Four hours with Windows Vista

So far so good but I have not seen enough improvement over XP to make it worth while paying for it. XP was a huge improvement over 98 and ME but Vista just seems to be more of XP.

The 64-bit edition will probably be the main upgrading factor.

So far the beta version seems perfectly stable so I have every confidence in the final release.

Installation was painless and simple although newbies may easily mess up the dual boot as the default is to upgrade. I just added an extra hard drive and installed it on that partition.

All my hardware was automaticaly detected making installation easier than Windows XP.

My main concerns however is Linux, I expect Vista to cost at least £100 for the none crimpled versions so people way well go for 64-BIT versions of Linux to upgrade instead.

I am currently testing the 32-bit version however.

My specs are:-
Sempron 2800 32-BIT (Socket A, 256kb l2 cache)
512MB RAM
ATI Radeon 128MB 9600 SE
VIA based ASROCK motherboard (full size)
Vista is installed on my second drive, an old 80GB Deathstar with 2MB Cache.

So basicaly it is a lot faster than I thought but it is not as different as I thought either. I shall be sticking with XP unless Vista costs less than £50.

 

Is this the same upcoming OS that was being called Longhorn?

When is the release date likely to be?

£50??? Can't imagine that happening!

 

You can download the Beta now if you consider yourself an advanced PC user.

http://download.windowsvista.com/preview/beta2/en/x86/download.htm

Make sure you get the OEM key first though.

Its suppsoed to be released in Jan 07 for home users.

From my first impressions it is better than XP but not by much, it is not as big a leap as ME to XP.

When I finally get an Athlon AM2 64 I shall buy Vista 64 then.

 

I'm sure an iron will sort that out.

 

Yep - Vista is the new name for Longhorn. I suspect it will hit the shevels or be preloaded on PCs by about Christmas at the earliest.

I tried it on my Athlon 64 3000 with 2GB of RAM and an Asus A8N-SLI motherboard (NForce 4 chipset). It seemed to have phases of freezing up for a few seconds every so often. This was with the 32-bit version.

I also found that many of my applications - including all the Adobe publsihing/graphics/multimedia apps were incompatible, as well as VMWare Workstation. I also did not like the fact I had to hack the registry to redirect 'My Documents', 'Favourites' etc. to a different partiion - in XP, I can simply use TweakUI to do this. Corrupted shortcut icons on installation of applications and also being unable to modifiy the contents of the 'Program Files' directory - even though I was logged in with Adminstrator provlidges made this enough for me to go back to XP - and yes, I did make the required changes to dsable the security prompts etc. Definately not ready for 'prime time yet'

Have just put 2 x GeForce 6600GTS cards into my PC tonight to turn it into an SLI rig. I'll be buying a dual core processor when Vista hits the shelves - I suspect it will be needed!

 

Well I have done with it so far is install Firefox

IE7 is still crap sadly.

My Vista has not crashed once yet, and I know the hard dive I have installed it on its on its last legs (its an IBM Deathstar).

Also for selfish reasons I hope it as easy to mess up as XP, otherwise my business may go under, but then half my call outs are Windows 98 users

 

Edit my test is not going to last long, I installed it on an old IBM Deathstar I had spare, and its making the click of death noises at the moment.

 

WE've had vista (the 64bit windows thingy?) for a while, its a nightmare with some applications which are just not compatible.
And boy does it eat the memory!!!!

 

Well its only been released for the last week unless you're a member of MSDN. Are you sure you're not thinking of XP 64-BIT, that has imcompatability issues as well.

 

You may be right AT