Microsoft Vista
 

Now Microsoft Vista has been released for some time is anyone using it and if so what are your opinions.

Is it really as unstable as rumours suggest?

My father has purchased a new PC with Vista already installed and is having lots of fun. His ADSL modem (Thompson Speedtouch 300) provided by his ISP continuously fails to be recognised even though I have found and installed Vista drivers.

That frustrated he has asked me to install XP on the new machine to 'get his computer back'

Apart from Internet connection problems Vista seems alright albeit an update to XP.

The PC I just bought recently came pre-installed with Vista. I have to say, I've not had any show stoppers. It all just worked, no hassle. Had a bit of a learning curve figuring out how to get around and do things, but no technical issues as such. The drivers for my Gfx card have a minor bug in that the cooling fan runs at a constant 40% speed, causing a constant whine, but it's not a major issue.


I've had to make sure I've updated applications such as Nero, to the latest version, these accessory type apps are invariably a free update, and I've had to install a variety of "fix" patches. As long as you do your reasearch, find out the problems with the applications you use, find out the fixes - everyone else has been there, done that, you shouldn't fall into the trap - and apply the fix every one else has learned that worked, then your transition should be relatively painless.

Networking old and new PCs together was a breeze with Vista, it just worked, no hassle at all, even got the priter networked without any issues.

Duncan

If its a USB device i would bin it they use about 80% of your CPU power and this is not good, get a Wired Router i'm not into Wireless, the Netgear DG834 is very good for the price.

Double Firewall using Stateful Packet Inspection (SPI) and Intrusion Control features Denial of Service protection from hacker attacks, while VPN (Virtual Private Network) pass-through permits secure access to your office or corporate network.

Link for more info.
Netgear

Jim

Well I got my fathers PC back by installing XP, all happy now.

Mega mega mega mega mega slow. Clearly worse performance than the unlovely ME had, worst new Windows version since 3.0. Avoid at all costs.

Thats why when i got my laptop replaced i was a big pain in the rear to get a laptop with XP not with vista. And so i could run Capute NX as i seem to remember reading somewhere it was not compatible.

i wouldnt even bother with vista untill service pack 1 is out, as it stands it is very slow with very annoying bugs on it, tbh feels like the xp launch all over again

I work in IT and have been running a vista HD in my laptop (along with a XP one used for work) since day one. As I build, install, support, train, develop etc, etc, I keep getting asked my view on Vista.

There are some things it does well, but it is very hungry for resources and even though I have a decent spec laptop with 2Gb Ram, it will not crop images in CS3, or do other image manipulation tasks. It is crap with USB devices, continually asking for device drivers.

Would I recommend it? NO

I use my XP disk or home PC with XP on if I have to do any 'real' work.

Vista and photoshop have some major hostile issues. It seems they are still looking eye to eye and no one has blinked yet. So wonder which one is going to come with a functional remedy. Till then, photogrph users of PS, void vista if you don't know how to run double operating system as Derek is wisely doing from day one.

There are two versions of vista in the shops, Home Vista Standard and Home Vista Premium. I use the premium and have had neither problems with USB devices nor any network problems. I've had some problems with installing Adobe Photo Elements 5.0 and have had to upgrade to version 6.0. Vista Premium is a little slower than XP because of all the security aspects but you can manually shut them down and then your computer will work every bit as good with VP as it did with XP. Rob

I've been using Vista Ultimate on my main PC since April, works perfect with Lightroom & CS2.

I had one problem, that being that my Linksys wireless router would take anything up to 45min to connect, replacing this with a newer model solved the problem (no driver updates where available from Linksys).

I find Lightroom to be rather sluggish on my XP-Pro PC, but it's super quick on the Vista machine.

How much RAM is on the Vista machine compared to the XP one, what CPU does the Vista machine have installed compared to the XP one. How big is the hard drive, what graphics card etc, etc. I've yet to see any Vista machine run anything faster than XP with the same components installed!

nirofo.

Not only I am fully agree with nirofo but also would claim that, the power (RAM) hunger vista, will actually run PS slower under same exact soft and hardware criteria.

I find little or no difference between the two systems when running CS2, but a major difference with Lightroom which was very sluggish on XP, especially when sending an image from Lightroom to CS.

There is obviously a difference in specs of the two PCs as I only built the Vista pc late March, with the XP pc being approx 3 years old.

XP. Athlon 2400 + 2gb ram. h/drive 2 x 300Gb + 2 x 300gb Sata drives Graphics card Sapphire Radeon X1650 PRO 256MB GDDR3 VGA TVO DVI-I AGP Graphics Card.

Vista. AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800 + (2.5GHz) Socket AM2 (2x512KB) Cache. XFX GeForce 6200 PCI Express graphics card. The 4 h/drives from the XP pc.
Memory 4 x 1 gb. I realise that the 32 bit operating system does not recognise 4 gb, but I find that the pc runs far better with 4gb than either 2 x 1gb (dual configuration) or 3 gb