Windows Vista: Not Worth the $$$

Sorry for the double-post

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Also realize that many business critical applications will not run on Vista. And probably will not for at least a year or more. So, there's DEFINITELY no way those users can/should upgrade.

Who cares what large corporations want to do? How does that effect the decision of an every day PC user looking to upgrade to Vista? IT DOESNT.
And of course large businesses will not upgrade immediatly, such is the case with EVERY OS!

It's not an "Me2" from a functional standpoint... unless you take into account backwards compatibility (which as both a business user and a tech enthusiast you SHOULD). It's a "Me2" from a sales/marketing/etc. standpoint.

If you are trying to run Vista on a PC over 3 years old you deserve every second of trouble you have gotten, plain and simple. Blaming Microsoft for troubles on old computers is like blaming McDonalds because your a fat ass - it makes no sence.

Possibly true. However, due to increased product activation/stricter licensing, one can no longer reformat, reinstall, swap hardware, etc. which the tech enthusiast does quite often. MS is just getting more greedy, and including more crap into their OS than they need to.

There is an unlimited amount of times you can activate Vista. If you change something like your motherboard then a simple 5 minute call gets you reactivated. I know this because i've done it. But yes in the early beta they had planed to restrict the amount of times you could activate your copy but after very bad feedback they immediatly backed down from doing so.

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If you are trying to run Vista on a PC over 3 years old you deserve every second of trouble you have gotten, plain and simple. Blaming Microsoft for troubles on old computers is like blaming McDonalds because your a fat ass - it makes no sence.

however, I'm not going to replace a perfectly good, functioning PC simply to use Vista. I'm not getting the sense that the advantages of Vista justify that kind of outlay.

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Who cares what large corporations want to do? How does that effect the decision of an every day PC user looking to upgrade to Vista? IT DOESNT.
And of course large businesses will not upgrade immediatly, such is the case with EVERY OS!

All I'm trying to point out is that there are a LOT of us users who work for a large corporation, and therefore have our OS's dictated to us. I'm just offering a point of view here.

It's not an "Me2" from a functional standpoint... unless you take into account backwards compatibility (which as both a business user and a tech enthusiast you SHOULD). It's a "Me2" from a sales/marketing/etc. standpoint.

If you are trying to run Vista on a PC over 3 years old you deserve every second of trouble you have gotten, plain and simple. Blaming Microsoft for troubles on old computers is like blaming McDonalds because your a fat ass - it makes no sence.

Gee, I guess it must be nice to have all that money and nothing better to spend it on than a brand new PC, huh? I'm an Engineer and Developer... but I also have a family. I have 4 desktop systems and 3 laptops. The newest purchased between 2 and 4 years ago. I cannot afford new hardware - my wife wants to eat instead (some nerve, huh?).

Possibly true. However, due to increased product activation/stricter licensing, one can no longer reformat, reinstall, swap hardware, etc. which the tech enthusiast does quite often. MS is just getting more greedy, and including more crap into their OS than they need to.

There is an unlimited amount of times you can activate Vista. If you change something like your motherboard then a simple 5 minute call gets you reactivated. I know this because i've done it. But yes in the early beta they had planed to restrict the amount of times you could activate your copy but after very bad feedback they immediatly backed down from doing so.

MS has COMPLETELY changed the licensing terms in regards to what an Upgrade version means vs. a Full version. They have changed what can be run in a virtual machine, and restriced the Home versions from being a host for virtual machines. All of this is completely unacceptable to ANYONE in the industry.

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geez, Vista is a hotly debated topic. as it should be. Gid, you are completley correct.
i am a gamer, and a media enthusiast. Vista will be a necessary upgrade for me, but not until games come out that need DX10. My XP Pro install is fine, and i sure as hell arent going to give up the programs that i've spent hundreds of dollars for, or go thru the hassle of update patches for vista. i use dozens of media apps, and to me, it's not neccesarily the cost as is it the inconvienience. and now, since i read that XP Pro will be supported till 2011, what motivation do i have to upgrade other than DX10? for the home user, vista is fine. not so for enterprise, gaming, media(yet), or power users. with 64-bit and DX10, ill probably jump soon, but i've already had to war with business once, and im in no hurry to try again.
a topic that has been undiscussed is piracy. Vista is "much" harder to steal than XP was. i appreciate that. but the thing to wonder is software piracy. with XP, piracy was easy, assuming you had a legit XP. with vista, it's probably just as easy, but there will be more inclination to do so, even for people that have legit software. say somebody has a legal copy of Adobe Photoshop 7. they've just purchased it for their brand new Vista machine, and it's not compatible. most would try to return it. but with retailers refusing opened software, thats a no go. the user has to choose between stealing a new copy of photoshop(Free), buying a new copy of photoshop($600), or going back to XP, which means a tedious reinstall cycle.(really annoying) as good as most people are, there are some who would gladly steal from Adobe. it's not right, but its the truth. sorry, but thats it. i know the good people of wincustomize wouldn't steal, but the entire world aren't wincustomize users(although they should be!). there are people that have no remorse, no indication of guilt, and no cares about software piracy. these are the people that need to be stopped.

for the record, i own fully licensed copies of XP Pro, Vista Business and Vista Home Premium. I do not pirate software, and own a legit copy of CS2 Photoshop. please dont think i am a pirate, i simply know of many people that do steal. while i cant make them change, i certainly tell them of the dangers of piracy. i just hope im there when the FBI breaks down their door and hauls their thieving asses away...

btw, for those wondering, there is an update for Vista to make Photoshop 7 compatible.i just used it as an example.

wow, my fingers hurt

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starkers

Join Date 05/2004

+1153

Well I don't give a flying hoot what anyone says/thinks....I got Vista Ultimate and it's worth every cent I paid out for it. Not only is it the most stable OS I've ever used, it's looks ten times better than XP and is no harder to use, so anyone proficient in the use of XP should have no real trouble navigating their way around Vista. It's a Windows OS on a home or business PC, for crying out loud, not the juggernaut system that's running NASA's huge data base.

Seems to me that too many PC users are paying too much heed to the Vista doom & gloom being proliferated by the media soothsayers who not only believe their own hype but think they know more about manufacturing, presenting and marketing an OS/software. I've made my own evaluation of Vista based on my experience with it, and all that DRM interference talk is total BS as far as I can tell. I can play all my CD's and DVD's on Vista without issue, just as I can the songs I downloaded from eMusic to get some of the more obscure music I wanted.

Furthermore, apart from a couple of functions of my Audigy 4 sound-card being unavailable in Vista, I've had no problems with any of my hardware or software running without major issue, and if I need those record or EQ functions, I can revert to my on-board card so have lost nothing of real importance in the update from XP.

Okay, there's a bit of a learning curve, but it's no different to when XP became the new kid on the block after 98 & 2000, when non-belivers/non-supporters (perhaps some of the same) came crawling out of the woodwork to discredit the very OS they're now trying to defend/hang on to. So glad pre-historic man wasn't afraid of change/something new, otherwise we'd still be living in caves, eating raw or half cooked meat and wearing bear skins for modesty.

Besides, when taking into consideration inflation and the CPI, etc, Vista is roughly equivelent in price to XP when it first hit the shelves, so in that context I fail to see how MS is ripping people off. Also, my mother's machine is 5+ years old (with a P4 2.8 ghz and 1.5gigs of RAM) and it more than adequately runs Vista with Aero enabled, so all this latest and greatest hardware is a must to run Vista is more bullsh!t and hype from those still afraid to venture out of their caves to face the breaking light of a new dawn.

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I definitely do not plan to "upgrade" to Vista. Backward compatibility is important. I'm perfectly happy with XP.

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frankly i have winblows vista ultimate x64 and i have no probs with it i have absolutly no crashes no BSOD ETC what so ever.though the damn thing is a memory and cpu hog but honestly i think it's one heck of a rock solid,stable OS..now watch after i said that it'll probably crash on me LOL

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a) I've got hardware in our company network for which no Vista drivers exist, nor are they planned.

Upgrading all "eligible" PCs to Vista would cost a fortune.
c) As people have said (and as is my experience too) Vista is a resource hog. I DO NOT plan on upgrading hardware just for a shiny new OS.

Final word: No Vista for my employer. Zero benefit, lots of drawbacks. Buhbye Vista, have a nice day.

At home? I don't see myself shelling out that much cash just for a new OS. My current OS does all I need it to, doesn't crash, has perfect driver support. Since I build my private PCs myself I don't get a bundled OS with it... thus... again... buhbye Vista, 'twas nice to skip you.

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Besides, I don't really care about saying "WOW" every time I look at my computer.

That's it, in a nutshell!

Oh well, besides UAC.

That's really the elephant in the room, isn't it?

Learn to evolve, and learn to embrace these seemingly stupid, but necessary "changes".

You missed my point, I think. I know that change is inevitable, and as an IT pro, I have to know something about Vista. My question is whether it is worth it since Microsoft's next O/S is due to ship in two years.

It is a virtual certainty that MS' next O/S will fully implement 64 bit processing, something that is not fully supported at present. Both hardware and software will be better implemented for the 64 bit environment, making Vista little more than an extended, expensive beta test.

I'm not heralding the death of the boys of Redmond, not by any means. That would be inconceivable at this point. I am saying, however, that there are many Vista related concerns that will make the end user think long and hard about alternatives. And that as a result Microsoft could suffer some on market share. But when your market share's something like 95%, you've got nowhere to go but down.

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Gee, I guess it must be nice to have all that money and nothing better to spend it on than a brand new PC, huh? I'm an Engineer and Developer... but I also have a family. I have 4 desktop systems and 3 laptops. The newest purchased between 2 and 4 years ago. I cannot afford new hardware - my wife wants to eat instead (some nerve, huh?).

Bingo. Even when I get a newer machine online, I'm not planning on sacrificing the dinosaurs just to get my home network up to speed.

Right now I have three computers, a fourth in the planning stages, and a fifth hopefully awaiting the successful soldering of a new power jack. Two desktop PC's have 1.8 and 1.0 ghz procs, respectively, the third (my Ubuntu machine) has an 866 mhz PIII. The laptop I'm hoping to revive has a 1.0 ghz proc. Only the planned PC (the TRS-80 case mod, for those of you keeping score at home) will even DREAM of 64 bit processing...and I'm kind of waiting to see what comes out of the Intel/AMD price wars (I'm an AMD man, so they'll likely get my green). I don't plan on throwing any of my machines away even though I know they are antiques in the computer world. They're still functional for most of our apps, and it seems silly to migrate older applications that use fewer system resources onto a massively overpowered machine. Better to save the power for the programs that can make better use of it.

Will my new machine be a Vista machine? Probably. But will I upgrade my P4 to Vista specs? Sorry, it's just not worth it.

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lest we remind ourselves... remember windows 98 wasn't debugged to a usable OS until second edition. and then with the release of XP, it wasn't fixed until service pack 2. When the Vista SP2 is released then maybe we can look foward to a decent OS. Until then XP Pro is staying Home.

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Jafo

Join Date 03/2001

+1847

lest we remind ourselves... remember windows 98 wasn't debugged to a usable OS until second edition. and then with the release of XP, it wasn't fixed until service pack 2. When the Vista SP2 is released then maybe we can look foward to a decent OS.

That probably about covers it...

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lest we remind ourselves... remember windows 98 wasn't debugged to a usable OS until second edition. and then with the release of XP, it wasn't fixed until service pack 2. When the Vista SP2 is released then maybe we can look foward to a decent OS. Until then XP Pro is staying Home.

Very true...even Windows 95 was problematic until the later versions with USB support.

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I've had very little trouble with backward compatability, myself (the only game i play happens to not work). And yes, i still don't have logitech drivers that work for my keyboard. But i'm on a 64 bit system..

my little sister and brother in law both just bought new computers, my sis has a dell pc, bil has a vaio laptop. I'd say the bil is the complete 'clueless' of computer users, even as he runs his own business. He has no trouble using his new computer, when i honestly expected him not to like vista. The sis, while being saavy in computers, is not an expert - and she's also had no trouble coming in to vista. she likes it, especially the application previews in the taskbar, alt tab, and how the new shell is (oh, and the games

).

People who upgrade are going to have trouble. I can't blame MS, to move forward you eventually have to cut off dead weight, and if that means we need new device drivers, or if 16 bit has to be cut out, then so be it. In another 6 years we'll be phasing out32 bit. But if you buy a computer with vista on it, it runs great! Things are different, but i dont believe so different that people can't adjust. You can always set it back to classic mode and not have to sort through the flash, as my father has done with XP.

It requires certain taste, but i believe new computer buyers have an advantage we didn't have when we bought XP based computers for the same price.

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PurrBall

Join Date 02/2003

+23

All of my hardware and software work fine if not better in Vista. Well worth the money.

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WeatherBound

Join Date 10/2005

+71

If you think that you can upgrade from XP to Vista, You are going to have problems.
If your going to upgrade to vist then buy a knew computer with vista in it. You will not have no problems. A computer goes down the drain after 2 years. All Games and softwear that come out every year require you to have more Ram or a better proccesor.
Same goes with vista. Just think about your first computer wich probably had 34mb of ram with windows 98 and then try to install xp. Good luck. That goes with games.
if your computer is not up to date your going to have problems.
Like someone said if vista has a probleme with a game, It will try to fix the problem if it can. as long as you have all requirement.

Again if your going to upgade to Vista then buy a knew computer with Vista in it. you will see that thing will go smooth and you will never look back to XP. Plus most new computers have at least 1gb of ram.

Its sad to say to buy a computer but thats just how the computer word works.
Tecnology only gets better at a fast rate.
I have waited for a long time to get a knew computer and love Vista. But i know after a few years i will be wanting a new one.

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PurrBall

Join Date 02/2003

+23

Just think about your first computer wich probably had 34mb of ram with windows 98 and then try to install xp. Good luck. That goes with games.

All of my computers can run Vista fine. Even one that originally came with 98SE.

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I'm another one of "those" who really likes Vista. In the beginning, I said I would hold off mainly due to the cost. But when I suddenly got hit with a reality check, the cost differential between XP Pro and Vista Ultimate OEM was a mere $50. Given the age of XP, the cost for Vista was on par or perhaps even less, given inflation, etc.

Secondly, I upgraded (in place install) over my XP Home. I did have a problem on the first attempt, but that was due to my own ignorance, which I suspect many of the complaints about Vista flow from. Once I uninstalled the 3 applications which either monitored or wrote to disk the installation was flawless and virtually hands-free. Of course, my system was squeaky clean, defragged, etc.

Lastly, acclimating to Vista was not only easy but enjoyable. Do you hear people yelling and stomping the ground because their new car doesn't have everything in the same location as their old one?

Let's be honest . . . change is something which many (most?) find difficult and even painful. I, for one, am enjoying Vista immensely. The "Instant Search" alone is worth the price of admission. As others have already mentioned, Vista is stable, fast, productive and it sure is pretty. If Microsoft never came out with a service pack for Vista I would be no less happy than I am now. For me.... Vista works and it works well. After spending day after day repairing everyone's PC problems, I look forward to sitting at my Vista machine.

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*shaking my head in disappointnent*

After reading most of the comments on here right to the very bottom of the page, it really does show how dumb alot of you people are. Expect for the tech people that have been certified and been a tech person for a long time.
Other then that most of you people are just plain STUPID!

ply #21
In February, I purchased a new computer with Vista on it. I immediately noticed that Vista had a lot of eye candy. Since I'm not interested in that, I disabled everything I could. Then I loaded all of my software and started working. Then, every ten minutes, Window's Defender (sounds like a

Dude you are the dumbest one of them all do that! And you wonder why nothing works, by disabling everything it makes nothing to work in Vista! UAC has to be left on at all times if you disable everything because your to dumb to understand all the security features that is your problem, and then maybe you should stick with XP. I figure that you didn;t read about what UAC does or how it protects your stuff against hackers and all.

For some of you saying that WIndows Vista isn't backwards compatible.. oh god, it is more backwards compatible then XP! In fact if you did a right click on any programs, and click on compatibility you would see all the different kinds of options from Windows 95 to Windows Server 2003 Service pack 1!

Plus Vista is a very stable OS, my just surprised to see how many dumb people there is on this forum that doesn't quite understand vista and would disable everything! That has to be the most bone headed thing a person could do!

And on the Linux thing.. Ok sure there are some OS that are getting better with the Plug and Play well that is about it..
They haven't made the installing programs any easier or uninstalling and some still would have to be complied manually. So until that is gone LINUX well never be as eaay as Windows!

So my advise to alot of you idiots learn to use VISTA and don;t disable the UAC.. that is left on for a reason learn to read more about it before messing around with it!

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Wriker,

I suggest you learn how to contribute intelligently to a conversation instead of engaging in name calling. We are talking about personal opinions here, and everyonbe else's is as valid as yours.

I am a tech, gainfully employed in the field, and no idiot, not by a long shot. I have seen a lot of good healthy debate on this thread, and honestly, that debate was what I hoped for when I left it open for comments in the first place. You benefit because of JU's glitchy blacklist feature; if I didn't know you would be able to comment even with my blacklist, you'd be on it and fast.

As for backwards compatibility, you're the one who's in the dark. Rise of Nations, a MICROSOFT Game, is among the games that will not play on Vista. As I just purchased that game about six months ago, I'm not ready to dump it for a shiny new toy.

You obviously have no business sense whatsoever if you think it is cost effective for a business owner to dump the operating systems on Windows XP machines they purchased last year and spend $400 per machine to go to Vista. While I'm aware the UPGRADE version of Vista Ultimate is cheaper, it's not enough so to be a smart business solution, especially in light of the fact that many businesses have expensive software that would require upgrading as well. Microsoft Office 2007 is, in a word, sweet, but the full version is also quite expensive. It's better simply to upgrade when you need to rather than when you want to.

If Windows XP had the security holes of pre Windows 2000 systems, I could see rushing to upgrade. But it doesn't. While security on XP is far from perfect, security will NEVER be perfect. Build a better lock and you'll just have to get a better lockpick. And again, you haven't addressed the fact that Microsoft has another O/S in the works, one it plans to ship before it ends support for XP, a point I and others have raised enough times for you not to ignore.

As for your comments about Linux, let's let Linux users speak about Linux, not disgruntled Microsoft fanbois, OK? You belittle the skills of other techies, and yet you're not willing to work on multiple platforms? Hmmm, lack of adaptibility's what killed the dinosaurs, isn't it? (Oh, and the fact they tasted just like chicken!)

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don;t disable the UAC..

That HAS to be the single dumbest comment I have ever seen on Vista. Ever.

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♦

don;t disable the UAC..

That HAS to be the single dumbest comment I have ever seen on Vista. Ever.

honestly in all my years of building computers and running microshaft OS's that is with out a shdaow of a doubt the most dumbest thing i've ever seen in a OS..when i clicked the live update for my norton anti virus it popped up and asked me if i wanted to run the program..a anti virus program of all programs and it asks me if i want to run it.so i disabled the damn thing

spend $400 per machine to go to Vista. While I'm aware the UPGRADE version of Vista Ultimate is cheaper, it's not enough

yeah i hear ya there bro,just for my copy of vista ultimate OEM 64 bit cost me 250.00..the retail is like what 400? lol although the funny part is i could of went down to my other nearest computer store called micro center and gotten it for 220..i could kick my self in the arse..

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don;t disable the UAC

yup, don't disable something that makes you verify that you want to do something you just told your OS to do. hmmmm... do i really want to update my antivirus? well, now that i think about it, i don't. think ill just go on with outdated definitions...updates? what are updates? some kinda mac thing???

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