Is it worth to ujpgrade to windows Vista?

I heard about the problems that might occur when upgrading to vista.

1. increased fan noise;
2. battery drainage;
3. drivers are not ready and incomplete

so on and so forth;

My question is:

It is worth to upgrade to vista? Are the problems mentioned above solved?

 

Will you be paying or do you have an express upgrade kit from hp?...
If you got it free, then by all means upgrade.. it is superior to xp.

If you have to pay though, dont. It is better than xp but only marginally better. Also drivers arent great for nvidia gpus yet.

 

1. increased fan noise;
2. battery drainage;
3. drivers are not ready and incomplete

1) Yes, occasionally it is a little noisier, but only because the processor is being used a little more than with XP.
2) I've actually found that battery life, on my model, was not negatively impacted. XP v. Vista scores were about 15mins apart.
3) This is the main reason that I recommend waiting. Driver issues, and I've discovered issues with WiFi and USB connectivity that really need to be addressed before I'd recommend Vista to the masses.

Personally, wait until SP1...should only be a few more months.

 

I received the free Vista Premium upgrade for my dv2000t. I like the Aero and Sidebar on Vista - but I wound up putting the XP HDD back into the system. As mentioned on several posts here on NBR - Vista still doesn't play well with Nvidia Go drivers. Slow bootup followed by three 1-3 second black screens when first logging on. I tried the latest Nvidia drivers - and the latest (Nvidia 7200) drivers on HP - same story. The Vista install is also HUGE - reminds me of that Apple ad showing the huge, obese guy waddling around. On the other hand, I am very happy with the Vista Premium install on my H-P desktop - a1710N - it runs like a top...

 

Windows Vista isn't worth the upgrade at all. I personally think some people say its better than XP only because they got so tired of looking at XP after half a decade. Thats the only reason I'd use Vista right now!

Vista runs much slower than XP does. Games generally run slower, software runs slower, the OS runs slower. The installation is HUGE, taking roughly 9GB for itself. The OS itself chugs on ONE GIGABYTE of RAM. So you'll be needing an upgrade on your system to have it run half as good as XP does on half as much RAM.

It's still Windows too. It's still DLL hell. The registry is still there. Because of Microsofts ricidulous policies, security software makers don't have the access to the OS that they need..... but malware makers can write anything they want. Thanks to that, viruses and spyware in Vista have the potential to be even worse than in XP because Microsoft won't let Norton and them have the access to the kernel and such that they need. So, for example, a virus will be able to get into the kernel but a virus remover won't be able to get in and clean it out. Microsoft has even gone so far as to admit that it's just as easy to run unsigned code (viruses and the like) on Vista as it is on XP. And because most people will get tired of the "cancel or allow?" messages, they will disable UAC and the system will end up being even less secure than XP was.

Vista has other issues too. Such as the whole driver revocation system that is built in to Vista's DRM. If, for example, GPU drivers are found to have a "security breach" that allows for copying of "premium content" (such as HD-DVD, blu-ray, DRM'ed WMV) then Microsoft can revoke the certification for that driver and YOU will see reduced functionality regardless of whether or not you used that driver for "illegal" purposes or you're just an innocent bystander and don't even watch any of those formats.

Vista has a lot of features that are poorly stolen from Mac OS X too. Like the sidebar. Leave it to Microsoft to take something like Widgets and completely screw it up. In OS X, Dashboard and the Widgets are generally on screen only when you want them to be. In Windows Vista it steals a large amount of screen space and generally looks ugly. "Flip3D" in Vista is a ripoff of OS X's "Expose" as well. In OS X you can use Expose to bring up all of your windows on screen and click what you want. But Microsoft screwed this up too by making you have to scroll through your Windows in a silly list where you can't even see what is going on in the window behind the front one. Even the color scheme and icons for some of the included programs are exactly the same as those that have been in OS X for many years now. The way windows fade up, and out, and way windows minimize... all a little too much like OS X. I'd say Vista is nothing more than XP SP3 with a ton of bugs, bad notebook support, and poor ripoffs of OS X's user-friendly features and eye candy.

Windows Vista, at this point, is nothing more than Windows ME 2.0.

 

I agree with SauronMOS. I got my free upgrade copy two weeks ago and ungraded to Vista.
My first impression was that "it looks ugly". It is just new window frames with old window contents. How can MicrobeSoft prentend they compete with Mac OS/X? Did they ever hire real designers for the user interface?

I had the same feeling when switching to XP, but at least I disabled the new "plastic toy" look XP was imposing, and turned the look to "Windows Classic".
I did the same with Vista and this disabled Aero 3D effects. So what's the point?

Also, some applications didn't work anymore because they write preferences to the registry, and this is sometimes blocked for security reasons.

My own applications I have developped can't manage licensing policies anymore because of that.

So fortunatelly I reverted back to XP after a few hours (I smartly first made a ghost image of my HD before upgrading to Vista!).

For Aero? I bought TopDesk from Otaku. And for the sidebar? I use Yahoo Widgets. Everything's fine now and I don't see any reason to switch to Vista, consuming more CPU (meaning more fan noise), eating more battery, etc...

So long Vista.

 

Vista runs just fine for me. I use 37% of my memory (1GB) at idle, so it's not as much of a RAM hog as everyone is saying. The only driver issue I have had is with my printer. However, if it wouldn't have been on my computer when I got it, I would stick with XP. There is no real reason to upgrade. If you like the shiny new GUI, just get windows blinds or something. IMO stick with XP, at least for now.

 

vista is highly unstable, period.

 

I've run Vista on my dv6000t for a few months now and wouldn't dream of switching back. Stable as a rock here.

 

lol, do you even know the meaning?
im running it and its crap (on a desktop) and the only reason i dont go back is because of how it looks, looks kool lol, xp looks really bad no :'( but in a couple of months when sp1 comes out it should be a lot better

 

it depends on personal preferance i guess

from what i have heard i can confirm that there IS increased fan noise as more heat is generated
2)less battery as it is more gpu intensive because of the **special features**
3)yes some of the manufaturers arent well prepared with their drivers
in short most of the m have glitches
so i would suggest you wait till all the glitches are out and it becomes more stable

 

Reading through the posts here, I feel compelled to offer my two cents.

If you gotta buy it wait for the first service pack. If you got the express upgrade then install it.
I ran 2 of the betas.

I installed the express upgrade of Vista on my DV8408us a couple of months ago. After it runs awhile for prefetch to get settled it is rather snappy. Turn of the window animations. No driver problems. Had to get a new copy of Diskeeper for Vista and other than some router sim (Boson) software there were no other issues.

I have noticed absolutely no difference in games. If you game HL2, fear, AOE3, BF2, MOH acific assault all run great, as good as on XP. Fear, for me, ran better.

I don't agree with the restrictive DRM policy and I am not in Love with Microsoft. I do love the Apple commercials but talk about restrictive! Buy an Apple. Let them control your software AND your hardware AND your music. And believe me, I've tried various flavors of Linux. It doesn't control anything. But it doesn't do anything either without hours of searching and configuration.

Well, thanks for listening, install your Vista and have fun!

 

I totally agree. I am wandering why those distros do not set the most commonly used features and make linux ready to go.

 

How?

Find me ONE Apple application that has "Activation" like Microsoft software.

Find me one Apple application that will lock you out of said software if Apple thinks you've "pirated" the software and won't let you have full functionality. That's what happened with me and my XP Home disc. Microsoft's WGA servers were down one time when I had to reinstall Windows on my desktop, because we all know how Windows is, and I couldn't run Windows Update or anything. I had to call Microsoft's Indian tech support to activate the software to begin with because, apparently, I can't install the software I OWN freely and have to ask Microsoft's permission to use it. Then after spending 5 minutes doing that their WGA servers were down and took an extremely long time to update and see my system as genuine. I was essentially locked out of my system because I needed to install my ATI drivers... which needed .Net framework installed and at that time ATI didn't offer a direct link to it, so I had to go through MS and they required you to pass the whole idiotic WGA certification process.

When was the last time an Apple product did that?

Um.. explain. Because you're letting HP "control" your hardware. The difference is that Apple stands behind their products. My dv5030us hadn't received a driver update for some of its hardware in more than a year by the time the motherboard failed! On top of that, I notified HP many months ago (almost a year now) about the motherboard issues the system was having. They basically told me I was SOL. Then when it did fail, I had to make legal threats and file multiple complaints with the BBB.. and now they still can't even tell me if it is fixed or not and I'll have to wait until I go pick it up. With Apple, I would have been able to take the system to an Apple Store and demonstrate the problem. Apple would have swapped the system on the spot for a new one (if it was still the production model) or a refurbished one. If the "Genius" was nice enough I might have even gotten an upgrade.

What's also ironic is that my MacBook runs Windows better than my HP system ever did. It runs Windows just as good as the systems I built with my own two hands.

Explain this one too. The only time you have to deal with DRM is if you buy from the iTunes Store. AAC and H.264 are internationally recognized and certified standards that Microsoft refuses to support in the Windows operating system.. yet they'll support them on the Xbox360. Why is it their Xbox division does everything right (now, not in the PS2 era) but their software division is run by a bunch of idiots? Anyway, we all know now that Apple is in the lead to getting rid of DRM in music. The DRM that is in the music purchased from iTunes, NOT music you rip yourself using iTunes, is far less restrictive than anything on the Windows side. In Windows based stores you are generally forced to pay the subscription fee AND buy individual songs because most stores have songs that are subscription only and others that are pay only. Once you stop paying your monthly fee your music stops playing. The licensing issues are ridiculous too. And now with Windows Vista and WMP11, you can't back up your own licenses. You essentially have to redownload ALL of your music again and hope the store you bought your music from didn't go out of business. You even have people in charge of these Windows-based stores, like Yahoo, saying the biggest complaint from the consumer is that Windows DRM simply doesn't work and causes more headaches than anything else.

With iTunes you simply double click a song and type in your password and click "authorize". You can play your music on up to 5 computers, an unlimited number of iPods, you can burn playlists with DRM'ed content up to 7 times.. after which you can delete the playlist and make it again.

 

http://crystalxp.net/
changes the look of your xp. been using this since jan

 

nope dont do it.

Stay with XP and just get ObjectDock and Windowblinds and you'll be better off.
Vista blows

 

eventually almost all the programs will switch platforms from Xp at present to vista
its kind of inevitabe
as i said earlier a bit of patience im sure will do you good
objcect is quite good as i have used it and yes it does give you the COOL look that vista ultimate is famous for
i used to use windows blinds o my old system and its real clean
it doesnt hog up system resources like some programs i have heard about

 

Alternatively, if you want your Windows to look like Windows Vista...upgrade to Vista...! It's inevitable that you'll be running it sometime in the future, so you might as well do it now.

 

Actually I am thinking of staying on XP permanently and switch to Linux gradually. Right now I am refraining myself not to install Debian because I know I will indulge into it and spend hours to configure it.

I feel it troublesome to even reinstall Windows. I used to reinstall or clone my system every month.

But I still like the geeky feel of Linux so I will keep using Linux. Personally I believe Beryl is much cooler than Vista and Mutt is my favorite email client.

Glad to see that MacOS and Linux are now outflanking Windows, and Windows is killing itself by imposing more restrictions on users (including pirates).

 

if you do ever switch to linux it will be good im sure the linux team in NBR would be glad to help you out
and about the configuring hours im sure it wouldnt hurt to read the linux thread and do some research and ask your quries before you do switch
cheers
all the best