Teh Official Windows Vista Thread

[nmaster64]

The thread for all things Vista! You can learn more about Microsoft's next-generation PC operating system at it's website:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/

Currently, Vista has entered Release Candidate (RC1) and is available for download by TechNet and MS Developers Network (MSDN) subscribers (Haha, that's me suckers!), as well as those people who signed up for the Windows Vista Customer Preview Program (CPP) with the release of Beta 2 in June.

I'm downloading the DVD iso now and am going to try installing it alongside Ubuntu Linux, which I'm also downloading now (despite the fact I've got 10 ubuntu CDs coming in the mail), so I can test out each OS and see how well they dual-boot. I'm doing this on an old broken machine, so I don't expect Vista to work very well, but I'm more interested in actually trying to see the differences between it and XP, besides Halo 2. I'll let you all know how it all turns out...

[Pilot_51]

My dad used to subscribe to MSDN and now he's got like 10-20 DVD's crammed with various versions of XP and other expensive software, that's how I got Windows Server 2003 for my server PC.

[nmaster64]

So I got my piece of crap computer to dual-boot Ubuntu and Vista finally. It's really not to hard once you know what your doing (Ubuntu's grub does NOT auto-detect Vista, and that really screwed with me).

Well, I can say I'm way more disappointed in Ubuntu than Vista. I'd say Ubuntu might be nice for someone going into their first Linux desktop, but after getting used to Fedora Core 5, Ubuntu feels like an extremely stripped down version of it. It did actually auto-install my wireless card, which was nice.

Vista...man, I really hate to say this. But I'm impressed. It looks wonderful, and I'm actually liking many of the basic changes. Much of it seems like a direct rip off of some of the more advanced Linux distros, and there's definitly some Mac influence, but I have to get M$ credit for doing some things right. Honestly, I'm impressed.

Two MAJOR problems that keep this from being worth it at all. First off, the given, price. Anything over a $100 (and even that's stretching it), is just WAY too much for this upgrade. Yes, it's definitly a great upgrade to XP, but when it comes down to it, I don't see anything NECESSARY. It's like taking a video game and upgrading the graphics without changing the gameplay. It's a nice bonus, but not worth $50 more.

The 2nd thing, and this is almost more important, is it's unusable unless you have one l33t machine. I couldn't run 90% of the new programs because of the computers old video card. Not horribly surprising considering the computers age, but seriously: I COULDN'T RUN ONE OF THE SCREENSAVERS. WTF? The new look is great, but it's so unproductive, taking up a ridiculous amount of system memory and CPU cycles for a lot of fluff that's not truly necessary. You CAN turn it all off, but then suddenly your left with Windows XP Service Pack 3 it seems...

My current verdict: Don't buy Vista. But, the next time you going for a new computer, make sure it's a Vista one.

[Lkr]

you phail. what was the reason to lock my other topic, it was about the beta? anyway, vista sucks pretty much. also, I've had Beta 2, Pre-RC1, and RC1. Wasn't so great. MS really made a crap OS.

while trying to install RC1, it hangs at the completing install :\