After using Vista RTM for 2 months...

I have determined that Windows XP will be sufficient to cover all my computing needs until Microsoft release a serious competitor to XP. Vista just isnt enough innovatition to make it worth upgrading too.

XP offered security, performance, stability, function, a new look. As far as I can tell, Vista offers a new look and over-the-top security. As for stability, performance, and functionality... well... its alot like the PS3.

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Mmm, I wonder what impact this will have on DX10 games then?

I was suspicious that people might stick with XP.

My bad experience with CyberPower is keeping me away from Vista and DX10. I probably now won't get a new system for at least 6+ months.

DX10 = more fun of games?

Waiting to get the answer, let's see mid-2007.

Microsoft 0wns you when you install Vista, your entire PC becomes a torrent free for Bill Gates and his gang to download all your personal details thanks to the inbuilt firewall.

Err... that is not entirely true. I agree that inbuilt firewall leaves a lot to be desired but if one knows how to set it up properly one does not have to fear "Billy and his gang". Excessive security can also be easily remedied, so there's really no reason (apart from the price) not to enjoy the new GUI looks and features.

Barney

Unfortunately, the OS industry being "Their way or the highway", I seriously doubt that they'll ever reverse course again. If anything, they're moving towards *renting* all your software rather than buying it, and moving things online so they can keep your data hostage on top of it. Um... I mean "accessible everywhere". Sure.

The biggest danger in my eyes is that in this day and age it appears that MS no longer considers the end user their customer, but just another resource that they can sell to their real customers, the entertainment industry. There's so much DRM and lock-in all over the place in Vista that it prevents you from doing a lot of things that currently work perfectly fine on XP...

(e.g. digital/optical sound outputs automatically getting turned off or degraded when 'protected content' get played, etc.)

Has anybody ever tried Linspire? Sorry to go off topic but I'm itching to for the day I can MS the boot for good and this OS just recently caught my eye. Anyone tried it?

Wonder when the Windows XP activation after a reinstall will respond with...

"This product is no longer supported, please upgrade to our latest version as yoor licence for WIndows XP has expired"

Just a thought from a crazy old man in Scotland :)

Cheers

Garion

Everyone just goes 'duh' whenever I say that. I will say however there is a definate performance increase in basic OS operations, particularly straight after boot up.


If they're smart. If they get a new computer, Vista is a good OS. But if they're upgrading, it's just not worth it.


There will be little market for them. Since DX10 is Vista only, developers still need to support DX9 for many years anyway. Also, DX10 doesn't really offer anything new, just better/faster ways to do the same stuff (more or less) in DX9. So better performance, but not necessarily stuff you'll miss out on.


I think you'll find Microsoft are less 'in bed' with the entertainment industry and more 'being forced' to go to such measures, exactly the same as EVERY OTHER HD-DVD or BluRay player is being forced to do.

..as I said..I'm deep in love with my G5, 1 month already..and I'm very happy with it..Im still using intensively PC regarding XP Pro installed on it, but once XP become unsuported by MS and becouse of that trying to push me to Vista and their slavery, I will see PC just as a piece of furniture in my home..

MMy G5 is ok... My G4 is ok... My G4 with Amiga OS is just for fun... My G3 is for my wife but it runs OS X ok and she likes it... My Athlon 64 is my XP box and the one I use more than any of the others unless troubleshooting or programming for client... XP Pro is the way to go!

I don't see people upgrading as fast as MS thinks they will.. Then again... people are stupid. The herd follows the lemmings...

Just out of curiosity. What will happen with the TabletPCs when Vista ships. Almost all tablets have inbuilt graphics processor and below average processor. Will these still be running WinXP TabletPC edition....or will there be some kind of Vista alternative.

I totally agree withg Enay on this one. Microsoft XP already catalogues and reports on all internal searches and data access. Don't expect the inbuilt microsoft firewall to tell you about all incoming and outgoing data from your PC. It simply assumes Microsoft has a right to access what it likes, whenever it likes. I dare to think what extra hidden nasties Vista has in store for it's users. Computers used to do what you told them, not it seems they're telling you what you can do, access, delete or modify. Microsoft has already let it be known what it thinks of its customers -> Criminals. I don't feel sorry for anyone who uses Vista and whinges about it.

Last I heard Vista is fairly scalable long as your have the RAM, there's even a theme that runs Windows like it is in WinXP without all the eye-candy crap the Aero theme sports that would otherwise put the video card to work that isn't exactly laptop/tablet-PC friendly in terms of heat/battery usage.

I'm not an MS supporter, but it's true that they can't be held entirely accountable for the DRM push. A lot of that is out of their hands - and I'm sure they don't want to be taken to court yet again.

I may switch to Vista within a year or so. Maybe it just sounds like I'm giving up but as I see it - most everyone will be using Vista within 5 years - I might as well get a leg up on it and it's quirks, especially when it comes to programming.

How so?

Since there are no laws *mandating* DRM on all content, what's there to force them to support any of it? If anything, Microsoft has such a market force with their total domination of desktop OSes, that it's extremely unlikely that they media industry would have said "OK, then we won't release anything that will work on a windows PC anymore".

Maybe it's not entirely microsoft's 'fault', but they sure appear to be a very willing participant in the whole DRM push.

Well Microsoft is already working on Fiji and Vienna, the 'next' Vista R2 with all the new things like WinFS & other they promise (and dont' offer) for Vista.

http://www.engadget.com/2006/12/30/never-mind-vista-heres-fiji-and-vienna/

This time - I think - there are not much difference between WinXP and Vista for the final user to justify the buy (I don't want consider: 1. OEM licences for the new computer 2. Aero-Aqua style effects - that are cool but useless)
Just my opinion of course...

vista runs better on my system than XP, seems a lot more responsive for regular daily tasks. Just games seem to lag behind a little. Thats with my system who's components were all avaliable 2 years ago.

The fancy UI runs fine on my 128mb 6600GT which is pretty close to the bottom of the rung for a shader 3 card.

I did notice that Vista ran a little faster on my system. Note that I said 'Vista' ran faster, nothing else seemed to want to run/or ran pretty poorly.

I use Alcohol 120% often for backing up my games and what-not, it wouldn't run. I got Visual Studio 2005 running, it ran fairly well, but having the 'Aero' shut down every time my 'console' based app run was frustrating.

Turning Aero off and running the 'old' Windows look made things a little smoother for gaming, but otherwise, no, gaming really sucks under Vista.

Many will be happy- those that use Windows for Word and Excel might be pleased with a somewhat more out there interface in Office 2007, but power users would find that usually easy to find settings are buried under layers of "Are you sure you want to do this?" and "Enabling this setting will change Windows default appearence, do you want to save your old settings?".

If Vista becomes widely adopted then XP will become the new Linux. I'll say it...

Vista is like an onion. Its all wrapped up in layers, and if you go take one of them layers out, you get sore eyes.

That's the Alcohol team's fault. They refuse to do a Vista compatible port until it is released proper. It took Daemon Tools some time after beta 2 was released to make a working version - so expect Alcohol 120% to take 'some time' after Vista is released to the public too...

No its not the Alcohol team's fault. Microsoft intentionally blocked it from running on Vista machines due to incompatibility with how their new OS runs. Again its not their fault, Microsoft blocked access to underlying API's that Alcohol relied on for its Virtual Drives. How is that Alcohol's fault?

It's Microsoft's fault that Alcohol's program causes major instabilities with a new OS?!? Well I suppose it is, but D-T fixed their game, while Alcohol did not. If the incompatibilities are anything like Daemon Tools's, it could range from not installing the cdrom device (and popping up every reboot trying to install detected devices) to blue screens of death during bootup, every bootup.


Assuming again that that was the same sort of way that D-Tools operated (being that the two teams work closely together), they are having no problems now, which would suggest that they never had a need to use that API/those methods in the first place. It's the same as what a lot of virus companies were complaining about - get the hell out of MS's kernel you freaks!!! Avast! runs perfectly fine on Vista - you can too. Stop screwing up my system files - I'm looking at you, Symantec.


Well I guess I'll just repeat myself: