I'm getting a new laptop( \ ), but most of them come with vista and i've heard vista has a lot of problems. What are the problems and is it worth the extra effort and money to get xp?

Vista is fine, don't listen to the naysayers.

 

 

 

The only thing is make sure you have 2Gb of ram with the machine.

Its okay, I got my new pc with home premium before christmas and it has given me no problems so far, some applications like games may not work properly with vista though

Last two posters were correct! There's nothing wrong with Vista, it's a great OS. Just don't get any of the Basic versions as they don't allow you to use the Aero theme.

If you ever want xp too you can get it a way _not_ liked by Microsoft... I myself ordered a new pc yesterday i took Vista, gona get xp for games that dont function in Vista the way _not_ liked Microsoft...

Vista is fine, don't listen to the naysayers.

 

 

 

The only thing is make sure you have 2Gb of ram with the machine.

 

 

 

Yes, that should have been the minimum about a year or two ago.

 

There are some bugs, but then, everything has bugs. Nothing really major. It makes XP look really ugly, to be honest, not like you will be able to get XP by the time you've decided on a computer, it get's killed by Microsoft in, when was it, about 1 month?

 

Windows media center rocks. It is a good competitor to FrontRow. Flip3d is good when you have a junk screen and therefore no taskbar space (Though Vista does what is possible to keep the amount of places on the taskbar at once down. Make sure you update as little as possible from MS, and never, EVER update any graphics drivers- only you can prevent forest fires, uhh, glitchy drivers.

 

All in all, it's a good choice as long as you don't get Home basic and only get Ultimate if you can afford it.

I'm still not understanding about the "games won't function correctly" thing. Seriously, the only reason I have vista is for gaming.

I'm still not understanding about the "games won't function correctly" thing. Seriously, the only reason I have vista is for gaming.

 

When Vista first came out the drivers for both ATI and nVidia left a lot to be desired. Vista had a 50% loss of FPS on some games with a average between 10 to 20% loss in FPS, when compared to the same games at the same settings on XP. Luckily both ATI and nVidia have sorted this out.

 

Currently there are very few games which are Vista only (and very few which give any reason to go to Vista, sure a few DX10 features are good, but people have found ways of getting them on XP) meaning a lot of gamers aren't bothering to switch over to Vista until they have to as it means they will have to spend money (not just on the OS, but hardware too).

 

As for getting Vista is a pretty good OS, nothing amazing but it does its job and has matured to be a decent XP replacement (I'm still holding off :P ).

The only problems I've had are the UAC, which you can turn off, and the fact that this 32-bit version is only using 3.5gb of my 4gb ram.

 

 

 

Other than that, it's a great operating system.

 

 

 

Oh wait, come to think of it, with my ol' Radeon card, I got a lot of error messages while running Media Center and fullscreen games at the same time. I can't remember what it's called, but neither Nvidia or ATi have come out with a solution as of yet.

 

The problem went away when I set up a vista-xp dual boot, though.

The only problems I've had are the UAC, which you can turn off, and the fact that this 32-bit version is only using 3.5gb of my 4gb ram.

 

 

 

That isn't a vista specific error, but 32 bit OS's can only use up to 3.5gb of ram.

The only problems I've had are the UAC, which you can turn off, and the fact that this 32-bit version is only using 3.5gb of my 4gb ram.

 

 

 

That isn't a vista specific error, but 32 bit OS's can only use up to 3.5gb of ram.

 

 

 

That is correct, a 32 bit OS can only address about 3.6Gb of Ram. If you want to use all 4Gb then you will need to use a 64Bit OS. I can see more people moving to 64 Bit because of this, and in a few years time I can also see 64 Bit OS's being the norm.

 

 

 

By the way, the 64 Bit version of Vista isn't as bad as the 64 bit version of XP was. XP 64 Bit had a lot of problems with software compatibility, I think Vista 64 bit will run 32 bit applications so your only biggy is with drivers, and I think most manufacturers have 64 bit drivers available.

I've only had 1 incompatibility problem with XP 64bit - drivers for a logitech quickcam. Not a big problem. Besides, they're drivers, so they have to be specifically 64bit, normal programs can be 32bit (they would not be able to address 4GB of (virtual)memory but how many programs do that anyway?)

 

 

 

Personally, I've beta tested Vista, and even Vista SP1 (which was a slight improvement) but I don't like it. A lot of my programs didn't work, and that's just unacceptable.

 

The "glass" looks ok but it's pointless. A decent theme like luna element makes XP look alright and without the glass that needs a hardware shader for the blur and increased amounts of buffer space and the slow window animations it's a lot faster and less resource intensive.

 

Going from XP to Vista I did not see any improvements, but only annoyances (like the screen going dark to show something that "could not be shown on the desktop" like AVG updater) and degraded performance (4 minutes longer boot time and lower FPS on all my games)

 

 

 

Maybe it will be like XP: SP2 will be good (maybe)

 

 

 

 

 

With a GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB, 4GB RAM, and a 3.333GHz QX6850 (yes that's overclocked, mult = 10) Vista is noticeably slower than XP, except on the loading time of programs but who cares about those few seconds?

 

 

 

So the final conclusion: Vista is alright if you're an average home user. If you're a gamer or a programmer I'd just get XP Pro 64bit, most driver troubles are gone now.

People say vista is not compatible with some stuff. But since I think you're from U.S.A or some country where the non-original CDs are illegal (they are legal in my country....LOL). You shouldn't have compatibility problems...since you have to buy the Microsoft office (we so cheap here that we buy it for like 0.50$ :XD: )

People say vista is not compatible with some stuff. But since I think you're from U.S.A or some country where the non-original CDs are illegal (they are legal in my country....LOL). You shouldn't have compatibility problems...since you have to buy the Microsoft office (we so cheap here that we buy it for like 0.50$ :XD: )

 

 

 

I'm not gonna get into the whole Vista talking, but some programs (and a few hardwares) are incompatible with Vista. But for a normal user who don't use, for example, a music editing program of some sort, Vista should work fine.

 

But min 15gb HD and 1gb RAM.... lol.

 

 

 

P.S - You could use Open Office instead of MS Office, eh?

People say vista is not compatible with some stuff. But since I think you're from U.S.A or some country where the non-original CDs are illegal (they are legal in my country....LOL). You shouldn't have compatibility problems...since you have to buy the Microsoft office (we so cheap here that we buy it for like 0.50$ :XD: )

 

 

 

I'm not gonna get into the whole Vista talking, but some programs (and a few hardwares) are incompatible with Vista. But for a normal user who don't use, for example, a music editing program of some sort, Vista should work fine.

 

But min 15gb HD and 1gb RAM.... lol.

 

 

 

P.S - You could use Open Office instead of MS Office, eh?

 

 

 

Yeah, you can use Openoffice as I refuse to shell out $200NZD for the home/student version