«

I resisted the Vista upgrade hype for a long time. In part, this was sheer
instinct, because I've seen too many Microsoft os releases that never come
right until the first Service Pack, and I was determined to wait at least
that long to see how Vista performed. But in part, too, I was simply
unimpressed by the changes Microsoft had made moving from XP to Vista. Was
it really worth the money to upgrade? Like a lot of people, I really
couldn't see the value.

But then most of the objections to Vista that I found myself reading -- here
and elsewhere -- seemed to revolve around a couple of notions that simply
didn't ring true to me:

(1) Vista's hardware requirements are too great. Ok, maybe, but to each
their own. If all you ever want to do with your pc is stuff that can be
handled by a lightly endowed machine running Win9x or some stripped down
Linux distro then that's fine. But for the power-user category of people
like myself that's never been, and never will be, satisfied with sluggish,
hardware upgrades are going to take place regularly with or without os
upgrades. Since Vista was released back in January 07, I'd already upgraded
fully half the components on my XP machine. Why? Because the hardware is
always getting better and because I can always make good use of every bit of
affordable grunt I can get my hands on. Soon, I would be wanting to replace
other components as well, and I was sure that most of **my** minimum
requirements at that point would dwarf Vista's minimum requirements.

(2) Vista is incompatible with too much hardware and software. On the
hardware front, this is simply not true anymore, as almost all users would
testify. Manufacturers have released Vista-compatible drivers for
practically everything and they work just fine. On the software front, yes,
any software that doesn't adhere to Vista's new security requirements (and
some other peculiarities) is a candidate for annoying work-arounds if not
not outright failure. But this happens with **every** major new version of
Windows, and Microsoft actually does a pretty good job of providing tools
(like the Vista Upgrade Adviser) that will flag most of the potential
hazards for you ahead of time

So....after shopping for some time online for new hardware, I decided to
finally take the plunge and throw Vista into my basket, too.

First the requisite hardware upgrade.

I would have upgraded anyway, of course, because my existing XP machine was
an AMD 64 X2 5600 with an Asus motherboard I was never happy with in the
first place. But I knew going in that I would be disappointed with Vista's
performance if I didn't kick some of the core components up a notch from
what I might ordinarily have settled for. This is especially true with the
graphics card, because I'm not a gamer and the 2D performance of the Radeon
1600 I've had for several years was excellent. Since the Vista graphics
system takes over most of the basic windowing tasks that were previously
relegated to the cpu, it makes sense to expect that your needs will be much
greater there than you might otherwise expect -- even if you weren't
interested in deploying all of Vista's eye-candy (which is subtle, totally
customisable, and very cool, BTW).

Now, since I spend a great deal of my time in the US these days, I have
unlimited access to what's become a very competitive on-line market. Prices
here, IOW, are excellent compared to those in NZ. And so here's what I got:

CPU: Intel E8400 (3.0 GHz) -- US$180 / NZ$300
Motherboard: Intel DP35DP -- US$90 / NZ$195
RAM: Corsair XMS2 (4x1Gb) -- US$105 / NZ$256
PSU: OCZ Gamestream 600W -- US$110 / NZ$198
GPU: Gigabyte Radeon HD 3870 -- US$99 (including $30 rebate I just cashed)/
NZ$347
Drives: 2x Seagate 7200.11 (500 Gb) -- US$170 / NZ$290
Case: Antec P182 -- US$89 (including $50 rebate I just cashed) / NZ$209
Vista SP1 32-bit Business Upgrade Edition -- US$180 /NZ$416

TOTALS

US$1060 (includes $37 shipping + zero tax for on-line purchases)
NZ$2211(+ GST + shipping, if applicable)

My US source: NewEgg.Com
NZ prices sourced from http://www.ascent.co.nz/ for all items except the
case, which I found at www.nzoczone.com.

While I'm sure there might be better bargains to be be found on this or that
component at various NZ shops, it's really pretty striking what a different
world Kiwi's are shopping in today.

Second, however, came the requisite software fixes. So much has been made
about this in response to the initially awful Vista release that I thought
I'd offer some feedback on my experience with SP1.

Driver issues for me are what they have always been whenever I change
hardware and/or os -- a pain. But since I collected everything I needed
ahead of time for my Vista machine, the job went pretty smoothly. I used
none of the CD-based drivers that shipped with my components but instead
sourced the latest of everything from the manufacturer's sites. And, as you
might expect, a year-and-a-half out from Vista's inaugural, there was almost
nothing I couldn't find, including my five-year old Brother HL-1440 that
just keeps on ticking. The once glitch was with my Linksys WMP54G wireless
adapter -- Linksys didn't offer a Vista driver for my firmware release, and
while Vista's Automatic Update would have (and eventually did) fix me right
up, that was obviously going to be no help to me getting online in the
first place. In the end, I was able to track down the site for the actual
manufacturer of the adapter (Ralink) and I grabbed a Vista driver there.

The basic Vista installation then went surprisingly well. I was able to do a
clean install with my upgrade CD (just don't enter your key when initially
asked and you get a 30-day trial that doesn't affect your existing XP
license). Later, once I was satisfied that Vista was a winner for me, I
simply clicked "activate" and in 15 seconds the deed was done.

Finally, there were the odd software compatibility issues to resolve.
Fortunately, I'd run Microsoft's Vista Upgrade Advisor ahead of time and
discovered that I had 4-5 items installed on my existing XP machine that
simply were not going to run well or at all on Vista (PhotoImpact 11, for
instance, which I rarely used, but also AcdSee 6, which I used a lot) and so
I had to make some upgrade choices there. But the major issues for me
revolved around a couple of applications -- SAS and ArcGis -- that Microsoft
had given a "pass" when they really shouldn't have. The problems here
revolved around difficulties in **installing** these applications in Vista,
not running them, so maybe that's an understandable oversight on Microsoft's
part. Still, if I couldn't run two of may key applications on Vista, then
Vista would be a no-go for me. In the end, it turned out that the makers of
SAS and ArcGis actually had Vista-compatibility patches on their sites that
fixed everything, so the drama passed. Almost every other difficulty I've
had working with software on Vista has concerned the user account security
policy, which I've had to learn to customize to my liking.

Anyway, there you have it. From my perspective, Vista turns out to be a
great performer -- snappy, secure, reliable, easy on the eye, so I'm not in
the least disappointed with the results. And, of course, when "Windows 7"
rolls out in a couple of years, I'm sure I'll eventually put myself through
a similar process all over again. Arguably, no one in heir right mind would
do this kind of thing outside the US, where the prices are just so much
friendlier, but that's another discussion altogether.

"Puddle" <> wrote in message
news:48865e2e$...
> impossible wrote:
>> I resisted the Vista upgrade hype for a long time. In part, this was
>> sheer instinct, because I've seen too many Microsoft os releases that
>> never come right until the first Service Pack, and I was determined to
>> wait at least that long to see how Vista performed. But in part, too, I
>> was simply unimpressed by the changes Microsoft had made moving from XP
>> to Vista. Was it really worth the money to upgrade? Like a lot of
>> people, I really couldn't see the value.
>>
>> But then most of the objections to Vista that I found myself reading --
>> here and elsewhere -- seemed to revolve around a couple of notions that
>> simply didn't ring true to me:
>>
>> (1) Vista's hardware requirements are too great. Ok, maybe, but to each
>> their own. If all you ever want to do with your pc is stuff that can be
>> handled by a lightly endowed machine running Win9x or some stripped down
>> Linux distro then that's fine. But for the power-user category of people
>> like myself that's never been, and never will be, satisfied with
>> sluggish, hardware upgrades are going to take place regularly with or
>> without os upgrades. Since Vista was released back in January 07, I'd
>> already upgraded fully half the components on my XP machine. Why? Because
>> the hardware is always getting better and because I can always make good
>> use of every bit of affordable grunt I can get my hands on. Soon, I would
>> be wanting to replace other components as well, and I was sure that most
>> of **my** minimum requirements at that point would dwarf Vista's minimum
>> requirements.
>>
>> (2) Vista is incompatible with too much hardware and software. On the
>> hardware front, this is simply not true anymore, as almost all users
>> would testify. Manufacturers have released Vista-compatible drivers for
>> practically everything and they work just fine. On the software front,
>> yes, any software that doesn't adhere to Vista's new security
>> requirements (and some other peculiarities) is a candidate for annoying
>> work-arounds if not not outright failure. But this happens with **every**
>> major new version of Windows, and Microsoft actually does a pretty good
>> job of providing tools (like the Vista Upgrade Adviser) that will flag
>> most of the potential hazards for you ahead of time
>>
>> So....after shopping for some time online for new hardware, I decided to
>> finally take the plunge and throw Vista into my basket, too.
>>
>> First the requisite hardware upgrade.
>>
>> I would have upgraded anyway, of course, because my existing XP machine
>> was an AMD 64 X2 5600 with an Asus motherboard I was never happy with in
>> the first place. But I knew going in that I would be disappointed with
>> Vista's performance if I didn't kick some of the core components up a
>> notch from what I might ordinarily have settled for. This is especially
>> true with the graphics card, because I'm not a gamer and the 2D
>> performance of the Radeon 1600 I've had for several years was excellent.
>> Since the Vista graphics system takes over most of the basic windowing
>> tasks that were previously relegated to the cpu, it makes sense to expect
>> that your needs will be much greater there than you might otherwise
>> expect -- even if you weren't interested in deploying all of Vista's
>> eye-candy (which is subtle, totally customisable, and very cool, BTW).
>>
>> Now, since I spend a great deal of my time in the US these days, I have
>> unlimited access to what's become a very competitive on-line market.
>> Prices here, IOW, are excellent compared to those in NZ. And so here's
>> what I got:
>>
>> CPU: Intel E8400 (3.0 GHz) -- US$180 / NZ$300
>> Motherboard: Intel DP35DP -- US$90 / NZ$195
>> RAM: Corsair XMS2 (4x1Gb) -- US$105 / NZ$256
>> PSU: OCZ Gamestream 600W -- US$110 / NZ$198
>> GPU: Gigabyte Radeon HD 3870 -- US$99 (including $30 rebate I just
>> cashed)/ NZ$347
>> Drives: 2x Seagate 7200.11 (500 Gb) -- US$170 / NZ$290
>> Case: Antec P182 -- US$89 (including $50 rebate I just cashed) / NZ$209
>> Vista SP1 32-bit Business Upgrade Edition -- US$180 /NZ$416
>>
>> TOTALS
>>
>> US$1060 (includes $37 shipping + zero tax for on-line purchases)
>> NZ$2211(+ GST + shipping, if applicable)
>>
>> My US source: NewEgg.Com
>> NZ prices sourced from http://www.ascent.co.nz/ for all items except the
>> case, which I found at www.nzoczone.com.
>>
>> While I'm sure there might be better bargains to be be found on this or
>> that component at various NZ shops, it's really pretty striking what a
>> different world Kiwi's are shopping in today.
>>
>> Second, however, came the requisite software fixes. So much has been made
>> about this in response to the initially awful Vista release that I
>> thought I'd offer some feedback on my experience with SP1.
>>
>> Driver issues for me are what they have always been whenever I change
>> hardware and/or os -- a pain. But since I collected everything I needed
>> ahead of time for my Vista machine, the job went pretty smoothly. I used
>> none of the CD-based drivers that shipped with my components but instead
>> sourced the latest of everything from the manufacturer's sites. And, as
>> you might expect, a year-and-a-half out from Vista's inaugural, there was
>> almost nothing I couldn't find, including my five-year old Brother
>> HL-1440 that just keeps on ticking. The once glitch was with my Linksys
>> WMP54G wireless adapter -- Linksys didn't offer a Vista driver for my
>> firmware release, and while Vista's Automatic Update would have (and
>> eventually did) fix me right up, that was obviously going to be no help
>> to me getting online in the first place. In the end, I was able to track
>> down the site for the actual manufacturer of the adapter (Ralink) and I
>> grabbed a Vista driver there.
>>
>> The basic Vista installation then went surprisingly well. I was able to
>> do a clean install with my upgrade CD (just don't enter your key when
>> initially asked and you get a 30-day trial that doesn't affect your
>> existing XP license). Later, once I was satisfied that Vista was a winner
>> for me, I simply clicked "activate" and in 15 seconds the deed was done.
>>
>> Finally, there were the odd software compatibility issues to resolve.
>> Fortunately, I'd run Microsoft's Vista Upgrade Advisor ahead of time and
>> discovered that I had 4-5 items installed on my existing XP machine that
>> simply were not going to run well or at all on Vista (PhotoImpact 11, for
>> instance, which I rarely used, but also AcdSee 6, which I used a lot) and
>> so I had to make some upgrade choices there. But the major issues for me
>> revolved around a couple of applications -- SAS and ArcGis -- that
>> Microsoft had given a "pass" when they really shouldn't have. The
>> problems here revolved around difficulties in **installing** these
>> applications in Vista, not running them, so maybe that's an
>> understandable oversight on Microsoft's part. Still, if I couldn't run
>> two of may key applications on Vista, then Vista would be a no-go for me.
>> In the end, it turned out that the makers of SAS and ArcGis actually had
>> Vista-compatibility patches on their sites that fixed everything, so the
>> drama passed. Almost every other difficulty I've had working with
>> software on Vista has concerned the user account security policy, which
>> I've had to learn to customize to my liking.
>>
>> Anyway, there you have it. From my perspective, Vista turns out to be a
>> great performer -- snappy, secure, reliable, easy on the eye, so I'm not
>> in the least disappointed with the results. And, of course, when "Windows
>> 7" rolls out in a couple of years, I'm sure I'll eventually put myself
>> through a similar process all over again. Arguably, no one in heir right
>> mind would do this kind of thing outside the US, where the prices are
>> just so much friendlier, but that's another discussion altogether.
>>
>>
>
> I bought a laptop very recently which came with Vista. Vista ran fine, it
> isn't the monster many make it out to be.
> It was stable, ran everything I wanted to run on it etc etc.
>
> I ended up putting XP on the laptop though in a dual boot mode and truth
> be told haven't used vista since. While I don't think Vista is bad, I
> also couldn't find anything it did that XP couldn't do and XP uses far
> less memory etc so what was the point in wasting CPU cycles and memory for
> a OS that wasn't giving me anything more? Vista seems to need 2 gigs of
> memory just to run at a good pace, that isn't a problem with todays memory
> prices of course, but why waste that memory when you aren't getting
> anything over XP?
>

Agreed. I would never recommend Vista to anyone running less than a middling
dual-core processor, 3-4GB of memory, and a dedicated graphics card released
since 2007. For some time to come yet, I think laptops sold with Vista are
going to be especially vulnerable in just that sense, and shame on Microsoft
and their vendor partners for luring people into a lot of bad deals that
ways. While you can always throttle Vista down some to accomodate lesser
machines, what then, as you say, is the point of getting Vista onboard in
the first place?

> I have a very high spec machine that I use for gaming which is also
> running XP though I am tempted to install Vista because some of the games
> are starting to use directx10 and they do look nice but for me that is the
> only thing that I would move to vista for and that annoys me cause it
> could have been rolled out on XP too but obviously then there would be one
> more major reason for people to stay with XP.
>

I'm finding that Vista actually boots quicker than XP and loads my main
applications faster, which is a nice surprise. And out-of-the-box security
seems much improved. So all-in-all now I'm inclined to think that Vista is
actually a pretty nice upgrade. But no one who hesitates to shift from XP at
this point will get an argument from me. After all, Windows 7 isn't far off.
In my case, I was itching for a hardware upgrade anyway, and so the graphics
card I ended up getting was really the only Vista-induced indulgence.
Basically, I think if you have the right hardware, then you won't be
disappointed running Vista. But will you be impressed? Probably not.

In article <>, Freesias <> wrote:
>On Wed, 23 Jul 2008 10:14:19 +1200, Puddle wrote:
>
>> I bought a laptop very recently which came with Vista. Vista ran fine,
>> it isn't the monster many make it out to be. It was stable, ran
>> everything I wanted to run on it etc etc.
>
>Have you tried playing a HD-DVD film using a monitor that hasn't had the
>DRM disabling circuitry put into it?
>
>Have you tried copying MPEG2 multimedia content from a removable storage
>medium to another storage medium?

Trying to play a DVD crashed the machine on our vista laptop. Not sure what
SP it's up to as I don't use it.

"Bruce Sinclair" < > wrote
in message news:g65t2r$784$...
>
> Trying to play a DVD crashed the machine on our vista laptop. Not sure
> what
> SP it's up to as I don't use it.
>
>

Sounds like the kind of thing my grandmother would say. She doesn't know a
thing about computers either.

"Freesias" <> wrote in message
news...
> On Wed, 23 Jul 2008 12:22:57 +1200, Puddle wrote:
>
>> Freesias wrote:
>>> On Wed, 23 Jul 2008 10:14:19 +1200, Puddle wrote:
>>>
>>>> I bought a laptop very recently which came with Vista. Vista ran
>>>> fine, it isn't the monster many make it out to be. It was stable, ran
>>>> everything I wanted to run on it etc etc.
>>>
>>> Have you tried playing a HD-DVD film using a monitor that hasn't had
>>> the DRM disabling circuitry put into it?
>>>
>>> Have you tried copying MPEG2 multimedia content from a removable
>>> storage medium to another storage medium?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> As I said
>>
>> "ran everything __I__ wanted to run"
>>
>> Just because some people have issues doesn't mean everyone does.
>
> Ah!
>
> "My computer works perfectly fine with MS Windows Vista Ultimate 32bit
> Edition installed onto it. It does everything I want it to do. What do I
> want it to do? Well, I use MS Internet Explorer, and I use MS Office, and
> I use, MS Notepad. I don't need it to do anything else, so I don't know
> why people are complaining that they cannot do stuff using MS Windows
> when it works perfectly fine for me."
>
>

Who are you quoting? No one? Thought so.

"Freesias" <> wrote in message
news...
> On Wed, 23 Jul 2008 12:22:57 +1200, Puddle wrote:
>> Freesias wrote:
>>> On Wed, 23 Jul 2008 10:14:19 +1200, Puddle wrote:
>>>> I bought a laptop very recently which came with Vista. Vista ran
>>>> fine, it isn't the monster many make it out to be. It was stable, ran
>>>> everything I wanted to run on it etc etc.
>>>
>>> Have you tried playing a HD-DVD film using a monitor that hasn't had
>>> the DRM disabling circuitry put into it?

Admittedly no, as I have neither any films in HD format nor an HD monitor --
like 99.999% (probably more) of the rest of the population, I would imagine.

>>> Have you tried copying MPEG2 multimedia content from a removable
>>> storage medium to another storage medium?

This made me curious, so now I have tried that, yes. Didn't encounter any
difficulties.

>> As I said
>> "ran everything __I__ wanted to run"
>> Just because some people have issues doesn't mean everyone does.
>
> "My computer works perfectly fine with MS Windows Vista Ultimate 32bit
> Edition installed onto it. It does everything I want it to do. What do I
> want it to do? Well, I use MS Internet Explorer, and I use MS Office, and
> I use, MS Notepad. I don't need it to do anything else, so I don't know
> why people are complaining that they cannot do stuff using MS Windows
> when it works perfectly fine for me."

Nice straw man you have there!

I have no issues with Vista either and I use my OS a little more intensively
than that.

A representative but by no means full list, excluding the MS stuff that I
use (Office, Visual Studio, SQL Server etc. etc.):

Adobe products (Illustrator, Photoshop etc.)
Acronis products (trueimage, diskdirector etc)
Audacity (Oh, I appear to be able to do anything I like with audio,
shouldn't the terrible DRM be stopping me?)
Corel products (Paint Shop Pro etc)
Cygwin
DosBox
DVD Shrink (See comment for Audacity)
FileZilla
GIMP
Google Earth
Full suite of browsers, FireFox, Opera, Safari, IE etc.
Inkscape
MagicISO
Mono
Notepad++
VMWare workstation (running a couple of different linux distros, gasp!)
PHP
Python
Sandboxie
VLC

Hmmm, an eclectic mix of free (both senses of the word), commerical,
lightweight and intensive software, all of which works for me flawlessly,
including all of the stuff that works with media.

Also... don't you think it's a little impetuous, negative and small minded
to bash people's choice of OS at every opportunity?

In article <>, Freesias <> wrote:
>On Wed, 23 Jul 2008 12:22:57 +1200, Puddle wrote:
>> Freesias wrote:
>>> On Wed, 23 Jul 2008 10:14:19 +1200, Puddle wrote:
>>>> I bought a laptop very recently which came with Vista. Vista ran
>>>> fine, it isn't the monster many make it out to be. It was stable, ran
>>>> everything I wanted to run on it etc etc.
>>> Have you tried playing a HD-DVD film using a monitor that hasn't had
>>> the DRM disabling circuitry put into it?
>>>
>>> Have you tried copying MPEG2 multimedia content from a removable
>>> storage medium to another storage medium?

>> As I said
>> "ran everything __I__ wanted to run"
>> Just because some people have issues doesn't mean everyone does.

>Ah!
>"My computer works perfectly fine with MS Windows Vista Ultimate 32bit
>Edition installed onto it. It does everything I want it to do. What do I
>want it to do? Well, I use MS Internet Explorer, and I use MS Office, and
>I use, MS Notepad. I don't need it to do anything else, so I don't know
>why people are complaining that they cannot do stuff using MS Windows
>when it works perfectly fine for me."

It's a valid, if limited, view. After all, if that's all you want to do,
then it may well work fine.

On Tue, 22 Jul 2008 17:31:38 GMT, impossible wrote:
*giant snip*


Good post, very informative.

Btw I run Vista 64bit sp1 (I originally ran the 32bit version, but thought,
****, it's 2008, time to get with the times). Glad I did move to 64bit,
it's faster, more secure, and everything works.

My hw is Intel Quad core, 8 gig ram, nvidia 640meg 8800gts.

Gotta love pc hardware, it's one of the few things in this world that's
getting cheaper instead of more expensive.

-ws

ofn01 wrote:
> Have you found sleep to be reliable? This is the only area where I
have had
> mixed reliability.

I have inadvertantly done it a few times and had nothing bad happen,
unlike on xp where it would usually come up to a mouse that I can move
around and a blank background more often then it would come back properly.

"ofn01" <> wrote in message
news:48870611$...
>
> "impossible" <> wrote in message
> news:_Pohk.265092$yE1.119184@attbi_s21...
>> Anyway, there you have it. From my perspective, Vista turns out to be a
>> great performer -- snappy, secure, reliable, easy on the eye, so I'm not
>> in the least disappointed with the results. And, of course, when "Windows
>> 7" rolls out in a couple of years, I'm sure I'll eventually put myself
>> through a similar process all over again. Arguably, no one in heir right
>> mind would do this kind of thing outside the US, where the prices are
>> just so much friendlier, but that's another discussion altogether.
>>
>
> Have you found sleep to be reliable? This is the only area where I have
> had mixed reliability.
>

No, I've had no problems with sleep mode. I've set it to kick in after 1
hour of inactivity, and then it pops back to the login screen as soon as I
hit my power switch. I was pleasantly surprised by this, and I've still got
my fingers crossed, because I know that Vista's sleep function has given
plenty of users fits. SP1 was supposed to address this, I think, but I don't
know to what effect. Also, this is one of those issues that I think has
sometimes been traced back to hardware incompatibilities of one kind or
another -- I know, for example, that in the case of both my old board (Asus
M2NE) and new board (Intel DP35DP) the manufacturers released a bios upgrade
to address the problem. If you're still having trouble, you might check your
own manufacturer's site.