Windows Vista

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Tom Hatfield
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Windows Vista

Post by Tom Hatfield »

I've been using it for about a half-hour, and I like it. Performance seems very good. So far I haven't had any compatibility problems. And the appearance is something to behold. I might end up making this my primary OS.
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beowuuf
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Post by beowuuf »

How does the appearance and effects compare to the Linux op system?
Tom Hatfield
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Post by Tom Hatfield »

Nothing beats the good ol' command prompt.

Seriously, are you talking about X-Window or pure Linux?

Gonna have to nix making it my primary though because services apparently can't be registered in the same manner as before, so I can't run my web current server under Vista. I do, however, really enjoy the fact that you can set a service to start delayed, giving other programs time to load, which some services required but never got in NT/XP (i.e., my web server software needs the network up and running before it can initialize).

The only real complaint I have regarding Vista is that it ships with IE7, which I would have preferred avoiding. I just recently got out of the habit of using Firefox because it conflicts with at least one of my applications, but IE7 conflicts with my web server (!!!), so it's a lose-lose for me. I'll have to look into IIS 7, which I understand ships with Vista. If that works out, hell, maybe I will upgrade.

P.S. The install size is a bit larger than twice XP (around 3.5 GB if I recall correctly), but it's still smaller than my page file.
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Gambit37
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Post by Gambit37 »

3.5GB??? For an OS? You gotta be effin kidding me!?
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beowuuf
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Gambit37
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Post by Gambit37 »

Yeah, all the nerdy devs here rave about Ubuntu. Still 2GB install though. Insane.
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beowuuf
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Post by beowuuf »

Given that it apes vista and yet runs on the wquivalent of my crappy laptop then I',m not knocking the download

Plus, it actually comes with all the apps too so you've got to take that into consideration I guess
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Post by Trantor »

I still have those magazines where people had a "gigantic" hard drive of 40 MB... And to think the best game ever created was like, what, 460 K? It's kind of sick how fast everything evolved and how much resources programs eat today.
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Post by linflas »

i tried Office Suite for Vista at work and they did something quite nice with menus and interface.
for the rest of the OS, it looks robust and intuitive : i've installed the Complete edition and after booting, i had a look at memory allocation : did nothing and Vista took about 500Mb... :roll:
i have a Vista Business DVD at home and i don't know if i must spend my time to install it..
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Gambit37
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Post by Gambit37 »

Well, I'm sure I'll upgrade to Vista in a few years when it's required for my work. Until then, I'm sticking to XP (and even that sucks big fat ass, but hey, the lesser of two evils right?)
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Post by Tom Hatfield »

Had a problem running 3ds max 9: it would crash every time I tried running it. I solved the problem by turning off the visual effects and enabling XP (SP2) compatibility mode. Then I tried running a game (Alien Shooter 2), and it froze during the second stage, apparently while trying to buffer an audio stream. So, I decided against Vista for now and went back to XP for my VS2005 OS.

(Yes, I keep VS2005 on a separate partition under a separate operating system. It's not because it's unstable or anything, but it conflicts with Visual Studio 6, which I still use for most of my programming. Also, putting it under a separate OS keeps all the extra services and run-time files away from my regular apps.)

Anyway, I figure I'll try Vista again in about a year when companies have upgraded their apss to support it. (3ds max 9 isn't supported at all under Vista, and the first service pack doesn't address any compatibility issues, which blows my mind.) By then I might even have more RAM and go with the 64-bit edition to take advantage of my CPU.

I did try IIS 7, and it worked like a charm after I figured out how to route ports through Windows' embedded firewall. So, at least I have a fallback in case my server software hasn't been updated by then.
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Post by cowsmanaut »

well, it would appear that even those working on vista hate it. That's the general idea I'm getting.

In about 6 years, it should be fast enough on our 16gb ram, 6bit dual quadcore CPUs, on a nice 10 terrabyte harddrive..
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Post by MitchB1990 »

My friends got Vista Ultimate Edition. I can fully say that the look and feel of the OS is kick ass, but its eats your RAM. It also has so many, oh so many, compatibility issues. I'm gonna wait at least a year until I buy this.
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Post by Lunever »

Even when I'll have a newer machine someday I'll be the last person on earth who'd run Vista. I'll probably stick to XP until there's no one left compatible with me anymore. It's simply a matter of pronciples - an OS should OPERATE the SYSTEM, not waste its resources on friggin eye-candy and lots of other stuff I don't need.
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Tom Hatfield
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Post by Tom Hatfield »

I completely agree with you, but I do like eye candy, and I don't think there's any reason you can't make something look as good as it runs, but memory and CPU time are an issue, and it's not like OS developers are the same people who make performance demos written in pure x86 ASM. WinXP runs much faster than Win2000, but Vista is not faster than XP (though the GUI does feel more responsive).

Actually, my biggest gripe with Microsoft is the little details that they somehow failed to notice after . . . how many rewrites of Windows? At least seven, maybe eight. For example, when you try to move a locked file, Windows will copy the entire thing and then at the last second tell you the file cannot be moved, and it'll delete everything it just copied. Solution: it should copy the file and tell you the original couldn't be deleted. Better yet, it should check the file's lock status when you issue the move command and ask if you'd rather copy it or cancel the action.

Things like that permeate Windows — why can I choose "Yes," "No," and "No to all" in the overwrite dialog but not "Yes to all?" — and it really gets on my nerves. Microsoft concentrates so hard on backward compatibility (though they seem to have thrown in the towel on Vista, from what I've heard and seen) that they neglect details, and it's the details that make or break your software. I do like Vista from my first impression; I do not like the system requirements, and I do not like having to wait for third-party software companies to release compatibility patches.

My biggest gripe with Vista in particular is how they changed the entire interface. It sort of looks basically like Windows, but everything is now user-centric — your Documents folder is basically the system's root directory. You can access all files through the Computer shortcut — they took off the "My," which is more confusing than you'd think — but it isn't available in most dialog boxes, and there is no "parent directory" button. You can only use back and forward.

Even after I start using Vista regularly, it's going to be a long time before I can consider myself a power user. It took me years to get where I am with XP. Incidentally, that is exactly the reason I have not switched to VS2005 yet. I'm still trying to convince myself it's the right thing to do, even though I hate .NET with all my heart . . . except for generics and CodeDOM. Those in fact are the best things to happen to programming since solid state. But I digress.

It's kind of funny, but in a couple years we'll be treating WinXP like we treat Win98 and DOS today: it's the old, deprecated, no longer supported OS we use for playing old games and running old apps. Eventually we'll be running XPBox under Vista SP5 to play Far Cry and Quake 4. Times they are a-changin'.
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Gambit37
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Post by Gambit37 »

Thanks for th heads up Tom. Good to get a perspective from someone actively using it and the niggles you've mentioned (would) annoy me too.

Rather concerned about this bit: "and there is no "parent directory" button. You can only use back and forward. " What the? I'm assuming there is still some version of Windows Explorer that I can use in detail view like in XP?
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Post by beowuuf »

Makes it sound much more like a web browser - i guess you need to delete part of the address to do a quick jump upwards!
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Post by linflas »

there's no more 'parent directory' button but the address has small arrows between directories and you can click on them to navigate..
that looked simple and smart to me, as it was the same in SGI Irix explorer.
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