Enlighten me on your true Windows Vista experience

[Tsmith]

Been putting off the move to Vista, at least till SP1 (final) is released. So do tell if your liking or disliking the OS. Which version are you running, 32 or 64 bit?

Does the 32 bit version take full advantage of 4 gigs of RAM or is it like WinXP and needs the PAE switch enabled?

Curious mind _ :confused:

[rklepper]

At this point I would not recommend anyone upgrade to Vista. Patience. If you are buying a new computer, opt for XP with the anytime upgrade.

[canon_fire]

/\ A good point. Vista wasn't kind to me when I purchased a new laptop preinstalled with it.
It now has Windows XP SP2, purrs right along. I'm waiting about a year or so to give Vista another chance.

[djeuch]

I had to XP machines... one was Windows XP Professional and the other Windows XP Media Center Edition - upgraded the first to Vista Ultimate and the second to Vista Home Premium.

Is it a big change? Not really, but there's some "fancy" GUI stuff which is kind of nice - but nothing I could not live without. However, I've made the switch, and find myself using some of the features and miss them when I use my work laptop which is XP.

Don't upgrade, though, if you don't have at least 2GB of RAM and a really good video card (if you want to run the new interface)

[GORDO]

Takes a while too get used to,for me any way.Lately I have issues trying to e-mail from corel and sending to my printer,Vista just closes it down.Im sure all will be ok later on but right now it gets a bit frustrating.GORDO

[cosworth]

2 upgrades to 32. One upgrade to 64.

All seamless. Excellent results. All on Dell laptops. Vista Ultimate.

One issue though and it wasn't Vista's fault - the new nVidia drivers and Colorvision's spyder2Pro didn't play nice. solved with a removal of the nVidia crap from the startup.

Backup are flawless. Restore points tested just fine. I bought a new HDD and backed up the entire disk to my external drive. Drive was up and running with my restored OS in under 35 minutes. Impressive.

I run SP1 on this machine and my wife's machine is just updates only. I have a hard drive with 64 on it but I don't see a need to migrate since laptop chipsets don't support more than 4gb of RAM.

Very happy with Vista.

[nontetheredbrain]

Afraid to have a Vista experience, went to Tiger. Desktop still XP. Still remember what Windows did to me with ME!.

[dusty_cane]

"Very happy with Vista."
I got the HP touchsmart with Vista Ultimate for Christmas, no problems here. I am very happy with it.

[cosworth]

You guys know about chicken little right? You have heard of cyclical hype cycles driven by human adaptive behaviour and internet hype?

Example:

http://www.globalprblogweek.com/images/2005/tmurphy_pr_hype_cycle.gif

We track this stuff all day long with emerging technologies and buying trends/sales cycles. I've seen perfectly good technologies destroyed by the hype cycle where the "trough of disillusionment" is purely hum an behaviour and not actually based in tangible facts or events.

Vista works fine for a LOT of people.

Case in point: Craig is a friend if mine. Looked at Mac OS. LOVES his music and his iPod. Seriously into indie rock. Uses XP at work. Looked at all OS options and chose Vista Home Premium. VERY happy. Zero issues. Likes that it's fresh looking but everything is where he expects it. This guy can sync his iPod and check email, that's about it. Non-technical.

Many people who berate it haven't used it more than a click or two in Best Buy...

http://www.gartner.com/pages/story.php.id.8795.s.8.jsp#1

[Gujustud]

Been using Vista 64x on my computer for close to a year now. My computer is slightly old, AMD opteron Dual 1.8 oc/d to 2.4 with upgraded HSF cooling. 4GB of ram, and 2GB of readyboost.

Runs like a charm, no problems. Have a bunch of different hardware/software and all of it works.

[Scott-LYP]

We have Vista 32-bit 2 GB RAM on 2 PCs no issues for about a year... running Photoshop CS2, CS3, Eye-one Display 2 calibration, Office 2007, NOD 32 antivirus. We have never looked back at this point... I still need to upgrade our Media Center from MCE 2005 to vista, just have not had the time...

[bcdoug]

vista ultimate 32 bit 2 gig dell here. i can't even run aero.

nothing but problems for me here. folder options never stick, icons move on their own, windows sidebar is the largest resource hog i've ever seen (and i was happy i could get great rss feeds for boat racing thru it)

i read someplace that vista's successor is already in the pipeline and could appear as early as 12-14 months from now. for sure it's being pushed up from it's roughly 2010-2011 release.

[cosworth]

Yes but you drive a Mustang.

[bcdoug]

you made me do it.

[rklepper]

Many people who berate it haven't used it more than a click or two in Best Buy...

http://www.gartner.com/pages/story.php.id.8795.s.8.jsp#1

And many have used it extensively. Also, I do not think that the basic operating system is flawed. I just think it was rushed out too soon.

[Moppie]

Yes but you drive a Mustang.


ROFLOL!
Long live the live axle. :lol::lol:




I'm a very happy Vista user, its the best OS I have used since DOS.

However, I do have a very new PC running it, one with plenty of grunt, and I don't have a printer, or anything that could cause driver issues.

Which is why I won't install it on my fathers PC. He has a TV card that caused enough problems getting XP drivers for.
But that is not vista, or MS's problem, that is the fault of the card manufacturer.



All the negative comments I have heard from people have come from those with an irrational fear of change, those in the IT industry who are to lazy to learn a new OS, or those with older PC's, and lots of peripherals, often from suppliers who do not care about releasing Vista drivers.


If you have a newer PC, have checked on drivers for all your extras, and your looking for a new and happy PC experience, then by all means give Vista a twirl.

[markubig]

Vista Ultimate 64-bit on a HP Laptop (Intel Core 2 Duo, 2.4GHz, 4GB RAM). Works great except for when I have to start it up . . . takes a year and a day to start this laptop. I usually just hibernate it and that takes a much shorter time to start back up. I wonder, though, if the slow start-up is due to Vista or that I only have a 5400rpm hard drive

[cosworth]

Your machine is a little slow for Ultimate 64, and the hard drive is a little slow.

Doug's machine is a 3 year old Dell3100. Aero will never run on it. His camera is a 300D - Canon won't support it.

If you want to run an OS on/with old hardware - Vista is not for you.

[shannyD]

honestly..... the only thing i dont like about it.. is that i cant remove cs3. it wont let me :( and i dont want to pay someone to take it off.

[cosworth]

Use the Adobe removal tool

http://www.adobe.com/support/contact/cs3clean.html

[bcdoug]

honestly..... the only thing i dont like about it.. is that i cant remove cs3. it wont let me :( and i dont want to pay someone to take it off.

use the linux admin's favourite command: format c: :D

[Jim7226]

My secretary has been using Vista for the past 6 or 7 months with no problems. Honestly, the only glitch has been some programs we were using previously required upgrades (which often meant new purchases). When I bought the computer from Dell last summer at the time Vista was the only option...then later due to demand they started offering XP as an option again on building the new systems. Just an FYI, when I spoke to a Dell sales rep about 5 weeks ago he told me that come Mar./Apr. '08 Dell no longer will be offering XP...only Vista. Therefore, if you are dead set on getting a new Dell computer running XP as shipped from the factory you might want to check this out further to be sure that it's true.

[theflyingkiwi]

At this point I would not recommend anyone upgrade to Vista. Patience. If you are buying a new computer, opt for XP with the anytime upgrade.

there is nothing wrong with vista. just because it resets file associations, folder views, remove side bar from starting up when windows starts, some programs don't work with it. turns on the dumb hand writing recognition for the wacom tablet and at times it has a mind of it's own doesn't mean there is anything wrong with it. :lol:

sure there are some bugs with the OS and if anyone had to buy a new computer with it on it, don't worry.

if you had to upgrade of course is a different story. the simple answer is don't!

[John_B]

Tsmith,
I tried it for 3 months and unloaded it and went back to XP. Vista offered really nothing that couldn't be done in XP.

XP used less memory, less hard drive space, ran much faster and network speeds were much faster, so how is that an improvement is what went through my head (and others).

[Tsmith]

Well I certainly appreciate all the feedback. At the moment I'm still quite undecided as I'll most likely wait and see what takes place with the SP1 fixes, as for improvements with users experience.

Question for Vista users: do you still have the option the setup the layout in Windows Classic?

[bcdoug]

Question for Vista users: do you still have the option the setup the layout in Windows Classic?


why would you want to use windows 3.11 again?

[cosworth]

Well I certainly appreciate all the feedback. At the moment I'm still quite undecided as I'll most likely wait and see what takes place with the SP1 fixes, as for improvements with users experience.

Question for Vista users: do you still have the option the setup the layout in Windows Classic?

You won't want to. The programs list has been updated. No more digging.

Many people chiding it here don't understand how the memory management works. If you install 4gb of RAM, why not USE IT? And when another program needs RAM, you swap priority. It's very dynamic and CS3 runs very fast with Vista now.

I'd love to spend $300 on RAM and have it sit there not being used. :rolleyes:

My Wacom tablet runs fine with it. There are a lot of people plugging hardware into Vista hoping they don't have to waste 7 minutes of their time getting a new driver. Please.

As I've said before, I was around for the OS X rollout. That was a nightmare compared to Vista. Nightmare. Nothing worked on it. You could ftp and use calculator.

People that don't like vista can just be stuck back with XP. I'll be happy using Vista. It does A LOT more than XP and if you don't know what it does.... well find out!

Backups are the biggest thing for me. I can migrate to new drives so easily now. The memory management is great. Speedboost works very well. It goes on.

[slimninj4]

If you get a new computer and it comes with it. fine. but it is not worth upgrading too.

[DStanic]

I've been avoiding Vista for a while due to the fact that XP runs very very well for me now. Hardly ever crashes. However, I'm thinking of going back into the PC repair industry and really should learn how to use it, and soon I want to get rid of my RAID setup so I might go ahead and put Vista on. Hope my FX5200 can keep up. :|

[Woolburr]

Vista sucks...I'm doing the betas on SP1 now...it is an improvement...but still worse than XP.

[CyberDyneSystems]

My experiences with Vista have been, shall we say,.. tiresome and time consuming.
I have no plans to adopt it .. ever.

[Maureen Souza]

My experiences with Vista have been, shall we say,.. tiresome and time consuming.
I have no plans to adopt it .. ever.

Since Vista won't support some of my equipment (Epson printer and a few programs I am not willing to give up) I am staying with windows xp.

[ACDCROCKS]

"I could Of swore I put these photos right here"... I got vista in March o7. My friends thought I was crazy for hating it. They hate it as well. I went back to XP, but now regret that becasue I was useto Vista lmao. Go Mac my friend .

[GaoLGT]

Vista was fine a while until it took tool much recourses to run. I bought my laptop with Vista Home premium. Core2Duo T7300 2.0ghz and 2gb ram with nvidia 8400gs graphic. Vista took 50-55% of ram to run at idle, while Xp pro only takes 30-35% of ram. This is with the same programs installed. I am happy that i did it, even though it took 3 days to find the right drivers. I am staying with XP for a long time.

[Bruce_B]

I never upgrade OS until I can no longer do what I need to with what I have. I just went to XP from 98 less than a year ago. The only reason I went to 98 from 95 was for the USB 2 support. If XP still does what you need, why upgrade?

Edit: Oh, and the only reason I went to XP from 98 was the large file support with the NTFS (video and what not).

[DStanic]

I still like Win2000.

I put it on a Pentium 2 to use as a printer server and it worked flawlessly for years. Something it up with the computer now, but I think it could be the fact that it only has 32mb of RAM! :lol:

[Bruce_B]

I still like Win2000.

I put it on a Pentium 2 to use as a printer server and it worked flawlessly for years. Something it up with the computer now, but I think it could be the fact that it only has 32mb of RAM! :lol:

2000 will run with 32mb of RAM? :lol:

[SlowBlink]

Vista Premium came with my Toshiba laptop pre installed so I gave it a go. Love it. It runs CS3 and my multimedia software twice as fast as XP and on this machine is just as stable.

[neil85]

VISTA from what ive used it & read about it is or can be a pretty dang good OS. you just have to know what you are doing.

for the 32bit system you are better off to have 2gb of memory (i beleive the max it can see is 4gb where the 64bit is 8gb?)

many people complain about it asking several times if you are really sure you want to delete something not knowing that you can go in and disable that function.


actually if you read up on it, i beleive this summer windows is going to stop selling XP as a factory OS option, all systems will be vista but XP can still be bought and then loaded.


do some research on the net and you can find some other tweaks that you can do to the system to make it perform better. changing a few settings, disabling a couple things and it can put right along like XP.

[neil85]

Vista was fine a while until it took tool much recourses to run. I bought my laptop with Vista Home premium. Core2Duo T7300 2.0ghz and 2gb ram with nvidia 8400gs graphic. Vista took 50-55% of ram to run at idle, while Xp pro only takes 30-35% of ram. This is with the same programs installed. I am happy that i did it, even though it took 3 days to find the right drivers. I am staying with XP for a long time.


if you feel comfortable going in and adjusting certain settings you can find on the net what to change and how.

i know a few computer guys that have done this on their own and their vista machines run around 25% with 2gb

[cosworth]

Vista was fine a while until it took tool much recourses to run. I bought my laptop with Vista Home premium. Core2Duo T7300 2.0ghz and 2gb ram with nvidia 8400gs graphic. Vista took 50-55% of ram to run at idle, while Xp pro only takes 30-35% of ram. This is with the same programs installed. I am happy that i did it, even though it took 3 days to find the right drivers. I am staying with XP for a long time.

Maybe you should look into how Vista uses memory. This is by design.

[theflyingkiwi]

just a quick link I found regarding how Vista handles RAM

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000688.html

I think it explains how vista memory works

[DozerLYP]

Vista 64 Ultimate here since February 07, and I have no problem at all. Loving it...

[Citizensmith]

Two Vista machines. A dell laptop with home premium 32, and a home build desktop with ultimate 64. No problem at all with the laptop. Couple of minor driver issues with some old software and a really old PCI USB hub. All easy to fix and I'd certainly do exactly the same again.

The desktop is my gaming rig and I have had no problems at all with gaming on it.

[Tom W]

I installed Vista on my newly built desktop. It has been running very smoothly, and it provides a nice graphic interface that I enjoy. But the program has a couple of quirks. That "user account control" feature is quite annoying, and I turned it off after a couple of days due to it's intrusiveness into ordinary housekeeping functions. Also, folders like "documents and settings" turn out to be "psuedo-folders" of some sort, that cannot be opened or viewed. My question is why even list them in Windows Explorer if they aren't real?

The other quirk I've run into has to do with other programs and their compatibility with Vista. Almost everything I've installed on my computer (office, Quicken, DPP, etc.) have installed correctly and without problem. But, my latest install, H&R Taxcut, required that I set up a separate user account as an administrator (even though I already am an administrator) in order to get through the entire setup program.

I'd say that it's quite stable, and I would hope that MS eventually irons out the little quirks. Maybe SP-1 when it comes out.

[Natural Imagez]

Vista Premium came with my Toshiba laptop pre installed so I gave it a go. Love it. It runs CS3 and my multimedia software twice as fast as XP and on this machine is just as stable.

i second that. my toshiba came with vista home premium on it. 2 gb ram. sure it uses more resources to run. thats what the resource is there for is to use it is it not. i haven't had one single problem. i have alot more problems at work with XP than i have ever had with vista. and the look and feel is refreshing and new to look at and navigate around.

[bcdoug]

saw this on slashdot today:

www.vlite.net

it strips down vista to just what you want. vista's footprint is 15 gb, compared to 1.5 for xp.

[Scott-LYP]

Vlite is nice if you are a techie and want to make a small image to play with on a system with low drive space. For anything else you will end up with too much lost functionality. Think of what a photographer typically uses in a day, will any of those functions require something that this type of install leaves out?

[danir.photography]

Been putting off the move to Vista, at least till SP1 (final) is released. So do tell if your liking or disliking the OS. Which version are you running, 32 or 64 bit?

Does the 32 bit version take full advantage of 4 gigs of RAM or is it like WinXP and needs the PAE switch enabled?

Curious mind _ :confused:

I was at a system builder conference in Anaheim sponsored by Microsoft and AMD about, oh, eight months ago. The topic of Vista came up. Those present were not happy with it. For a system builder, time is money, and Vista sucks up a lot of time. I occasionally build custom home recording rigs and won't touch Vista... the best OS Microsoft makes for an audio workstation is Windows Server stripped down, followed by Windows XP Pro. I don't bother with Windows Server... takes too much time to explain why you'd want it and it's pricey.

[slimninj4]

Vista doe take way way too many resources. Yes computers are faster now but this software was 2 steps forward and then three back.

[Moppie]

For a system builder, time is money, and Vista sucks up a lot of time.


How and Why?

As a system user I really enjoy vista, and find it quite a time saver.
It certianly makes much better use of my system resources than XP does.
As a very amerture builder, I was a little concerned about Vista.
It turns out I could not have been more wrong. I have both XP Pro and Vista Business installed as dual boot on the same machine.
The Vista install, from formating the drive to installing the last driver took only a couple of hours. The whole process was very easy.
The XP install took an hour just to format its partition, then the install itself is a long and laborous experiance. I still havn't bothered to install all the drivers etc, and the install is only partialy functional.

[danir.photography]

How and Why?

As a system user I really enjoy vista, and find it quite a time saver.
It certianly makes much better use of my system resources than XP does.
As a very amerture builder, I was a little concerned about Vista.
It turns out I could not have been more wrong. I have both XP Pro and Vista Business installed as dual boot on the same machine.
The Vista install, from formating the drive to installing the last driver took only a couple of hours. The whole process was very easy.
The XP install took an hour just to format its partition, then the install itself is a long and laborous experiance. I still havn't bothered to install all the drivers etc, and the install is only partialy functional.

I refuse to work with Vista personally, sorry if I did not make that sufficiently clear. I can only relate the experiences of other professionals. But given what I have heard Vista is a significantly longer install time than XP (not too surprising given it's footprint), requires more troubleshooting when the install goes south... and you might be surprised how many times that happens even with XP... and has a LOT of compatibility issues that the users blame on the blameless system builder who then must go and do a rug dance to try and keep the customer happy.

For a system builder, that all adds up to an unprofitable OS.

[S.Horton]

Can't say.

Our firm, and all of our clients, refuse to upgrade to it!

:p:cool:

[djeuch]

For the record, both my Vista Ultimate desktop system and Vista Home Premium laptop sytem were both running Windows XP and Windows XP Media Center Edition respectively. The desktop machine I boosted from 1GB to 2GB of RAM, but honestly, I haven't seen any issues with speed at all. In fact, some operations (rebooting, startup and shutdown, etc.) are faster under Vista.

Everyone's experience will vary, but for me, it was a good move.

[cosworth]

Vista doe take way way too many resources. Yes computers are faster now but this software was 2 steps forward and then three back.

Read this:

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000688.html

[S.Horton]

It is good that rebooting is faster, because you'll need to reboot much more often.

[Moppie]

I refuse to work with Vista personally, sorry if I did not make that sufficiently clear. I can only relate the experiences of other professionals. But given what I have heard Vista is a significantly longer install time than XP (not too surprising given it's footprint), requires more troubleshooting when the install goes south... and you might be surprised how many times that happens even with XP... and has a LOT of compatibility issues that the users blame on the blameless system builder who then must go and do a rug dance to try and keep the customer happy.

For a system builder, that all adds up to an unprofitable OS.



Well speaking as someone who has installed Vista and XP on the same machine, and done so in away that required a lot of trouble shooting (vista does not like dual booting, its my one complaint against it) Vista was by far and away the fastest and easiest to deal with.
The install time was faster, and when I had to repair the install to get the dual boot to work, the Vista install was much easier to fix. The XP install required a complete re-install while the Vista install only need the install disc put back in the drive, and less than a minute will it did what it does.


It seems there are a lot of people who like to compain about Vista, but:

Have installed it on an older machine, and are having compatiblity issues. This has been problem with all new operating systems since DOS. Even mac users have the same problems.
Have never used it, but like to complian about it anyway based on 2nd and 3rd hand reports, usualy from people who are upset that thier proffesionall knowledge is put to the test by having to learn something new.
Like to complain about anything new, just because they can. These are the same people who refuse to shoot digital, don't fly on aeroplanes and can't understand fuel injected cars.
Vista works. It works very well. Get over it.

[cosworth]

I have rebooted once since upgrading my hard drive and putting my old vista install on it. I had an issue with my second monitor when I unplugged it and me not switching back to single monitor with Fn. F8. Problem solved.

Not sure where the reboot thing comes from. Rock solid for me.

I've seen enough BSOD and sad mac in my day to be quit happy with Vista.

I think there is a lot of bandwagon action here with minimal hands on experience.

[S.Horton]

C'mon, it is all in good fun. Laugh more. :lol::lol:

[theflyingkiwi]

Vista works. It works very well. Get over it.

I would have to agree with moppie on this case. I have a dual boot setup, vista on partiation and xp on another. now that I have gotten used to vista I don't have a problem with it. sure there are a couple of small things that bug me. but all my hardware works with it. One thing for sure it's faster than xp in booting up.

I even think that photoshop is quicker to startup in vista than in xp.

I don't really see the need to use xp any more.

[jptsr1]

its on 2 of the 4 machines in my house. i haven't had any problems.

J.

[djeuch]

It is good that rebooting is faster, because you'll need to reboot much more often.

XP, yes - I had to boot it all the time... and don't try sleep mode with XP.

Vista? I sleep my laptop all the time. The desktop goes more than a month typically between reboots.

[Citizensmith]

I can only relate the experiences of other professionals. But given what I have heard Vista is a significantly longer install time than XP (not too surprising given it's footprint), requires more troubleshooting when the install goes south and has a LOT of compatibility issues that the users blame on the blameless system builder who then must go and do a rug dance to try and keep the customer happy.

If the system builder makes a system without first checking to see if the hardware is compatible I'd really question how professional they are. Maybe professional in the same way buying a DSLR makes you a professional photographer. :) It's not like the information isn't easily available.

If you are paid, as a professional, to build something, that payment is for your knowledge and experience on building something that works. If it doesn't, you are entirely to blame.

And, in my personal experience (as a home builder), and that of several others including some computer professional, Vista is easy to install and has few issues.

[matt1206]

I've been running Vista on my laptop for about 4 months now, and have had no compatibility issues, and no issues with the OS itself either.

[tdodd]

I have been running Vista for several months at home on five very different machines. I do like to run my systems lean and clean and remove most/all of the manufacturer supplied crapware, or simply reinstall vanilla Vista as my starting point. Finding the best drivers sometimes takes a little trial and error, but once I've got the system set up properly it is then maintenance free. I install Eset Nod32 anti virus, MS Office 2003, Canon software, Lightroom, CS3 and a few basic utilities, which I have tried and tested over the years. I do not play games or install random shareware junk. All five machines are completely stable and work just fine.

They are, in order of age....

Shuttle SN95G5
3 years old homebuilt barebones system. It has an AMD Athlon 64 3000 processor, 1GB RAM, 400GB, 250GB, ATI Radeon 9600. Originally I built it with MCE 2005, as a media centre PC and now it runs VU32. It may be a little slow (it was with XP) but it works flawlessly.

Dell XPS M1710
1 year old 17" Notebook with Core 2 Duo 2.16GHz, 2GB, 120GB, nVidia 7950 GTX. It was first supplied with MCE 2005, then upgraded to VHP32 from the Dell upgrade disc and has been running VHP64 for the last couple of weeks. This is my daily workhorse, in use for up to 16 hours per day, as a desktop replacement. No problems.

Philips Freevents X59
6 months old 12" Notebook with Core 2 Duo 1.66, 2GB (was supplied with 1GB), 100GB, Intel GFX. It was supplied with VHP32 and runs perfectly. This is my "bedroom" laptop, used for picking up email in the mornings before I get up, and also for travelling with.

Philips Freevents X66
6 months old 11" Notebook with Core Duo 1.2 ULV, 1GB, 100GB, Intel GFX. It was supplied with VU32 and runs perfectly. This is my girlfriend's laptop. She is quite uninterested in PCs and may be regarded as your average end user. She made the switch to Vista from her old Ferrari 3000, running XP Home, and hasn't had a problem. In fact she took to Vista more readily than me because she isn't a power user and didn't get tripped up by features being renamed or moved around. Of course, I performed her data migration and system config for her, but she's needed no further (Vista specific) support since then.

Dell XPS 420
5 weeks old PC with Intel Core 2 Quad 2.4, 3GB, 2*500GB, nVidia 8800GT. It was supplied with VHP32 and runs perfectly.

I have no problems with Vista. But then I never could understand all the whingeing about Windows Me either, because I had no more problems with that than with 98. Maybe I'm lucky, or maybe I know what I'm doing.

(DISCLOSURE : A year ago, Vista was a bit creaky but that was down to flakey third party drivers and software. When I first installed it I did go back to XP after a week or two because I felt it added nothing worthwhile and did have the odd quirk. Well, 12 months on, the scene has changed. Seriously, Vista is stable and the software/driver support for it is now strong.)

You can debate whether or not Vista adds anything worthwhile above XP. I'll take the extra security, thanks. If buying a new PC/laptop now, I really don't see any point purposely specifying XP instead of Vista - unless you have hardware/software you simply have to use, which flat out won't work with Vista because the suppliers have chosen not to provide drivers or otherwise bring it up to date.

Here is the currently installed software list for my 64 bit laptop. Apart from the Canon Raw Codec it all works perfectly...
.

[tdodd]

I've knocked together a couple of videos, which I've put on YouTube to show the stability and performance of Vista Home Premium 64 bit running on my year old Dell XPS M1710 laptop. Specs of the machine are....

Core 2 Duo 2.16Ghz
2GB RAM
120GB 5,400 rpm HDD
nVidia 7950GTX graphics
1920*1200 display

Firstly I have a video simply showing the speed of application start, without really doing anything, and then closing the apps down again.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLI_mw2FsxA

The next video shows a whole bunch of applications being started up, and the load on the machine CPU and RAM as a result in Task Manager. I then set a number of apps to process actively, playing music or videos and batch processing raw files to jpegs. Memory load does go up to approx 1.6GB out of 2GB and the CPU is completely maxed out for several minutes while all this is going on. There are no glitches evident in any of the video or audio playback and the machine runs perfectly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QKQ4vWqeQk

There is then a third video, added as an afterthought, where I close the apps down one by one and watch the memory recover back to the starting point.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foMFzqi8vA0

I know some people love to moan about Vista but, as I've stated before, for me it works perfectly well.