Is anyone here using Vista?

[fredwest]

Hi,
Just a quick post to anyone who is using Vista. I have a beta which I'm using on and off & want to know if anyone else has any opinion on it.....or if anyone is using/testing it all?....

Maybe this type of post was posted before but I didn't see it & apologise if it was.

All thoughts are welcome. Personally I give it about 5 out of 10...

[jeffr]

I'm NOT using it, BUT from what I've heard and read, I'm NOT to impressed!

[Panama Red]

Did ya happen to notice the sticky thread at the top of this forum, Fred?

[Dodge7]

I do know a guy at work who is using it. At first he wasn't sure about it. However, he has been using it for three month now and siad he tried to go back to Win XP and didn't becuase it was not near as easy to use as Vista.

From the little I saw of it, the improved search function and the new ALT-TAB display would be enough to get me to switch.

What a lot of people don't know is you don't see a lot of the improvements becuase they were at Kernel level, but the result should be improved security and stablilty.

You want to pass on all these new features:

Windows Shell: The new Windows shell is significantly different from Windows XP, offering a new range of organization, navigation, and search capabilities. Windows Explorer's task pane has been removed, integrating the relevant task options into the toolbar. A "Favorite links" pane has been added, enabling one-click access to common directories. The address bar has been replaced with a breadcrumb navigation system. The Start menu has changed as well; it no longer uses ever-expanding boxes when navigating through Programs. Even the word "Start" itself has been removed in favor of a blue Windows Orb.

Windows Search (also known as Instant Search or search as you type): significantly faster and more thorough search capabilities. Search boxes have been added to the Start menu, Windows Explorer, and several of the applications included with Vista. By default, Instant Search indexes only a small number of folders such as the start menu, the names of files opened, the Documents folder, and the user's e-mail.

Windows Sidebar: A transparent panel anchored to the side of the screen where a user can place Desktop Gadgets, which are small applets designed for a specialized purpose (such as displaying the weather or sports scores). Gadgets can also be placed on other parts of the Desktop, if desired.

Windows Internet Explorer 7: new user interface, tabbed browsing, RSS, a search box, improved printing, Page Zoom, Quick Tabs (thumbnails of all open tabs), a number of new security protection features, and improved web standards support. IE7 in Windows Vista runs in isolation from other applications in the operating system (protected mode); exploits and malicious software are restricted from writing to any location beyond Temporary Internet Files without explicit user consent.

Aero: a new hardware-based graphical user interface, named Windows Aero – an acronym (possibly a backronym) for Authentic, Energetic, Reflective, and Open. The new interface is intended to be cleaner and more aesthetically pleasing than previous Windows, including new transparencies, animations and eye candy.

Windows Media Player 11Windows Media Player 11, a major revamp of Microsoft's program for playing and organizing music and video. New features in this version include word wheeling (or "search as you type"), a completely new and highly graphical interface for the media library, photo display and organization, and the ability to share music libraries over a network with other Vista machines, Xbox 360 integration, and support for other Media Center Extenders.

Backup and Restore Center: Includes a backup and restore application that gives users the ability to schedule periodic backups of files on their computer, as well as recovery from previous backups. Backups are incremental, storing only the changes each time, minimizing the disk usage. It also features CompletePC Backup which backs up an entire computer as an image onto a hard disk or DVD. CompletePC Backup can automatically recreate a machine setup onto new hardware or hard disk in case of any hardware failures.

Windows Mail: A replacement for Outlook Express that includes a completely replaced mail store that improves stability, and enables real-time search. It has the Phishing Filter like IE7 and a Junk mail filtering which is enhanced through regular updates via Windows Update.[9]
Windows Update with Windows Ultimate ExtrasWindows Calendar is a new calendar and task application.

Windows Photo Gallery, a photo and movie library management application. WPG can import from digital cameras, tag and rate individual items, adjust colors and exposure, create and display slideshows (with pan and fade effects), and burn slideshows to DVD.
Windows DVD Maker, a companion program to Windows Movie Maker, which provides the ability to create video DVDs based on a user's content.
Windows Meeting Space is the replacement for NetMeeting. Users can share applications (or their entire Desktop) with other users on the local network, or over the Internet using peer-to-peer technology.

Windows Media Center, which was previously exclusively bundled as a separate version of Windows XP, known as Windows XP Media Center Edition, will be incorporated into the Home Premium and Ultimate editions of Windows Vista.

Games: Every game included with Windows has been rewritten to take advantage of Vista's new graphics capabilities. New games include Chess Titans, Mahjong Titans and Purble Place. The Games section will also hold links and information to all games on the user's computer. One piece of information that will be shown is the game's ESRB rating.

Previous VersionsPrevious Versions automatically creates backup copies of files and folders, with daily frequency. Users can also create "shadow copies" by setting a System Protection Point using the System Protection tab in the System control panel. The user can be presented multiple versions of a file throughout a limited history and be allowed to restore, delete, or copy those versions. This feature is available only in the Business, Enterprise, and Ultimate editions of Windows Vista and is inherited from Windows Server 2003.

Windows Mobility Center is a new control panel that centralizes the most relevant information related to mobile computing (e.g. brightness, sound, battery level / power scheme selection, wireless network, screen orientation, presentation settings, etc.).

Windows pdate: Software and security updates have been simplified, now operating solely via a control panel instead of as a web application. Mail's spam filter and Defender's definitions will also be automatically updated via Windows Update.

Parental controls: Allows administrators to control which websites, programs, and games each standard user can use and install.

Windows SideShow: Enables the auxiliary displays on newer laptops or on supported Windows Mobile devices. It is meant to be used to display Device gadgets while the computer is on or off.

Speech recognition is fully integrated into Vista. It is an improved version of Microsoft Speech Recognition currently working under Office 2003, with a better interface, a rich and flexible set of commands, and an extensive command-and-control capability to activate the computer by voice. Unlike the Office 2003 version, which works only in Office and WordPad, it works for dictation in multiple applications. In addition, it currently supports several languages: English US and UK, Spanish, French, German, Chinese (Classical and Simplified), and Japanese.
New fonts, including several designed especially for screen reading, and new high-quality Chinese (Yahei, JhengHei), Japanese (Meiryo) and Korean (Malgun) fonts. See Windows Vista typefaces. ClearType has also been enhanced and enabled by default.

Problem Reports and Solutions, a new control panel which allows users to see previously sent problems and any solutions or additional information that is available.

Improved audio controls allow the system-wide volume or volume of individual audio devices and even individual applications to be controlled separately. Introduced new audio functionalities such as Room Correction, Bass Management and Speaker Fill [2].
System Performance Assessment is a benchmark used by Windows Vista to regulate the system for optimum performance. Games can take advantage of this feature, reading the data produced by this benchmark in order to fine-tune the game details. The benchmark tests CPU, RAM, Graphics acceleration (2D and 3D) and disk access.[11]

[MaxRat]

I am using the the TRM build 6000 and it still needs some work but I like it...the issues that annoy me the most are lack of anything but 2 channel audio...

After more testing I plan to post a bit more in the vista thread...

yes the alt tab is nice.... I like the windows button/tab....and if you hit cntrl/alt/tab it does pretty much the same as alt/tab but doesnt flash so darn quick....;)

[frobro390]

Well I know there are a lot of people that are opposed to Vista at the moment, but what I ask is that you at least try the OS out for yourself before you pass judgment. I know from personal experience that Vista x64 has lots of compatibility issues. I know that at first glance Vista seems to be a big letdown for all the years of waiting that we have done, but you are not going to find all of the goodies and changes on the desktop, or in the start menu. They are deep down there and require some time and effort to find them all. Bottom line, there has been major work done under the hood of Vista, while the outside is the same, there is lots of improvements to the OS.

It’s all the small things that culminate to a better overall operating system. I don’t think there is any one option or feature that takes the cake for why you should update to Vista. There are certainly some nice additions though. I will try to list a few of them below.

First off Aero… Aero makes Vista interesting, smooth, and sexy. Not only that, it is likely going to be the first feature or change that will really grab you attention. Windows are graceful, and animation is smooth. Best off, as opposed to third party skinning software, there are no compatibility issues w/ software designed for Vista. You might however have issues w/ legacy software, which at the moment is 90% of the software around.

Performance Information & Tools - One of the great improvements to Vista is the Performance section of the Control Panel. Everything that you once needed third party software for is included in the section. Nice graphs and reports are generated so you can get a snapshot of what has been going on with the system. Many might think this is something that will take away the jobs of many technicians. I, however, don’t believe so; the tools just make everyone’s job easier by giving one place that holds records of issues that the system experiences. If your system shutdown an application because it stops responding, it flags this and makes a note for the day. Now how many people have dealt with the customer that says their computer is not working and does not have any other information except that a window pops up and says “Not responding, blah, blah, blah…”. Well I know this is the number one computer problem I get, and then I am stuck with the task of finding what the customer is talking about and recreating the issue. Well now you are able to easily check out the performance monitor and see when this happened, and what happened and other variables that might have contributed to the issue. Meaning you are working on the right problem the first time.

Start Menu - Well is has been optimized, it takes some getting used to, but believe it or not, it makes everything easier.

Search - Another option that makes you step back and say "What was Microsoft thinking?", Well it makes life loads easier when you are able to search the way that you can in Vista. No longer for filename only, now filename, size, date modified, content, subfolders, lots more. Better yet, Vista indexes well the folders that you speficy plus some folders that are good to index anyways. So you're thinking you can download software that will do the same thing... Well it is included in the OS and it does make a difference.

Multitasking - I have not heard much about multitasking, but I have experienced the difference. While Vista takes huge amounts of memory to work well, but what it takes is well managed, and my system is moving much faster than I ever could have imagined w/ XP. This does however introduce issues, as I have a system w/ 2GB of ram, but realistically I could use more because Vista is not modest when it comes to allocating memory.

You know I really could go on and on about the improvements between XP and Vista, but this is something that you just need to sit down and experience. You will not get the full benefit of Vista by just sitting down for 15 minutes, you need to have it on your system and just thumb through it.

There are problems now, and most stem from the fact that you can't find drivers, and software compatibility, but when you get past that, once compatibility has caught up, I believe Vista is the way to go.

[tigstah]

i'm usining it at the moment. i actually like it.
i dual boot between vista and xp pro. i need a new video card, my 9800 pro is cutting the mustard anymore.

[toomyg]

I'm NOT using it, BUT from what I've heard and read, I'm NOT to impressed!


I was in OfficeMax acouple days ago and they had a laptop with Vista on it to so I played around with it and to me vista is nothing more then I candy and NO I am not passing judgment on Vista either I just tell it like I see it !!!!!!!!!!Get it EYE CANDY , SEE IT :D