Thread: Vista?

I have a frined that ordered a new Dell laptop. He got Vista, and everything was kosher for about a month, then his Documents folder disappeared, and other things started vanishing. He called Dell and they helpedhim with a reformat, and everything was back to factory settings. Went fine for about a month, then same crazy BS. He is now being sent an XP disk from Dell.

He is no computer noob either. He has built a few, and worked on many.

Depends on how comfortable you are and how much you know and are willing to do to make it work.

Vista is a hog to say the least, but with a decent amount of ram, say 2GB + (I have 4GB running on Vista 64), a few changes like disabling the sidebar and some other applications, Vista runs pretty damn smooth. I don't have any problem with Vista running games and most applications, there are a few that just aren't Vista ready, same with hardware depending on what you got/get.

I've been running Vista since about June and haven't had any real problems. There are some things that are annoying, like the User Control bs app that asks you if want to do every little thing (you know the Mac commercials? They are so true...). Good thing is though you can turn it off, although it asks you like 5 times and requires a restart before it actually shuts off. The only real problem I have with it is if you are not logged on to THE administrator account, it doesn't always let you access certain files, saying they are protected for some bs reason and you cannot even look at the files. My account is set up as an administrator but for some reason it still doesn't let me access the files without first going through a real pain of "unlocking" the files or going onto the main admin account itself and doing what I need to there.

It's a new OS, it'll take time before a lot of people accept it fully and it is up to standards, like XP before SP2 I believe it was, just depends on how comfortable you are with working with Vista.

It is a very nice OS though, visually pleasing and has some nice features. The biggest one is of course DX10 which more and more games are starting to use. I would highly recommend getting and using Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit though even if it is more expensive. If you have access to some university, you can get it fairly cheap. $108.85 before S&H on Campus Tech. Oh and once you get it set up the way you want it too, it runs pretty smoothly without much of a hassel after the initial configuring of stuff.

[img width=700 height=147]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v158/pnovitsch/VistaUltimate-1.jpg[/img]

Sorry if the img looks like crap, don't know why it's looks like crap when I load it here.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...Ultimate-1.jpg

Well its typically better to do a fresh install anyways. I never, ever do upgrades when it comes to stuff like a new OS. Fresh installs are usually better in the long wrong.

Originally Posted by Blue_Thunder27

So, should i go ahead and just install Vista, or should i set up a dual boot? And from what ive heard Vista Home premium is the way to go. When i upgrade ill have 2 8800 GT's a q6600 and 4 gigs of ram, with that said is a 64-bit os needed? Also whats the deal with Ultimate and Premium?

To have your PC use all 4 gigs of RAM you need a 64 bit OS period. 32 bit windows will use up to 3 gigs of memory and 1 gig gets dedicated to the OS and related data. That effectively means that 32 bit windows will only give you 2 of those 4 gigs.

Ultimate and Premium have some added features like the "Aero" GUI that actually uses DX stuff to manipulate your desktop. Here is a list right off my Windows Ultimate box:
Home Premium
-"Most secure windows ever!"
-"Quickly find what you need" (Cool search feature on start menu!)
-""Elegant Windows Aero desktop experience" (cool transparency crap and other eye candy)
-""Best choice for Laptops"
-"Collaborate and share documents!"
-"Experience photos and entertainment"
-"Enjoy Windows media center"
Ultimate
-"Most secure windows ever!"
-"Quickly find what you need" (Cool search feature on start menu!)
-""Elegant Windows Aero desktop experience" (cool transparency crap and other 3d eye candy)
-"Best choice for Laptops"(Tablet support, power management etc...)
-"Collaborate and share documents!"
-"Experience photos and entertainment"
-"Enjoy Windows media center"
PLUS
-"Help protect against hardware failure" (Backup system)
-"Business Networking and Remote Desktop"
-"Better protect your Data!" (Bitlocker drive encryption)

EDIT:

Just figured I would say I really like Vista, but BF2 and BF2142 break when using 4 gigs of memory; but there are fixes for that problem. Also, creative's driver support for Vista sucks ass! the only problems I have had are due to the X-Fi Fatl1ty driver.

To fully get your 4 gigs working, you will need a 64-bit OS as 32-bit will only recognize 3-3.5 I believe it is.

Ultimate has more features, a few exclusive games like Texas Hold'em, more stable from what I hear and more secure.

A basic rundown is on the MS website here so you can see the differences.

Some stuff might be minor, but others are pretty big depending on what you use your computer for, how much customizing you like, and how well you know your way around a computer.

If you're just going for something simple to run standard programs and games, Premium would be better as it is better than Basic in terms of stability and security, but quite as good as Ultimate but also not as pricy as Ultimate.

...Yeah what Soy and Rick said.