August 31, 2007 at 5:33 am
I run XP at work, Linux Ubuntu Feisty at home.
I don't see myself running Vista until I have to.
I like XP, its a decent OS. I'm not one of those anti-MS people, I've based my career on their RDBMS platform but I REALLY like Linux at home. It does everything I need and is very stable and highly configurable.
Chris.
Chris.
August 31, 2007 at 6:00 am
XP is by far the best OS Microsoft has ever released from a stability and usability perspective. I do have Vista on 2 and 1/2 computers (I'll explain the 1/2 in a sec). Vista basic came with a computer I purchased for my wife. It worked OK, but I did have issues initially. I recently updated a Media center computer with Vista Ultimate. I like it, but I have to honestly say, I don't use it enough to get too fed up with it. I primarily use it for Video and Photo editing. I love the look and feel. But it was a hassle to get everything to work at first. I don't plan on putting a DB on it.
The 1/2... My kids have a small Dell 1100 with 512M ram. It was running XP Pro and as Kids go, they have everything possible running (Aim, Gmail notifier, etc) it was time to wipe and go. So I decided to put Vista on (yes I know the bottom of the requirements). Good news is, it is faster than it was before, but they haven't had the chance to even touch it. I expect I will do one of two things. Upgrade the memory or put it back to XP.
So for my opinion: I like it a lot. Not the traffic cop (disabled that and the warning that it was disabled). I REALLY like Office 2007 (not the question, but same idea). But if you are the type of person who needs something to work reliably, I don't suggest it. If you don't mind fiddling a little to get something to work. Go for it.
August 31, 2007 at 6:00 am
I have a Vaio UX that I bought when they first came out. I came with XP and the "Vista Capable" sticker, so I figured I was in goos shape when the new OS came out. However, it didn't work out the way I expected.
I don't really know who to blame here. I started by hating Vista when I first tried to upgrade. The upgrade advisor told me I had to uninstall some bluetooth drivers and I would be fine. I followed the instructions and after what seemed like 14 hours of watching status bars and changing disks, my computer rebooted...and never came back up with Vista working. After that, I tried the route of formatting the hard drive and installing from scratch. I managed to get the OS on the machine, but I was unhappy to find out that not only were my bluetooth drivers incompatible, but nearly every driver for the machine did not work with Vista. This is a problem with an ultra-mobile PC since it is touch screen, integrated cameras, integrated keyboard, integrated Wi-Fi, etc. none of it worked so I went back to XP.
Nearly a year later, I found that Sony had published drivers for "everything" so I tried the upgrade process again following their new instructions. Again, the upgrade never came back up and I had to install from scratch. When this was done, I still had one of the cameras (because what is an UM-PC without two?) that would not work and the bluetooth decided to only work for about 45 second spans. I figure if I wait another year, they may have this resolved.
Sony did a terrible job with their Vista Capable sticker and supporting the upgrade. A call to their support just sent me to Microsoft. Microsoft had no solutions for the third-party drivers and basically told me that the OS works fine, it just does not work with any of my devices.
My guess is that buying an entirely new PC with Vista already on it will be a much different experience, but there are a lot of machines out there with XP and the hardware vendors and MS really need to get their acts together to get this kind of thing to work.
August 31, 2007 at 6:14 am
I'm a Microsoft 'guy', have been since the 90's. I'm cert'd and I make a nice living programming using their technologies. Vista, has been a royal pain in the rear. I agree with Bob's comments regarding XP, it's much better. I use Vista everday on my main computer at home but would not even consider it for my other 4 computers in the house.
It has issues with networking, printing, 2 year old perhiperals, basic cookie storage in IE 7 and the whole trusted sites vs. non trusted sites solution is a productivity killer. These are basic everyday things that have a tremendous impact on productivity. It's called low hanging fruit and microsoft was blind to it. These are the important things that they should have made absolute certain that they worked so that folks in the tech community helped vista go viral with "yeah, you want this OS, make sure you get it on your next computer". Now, many of us are telling our friends to stay with XP and don't even think about switching until I tell you it's ok.
August 31, 2007 at 6:39 am
Here in our IT department in a manufacturing environment, we are just now dual booting vista/w2k on our laptops/desktops for testing. Corp plans are to roll-out vista/office 07 1Q08 so we don't have a lot of time to make sure everything works properly. My guess is that they'll hold off until sp1 is released.
So far no major problems, although sql05 seems to time out a lot. Vista's security seems a little over the top at first, but you get used to it. The trick is finding everything that's moved, once you've done that, you'll be fine.
August 31, 2007 at 6:48 am
I've been running Vista since the very early betas and I currently still use it on a laptop at home. As a developer, the new operating system has been a pain as I no longer feel that I have complete control over my environment. Also, in order to run several programs--like Visual Studio 2005--that need administrative rights, I've had to work through a series of hacks and fixes.
On the flip-side as a regular user, I've found the Vista experience to be very fulfilling. The new photo gallery setup and other helpful programs are very beneficial towards organizing my files. I really like the command/search bar that is built-in to the start menu as I can search for specific items very quickly. The only area that seems more difficult is when I move towards making a system change such as changing the background or mouse settings. The new layout doesn't seem as intuitive as the previous XP (although it may just be due to my previous experience with other operating systems).
On the whole, I like Vista for anything but development (I even play all of my favorite games on it). I'm sure with future service packs and updates, I'll be working on it full-time in the near future. Thanks again, Microsoft for another great product.
August 31, 2007 at 6:50 am
I do not run Vista, mainly because I do not have a PC that would run Vista. I also don't think Vista really adds anything I need. I could care less about Aero and, since we are careful on-line, don't really need all the added security features. I know others are using it and when it has come pre-installed it has been fine, but I do not know anyone who has done an upgrade without major headaches, most have gone back to XP. My basic take on all MS products is, wait for SP1, then you are probably all right. With Vista, don't upgrade, buy a new PC.
Jack Corbett
Consultant - Straight Path Solutions
Check out these links on how to get faster and more accurate answers:
Forum Etiquette: How to post data/code on a forum to get the best help
Need an Answer? Actually, No ... You Need a Question
August 31, 2007 at 6:51 am
When a bunch of replacement machines arrived this spring with Vista, we immediately reverted back to XP. There was one exception, a user who always wants to have the latest and greatest. Since he is a salesman and he does not have a need to run all of the proprietary software that fails on Vista, we said go ahead. Besides, we kind of needed a test user.
In general I think that he likes it, but there have been times where he has complained about how Vista makes installs a difficult process.
No one in IT, Development, etc is in any rush to move to Vista.
Scott
August 31, 2007 at 7:10 am
I like the user interface, and UAC doesn't bother me much (as a user). On the other hand, it can't seem to ever remember that I disabled the built-in modem and wants to reinstall it every time it boots. (I have an external wireless connection I want to use instead.) Software support is less than perfect, but I've found just about everything I need for my weekend roadwork.
SQL server, on the other hand, is a nightmare. I can't get SQL 2k5 SP2 to install on a Vista Business laptop. Cryptic messages and no solution yet.
I'd recommend Vista on new purchases, but an upgrade is too much of a hassle.
Jim Lang
August 31, 2007 at 7:30 am
I got a new machine in December and installed Vista Business on it. Seemed okay, but after several blue screens I ended up going through Vista Ultimate and Enterprise before finally settling back with XP in July. I've since determined the blue screens to be my graphics card so it was a hardware issue unrelated to Vista. Still, I'm glad I went back to XP since my devices work a whole lot better. Such as the multimedia keys on my keyboard actually work now in programs other than Windows Media Player, I can use nVidia's nView if I want to, the fan on my graphics card doesn't scream like a banshee all the time now, and my computer actually seems faster.
I turned off UAC while I was using Vista because I simply couldn't deal with error dialogs when editing files outside my home directory. You can make administrative shortcuts for programs, but what about if you just double-click a file and so then you don't use your admin shortcut and get told you don't have permission to edit the file. A needless pain in the butt. IIS 7 had some issues too so while developing I had to do more tweaking to get my apps to run right on my machine. The Aero glass interface wasn't worth squat to me since the window frames are only transparent for non-maximized windows and since I always maximize things the transparency goes away, even on the taskbar. The file copying issue others mention is indeed crazy. I tried to burn a DVD with it and was told it would take a day to complete!!
About the only thing I like about Vista are the pretty background pictures. Okay, so I actually did like the live previews when doing alt-tab or hovering the mouse over a taskbar entry. Overall I don't think Vista is worth the upgrade. If your new PC comes with it, fine, otherwise XP is perfectly fine. Maybe after SP1 I'll give it another go.
August 31, 2007 at 7:32 am
In my opinion, Vista is alot like Windows, (the early days through 3.1, 3.11 up to XP), graphics and stuff to slow you down on top of XP. In the early years of Windows some may remember DOS with Windows on top of it. Vista is similar and so is .NET, something on top of something; inherently slower, requiring more RAM, more and faster DISK and better get some more processor if you expect to work.
Something that most of us forget, including me from time to time. Computers are a tool, they should be used as such until a better one is produced or the current one breaks. I waited for XP a long time before getting off of older OS based systems and applications. I will probably wait a long time again before simply going to the next thing that MS wants us to pay for.
You might guess that I am not a tech junkie, I don't have to have the latest, whatever. If the latest is superior to the existing, then I will wait until at least SP1 comes out, hopefully SP2 before giving in. Anything else would put me in the tech junkie, (i.e. Luxury), category.
"let Microsoft know if you'd be willing to pay a $49 a year subscription to keep XP around"
Answer: NO. What else do I need to have for XP past the current SP? It installs and works well. AND I have enough updates, don't need more as they appear to slow the system down.
[font="Arial"]Clifton G. Collins III[/font]
August 31, 2007 at 7:36 am
Disclaimer: I am a big Microsoft fan, so nothing said here is a flame against them... HOWEVER...
Since the days of DOS (early 80's thru early 90's), I never upgrade an operating system until I feel the need for some feature that has been added and all the major bugs have been fixed.
Vista, as many have stated this morning, has issues! How was that for an understatement???
As a software developer my OS needs to be lean and mean. Other issues with keeping a current development environment have had me developing software for the last two years on virtual computers. I've used MS Virtual PC, Virtual Server, and VMWare products. I like the user interface on VMWare Workstation so that is the VPC management software I currently use.
For an OS, I switched from XP Pro to a dual boot XP Pro and Ubuntu 64 bit 7.04 desktop. I still have a few programs that I need to boot into XP Pro to use them. In the last two months, I've booted into XP Pro twice. Once the first Monday I went live, and once yesterday to use one of my XP programs. Most of my VM's are XP Pro, with Windows Server 2000, and 2003 along with a couple of different Linux distributions for educational purposes. All software development for me has been on Microsoft OS's, but the nature of our business is such that that could change with the next project:-)
So what's my point... My advise is to use XP Pro until Vista is ready for prime time. If you have 64bit hardware and need the horsepower of a 64bit OS, think about learning Linux. It's not easy... Trust me, you will pay a price learning the Linux OS, but for me it has been worth the effort:-)
August 31, 2007 at 7:41 am
I have been using Vista since it came out on my sager 5720 laptop. It has given me no issues to date. Now, I was lucky enough to be able to find all the drivers and software I needed with vista compatability. I know this has been a big issue for many other people. I guess I was really lucky. Now, ram is a big issue with vista. My laptop has 2gigs of ram and a 512 mb 7900gtx graphics card (so no drain on system ram from aero etc). However, if you are going to be doing a lot of sql work ... or you want to run an instance of sql server locally its going to get a lot slower. But it is still possible. Currently I am running the express edition of sql server 2005 and the management studio from the laptop (I know you shouldn't use tools and run the server on the same machine), but I had really no choice at the moment. I am going to build a high end desktop soon (with 4g of high performance ram) and we will see how it does on there. I will be using Vista Ultimate.
August 31, 2007 at 7:46 am
I use Vista Home Premium on my Asus G1 laptop, and it works for the most part. I had some slowness issues in copying files over the network, but hotfixes fixed that. I run into some issues where it doesn't detect game CDs properly, but I'm slowly figuring out how to fix that. So minor issues here and there, but otherwise, it's ok.
August 31, 2007 at 8:05 am
I'll stop using XP when they pry it from my cold, dead fingers.
There is absolutely no reason for me to upgrade, either on my home machines or at work. I can do everything I need to on XP. There is literally nothing that Vista can help me do that I can't do already with the stable XP systems I have, use, and know well.
MS really shot themselves in the foot by not releasing Vista about three years sooner. By leaving XP as the flagship desktop OS for so long, they created conditions where everyone got really comfortable with XP. They know it, they know how it works, they know how to find everything, and it can't be neutered on accident through the failure of Microsoft's ridiculous Windows Genuine Advantage infrastructure, as happened a couple of weeks ago. There's not a lot of incentive to switch to a new, "better" OS which has well-publicized issues with driver and software compatibility and which hogs system resources to an unprecedented degree.
Maybe I'll upgrade to their next workstation OS when it comes out, if there's a compelling reason for me to stop using XP and do so.
Viewing 15 posts - 16 through 30 (of 55 total)
You must be logged in to reply to this topic. Login to reply