To Vista or not to Vista?

[brokencrow]

Found this on Google:

1. Right-click an empty area of the desktop, and then click Personalize.
2. In the left pane, click Change desktop icons.
3. Under Desktop icons, select the check box for each icon that you want to add to the desktop, or clear the check box for each icon that you want to remove from the desktop, and then click OK.

...go figure...

[nihil]

Hi folks, I am back................. nothing to do with Vista............... a problem at my telephone exchange........

So, I have been extending the tests............ rooting around in the attic/loft for old stuff ..............

All mice seem to work; well, recognised as regular rodents anyways

I was surprised that it detected and loaded a driver for a serial port mouse!!!

All keyboards are supported as regular at least.

I told it that I had an HP DeskJet 940c............... It believed me, and told me that it was out of paper????????????? damn thing wasn't even connected....

So I got the HP LaserJet 6L......... this thing hasn't printed since about 2001.............. I connect the 25 pin cable and the damn thing goes and loads drivers????? It then tells me that it is out of paper............ well, I didn't even expect it to work, so I hadn't put any paper in there.

I load some paper and print a local test print............... 6 years and the ink cartridge still works?!!!

Then I had to reboot........ and Vista removed the out of paper messages on the 940c and LJ 6L and printed a test page on the 6L.

Neither of my modems will work with Vista............ my ISP/Telco is sending a free hub/router ................... and an internet telephone.............. and a set top thingy for my TV............... errrr, because I am a longstanding customer I get this free for 6 months and then pay for the next 12. But I was nice with level 1 & 2 support, hell's teeth it wasn't their fault? so they have reduced my subscription charge such that I will pay an extra 50 cents a month for 12 months..........time to get the Dremel and open the porcelain pig?

The only thing I have really noticed so far is that the games port doesn't work (the 15 pin yellow one).

My opinion on Vista so far is that I like it................. and I like UAC

[Cider]

Nice I also like Vista but I dont know if my hardware will handle it

AMD 3200+ with 2GB Ram

Im sure you need a core 2 duo or something similar to let vista run on it ?

[nihil]

Hey Cider!

Happy Easter mate!

I am pretty confident that your kit will be OK................. I built two boxes with old stuff that I had lying around.

Both AMD single cores, one an XP2400+ and the other an XP3000+ so both of those are less than your XP3200+

One has 1.5Mb of PC3200 (DDR400) and the other has 1Mb of PC2100 (DDR266) to be honest, the hardware doesn't seem to be that much of an issue.

Problem is that I don't know what it should look like

Vista has a WSOD as well as a BSOD

Nice to know that one is buying quality?

[nihil]

DISCLAIMER:

I haven't tried this yet so please approach it with caution.

I mentioned that the old 15-pin gameport is no longer supported in Vista. Well, this might be a solution for those of you who still have legacy devices that use this port:

http://forums.creative.com/creativel...ssage.id=13336

I know it is on a Creative Logic forum but it is supposed to work with all ports.

[Cider]

Hey there Nihil

Happy easter to you too.

I thik game performance goes down with Vista as well, dunno ...

EDIT:

Installed Vista Business 64 bit.

I will take it in to work tomorrow to update to sp1 and all windows updates.

Seems to run fine.

Abit cranky but I hope Sp1 will change that.

BTW: Should I let windows update take care of device drivers if it finds them?

Everything is working so I dunno.

Also Should I install DX10? Dont know much about it. Can you install it if your Graphics card doesnt support it? Can anyone shed some light on this.

Thanks

[zallison]

*Stretches and brushes dust off of the keyboard*

First off, Hi Nihil! Cider!

I feel so strange coming into this discussion as a Vista user (and a happy one at that)..

Service Pack 1 breaks alot of people's machines. Especially those with cheaper parts. (E-Machines, HP, low end Gateway, Acer, low end Dell)

Our official stance @ work is, "Don't recommend vistasp1 until Windows Update asks them to download it."

That said...

Windows Update just asked me to download Vista SP1. I'm about to take the plunge.

I see myself using the internet on the PS3 or the Wii for the next couple days.

My memory usage:
Total - 3069
Cached - 2092
Free - 18

Page file usage: 1365/6326M

Kernel Memory
Total - 210
Paged - 152
Nonpaged - 58

I sit with an average CPU utilization of 9%

IE7 eats 160mb of ram alone.
Firefox on my machine is only using about 20mb though.

[Moira]

I have SP1 on my laptop running Home Premium, for some reason this PC, running Ultimate, just won't install it. I ran the beta copy of SP1 on the laptop before the final version came out and didn't notice any real improvements though I don't think you're supposed to. My laptop is actually running pretty badly just now - I have a process svchost, which takes up an enormous amount of cpu usage and has to be frequently killed off. (The install of Vista though, has been on it for ages and it probably just needs redoing.)

SP1 may be doing great things under the surface, but for me I only noticed a few niggly bits and pieces that worked less well afterwards. As a trade off this is probably fair enough, but I can't say I'm too disappointed that it won't install here.

[zallison]

Cider - Direct X 10 is already installed with Vista.

SP1 installed, no really noticable changes, and the machine is currently stable.

I did take a look at my current memory usage, and CPU Utilization, both of which have dropped slightly. The RAM is completely cached, nothing "free"

[Moira]

Yes, what I was saying earlier. People often go crazy when they see the amount of RAM Vista appears to be using, but really it's just that Windows has cached it, in fact making it more effective.