Vista SP1 comming!

in just a week, we can download the first service pack for vista. i've only been using vista in my virtual machine for testing yet and i think it's pretty. even the blue screen does look nice. can't wait to get one hehe ;D
what do you think; should we change from Xp to vista at the release of the SP?

in my case, the computer sure is good enough for windows vista (see my sig.).

- what about compability? will all programs work on vista?
- will i get a network connection to my brother, who is using XP_SP2?
- will my 10 years old SCSI scanner still work?
- will i get ugly crashes, instability and bluescreens?

I had the Release Candidate SP1 installed a couple of weeks ago, and I still don't know where the improvements were. The overall performance of the system was still sluggish, although the SP1 claims to be a performance update. Ok, firewire was a bit faster on SP1, but that's about it. Vista is also not more stable with the SP1 than without it.

If the original release of Vista could not convince you to upgrade, then the SP1 won't change your mind.

I like Vista - its on both of my main dev PCs now.

OK it has its problems but then, so does XP.

a friend of mine told me some horrible stories about vista. such as:
- copying files in the explorer takes 100% cpu usage
- the good gfx card doesnt seem to support the full aero style
- some programs doesnt work
- explorer views in list mode, thumbnail mode, detail mode almost randomly
and a lot more...
is it his own problem or do you feel the same way?

It did in the early days, it seems much better now.

Might be ATI-specific since their drivers are rotten. My Radeon 9600 worked fine with the drivers that came with Vista, but when I upgraded to Catalyst 7.2 drivers - couldn't use Aero any more. I fixed that by getting a 7600GT.
You can say the same about XP. The biggest problem I've had was with Nero 6 not working. I just got Nero 7 instead.

...

...not sure what you mean, there. I haven't had any problems with Windows Explorer that sound even remotely like what you just said.

I think he's given up on Vista way too early. Any OS is going to have problems. Even if I were to reinstall Windows XP today, I know that once I've done that there will be at least 90 further updates to install.

Two things in life are certain - death and taxes. And Windows updates. So, three things really.

Vista would be nice from the ideas. But the fact that the first thing you must do is disable UAC to work with it makes it a pointless downgrade from XP SP2.

Perhaps Vista SP2 will solve that ... thought I would prefer if SP1 would be the only SP and the next thing on Vista would be Windows 7

hm, i hope vista will solve the problems i have on my xp machine such as GUI BUGS::
- firefox refuses to minimize to task bar
- windows explorer refuses to open a folder in the tree-view
- mouse pointer sometimes does not cast a shadow? lol?

since i have to install windows on my machine anyway, i think i'll try vista out, except you give me heavy reasons not to

Just do it. Ignore the hearsay.

There are two drivers I would like to update (and which Windows Update keeps displaying for me) - its for the LAN and wireless network.

Unfortunately niether of these will actually install - apparently the driver times out for some reason.

Does SP1 fix this sort of thing ?

I got Vista Ultimate last week on my main dev machine now.

so vista isn't so bad after all?
why do people always complain if there doesnt seem to be any harm to it?

Why do people always moan about politics?

Why does everybody hate Bill Gates?

Why do we hate any religion that contradicts our own?

Answer: Because people just do. No reason.

Simply because beginners and noob developers don't stand a chance to develop on Vista.
Vista enforces the MS guidelines that Ms already made public for XP but which are ignored by all

Thing is, what killer feature does Vista have that XP doesn't?
I think that's the general problem here. There is just no real reason to switch. MS has made XP very stable. It works with the vast majority of programs out there now.
SP3 is due for XP also. Ok, nothing in there to shout about (basically, the 100+ updates which have appeared thoughout the course all tied up into one pack)

Vista just takes me back to the "Windows ME" days. An O/S we had to put up with until XP came out. I therefore wonder if the same will happen when Windows 7 is released. Will Vista be dumped in the same way?

Well no as Vista then won't have existed at all. Windows 7 will be what Vista was promoted to be for a long time most likely. Managed core, WinFS, etc etc
Vista is just the "large scale" prototype of Microsoft needed to have something up against Linux and OSX on the 3D Desktop end.

on another topic: next week we will be able to download an RC of the service pack for vista. should i install this and three weeks later the final version over the RC or should i just wait till the final release?

People fear change :O

Everyone moaned about XP too, which when first released was an unstable, unreliable OS with the security of a sponge door. In other words a complete shadow of its present day self (after 6-7 years of patches and 2.9999999 servicepacks, but is now out of date).

In the trend of XP, 2k and 95(8) vista has many 'teething' problems which will most probably go away given a similar timespan. Personally I cannot use vista as an os in its current state other than B3D testing as it is incompatable both with the way my home network is set up and the way I like to work (or at least last time I checked). At least it *seems* secure (too secure in some ways) time will tell i guess :/

Personally, i wouldnt get too excited and would wait to see how he rest of the world swallows it first :)

You will have to completely uninstall any Beta or RC version of SP1 before you can install the final release version.

Besides, why do you still want to mess around with a release candidate? The final version is already available for MSDN subscribers and (selected) corporate customers. It's just the regular endusers that are not getting it yet -- and for good reasons; there must be several drivers issues with SP1 and Microsoft needs to push various software updates first before they can release SP1 for everybody.

As for the general questions whether Vista is good or bad or whatever: It's the most current available version of desktop Windows, and you can live and work with it. However, it has no significant benefits over Windows XP. Vista will lose any performance and compatibility benchmark when compared to XP, and its current market share is about as big as Mac OS X and only driven through the purchases of new hardware. Almost nobody is upgrading because of the high system requirements and the lack of real benefits.

I use Vista because I see it as part of my job to stay on the edge.

Arent M$ planning to do away with Vista for something else in 2009? I remember some saying that but don't know if it's true.

As for Vista, never again will I install it. I used it for a year and it really is a terrible OS. It feels cluncky and slow and seems to rob my system of it's resources.

PLus it's pointless trying to use it as a dev machine for anything OGL based. 3DWS ran like a turtle on my Vista setup.

To me personally M$ have lost the plot with Vista. I truly believe that.

I'm even going to go as far as buying a retail version of XP instead of keeping this OEM one.

Forget Vista and stick with XP. The only service pack that will make vista good is the service pack that reformats your HD and installs XP. :)

Its pointless using OpenGL under Windows anyway since it causes so many problems on a vast number of systems, and its not all down to Vista. A lot of it is Blitzmax's fault. Mark did some tests.

I reinstalled XP. And bar the mydoom fix, which the firewall blocks anyway, i see no real need to install the hundreds of updates :D Works fine for me as it is.

I dare say Vista has gotten better though. Change will be forced upon us and we probably won't really complain too much when everythings been smoothed out.

Xp is fine for me just now. It wasn't like the win 98 days, when the BSOD was common and you'd have to restart your computer and lose all your work. Very rarely get that these days. I loved switching away from win 98. it has nasty :o)

Well but Vista definitely makes the OpenGL problem worse. GMA 900, sold with vista as well as they are vista capable, are not WDDM certified and will never get an OpenGL driver under vista for example :)

XP in its early days pre pack1 gave me more BSODS than i ever got with 98 (not ME though that was bluescreen city!).
XPs first release was truly horrible. People seem to have forgotten how BAD it really was.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, there IS harm to it. See here- http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html

404...

Chopped the l off when I was pasting. Stuck it back on now.

Here's the correct link:-

http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html

seeing as it is an operating system and not an application like psp or word i see little point in upgrading unless i have to
and i dont

infact id be shocked if it crawled on this machine let alone ran

i was happy using w98 on my old box but migrated cos xp came on this one

ill probably go vista only if vista is installed on a system that is adequate to run it in the background without trashing all possible gaming by resource hogging (something xp was accused of in its youth ... maybe it still does but cpu/gpu are now faster and ram is cheaper so we dont notice ... but it sucks to think that perhaps running on an older system that supports your hardware would present a faster set up altogether
but the only true test of that is to have identical systems with different os's and apart from testers no one is going to bother with that

this system works for me and whilst that is the status quo then im more than happy
vista wont make my DVD's cinema sized
vista wont make my albums suddenly fall apart into their original multi track elements
so what is the point of migrating for migratings sake?

You don't have any aesthetic appreciation, then?

Vista looks nicer than XP. I'd willingly take a performance hit for increased ease of use and smoother, prettier visuals.

yes, that is called windows 7 or "windows vienna"


sure, but i guess this will happen to vista soon. worst case: one year from now.

win 3.11 was ugly
95/98 i didnt mind the look and feel it got better with each release (bar me)
at the end of the day i want to use my pc not look at it

id stick it in an art gallery if i wanted to do that ;)

my pc works (mostly) so why change aside from any ooh factors?
its not like going from 15" to 19" or 100gb to 500gb
its an OS i expect it to work in the back ground and not get in the way of the program im running

i dont want to find my 10mega pixel image sluggs around in psp when all i want to do is resize it for the net cos vista looks pretty and little much else
*IF* their is a speed hit im avoiding it
an upgrade is due and has been gfx since the start
but ive been finding myself not playing games on pc and at the mo everything else runs ok enough for me without hardware upgrades

ok im not and never will be a power user
so far its just dvd's mp3's and a bit of photo resizing (maybe one day ill actually try retouching and manipulation but so far i just take the photo's)

the day i have to install vista to watch pr0n is the day i upgrade to vista ;)

If you had some reason to avoid using Vista up to now, SP1 isn't going to do much to change that.

Well, I received a free version of Vista Ultimate 32Bit with SP1 integrated and Windows Server 2008 Enterprise at one of the introductions from MS somewhere and installed Vista on my AMD64 3200+ with an ATI Radeon x1650 512MB AGP card and 1 GB of memory.

Previously I had Windows XP Professional with SP2 integrated installed on that PC

My first impression is that installation went really fast, and it detected all my hardware directly. The only drivers I installed where my ATI driver and my Logitech G15 Gaming keyboard.

Only with some games/3d applications I got a bluescreen and my machine would reset. It seemed to be solved after installing DirectX 10

Now I only have some visual troubles with OpenGL applications, only a few and all games that use X-Trap, the last one seems to be a known issue with Vista and SP1.

With programming in blitzmax I noticed that you will need to choose your audio drivers wise when you want to make your game compatible with Vista, some give slowdowns and some older versions don't play any sound at all. MaxMod worksfine for me under Vista.

Most other issues where easy to solve, for some applications or games you need to be in admin mode or in compatibility mode to turn aero off, but there is no real difference in game speed compared to XP, unless you have a bad video card.

Also one thing I did from start is to disable UAC which solves a lot of issues too when installing older software.

I think for the programmers in here who commercially sell their games it's good to have Vista running to be sure their games will run on Vista too. So that is one good reason to install Vista.

Surely most OpenGL problems must be down to poor third party drivers. No? Vista, and by extension Microsoft, can't be blamed by the shoddy driver support of third parties.

Vista is nice but I still prefer to compile everything on XP to maintain compat.

Vista SP1 now out

Just installed it and rebooted a few times since.
It does seem a little bit faster than before. It does stuff more immediately now when i click on things without the blue polo all the time. (still not a patch on ubuntu though o_O :P)
I also have not had a wireless dropout since upgrading which is good too (was like 1 an hour before!).

1 moan and am not sure if its related but i dont remember it taking so long after login (about 60-90 secs) after i enter my username and password to actually get to using it. Although it was kind of grindy before after login so mabe its just the same :/

Any ideas?

Dunno. I don't have a password set on my account but as soon as the desktop appears, I'm ready to go within seconds.

You're not using Norton, are you?

I still don't see what was wrong with XP pre service pack? Still using it now :o)

Well, there was nothing 'wrong' with Windows 3.1.

Dunno never used it, but saying how "Bad" it was frankly is a bit harsh. Windows 98 was bad. BSOD will forever haunt me. I'm not saying Vista is crap. And i'm saying that XP is a great OS.

So, :oP

My Vista RC1 expired in the last few days. That ran quite well on my PC once I upgraded from a Geforce 3 to 6600GT. In many regular desktop tasks it actually seemed more responsive. I didn't use it much though, just wasn't any realy advantage on my ageing system.

As soon as I get a dual core system with a DX10 capable GPU I'll be moving over to Vista.

ewww windows vienna is ugly.

I was an early migrater to Vista, got HP a week after its release, and I had one problem with it, no drivers for a speedtouch modem, but drivers are'nt Microsoft's responsablitiy, they are the hardware vendors...

There was plenty of release canditates for them to get to grips with it before launch, so for me, its the lazy arse hardware vendors that should shoulder some/most of the blame of it jaggered launch.

I personally love working in Vista, note the 'working' bit.. I dont play AAA games on my PC now, I use the Wii for that, but I do enjoy smaller games from people like ourselves, and most of these work on Vista just fine! ;)

That actually is incorrect in case of Vista!

The WDDM driver model was not enforce until the last Beta Release where Aero was integrated as well. From this point till release only RC1 and RC2 were released so most hardware manufacturers didn't have any real chance to test the drivers in a completely different environment.
Why do you think did NO driver work usefully at release?

They had 1.5 months or the like to get the drivers done as MS was to lazy to get WDDM done by the first beta build.

Windows 95 made 1995 was the best windows.

windows 95 release 2 wat bigger than orginal wind 95.

windows 98 was twize the size of windows 95 sr1...


Today i still dont know the difirent why windows grows in size and steals peoples memmory. But it seams to increese every time by 1,9 or 2.0.

this all seam like a Scam to me.

Yes. Its all a scam. You should unplug the phone line, switch the PC off, make a tin foil hat for yourself and go sit in the basement for a few weeks.

Not sure about the tin hat or the scam, windows needs to increase in size, its evolution.
However MS software is infamous for being heavier than needed.

With the exception of MS-DOS. :P