Vista Woes

[Keleka]

Well of course i had to have it. I head home expecting to do a no frills install. Normal routine... Boot from CD and let it reformat the drive and install. NOPE it didn't detect that or even offer it. In fact it would't install at all this way so i went the upgrade route for kicks. First reboot during installation it hangs. I do it several times and can't for the life of me get it to install. I'm no PC novice btw. I've got years and years of experience in OSes and building my own PC's..

A bit ticked off i do some research and take a shot in the dark to one post i read on google groups.. The guys said reset the bios to defaults so i did this. Guess what? Windows Vista installed right away. Now my question is what the hell does my bios have to do with any OS installation? MS is sticking their nose in places it don't belong. Vista is really a bloated flop of an OS. Yeah Aero is pretty but other then that it takes up double the resources of XP and its not as an efficient OS to use as XP by far. What did i say i like about Vista? Oh yeah the pretty UI. Thats pretty much it.

The hardware demands for an OS are outrageous.. 1GB of ram for an OS? *laughs* Not much works with Vista.. Companies are playing catch up with drivers if in fact they can get their product to work.. Look at Soundblaster. MS has nearly crippled that card. MS took EAX and Direct sound and hardware acceleration out of Vista. GAMES WITHOUT EAX SOUND LIKE CRAP.. OpenAL in games to me sounds like a CHEAP onboard graphics chip. Creative owns the graphics market and a simple OS release crippled it.. I use an Audigy 4 but for their top cards they had to right software to port EAX games into OpenAL. Did you hear me loud and clear that their is no EAX in Windows Vista.

I've always been first to jump on the new OS bandwagon but im disappointed with this new Windows release. My other saga? Well performance was so sluggish on my old PC i totally rebuilt. Guess what my CDkey won't work.. I'm gonna try and call them in case one day i want to install it again. I had to buy another Windows XP Home key just so i could use my PC. I don't mind piracy protection but product activation is overboard.

XP was an awsome change from the 98 kernel but Vista is like i said more bloatware then anything else.. Windows Media and players are second rate to third party software. Creative Media Player all around kicks WMP butt in every area. This is my personal experience with it.. To each their own.

 

[kurt454]

When I first switched from 98SE to 2000 Pro, I had a lot of driver problems. Games took a big nosedive in framerate or would not play at all. Give it 6 to 8 months and things will be much improved.

 

[Boyo]

Vista still has a long way to go. I wouldn't recommend buying and installing it until at least the summer. That way more developed drivers will be introduced and hopefully a service pack.

 

[Robor]

What do you mean by "sticking their nose in places it don't belong."? Chances are setting the BIOS to defaults allowed your HD to be detected. What else do you think could change in the BIOS to affect the install?

Win2000 was a *great* update from the Win9x kernel. XP was a nice upgrade from Win2000. I think after Vista matures a bit it will be a very nice upgrade from WinXP. There's a lot more to it than Aero. Oh, and who cares about RAM usage? If you're running a modern machine you should have 2GB anyway.

EDIT: Wanted to mention I installed Vista Ultimate RTM from MSDN a few weeks ago and it only lasted 18 hours before I went back to WinXP. I had program and hardware issues. I'll wait a while before trying again.

 

[Brazen]

I've been using it for 2 days and so far, the interface gives me a headache. It's too cluttered and there are a few things I can't figure out how to do, and some things I've figured out but are a pain to do (such as finding the "invert selection" option, or applying a folders view settings to all folders, basically I just really miss the top toolbar).

I'm going to stick it out a while longer, plus I've got some new hardware on the way that will let me see the purty-ness (I currently have a Vista Experience Index of 1.0), so I'll see if I can get used to it.

 

[Robor]

Originally posted by: Brazen
I've been using it for 2 days and so far, the interface gives me a headache. It's too cluttered and there are a few things I can't figure out how to do, and some things I've figured out but are a pain to do (such as finding the "invert selection" option, or applying a folders view settings to all folders, basically I just really miss the top toolbar).

I'm going to stick it out a while longer, plus I've got some new hardware on the way that will let me see the purty-ness (I currently have a Vista Experience Index of 1.0), so I'll see if I can get used to it.

I'm not a fan of the new 'file manager' view. Call me a dinosaur but I like the 'classic menus' and simplistic layout. Speaking of layout, I *HATE* the new IE7 interface and the fact that it can't be customized (move the icons/toolbars) is a joke. Were they trying to increase the Firefox, Opera, etc market share? If so then :thumbsup:

 

[Brazen]

Originally posted by: Robor

I'm not a fan of the new 'file manager' view. Call me a dinosaur but I like the 'classic menus' and simplistic layout. Speaking of layout, I *HATE* the new IE7 interface and the fact that it can't be customized (move the icons/toolbars) is a joke. Were they trying to increase the Firefox, Opera, etc market share? If so then :thumbsup:

I'm right there with you in the Paleozoic era. I have already tried out IE7 and knew I didn't like it, plus there are some Firefox features that I just couldn't live without, so first thing I did was install Firefox and set it as default.

 

[stash]

Peronally, I don't miss the standard menus, but you can always get them back by hitting alt. And you can enable them permanently in Explorer by using Classic Folders.

But the new menus in Explorer are really easy Just hit the big Organize button, folder and search options, and you'll see the same folder dialog that was under tools, options before.

 

[blurredvision]

When did you purchase Vista? How much time have you given it so far, not including beta's and RC's?

 

[masteraleph]

Originally posted by: Keleka

A bit ticked off i do some research and take a shot in the dark to one post i read on google groups.. The guys said reset the bios to defaults so i did this. Guess what? Windows Vista installed right away. Now my question is what the hell does my bios have to do with any OS installation? MS is sticking their nose in places it don't belong. Vista is really a bloated flop of an OS. Yeah Aero is pretty but other then that it takes up double the resources of XP and its not as an efficient OS to use as XP by far. What did i say i like about Vista? Oh yeah the pretty UI. Thats pretty much it.

The BIOS has plenty to do with it, particularly with high ram installs on the 32-bit version, where you're juggling address space with memory space. Or when we're dealing with onboard RAID controllers. Or...

The hardware demands for an OS are outrageous.. 1GB of ram for an OS? *laughs*

I don't know if it's just me, but I don't run XP without at least 512MB, 1GB if I can help it, and 2GB preferred. Seeing as high-end computers have had 1GB since, oh, 2002 at least, and seeing as even Dell only sells a very few computers with 512 and most at 1GB, I can't see that as being rediculous.

Not much works with Vista.. Companies are playing catch up with drivers if in fact they can get their product to work.. Look at Soundblaster. MS has nearly crippled that card. MS took EAX and Direct sound and hardware acceleration out of Vista. GAMES WITHOUT EAX SOUND LIKE CRAP.. OpenAL in games to me sounds like a CHEAP onboard graphics chip. Creative owns the graphics market and a simple OS release crippled it.. I use an Audigy 4 but for their top cards they had to right software to port EAX games into OpenAL. Did you hear me loud and clear that their is no EAX in Windows Vista.

Am I the only one who's glad about this? EAX is crap. DirectSound is crap. The new audio setup allows for much better quality and fidelity and much finer EQing.

Windows Media and players are second rate to third party software. Creative Media Player all around kicks WMP butt in every area. This is my personal experience with it.. To each their own.

Please, please tell me you're kidding me. Creative Media Player is terrible. If you want something with a lighter footprint for music, go with Winamp, or Foobar. The nvidia DVD decoder runs circles around pretty much everything for video. Geez, Creative Media Player is up on realplayer, but that's about it.

I agree that there have been lots of issues with CD keys, but geez...

 

[Robor]

Originally posted by: stash
Peronally, I don't miss the standard menus, but you can always get them back by hitting alt. And you can enable them permanently in Explorer by using Classic Folders.

But the new menus in Explorer are really easy Just hit the big Organize button, folder and search options, and you'll see the same folder dialog that was under tools, options before.

I did switch mine to 'classic folders' but even with that view it doesn't look as clean as Win2K or WinXP. I don't have a Vista install at the moment so I can't describe exactly what I don't like about it.

 

[bruceb]

Robor ... see this site: http://www.enhanceie.com/ie/tweaks.asp

You can move the menu bar and a few other things with some of
these very easy to use tweaks for IE7

 

[Keleka]

Originally posted by: masteraleph

Originally posted by: Keleka

A bit ticked off i do some research and take a shot in the dark to one post i read on google groups.. The guys said reset the bios to defaults so i did this. Guess what? Windows Vista installed right away. Now my question is what the hell does my bios have to do with any OS installation? MS is sticking their nose in places it don't belong. Vista is really a bloated flop of an OS. Yeah Aero is pretty but other then that it takes up double the resources of XP and its not as an efficient OS to use as XP by far. What did i say i like about Vista? Oh yeah the pretty UI. Thats pretty much it.

The BIOS has plenty to do with it, particularly with high ram installs on the 32-bit version, where you're juggling address space with memory space. Or when we're dealing with onboard RAID controllers. Or...

The hardware demands for an OS are outrageous.. 1GB of ram for an OS? *laughs*

I don't know if it's just me, but I don't run XP without at least 512MB, 1GB if I can help it, and 2GB preferred. Seeing as high-end computers have had 1GB since, oh, 2002 at least, and seeing as even Dell only sells a very few computers with 512 and most at 1GB, I can't see that as being rediculous.

Not much works with Vista.. Companies are playing catch up with drivers if in fact they can get their product to work.. Look at Soundblaster. MS has nearly crippled that card. MS took EAX and Direct sound and hardware acceleration out of Vista. GAMES WITHOUT EAX SOUND LIKE CRAP.. OpenAL in games to me sounds like a CHEAP onboard graphics chip. Creative owns the graphics market and a simple OS release crippled it.. I use an Audigy 4 but for their top cards they had to right software to port EAX games into OpenAL. Did you hear me loud and clear that their is no EAX in Windows Vista.

Am I the only one who's glad about this? EAX is crap. DirectSound is crap. The new audio setup allows for much better quality and fidelity and much finer EQing.

EAX is far from crap. It has many design purposes but nothing compares to it in game sounds, directional sounds. OpenAL is plain jane.

Windows Media and players are second rate to third party software. Creative Media Player all around kicks WMP butt in every area. This is my personal experience with it.. To each their own.

Please, please tell me you're kidding me. Creative Media Player is terrible. If you want something with a lighter footprint for music, go with Winamp, or Foobar. The nvidia DVD decoder runs circles around pretty much everything for video. Geez, Creative Media Player is up on realplayer, but that's about it.

I should of said anything is better then Windows Media Player. I don't use it alot as i'm a gamer, surfer pretty much but when i do watch Mpegs or DVDs it has better video quality on my machine then WMP. You forgot to mention Quicktime btw
I agree that there have been lots of issues with CD keys, but geez...