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BSA70

240 Posts

4481

August 23rd, 2007 12:00

IS VISTA REALLY THAT BAD?

I just bought a 1501 with Vista. I hear all the horror stories of vista and tried to get xp when ordered. Found out they would do it for $100 more. So far vista hasnt been bad. Did have a driver problem but that was fixed.
 
Anyway what are some of the shortcomings of vista. Am I to expect problems with software compatibility, etc...
 
Thanks

bumwithshoes

138 Posts

August 23rd, 2007 12:00

i haven't experienced any of the problems i seen posted here and don't expect to in the future...Vista runs just fine for me heck i done forgot what XP looks like

SteveWestCoast

35 Posts

August 23rd, 2007 14:00

Vista is visually more appealing than XP. Vista security seems a bit better than XP's security. I think the positives stop there though. I have had two Vista machines, and they have been quite a bit of trouble. At the moment my Vista system is stable. It is significantly slower than XP was, but I have compensated for that by buying a much more powerful system and turning off most of the Vista features. I am weary of Vista. Every time I turn around I find something else that won't work on Vista. This week I couldn't get the USB drives from my office to work with Vista. Overall, I agree with the sentiments of the former editor of PC Magazine. He recently said that after nine months of working with Vista that Vista is just not cutting it for him. He expressed the sentiment that he may have to do the unthinkable and move to Linux if Microsoft can't fix things. Read the article here. http://www.macobserver.com/article/2007/08/17.10.shtml

kirkd

4 Operator

 • 

5.2K Posts

August 23rd, 2007 14:00

No, Vista is not bad.
 
Remember that most people who have good results do not post here to tell us. Only those with problems show up. In addition, most problems are not due the OS, but the operator. Many posts are from those who immediatly do a "clean installation", not understanding what needs to be done. The machine won't boot, and they blame Dell. They try to install a real old program and it won't run and blame Dell and MS.
 
With a new computer with Vista installed or with a dual-boot arrangement, problems will be rare, as all the necessary drivers are already installed. The up-grade install will result in the biggest problems because of the presence of mucho legacy software that may not all be handled well by Vista. In addition, some virus/spyware in the old OS will now be in Vista, along with a most likely bloated Registry.
 
Yes there will be problems. Not all newer equipment has had drivers written fo Vista, and some that have do not contain all the functionality of the XP version. Big deal! There's usually a way around most of these. That's the advantage of dual-boot. Keep the XP partition alive to run old stuff.
 
Performance wise, I find that Vista on my dual-boot D9100 is actually better than XP. Routine desktop operations are snappier with Vista, and 3DMark06 is actually slightly faster by about 5% (if you beliece 3DMark means anything). I havn't benchmarked any games yet except Doom 3, and it is fine with no visual problems. Interestingly, it appears that Vista is not tuned only for dual cores, but for HT. I'm always trying to start more than one thing at a time (quick fingers). XP would always lock up for a while until it figured out what to do. Vista doesn't. With XP, when Acronis was doing a back-up, other programs went into slooooow mode. With Vista, you hardly know the back-up is running except for the disk accesses.
 
Perfromance with my E1705 is also great, although desktop performance is not quite as snappy as wiht the D9100. Dual core at 2.0 Ghz doesn't seem to be as fast as a P5 HT at 3.0 Ghz. Who knows??
 
Overall, both Vistas are very good. NO crashing or BSODs. My only complaint is the security pop-ups for UAC. They are a pain, but after a while you get used to them.
 
 
Dimension 9100, Dual-Boot Win XP / Vista Home Premium, 3.0 GHz P4, 2 GB DDR2 533 MHz RAM, 160 GB SATA II Samsung (XP), 300 GB SATA II Seagate (Vista), 250 GB SimpleTech USB (WD Drive), Nvidia Go 6800 (425/825 MHz), Dell 1901 UltraSharp FP

Inspiron E1705, Win Vista Premium, T7200 Core 2 Duo (4MB, 2.0 GHz 667MHz), 2 GB DDR2 677 MHz RAM, 2 GB Transcend 150X SD ReadyBoost, 120 GB Samsung HD, Nvidia Go 7900 GS - 101.19 Driver, 17” Sharp UltraSharp TrueLife Wide-Screen WUXGA

S.C

2 Intern

 • 

503 Posts

August 23rd, 2007 14:00

Right now, I'm running Vista Home Premium on my Inspiron E1505 laptop. I haven't encountered any problems with the OS yet. Although, some drivers don't work with Vista because they aren't compatible yet. But remember that Vista is a fairly new operating system. Indeed, Vista does have better security then XP, or so I've heard. Plus, It hasn't been slow on my computer. I had disabled all the add-on features of Vista such as Windows Sidebar. Plus, I had changed the start-up to selective start-up. All in all, Windows Vista hasn't caused me any major problems and I'm quite happy with it.

C3PO5

2.7K Posts

August 23rd, 2007 16:00

 Hi
I agree with everyone here so far Vista works for me !
I have had it for about 11 months now on my D8400 with no problems !
And find very few problems now with the new PC,s i just remove the goggle
stuff and the Dell supplied AV .
I started using Vista when it was bata well over a year ago now and
understand it very well that may be why i do not have as many problems as others do !
Just my input on this.
Good Luck
 

leejon

1 Message

August 23rd, 2007 16:00

I just purchased a Dell 531s w/Vista Home premium .. Maybe because it's new to me, but it seems slower .. I'm disappointed that I may have to remove some features (ie sidebar ..) it's one of the reasons I moved (upgraded??) to Vista from XP..  I have run into several uncompatable driver problems ... (One still unresolved) .. That notice requesting confirmation to continue loading is driving me up a wall but,   Hope springs ... etc .. etc

snowshine

2 Intern

 • 

1.1K Posts

August 23rd, 2007 17:00

I will agree with the majority. I have VISTA since March 07. I am a Computer novice.
I intitially changed the XP to VISTA through double installation. I did not know about this forum.
I then did a clean installation.
I am very happy with the VISTA from day 1.
Not a single BSOD.
This forum has been extremely helpful and I am in debt to them all.
Thanking you guys.
snow
 
Dimension 9200
Intel ViiV Core 2Duo E6400 Processor 2.13GHz 1066 MHz 2MB
Windows XP media Centre Edition 2005 now VISTA OS 32bit
Memory:2048 MB Dual DDR2 533 MHz [2x1024]
Dell Wireless Bluetooth Keyboard & Mouse Dell Wireless Bluetooth
Video Card: 1GB nVidia GeForce 7950 GX2 Dual graphics card
Sound Card Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme music
Intel 82801 HR/HH/HO SATA RAID controller
Intel Matrix Storage Manager v7.6.0.1011
Chipset v.8.1.1.1013
HL-DT-ST DVD +/- RW GSA-H31N
HL-DT-ST DVD-ROM GDRH10N
Hard Drive: 640 GB [2*320GB]SATA stripe RAID 0
Media Card Reader 13-in- 1 internal

PierreNaccache

48 Posts

August 23rd, 2007 18:00

Vista has so much "intelligence" built in that it keeps doing things by itself.
 
Shutting down your machine may take 24 seconds usually and then, suddenly, may take 8 minutes.
 
Sometimes it tells you "Hey, you got an error but dont worry I am working on fixing it" even though you have not noticed anything
 
It takes a while to get used to that
 
(On my first Vista laptop, I upgraded from home premium to ultimate. The process itself was a bit long and intensive but went OK. However, it lost many drivers in the process and it took me a week or so to make everything work. My second Vista laptop came with ultimate installed and that was A LOT BETTER)
 
 

MwC Dutch

15 Posts

August 23rd, 2007 21:00

I have had it since March, and am totally happy with it. I did a CLEAN install though. I wonder if all the problems were from writing over XP?

p51d007

52 Posts

August 23rd, 2007 23:00

I've run it on my E1505 since March........NO issues. Clean install, 2 gig ram. Started out with 1, but it was a little "sluggish" for my tastes (HD thrashing). With 2 gig, everything pops right up. I've found the prefetch is MUCH improved, and the power management (to me anyway) is improved.

eromrab

1 Message

August 24th, 2007 13:00

I pulled my computer out of the box and *bam* had to reboot 3 times because it kept locking up on me.  I have run into problem after problem and will be doing a reimaging.  If that doesn't work, then I'll be reinstalling everything with the DVDs.  If that doesn't work, then I'm going back to XP for about 6 months or so, until some of the kinks are worked out.
 
Also, people, you can turn off the UAC thing where it asks for your approval to install and run programs.  Just goto your control panel, click "User Accounts," then click "Turn User Account Control on or off," uncheck the box and hit ok.

Dominick54

9 Posts

August 25th, 2007 20:00

I love mine vista you just have figure out in the Vista help area. It is very easy it is like XP other than the wording in vista different. You just have to register with Vista Home Page and there it will tell you how to do things.

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