Anyone getting VISTA

Poppycat

No interest in Vista had used it a few times I find it was too resource hungry and most it is wasnt necessary, I been using PC's since late 1991 and have always used latest OS, but this time I havent moved on from XP.

You can have some of the look and feel of Vista and disable the hungry aero with the additional addons with windows transformation pack, it has aero, the sidebar and more and can disable various options.

http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/OS-Enhancements/Vista-Transformation-Pack.shtml

wolfman

energy80s wrote:

Oddly enough, I'd rather have my PROGRAMS put my PC to good use rather than any fancy Operating System draining its resources.

That's just it, if you look at benchmarks between Vista and XP running typical applications and games, there's little difference. And unless it's a very intense application (like video encoding, calculations, rendering etc... games) then you're unlikely to notice a difference.

Obviously you need a pc capable of handling Vista. I typically was only using around 20-25% of available memory, and my cpu usage was virtually non existent with XP (Athlon64 3500+, 1gb RAM). In such a case Vista is a more than feasible upgrade (even though I probably won't for a while...Linux user).

Also worth noting, Vista uses Aero which transfers load onto the GPU, and reduces load on the CPU. So it's finally putting to use the 3D graphics cards most people have in their machines, and spreading the load.

debtworrier

I wouldn't worry about it. Friends of mine are still running Win98 happily.

Most likely what will happen is that the 'normal expectations' for a computer will get nudged steadily upwards so you'll find your current machine less able to cope. At which point you can either buy a new machine (and whatever the current fashionable operating system is will undoubtedly be included as part of the price) or switch to Linux, which you can currently buy for under a tenner.

debtworrier

Oh dear. My learning experience was Betamax. Boy do I feel old!

superscaper

debtworrier wrote:

switch to Linux, which you can currently buy for under a tenner.

or even for free!!! Of course vista will have a lot to live up to, xp has been the longest on the shelf OS microsoft has ever had. I think it's still a wait and see, it's still far too early to completely judge the os. When it becomes nearer the majority OS then I think we'll be in a better position to judge how good it is for the average joe compared to xp.

debtworrier

energy80s wrote:

What's the point in that? The whole idea of more power in a PC is to speed up existing processes, not to be able to run additional bloatware and end up with a slower machine than you started with.

One step forward and two steps back.

yeah - the first thing I did on being lumbered with XP when I bought my last laptop was to turn off all the flashy, memory and cycle-hogging display & design stuff. I want my apps to get the benefit of my decent hardware, not have it all soaked up by the operating system. (Funny how OS now means 'Old Style' to me - Guess I've been hanging around here too long. )

Jem8472

I would never go near unpatched versions of software for a long time. at least untill service pack 2. Also as its microsoft and we know what they are like that might even be too soon :-)

Apparently there is a story in the times say that *editthe BBCs* IT department installed it. Microsoft says it should take 1 hour. It took them 1 day!!!!! and that actually people who know what they are doing.
Dont get sucked into the hype of geekycorps latest bugpack!!!

Stick with xp or whatever you have untill we can see if vista will sink or swim.

energy80s

Not sure of the Beeb's IT Dept. but I was watching Sky News the other night and they were trying to upgrade Martin Stamford's home PC from XP to Vista and after 2.5 hours they still couldn't get it to work! Basically they were advising viewers to forget about upgrading and either do a fresh install, or buy a new PC with Vista already loaded on it.

I suppose a lot depends on what you use a computer for. I do a lot of video editing, audio editing and production work and Windows 2000 is excellent for all of that (although some new editing packages won't run on anything other than XP - hence I dual boot) but my most advanced machine is a 2.6GHz Dell with 512Megs of RAM and a 128Meg ATI Card. This is no problem for anything I want to do, but I wouldn't like to try and run Vista on this and then expect it to perform properly.

If you are just into office apps and internet use an old Pentium 3 would do. My God, I used to edit audio on a 386 with 4 Megs of RAM and a 25 MHz processor!!!!

Jem8472

lol the gold old days of MHz!!!

We still have a 286 laptop in the garage. Thats a bit of a beast to carry about. I do miss using DOS sometimes. BTW I am only 23 :-P

moonrakerz

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6320865.stm

The first of many ??????