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Which Vista Should I Get?

Stg-Flame

Stg-Flame

Diamond Member
I have looked over some of the choices at Newegg and I honestly cannot tell which one I should get. I have heard from multiple reliable sources that I should go with Vista 64-bit, but those are rather pricey at the moment.

To make this short due to time constraints, can someone help me pick out which Vista I should buy from Newegg? My PC will be build purely for gaming (GTX 260, 4GB Mushkin, Wolfdale CPU, Gigabyte Mobo, etc.).
 
Originally posted by: Chaoticpenguin666
[C]an someone help me pick out which Vista I should buy from Newegg?
Click to expand...

+2

Personally, I L-O-V-E Vista HP SP1 32-bit, but that's NOT what you asked!

Given the parameters of your query...

I gotta agree! 😉
 
Thanks for the information.

EDIT: I just remembered something. My roommate built his new PC yesterday and is still unable to get his to boot. He bought Vista 32-Bit from Staples today and he just realized that what he bought is an upgrade version. From what he said, he now has to install XP before he can install Vista.

I really don't want to go through that, so one last question. The Vista that everyone is agreeing upon, will I be able to install that directly onto my new PC, or will I have to install XP first?
 
There's a workaround for installing upgrade without having XP installed first. If you get oem like I linked or retail, you can do an easy clean install.
 
Originally posted by: lxskllr
There's a workaround for installing upgrade without having XP installed first. If you get oem like I linked or retail, you can do an easy clean install.
Click to expand...

I have the one you linked me to on its way to my house as we speak. I ordered it with some of my other parts last night.
 
Originally posted by: VinDSL
Originally posted by: Chaoticpenguin666
[C]an someone help me pick out which Vista I should buy from Newegg?
Click to expand...

+2

Personally, I L-O-V-E Vista HP SP1 32-bit, but that's NOT what you asked!

Given the parameters of your query...

I gotta agree! 😉
Click to expand...

+3
 
I just installed Vista Ultimate 32 bit on my old gaming machine. Other than a total lack of compatiblity for my old Soundblaster Live! sound card, everything has been pretty smooth. (I've been wanting a newer sound card for a while...now, all I gotta do is pry the $$$ out of the household budget.) I'm gonna miss having the convenience of the old Audigy front panel I've had for several years. That was a nice add-on, but I'm NOT gonna spend a couple hundred $$$ just to get a card with a new panel.
My Nero 6 isn't compatible, but there are lots of good free disk burning programs I can use.

If you lived closer, I'd make you a sweet deal on Vista Ultimate 64 bit...but, technically it's NFR, so I can't sell it here...
 
Originally posted by: BoomerD
I just installed Vista Ultimate 32 bit on my old gaming machine. Other than a total lack of compatiblity for my old Soundblaster Live! sound card, everything has been pretty smooth. (I've been wanting a newer sound card for a while...now, all I gotta do is pry the $$$ out of the household budget.) I'm gonna miss having the convenience of the old Audigy front panel I've had for several years. That was a nice add-on, but I'm NOT gonna spend a couple hundred $$$ just to get a card with a new panel.
My Nero 6 isn't compatible, but there are lots of good free disk burning programs I can use.

If you lived closer, I'd make you a sweet deal on Vista Ultimate 64 bit...but, technically it's NFR, so I can't sell it here...
Click to expand...
I have a vista HP 32bit SP1 box running with an old Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 card. It too had no drivers and showed up as unknown in device manager. I just let it automatically search the internet for drivers and 5 mins later it installed drivers for the card. The midi/joystick port was listed as unknown as well. Did the same procedure as above and it was working too.
 
Vista x64, but Business edition instead of Home Premium. The DVD tools are worthless, whereas the remote desktop, encryption, and previous versions abilities can be very useful. If I recall correctly, the price should be the same too.
 
Originally posted by: ViRGE
Vista x64, but Business edition instead of Home Premium. The DVD tools are worthless, whereas the remote desktop, encryption, and previous versions abilities can be very useful. If I recall correctly, the price should be the same too.
Click to expand...

Yea, Business is good also, that's what I'm using on my main box. I'm never sure what to recommend for a home system. I have both Home Premium, and Business and I like them about the same. Business is a few $ more, and I figure most people will want the Home oriented niceties, but to me it's almost 6 of one/half dozen of the other.
 
I have a few questions about Vista and its features.

1) My roommate installed an upgrade version of Vista 32-Bit. From what I could tell, there is no "Run Command" available anywhere, nor is there any Command Prompt. Does Vista hold some other feature similar to 'Run' and the Command Prompt?

2) If there isn't a command, how do I go about checking dxdiag and msconfig? The biggest pet peeve I have is useless programs and processes. The programs I delete right off the bat, but the processes require a bit of trial and error to see if they will be useful at a later time. Either way, I am sure my 750GB HDD and 40GB External HDD will be more than sufficient to allow a few miscellaneous programs idle on my PC.

3) I have a lot of information I want to transfer from this HDD to my new one. I will be giving this PC to my mom when we get a new house because she loves to play Oblivion, Mythos, etc. and she doesn't have a gaming PC. When I get a new one, this will be hers, but she won't need or want all of my game saves, ISOs, music, etc. My roommate was unable to transfer anything from his old XP HDD to his new Vista HDD (he said something about "permission needed"). How will I go about retrieving information from my old HDD to my new?

4) After reading a few reviews, I have found that some of people are having a lot of trouble with the stock drivers for 64-bit. I am sure I can find new and/or better ones somewhere, but it would be extremely helpful if I could get a general consensus on which drivers work best for a gaming setup.

Again, thanks for all of the information.
 
1) Run is in the same place it was in XP(if I remember right anyway) It's on the right side of the start menu. Cmd is in accessories in your program list. I usually pin it to my start menu the first time I use it.

2) see above. I'd leave the processes alone. You won't gain any performance, and it could cause unforeseen problems if you disable the wrong thing.

3)If you run into a permission problem accessing a drive, you'll have to take ownership of the drive. Then you can manipulate your data.

4) I haven't had any driver issues. Old peripherals may not have drivers, but if a driver's made for Vista64, it should run fine. Just pick the latest driver for whatever hardware you're loading.
 
Originally posted by: lxskllr
1) Run is in the same place it was in XP(if I remember right anyway) It's on the right side of the start menu. Cmd is in accessories in your program list. I usually pin it to my start menu the first time I use it.
Click to expand...

I should have noted that I never looked around on Vista before, nor have I ever used it. My roommate is very stingy when it comes to letting anyone touch his PC. I asked him to look around the Start Menu and I didn't see either of those options. Then again, he has Vista 32-bit which probably isn't the reason why I didn't see them, but it is a possibility (I think, anyways).

Originally posted by: lxskllr
2) see above. I'd leave the processes alone. You won't gain any performance, and it could cause unforeseen problems if you disable the wrong thing.
Click to expand...

I know which ones on XP I can remove and which ones I need to leave alone. I am not the type of person to find a list and start randomly disabling processes without knowing what they are used for. I used to build gaming rigs for people around my area for a bit of extra cash. On top of building the PC, I also installed the OS and any programs the customer asked. As a bonus, I disabled the processes that were completely useless for what they were going to be using the PC for (ie. Adobe Acrobat Reader/PunkBuster/etc.).

Now, while I know most processes don't take up enough memory to cause a problem with performance; having only the processes you need is much better than having them all running at once. After I had disabled the majority of the stock processes when I built my PC, I noticed a difference in performance while playing higher-end games (Oblivion, S.T.A.L.K.E.R, Supreme Commander, etc.). It was usually just the games that recommended 1GB of memory where I was barely sliding by.

Originally posted by: lxskllr
3)If you run into a permission problem accessing a drive, you'll have to take ownership of the drive. Then you can manipulate your data.
Click to expand...

Using my old 20GB HDD as an example, I plugged that into the extra IDE slot so I could backup my data from my 300GB HDD I have in my PC now. While doing that, I only had to open both drives and start dragging files to and fro. With Vista, it seems to me that the process should be the same, but since the two HDDs will have separate OSs installed, I expect to run into some problems with the aforementioned 'click-and-drag' method.

Maybe if someone would explain "take ownership" it would add some clarity to this situation.

Originally posted by: lxskllr
4) I haven't had any driver issues. Old peripherals may not have drivers, but if a driver's made for Vista64, it should run fine. Just pick the latest driver for whatever hardware you're loading.
Click to expand...

These reviews were just random reviews I found on various forums/websites. I know that every PC is different and not everyone is technically savvy; so it is expected to see some people a bit confused or frustrated when their PC isn't working as they had hoped on account of a driver-issue. I find it best to receive advice prior to approaching the problem at hand so that I have a better chance of solving the problem in a timely manner.
 
Originally posted by: Chaoticpenguin666

Using my old 20GB HDD as an example, I plugged that into the extra IDE slot so I could backup my data from my 300GB HDD I have in my PC now. While doing that, I only had to open both drives and start dragging files to and fro. With Vista, it seems to me that the process should be the same, but since the two HDDs will have separate OSs installed, I expect to run into some problems with the aforementioned 'click-and-drag' method.

Maybe if someone would explain "take ownership" it would add some clarity to this situation.
Click to expand...

Instead of reinventing the wheel, here's a tutorial for patching uxtheme.dll to run 3rd party themes. Substitute your drive letter for the files in the tutorial.


1. Login as Administrator



2. Navigate to your system32 folder that is inside in your Windows Folder. (Press Windows Key+E to open the explorer, then navigate to your Windows folder, usually C:\Windows\system32



3. Right-click on the file uxtheme.dll and click on properties.



4. Click on security, then advanced. Open the tab ?owner? and click on ?edit?. Select your user account and click on ?ok?.



5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 for themeui.dll and shsvcs.dll



6. Right-click uxtheme.dll and click properties again.



7. Give yourself (or group) Full Control permissions and close dialogs. Select your user account from the first list and click on ?edit?. Select your user account on the following tab again and check ?full permissions? (at the very top of the second list). A popup will ask you to confirm that step, click ok again.



8. Repeat steps 6 and 7 for themeui.dll and shsvcs.dll.



9. Rename uxtheme.dll to uxtheme.old.



10. Rename themeui.dll to themeui.old.



11. Rename shsvcs.dll to shsvcs.old.



12. Download the patches files here-> x86 | x64



Unzip the files to your system32 folder and double or triple check that they are NOT in a subfolder!



13. Copy patched files into %systemroot%\System32



14. Reboot (yes, this is really required)



15. Copy a theme you downloaded from this site to the folder C:\Windows\Resources\Themes



16. If the theme does not contain a .theme then you will have to copy the ?Aero? folder and insert the .msstyle there.



17. Enjoy.



P.S. Will update this from time to time.

Source

Edit:
That tutorial kind of sucks. Here's an annotated screenshot that should make it clear. I used a .jpg file. If you substitute your drive letter, it should work fine.


Edit2:
Crap, You also have to give yourself full permission for the drive after you add yourself to the group. Click edit in the first step, and give yourself full control.
 
Originally posted by: Chaoticpenguin666
I should have noted that I never looked around on Vista before, nor have I ever used it. My roommate is very stingy when it comes to letting anyone touch his PC. I asked him to look around the Start Menu and I didn't see either of those options. Then again, he has Vista 32-bit which probably isn't the reason why I didn't see them, but it is a possibility (I think, anyways).
Click to expand...
The run command is there but it isn't enabled by default. To enable it go to Control Panel>Taskbar and Start Menu Properties>Start Menu. Click the customize button and check the box labeled "Run command"
 
Or just use windows key+r. It took me a few days to remember to use it, but it's a lot quicker to just use the keyboard shortcut.
 
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