Windows Vista?

[Lucozade_Lil]

Can you still play games that were made before vista was made available (they require XP)?? Also, what the the benefits of windows Vista for someone who is mainly going to do work, surf the net and play games on there computer? - is windows XP the better option?

[fo3nix]

No benefits at all, except the newer version of directX on Vista, that will be important for the very latest games. Otherwise, get XP.

[vehelpfulguy]

Vista has been a disaster for Microsoft and it will take them a year to sort it out.

If you can, get a PC or laptop with XP on it.

It you are already on XP stay on it.

[rojash]

What they said, with bells on...

[ACtheTROLL]

This is all a matter of opinion ... and I think it's plain where these guys stand
There are advantages also ... but Microsoft stated from the beginning that they intended to create a new environment.... and it's still early days yet

The main obstacles are system and low level utilities which won't work because of the different folder structures

A lot of the problems ppl experience are home grown ... a simple download of the compatibility tool could have saved so many people grief ... instead they installed Vista then added their favourite firewall, vurus and adware scanneds ... without checking .... only norton 360 and AVG were vista compatible (zone alarm still isn't)

It happened when dos was replaced by windows ... and when 98se dropped 8 bit support.
Microsoft should have helped developers more ... so they are not blameless either

The answer to your question is maybe ... some will some won't. I'd wait a couple of months ... but microsoft are set to revoke all new licensing for XP at the end of the year .... support will go 12-18 months after that

and all new proggies will support vista ....

[rojash]

But specifically, in answer to the question "what are the benefits?", the short answer is "Currently - none whatsoever".

[ryepie]

I disagree that there are no benefits to upgrading to Vista. Especially from a security point of view. As Lucozade says, they surf the net, and IE7 in Vista provides greater security than IE7 on XP, as it integrates with Vista's UAC. And UAC in itself is great if you have kids that are going to be using the computer. I know too many people who ended up with some form of malware on their XP PC simply because a child (or even themselves) had yes clicked 'Yes' to one of those thousands of pop-ups on a webite without realising what they were doing. So yes there are benefits, regardless of what Rojash says.

[ACtheTROLL]

I suppose in some ways this is exaclly like the XP launch

printers and scanners were pretty badly hit ... because they tended to use 8 bit code for backwards compatibility.

Cannon and HP tech support were giving out discount vouchers as a replacement for your 2 month old printer was the only solution ... others gave nothing.

Then too ... many of the old favourite games stopped working ... doom etc could only be run after someone wrote an emulator.

The Advantages ... well it's true that at the moment there aren'y many ....
but the hype is playing up the downside ... I have a test machine that has been running vista almost since the first beta ... and it truly isn't that bad - in fact some things are actually better the built in tools are adequate for home users ...
the media centre is probably the best front end round - security is vastly improved.
and developers have now been convinced that this is what there is.

And new apps are now increasing steadily.

I'm interested ... are any of the other commentors actually running Vista?

and if so did they run the compatibility tool?
Microsoft warned there would be compatibility issues

I have no vested interest in Microsoft but I've been in this industry since dos3.2 (anyone remember gem?)

and every time a new OS comes (despite regarding themselves as tekkies) people cling to what they know
(the command line is still my first call)

windows 3 wouldn't work on 8088 and 286 machines at all ....
95 needed an incredible amount of RAM (compared to 3)when it came out (in those days I was in software and 32Mb cost me more than the machine it was fitted to �980.00)

XP was very different when it came out ... ppl all said that 98 did everything they needed - remember how soon sp1 followed the launch?

Vista is

[fo3nix]

UAC is just some add-on rubbish. They should implement a *nix-like system like everyone else uses and be done with it. It works well.

As for Vista in general -- another major gripe of mine and many others is the whole DRM issue.

As for all the talk about stuff not working properly etc., I agree with ACtheTROLL

[rojash]

ACtheTROLL says:

"are any of the other commentors actually running Vista? "
Yes, I and the other techs in my company have all installed and run it.

"and if so did they run the compatibility tool? "
Oddly enough, yes. In fact some of the machines were built specifically for Vista.


"but I've been in this industry since dos3.2 (anyone remember gem?) "
I've been in this industry since the days when Microsoft was a producer of languages only - long before they bought QDOS (Quick and Dirty OS) from Seatle Computer, renamed it MsDOS and persuaded IBM to use it for the PC.

I've worked with proprietory operating systems, CP/M, MP/M Novell Netware, Unix, the original MS/IBM OS/2, IBM's OS/2 Warp, MsDOS all the way from the original, DRDOS, and all versions of Windows, so can hardly be accused of being a reactionary who simply rejects change on principle.

Anyone remember MsDOS 4? This was a similar disastrous release from MS, and just about everyone stayed with 3.2 until the release of MsDOS 5.

ryepie says:
"And UAC in itself is great if you have kids that are going to be using the computer. "
UAC just means one extra click to install malware - I can't see it preventing kids from still blindly clicking! And in terms of everyday use, it is such an intrusive waste of time, that most people turn it off - as have I.

As an MS dealer, we could make a lot more money by recommending that all our clients switch to Vista - the reason we don't is not that we don't want the money - it's that we want to keep our clients, and our integrity.

[ACtheTROLL]

c'mon rojash .... tell us what you realy think!

I sort of agree with most of what you say .... and what you're saying now is probably what you said with dos4, dos 6 windows 1 ..... etcetc

And you are right ..... it's a fact of life that people regard mac as 99% stable before it releases .... microsoft is 99% unstable when it releases .... but who is winning the race?

you can see it already .... many of the advisors here are already saying "ultimate is the best" - that should of course read the most epensive
... industry will then stroll in and adopt the (almost) finished article.

which is where most of the the other OSs you mention come in .... they either vanished without trace (PS/who?) or they have been round virtually since valves were new and will still be when the sun grows cold.

And stability is an important advantage ... to industry ...

Home users will get lots of re-build and fault finding experience, the ISPs will transfer millions of Gb of updates and patches, Intel/AMD will continue development and sell enough to fund the next generation of processors ..........

One last thing you said that I don't agree with
"most people turn it (UAC) off - as have I"
I hope you are wrong ... but I doubt it ... and that will be another source of revenue that won't dry up ...

As the punters "who knew best" queue outside the workshops (or hang onto the helpline phone) asking for their machines to be re-built.

If you work in the industry turning off UAC is fine (I'll leave it on long enough to be familiar with the 100000 things that trigger it and then will nix it myself).

But remember not everyone has your level of expertese (this site proves that) I meet them daily ... it's not that they are stupid ... they just excell in different areas

Remember the first time you sat in a car?......

[ryepie]

I don't know where vehelpfulguy and rojash get this notion of a 'disastrous release'. 40 million licenses sold in first 100 days, way more than XP did. But then again it seems like facts have no place in this discussion.

[rojash]

Ryepie, the fact that 40 million people were either stupid (or unlucky) enough to buy it (or have it forced on them when they purchased a new computer), doesn't make it a good product. It's disastrous in the sense that it offers little real benefit, is a nightmare to support, is full of bugs and is way overpriced.

[rojash]

Interesting quote form well-known analyst:

Given that the personal-computer market has nearly doubled since Windows XP launched, Windows Vista sales "probably should be more," said Michael Silver, vice president of research at Gartner, a technology research group. The analyst said 51 million PCs were sold to consumers worldwide in 2002. This year, the research group predicts 96 million consumers will buy a computer.

[ryepie]

Well here's a conclusion of another 'well known analyst':
http://www.winsupersite.com/reviews/winvista_0 8.asp

Your experience has obviously been bad; mine has been good, I can't ever imagine going back to XP, I'd miss too many features. If we start quoting 'analysts' from the press, internet or wherever else then I could just as easily come up with something to back my arguments, and you could find something for yours. Basically we could spend days doing it, so I that's it for me on this question I'm afraid :-)

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