computer related question

[uniden]

Just wondering what people think of Vista? Is it relitively easy to use and an improvement on XP??

[bajdas]

Just wondering what people think of Vista? Is it relitively easy to use and an improvement on XP??

From fellow IT people that have used Vista:- you need modern, high speed computer hardware to run Vista with full graphics capability. Many have switched off the 'bells & whistles looks' option to get the same response speed as their previous Windows XP.

But they have stayed with Vista rather than go back to Windows XP, so they like it.

I am not sure who much software has been re-written yet to take advantage of the increased security and the ability to use the newest hardware (eg dual core processors) that Vista allows, but I would expect that out this year. For example, OziExplorer can be run under Vista but is designed for Windows XP so is not entirely stable until a new release.

Personally I am investing time into SUSE Linux operating system and enjoying the experience.

But my work will be converting the laptops to Vista in the next few months, so I will play then.

[Zippy]

Bajdas has covered it very well!

I in the past 18 months have gone back and forth between XP and vista numerous times...like a rocking chair ...XP has smooth running, while Vista is a graphical interface improvement mostly.

So until Service pack 3 comes out for Vista, my vote goes with XP.

...heres a question to generate discussion, what do people want to see in the next version of windows code named "Vienna"

[6739264]

It seems to be Vista is pretty good if you have the hardware and the know-how to have it run smoothly. As far as having it on a brand name computer (laptops especially) I've only heard negative reports.

It seems like for gaming, vista with DX10 on a high powered Desktop is good, yet for most other things Xp is fine.

Me? I'm Dual booting Vista Ultimate and XP on a Q6600/4gb RAM machine and she seems to do ok. Some programs have a performance boost, others a degradation.

[SA Firey]

A friend has Vista on his new laptop and it doesnt like the scanner site says its forbidden,while XP works a treat

[Alan J]

At home I have Vista on a new cheapo Compaq laptop & XP on an old lower specced desktop.
Had to increase the RAM in the laptop for Vista to run acceptably. The desktop is still quicker despite having half the RAM & 2/3 the processor speed.
At work I have XP on a new desktop - really fast & is stable as a rock.

Some things Vista are very good.  Plug in a new piece of hardware to the vista machine & it automatically finds & instals drivers & etc for it. XP doesn't do this.

Other things...
Vista is far less stable than XP.  The Vista machine crashed more times in the first  weeks than the XP box has in two years. Twice weekly defrag seems to have helped.
Vista's version of Windows Explorer (File Manager) is a Bad Thing - no tree display. Which makes drag-&-drop, and file & folder sharing harder.

Documentation of incompatibilities is poor. Couldn't network them initially. Turns out Vista uses a different neighbour discovery protocol & a patch has to be added to XP for it to be visible to a Vista PC.

Overall I like XP better but, for me, the grief of hunting up XP drivers for the laptop far outweighs Vista's diappointments.

cheers

[Jacob W]

Vista gets the user friendliness vote, however I don't see myself upgrading anytime soon.... Its not absolutely necessary to upgrade to vista either XP will be getting another service pack in the not too distant future, so that will extend its lifetime.

[Knackers]

Think next one will be a Mac and dual boot so can have best (and worst) of both worlds. Use Mac OS for photos and music etc and MS OS for documents etc.

Plus a nice 20 inch widescreen would be nice.

[Darius]

I've had a mac powerbook for about 3-4 years now and can never see myself going back to a windows pc/laptop.  Will probably update it to a new macbook this year.  You can get MS Office for mac you know.  Or openoffice and neo-office (both free) also work so I hear.  Only thing that doesn't work for me is scanner and radio programming software only seems to ever be windows programs so I keep an old win98 laptop (with serial port) for that.