[SK6]

If you did, what do you think? do you regret it? whats cool? whats uncool? And before everyone has a fit and tells me to do a search, the information was typically issue specific, so I thought having a one stop thread on Vista for thoughts, opinions tips and tricks would be a good thing to have.

Regards

 

[binary visions]

I've loaded Beta 2 and RC2 on my personal machine, both installs went flawlessly. Beta 2 had a couple hiccups with drivers (manufacturers hadn't released them yet), and AIM had some odd glitches.

None of these issues existed with the release candidate. Driver support seemed very comprehensive. With the HP drivers, for instance, it no longer loads a barren driver with crappy tiered menus, it actually provides you with all the tabs and layouts that HP intended you to have, without having to load the HP software.

I've also set up two Vista machines at work, both of those went smoothly.

The only issue I've run into is if a startup program requires administrative credentials, there is no way to get it to automatically load if User Access Control is turned on (i.e. those little popups that ask you if you want to continue). There's no way to create an exception for the program. Now, a nice little bubble pops up saying "A program was blocked, click here to run it anyway" - but I think it's extremely inconvenient that you can't set up an exception for a particular program.

As a side note, I believe some U3-enabled USB drives are supported by Vista now, but a lot of the old ones are not supported and SanDisk basically informed the users of the old drives that they were S.O.L. and that for the old drives, no firmware update would be available to rectify the problem, nor would there be an exchange.

That only bothered me briefly. I wiped U3 out and installed PortableApps which is much faster. Just something to be aware of - if you insist on using U3, your drive may not work in a Vista machine.

 

[Ciaran]

Runnin RC2 here... it rocks.

 

[PatBranch]

RC2? I may be having my friend build me a computer in the near future. I was thinking of using XP for a while until the bugs with Vista and photos are fixed.

 

[Transcend]

Release Candidate 2. A beta version released to developers and beta testers.

 

[PatBranch]

Oh....

 

[SK6]

I understand the GUI is rather memory intensive. How well does the new OS seem to handle memory as a a whole?

 

[binary visions]

As with every single OS release since the history of time, memory requirements have gone up . The OS handles memory fine but I'd say 1gb is the entry cost. It'll run okay on 512mb but you'll see a pretty big performance boost with 1gb.

 

[SK6]

LOL, yeah yeah yeah I know! I was wondering the severity of the memory hit. LOL! Thanks.

edit: The reason for that particular question is because of the notebook I bought last fall.

Gateway Platinum Edition Notebook with Intel® Centrino® Duo Mobile
Technology; Model: MP8708

Interrelated Intel® CoreT2 Duo mobile processor T7200, Intel® 945GM chipset,
Intel® PRO/Wireless LAN 3945ABG network connection (802.11b/g)

2GB PC4200 DDR2 memory

Multiformat DVD±RW/CD-RW drive with double-layer support records up to 8.5GB
of data or 4 hours of video using compatible DVD+R DL and DVD-R DL media

17" WXGA TFT-LCD widescreen display with Ultrabright technology and 1440 x
900 resolution

160GB Serial ATA hard drive (5400 rpm)

Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 950 with up to 128MB shared video memory;
high-definition (2-channel) audio; S-video out

Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005

So, a decent system, but I opted for more processor than the video insofar as my compromise. I have the shared video memory with the Intel video is concerned.

 

[binary visions]

Video is no problem. If your video card will handle it effectively, you can have all the pretty Aero glass effects turned on. If it won't handle it effectively, turn them off and it'll still run great.

There were some tests done that showed the Aero glass effects had little to no effect on overall system performance.

Your system is far and above what Vista will require to run smoothly. I was running it on my AMD x64 (single core) 1.8ghz, with 1gb PC3200 and an NVIDIA GeForce 6600GT. Ran great.

 

[Willy Vanilly]

I loaded Vista on my laptop. Install went smoothly. I'd consider myself computer literate but not a "super user" or anything. So far... it's nice to look at. That's about all I can say. In terms of functionality I don't see any huge improvements over XP.

 

[SK6]

Cool....

The only issue I have currently is the video is not recognized by some games, namely, DOD Source. However, that is a small issue as the use of the notebook is for research and such. The performance i have now is pretty good.

How has the issue of virus protection been with the machines? I absolutely hate Mcafee and Norton. I currently run Pc-cillin internet security, however their latest upgrade hit my system resources a bit harder than I like.

 

[binary visions]

Download AVG or Avast! free editions. They don't suck your system resources like most of the commercial products.

 

[Ciaran]

Download AVG or Avast! free editions. They don't suck your system resources like most of the commercial products.

I am running Avast! on my Vista machine. So far so good.

Hardware-wise my machine is pretty good so that helps...

Dual core AMD 3800 proc. Not super fast, but it does the job nicely.

2 gigs OCZ DDR2 800mhz RAM - Frikkin awsome.

 

[Qman]

I'm running the RTM version of Vista x64. It runs Wildfire 2 great but it appears that Nvidia is still working on a decent driver for their Quadro line for x64 and I've run into issues with an HP printer driver for printing over a network to an older printer.
With the exception of a couple of apps you've probably never heard of not working quite right or at all, it seems to be a cool interface and I like the new Office 2007 as well. If the x64 issues don't get worked out soon, I'll be switching to x32.
Not bothering with switching my home machine since I don't want to blow a weekend fixing something that ain't broke.

 

[SK6]

Well crap. The OS is OK, however locating certain things is an issue. The video drivers would not load properly, and the hard drive seems to always be spinning. I can't find out what dang program it is accessing, or what it is doing, but is bogging my system down big time.

I did turn of the indexing, as well as defender, as that program simply sucks. Finding the drivers for my WinTV-PVR USB2 gave me the "Blue Screen of death". I'm thinking of backing up my data and reformatting and going back to XP.

I have the screen and them set in Windows classic, and have a solid color background. So the test I use is Warcraft, and that simply turns out to be buggy as hell. Gateway tech support is a waste of time since they have not idea as to stabilizing the system.


I do need to find a source for tweaking and stripping some of the garbage. Another annoyance is some of the files I tried to delete not system related would not allow me do so, saying it is protected. Stupid things like pics and such.

So any advice before I wipe the drive?

 

[SK6]

OK, I did a complete reinstall, formating the drive and starting a fresh. Couple things, I need to turn off the damn service that blocks a start up program all the time. And I want to completely remove defender. Thoughts?

 

[binary visions]

Why would you want to remove Defender? It's one of the lowest profile but still effective anti-spyware programs out there. Never nags you, doesn't use much in the way of system resources, it just hums along.

Don't hate because it's M.S.

See my post about the service that blocks a startup program. It's in the User settings. I don't remember which one, honestly, but it's called User Access Control. Google if you need instructions, but you should find it by poking around the Users section of the control panel.

 

[SK6]

Well, I have been using Webroot spysweeper for all of my anti-spyware needs, however the issue is in that they both conflict. SO now I have a decision to make. Thoughts?

 

[SK6]

I guess the best question would be to figure out where to find a site that would allow me to know where to turn of all of the crap and unneeded stuff, and to disable those damn bubbles that pop up.

I'll go ahead and try the defender for a week and see how that goes.