Topic: Vista

[Steve]

I beta tested this for a while, and it was horrible. Slow, no drivers, etc. Well a few days ago i got a copy of Ultimate 32bit from a buddy and i have been using it since. I gotta tell you, im kinda liking it. It installed in less then 20 minutes, and in less then an hour of toying around i had it setup pretty much my way. The only real change to the system itsself was disabling UAC because it annoys me.

I think i like Vista. Office 2007 still blows ass though. Open Office FTW.

[Steve]

Oh and the big thing:

on both laptops it installed ALL of the drivers before my first login. Everything was 100% ready to go. I found this impressive as XP did not do this, and its such a drastic improvement over the Vista BETA issues.

[kermi3]

I love office 07....not a big vista fan yet, haven't really used it,. but I love office.

[Steve]

I liked office xp, but 07 is just a mess to me. Things are organized horribly, its interface is its biggest downfall imo

[KnuckleBuckett]

Dunno about Vista yet.

Wht little I have used Office 2007, I kind a liked it.  I especially liked the new interface.  Just takes time to get a feel for it. 

[Steve]

For those using vista:

it used to be in xp i could put a bunch of say, php files, on the desktop so that i could work on them without having my documents window open on top of ftp windows and everything else. Well in vista when u save or put something to the desktop it doesnt go on the desktop, but rather into the "desktop" folder in my documents. I can see how it would help keep the desktop clean, but i want them ON the desktop until i change my mind. How can i change that?

[charlie]

Shouldn't it still show up on the desktop? In XP there is a "desktop folder" as well, but unless you have the option to show icons on the desktop turned off they show up there as well.

In XP you right-click on the desktop, check the Arrange Icons By > Show Desktop Icons option.

[hans]

My boss bought a new Dell with Vista on it and after a few months (he gave it a good effort) he resorted to installing XP.

I think the general consensus in the industry is Vista just doesn't cut it. Me thinks it's akin to WindowsMe.

For the billions of dollars that M$ has you'd think they could've spend a bit more time on testing and features but the reality is the the project went too far over schedule and they nixed all the cool features. The stuff they left was just junk. There's so much DRM crap in there that doesn't really need to be there. The sad thing is you're starting to see the industry wake up and realize DRM is a losing battle. Yet M$ is going to get stuck with an OS build entirely for it. Whoops.

This is the time that Linux and Mac really need to put in some marketing effort and take advantage of M$ while they're down.

[Steve]

>>Shouldn't it still show up on the desktop?

Not by default, apparently.

>>Me thinks it's akin to WindowsMe.

Wow, i wouldnt say that at all. Even before when all i had used was the horribly flawed BETA's i wouldnt have gone as far as to compare it to ME.


As to DRM, doesnt that require the supporting Intel hardware? I dont know alot about DRM, but IIRC it was mostly and Intel/MS combined thing. I have a ton of pirated music and so far no issues.

[KnuckleBuckett]

My boss bought a new Dell with Vista on it and after a few months (he gave it a good effort) he resorted to installing XP.

I think the general consensus in the industry is Vista just doesn't cut it. Me thinks it's akin to WindowsMe.

For the billions of dollars that M$ has you'd think they could've spend a bit more time on testing and features but the reality is the the project went too far over schedule and they nixed all the cool features. The stuff they left was just junk. There's so much DRM crap in there that doesn't really need to be there. The sad thing is you're starting to see the industry wake up and realize DRM is a losing battle. Yet M$ is going to get stuck with an OS build entirely for it. Whoops.

This is the time that Linux and Mac really need to put in some marketing effort and take advantage of M$ while they're down.

Cheez would have kicked my ass for that M$ shit.  Life ain't fair.

[Steve]

He'll find it, he can smell that shorthand 5 forums over.

[ober]

I don't know guys... the longer I use it the more I like it.  I'm running Vista Business Premium here at work and it's defiantely a step in the right direction from XP.  While there are still some driver issues, the XP drivers seem to work for most things.  It is definately much smarter than XP and does a lot of things automatically for you.

Things I don't like:
1) I can't figure out how to rearrange the fucking programs list
2) The device manager still isn't smart enough to guess at what my one "unknown device" may actually be
3) iexplore.exe pretty much runs all the time, even when it's not running

I'm sure there are a few others, but I generally like all the changes they've made otherwise.

I also love Office 2k7.  Major upgrade and the usability is fantasic, especially in Excel.  I fucking love it.

[Steve]

Maybe i just need more time to play with Office 2007, since all you guys seem to like it.

@Obie

I cant seem to figure out the start menu either. As for the DM Vista installed all of my drivers for me except my media controller (card reader) but it knew what it was so i cant comment there lol. iexplorer only runs for me when i have it running, but that might be a difference between your version and mine. If i understand it correctly each version of vista has different features, and Ultimate is the only one that has everything.

[KnuckleBuckett]

Isn't it still a huge problem that lots of hardware doesn't and never will have Vista drivers?  Worse many that do have Vista drivers still need fine tunining and or troubleshoioting?

[hans]

That's what caused my boss to ultimately switch back. His family kept nagging him to get his printer working and he just couldn't get the drivers figured out.

That and it was horribly slow since on only got a mere 1GB of RAM.