I had been using my older Windows XP machine for 5 years and finally decided it was time for a new one. I ordered it online with Windows Vista.

I was skeptical at first because of all the bad press I had read. I’m an IT systems engineer for the number one gaming & hospitality corporation in America, so I know my stuff about technology.

All I can say is that I have not had one single problem with Windows Vista. The Aero interface is lovely and so are most of the added graphic elements. The software I run varies from graphical to audio tools and are quite intensive in nature.

Microsoft has really done a good job on making this OS very user friendly. Simple things built into the OS such as automatic sliding horizontal scroll bars really make my work more productive.

I would never go back to the older Windows XP.

If it were a cheap upgrade I’d probably go for it, but XP works just great for me and I see no reason to upgrade for $$, especially if I need new HW.

Microsoft hasn’t given me any real reason to upgrade. I’ve always been an early adopter on OS upgrades, but this time I just don’t see the need. I haven’t heard of any real benefit and I’m tried of chasing peripheral makers around for new drivers.

There’s also a cost issue. We have 4 computers in our home. It’s way too expensive to upgrade them all. It gets really bad when you then upgrade Office as well.

BTW, what was Microsoft thinking when they put Powerpoint in the Home & Student version and took out Outlook?

If Microsoft wants to regain momentum they need to look at how they address the multiple ocmputer home.

I have two MCE 2005 computers and three Linksys Media Center Extenders for a very nice network PVR system. It is my understanding Vista does not work with MCX’s. I would not see changing my PCs that support these linksys extenders. I paid too much for the extenders and they are silent. Not like those xbox 360 howlers.

I will probably get Vista with my next laptop but I am nervous about getting my wife a new laptop and having to support her learning Vista when she’s got two kids to worry about and has about 10 minutes a day for email and Microsoft Greetings Workshop card maker app.

I am waiting on hardware,software,and patches for vista. Then I will consider it.

Loaded Vista on my Main PC on a separate HD. To slow. I echo the multi-home users PC households, to expensive. I’m hatching my bets and seriously moving to Linux just in case, the millionaires at Microsoft think there prices are just right. So at home 6 PC’s will stay with XP, The home Server will go to Linux as does one desktop and the iMac has parallels with XP. What bugs me the most about Vista is the DRM and in the final analyses it is a show stopper for me.

I maintain around 50 remote, unmanned machines installed with XP and have started to experiment with the move to Vista. I have learned that

- Moving from NT 4 to 2000 slowed down a computer by about 10-15% but resulted in way better stability.
- Moving from 2000 to XP resulted in no noticeable slowdown but gave decent stability and easier usability.
- Moving from XP to Vista slows down the machine by 25-50% (depending on whether you run Aero).
- Vista is no easier to use than XP. In fact it’s a little more difficult.
- Vista is more difficult than any of the preceding OSs to set up for unattended server-type use.
- Apache http server (both 2.0.x and 2.2.x) works more reliably with Vista than XP or 2000.
- Many video cards certified to work with Vista have beta drivers that don’t (I tried 3 separate – 2 from NVidia, one from ATI).
- Vista “this device isn’t functioning” wizard is just as useless as XP’s.

Most importantly, I learned that the fastest, most reliable hardware you might buy will run faster and more reliably on Windows XP and will suffer a considerable performance hit under Vista.

I have had Vista Business installed on a Dell Latitude 120L since it was released publicly (first adopter and living on the bleeding edge of technology). As far as it working, it does..and pretty well, if I might add. Microsoft released their version of Flash player in Vista and it doesn’t work about 75% of the time. I have tried to install the “real” Flash player, but it seems MS has blocked that from happening. So therefore, I have installed VPC 2007 and installed XP Pro so in case I have to do something that Vista won’t do. Vista reminds me a lot of OS X in that it will work about 90% of the time everything Internet but there there a couple of things that it won’t do that requires booting VPC and using XP pro. Not bad really, but also, very far from great. But it works. Most of the time.

Dale, you might want to try running Firefox as your web browser if IE7 is giving you issues with flash and such. Firefox has it’s own plugins, and uses genuine Macromedia/Adobe flash, instead of MS’s oddball version.

I’ve been using Vista for about a month now, and I’ve gotta say it’s been pretty good to me, I have yet to order my 64bit disk, but I’m hoping there won’t be any problems once I get going on that.

I bought Vista Ultimate with a new Dell 690 workstation with dual quad processor and 4 gigs of RAM. Everything, and I mean everything is working exactly as it is supposed to work, and I was able to start using it in my web design business three days after receiving it. My main software dependencies are Photoshop, CuteFTP, and several HTML code editors and all have worked fine. The only change I had to make was replace an aging HP scanner which the Vista evaluation program had told me before buying Vista. I think this system will surpass XP in stability and security when it has had a chance to integrate into the market place and get SPs to make people think “It must be fixed now.” In fact – “it ain’t broke!”

One thing I’m having a hard time understanding is all these people that seem to think they either have to upgrade ALL of their home computers to Vista all at once, or else never upgrade any of their computers at all.

It seems that people who believe this also believe the only way to buy Vista is to pay full list price for the full-install Ultimate version, as if they never heard of shopping for discount prices on the Internet and they can’t settle for an Upgrade to a lesser version (Home Premium, Business, etc.) as opposed to a full version of Vista Ultimate.

For example, Gavin said “$300 + for an OS is too much especially in a multi computer house” Yet, right here in my Best Buy ad, I see Vista Home Premium Upgrade on sale for $20 off: $139.99.

I suppose even a measly $139.99 is more than some people can afford, but it’s still less than half of the “$300+” number that people are always throwing around when they’re making excuses for not upgrading to Vista.

On my home network, I have two computers running Vista pretty much full time – both have dual boot capability, so we can go back to XP if needed, but rarely do (because Vista works great!). I have three other computers running XP and one computer still runs W2K, with a dual boot option for Windows 98! I also have a server running W2K3 SBS. Running 98 is somewhat troublesome in this environment, but running a combination of Vista, XP and W2K generally works pretty well. There is nothing mandating that I upgrade/replace these older computers to make everything run Vista.

If someone doesn’t want to use Vista, that’s their choice. I just don’t understand why they have to make these lame excuses for not upgrading, instead of just saying “I don’t want to do it.”

Rick

http://www.Hogans-Systems.com

Ron,

Wow! $69.95 – that’s a bargain! Makes it even harder to justify the “$300+” per computer argument, at least for people who can qualify for the academic version!

Rick

http://www.Hogans-Systems.com

I built a new machine and put Vista Ultimate on. Since an old PDA was not supported, I created “VirtualBox” and put XP Pro in the box. I Use Pinnacle Studio 10 in Vista but use Studio 9 for one feature that was dumbed-down in 10. Studio 9 went into the Box. I am very pleased with the new operating system after a few days of tweaking – glad I made the move.

Good discussion and valuable feedback, however all the positive Vista experiences lack comments with compelling arguments for buying it. If Vista’s so much bigger, more horsepower hungry and more expensive than XP, is there anything at all that makes it worth buying?

Trully Ron, I have been on the vista track since beta. When it first came out the only thing i could think was omg here’s another longhorn like failure….then different betas came out and it got a little better byu the time it reached RC1i would say it had a 50%-60% improvement. I’ve had basically every microsoft OS ever since Windows 3.1 and on my opinion were all faulty in some way or another the option of whether you ugrade or is yours….and on my opinion MS reached it’s peak of reliability on any system when 2000 came…but i’ll give into XP after a while it worked pretty well, it’s stable and easy to use, but vista just looked like a sore looser to me…it didn’t change it’s a resource hog, tho it looks better(which is lost on the other issues), the HW compability with older stuff happens to any OS but Vista’s is magnified and UAC is a sad attempt to copy the security linux uses when root permissions are needed…so on my most true opinion of it all either get a nice mac or if you’re not familiar with linux get a ubuntu or kubuntu even maybe my favorite Fedora Core FOR FREE! the money cost with vista go to amazon.com or the nearest book store and get “*linux OS* for dummies” and do some light reading and u’ll be in better grounds.

Vista Home Premium came with my new HP machine. Had to find substitute drivers for a printer, get a parallel to USB printer cable but otherwise most of my older stuff worked. I had some problems with USB devices not working after waking up from sleep mode. An HP techie guided me through a MS hotfix and we are evaluating the situation – it has improved and I am enjoying the new machine and like VISTA so far. The UAC is less of a pain than I feared (so far). With a big screen I like the gadgets on the side.

A couple of things:

1. I didn’t read all the posts but if people are complaining about the price, just buy the upgrade. If you do a clean install then upgrade the install, the product key works. There is no reason to buy the full version yet.

2. XP couldn’t be just “serviced packed” with the new vista features. Vista changed most of its structure in order to help with performance on computers in the “higher echelon” (computers that have dual core and quad core etc.). These “higher” computers are now being mainstreamed and most have become standard. This is because most older computers are being phased out with new dual, quad cores; vista is one part of this new generation of computing. If you own a slower computer then stick with XP and don’t complain how vista won’t run on your computer.

3. Running old programs and trying to make them work on Vista. This is an issue that Microsoft had to deal with. Users standpoint: Running compatibility is annoying and frustrating (since they won’t work most of the time). Programmers standpoint: Absolute nightmare (considering, every new OS they come out with, they have to make all their software “backwards compatible”). I think the idea here is to break in software that eliminates the older software by forcing Vista compatible products to replace the out of date software. I agree somewhat with people who are upset with Vista for being completely compatible with older programs, but I don’t want to be bogged down by saying “Vista is horrible” because it won’t run my old You Don’t Know Jack game from 1997.

Overall I just think Vista is for the new generation of computers and programs. It isn’t meant to be a perfect system, but it was meant to be a system that could adapt to the new fluxuation in technology we have been having the past couple of years. Since Vista must compete with its predessor (XP), it is likely that its advantages to most users won’t be seen until the next OS comes out. Once that happens, then the cycle will continue.

I have a pc at home and I know that sooner or later it will be time to update. Thanks for the read.