Topic: windahz vista

[KnowsNothing]

There's another Vista thread somewhere, but whatever.  THIS is now the official Vista thread.  And if anybody tells me to get a mac I'll cut their legs off- I'm not anti-mac, but that's not what this thread is about.  SO GO AWAY.

Alright, so every once in a while I clear my HDD and reinstall Windows.  Right now I'm using XP MCE, and at times I get quite frustrated with it.  Seeing as how I'm reinstalling my OS, I figured I should make the switch to Vista- so I tried it out and I liked what I saw.  It fixed a lot of the problems I was having and actually seemed to run faster in some areas (particularly with connecting to a network, and deleting large files), all while looking much nicer than XP.  I'm not really  ahardcore PC gamer, and the performance hits associated with Vista aren't a big deal to me- I run Oblivion at full now, so I figure I've got a lot of leg room.

ANYWAY, with Vista you basically have four options: Home Basic, Home Premium, Business, and Ultimate.  In essence, Home Basic sucks, Business is not for you, and Ultimate is expensive as hell.  Well, you can can actually buy the Ultimate OEM version for $200, which is relatively not bad, but still too much for something I don't really need.  Anyway, Home Premium is what I wanted, since it comes with the new interface and Media Center capabilites.

But still, Vista HP is pretty expensive.  So I searched around, and lo and behold I found this site.  They give discounts for students, and for a college student (which I am not, but my brother is, so I used his info) the Vista Home Premium upgrade is knocked down to $70.  That's a nice deal.  Only $10 more than Gears of War  Normally, Home Premium is $240, and the upgrade is $160.  I just saved $90, and I figured I'd share that with you guys.

Keep in mind, though, that this is the UPGRADE.  You can only install this under certain cirumstances (but if you meet those criteria, you keep all your files and programs installed).  There is a fairly simple workaround for this, and you CAN actually install this clean if you have the patience to install the OS twice, but MS is probably going to fix this soon.  So you'll be taking a gamble.  Anyway, here's the chart of upgrade paths for Vista- and since I assume most of you use  XP MCE or Home you can take advantage of this upgrade.

Anyway, just thought I'd share that with you.  You do have to prove you're a student, but most of you probably are, and those who aren't probably know someone who is.  Most people aren't ready to make the switch yet, but if you are you'll save a lot of cash this way.

So, uhh, that's it.  I now christen this the official Vista thread, so if you have any questions, post here and there is a slight change they will be answered.  

[ShyGuy]

reported for spam.

[Pale]

Has anyone run Vista on Boot Camp yet?

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

Considering moving to Windows Vista?

This is the ideal setup you should want

it's an iMac

[JonLeung]

Quote
Originally posted by: KnowsNothing
I now christen this the official Vista thread, so if you have any questions, post here and there is a slight change they will be answered.

If I get Vista, will I be able to hook up with Daisy?

[Mysticspike]

where did my other categories to post in go? i made some categories, like general, and nintendo desktop manager. where did they go? they were in the general chat section.

[KnowsNothing]

Quote
If I get Vista, will I be able to hook up with Daisy?

No, sorry, Daisy's just not interested.

Wow, my first post was kinda long.

[Shift Key]

Blah blah blah. I tell everyone who asks me that they should hold off for the short term due to the fact that this hasn't been in the wild for long (the claimed 5 million beta testers doesn't count when you have 900 million+ computers, let alone all the new vulnerabilities that will appear over the next few months) and the issues with new installations and upgrades - I never upgrade these days, I rather do a fresh install.

But seriously, there were security issues with Vista throughout the beta testing process, and some of those are still around. Combine that with new vulnerabilities that will be found by security experts and hackers alike now that it is available to everyone, and the cries of "100 Reasons to Upgrade" and 'The Wow Starts Now" tells me to stay the hell away. That, and Apple has become a serious target for malware developers now that its in the public eye.

I laughed at the first new exploit that can run arbitrary code through the Speech Command system of Vista and even harder at the workaround for the problem. This sums up why I'm staying away.

What was I talking about? Oh yeah, that's a sweet deal KN. There's a similar offer over here for Academic people (about $120 for an upgrade). I read somewhere that there is a massive loophole in the OEM versions of Vista that means you don't actually have to upgrade - something to the effect of installing a trial version of Vista, and then upgrading that. I can't find the source but it seemed very straightforward.

[KnowsNothing]

Yeah, you do something like that to install upgrades as full installs, or something..  Very easy, and a little disconcerting that they left that loophole in it....I might do that, but I'd basically be doing an upgrade of a clean XP install anyway so I might not...

Anyway, yeah, there are security issues, but I thought about it like this: I use windows XP, the most vulnerable OS just about ever.  I've survived this far by being smart; scanning for viruses and spyware, and not doing anything risky.  On XP it's really hard to be perfectly clean, but it's really easy to stay considerably healthy.  Vista is safer, so even though there are flaws, there are less of them, and I should be able to protect myself.

Getting a Mac isn't an option untill I buy something for college, and I've always loved Macbooks so I'll probably get one of those.  Ideally I'd run Linux- in fact I have a burned iso of ubuntu sitting in my room right now- but I decided against it even as a dual-boot because it's just not convienient.  There isn't enough support yet, plus there aren't any linux drivers for my usb internet adapter and the workaround is difficult and not reliable (I've tried).  No internet, no games, no thanks.  It's just much easier to use Windows.  I've always liked Open Office too, but the new Office 2007 is actually really nice, so there's just one more reason for me not to use Linux.

I waited until a few years in before I switched to XP, so normally I'm not quick to jump on a new OS bandwagon, but with a deal like that it was hard to resist.

[Shift Key]

Quote
. On XP it's really hard to be perfectly clean, but it's really easy to stay considerably healthy. Vista is safer, so even though there are flaws, there are less of them, and I should be able to protect myself.

THAT'S A BOLD FACED LIE, SIR!

How did you come to the conclusion that Vista is safer? Supposedly the OS was originally rewritten from scratch (that was their claim early on, and as the release came closer they removed a lot of new features in order to make deadlines), so if anything there should be a lot of uncertainty about the code, rather than Billy G's decree that its safest operating system around.

Its easy to say there are less flaws now, because there are less people using the OS. Give it time, problems will arise. Its target audience is 95% of the world's computers - that in itself is motivation enough.

Quote
Getting a Mac isn't an option untill I buy something for college, and I've always loved Macbooks so I'll probably get one of those. Ideally I'd run Linux- in fact I have a burned iso of ubuntu sitting in my room right now- but I decided against it even as a dual-boot because it's just not convienient. There isn't enough support yet, plus there aren't any linux drivers for my usb internet adapter and the workaround is difficult and not reliable (I've tried). No internet, no games, no thanks. It's just much easier to use Windows. I've always liked Open Office too, but the new Office 2007 is actually really nice, so there's just one more reason for me not to use Linux.

Yeah, device driver support is one of the big things holding back Linux. I had a similar problem to yours a while ago (WiFi would sometimes work and then just drop out - then i got the house wired for ethernet and ditched WiFi) and hopefully the announcement that the Linux kernel developers offer to develop device drivers for third party hardware like WiFi adapters helps with the problem.

Dual-booting is still a viable option. If you have two hard drives split one two partitions for the two operating systems. Use the second hard drive to store your files in FAT32 (which can be read and written to by most OSs) - NTFS write support is there but still being tested rigorously.

I'm technically still dual-booting for some Windows-only software like my MP3 player software and phone manager, but getting a stable, usable Linux system is surprisingly easy to do. There's usually some trouble that arise when you are installing - support for new hardware in particular - but once you get it set up, things are pretty easy to manage.
Most distributions of Linux will have a software management tool, and the good tools make things so easier than Windows or Mac in terms of security updates and installing new programs - there used to be a "dependency hell" situation that users would need to know which programs depended on which when it came to updates, producing a nightmare for complex programs like the kernel. These days you don't have to worry about that.

Ubuntu's a good start point for people interested in Linux - another distribution that I'd recommend is Fedora Core.

[KnowsNothing]

Quote
THAT'S A BOLD FACED LIE, SIR!

How did you come to the conclusion that Vista is safer? Supposedly the OS was originally rewritten from scratch (that was their claim early on, and as the release came closer they removed a lot of new features in order to make deadlines), so if anything there should be a lot of uncertainty about the code, rather than Billy G's decree that its safest operating system around.

Its easy to say there are less flaws now, because there are less people using the OS. Give it time, problems will arise. Its target audience is 95% of the world's computers - that in itself is motivation enough.

Alright, so maybe I have no idea if it's safer or not But I don't think you do either; I don' think anyone does.  Most reports say it's more stable though, and that's certainly a positive (from what I've read third party drivers aren't stored in the kernal anymore, which was a big cause for crashing in XP).  But I think what both of us said remains true- problems WILL come up, but I'm confident that I can keep my PC clean.  It's never been a big problem.

Furthermore, if anything were to happen, the system restore has been vastly improved, and now protects all files much more vigorously.  Plus, it's pretty easy to reinstall (installing is automated and considerably faster than in XP, and drivers can now be stored on a usb thumb drive).  With XP, installing was a long process, made worse by the fact that you had to remain vigilant because it would occasionally ask for input.  Plus, drivers had to be stored on floppy, and my computer doesn't even HAVE a floppy drive

So far, the gereral consensus is that Vista is good, but not enough to go out and upgrade.  It's too similar to XP.  That's a legitimate complaint; this is a whole new OS, and not a whole lot has changed.  But I think a lot of people interpret the "don't go and upgrade" verdict as entirely negative, and give MS a hard time (I never thought I'd be defending them ;____;).  Vista, from what I've read and experienced, is a good OS, just not as good as it should have been (ah well, there's always SP1 )  In any case, I agree that for just about everybody, upgrading is completely not worth it, but I also don't think it makes Vista a bad OS, just not a huge improvement.  I definitely would not have bought Vista at the normal price though, sinceTHAT'S a complete rip-off.

Another big complaint is the memory usage, which I admit is way too high.   First off, Aero is a video-card accelerated desktop, which is...well, sort of ridiculous, but even a low end card can handle that.  The biggest resource hog is RAM- the "minimum" is 512 MB, but that will get you nowhere. You really need a minimum of 1 GB, which can be a problem for some people.  While neither of those is really a problem for me, MS seriosuly needs to get its act together.  

As an aside, whether or not Vista is worth upgradng to, I think Office 2007 is a considerable improvment.  You may not need to rush out an buy it to replace 2003 (or whatever), but I applaud the developer for changing the traditional UI for something much more functional.  They actually did a good job =o

Oh yeah, I'm going to dual-boot into Linux....eventually.  I did that a while ago and eventually ditched it because I had no use for it, but support for linux is growing rapidly (plus I <3 open-source).  I have every intention of using Linux in the future (starting with Ubuntu), but as of right now it's just not practical.  Windows is my only option as my main OS.    

[Blue Plant]

Quote
Originally posted by: Shift Key

I read somewhere that there is a massive loophole in the OEM versions of Vista that means you don't actually have to upgrade - something to the effect of installing a trial version of Vista, and then upgrading that. I can't find the source but it seemed very straightforward.

Workaround Discovered For "Clean Install" With Vista Upgrade DVDs on DailyTech.  Humorous stuff!

As for myself, I'll be waiting as long as possible to upgrade.  I would like to build another computer sometime soon, with Vista as the OS, but for now I'm juggling waiting on bug fixes and price reductions/advances in components beforehand.

[KnowsNothing]

Yeah, that's where that was  Definitley going to use that- Vista's install takes like 20 minutes, and I can just go watch TV while it works.  XP install is like trudging through sewage.

[Blue Plant]

Oh yeah, I remember reading this one yesterday.  25 minutes to boot - Geek Squad warns of Vista first bootup times

"Please be patient while your computer starts for the first time. It may take up to 25 minutes, and your may see blank screens. Do not turn off your computer during this process. Doing so could cause major damage to your hard drive."

[Shift Key]

Quote
Originally posted by: KnowsNothing

Another big complaint is the memory usage, which I admit is way too high.   First off, Aero is a video-card accelerated desktop, which is...well, sort of ridiculous, but even a low end card can handle that.  The biggest resource hog is RAM- the "minimum" is 512 MB, but that will get you nowhere. You really need a minimum of 1 GB, which can be a problem for some people.  While neither of those is really a problem for me, MS seriosuly needs to get its act together.  

As an aside, whether or not Vista is worth upgradng to, I think Office 2007 is a considerable improvment.  You may not need to rush out an buy it to replace 2003 (or whatever), but I applaud the developer for changing the traditional UI for something much more functional.  They actually did a good job =o

Yeah, memory usage is terrible on Windows systems. I can't see that changing any time soon. The next system that I get will have 2GB of RAM (this one has 1GB and I'm not planning on using Vista on it).

I've played around with Office 2007, its certainly very different to past iterations. I was in a meeting last week playing around with the graphics you can create in Powerpoint, and I was surprised at the ease and detail that i could mess around with. It was a great distraction!

Quote
Oh yeah, I'm going to dual-boot into Linux....eventually.  I did that a while ago and eventually ditched it because I had no use for it, but support for linux is growing rapidly (plus I <3 open-source).  I have every intention of using Linux in the future (starting with Ubuntu), but as of right now it's just not practical.  Windows is my only option as my main OS.

Ubuntu's a great place to start. Give us some details about the USB wireless card and I'll see how easy it is to install for Ubuntu. I like challenges

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

Absolutely ridiculous.

I was watching 640x480 DivX movies on a machine with win98 and 32mb of RAM.  Basic principles of efficiency are no longer sacred.

[Nick DiMola]

Quote
Originally posted by: Professional 666
Absolutely ridiculous.

I was watching 640x480 DivX movies on a machine with win98 and 32mb of RAM.  Basic principles of efficiency are no longer sacred.

1 GB of RAM to run just the operating system is by no means ridiculous, you're just crazy Pro. I think that it should've taken 2 GB that way we could've had an even flashier, totally 3D interface. Think about that for usability. If you can run Vista, what else could you possibly want to run? Applications? YOU HAVE VISTA RUNNING, WHO CARES ABOUT THE APPS.

[Smash_Brother]

Get a Mac.

[KnowsNothing]

hur hur hur

*revs chainsaw*

Quote
YOU HAVE VISTA RUNNING, WHO CARES ABOUT THE APPS.

QUOTED FOR TRUTH!

Quote
Give us some details about the USB wireless card and I'll see how easy it is to install for Ubuntu. I like challenges

I'm not home this weekend so I'm not positive, but I think it's a netgear wg111 or something along those lines.  I know there's this prism54 project that's working on getting a ton of usb adapters to work, but I don't think it has support for this particular device yet.  Then there's something about ndiswrapper (it's been a while, so forgive me if i'm way off >_>), which I tried a while ago (on mandrake, maybe?  again, I don't remember ), but I never got that to work....

[MarioAllStar]

Quote
Originally posted by: Mr. Jack
1 GB of RAM to run just the operating system is by no means ridiculous, you're just crazy Pro. I think that it should've taken 2 GB that way we could've had an even flashier, totally 3D interface. Think about that for usability.

I think it is kind of unfortunate that while our computers increase in power, we continue to use more and more of that power to do things that took little power before--specifically, flasier interfaces. I will admit that screenshots of Windows Vista and Mac OS X look very nice with window shading and transparency, but in the end I think it is wasted power.

I don't really represent the majority of computer users, however. I would consider myself a minimalist when it comes to the UI. My window manager (Ion3) takes 33 vertical pixels (i.e., a total area of 1280x33 pixels on a 1280x1024 screen).

[KnowsNothing]

Quote
I think it is kind of unfortunate that while our computers increase in power, we continue to use more and more of that power to do things that took little power before--specifically, flasier interfaces. I will admit that screenshots of Windows Vista and Mac OS X look very nice with window shading and transparency, but in the end I think it is wasted power.

I both agree and disagree- it is indeed a strange relationship.  Our computers grow so it can handle more intense applications than previously, and as such the applications grow to take advantage of this added power.  If this relationship were completely in proportion we would experience healthy growth, but as it stands some things that should remain minimal to free up system resources are becoming bloated just because they can.  It's becoming lopsided and unbalanced, so as my computer gets more powerful, the applications become more bloated, and my PC's realtive power increases very little.

On the other hand, I have a powerful graphics card and 2 gigs of RAM that I'm basically only using for Oblivion and Half-Life 2.  I'm not really a power user; every once in a while I make use of that memory if I use a powerful utility like Premier or Photoshop, but most of the time I'm doings things that can be accomplished on much less.  I feel like I wasted my money, so I'd rather put that RAM to use and look at a sweet shiny UI

[Ceric]

Quote
Originally posted by: Professional 666
Considering moving to Windows Vista?

This is the ideal setup you should want

it's an iMac

Quote
From the article
...And it will run Windows better and faster than it will run Mac OS X, which is really a sad point.

Sad indeed if not a bit ironic.

[segagamer12]

I got fedora core 2 and I cant get my wifi adaptor to work either. I tested vista out at a friends house, it doesnt seam very worht it to me right now either.  

[Shift Key]

Quote
Originally posted by: segagamer12
I got fedora core 2 and I cant get my wifi adaptor to work either. I tested vista out at a friends house, it doesnt seam very worht it to me right now either.

Ahahahaha 2. They're up to Fedora Core 6 with a 7 release now in an alpha (pre-testing) stage of development. I'm sure there's better hardware support in the later versions.

Other than that, I'd try ndiswrapper. Sure, native hardware support would be nice, but if you have to jump through several hoops to get native support or one hoops to get emulated support then the value of native support is diminished greatly.

KN: If you're confident with the command line, there's a nice listing of what you need to enter to get your WiFi card installed here. If you can't get to that point drop me a line through the usual channels and I'll see if I can drag you to that point when you're ready for some enlightenment!

[Ceric]

Gates not happy about Mac Ads  I like to take him up on the offer on the bottom though.