Mon
Jun 30 2008
10:10 am
B Paone's picture

No, and don't see any reason to start

I tried it once, but just found it so counter-intuitive that I went out of my way to buy a ThinkPad with XP. Since XP support is going to continue for the next 5-6 years and Windows 7 is just around the corner, I don't see any reason to use "the next ME".

Speaking of Windows 7:

Here's a video of its touch capabilities -

(link...)

A video of the Software-Plus-Services concept -

(link...)

...and finally, the Windows 7 news site -

(link...)

It's still early, but it looks like 7 will be to Vista what XP was to ME.

Russ's picture

Home and work

I have Vista at home, and both Vista and XP at work (on virtual machines). I'm running Visual Studio, SQL 2005 Express, Microsoft Office, and PGP on all of them.

I've had absolutely no problems with Vista. In fact, I was surprised that I had almost no driver issues at all; the only update I needed was for my Sony Handicam. Even my ancient 100 MB USB ZIP drive was recognized without any driver downloads. That was a shocker.

With enough RAM (and especially video memory), performance is really quite snappy.

After seven months of use, Vista has never blue-screened on me. I can't say that for any XP machine I've ever used.

~Russ

bizgrrl's picture

Did you leave User Access

Did you leave User Access Control turned on?

Russ's picture

Did you leave User Access

Did you leave User Access Control turned on?

On my home PC, yes. On my work machine, no. Surprisingly, Visual Studio works just fine on my home PC with UAC turned on.

~Russ

reform4's picture

Business Perspective

Just bought a brand new laser printer for the office. Drivers shipping today were incompatible with our one Vista user.

We just plan to buy Vista biz licenses and "downgrade" to XP for as long as possible. Microsoft needs to trash this dog just like it did "Bob" and "Clippy" and OS/2 Warp (yeah, I know.. that was IBM).

Buy lots of Apple stock. They will retake the home market. We just swapped our two home PCs for two iMacs, and I'm going to get an iPhone on July 11.

-----------------------------------------
Fighting for Reform and Representation, Fourth District
Steve Drevik, Commission Seat 4-B
(link...)

Paul Witt's picture

This really makes me want to

This really makes me want to try it out though...

(link...)

talidapali's picture

That was damn funny...

but I'll stick to Warcraft...Maybe I'll give DND Online another go. I pretty much don't play Everquest anymore...all my friends there have moved on to other games.

But you have to admit...the folks that play MMO's are pretty damned talented.

I love this video.

_________________________________________________
"You can't fix stupid..." ~ Ron White"
"I never said I wasn't a brat..." ~ Talidapali

Paul Witt's picture

My machine can handle AoC

My machine can handle AoC (E8400, 8800GTS G92 & 4gig RAM - overclocked to 3.6ghz) but I usually play MMOs with my 11yr old son. The mature rating and over-the-top violence (and other stuff) means this will not be a game I'll play.

Warhammer is a LOT of fun and will be even better by release. I don't expect anything else to get my attention.

Johnny Ringo's picture

Ahh, yeah, it is pretty out

Ahh, yeah, it is pretty out there for usually bloodless MMOs. Good call.

Kudzu's picture

Using Vista on (fairly) new desktop

and so far all is working well except my printer (HP deskjet 6840) has been taking itself offline occasionally. Not entirely sure it's because of Vista, but my laptop, which has XP on it, doesn't do this.

Overall pleasantly surprised that my Vista experience is better than what I'd read about it. Was going to have XP installed but the guy who built my computer recommended I go with Vista and I'm glad I did. I don't do much as complicated as others on this list, though.

Didn't I read that MS decided to extend their support of XP until 2014?

bizgrrl's picture

Didn't I read that MS

Didn't I read that MS decided to extend their support of XP until 2014?

Apparently so. The article I linked to in the other post said Microsoft has extended full support through 2009 and limited support through 2014.

Anonymously Nine's picture

Hell no wasn't an option...

If you do use Vista buy a USB memory stick and use Ready Boost. It helps.

Vista looks great. But it is dog slow. Very good feature set. But not good enough to buy a new computer.

Opinari's picture

In the Enterprise...

In an environment supporting thousands of users, we are fighting to keep XP as our desktop environment. Thus far, Vista has not shown that it can support our myriad desktop applications, especially those that run in a manufacturing environment. Also, it is such a resource hog that it will require us to refresh thousands of shop floor PCs. Unfortunately, since we are a Microsoft Partner, we will at some point be forced to move all of those PCs to Vista once Microsoft mandates that we do. It wasn't until last month that we finally got rid of all of our NT4 boxes and NT domain controllers. The large enterprise moves much slower than Microsoft (at least this one does).

Pam Strickland's picture

I use Mac OS 10.4. It's the

I use Mac OS 10.4. It's the Tiger version. No problems at all.

Pam Strickland

"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be." ~Kurt Vonnegut

bizgrrl's picture

Yeah, I probably shouldn't

Yeah, I probably shouldn't have said anything about how hard it is for a small developer. Users of Windows Vista probably don't have many problems either.

Bill Lyons's picture

Vista experience

I have used one version on my personal computer (vista professional) at home and another (home) on a personal laptop for quite a while with surprisingly few, if any problems. I got it on a computer that I purchased very soon after its introduction. It has been quite stable. I was skeptical, but the tranistion was pretty easy and painless. A couple of my programs needed updates at the time but that was not much of a problem. The major update issues were with Studio, but they have long since been resolved.

Just yesterday I installed the first service pack.

Paul Witt's picture

I'm using it at home and

I'm using it at home and have been for about 7 months now. Vista Ultimate x64 to be precise. It took some getting used to but I'm happy with the move.

bizgrrl's picture

What software do you use?

What software do you use?

Paul Witt's picture

Apps I use

Apps I use frequently:
Office 2007
Trillian
Ventrilo
Skype
Daemon Tools
Textpad
Visual Studio 2005
Visual Foxpro 9
iTunes
SQLyog
SecureFX
Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (BETA)
Dark Age of Camelot
Steam (I play Team Fortress 2 and Counter-Strike:Source)

Also...
- I watch DIVX encoded movies all the time.
- I can VPN into the office and remote desktop into my work PC with no issues.
- My machine is always on and I run IIS to host a little intranet site as the family's homepage.
- We have a Lexmark combo printer/scanner/fax that works just fine too.

The only issues I ran into were with installing the latest nForce drivers for my new ASUS motherboard. It definitely did not like the reference drivers.

Yes, there are necessary tweaks that you as an experience PC user will want to make. You'll almost certainly want to turn off User Access Control.

Johnny Ringo's picture

Warhammer Online: Age of

Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (BETA)
Dark Age of Camelot
Steam (I play Team Fortress 2 and Counter-Strike:Source)

I you haven't yet, you should give Age of Conan a try. Be warned though - it has pretty steep system requirements.

bizgrrl's picture

Textpad What a great

Textpad

What a great programmer's tool! We have been using it for years.

R. Neal's picture

You'll almost certainly want

You'll almost certainly want to turn off User Access Control.

Yeah, that's what's causing us the most headaches, along with a few internal database connection oddities.

Unfortunately, we can't tell our users to turn off security features. Auditors red flag that.

Curious, do you get good performance with VPN? Do you run database connections over it, or just remote in to your desktop with RDP?

Paul Witt's picture

I get decent performance but

I get decent performance but I have Comcast cable. When it's working, it's fast. Our office has a decent connection too. No database connections but I have used Team Systems to access source code over the VPN. It worked but it's a LOT faster to just RDP.

I forgot InstallShield 2008 on that list.

bizgrrl's picture

So far, we are only using

So far, we are only using Vista on a test machine. Our software has to run on it. Changes were definitely required. I believe more changes were required for this OS upgrade than any we have encountered in the 15 or so years we have published software.

Johnny Ringo's picture

I'm not, and if Microsoft

I'm not, and if Microsoft (or some third party) creates a patch that will let XP use DirectX 10, I won't be able to think of any good reason to switch any time soon.

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