0
A week ago, I got a free copy of Windows Vista Business Edition from my school. I had been hearing a lot about the new features, and I fell into the hype. So, I nabbed a copy as soon as my school offered it. Now, backing up everything and re-installing everything is a multi-day task for me, so I had a choice to make. I could install it now, while I don't have much schoolwork, or wait until the semester ends and I have plenty of free time. My excitement got the best of me, and I installed it last Wednesday.
Here are my PC's specs:
Abit AI7
Pentium 4 Northwood 2.4 GHz (overclocked to 3.0 GHz)
2GB DDR400 SDRAM
Chaintech GeForce 7600 GS
Sapphire Theatrix Theater 550 Pro
Maxtor 200GB Hard Drive
2x Seagate 120GB Hard Drives
NEC ND3500-AG
BenQ DW1640
My system isn't really a slouch, but it's nowhere near as fast as today's mid-range Core 2s and Athlon 64s. Regardless, my system performs pretty well in Windows Vista. It doesn't perform as well as it did in XP, but it's pretty close. I don't really play any games on my PC, so I can't comment on the performance of games. (The most recent game I've played on my PC is Quake 3 Arena.) Now, I know some may be thinking, "Why do you have that graphics card if you don't play games? Did you get it just for Vista?" The answer is, "Pretty much." Yup, Windows Aero is the biggest reason why I got the GeForce 7600 GS. The other reasons are H.264 and VC-1 acceleration.
(Side note: I'm starting to like VC-1 more than H.264... Especially since FFMPEG supports decoding it, now.)
I had very few issues with hardware and software compatibility. Windows Update found drivers for all of my hardware, and automatically installed them. I wasn't even prompted for drivers. The first time I got to the desktop, all of my hardware was already installed. Some people may not like that, but I thought it was pretty nice. Software was a slightly different story. I had some issues with some software applications not working correctly (mainly due to UAC), but I eventually got all of them to work. For most of my applications, giving myself full control of the applications' folders fixed any problems I was having. The only programs that still didn't work correctly were ones that required registration, and that was fixed by running them as administrator a few times so they could write the registration information to the registry. The only application that still doesn't work properly is iTunes. It's still usable, but there are problems with iPods and some interface bugs.
There are a few bugs with Vista itself, though. First, Vista always fails to see my BenQ DVD Drive at startup. Every time I restart the computer, I have to open the device manager and "Scan for hardware changes" to get Vista to see that drive. It's quite annoying. Also, I have a problem with the Windows Explorer hanging on to MPEG files. When I want to delete an MPEG file, it acts like it deleted it and even makes it disappear, but if I open the folder again, the MPEG I deleted is there again. To get rid of them, I had to either restart the computer or kill and restart explorer.exe. Then, they would be gone by the next time I open the folder. It's like Windows queues deletes until the file is released. It was a pretty easy problem to solve, though. I just turned on the "Launch folder windows in a separate process" option. That way, I just have to close the Windows Explorer window that I'm using in order to delete MPEG files. It's still pretty annoying, though...
Despite the bugs I've run into, I'd say that my overall experience with Windows Vista has been pretty good so far. I've only had explorer.exe crash once, but unlike previous versions of Windows, all of my system tray icons came back, not just some of them. It prevents me from having a feeling that I need to restart the computer when explorer.exe crashes. Kinda like when the Finder crashes in Mac OS X.
Speaking of Mac OS X, how do I think Vista compares to OS X? Well, they're somewhat similar, and I don't really have a preference for either one. I do most of my "everyday" web surfing and e-mail on my iBook, and I do multimedia and P2P on the Vista PC. I should say, though, the Vista machine is a family computer while the iBook is my personal computer, which may be why I do most of my web surfing and e-mail on my iBook.
Anyway, I think Windows Vista is a really nice upgrade from Windows XP, but I'm not a fan of how much it costs. If I had to actually pay retail for it, I probably would have stuck with Windows XP. Thank you, MSDNAA.
Here are my PC's specs:
Abit AI7
Pentium 4 Northwood 2.4 GHz (overclocked to 3.0 GHz)
2GB DDR400 SDRAM
Chaintech GeForce 7600 GS
Sapphire Theatrix Theater 550 Pro
Maxtor 200GB Hard Drive
2x Seagate 120GB Hard Drives
NEC ND3500-AG
BenQ DW1640
My system isn't really a slouch, but it's nowhere near as fast as today's mid-range Core 2s and Athlon 64s. Regardless, my system performs pretty well in Windows Vista. It doesn't perform as well as it did in XP, but it's pretty close. I don't really play any games on my PC, so I can't comment on the performance of games. (The most recent game I've played on my PC is Quake 3 Arena.) Now, I know some may be thinking, "Why do you have that graphics card if you don't play games? Did you get it just for Vista?" The answer is, "Pretty much." Yup, Windows Aero is the biggest reason why I got the GeForce 7600 GS. The other reasons are H.264 and VC-1 acceleration.
(Side note: I'm starting to like VC-1 more than H.264... Especially since FFMPEG supports decoding it, now.)
I had very few issues with hardware and software compatibility. Windows Update found drivers for all of my hardware, and automatically installed them. I wasn't even prompted for drivers. The first time I got to the desktop, all of my hardware was already installed. Some people may not like that, but I thought it was pretty nice. Software was a slightly different story. I had some issues with some software applications not working correctly (mainly due to UAC), but I eventually got all of them to work. For most of my applications, giving myself full control of the applications' folders fixed any problems I was having. The only programs that still didn't work correctly were ones that required registration, and that was fixed by running them as administrator a few times so they could write the registration information to the registry. The only application that still doesn't work properly is iTunes. It's still usable, but there are problems with iPods and some interface bugs.
There are a few bugs with Vista itself, though. First, Vista always fails to see my BenQ DVD Drive at startup. Every time I restart the computer, I have to open the device manager and "Scan for hardware changes" to get Vista to see that drive. It's quite annoying. Also, I have a problem with the Windows Explorer hanging on to MPEG files. When I want to delete an MPEG file, it acts like it deleted it and even makes it disappear, but if I open the folder again, the MPEG I deleted is there again. To get rid of them, I had to either restart the computer or kill and restart explorer.exe. Then, they would be gone by the next time I open the folder. It's like Windows queues deletes until the file is released. It was a pretty easy problem to solve, though. I just turned on the "Launch folder windows in a separate process" option. That way, I just have to close the Windows Explorer window that I'm using in order to delete MPEG files. It's still pretty annoying, though...
Despite the bugs I've run into, I'd say that my overall experience with Windows Vista has been pretty good so far. I've only had explorer.exe crash once, but unlike previous versions of Windows, all of my system tray icons came back, not just some of them. It prevents me from having a feeling that I need to restart the computer when explorer.exe crashes. Kinda like when the Finder crashes in Mac OS X.
Speaking of Mac OS X, how do I think Vista compares to OS X? Well, they're somewhat similar, and I don't really have a preference for either one. I do most of my "everyday" web surfing and e-mail on my iBook, and I do multimedia and P2P on the Vista PC. I should say, though, the Vista machine is a family computer while the iBook is my personal computer, which may be why I do most of my web surfing and e-mail on my iBook.
Anyway, I think Windows Vista is a really nice upgrade from Windows XP, but I'm not a fan of how much it costs. If I had to actually pay retail for it, I probably would have stuck with Windows XP. Thank you, MSDNAA.
I was interested in that one part when you said that Windows automatically installed the drivers for your hardware when you first booted up. That's pretty neat. Anyway, as for me, I won't be jumping on Vista any time soon. I'm waiting for m-audio to release their Vista drivers for my audiophile 192 soundcard, and Intel to release Ridgefield before making the move.
I take it you're in a Tech major?