Tried Vista for a month, I still like XP better???

[Griffinhart]

Sure DOS worked, but put an average person infront of a Dos Promt and then in front of a Windows Vista machine. See which one they can use. There is a reason Windows replaced DOS.

And Sorry, no matter now much anti-MS people scream it and spread FUD about it. Vista isn't a lemon. Not popular, maybe, but it's more secure and stable than any other version of Windows. If a non-technical person hears enough negative press about something they become convinced that it's bad. For no other reason than the negative press. I have a good friend that is convinced that Vista sucks but he has never even touched a PC running it.

 

[Modelworks]

Originally posted by: Mem

I don't need to defend Vista,fact is all of my operating systems both present and in the pass have worked fine ie Win95,98,XP and last but not least Vista,anybody that says Vista is a lemon is entitled to their opinion ,but its far from the truth in my experience .I'm no salesmen (gamer if anything) I only call it as I have used Vista with over 12 months of gaming and general usage,can you say the samething?

I don't think vista itself is a lemon its more a combination of things.
Hardware and software issues and the way they interact with vista.

In the end it makes it where vista doesn't work for lots of people.
But its not specifically the OS that is the problem, its the drivers, software, etc.

 

[QueBert]

Originally posted by: Mem

Originally posted by: Modelworks

Originally posted by: Mem
I feel sad for the intelligence level for people that find Vista hard to use,its very easy and simple as hell to set up.Some users just make stupid excuses etc... and then the thread turns into a Vista flame thread .

I have seen it happen with XP in the pass and now Vista,want to take money its going to happen again.

Some people should just not be allowed near any OS period!!!!

Really?
You apparently don't have experience with average people.
Remember a company called AOL?
All the power users hated them, but guess what they made millions.
Not because they made a super online service, but because they made one that just about anyone could use without having to read the help files.

I'm not saying vista is hard to use, but it does have problems currently that the average user is not going to know where to start or how to fix .
Ask 10 people on the street what a computer driver is, 3d acceleration, directx, what computer memory is or even how much a megabyte is.

Thats the kind of people that OS creators need to target.
If they can make the OS so those people can understand and use it without problems, then they will have a runaway hit.

Have you seen how confused people are over HDTV ?
I answer more questions about that with family and friends each day than I care to think about. People do not like change. They also don't like to have to read or research something that to them isn't a whole lot more than what they already have.

Not saying hdtv isn't better than sdtv, but you would be amazed at how many people can't see the difference. Consumers don't like to be forced to learn new skills in order to use a product.

It makes me wonder how people coped with the old days ie DOS 6.22 upper/lower memory ,getting games to run etc(even with memmaker).....(good old days) anyway I don't think anybody here will argue they have it a lot easier nowadays.

I had 2 autoexec and config.sys one for regular use and one for games that needed the most possible free upper memory. Maybe I'm just an old school CLI DOS Lover but the only thing I find easier nowadays is not having to mess with IRQ's to get sound cards/modems/network cards to work.

Everything else though, I'd love to still be able to run Dos 6.22 with Xtree Gold for my file explorer 🙂

 

[Mem]

Originally posted by: QueBert

Originally posted by: Mem

Originally posted by: Modelworks

Originally posted by: Mem
I feel sad for the intelligence level for people that find Vista hard to use,its very easy and simple as hell to set up.Some users just make stupid excuses etc... and then the thread turns into a Vista flame thread .

I have seen it happen with XP in the pass and now Vista,want to take money its going to happen again.

Some people should just not be allowed near any OS period!!!!

Really?
You apparently don't have experience with average people.
Remember a company called AOL?
All the power users hated them, but guess what they made millions.
Not because they made a super online service, but because they made one that just about anyone could use without having to read the help files.

I'm not saying vista is hard to use, but it does have problems currently that the average user is not going to know where to start or how to fix .
Ask 10 people on the street what a computer driver is, 3d acceleration, directx, what computer memory is or even how much a megabyte is.

Thats the kind of people that OS creators need to target.
If they can make the OS so those people can understand and use it without problems, then they will have a runaway hit.

Have you seen how confused people are over HDTV ?
I answer more questions about that with family and friends each day than I care to think about. People do not like change. They also don't like to have to read or research something that to them isn't a whole lot more than what they already have.

Not saying hdtv isn't better than sdtv, but you would be amazed at how many people can't see the difference. Consumers don't like to be forced to learn new skills in order to use a product.

It makes me wonder how people coped with the old days ie DOS 6.22 upper/lower memory ,getting games to run etc(even with memmaker).....(good old days) anyway I don't think anybody here will argue they have it a lot easier nowadays.

I had 2 autoexec and config.sys one for regular use and one for games that needed the most possible free upper memory. Maybe I'm just an old school CLI DOS Lover but the only thing I find easier nowadays is not having to mess with IRQ's to get sound cards/modems/network cards to work.

Everything else though, I'd love to still be able to run Dos 6.22 with Xtree Gold for my file explorer 🙂

That's my point,nowadays gaming and general use is so much easier then it used to be,even using a computer based on Windows nowadays is a lot easier then the good old DOS 6.22 days ,even for experts like you and I,yet some people still find it hard.

Maybe they should get better PC skills,end of the day every OS needs some sort of minimum basic user knowledge.

 

[Captante]

I use Vista just as much as XP and have been using it since its release ... saying it sucks is an exaggeration but saying its bloated, sluggish & full of incompatabilities a year after its release is a statement of fact not opinion.

I find it funny the way people here on AT flock to Vista's defense ... I'm sure the 64-bit version in particular will continue to get better & after a couple years will actually be the best MS OS ever, but as of now it still needs plenty of work.

 

[Mem]

Originally posted by: Captante
I use Vista just as much as XP and have been using it since its release ... saying it sucks is an exaggeration but saying its bloated, sluggish & full of incompatabilities a year after its release is a statement of fact not opinion.

I find it funny the way people here on AT flock to Vista's defense ... I'm sure the 64-bit version in particular will continue to get better & after a couple years will actually be the best MS OS ever, but as of now it still needs plenty of work.

I was defending XP against 2K users on its initial release,funny how same old FUD statements etc.... keeping popping up regardless of the OS in question,I have heard same old excuses for almost a decade now.

As to bloated,you talking about the OEM versions on laptops etc... that install all kinds of software on Vista,personally my clean install of Vista is working great and not bloated,as to incompatibility well that will always pop up with some software,I still have some old software/games that won't run on XP so nothing different there.

 

[nerp]

Yeah, I've dug through every corner of Vista since using it last Janurary. Tell me where the bloat is.

 

[Captante]

I'm using 64-bit Vista Ultimate in a clean install & dual-booting 32-bit Ultimate with XP-Pro on my 2 main PC's ... although the PC running 64-bit was formerly running Win2k so its not fair to make a direct comparision with Vista's performance on it, the dual-boot still shows significant performance advantages for XP in just about every application regardless of all the claims to the contrary I read here in the OS forum of AT.

Again this isn't coming from somone who used Vista for 2 weeks & decided "omg Vista is the suxors" ... I agree those threads are annoying, but although 64-bit Vista in particular shows a lot of potential (and is surprisingly good right now), Vista in genral still doesn't work with MANY applications that a lot of my customers use daily & compared back-to-back on my OC'ed quad-core machine, the 32-bit version is noticably slower then XP Pro across the board.

 

[toadeater]

For one thing, Vista still has some deal-breaking driver issues with graphics cards, and certain motherboard functions (sleep, audio chipsets, LAN controllers, BIOS flashing, etc). They are far too common and show no sign of being fixed any time soon. This isn't all Microsoft's fault, there are just too many products to support, but the fact is the bugs are there. Considering that XP is still around, that doesn't make Vista very attractive. Except for boredom with XP and the possibility of DX10, there isn't anything about Vista that's much better than XP. The built-in apps are a bunch of useless junk I would never use to begin with. I don't even use Explorer, I use Total Commander.

There are also the ongoing application compatibility problems. Until this situation improves, I cannot find any advantage (pun intended) to using Vista over XP. Hey, I can even duplicate Aero on XP, using fewer resources. Instead of eye candy and bloatware that only a clueless noob could get excited about, MS should have focused on performance and stability/compatibility.

 

[TheVrolok]

Originally posted by: toadeater
There are also the ongoing application compatibility problems. Until this situation improves, I cannot find any advantage (pun intended) to using Vista over XP. Hey, I can even duplicate Aero on XP, using fewer resources. Instead of eye candy and bloatware that only a clueless noob could get excited about, MS should have focused on performance and stability/compatibility.

I love Superfetch, Readyboost, and some of the new HD audio features. But I guess that makes me a clueless noob.

Originally posted by: Captante
Vista in genral still doesn't work with MANY applications that a lot of my customers use daily

Which applications out of curiosity? The only compatibility problem I've noticed is that I don't have a front end for SoundMAX for my onboard Analog Devices chipset - but that's not really a surprise. Other than that, I've had 0 hardware/software compatibility issues. I'm wondering if it's just certain industry applications, I could imagine that being the case. But then, I don't see how it's advisable to move industry computers to a brand new OS anyway.

 

[nerp]

People love to say Vista has compatiblity problems and generally can't offer much in terms of large lists of apps that have problems. And most (not all, MOST) of the apps I've seen that people say don't work in vista are lame tweaking apps and other junky software that isn't worth running anyway.

And using Aero in XP with less resources? Are you kidding me? Aero actually removes desktop rending aspects away from the CPU to the GPU, giving you MORE resources for general system use than the basic windows UI. If you're suggesting that using some theme program like windowblinds or styleXP in XP with an Aero imitation interface uses less resoures than Vista with Aero you're either making stuff up, completley clueless or woefully uninformed.

 

[Modelworks]

Originally posted by: TheVrolok
[Q

Which applications out of curiosity? The only compatibility problem I've noticed is that I don't have a front end for SoundMAX for my onboard Analog Devices chipset - but that's not really a surprise. Other than that, I've had 0 hardware/software compatibility issues. I'm wondering if it's just certain industry applications, I could imagine that being the case. But then, I don't see how it's advisable to move industry computers to a brand new OS anyway.

The ones I listed don't work and while those are certainly a niche market they do have a significant user base.

 

[Mem]

Originally posted by: toadeater
For one thing, Vista still has some deal-breaking driver issues with graphics cards, and certain motherboard functions (sleep, audio chipsets, LAN controllers, BIOS flashing, etc). They are far too common and show no sign of being fixed any time soon. This isn't all Microsoft's fault, there are just too many products to support, but the fact is the bugs are there. Considering that XP is still around, that doesn't make Vista very attractive. Except for boredom with XP and the possibility of DX10, there isn't anything about Vista that's much better than XP. The built-in apps are a bunch of useless junk I would never use to begin with. I don't even use Explorer, I use Total Commander.

There are also the ongoing application compatibility problems. Until this situation improves, I cannot find any advantage (pun intended) to using Vista over XP. Hey, I can even duplicate Aero on XP, using fewer resources. Instead of eye candy and bloatware that only a clueless noob could get excited about, MS should have focused on performance and stability/compatibility.

Care to name the driver issues with graphics cards?.....So far I have tested 56 games and I mean playing them through from start to end etc and have yet to have any issues,also drivers is down to the hardware manufacturer in question not Microsoft(unless its their product) so blaming Vista is unfair,email the companies concerned and tell them to get it sorted, its called customer support.

I have no real reason to use XP,Vista does it all and better in my experience,ironically I said the same thing about XP to 2K users even though 2K to XP was not as big of a leap as XP to Vista is.

As to Aero ,well I hate to break it to you but that's probably the most useless feature in Vista and it does a lot more then that if you take the time to read the improvements/features it has(I'm not going to bother to list them).I'm not saying go and buy Vista,however I'm saying Vista is an improvement over XP and anybody that has taken the time to read through/learn its feature etc and use Vista knows what I'm talking about.

It's going to be interesting to see what excuses XP users come up with when Windows 7,8 etc is released,sure you can stick with XP etc that's fine ,but don't try to tell me its better .

Originally posted by: Captante
Vista in genral still doesn't work with MANY applications that a lot of my customers use daily

How many of those users know about XP compatibility mode and run as admin in compatibility tab?..I bet more then one user does not know about that(I'm not saying it'll fix all of the problems but it'll fix some for sure).

 

[Modelworks]

Originally posted by: Mem
Care to name the driver issues with graphics cards?.....So far I have tested 56 games and I mean playing them through from start to end etc and have yet to have any issues,also drivers is down to the hardware manufacturer in question not Microsoft(unless its their product) so blaming Vista is unfair,email the companies concerned and tell them to get it sorted, its called customer support.

There is one issue I have with Microsoft directly about vista.
OpenGL.
They really put it on the backburner with vista in favor of supporting directx.
While games may work, they dropped features from the OS that have made some applications impossible to use. Nvidia has told quadro owners there is nothing they can do to fix those application OpenGL problems, its an os problem 🙁

I think if not for the OpenGL issues that a lot of the applications I had problems with would work fine in vista.

 

[silverpig]

Originally posted by: Modelworks

Originally posted by: Mem
Care to name the driver issues with graphics cards?.....So far I have tested 56 games and I mean playing them through from start to end etc and have yet to have any issues,also drivers is down to the hardware manufacturer in question not Microsoft(unless its their product) so blaming Vista is unfair,email the companies concerned and tell them to get it sorted, its called customer support.

There is one issue I have with Microsoft directly about vista.
OpenGL.
They really put it on the backburner with vista in favor of supporting directx.
While games may work, they dropped features from the OS that have made some applications impossible to use. Nvidia has told quadro owners there is nothing they can do to fix those application OpenGL problems, its an os problem 🙁

I think if not for the OpenGL issues that a lot of the applications I had problems with would work fine in vista.

🙁

I :heart: OpenGL.

Thank god linux won't lose it 🙂

 

[ChronoReverse]

Nvidia is lying through their teeth about their drivers. They had crap Vista drivers for a year while ATI had working and almost full speed drivers from day one. MS provided three pathways for OGL, including the one from XP (it just doesn't work with the DWM but dropping to Aero Basic isn't the end of the world).

Vista may have a ton of compatibility issues with some applications, but OpenGL support is there and the same as it always was: up to the video card vendor to implement. Or do you expect MS to program OGL drivers for all the video cards under the sun?

 

[Modelworks]

Originally posted by: ChronoReverse
Nvidia is lying through their teeth about their drivers. They had crap Vista drivers for a year while ATI had working and almost full speed drivers from day one. MS provided three pathways for OGL, including the one from XP (it just doesn't work with the DWM but dropping to Aero Basic isn't the end of the world).

Vista may have a ton of compatibility issues with some applications, but OpenGL support is there and the same as it always was: up to the video card vendor to implement. Or do you expect MS to program OGL drivers for all the video cards under the sun?

I suggest you read the opengl.org site.
It has nothing to do with ati or nvidia or drivers, it has to do with how the new display works.
MS made changes to GDI, which caused lots of problems for OpenGL applications that use GDI for menu overlays. The new display system in vista also made it so OpenGL applications that do complex displays in windows can be terminated by vista because vista thinks the application has caused a system hang.

If the software maker goes back and re-writes the application to work around the vista issues your fine. The problem is most companies aren't interested in doing that and so you either are stuck or have to hope the next version of the program addresses the issue and then you have to pay out more money for an upgraded version. Most people are doing what we have done and just not going with vista.

The complaint from the OpenGL ARB is that MS should have brought them in on the development of vista so that some of these problems could have been resolved. But it didn't happen.

 

[ChronoReverse]

If there are draw problems with GDI then it's a Vista APPLICATION incompatibility. Of which there are numerous examples. So don't confuse the issue with OPENGL which is not GDI.

Basically, you can blame Vista and MS for the incompatibility, but don't mix up the issue with OGL itself.

 

[Modelworks]

Originally posted by: ChronoReverse
If there are draw problems with GDI then it's a Vista APPLICATION incompatibility. Of which there are numerous examples. So don't confuse the issue with OPENGL which is not GDI.

Basically, you can blame Vista and MS for the incompatibility, but don't mix up the issue with OGL itself.

Even without the gdi issues there are still problems with OpenGL under Vista that are not there under xp.


Examples:
Graphics applications now have to share resources with the 3D-accelerated window manager. Each OpenGL window now requires an offscreen frontbuffer, because there's no longer direct access to the surface being displayed: the desktop. This is also true when the Desktop Windows Manager (DWM) is off.

Calling synchronization routines like glFlush, glFinish, SwapBuffers, or glReadPixels (or any command buffer submission in general) now incurs a kernel transition, so use them wisely and sparingly.

If the application performs extremely GPU intensive and lengthy operations, for example rendering hundreds of fullscreen quads using a complex pixel shader all in a single glDrawElements call, in order to avoid exceeding the 2 second timeout and having an application being killed by Windows Vista's Timeout Detection and Recovery, split the call into chunks and call glFlush/glFinish between them. The driver may be able to split long chunks of work for the application, but there will always be corner cases it cannot control, so don't rely solely on the driver to keep rendering from exceeding the two second limit. Instead, anticipate these cases in your application and consider throttling the most intense rendering loads yourself.

 

[ChronoReverse]

Yeah, I read the article where most of that came from. Basically, if you did things you weren't supposed to in OGL (like not calling glFlush at all) your application breaks in windowed mode. Which makes sense since the GPU hardware is in use at all times. If you don't play nice, don't expect to get the resources you want. Of course, full screen works fine since it's exclusive.

As for the second one, if your application is doing something like that, you'd best reconsider the design. Tying up anything on a modern computer for 2 seconds (as a point of reference, that's 6 billion CPU cycles on a 3GHz core) without any relinquishing is ridiculous.


In the end, it's the same old story. Vista has incompatibilities (a given). Many if not most of these incompatibilities could have been avoid if the programs had been written properly in the first place (that is, following guidelines that have existed before Vista).

 

[Modelworks]

Originally posted by: ChronoReverse

As for the second one, if your application is doing something like that, you'd best reconsider the design. Tying up anything on a modern computer for 2 seconds (as a point of reference, that's 6 billion CPU cycles on a 3GHz core) without any relinquishing is ridiculous.

Maya
3D Studio Max
XSI
Houdini


They easily all do it.
Especially when your working with scenes with 15 million polygons.
Sad but true 🙂

I can actually max out a Quad core xeon E5335 working in viewports with everything showing. Thats why you generally have to hide what your not working on in a scene.

 

[ChronoReverse]

The point is that you SHOULD be splitting the batches in such cases. Too many batches is bad, but splitting the load to be less than one second when the context switch is on the order of microseconds. Microseconds are huge in the context of CPU cycles but miniscule in the vast timescale of 2 seconds.