Vista

[nova]

Hey,... where is the Vista thread?

Anyone tried it that actually likes it?

I get the feeling this is a lame upgrade, kinda like Millennium or 2000.

[Sonnie]

I can't seem to get motivated about it for some reason. Then I read where some folks were having some issues that bothered me, which at the moment I don't even remember what they were.

I do have a free upgrade coming on my laptop though.... at some point in time.

[Danny]

One of my mates has it and he says that while an improvement it is still buggy and lacks driver support (he's already waiting for SP1)

[Steve Williamson]

I have a three pack of vista ultimate editions, tried installing on a AMD machine and had problems with the graphics card not being recognised, problem is that none of the PCI or AGP slots are recognising any cards, will try XP on it to see if the board has a problem first before blaming Vista. The OS is nice though to look at and I have heard that the media centre is better than XP's.

[nova]

So,...anyone have anything really good to say about it? Faster? More secure? easier to use?,..... anything????

[Darren]

Way more secure, UI is much more attractive if you have a decent graphics card. File searching is much better and very easy. Built in encryption of files in bit locker if you get ultimate. You should have at least a gig of memory and 2.0Ghz processor in my opinion. You'll want a 128 graphics card or better. Very few bugs that I've seen and I've been using it on 64bit and 32bit since before it was released.

You can run a free system check from the Microsoft website to check your system to see what isn't supported and what is. It will even tell you what Vista features will be available on that particular hardware configuration.

[koiman]

I have been trying to install my sound blaster live 24 on my new laptop with vista and I can't get it to load the program like it does on Windowes XP. For instance when downloading to XP I see the surround mixer and all the necessary functions but when down loading it to Vista the surround mixer is missing all the major functions in fact it loads as 5.1 only without a selections for 2.1. I have even gone to the Creative Lab site and downloaded the new drivers it still won't work. Any Ideas..
Thanks,
Leon

[bobgpsr]

I had a 6 year old motherboard die, so that gave me a chance to to a processor & OS upgrade. Using a Intel E6600 core 2 duo processor, MSI mb with a Q965 Intel chipset, 2 GB (2 sticks) of dual channel Mushkin DDR2 800 RAM, and a new Seagate 500GB SATA hd. Got Vista 64bit Home Premium from Newegg.

The install (new) went smoothly but I am not entirely happy with the controls Realtek currently provides for the ALC883 audio codec chip (7.1 channel HD analog). Missing control of the subwoofer crossover frequency which is supposed to be selectable under Vista.

The on-board Intel GMA 3000 VGA video is not rated as acceptable for hidef video disc playback by the Cyberlink PowerDVD HD advisor. PowerDVD 7.3 does do a decent job of SD DVD playback.

Overall the pc is very fast and reliable -- but I will need to get a Nvidia 8600 video card with HDCP for playing HD DVD's mounted on a XBOX 360 HD DVD addon drive that is connected via USB 2.0.

[FireWalker877]

koiman wrote:

I have been trying to install my sound blaster live 24 on my new laptop with vista and I can't get it to load the program like it does on Windowes XP. For instance when downloading to XP I see the surround mixer and all the necessary functions but when down loading it to Vista the surround mixer is missing all the major functions in fact it loads as 5.1 only without a selections for 2.1. I have even gone to the Creative Lab site and downloaded the new drivers it still won't work. Any Ideas..
Thanks,
Leon

I too have a Soundblaster card and Micro$oft Vi$ta. The two are currently mutually exclusive. Creative's software doesn't work with Vista, and Vista's software refuses to work with Creative's hardware. It is a vicious cycle. As far as replacement software, I have heard that YouP-Pax has released Vista ported Creative software. You might check them out.


Overall, Vista isn't so bad. I'm using it right now. It is just disappointing that DirectSound 3D has been removed, that the M$ Help system has been changed (Much of the Windows XP program documentation can no longer be run eg. WinISD's Help), and various other infuriating changes have been implemented (Add Remove Programs is no longer in the Control Panel. It is now called Program and Features. I spent days figuring that out!). We are creatures of habit, and Vista will certainly take some getting used to.

There's no doubt it will become an attractive platform when M$ starts supporting it. But hey, Vista does boot more quickly than XP!