Windows Vista???
Discussion
Hi,
Just wanted to ask those in the know on Pistonheads whats the crack with the new Windows Vista I've been hearing about. Is it simply a new operating system to replace XP as the standard on most PC's and would it be worthwhile for me to upgrade to this operating system from XP or is there even such thing as an upgrade package from XP. Also, will an intel celeron M380 processor, 1.6ghz be quick enough to run it.
Thanx
Just wanted to ask those in the know on Pistonheads whats the crack with the new Windows Vista I've been hearing about. Is it simply a new operating system to replace XP as the standard on most PC's and would it be worthwhile for me to upgrade to this operating system from XP or is there even such thing as an upgrade package from XP. Also, will an intel celeron M380 processor, 1.6ghz be quick enough to run it.
Thanx
Vista is Microsoft's latest offering in the operating market they quote www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/getready/capable.mspx
as the minimum requirement but go for at least 1gb of ram and the best cpu you can afford 64bit would be my recommendation to future proof it.
HTH
Matt
as the minimum requirement but go for at least 1gb of ram and the best cpu you can afford 64bit would be my recommendation to future proof it.
HTH
Matt
Vista is Microsofts latest version of Windows. I'm afraid it isn't everything advertised, so if Windows 2000 is NT 5 and XP is 5.1, consider Vista to be NT 5.2. It can be rather resource hungry by all accounts (more so than XP) so 1Gb RAM is really the minimum if you want to give the eye candy a go as is a good 3D accelerator.
That being said, Microsoft, have stated on more than one occasion, that they will back port Aero to WinXP possibly as part of Service Pack 3.
Ohh and personally Aero is fugly, really fugly. You can get a demo of what it looks like from seeing how Windows Media Player 11 looks, fortunately Vista has a 'look like XP' mode and a 'look like 2k' mode for old machines.
That being said, Microsoft, have stated on more than one occasion, that they will back port Aero to WinXP possibly as part of Service Pack 3.
Ohh and personally Aero is fugly, really fugly. You can get a demo of what it looks like from seeing how Windows Media Player 11 looks, fortunately Vista has a 'look like XP' mode and a 'look like 2k' mode for old machines.
When we were in the pooter shop the other week we were asking about Vista, the guy there says that there are going to be a few versions of it (few more levels than having XP Home and XP Pro), he says the second level up is the one that will come with most new machines and that you can only run three applications at a time (not good for those of us that have 4 chat programes, email, internet etc going while working!)
He doesn't rate it and thinks that folks would be better off sticking with XP, in fact he says in some ways XP is a heck of a lot better! The general consensus around the guys at the shop was 'don't touch it unless you have absolutly no choice'
I still struggle to get XP under my control, so I think I am in the stick with XP camp. (anyway, if IE7 is anything to go by............)
He doesn't rate it and thinks that folks would be better off sticking with XP, in fact he says in some ways XP is a heck of a lot better! The general consensus around the guys at the shop was 'don't touch it unless you have absolutly no choice'
I still struggle to get XP under my control, so I think I am in the stick with XP camp. (anyway, if IE7 is anything to go by............)
I often witness events these days, where I end up thinking that I am surrounded by aliens, in an invasion of the bodysnatchers sense. I doubt they are aliens, but they all seem to have the same script.
"Change, or be changed. You will comply!"
As far as I understand it this whole ethos has taken over the Microsoft camp. I don't know where it has come from generally or in the Microsoft sense, but I do think that Windows Vista is an example of a product of this thinking.
I'd say don't feel that you have to upgrade to Vista. The technology is not necassarily better. A more restrictive and expensive world is only in the interests of the companies that we are all forced to serve.
"Change, or be changed. You will comply!"
As far as I understand it this whole ethos has taken over the Microsoft camp. I don't know where it has come from generally or in the Microsoft sense, but I do think that Windows Vista is an example of a product of this thinking.
I'd say don't feel that you have to upgrade to Vista. The technology is not necassarily better. A more restrictive and expensive world is only in the interests of the companies that we are all forced to serve.
I "obtained" a copy to try and found that with a Semperon 64 2800 processor and 512Mb RAM, it wasn't that good, even the 64bit version which doesn't have that many drivers out yet.
I then upgraded my video card to a compatible one, upgraded the RAM to 1Gb and it has made such a difference. The Aero scheme uses the video card to offload so much processing to the GPU that it runs so much better. It seems to be better than the old "look like XP" scheme as that is run completely by the CPU.
I will be upgrading to a legit copy when I can get my hands on one as the media centre interface with my 360 looks fantastic and works really well.
I then upgraded my video card to a compatible one, upgraded the RAM to 1Gb and it has made such a difference. The Aero scheme uses the video card to offload so much processing to the GPU that it runs so much better. It seems to be better than the old "look like XP" scheme as that is run completely by the CPU.
I will be upgrading to a legit copy when I can get my hands on one as the media centre interface with my 360 looks fantastic and works really well.
speedchick said:
When we were in the pooter shop the other week we were asking about Vista, the guy there says that there are going to be a few versions of it (few more levels than having XP Home and XP Pro), he says the second level up is the one that will come with most new machines and that you can only run three applications at a time (not good for those of us that have 4 chat programes, email, internet etc going while working!)
He doesn't rate it and thinks that folks would be better off sticking with XP, in fact he says in some ways XP is a heck of a lot better! The general consensus around the guys at the shop was 'don't touch it unless you have absolutly no choice'
I still struggle to get XP under my control, so I think I am in the stick with XP camp. (anyway, if IE7 is anything to go by............)
He doesn't rate it and thinks that folks would be better off sticking with XP, in fact he says in some ways XP is a heck of a lot better! The general consensus around the guys at the shop was 'don't touch it unless you have absolutly no choice'
I still struggle to get XP under my control, so I think I am in the stick with XP camp. (anyway, if IE7 is anything to go by............)
Was that PC world or a decent computer shop?
I have been using it for a week or so and it has been fine, a bit quicker than XP with the right video card and even streaming recorded tv while recording another channel has been ok. Need to try streaming video, recording 2 channels at the same time and surfing the web on a remote desktop connection to really test it though.
Been playing with it for a while, havent noticed any limitations on the number of programs I can run..... but then I did try it on a Core 2 Duo with 2GB ram and a top of the line graphics card. Comments from my colleagues lead me to believe that 1gb ram is ok but not really enough, that you need a decent graphics card , so PCI-E with 256MB and a fast GPU. Oh and of course a decent processor, nothing Celeron or M (intel based) for example.
Probably a good idea to leave older PCs (anything with AGP for example) on XP.
The best advice ? Keep on with XP for a year or so until they have all the bus orked out of Vista, then try it.
Probably a good idea to leave older PCs (anything with AGP for example) on XP.
The best advice ? Keep on with XP for a year or so until they have all the bus orked out of Vista, then try it.
bigdods said:
Been playing with it for a while, havent noticed any limitations on the number of programs I can run..... but then I did try it on a Core 2 Duo with 2GB ram and a top of the line graphics card. Comments from my colleagues lead me to believe that 1gb ram is ok but not really enough, that you need a decent graphics card , so PCI-E with 256MB and a fast GPU. Oh and of course a decent processor, nothing Celeron or M (intel based) for example.
Probably a good idea to leave older PCs (anything with AGP for example) on XP.
The best advice ? Keep on with XP for a year or so until they have all the bus orked out of Vista, then try it.
Probably a good idea to leave older PCs (anything with AGP for example) on XP.
The best advice ? Keep on with XP for a year or so until they have all the bus orked out of Vista, then try it.
My pc has only got an agp card as i was too skint to get a new mb, cpu, ram etc and vga card. Upgraded to a 128Mb ge force 6200 and it works great, wouldn't want to game on it though.
ThePassenger said:
Vista is Microsofts latest version of Windows. I'm afraid it isn't everything advertised, so if Windows 2000 is NT 5 and XP is 5.1, consider Vista to be NT 5.2.
Vista cannot be considered version 5.2 as Windows 2003 is version 5.2
Vista comes up as version 6.0 and is a big departure from XP, to the point where some apps don't work without messing about and even then still come up with a compatibility warning every time you run them (VS2005 having to run as administrator and still complaining being a good example).
The truth is somewhere in the middle. It's not the earth-shaking revolution that MS promise, nor is it the work of evil that some here suggest.
Regarding resource-hungry, I'm dual-booting my old VAIO (1.7GHz Pentium M, 512MB RAM, 16MB Mobility Radeon) between XP and Vista, with Office 2007 on both. XP starts and shuts down more quickly, but I'd say there's little to choose between them in terms of actually using the applications. With a 16MB graphics card, I obviously don't get all the fancy visual effects, though. XP was reinstalled about four months ago, so it's a reasonably fair comparison.
As for it being Windows 5.2, that's just ill-informed nonsense. This page on MSDN shows that (to Microsoft, at least) it is 6.0.
So in summary, I'd say it's a new version of Windows - compare it to Porsche launching a new 911 or Mitsubishi another Lancer Evo. The fact that an Evo 8 was launched didn't make the Evo 7 rubbish overnight, nor did the 997 render the 996 worthless. If you're working away fine with XP, there's probably no reason to change. If you're buying a new PC, it's probably worth getting one with a free upgrade voucher.
Regarding resource-hungry, I'm dual-booting my old VAIO (1.7GHz Pentium M, 512MB RAM, 16MB Mobility Radeon) between XP and Vista, with Office 2007 on both. XP starts and shuts down more quickly, but I'd say there's little to choose between them in terms of actually using the applications. With a 16MB graphics card, I obviously don't get all the fancy visual effects, though. XP was reinstalled about four months ago, so it's a reasonably fair comparison.
As for it being Windows 5.2, that's just ill-informed nonsense. This page on MSDN shows that (to Microsoft, at least) it is 6.0.
So in summary, I'd say it's a new version of Windows - compare it to Porsche launching a new 911 or Mitsubishi another Lancer Evo. The fact that an Evo 8 was launched didn't make the Evo 7 rubbish overnight, nor did the 997 render the 996 worthless. If you're working away fine with XP, there's probably no reason to change. If you're buying a new PC, it's probably worth getting one with a free upgrade voucher.
I've been dual booting a dodgy vista copy with XP on my main machine (3700+, 1.5gb, AGP 256mb x800) and I love it. The new look is superb and my machine doesn't have any more problems running it than XP. Some drivers are a bit hard to find (or betas) at the moment but I would expect that to change quickly in the next few weeks. I will certainly be upgrading, if for nothing more than the media centre functionality and DirectX10.
euroboy said:
speedchick said:
he says the second level up is the one that will come with most new machines and that you can only run three applications at a time (not good for those of us that have 4 chat programes, email, internet etc going while working!)
Hmmm, that sounds distinctly like bollox!
I'm thinking of going for Vista, but am not sure whther it is worth the upgrade. I have a 3.2GHz P4HT, 1GB RAM, 400GB SATA HDD and a 128MB PCI-Express Radeon 300. Is this good enought o run Vista properly, or will it be fine holding up the OS but die as soon as I try to run a heavy app...?
How much does it cost me to upgrade (I have XP Pro right now)...?
TIA,
Roop
How much does it cost me to upgrade (I have XP Pro right now)...?
TIA,
Roop
roop said:
I have a 3.2GHz P4HT, 1GB RAM, 400GB SATA HDD and a 128MB PCI-Express Radeon 300. Is this good enought o run Vista properly, or will it be fine holding up the OS but die as soon as I try to run a heavy app...?
It'll run it fine, your graphics card is on the 'supported' list and 1GB RAM should be enough. It's worth downloading and running the Vista upgrade advisor which will check your hardware and software for any known problems. For my laptop (specs above) it tells me that I can't run Aero and it recommends 1GB of RAM instead of the 512MB to "ensure optimal performance" of "high-end gaming, photo editing, and multimedia programs". I've not seen any firm pricing, be interested to hear if anyone has?
No, I haven't heard of prices either. I might just hang on and get a new PC with it OEM if it's going to be £££'s...Personally I'll be waiting about a year until the OS settles down. New OS's tend to be buggy and have limited driver support when new so I have no intention of leaving XP yet.
Also as a gamer the prospect of loosing all DirectSound audio accelleration for all apps that don't use OpenAL (only about 4 games at the moment) doesn't win me over
Might have to pick up an X-Fi card, as apparently Creative are working on a wrapper to support DirectSound on X-Fi.
As for DirectX 10, I don't have a DX10 card and won't be upgrading it for the next year, so even under Vista my current card (DX9c) would use the Legacy DX9 support not DX10 under Vista anyway.
Also as a gamer the prospect of loosing all DirectSound audio accelleration for all apps that don't use OpenAL (only about 4 games at the moment) doesn't win me over
Might have to pick up an X-Fi card, as apparently Creative are working on a wrapper to support DirectSound on X-Fi. As for DirectX 10, I don't have a DX10 card and won't be upgrading it for the next year, so even under Vista my current card (DX9c) would use the Legacy DX9 support not DX10 under Vista anyway.
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