Wow is me, the Vista chronicles

There are so many different opinions about Vista that it is sometimes hard to believe folks are talking about the same OS.

Most reviews and blogs where the author hates Vista there is hardware incompatibility. This has not been the case for me with doing a clean Vista install on the SZ330. All the buttons and gizmo's work the way they should. I will admit to not having tried the cellular modem because it is never going to be activated, not the TPM as I have no application for it at this time. Granted, Sony could make life a bit easier for us, but the task is doable.

I don't have a killer software compatibility problem either. Some things are in beta, but final versions should be along soon. I don't have to replace anything that is costly.

The interface is stunning, even to me. This is one of the chief things people who love Vista cite. I can see how the search function would be helpful, but doesn't Google desktop search work on XP? Same for the improved firewall and picture viewer. There are replacements out there and some of the best ones are free.

The machine will go about 15% longer on a battery when running XP in the stamina mode. Longer is better, but 15% is not a killer either.

What really blows me off is latency and overload. Windows and folders open slowly. There is a lot more information to view at once. The best example of this is "My Computer". In XP this opens instantly, in Vista there is a slight delay. It may only be a third of a second, but that drives me nuts. Now the window is open and there is more information to deal with as each drive has a bar graph. All sorts of things can be accessed, perhaps too many for me. Options may be good, but it seems like these options are in the way and too many are presented at once. It takes more clicks to find any given function.

There is the noise. UAC may be effective at preventing malware, but it is far more annoying than running as a restricted user under XP and accessing administrative functions using "run as" with the fingerprint reader, or the MakeMeAdmin .cmd file in conjunction with LaunchAdmin. Two great free utilities, by the way. Did this control panel applet work properly? Who needs to be asked that? How about mysterious file copy errors and "this program did not install correctly" when there is, in fact, no problem.

I miss the "invert selection" option on the XP edit menu. How about being able to drag an icon to an open command window? I do it every day in XP and its gone in Vista.

My idea of the better XP would have been something derived from Server 2003. Sort of a 32 bit companion to XP X64. The speed and stability of Server 2003 X86 is amazing. We could have had it 2 years ago without the new DRM and limited functionality modes.

Will things will improve by Vista SP1? The reality is there may be no choice. Mainstream support of XP ends in 2 years. You can limp on for another year, or so, then new versions of third party software gradually stop supporting XP. Finally the goof balls in congress decide to put daylight savings time back where it used to be. By then my SZ will be 3 years old and probably I will have the latest and greatest something else.

Perhaps the next notebook for Leadweight will be a Mac, or something with Linux preinstalled.

 

First, thanks for the review, nothing beats real user experience. I have been reading a lot about Vista lately as I am running an SZ with a T7600 processor and 2 gig of ram. Sony told me that on May 6th they will have a Vista companion DVD with all the drivers for the OS migration BUT ...... everything I have read is pointing to the fact that the Vista OS is just slow. Did you install the 32 or 64 bit version? I guess if I did the install I would be interested in the 64 bit version otherwise I just can't see a good reason to leap. XP is stable and refined and it appears Vista is a Zune. Your comments are welcome.

 

Its 32-bit Vista. Sony does not support X64 on the SZ in any flavor of Windows. Very few notebooks ship with X64 Vista, but that is likely to change with the introduction of Intel's Santa Rosa platform. Lenovo just announced X64 will be available soon.

There is a lot of interest in X64, but I don't think the world is ready for it yet. Software compatibility is lacking.

May 6th for the companion DVD, that's real soon. It seems likely to me the companion DVD will install a lot more than drivers. Perhaps the driver situation will improve with its release. Just remember, to this day there are not enough drivers on esupport.sony.com to do a clean XP install. You have to go to vaio-link to get what you need.

I cannot say that Vista is unstable. No BSOD's or crashes. However, on a recent trip my SZ ran XP for two weeks without a single reboot.