Overall Vista Impression

[Trelayne]

Hi all!

Just wanted to mention that there are actually some people out in the
ether who are not experiencing any serious issues with the Vista O/S.. I'm
one of them.

I've had my new PC running Vista H.P. for over 3 months now, installed &
ran older App's as well as games without incident (although I will miss
Sherlock, which was DOS-based). No BSOD's, no Abends, just fast, slick and
not too difficult to become accustomed to. I did have to search around a bit
to obtain Vista compatable drivers for some of my peripherals, but no more
than was necessary the last time I changed platforms. Incidentally, my
system is an Acer 2.4Gb Q6600 w/2Gb RAM - I did upgrade the graphics from an
ATI X1650 to an Nvidia Geforce 8600 GT, but only to improve the visual
gaming experience - it raised my score from 3.4 to 5.5, which is now a
limitation of the RAM rather than the graphics card.

I'm happy to announce that the only Vista issue I've encountered thus
far occured today when I started the newsgroups for the first time - there
was a pronounced lag which repeated itself. Closed and restarted Windows
Mail, working fine now. Not too shabby for 3 months of usage. Backup &
Restore is working fine, restore points are being created automatically,
auto de-frag keeps the O/S running slick - all you have to do is remember
that this is not a platform that was designed to be powered off when not in
use - the maintenance App's require system idle time to function properly.
As I recall there were more bumps than that when we were first introduced to
Win95.. Win98.. ME.. etcetera, not to mention the deer-in-headlights looks
we all wore daily when my employers finally decided to upgrade from NT to
XP!! Chaos!!

There are always growing pains, and we'll always squeal like pigs while
we're being forced, kicking and scratching, to adapt to some new, bug-ridden
and incompatable O/S; but we'll adjust, and in a few years we'll be
complaining about the newest generation of Windows while praising 'good old'
Vista up and down. Count on it. (The 64bit version anyway - the appr. 3.3Gb
RAM limitation of the 32bit O/S will be an ongoing issue as App's & AV's
gobble up more system resources.)

When it's working well, this alpha release of Vista is exceptional
compared to its' predecessors initial releases - you've simply forgotten how
unpleasant the previous upgrades were. Another thing to remember is that the
release of Vista was delayed considerably, which should have given hardware
retailers loads of time to develop Vista compatable drivers, yet somehow
they largely failed to do so. There are plenty of issues to justly lay at
Microsofts' doorstep, but hardware compatability issues are not among them.

In short, take a pill guys - save some of that angst for the next O/S!!
This one will only improve from this point on and maybe one day, despite how
cost-effective their current strategy is, MS will decide to not continue
using the general public as their Beta-testing team - but don't hold your
breath on that last one... LOL

In a few years (and a few SP's) we'll all be saying "This new O/S
sucks!! I'm going back to Vista!!"

Trelayne

 

[Jupiter Jones [MVP]]

Then simply use one of the operating system you referenced that have
not lost compatibility in decades.
Or stay with what you have.

No one is forced or coerced, at least not by Microsoft, to buy or
upgrade anything.
We all have choices.
Exercise your right to choose and choose one or more of the many
alternatives.

--
Jupiter Jones [MVP]
http://www3.telus.net/dandemar
http://www.dts-l.org

In my case, a certain age would be seven years old. Cool Edit 2000
does not
work properly on Windows Vista 64-bit, altho my copy did work for a
while.
(Why it stopped working is a mystery for the ages and of no interest
at all,
apparently, to Microsoft.) Now, Cool Edit 2000 (out of print)
reports that
it has been improperly installed and it requests that I reinstall
it. When I
do, it reports that it has been improperly installed. Such detail!
The
advent of COM, which has its own internal beauty, made the Registry
a central
repository for leftover junk that interferes with the proper
operation of
everything that runs on the computer. De-installation of software
usually
leaves vestiges behind in Registry entries and file folders. This
makes
reinstallation not occur into a pristine environment. Wiping out
the OS with
a fresh copy means wiping out all installed software. This is time
consuming
and often painful. The Sperry Rand Univac 1108 operating system has
survived
through many decades of advancement without ever making it
impossible to run
binary decks from 1965. Unisys still manufactures and markets
computers that
run the very same operating system with thousands of improvements
and none
that affect compatibility. Microsoft went to town on Vista,
hellbent to make
it secure, blocking areas of the file system that were previously
open, and
making changes that remain undocumented. This does not affect their
business
model, which is to sell operating systems that run on the latest
hardware.
All users are hobbyists or dabblers to Microsoft. We are not fit to
consult
when Microsoft anticipates making changes. I hear tell Microsoft
has put
many a "shim" into the operating system to accomodate widely sold
software
applications whose compatibility could not otherwise be guaranteed.
So,
Microsoft wants to be free to "innovate" by making the operating
system
incompatibile. That would be okay if Microsoft were to document the
changes
that make programs no longer run. However, Microsoft itself does
not know
how changes it makes will cause grief. So documentation of changes
is
impractical. From my point of view, there is no reason a really
good audio
file editor should experience problems on any version of Windows.
It
interfaces with any generic sound card. It draws graphs on the
screen. The
GUI is most ordinary. The Unix-standard error message
simultaneously informs
the user that something's wrong, and it'll be damned if it will
reveal what,
leaves us scratching our head. Finally, Microsoft publishes an API
that
programmers are supposed to use properly. What is proper changes
from time
to time. Restrictions are imposed. What used to work no longer
does. This
speaks to a helter-skelter design methodology more attuned to
getting
software on store shelves than putting long-term reliability and
compatibility in the hands of end users. It is against Microsoft
policy to
confide in users how what they are doing will impact users. And by
users I
mean people like me who have designed and written operating system
code
extensively.