Why Use Vista Now?

This is a curiousity thing more than anything else, I've spoken to and interacted with a bunch of you here in the ASUS forum and I'm curious why you'd want to get it now. Many people are talking about it, I haven't been able to see any real advantages and a lot of disadvantages. But I'd like to hear from you all what you think of it and why you are or upgrading to Vista now, in a few months or not anytime soon.

Thanks,
Cat

 

Well if you have the express upgrade option Price is one reason - claimed advanced security is another -
I will be upgrading just because I know eventually Vista will be standard (just like XP) and want to be able to troubleshoot it efficently, setup networking efficently ect. Also when DX10 hardware/games become more redily available - Also I like the Aero interface and the overall look/feel of vista -

 

I am setting a....erm... copy up on my older desktop to toy around with.

Other then that I see no reason to use it now. I will wait until either the first service pack or a killer DX10 game (non-MS produced) to upgrade.

 

Thanks for the replies

I won't be upgrading now for sure, It may be standard or it might be another WindowsME - at least until all the drivers come out. I especially feel badly for anyone out there with a nVida graphics and Vista - they'll fix it...eventually .

At this point in my opinion it's just a curiousity, something to play around with - everyone should get Vista, and press the Windows+TAB button for 5 minutes...then boot back into XP


Just something funny I saw a few days back

 

Cool... I would use vista, if
1) someone point a gun at my head (not the gummi bear)
2) M$ disabled all XP
3) I m too bored
4) M$ sent me a free copy
5) I have too much money
6) .... too many reasons to go..

end my list here, or else it ll hang NBR's network...

(My Oppinions are all BIAS, pls do not refer )

 

I'll tell you a few things about Vista.... I've been using a finished version for about 6 weeks now. So far, the only initial issues were honestly with the installer programs made for xp.... I knew my way around those, so it wasn't a problem for me, there's just a LOT more security on everything right out of the box and you need to manage it.

Other than that, right out of the box I dare to say that Vista is more stable than XP is now - 1 1/2 after it's 2nd service pack was released... I swear to you. I would never suggest outright to upgrade to a new OS before the first service pack, unless you were buying it on a new system and then you really have no choice... but if it's up to you when you upgrade, I'd hold off.... 99% of the time.

So far though, everything seems peachy.... w/ 32bit anyway. There's a reason Asus is going to be holding off with 64bit versions, so anyone with a new model they recently picked up with XP, if you wanted to hold off, I'd get the 64bit version and in 9 months I bet you can install it with no issues what so ever.

Other than that, it's really stable and there are a lot of nicer things both visually and pragmatically that have been done with Vista which just makes it much nicer to use.... and so far, no issues... I like it even though my brain tells me I shouldn't trust it... I'd do a dual boot at the very least to be quite honest.

 

I've been using Vista since Beta 2 and have had absolutely no problems with it. I have yet to install it on my a8jp, but that's because I'm waiting for my free upgrade to come.

Reasons to install Vista now:

1. More Stable than XP SP2 (believe it)
2. Much More Secure
3. Significant performance gains (around 30% while multitasking with dual core CPUs. I have a dual core cpu and I'm constantly using 3 or 4 programs at once; so even if the individual programs are not multi-threaded, I'll still get a huge performance gain. Superfetch also improves performance significantly (especially if you have a couple gigs of RAM).
4. The UI is a huge improvement over XP (IMHO) though still not as nice as OSX.
5. Gaming performance is on par with XP (minor gains or losses depending on the video card) but Tabbing between games and other programs (or even between multiple games) is now completely painless; it no longer screws up you computer like in XP. I don't game much, but I think this will be a big plus for most people.

The one annoying thing about Vista is UAC. But rather than disable it, I've just learned to deal with it... and I'm used to it now. I'd rather have UAC than the horrible XP security holes that continue to pop up even now.

 

I don't know, I've not seen anything great - Part of my work involves fixing drivers for Vista and I've had the RTM since it was first finalized in early November, and I had the earlier betas before that since I started in this postion last summer. I've been playing around with it as part of my job, trying stuff, trying to break stuff. There are a few nice things I've found such as in the RUN-Search bar where you can just type in the name of the program and it searches it out for you...the regular search function though seems to be a joke. 64 definitely has more problems than 32....but I've not really found anything truely useful about it. I've never installed Office or anything like that, or used it as my main PC. I'm considering whether or not it's worth it, and thats part of what this thread is. I've read through online reviews, and all of them seem to just be about how 'cool' it all looks. I was wondering if anyone out there has a good case for features/improvements besides the eye candy that would move me into wanting it as my main system rather than an occasional novelty and curiousity.

Cat

P.S. I wouldn't be so sure about the stability - but it's mostly the drivers fault I suppose... I'm suprised though that you'd say it's more stable than XP rather than just as stable... - Just saw adrian's reply and he also said its more stable. Wow, what were you guys doing on XP? I've never had an OS BSOD or crash on my Z96JS since I first got it in September and I leave it running downloading stuff for weeks on end sometimes while each day I play games, surf, type, etc...

 

1. I have no problem with XP stability. It's no Linux, but will do.
2. A good antivirus plus a router firewall and I didn't have a security problems since....never.
3. Performance gains? That I would be interested in. Do you have a link to substantiate your claim? When was this 30% measured and how?
4. Fluff

Reasons (for me) to stay away from Vista:

1. It will take some time to work out all bugs and solve all compatibility issues.
2. DRM. I've heard Vista degrades high quality signal that passes through a high quality device like DVI or HDMI. Not sure if true or not, but if true this thing alone will make me stay away from Vista.

 

Those are all of the things you will no longer have to worry about (not much anyway) with Windows Vista; so long as you don't disable UAC. If you do, you have no right to complain.

 

Nevermind... you'll probably still have to worry about adware. If you're dumb enough to tell Vista to install it, after all the warnings, than you than you must really want it.

 

Not saying you will - I hope that little amusement picture won't break down the debate here. Check out what Moose wrote just before you...

 

PROportable, where did you install vista? Is it on a laptop?

 

The UI is inconsistent crap. MS broke the entire point of the object oriented desktop interface. There is no consistency between parts of the UI, and important options are GONE.

Example: System Restore takes a certain percentage of your hard drive space. In XP, there is a slider to change this percentage. In Vista, it is hard set to 15% - if you have a 200GB HD, System Restore will take 30GB. The only way to change it is to go into the command line and run about 6 confusing administration commands that I can't even get to work. Why did they get rid of the slider? I don't know. But it's gone...

I spent 10 minutes and 5 different screens just figuring out how to connect to a wireless network the other night. What was one simple screen with all the connections listed is no broken up into 4 screens.

 

I've installed different versions of vista on half a dozen different machines of mine.... media center, umpc, desktop, two notebooks, and my car computer.... Between them I've installed business, ultimate, and enterprise editions....

Any questions anyone has about it in regards to most anything, I'm certainly here for you to pick my brain..

 

vista is much faster isn't it?
either way its an update. so i'd get it if i could

 

PROPortable,

I've installed Vista Ultimate 64-bit RC1 Build 5600 on my A8JS. All devices are installed except one: ACPI\SMCF010 on the Intel(R) 82801GBM (ICH7-M/U) LPC Interface Controller - 27B9.

Question 1: Do you think Vista Business Retail 64-bit will install as smoothly (with all of the updated 64bit drivers I've found here) on my A8JS?

Question 2: Any idea about a driver for the device mentioned above?


Thanks for sharing your expertise!

JWB

 

I don't know about Pro, but I'd think that RC1 would be worse than the final build . That's what I've found.

But that's a bit off topic...

Cat

 

I'm a low budget developer. My apps have been running for 25 years on PCs, and I have a large but sometimes impatient clientele. I didnt get an advance copy of Vista because I'm not important enough for them to send me one, and quite frankly I wouldnt want to spend the time on it if they did. But on Thursday nite, one of my customers called to tell me my app that he has been running on a win95, win98, ME, 2000, and xp successively has just CRASHED on Vista.

Well, I am going to have to debug my stuff on a Vista machine, and that's why I need to run Vista. (spit!)

Jerry

 

I've tried the release canidates and the final version is better, if it could be any more so.. it's certainly not worse. The compatibilies modes at least on the 32bit versions work well. I haven't really played around with the 64bit version, at least in terms of really loading it up and trying everything out... close to have of everything I normally use simply doesn't have 64bit drivers out yet.

In terms of a program crashing... I'm going to assume it could be super simple... I'm not sure if this was during the install (if it was, it could certainly trick a typical end user), but I've noticed some older programs NEED to be "run as administrator" EVERYTIME....... that could be the issue there.

 

The biggest problem for Vista will be consumers that: 1. complain that Vista is not innovative enough, and 2. bit** about any feature that is not identical to XP.

For example, a prior poster bit**ed abut wireless networking. The networking stack in Vista has been completely re-written. It is a huge improvement over XP and every review I have read has stated this. Yet this guy is complaining about the wireless networking. Why? Because the UI is not identical to XP. I have had ZERO problems with wireless networking in Vista and, though it may be a bit different, it is certainly no more difficult to use than in XP (probably easier). The Explorer window is another big source of complaints. Most people that have actually bothered to spend a few hours with Vista, much prefer the new Explorer window over the old. But that's just the problem. Most people don't bother to spend that time. As soon as they find something that is different than XP, they get online and bit** about it.

Bottom Line: If it's new it's going to have a bit of a learning curve. Vista's learning curve will be VERY short for most experienced XP users, but it still takes a few days to get used to the new OS folks. You've been using XP for six or more years... so just give Vista a break until you've had a chance to get accustomed to it. I promise, once you do, you'll like it A LOT MORE than XP.

 

Improved how? Range, signal strength? This seem to be rather affected by the wireless card than the OS.

It's not about the learning curve, but about what is that Vista brings to the table that is substantially improved? For the average Joe which doesn't know what an antivirus or a firewall is, then maybe Vista brings some security improvement. For me, as for many on this forum, I expect that security is not such a big issue. Common sense practices kept XP very secure. Other than that, from what I read, is just UI fluff. "Like Windows Explorer better" boo-hoo.

What about the negative issues? Drivers, for starters. It will take a year for everything to be sorted out. As well, I heard no word about the new DRM restrictions. If I put a DVD in my notebook and try to route the signal to a better monitor through a high quality interface, will Vista degrade the signal? I don't know that for sure, but it seems to be the case. If this is true, then this is to me a WAAAY bigger drawback than the gain of "better Windows Explorer".

If anything, I will wait a couple of years before all issues with Vista are sorted out.

 

True, for our testing purposes we have a sample pack of various AVI/MPEG files, some movie/game trailers, a few tv/movie clips etc.. that we display to see if they display properly, no flicker or distortion etc.. There were a couple of issues we worked through, but it turned out there were 2 files that were almost unwatchable - apparently Vista had detected them as 'unlicensed' and so the DRM made them flicker wildly. They were still watchable on the LCD, but it was very annoying. My understanding is that if you connect a TV and try to play the files it'll go nuts. They may have toned down some of this for the final release, I'm not sure, this was a few months back in RC2. But I do know there are a bunch of DRM features added that will restrict people who don't have all the latest hardware with the latest drivers/firmware that can confirm the signal to allow the high res content. If you see that sort of thing, don't blame on the Video card - it's the OS...

Cat