I really don't like XP fanboys running in circles and shouting "XP! XP!" or whatever they might say. I'm not one of them I just want to have a choice.
What was the main reason to move on to the XP? Because it was obviously evolutional moving, large step forward from what we've known before to the new era. Surely it sounds somewhat stilted but I cannot deny facts: it's the only MS OS that remains modern and efficient in the course of 5 years.

All I want to say is that Vista is quite a questionable alternative to the XP and I'd rather wait for the Windows 7, which will probably bring to life all the features that were supposed to appear in Vista

perhaps but i'd say its more like the tons of other problems they are having.

Don't hold your breath.

I don't care how long MS says it's going to take, you are going to be waiting at least 4 years. Thats not even going into the fact that they could very well ditch many features that they are going to be advertising about much like they did with Vista. I don't get why everyone is praising "7", no one even knows whats going to be in it. And when it does arrive people are going to have the same reaction as they did with Vista. It's a process that is ALWAYS repeated.

Another improvement I really like is the network and sharing center. In XP, you cannot tell by looking at your Network Connections folder if your connection is down. If you are connected to your router and it is functional, it will show connected. In Vista, it will tell you if the router connects out to the Internet or not.

Now, this may not seem like a big deal to most of you, as you can simply ping out and find out the same thing. BUT, many technicians (myself included) find themselves needing to do a lot of troubleshooting over the phone, with end users who have limited experience (a chain's only as strong as its weakest length), and it is best to resolve connectivity issues in as few steps as possible to minimize end user frustration.

4 more years of XP sounds great   

I'll buy Vista after SP1 comes out... just makes more sense to wait until they fix some of the issues. Computer's not a problem. 500gb hdd, 2gb ram, nVidia 8600 (SLI and pci-e) w/ 512mb onboard ram, yadda yadda yadda....

As for change, well, it is inevitable.

Yeah, 4 more years of XP SP3

Hi all

I think most people dont know about the benefits of Vista(thats MS's fault) so here are a few that I find make the experience so much better than XP(would never go back to it). I run Vista 32bit Ultimate and have had very few problems. It's all very stable and runs everything extremely quickly. Never had a blue screen. But you need a very powerful newly built PC to run to it's full potential. At least Core Duo, 4GB ram(3.2 roughly usable), huge graphics card and preferably a raid setup of some sort. The only problems I have had is with DreamScape, the desktop video system, which is still buggy, otherwise it's rock solid. The best points for me are :

1. The desktop search, indexer service. This is a godsend. Being able to find any one of my thousands of files or emails within seconds is fantastic. I know google and others have provided this but to have it so closley integrated into the file system is superb. The way it presents it is also good with seperate tabs for emails, docs, music, picture etc. Many people dont like the indexer as it churns the hard drive on a new install to catalogue your files but it's worth putting up with this for the couple of days it might take. Took a bit longer to catalogue my 60,000+ files.

2. The new start menu. No longer have to trawl through start menu items looking for a program. Just type it 's name and it's there. Type it 's name and enter and it's launched. A great time saver. Even better, no trawling through your internet favourites just type the name in the start menu and it launches your default browser and goes to the site, ie type `BBC News' or just BBC and off it goes.

3. The integrated file viewer within the file system. This is another great plus point. I can now browse pdf's, docs and other file extensions(office requires latest version to view it's extensions, except Outlooks) within the file system. Even multiple page pdfs can be browsed without having to open a seperate window. The desktop search system also allows this browsing and also allows searched emails to be browsed within the search window without needing to open seperate windows. This integration has finally persuaded me to go to a semi paperless office. I scan all non legally required docs in and then shred the original. Obvously Windows video file formats can also be browsed and others with Nero 8 intalled.

4. Faster lauching of programs. No hanging about anymore. With prefetch, Vista loads commonly used programs into memory so they are there waiting for you. Quickbooks, which takes an age to open on XP opens within a couple of secs on Vista. Outlook, even with a large email database opens instantly. Word opens so fast if you blink you would miss it. So much better experience.

5. Side bar. Although seen as a memory hog by some, it's no problem if you start with loads of memory in the first place. There are many useful apps for it. I like Magic Folders which keeps my desktop clean. Just drag a file to it and it puts it into the correct folder depending on it's extension. Others such as language converters, system info apps and news video feeds add to the experience.

6. Under the hood apps. There's a great selection of tools in Vista for viewing system info etc, much more than in XP.

7. Network tools. Many more options for network control and media sharing including networked drives etc.

8. Inbuilt support of mobile phones. Didnt have to install any software from my phones vendor. Just plugged it in and it worked straight off and synched immediatley and has been rock solid ever since.. Think I downloaded just one update for this to enable some more up to date functions.

9. Vista starts up quickly and shuts down even quicker.

10 Stability. Vista is rock solid. Only dreamscape\Deskscape gives it problems and as thats a fairly new add on its to be expected and obviously is optional to run. I am testing it agin now since the latest Vista updates.

11. Games run much better and with less problems. In fact I have no problems at all with any games installed. Medieval Total War2 is my cup of tea at the moment.

12. MS Virtual PC. This is a free add on so you can run XP or other OS from within Vista if you really need to run that program that might not work in Vista. Very easy to setup and runs great. Lacks USB access though but I am sure this will come in future.

13. If there are problems with a program there is a compatibility mode that lets you run it in an emulated way. This usually works with most programs. With some, such as Nero you have to upgrade.

14. Vista back-up(in Business and Ultimate only I think). Much better, back up to DVD , external drives or network locations, automatically knows all `document' formats so you dont need to select them one at a time. Also has settings for Video backup, Photo backups etc etc so you can select different locations for each.

15.Vista has it's own in built DVD Mpeg2 decoder. So no probs playing DVD's like in XP where you needed a third party program to install the decoder.

Some of the inbuilt Vista stuff I dont use such as the photo gallery (Picasa is much better), Windows Mail (Outlook for me) but I do use the Movie Maker which isnt bad for basic video editing and adding titles and effects etc (usually to my sons YouTube vidoes). Also some Vista options can be turned off immediatley it's installed, such as Defenders daily scans and there is a hack to delay the start-up of the search indexer so that it doesnt churn your hard drive straight away. There in lies another thing, dont attempt to install Vista on a dodgy HD, it will kill it.

Regards

Danep

Quad core, 4GB Ram, 640MB 8800GTS, Raid 5 1TB.

All the difference, prob is.. most people are on 1 gig of ram machines with a 2.8 pentium

Did I mention 4 years with atleast 3 of those with no further updates? If you are ok with that then by all means, go for it. But I can garentee you'll be in the minority.


I've got a machine running Vista Ultimate for testing purposes and its got an AMD 64 4000+ SanDiego(2.4ghz SINGLE CORE), 1GB DDR400 memory, 6800GT videocard. It's a peice of junk and it runs the OS without problems.

Hi vStyler,

Yes, most people are on a lot less than that. I always tell em not to bother with Vista until they need a new machine and I refuse to build Vista machines unless the client is willing to pay for a decent one. It really does need a powerful machine to run to it's full potential. You can turn off loads of stuff like the indexer, Defender etc so that older machines can run better but that defeats the object of installing it. Most business' buy cheap machines, thats whats stopping them upgrading to Vista. Once prices drop in another six months or so, costs will come down to the point where even cheap machines will be able to run Vista superbly. Only then would it be worthwile for Business' to upgrade. I cant believe how much cheaper it is now for the Quad core CPU I bought only 6 months ago. Most good motherboards also now come with raid5 on board so it's easy to set up a 3 drive raid array( I use 3 500GB Sata2 drives). Not only is this safer for the large amounts of data now being stored but is much faster than a single drive. Vista recognised the raid array immedately when installing, didnt even need an install F6 disc for it.

Regards
Dane

Next year.. faster machine.. I may be happier.. Still think interface design changes were unnecessary.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't support for XP supposed to continue until 2009? While there may not be another SP after 3, that doesn't mean that you won't be able to get security updates, etc.

I'm with you Mountainhawk. Gone are the days when I would buy the latest and greatest just because it was the 'new kid on the block'. Older and wiser now and I need to see something that is better than what I've got. Vista would be a backward step for me and quite an expensive one. Like most people I know - I've seen it, had a play with it but for the moment I ain't touching it with a barge pole............

As killajosh points out, just because you won't be able to buy new copies of XP to load on a computer doesn't mean that MS will not continue to support it till 2009 or later.

Also no matter what good points or bad points are identified it still comes down to what we choose to run on our computers. As Leo the Lion points out unfortunately we come to the discovery later in life that we allways had the choice.

If I understand correctly, MS is obligated to their partners (hardware) to release a new OS every 2.5 years. It's important for the packagers to encourage hardware upgrades for the obvious reason.

However, Vista did not offer patrons (business) enough of an incentive to increase the cost/benefit ratio. The NYT wrote an article two days ago that Dell surveyed its patrons and it seems most are waiting for the VSP1 release to make changes. Even then, the hardware changes are a huge cost to business.

With SSD's increasing capacity, coming down in price and Windows 7 speculated to be x64 only, the techs are apprehensive, to say the least, about offering their bean counters any reason to change right now. AMD's FireStream technology is a good example of processor change, too.

To maximize cost/benefit it's in the best interest to plan, organize and budget for a complete retool around 2012. This could be a renaissance period since it will change the entire information process. The use of cell phones as the interface of choice (for business) is already defining this change.

So I'm hanging on to my XPx64 hedging a bet that in 2012 (or sooner if Windows 7 comes out on time) I will also be able to completely retool. That will be fun.

PS - I just found this a moment ago: from the Windows 98 support site...

"Effective July 11, 2006, Windows 98, Windows 98 Second Edition, and Windows Me (and their related components) will transition to a non-supported status. After this date, Microsoft will no longer provide any incident support options or security updates. Microsoft is not offering a custom support agreement for these products."

7/11/2006!! I wonder how long XP support will really go

It's support is due to end early 08, 7 years in total from its release late 2001. I'm guessing they may extend it a year, giving that 3 years of no updates or support.

Well... they can have XP when its pryed from my cold dead fingers   

Oh and for those who are just going to wait for the next gen OS(Windows "7"): WWW Link

Oh and MountianHawk don't forget if you say Vista is bad you'll get flamed...

Yes, and I've just taken delivery of my custom ultra flame thrower, so I can singe yer minge even from all the way down in Oz.

No one is being insulted here.

Everytime I boot into Vista im completely insulted.   

I've pointed this site out in numerous threads before.

Mainstream Support for WindowsXP will end on 4-14-2009
Extended Support for WindowsXP will end on 4-8-2014

You can get full explanation of what it means here..

Linketh..


Kona, I'm curious..
How much actual time have you sat in front of Vista and actually used it on a machine which is designed for Vista?