I agree, it does. What I said was the same interface can be had with windows xp and a few 3rd party apps such as windowblinds, icon packager, bricopacks from crystal xp and so on. I still say its not worth the instablity that vista brings with it.
Here is an example, this is my desktop.

http://i10.tinypic.com/6jqcshz.jpg

[nonchalant]

As for driver support: everything I have plugged into an xp machine in the past year or so has worked. Not so with vista.

The only issues Ive had with drivers and Vista is with regard to printer drivers. The first time I installed Vista on my PC my printer just installed automatically and worked. Then once after a format it just wouldnt install. However I may just need to revisit this issue. On other occassions however, Vista has actually identified problems with devices and offered usuable solutions (eg links to websites where drivers can be found for a particualr device) which I found quite handy. I guess it all comes down to personal experiences.

As I said, I used to loathe Vista and would recommend my customers go with XP, and I still do, unless they are running a high end system (which most of them arent). When I first used Vista I went back to XP several times as I went back to '98 from XP several times initially too, until the OS got through its teething issues. Admittedly, Vista was slower than XP for gaming so I compensated for that by adding 4GB of RAM and RAID0. Now its about the same performance as I got under Vista so Im happy. It would be faster again under XP but Im happy to trade off a few 3D mark points for the warm and fuzzy GUI and extra features Vista offers me. Theres no way now I'd personally go back to XP but thats not because its a bad OS. It just doesnt offer me anything I dont already have under Vista. I guess its 'horses for courses'.

[gunslinger]

Agreed, Its whatever you are after I guess. I'm a minimalist. The smaller a program is and the less system resources it uses the better I like it.(that goes for opperating systems also) Right now I'm gunning 4 gigs of RAM but i'm only using about 300 mb with 46 apps installed. And If I removed Crysis I'd only be using 5 gigs of hard drive space. It bothers me that Vista takes up so much more HD space and uses so much more RAM to do the same things XP can do. But its not just Vista vs. XP, I was a nero guy for years and proclaimed it to be the be all end all of burning software until version 7 came out and my nice little 30 mb program became 600mb and now over a gig in size and started to take over my system. Why have all that bloat on my system when I can do the same thing faster with less? Same for Quicktime vs. VLC player and adobe reader vs. foxit reader.

[nonchalant]

Yea but then Vista's superfetch memory management system is vastly different to the way XP manages memory. Vista 'learns' through use what programs to keep in RAM to increase speed. I set Vista's virtual memory manually and quite quickly got memory errors. Best let Vista manage it I figure. But see this is the thing, with Vista and 3rd party programs there getting bigger and more resource hungry in line with todays hardware IMO but with 4GB of RAM and multiple 250GB HDD's I dont see 1gb programs or large memory use as an issue.

[gunslinger]

Yea but then Vista's superfetch memory management system is vastly different to the way XP manages memory. Vista 'learns' through use what programs to keep in RAM to increase speed. I set Vista's virtual memory manually and quite quickly got memory errors. Best let Vista manage it I figure. But see this is the thing, with Vista and 3rd party programs there getting bigger and more resource hungry in line with todays hardware IMO but with 4GB of RAM and multiple 250GB HDD's I dont see 1gb programs or large memory use as an issue.

Exactly my point. If Vista offered a lot of useful new features and was as stable as XP it might be worth the trade off in system resources. But it does not, other than dx10 it can do nothing that xp can't already do.
Now we are reaching the point of diminishing returns. Microsoft has never done a good 64 bit OS. Xp 64 bit was buggy and having ran the vista 64 bit for a few months I can say it was a lot worse. And with far less programs that would work on it. Here is the problem, if you run a 32 bit OS your system will only see/use about 3.5 gigs of RAM max. So the idea that you just keep stuffing more RAM into your machine is IMO flawed.
The idea behind any new program or OS I think should be to be more efficient with less bloat and use less memory. Its the same with programs like Nero and Roxio. All I want to do is burn a CD or DVD, maybe an ISO now and then. On the kids computer I can burn anything I want with one freeware program taking up less than 4 megs of HD space. So why would I go out and spend $80-$100 on a 1-2 gig program that digs itself so deep into my registry its almost impossible to remove?
With Windows XP I can turn off useless services, get rid of all the garbage and still have a very stable OS do that with vista without a BSOD.
the garbage seems to be so integrated into the OS as to be impossible to remove.
I also have multiple 250GB HDDs but I want to use that space for my stuff, not have it taken up by useless OS features that I never use.

[nonchalant]

Well I dont find 64-bit Vista 'buggy'. Sure it has its moments occassionally but no more so than XP in my opinion.

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on this topic but its been an enjoyable discussion just the same. :)

[gunslinger]

Just a different experience with the same product I guess. You are right it has been an enjoyable discussion.

[nonchalant]

Just a different experience with the same product I guess.

Yea I agree. I used to loathe Vista because my experiences with it were bad. When I heard some good things about the 64-bit version I decided to try it and my experiences have been very good.

I also loathe Maxtor drives and Gigabyte mainboards as Ive seen so many die over the last couple of years its not funny. I used to have the same opinion of LG optical drives. Note 'used to'. Why? Because my experiences with these drives at one stage was bad. So are all these brands bad? Whos to say conclusively yes or no? What I do know is no-one will be able to convince me these brands are good until such time as I see they are good for myself.

As a final point. A techie friend of mine told me only a few years ago Maxtor drives in his opinion were very good. He has some 20+ years experience and in my opinion is very intelligent. So am I wrong in my opinion about these drives or is he wrong?

[gunslinger]

Exactly. Maybe after SP1 and a few issues get cleared up my stance on Vista will change. Also if I can get the hang of vlite so that I could remove all the bloat I might like it better. I'm running Vista now inside a virtual machine and have the RC of SP1 installed, all seems fine so far. I'll most likely give it a few more months and try it again on my main system. As I said before in theory its better,if microsoft can just get the bugs worked out and people fined more ways to tweak it, I may actually use it as my primary OS one day.

[nonchalant]

Yea SP1 is a must in my opinion. It includes a number of stability and performance patches that i found i had to have even before SP1 was released. Its funny. I recall only a few weeks ago having a debate with another forum user who claimed kaspersky av was better than avast which i was using at the time. I had been using avast for some time and had tried KAV only a few months before but then i had a major issue with a customers PC that avast couldnt fix. Anyway many hours later and after trying many removal tools i found an obscure post that claimed KAV could remove it. So i tried the AV and it removed it. Since i had tried KAV some months before the program had changed and the GUI was a lot friendlier. I ended up buying licenses for 3 PCs. So opinions change as do experiences.

[gunslinger]

Very true. I also agree about KAV, if you are going to pay for virus protection IMO its the best you can get. Right now i'm using AVG but I will most likely get KAV as soon as staples has another sweet rebate.

[nonchalant]

Yea well according to all the reviews its a close call between Nod32 and KAV as to which is the best but I dislike the Nod32 GUI. And KAV updates hourly (theres a funny video about this getting around on youtube).

But yea I bought a copy of KAV then decided I wanted another copy for a family member and my test machine so managed to get 2 copies of KIS (kaspersky internet security) for the price of one off their website which was a christmas special :)

[gunslinger]

Yeah, I have read good reviews of Nod32 and have actually tried it but I'm with you on the GUI. I think its funny how a company will come out with a really good program just to mess up the whole works with a crappy GUI.
I had a dispute about this with a well known software developer who makes some really good cleaning apps. I told him the programs he created were great but that I thought they would sell much better if given a decent GUI. He rejected the idea and kept the windows 95 interface.

[nonchalant]

Yea well check the Nod32 website. Its one of the ugliest sites Ive seen http://www.nod32.com.au/

[Jura]

The thread was originally meant for sharing a bit of Vista hardship. It's the Internet, just let it go. Removed some posts, so don't continue.

[nonchalant]

Nice cleanup Laharl ex :)

[jazz]

Well, i dunno what happened to the Vista vs. XP discussion, but i personally prefer XP myself but have to use Vista as i have to get myself very familiar to the interface and the OS to support my clients.

XP just feels so much faster, may not be so big of a difference in benchmarks, but the entire feel of the desktop is much faster. With Vista, it seems like i'm dragging a monstrocity all the time.

And regarding the GUI, i've had my xp look like vista.. have a look into the Vista Transformation Pack. You'd be hardpressed to visually notice any differences for that matter.

Oh, and btw.. i'm running a 3.2ghz Conroe with 4gb Ram with Raid-0, so my pc is no slouch either. :D

[gunslinger]

Exactly jazz, Xp does feel much faster than Vista to me also. As far as benchmarks go I'm not sure, what I can tell you is my startup and shutdown times.

Startup time: Vista 78 sec.
XP Pro 53 sec.

Shutdown time: Vista 46 sec.
XP Pro 10 sec.

This was done on the exact same system running two gigs of RAM and an e6600 core 2 duo, 2.4 ghz.