Vista or Not
 

Was rooting around the Microsoft website the other night and noticed they had a small programme Vista upgrade advisor..down load and see if your PC will run Vista.
Downloaded programme and it did it's thing it the started to churn out the programmes that I've got that will be incompatible starting with Nero then it went on to the cd burner programme I use in all it listed i would have problems with around 6/7 programmes I use frequently.
It even stated my H/P printer would have compatibility problems
Methinks I'll be running XP for a while yet.

You and everyone else. Nero and burner incompatibility is not an oversight, IMHO. Intentional first step in disarming you in the copying wars.

I don't remember who said it but:
"not many people are likely to change to an operating system that doesn't allow them to do things they were able to do before..."

Which vista? There are flavors for machines with new hardware and there are flavors for legacy machines that could only run XP - don't have the new hardware.

I ran Vista
 

I had a copy of Vista Ultimate RC1 on my Thinkpad (I installed it on a different hard drive).

It installed incredibly quickly.

However, it was a bit slow, used a lot of RAM, and apparently uses different drivers than XP (it would not recognize my IBM CardBus NIC). Cingular Communication Manager, which I use to hook up my Blackberry, didn't work either. Plugging in my BB actually caused it (the Blackberry) to reset.

Wi-Fi did work incredibly well, as did the ATI video drivers.

I was not impressed with what else the OS had to offer. I couldn't run what I needed to do my job. The interface was a huge change, and many things which I needed were hidden, like the command prompt.

They are completely changing the drivers around like they did for Windows 2000, and programs like Symantec AV, Nero, and others which rely on device drivers to do their job (read: have low-level access) will not work well, if at all.

Part of this "change" is to prevent a lot of third-party hooking and replacement of kernel routines, ostensibly to prevent malware infections. This also has the effect of shutting out Symantec AntiVirus, amongst other programs, from the kernel. This also is possibly because of all the DRM built into the OS itself to prevent people from doing what they want with their data, such as DVDs.

Vista will still sell hundreds of millions of copies, however, it will not sell as many had they not built DRM that deeply into the OS.

Mitch

Dell is pushing Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005. They are not clear, at least to me:o, how this differs from XP Home.

My new computer is a Dell with XP media edition. I have no idea what media edition is other than a big pile of peacock feathers designed to keep me away from iTunes. Sorry, Microsoft: Zune sucks, Media Edition sucks and you suck. If it weren't for the fact that I make a living off MS Access, I'd have switched to Linux and MySQL a long time ago.

Microsoft. Pfffft.

Vista? Not in your wildest dreams will I ever install Vista. XP is a big enough pile O crap and in that regard, Vista is to XP what the Titanic was to the SS Minnow. I am hearing too many rumors - true or not there are an unsually large number of them - that Vista is so complicated that even the engineers designing it can't "get their arms around it."

It seems that MS has tied its own hands with a Gordian knot.

My IE7 is broke. It can't connect to my home page. My home page is blank. I sense a disturbance in the force.

Maybe that's what they had to do to make mine run fast? Sorry, UT.:blush:

I'll stick to XP as long as I can. Works flawless, fast and rock-stable. Why should I switch? The only way Microsoft will get me is by discontinuing support for XP. Anyone know when this will happen?

I liked ME way more than I like XP.Some things like searching for files and help issues always come up with a blank. Same with the diagnostic built in. I am not happy with XP and was looking to upgrade to Vista eventually.

If Vista is a monster and XP is a lame duck then what else is there?

The problem is: XP works just fine. We don't need a new OS, unless it actually does something better than what we have. So far, my understanding of what Vista can actually do is: have pretty graphics (yay!), act as an agent of the RIAA/MPAA, and all at the expense of hogging a shitload more resources. Now...why exactly would we want (to spend $$$ on) that? Anybody: what does it do? All I've heard is what it can't, or won't, do.

I have ME on my (currently power-less) laptop, and I like it... I would rather downgrade my Desktop to ME than ugrade it to Vista, because at the moment I think it looks better than Vista does anyway. However, as ME doesnt run everything I want it to, and so far the ONLY thing i have found that wont run with what I've got here is Black and White (which is a good game, but alas, no XP compatability...), so... Sticking with XP.

I've heard numerous times that the vendor is not supporting this or that, but I can't figure out what that means to me. So what? The os works and there is plenty of people on the net that answer questions, if you have a problem.
I mean, software doesn't wear out. Why do I need support? Incompatability with new stuff coming out?:confused:

From what I've read by tech reporters, Vista is supposed to address most of the security issues in XP. I've downloaded a whole lot of security updates for my XP OS and I wouldn't mind having a system that started out with fewer vulnerabilities. Security is reported to have been a much higher priority in the Vista design. I've not seen anything on the heuristic aspects of its security features though.