Windows 7
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Give Windows 7 a try. The beta was just released. It's definitely an improvement over Vista, IMO.
I still don't see what was so wrong in Vista...
* Developer Day Scotland 2 - Free community conference * The Blog of Colin Angus Mackay
Vogon Building and Loan advise that your planet is at risk if you do not keep up repayments on any mortgage secured upon it. Please remember that the force of gravity can go up as well as down.
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I still don't see what was so wrong in Vista...
* Developer Day Scotland 2 - Free community conference * The Blog of Colin Angus Mackay
Vogon Building and Loan advise that your planet is at risk if you do not keep up repayments on any mortgage secured upon it. Please remember that the force of gravity can go up as well as down.
Vista got some bad press when it first came out for lack of drivers for some devices and it seems to have stuck. Actually that was a device manufactures problem but Vista got blamed anyway. Most of those problems were cleared up in a few months, with the exception of old hardware that was no longer supported by the manufacturer, but the bad name lingered. I have been using Vista for a little over a year now and once I learned the new interface (a few hours to a few days, depending on the feature and how immediate my needs were) I have no problem switching from XP at work to Vista at home. Some people are more resistant to change than others. I remember having to transition from 3.11 to NT to 2000 to XP to Vista. None of those transitions were particularly difficult.
Simply Elegant Designs JimmyRopes Designs
Think inside the box! ProActive Secure Systems
I'm on-line therefore I am. JimmyRopes -
Vista got some bad press when it first came out for lack of drivers for some devices and it seems to have stuck. Actually that was a device manufactures problem but Vista got blamed anyway. Most of those problems were cleared up in a few months, with the exception of old hardware that was no longer supported by the manufacturer, but the bad name lingered. I have been using Vista for a little over a year now and once I learned the new interface (a few hours to a few days, depending on the feature and how immediate my needs were) I have no problem switching from XP at work to Vista at home. Some people are more resistant to change than others. I remember having to transition from 3.11 to NT to 2000 to XP to Vista. None of those transitions were particularly difficult.
Simply Elegant Designs JimmyRopes Designs
Think inside the box! ProActive Secure Systems
I'm on-line therefore I am. JimmyRopesI don't know I just got a Vista home premium machine and cannot install any games (C&C etc) system allow install but denies the disk is there when launched. I suspect it may be BitDefender AV but naturally Vista gets the blame. SQL and VS installed perfectly which was the object of getting a new machine so I can't bitch too hard. Hated Office 2007, went back to 2003 version.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity RAH
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I don't know I just got a Vista home premium machine and cannot install any games (C&C etc) system allow install but denies the disk is there when launched. I suspect it may be BitDefender AV but naturally Vista gets the blame. SQL and VS installed perfectly which was the object of getting a new machine so I can't bitch too hard. Hated Office 2007, went back to 2003 version.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity RAH
Mycroft Holmes wrote:
I suspect it may be BitDefender AV but naturally Vista gets the blame.
Can't say since I didn't install any games.
Mycroft Holmes wrote:
Hated Office 2007, went back to 2003 version.
I use Office 2003 at work which makes it more difficult to do some things in SharePoint, but since I get paid to write custom software I can't complain. What didn't you like about Office 2007?
Simply Elegant Designs JimmyRopes Designs
Think inside the box! ProActive Secure Systems
I'm on-line therefore I am. JimmyRopes -
A friend told me that he knows some guy who uses Windows 7 and he says that it's really fast and stable. I told him, "Of course it is...they haven't had time to mess it up yet!" ;P P.S. I miss XP.
:josh: Try Crack![^] Sleep is overrated.
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I don't know I just got a Vista home premium machine and cannot install any games (C&C etc) system allow install but denies the disk is there when launched. I suspect it may be BitDefender AV but naturally Vista gets the blame. SQL and VS installed perfectly which was the object of getting a new machine so I can't bitch too hard. Hated Office 2007, went back to 2003 version.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity RAH
Mycroft Holmes wrote:
cannot install any games
Currently installed on my Vista Ultimate x64 machine:
- Crysis
- GTA IV
- C&C3
- Test Drive Unlimited
- Unreal Tournament 3
Also had installed:
- GTA 1
- GTA 2
- GTA 3
- GTA: Vice City
- GTA: San Andreas
- Tomb Raider Anniversary
- Tomb Raider Legend
- Bioshock
- Call of Duty 4
- Colin McRae Dirt
- Delta Force Black Hawk Down
- Stalker
So you can see a real selection of games, none of them have had any issues (well GTA IV could do with a bigger graphics card I think :rolleyes:). So I don't think Vista's to blame, specially since I'm running the 64-bit edition and only Crysis (as far as I know) takes full advantage of the 6GB of RAM on the system.
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I still don't see what was so wrong in Vista...
* Developer Day Scotland 2 - Free community conference * The Blog of Colin Angus Mackay
Vogon Building and Loan advise that your planet is at risk if you do not keep up repayments on any mortgage secured upon it. Please remember that the force of gravity can go up as well as down.
There is nothing wrong with Vista, really. Personally, I think its a huge improvement over XP in all areas...visuals, performance, stability, security, usability, etc. The real problem with Vista wasn't really Vista itself, but rather marketing. Microsoft failed dismally when it came to marketing Vista properly, as a worthwhile upgrade and as a true improvement. All the naysayers and Apple had a field day with the 'gap' left by the mediocre vista marketing story. The other problem was that hardware vendors and many software vendors were not ready with Vista-capable drivers and software when the OS was released, leading to a good 6 months of problems and issues with missing or faulty drivers and incompatible software for people. Not really Micosofts fault, they had been offering Vista to developers for a couple of years before it launched...vendors just dropped the ball for some reason. Windows 7 is Microsofts chance to really spice things up and distance themselves from the marketing fiasco of Vista, and sell people on an improved UI and better usability. Underneath it all, its still really just Vista...but visually and usably its definitely something new, fresh, and enjoyable...at least in my opinion. ;)
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Mycroft Holmes wrote:
cannot install any games
Currently installed on my Vista Ultimate x64 machine:
- Crysis
- GTA IV
- C&C3
- Test Drive Unlimited
- Unreal Tournament 3
Also had installed:
- GTA 1
- GTA 2
- GTA 3
- GTA: Vice City
- GTA: San Andreas
- Tomb Raider Anniversary
- Tomb Raider Legend
- Bioshock
- Call of Duty 4
- Colin McRae Dirt
- Delta Force Black Hawk Down
- Stalker
So you can see a real selection of games, none of them have had any issues (well GTA IV could do with a bigger graphics card I think :rolleyes:). So I don't think Vista's to blame, specially since I'm running the 64-bit edition and only Crysis (as far as I know) takes full advantage of the 6GB of RAM on the system.
I suspect it is that bloody AV BitDefender, it gets nuked on Saturday. Do you feel there is a performace gain going from 32/4gb to 64/6gb. If I have to nuke the install to get rid of BitDefender I am debating going the whole hog to Ultimate/64
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity RAH
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I suspect it is that bloody AV BitDefender, it gets nuked on Saturday. Do you feel there is a performace gain going from 32/4gb to 64/6gb. If I have to nuke the install to get rid of BitDefender I am debating going the whole hog to Ultimate/64
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity RAH
The only comparisons I can make are the same machine (originally with 2GB of RAM) running XP Pro almost 2 years ago and comparison with a laptop running a 32-bit edition of Vista. In my opinion there's quite a difference between the 32 and 64 bit editions, the 32-bit version of IE takes about 7 seconds to load while the native x64 boots in under 1. Comparing the laptop to the desktop isn't really fair considering the differences in drive speeds but the desktop does feel quicker in all aspects. My advice would be check to see whether all your hardware has x64 drivers available for it first. If so then if you don't mind either way I don't think there's any point in running the 32-bit edition if the hardware supports greater. I ran a trial of Vista for 120 days (just before it was released to Joe Public) and initially I had a few problems but they were sorted as soon as various manufacturers got off their laurels and actually wrote a Vista driver and eventually an x64 driver. The biggest improvements I've found with Vista are:
- RAM
- Dedicated graphics card
- x64 editions
The graphics card really does help because it off-loads all the rendering (even in normal Windows from what I remember) from the CPU, thus although I've got the 6GB of RAM and an old nVidia 8800GTS (320MB) card the processor is only a 2.0GHz Athlon X2 but the machine flies along. So my advice is do, provided your hardware has the necessary drivers (all should by now).
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The only comparisons I can make are the same machine (originally with 2GB of RAM) running XP Pro almost 2 years ago and comparison with a laptop running a 32-bit edition of Vista. In my opinion there's quite a difference between the 32 and 64 bit editions, the 32-bit version of IE takes about 7 seconds to load while the native x64 boots in under 1. Comparing the laptop to the desktop isn't really fair considering the differences in drive speeds but the desktop does feel quicker in all aspects. My advice would be check to see whether all your hardware has x64 drivers available for it first. If so then if you don't mind either way I don't think there's any point in running the 32-bit edition if the hardware supports greater. I ran a trial of Vista for 120 days (just before it was released to Joe Public) and initially I had a few problems but they were sorted as soon as various manufacturers got off their laurels and actually wrote a Vista driver and eventually an x64 driver. The biggest improvements I've found with Vista are:
- RAM
- Dedicated graphics card
- x64 editions
The graphics card really does help because it off-loads all the rendering (even in normal Windows from what I remember) from the CPU, thus although I've got the 6GB of RAM and an old nVidia 8800GTS (320MB) card the processor is only a 2.0GHz Athlon X2 but the machine flies along. So my advice is do, provided your hardware has the necessary drivers (all should by now).
Ed.Poore wrote:
provided your hardware has the necessary drivers
Brand spankin new HP desktop, I'd be astonished if there was not driver support for anything in a new HP box. Thanks for the info...
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity RAH
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Tomz_KV wrote:
I had very unpleasant experience with Vista
Can you explain?? I've worked with Vista on three computers (my desktop, my previous lap which originally came with XP, and my current laptop) for the last two years or so, and I have had no problems at all.
Luis Alonso Ramos Intelectix Chihuahua, Mexico My Blog!
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I don't know I just got a Vista home premium machine and cannot install any games (C&C etc) system allow install but denies the disk is there when launched. I suspect it may be BitDefender AV but naturally Vista gets the blame. SQL and VS installed perfectly which was the object of getting a new machine so I can't bitch too hard. Hated Office 2007, went back to 2003 version.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity RAH
Mycroft - you have SQL 2008 Express and VS 2008 Express Loaded on Vista Home? What is the config? I am having hassles connecting to SQL from VB Express - I can connect to SQL but not any databases. This is driving me mad. Cheers if you can advise.
I don't speak Idiot - please talk slowly and clearly
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I still don't see what was so wrong in Vista...
* Developer Day Scotland 2 - Free community conference * The Blog of Colin Angus Mackay
Vogon Building and Loan advise that your planet is at risk if you do not keep up repayments on any mortgage secured upon it. Please remember that the force of gravity can go up as well as down.
Colin same here, it's stable fast and never had a problem for over nearly 2 years.
Software Kinetics - Moving software
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Mycroft - you have SQL 2008 Express and VS 2008 Express Loaded on Vista Home? What is the config? I am having hassles connecting to SQL from VB Express - I can connect to SQL but not any databases. This is driving me mad. Cheers if you can advise.
I don't speak Idiot - please talk slowly and clearly
No I have SQL 2008 developer version with VS 2008 on Home Premium. I have terrible trouble installing SQL 2008 on my old machine because of the service pack on the dotnet runtime 3.5. No matter what I did I could not convince SQL it was installed. I ended up with no SQL, and could not uninstall VS. I figured if I was going to trash and reinstall I may as well do it on a new machine. Installed SQL & VS before anything else and they work well. I have never worked with SQL Express but it sounds like a permissioning issue if you can get a SQL connection
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity RAH
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Mycroft Holmes wrote:
I suspect it may be BitDefender AV but naturally Vista gets the blame.
Can't say since I didn't install any games.
Mycroft Holmes wrote:
Hated Office 2007, went back to 2003 version.
I use Office 2003 at work which makes it more difficult to do some things in SharePoint, but since I get paid to write custom software I can't complain. What didn't you like about Office 2007?
Simply Elegant Designs JimmyRopes Designs
Think inside the box! ProActive Secure Systems
I'm on-line therefore I am. JimmyRopesOne look at the UI, tried to find help, uninstalled it. Went back to my old, comfortable 2003 where I know what button to push to acheive the minimum requirements for my needs.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity RAH
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No I have SQL 2008 developer version with VS 2008 on Home Premium. I have terrible trouble installing SQL 2008 on my old machine because of the service pack on the dotnet runtime 3.5. No matter what I did I could not convince SQL it was installed. I ended up with no SQL, and could not uninstall VS. I figured if I was going to trash and reinstall I may as well do it on a new machine. Installed SQL & VS before anything else and they work well. I have never worked with SQL Express but it sounds like a permissioning issue if you can get a SQL connection
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity RAH
Yeah, I think it is a permissioning error too. My Sys Admin brother in law has spent three days trying to figure it out. (With no luck yet) The odd thing is that I have a similar set up on another laptop where I can connect to exactly one database and not any new ones which I create as admin etc... I give up. I think I will install the Standard edition of SQL 2008 i have on the Windows Server 2008 box and use remote connections - if they will work...happy weekend...
I don't speak Idiot - please talk slowly and clearly
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Ed.Poore wrote:
provided your hardware has the necessary drivers
Brand spankin new HP desktop, I'd be astonished if there was not driver support for anything in a new HP box. Thanks for the info...
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity RAH
Mycroft Holmes wrote:
HP desktop
Oooh, HP. (Sorry I never bother with pre-made computers). I tend to find them bad deals when I consider I've got so many hard-drives lying around that can be used, monitors etc. I prefer to have complete control over what I get, usually with pre-built ones it's a compromise between one thing and another, or bloody expensive compared to building it. You might be lucky, you might be not. It may be worth trying to install as many manufacturers drivers as possible since they tend to be better suited I find.
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There is nothing wrong with Vista, really. Personally, I think its a huge improvement over XP in all areas...visuals, performance, stability, security, usability, etc. The real problem with Vista wasn't really Vista itself, but rather marketing. Microsoft failed dismally when it came to marketing Vista properly, as a worthwhile upgrade and as a true improvement. All the naysayers and Apple had a field day with the 'gap' left by the mediocre vista marketing story. The other problem was that hardware vendors and many software vendors were not ready with Vista-capable drivers and software when the OS was released, leading to a good 6 months of problems and issues with missing or faulty drivers and incompatible software for people. Not really Micosofts fault, they had been offering Vista to developers for a couple of years before it launched...vendors just dropped the ball for some reason. Windows 7 is Microsofts chance to really spice things up and distance themselves from the marketing fiasco of Vista, and sell people on an improved UI and better usability. Underneath it all, its still really just Vista...but visually and usably its definitely something new, fresh, and enjoyable...at least in my opinion. ;)
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Tomz_KV wrote:
I had very unpleasant experience with Vista
Can you explain?? I've worked with Vista on three computers (my desktop, my previous lap which originally came with XP, and my current laptop) for the last two years or so, and I have had no problems at all.
Luis Alonso Ramos Intelectix Chihuahua, Mexico My Blog!
There are several behaviors that frustrated me. 1. more frequent occurance of blue screen of death. I know that some says this is caused by drivers but not by operating system. I say they are the same. If one buys a new TV but no suitable plug in the world can be used to connect to power, that TV is not ready to be marketed. 2. Many programs used on XP can't be installed anymore, for example, Visual Studio 6. 3. Windows search 4 from auto update damaged index search. My outlook could not search anymore. Microsft support spent sevral weeks to fix it. The support was nice. But the problem should not occurred in the first place. These are just a few. Thanks,
TOMZ_KV
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There are several behaviors that frustrated me. 1. more frequent occurance of blue screen of death. I know that some says this is caused by drivers but not by operating system. I say they are the same. If one buys a new TV but no suitable plug in the world can be used to connect to power, that TV is not ready to be marketed. 2. Many programs used on XP can't be installed anymore, for example, Visual Studio 6. 3. Windows search 4 from auto update damaged index search. My outlook could not search anymore. Microsft support spent sevral weeks to fix it. The support was nice. But the problem should not occurred in the first place. These are just a few. Thanks,
TOMZ_KV
Tomz_KV wrote:
I know that some says this is caused by drivers but not by operating system. I say they are the same
Absolutely not. Microsoft wrote Windows, Third Parties wrote the drivers (typically, anyway). Now if you want to argue that an Operating System should never, ever allow a driver to cause a catastrophic failure then that's another discussion.
cheers, Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP