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Blocks
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 Posted: Sat Nov 04, 2006 11:51 pm Post maybe stupid Post subject: Windows Vista |
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It will supposedly be available at the end of the month. Some of the features look pretty spiffy, and I would like to use it. However, I have heard you need a lot of computer for it. Since you folks are smarter at this stuff than me, would you install Windows Vista on this machine?
AMD Athlon 64 4000+ (single core)
2.4 ghz
2 ghz HyperTransport (is this the same as FSB speed?)
L1 Cache 128 kb
L2 Cache 1 mb
1.25 gb DDR333 RAM
128MB ATI Radeon Xpress 200M
5400 rpm hard drive, ample space
This is a desktop replacement notebook, btw. I'm thinking about pulling out the 256 mb stick of memory and replacing it with another 1 gb stick (would I benefit from getting faster than DDR333 RAM). Would this be worth the $120+ dollars? I'd appreciate any advice on Windows Vista on this computer, and on Windows Vista in general. Thanks! |
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The Apache
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| Posted: Sun Nov 05, 2006 5:25 am Post maybe stupid Post subject: |
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| i thought they are only releasing a company version at the end of the month, not to home users at the moment... |
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Doc Flabby
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| Posted: Sun Nov 05, 2006 7:23 am Post maybe stupid Post subject: |
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DONT INSTALL VISTA
you wont be able to play continuum 
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Assassin2684
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| Posted: Sun Nov 05, 2006 8:19 am Post maybe stupid Post subject: |
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| As well as any other game for that matter.. it used DirectX 10 and needs a new graphics card for it which as of now, none has realesed one. |
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Dr Brain
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| Posted: Sun Nov 05, 2006 9:25 am Post maybe stupid Post subject: |
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Would I install vista on that machine? No, but then again, I wouldn't install it on any machine.
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Mine GO BOOM
Hunch Hunch
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| Posted: Sun Nov 05, 2006 11:50 am Post maybe stupid Post subject: |
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| Doc Flabby wrote: | DONT INSTALL VISTA
you wont be able to play continuum :P |
I've had Vista installed in virtual machines (ie: no graphics acceleration) and on a low-end notebook, and Continuum works in both (virtual machine was slow).
Personally? I think they did a great job for Vista. I setup my dad's new low-end notebook with it and it handles very nicely. I mostly did that because Vista works very well with notebooks, in that its battery features, sleep mode, and firewall options are designed very well for notebooks. Can have firewall be very strick for all wireless networks except the ones you choose, changing power options is a simple click in the system bar, and sleep mode actually restores very quickly, like in under two seconds. Now, going to sleep can take 10-60 seconds, but restoring is very quick.
The biggest problem with it right now is drivers. Everything on the laptop works fine, but his laser printer will refuse to acknowledge that is connected. That is because Samsung is not releasing drivers for it since it is still a beta OS. HP's inkjet printer worked by installing the XP drivers in XP compatibility mode.
Any computer made in the last two years will work with Vista pretty well, as long as you have at least a gig of RAM. Seriously, even the basic Aero stuff will eat up half a gig once booted. It will release it nicely if other applications need it (games, photoshop, etc) but it is very ram hungry. Not surprising, because everything they do to help speed up the OS is to precache lots of data into RAM. Oh, the bootup time is greatly reduced from XP.
Disabling Aero for compatibility with applications that don't place nice is very simple. Most applications are detected by Windows and the mode is switched instantly for you. Once the application is closed, it is switched back just as quick. If an application doesn't work well (Jnes's menu), just going into the properties of the application and disabling theming/acceleration on that application will tell Windows to switch to basic for that application. The switch is very rapid and Windows will tell you that it switched and why.
Give the Release Canidiate a try. For notebooks, I'm recommending Vista. For desktops, eh, it looks prettier. I'm still sticking with Windows 2000 for now. |
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Cyan~Fire
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| Posted: Sun Nov 05, 2006 12:24 pm Post maybe stupid Post subject: |
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| MGB wrote: | | I'm still sticking with Windows 2000 for now. |
Heck yeah! There is someone else in the world like me.
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The Apache
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| Posted: Sun Nov 05, 2006 2:28 pm Post maybe stupid Post subject: |
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| Dr Brain wrote: | | Would I install vista on that machine? No, but then again, I wouldn't install it on any machine. |
ditto. |
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Mine GO BOOM
Hunch Hunch
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| Posted: Sun Nov 05, 2006 4:01 pm Post maybe stupid Post subject: |
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Want to explain why? Have you used it? Have you tried it on a local machine? What about it makes you not want to install it?
My reasoning is that it eats up too much memory for little gain on a desktop. It looks pretty, but the practical features do not make up for it. I have 46 processes running right now on this machine, and I want each one to be running right now. They add up to around 600 Meg, a good chunk of it being that I have not upgraded to Firefox 2 yet so it is eating 200 Meg on its own. I open large files, be it programming projects, movie/audio editing, or the occasional 300Meg PDF files, so using a 1G RAM system on a three year old computer that runs great to this day is nice.
For a laptop that does not run tons of services and background processes, Vista is awesome. The new features work well for smaller, single display resolutions. The RAM hungry applications will move out of the way if you do some heavy processing, but they'll claim it back as soon as they can. Firewalls, battery usage, and sleep mode, like I said above, work great. Aero gives just enough eye candy that, by default, does not get in the way but makes the experience nicer. And ClearType/DPI settings in the OS actually work almost everywhere, thus reading on the laptop for older people (father) is much nicer when you are stuck at using the native resolution. He still runs his XP machine at a less-than-native resolution so he can read easier, even though he knows he loses a great deal of detail on his LCD screen. |
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ph0ng
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| Posted: Sun Nov 05, 2006 11:07 pm Post maybe stupid Post subject: |
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| At the time XP was released, I vowed never to switch from 2k.. Few months later all my Windows desktops were XP. Same will happen with Vista in time.. |
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Doc Flabby
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| Posted: Mon Nov 06, 2006 5:04 am Post maybe stupid Post subject: |
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which rc of vista are u talking about mgb.
the one i used in september had all these problems:
http://forums.sscentral.com/index.php?showtopic=11665&hl=vista
at least on my laptop it doesnt....it also runs slower compared to xp. and the constand popups saying "ARE YOU SURE U WANT TO RUN THAT PROGRAM" are really annoying you have to click though like 3 just to run continuum.
Ive just wiped vista from my computer it pissed the hell out of me. hopefully by the time they release vista SP2 they will have fixed all the issues and made it useable. Same thing happened with XP it sucked untill SP2 when they fixed most of the annoying problems, fixed wireless and added a firewall 
if continuum works in vista and they have stopped it bugging u - i will recommend it too, i love the visual effects |
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Mine GO BOOM
Hunch Hunch
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| Posted: Mon Nov 06, 2006 10:55 am Post maybe stupid Post subject: |
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| Doc Flabby wrote: | ... constand popups saying "ARE YOU SURE U WANT TO RUN THAT PROGRAM"
... added a firewall |
XP has had a firewall since it was originally released, it was called Internet Connection Firewall until SP2 when it was set on by default. Granted, they should have had it on by default before, but then people would have bitched at them then.
The only popups that say that is when you download an application for the first time. Even then, you can disable the popup windows in the future. If you are talking about the new User Account Control, I made a little how to complete with screenshots of every step on disabling that and enabling automatic logins (doesn't work in RC1, does in RC2).
On a machine with less than a gig of ram, it does run much slower than XP. But with a gig or more, it is faster. Just like I tell everyone that uses OS X, install at least a gig of ram. Otherwise, your OS will run like shit.
Just remember, XP pisses the hell out of me with its default installation. Thats why I setup an unattended disk which disables or uninstalls specific parts of it and preinstalls some applications for me. With Vista, I won't have to burn a new CD everytime, instead I can just keep it on a flash drive and use it with any normal Vista installation disk. |
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The Apache
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| Posted: Mon Nov 06, 2006 3:05 pm Post maybe stupid Post subject: |
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| Mine GO BOOM wrote: | | Want to explain why? Have you used it? Have you tried it on a local machine? What about it makes you not want to install it? |
i do not like the new features where it keeps on asking you "are you sure you want to run this program?!", and "are you sure you want to shut this process down?" very annoying indeed. i know it's all in the sake of helping users not shutting down the wrong things and adding extra protection for the average computer user, but really - i don't need that every hour or so.
vista also uses too much memory for me; very slow. i even disabled the fancy graphical shit (aero3d or whatever), and disabling all animations windows uses.
if anything, i'll get a new computer (or upgrade) before i even think about windows vista. |
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D1st0rt
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| Posted: Mon Nov 06, 2006 5:24 pm Post maybe stupid Post subject: |
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From what I have read about Vista, I haven't heard anything that would make me want to use it over XP Pro. I'd probably set it to Windows Classic appearance anyways given the option.
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Blocks
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| Posted: Tue Dec 12, 2006 4:42 am Post maybe stupid Post subject: An update |
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Sorry for the bump, but I figured this topic deserved an update. I installed Windows Vista Business RTM x64 on my notebook today, and am quite impressed with it. The Windows Aero scheme is very nice. I might not be as impressed had I paid $200 for it or whatever it is, however.
Here are my system specs again, the full Windows visual experience runs on it, but I think if I taxed it any more, things wouldn't be so smooth. My integrated graphics are bringing me down, but laptops with real graphics are expensive. (the ratings are out of 5.9)
Addressing the things that people said:
It's true that Vista uses a lot of memory. It says it's using around 600 MB after it boots up.
The "are you sure you want to do this" messages are annoying, but easily disabled.
One of the advantages over XP is that startup, shutdown, and sleep happen MUCH faster.
Continuum runs just fine. I was going to take a snazzy screenshot of Continuum running in the "Flip3D" feature but it wouldn't let me printscreen and I'm too lazy to get a screen capture any other way.
The only real problem is with drivers, since I installed the 64-bit edition. Vista came with more drivers than XP x64 did, but it still couldn't use the onboard audio and modem. Drivers are online, but I haven't gotten them to work. Luckily I have USB audio as well. My own fault for installing the 64-bit version, but I want to eek a little extra performance out of Mathematica.
Overall, if you are rich, or can get it for free as a student, I'd recommend at least trying out Vista. I'm sticking with it for sure, since it runs just as well (if not better) than XP, and looks a lot better, among other reasons. Also satisfies my inner geek to be on the bleeding edge. Anybody else using Vista regularly? |
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Doc Flabby
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| Posted: Tue Dec 12, 2006 6:16 am Post maybe stupid Post subject: Re: An update |
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| Blocks wrote: | | Continuum runs just fine |
yey i guess microsoft must have fixed it for the final vista release  vista here i come (once i have new computer, my laptop is rates 1.0  ) |
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The Apache
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| Posted: Tue Dec 12, 2006 12:30 pm Post maybe stupid Post subject: Re: An update |
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| Blocks wrote: |
Continuum runs just fine. |
microsoft did it just for us. we should feel loved.  |
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Cerium
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| Posted: Tue Dec 12, 2006 1:51 pm Post maybe stupid Post subject: |
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How does it handle remote desktop? That's really my only issue with XP pro -- not only can only a single user be logged at the same time (stupid) but if a User is logged in and an Administrator tries to login remotely via Remote Desktop, the user is asked if the admin is allowed to take over. If the user clicks "No" the Administrator gets a nice message saying "sorry, you were denied access by a peon".
If Vista fixes that, I'll switch my roommates machine immediately. If not... meh.
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Maverick
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Doc Flabby
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| Posted: Wed Dec 13, 2006 12:03 pm Post maybe stupid Post subject: |
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that doesnt work. a windows update broke it
Done ALOT of research into this so trust me on it.
you have to pay $$ to get more than one rd http://www.thinsoftinc.com/
Have you considered installing xen then virtualising 2 copies of windows xp then you could have one each |
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Cerium
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| Posted: Wed Dec 13, 2006 1:51 pm Post maybe stupid Post subject: |
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That thinsoft thing may work, but virtual environments definately will not.
The point of this setup is so I can maintain the system without giving him anything more than User-level access -- he's not exactly computer savvy and would most likely do something that would fuck up the computer if I let him. |
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Maverick
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| Posted: Wed Dec 13, 2006 2:17 pm Post maybe stupid Post subject: |
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get a copy of Windows 2000 or 2003  |
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Cerium
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| Posted: Wed Dec 13, 2006 2:33 pm Post maybe stupid Post subject: |
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| I have a legal copies of every OS on my machines and would very much like to keep it that way. Besides, I really don't feel like disabling/removing a bunch of extra crap that he wouldn't use anyway. |
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Mine GO BOOM
Hunch Hunch
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| Posted: Wed Dec 13, 2006 3:37 pm Post maybe stupid Post subject: |
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| The Linux world is very nice. If you want to be able to fix his computer easily from afar, SSH is a thing of beauty. Plus, you can remotely install applications for him easily and restrict his ability to do things very well. He plays lots of games? Wine supports a lot of games. |
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Animate Dreams
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| Posted: Wed Dec 13, 2006 6:20 pm Post maybe stupid Post subject: |
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Another argument could be made that you should just let him screw up the computer as much as he wants. Just teach him how to reformat, and how to keep data backed up(you know, like all the important stuff on a second drive) in case he DOES screw it up. I mean, that's how I learned about computers, and how to fix them, by dealing with broken ones. Although, I never got any viruses, but I had friends that let me fix theirs, so I was able to learn that too.
I suppose it's like the "Teach a man to fish" think. I enjoy teaching people about computers, but I don't like the whole "just do it all for me" approach. If people don't want to learn from me, I'd rather them figure it out on their own. Generally, I'll only do things for people if I know they're trying to learn. Of course, this is different from doing a favor for a friend or something like that.
Also, I think suggesting Linux to someone who doesn't know how to even use Windows properly is a horrible idea. Even assuming Cerium wanted to help him with every single problem that came up, I know I wouldn't want to have to wait for someone else to do something to my computer every time I was doing something new in it(like new game, or whatever). Even then, it would take a lot of learning on how to use the Linux system. I had to wait for authorization every time I needed to use a new program when I was working at Verizon Wireless. >_> It got really annoying after a while, even my boss was getting fed up with it. |
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