Vista

[landrovermick]

Vista anyone ?

yes , no maybe worth the time - or wait a while and see what happens?

Mick

[djam1]

As always the wise wait for the first service pack.

[Blknight.aus]

not worth it...

hands up those who rememeber when the whole operating system took up less than the first 128 k of the available 640..

and how stable was that compared to windoze...

oh its buggier than hell with lots of "features" to be found... and rumour control has it it leaks more than an ffrs canopy on the first rain of the wet.

[MarknDeb]

Some reports say if you are happy with what you have stay there, its not worth it but then they say it doesnt crash as much as XP and that alone could be a plus but ill stay with my trust old stable Win2k

[ladas]

I had a look at it, ran the compatability patch, and it came up with loads of 'issues' - printer drivers, incompatability with McAffe ...........and loads more

Reminds me of windows ME

I won't touch it till SP2

[Bytemrk]

I'm running it on my laptop... quite happy with it over all.

That said - I get it through work and have been playing with it since Beta 1...

Not sure I'd rush out and grab it if I actually had to pay for it.:p

It seems to run better on my laptop than XP....

But be prepared for a big install... and you may still be waiting for many programs to catchup and have a Vista compatible version.

Unless the machine you are talking about is reasonably new I wouldn't bother.

My laptop is a 2.0gig dual core with 2 gig's of ram.... so I'd be a little ****ed if it didn't run ok....

Mark

[incisor]

home basic is not too bad for the average joe IF you have more than 512mb of ram.

home premium, not sure i would bother.. yet

just buy a mac and get the real deal with out the bull****e :P

all the extra bits in vista are just poor rips of what has been available in OSX macs for years... :P

hmmm off to find the flame proof suit again...

[incisor]

not worth it...

hands up those who rememeber when the whole operating system took up less than the first 128 k of the available 640..

and how stable was that compared to windoze...

oh its buggier than hell with lots of "features" to be found... and rumour control has it it leaks more than an ffrs canopy on the first rain of the wet.

i ran a multiline BBS off a machine with 64k of ram and 4 360k floppy drives for years :P

[incisor]

incompatability with McAffe ...........and loads more


well thats a definete plus IMHO!

[Captain_Rightfoot]

well thats a definete plus IMHO!

Buy a mac and don't worry about viruses or Mc Affee!! :D :D

[tombraider]

Buy a mac and don't worry about viruses or Mc Affee!! :D :D

Hehe, glad I wasnt first to say it...

Take a look at this!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDNuq94Zg_8

[dmdigital]

hands up those who rememeber when the whole operating system took up less than the first 128 k of the available 640..


I remember when you had to justify the code using multiple bytes to store or manipulate data and also looking at doing binary tranlation across word boundries to compress storage just so you could justify the programme consuming 4KB of RAM on execution and of course the system only had 64KB of RAM to do everything in anyway. To get it to 640KB would have cost over $50,000.

Why did we stop writting in Assembler :confused:

[Captain_Rightfoot]

Hehe, glad I wasnt first to say it...

Take a look at this!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDNuq94Zg_8

I can't wait to use it at work... they've copied the eye candy rather well. The rest of it's probably same old #$@# different day, but I guess you've got to start somewhere.. :)

[incisor]

Hehe, glad I wasnt first to say it...

Take a look at this!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDNuq94Zg_8

classic! plus 1!

[shorty943]

Everybody register with ZDnet/security, and be very afraid. Or Cnet, or Computerworld news, or god only knows how many other security IT sites.

Vista is ME all over again, XP in a tarted up new dress.

Norton AV is not safe, Yellow Storm virus targets only Norton AV, mainly the commercial version at the moment.

MS Office 07 is riddled with security vulnerabilities, IE7 is a sieve, secure as a boy scout tent.

And now there has been threats of a virus attack directly on the Mac system.

I have used Linux for years, and am now about to install Sun Microsystems Solaris 10, as a try out, on a 64 bit server.

Vista? Not on my system, nothing mission critical, nothing in the way of personal data, kept on my machines. Does not matter. I at least can't be "phished over", can't be hacked and used to damage other systems or people. Hell, I just realised, I have become a responsible computer user.

Shorty.

[Blknight.aus]

I remember when you had to justify the code using multiple bytes to store or manipulate data and also looking at doing binary tranlation across word boundries to compress storage just so you could justify the programme consuming 4KB of RAM on execution and of course the system only had 64KB of RAM to do everything in anyway. To get it to 640KB would have cost over $50,000.

Why did we stop writting in Assembler :confused:

id brag about having to progam a microbee 16 thats 16 as in 16k of system memory but that wouldnt be my crowning retro glory...

hands up anyone whose programed on punch cards.... (it was a school excersion thing, dad came and then a week later we went back with a shoebox full of cardboard.)

[p38arover]

hands up anyone whose programed on punch cards.... (it was a school excersion thing, dad came and then a week later we went back with a shoebox full of cardboard.)

Yep. In IITRAN - I had to at Uni of NSW back in 1966 when I was doing a BSc (Tech).

In 1968 we were inputting data directly into the computer with a row of buttons on the front - that was a commercial HP system with 4K - that's right 4K, of memory. In 1969 we got an HP system with 16K and we could input from the front panel OR via punched tape reader. We typed it up on a Teletype (tm) and punched the tape at the same time.

Later in life (early '80s) I was in charge of a computer centre which still used punched cards. Storage was on a Fastrand drum. See http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/univac/fastrand.html - that was soon after replaced by conventional mag disk packs.

Ron

[Bushie]

id brag about having to progam a microbee 16 thats 16 as in 16k of system memory but that wouldnt be my crowning retro glory...

hands up anyone whose programed on punch cards.... (it was a school excersion thing, dad came and then a week later we went back with a shoebox full of cardboard.)

Not quite as old as Ron but used FortranIV at UniNSW through a PDP11 which was about the same size as a domestic fridge, but then so was the printer.


Martyn

[Pedro_The_Swift]

so,, yes? no?

gees you guys make it difficult.

so do we upgrade xp?

or do a fresh install?

and if we go with the new install,, can we copy all our files across

will xp office work with vista?

so many questions
so few DX10 games,,:D:D:D

[incisor]

I have used Linux for years, and am now about to install Sun Microsystems Solaris 10, as a try out, on a 64 bit server.
what makes you think solaris is safe :P

it is as vunerable as any other form of *nix before it is hardened, osx included.

but it is a not a bad thing to play with...

[p38arover]

so,, yes? no?

gees you guys make it difficult.

so do we upgrade xp?

or do a fresh install?

and if we go with the new install,, can we copy all our files across

will xp office work with vista?

so many questions
so few DX10 games,,:D:D:D

I've given up trying to keep up with computers and OSs. I used to devour mags like Byte from cover to cover. I haven't bought a computer mag in years.

I'll either stay with XP (I've lots of legacy peripherals) or move to a Mac.

Ron

[Pedro_The_Swift]

good old microsoft!!

vista compatability website is only available to
explorer users

:D:D:D

[vnx205]

hands up those who remember when the whole operating system took up less than the first 128 k of the available 640..


Ah, the good old days of DOS and CPM!
I don't know how much memory the operating system on my first computer used, but as there was only 4k total, it could not have been much.
I can also remember using a Microbee network with 15 stations that ran with just two 360k floppies. One disk had all the network software and the other had the application (often Wordstar for wordprocessing) plus all the files saved from the 15 workstations.
The system didn't crash much, but I did spend a lot of time soldering new keys on the keyboards.

[cartm58]

hey Bill Gates is already a Billionaire why do you want to give him more

best thing coming out of my recent need to replace burnt motherboard, video card and powerpack was they wiped my hard disk and only reinstalled windows xp.

l just downloaded mozilla fox, thunderbird for email and open office suite not a msn product other than the os and has my machine being running sweet

[Bytemrk]

so,, yes? no?

gees you guys make it difficult.

so do we upgrade xp?

or do a fresh install?

and if we go with the new install,, can we copy all our files across

will xp office work with vista?

so many questions
so few DX10 games,,:D:D:D

Pedro the correct answer is Yes, NO, Maybe.. :p

I have been using it, for several months playing with a variety of pre-release versions and for the last 3 weeks or so I have been using the full release of Vista Ultimate as my main OS at work.

It runs smoother on my laptop than XP did. That said - I do not intend to spend my money upgrading the machines at home yet.. ( Laptop OS is supplied via work)

Office XP will run on Vista I believe - 2003 and 2007 have both run fine on mine. I am finding very few issues with incompatible programs, I run Firefox as my main browser, thunderbird etc run fine.. 98% of my work apps. are fine.. just need to be patient for a could to bring out their vista compatible versions.

As far as the Upgrade or clean install question - the answer is not as clear as it always used to be with Windows - Vista has an image based install - unlike previous versions on Windows. Some performance testing I've seen shows virtually no diffrence between clean install and upgrade...so maybe the clean install is not needed.

Mine is installed in a multi boot XP - Vista - Kubuntu (I was too chicken to jump 100% into Vista for work):angel: BUT since getting setup on the Domain I have not used XP at work in the last 3 weeks.

From my Vista install I can access all the documents and files etc in the XP directories without a problem. I can even run some programs that installed there.

To get the fancy aero graphics working you will need a reasonable video card and I wouldn't want to live with less that 1Gig of Ram (preferably more). To be honest the graphics thing is no big deal unless you are into that sort of thing.


I really think the decision to upgrade comes down to how much you want to part with your $$$. and what state your current system is in. There is a BIG price variation between OEM and full version pricing... so look carefully at which version you think you want and how is smartest to buy it.

For the price of Vista Ultimate full version you can get the OEM version PLUS a new good sized hard drive plus have plenty of beer money left over....just a thought:beer:


Mark

[Rovernaut]

I D/l a copy of Vista Ulitmate and installed as a 30 day trial ( I didn't enter a serial number)
Too much eye candy, a resource hog. too many steps to navigate.
The only Wow factor I got was from how slow my computer became.
At $500 approx, I un installed it and am happy Dual booting with XP and Free ! Linux Kubuntu 6.10

[dmdigital]

I D/l a copy of Vista Ulitmate and installed as a 30 day trial ( I didn't enter a serial number)
Too much eye candy, a resource hog. too many steps to navigate.
The only Wow factor I got was from how slow my computer became.
At $500 approx, I un installed it and am happy Dual booting with XP and Free ! Linux Kubuntu 6.10

Best advice I've seen is don't buy Vista until you upgrade your PC. Then buy the OEM version for, at most, half the full price.

[p38arover]

Buy a mac and don't worry about viruses or Mc Affee!! :D :D

Yes, but....

I went to look at getting a Bigpond wireless broadband modem for my daughter.

All was well until I read on the brochures that it doesn't work with Macintosh.

Scrap that idea, She'll have to get the phone connecxted to her room in Derby and run dial-up. (A heck of a lot cheaper, too. I looked at another brochure which gave the costs for a super fast connection on a 36 month contract at $7500 - Seven and half grand! :eek: )

Ron

Ron

[waynep]

We bought a new computer for my in-laws. We chose OEM Vista as the OS. It seems quite good although definitely no "wow" factor over XP.

[incisor]

Yes, but....

I went to look at getting a Bigpond wireless broadband modem for my daughter.

All was well until I read on the brochures that it doesn't work with Macintosh.

Scrap that idea, She'll have to get the phone connecxted to her room in Derby and run dial-up. (A heck of a lot cheaper, too. I looked at another brochure which gave the costs for a super fast connection on a 36 month contract at $7500 - Seven and half grand! :eek: )

Ron

Ron

bigpond works fine with mac, bigponds support doesnt know how to support mac.

you dont bother with their modem, and it is fine, you just need the username and password and it is setup in under 5 mins..

[abaddonxi]

Yes, but....

I went to look at getting a Bigpond wireless broadband modem for my daughter.

All was well until I read on the brochures that it doesn't work with Macintosh.

Scrap that idea, She'll have to get the phone connecxted to her room in Derby and run dial-up. (A heck of a lot cheaper, too. I looked at another brochure which gave the costs for a super fast connection on a 36 month contract at $7500 - Seven and half grand! :eek: )

Ron

Ron

Can't see how any router is incompatible with Mac. Ethernet and wireless are based on the same international standards, no matter what wanky name Apple like to put on it. It probably means that Bigpond won't support the hardware connected to a Mac. I've done several installs using none Mac routers and wireless access points with no more trouble than the usual s**tfight of setting up wireless when you are using hardware from different companies.

Only thing that won't happen with non-Mac hardware is you can flash the bios on the router from a Mac. In my experience the very last thing you want to do is flash the bios.

Had a great experience recently, father's connection kept dropping out, and bios upgrade notes on Netcomm router said bios upgrade should fix problem. So, downloaded new bios, la la la, done it dozens of times before, always a worry but never a problem. Halfway through it stopped. Turned the router into a toaster. Felt like an idiot. Then I looked on the forums. Many problems with their routers dying when flashing the bios. Hardware problem. So I call them up. Oh, that's a superceded model, we won't do a thing. You could send it in and we'll install a new bios chip but it'll cost more than a new router, do you want me to connect you to sales. Told him where he could take the sales department.

So, with the flashing capability disabled on a Mac it should be fine.

How's that for a segue.

:D

Cheers
simon

[incisor]

it aint the modems/router it is the telstra automated setup software. once they are configured they are fine...

[Bushie]

Talking of programmable calculators I used to have a Texas Ti-59 programmable (1000 step) and magnetic cards, from memory it cost me a few weeks wages back in the late 70's.


Martyn

[Pedro_The_Swift]

Before PC's the only programmable thing we had a school was a calculator...it had those cardboard strips that you punched out the little holes on and "hey presto"... :D we thought we were very clever :D


is that what that was!!:eek:

:p

[shorty943]

I had a look at it, ran the compatability patch, and it came up with loads of 'issues' - printer drivers, incompatability with McAffe ...........and loads more

Reminds me of windows ME

I won't touch it till SP2


Exactly what my IT mate has said for a year now. Vista is ME all over XP.

Played with a beta myself. Hungry as a wolf for graphic grunt, needs a handfull of Gig's harddrive space to install, and now you try to find a copy of XP for sale. Bill won't let it be sold anymore.

I am surprised by the stability of Windows XP Corporate, that I use. The occaisional application will crash, even seen the desktop crash and reboot a couple of times last year, but the system as a whole has been bullet proof.

I will stick to XP with SP as many as needed, probably never will use Vista.

The next gen PC's won't be X86 based anyway, so this will be the close to last, of Winslows as we have been so fond of. Get used to the eye candy though, it will be holographic, in 3d, in free air. Multi-stacked multi-core proccessors, that can call over the internet, for extra grunt from any cousins on line, with a big calculation. A german firm already has an Organic Light-emitting Diode monitor functional, when switched off, it is almost transparent and can be stuck to a window. When switched on it runs at a contrast ratio of about 1100\1, compared to about 700\1 for LCD, and can be view clearly from inside or outside. Ain't that a thought.
MS might build an OS capable of driving something like that. Sun Microsystems already have. It is a "Beowulf" clustering OS for the new IBM "cell" proccessor, and it drives a "proccessor farm" of 20,000 cell proccessors in Silicone Valley.
The cell proccessor is an 8 way core, not just 2, and there are 3 of them in the new PS3. Makes you wonder what that little box can do?

Shorty.

[p38arover]

bigpond works fine with mac, bigponds support doesnt know how to support mac.

you dont bother with their modem, and it is fine, you just need the username and password and it is setup in under 5 mins..


So how does one connect to the their Next G wireless network without a modem (and without a Next G phone)?

Ron

[incisor]

next g is the exception... i have not had time to investigate a solution as yet.

the local telstra shop franchise usually send the hard cases down to me to sort if they cant come up with a solution, but i have not had a next g sent my way yet that was a real hard nut to crack...

my junior tech has done a heap of the pc setups they have had a setup problem with but i have not personally done any recently so am not really up to speed on what they are using yet...

but there is usually a way....

all other services work fine with mac by using alternative hardware in a few instances.

[fclandy]

There are currently only about 100 applications certified for Vista, and 24 of them are Microsoft - each component of MS Office listed separately, and each variant of the bundle too.
There are about 600 apps listed as 'compatible' ie they don't actually crash, but don't necessarily work any better with Vista than XP
The 'improved security' doesn't seem to be that hot in practice - the defaults are better, but you can sort that anyway. What it can do is stop things working the way you want.

I'll wait at least 6 months, and even then might not bother shelling out for the hardware needed - might just switch to Linux instead.

[shorty943]

There are currently only about 100 applications certified for Vista, and 24 of them are Microsoft - each component of MS Office listed separately, and each variant of the bundle too.
There are about 600 apps listed as 'compatible' ie they don't actually crash, but don't necessarily work any better with Vista than XP
The 'improved security' doesn't seem to be that hot in practice - the defaults are better, but you can sort that anyway. What it can do is stop things working the way you want.

I'll wait at least 6 months, and even then might not bother shelling out for the hardware needed - might just switch to Linux instead.

Point 1 compatability?
That's the new "new improved", it wont do the old stuff any better, it only does the new stuff, just as poorly.:(

Point 2 security?
The very first thing MS Defender did was report my Gmail as a virus.:mad:

Point 3 yeah!:p
Learn to love penguins. Although, if some Linux-esque planning of a Windows install is used, you can enjoy a pretty stable and secure MS experience, I do.
OS and utilities on 1 small disk, apps on another, and all generated data is saved to a nice big SATA disk. I read this advice in a Widows manual, many years ago, and have set all my machines up with at least 2 hard disks ever since, and always more than 1 partition to disk. If my OS gets fragile, my data on a seperate disk is still safe. If apps get vicious, my OS is still stable. If my data disk gets corrupted, don't want to go there. Hmm, nother SATA and RAID them, you getcha. And Linux is installed to RAIDED disks in my big iron. As many PCI-IDE RAID cards as there are PCI slots = slot X 4 IDE drives, lots of play room for penguins. Happy dancing footed little penguins.

Shorty.

[Bytemrk]

There are currently only about 100 applications certified for Vista, and 24 of them are Microsoft - each component of MS Office listed separately, and each variant of the bundle too.
There are about 600 apps listed as 'compatible' ie they don't actually crash, but don't necessarily work any better with Vista than XP
The 'improved security' doesn't seem to be that hot in practice - the defaults are better, but you can sort that anyway. What it can do is stop things working the way you want.

I'll wait at least 6 months, and even then might not bother shelling out for the hardware needed - might just switch to Linux instead.

Don't let the compatability crap scare you off... that just lists what has formally been tested by MS on it.

Anyone that says Vista is another ME..either hasn't really looked at it - or doesn't know what they are talking about. :bangin:

On the right machine it is at least as fast as a clean XP install and rock solid.

I have now been using it for work as my primary OS for 5 or 6 weeks. (I played with a number of previous beta's and RC's part time.)

I have installed dozens of programs - some well known - others a little more obscure..

The only application I can't install that I use regularly is the exchange administration console for exchange 5.5 - after all that was originally designed to install on Windows NT back in 1997. :eek:( I won't whinge about a 10yo app having a compatibility issue! :p)

You are right to think twice about spending the money.

I quite like using it ( if you have to use windows - which I do for work) but I get mine through work for nothing..

The other machines here at home will stay XP for some time I think - purely cause the improvement is not worth the cash to upgrade imho.

If you are upgrading a machine - do it then... otherwise.. why change?

Mark

[p38arover]

Hmm, nother SATA and RAID them, you getcha. And Linux is installed to RAIDED disks in my big iron. As many PCI-IDE RAID cards as there are PCI slots = slot X 4 IDE drives, .


Look, Shorty, I'm a P38A owner. I don't have that sort of money for computers! :D

rON

[shorty943]

Yeah mate, I am an exserviceman pensioner, and S3 owner, I know the fiduciary tights.:(
Bit lucky in some respects. Made friends with, and did a favour or two for my local IT bloke. Get my bits at cost, and build the machines myself, even my copy of XP Pro Corporate is a freebie, because I do network research for the local bloke.:cool:
That is how I was able to help NM out with a slightly faster machine. And if anyone else is still struggling with a pre 1Gig machine, I may be able to help. We get the odd no value trade, they are usually stripped and junked. Can't sell them, too slow for the kids to play games, but great machines for internet and real computing.

Shorty.

[shorty943]

Anyone that says Vista is another ME..either hasn't really looked at it - or doesn't know what they are talking about. :bangin:

Mark

So my late friend with 2 degrees in computer science doesn't know what he is talking about? Right Mark! Lets meet some where.:twisted:

Shorty.

Pedro just told me off, for not playing nice. So I have edited this post. Mark you want to talk?

[DarrenR]

hmmm off to find the flame proof suit again...

Well you will be a heat seaker...

But on this occasion, I'd have to agree, as a Microsoft Partner we get all the new crap fairly early. My initial impression was hide it from my kids so they dont do the "ohhh Vista, I want I want" pffft dam children, they never say that about my Land Rover.

Best regards
DarrenR

[EchiDna]

ok - came home and found the PC had been fried by a lightning strike... bought more or less a whole new pc (everthing except DVD writer, case and a pair of 300gb hard drives was replaced).

installed vista home premium - everything works no problem... almost!
nvidia drivers tell me i can't install the vista drivers as i don't have vista installed?? stuck with generic videocard drivers until it's updated me thinks.. and the webcam is not being recognised properly. everything else is great

no faults at all... and it's very PACY! but then I've got 2gb of ram, a 10k 75gb hard drive for the system and programs and dual core 6600 CPU :)

[dmdigital]

Hey EchiDna, do you know a cheap place to pick up 10K rpm 75GB SATAII drives from?

[EchiDna]

I'm in singapore and bought retail from sim lim square... the western digital i bought (16mb cache, SATA II) cost about A$210 - much more expensive per gb than regular drives...

jump on a cheap tiger airways flight from darwin to singapore and pop by :)

[Quiggers]

running bigpond broadband on an OSX Mac right now....... seems to work okay...:D

Couldn't be bothered with Vista.

Anyone want a year old Acer Wintel laptop?

It will go soon in favour of a new Mac laptop......GQ

[dmdigital]

Given they're about AU$250 for a 75GB Raptor drive here I think I'll be picking up a couple of them next time I go though Singapore.

I notice they also have a 150GB Raptor out now but it's about AU$380.

[EchiDna]

FYI, you can get weekly pricelists for singapore here:
http://sg.hardwarezone.com/priceguide/

[dmdigital]

Thanks!