Vista is shat

Post by **[]DAU[]_** » Sat Feb 03, 2007 1:42 pm

Be careful with vista chaps.... all the magazine reviews state you will be given the choice of 32bit/64bit installations all on one DVD. Bull.... you only get 32Bit if you purchase Home premium. I have had to pay extra for a 64bit version to be posted out to me, but because i have already installed the 32bit version i cannot now install the 64bit version without purchasing a seperate licence.

To top it all off it is alleged that if you upgrade your pc with a few items then the software will stop working? not tested this yet, but it would put a spanner in the works for future upgrades.

Post by **jamie** » Sat Feb 03, 2007 2:40 pm

Its the same activation things as in XP, but I have read MS backtracked on the whole change a few things and your screwed routine. I believe it is now along the lines of 10 points for the machine, with things like the network card getting 3 points, memory 1 point, etc... If the changes add up to more than 10 then you need to reactivate, if less then your fine.

I would have stuck with the 32 bit version myself, but I am still holding onto xp for the near future. Gaming takes a bit of a hit in vista, framrates are all supposedely lower. Until the drivers mature and the dx10 hardware is cheap as chips, I shall stick with xp.

Post by **Woz** » Thu Feb 08, 2007 11:40 am

It gets even more frightening if you read this:

http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/p ... _cost.html

Personally, I'd rather not touch it with a barge pole.

Post by **Bob_The_Engineer** » Sat Feb 10, 2007 5:19 pm

Now that's an interesting read. First overly technical document I've read volunterily in years.

Post by **Woz** » Sat Feb 10, 2007 10:51 pm

Don't you mean 'overtly'?

Hey, I've just started playing Half Life 2 again - it still bloody rocks!

Post by **DE-G@vnor** » Fri Feb 16, 2007 2:20 pm

I've installed Vista on just over 25 machines so far. Lot of the misconceptions and near slander are in the reports above, that my client had.

Mine is the only one thats been a REAL problem (x64 vista on 12 of the machines btw, including mine).

on mid range (P4 2.2 to P4 3.2ghz HT version) with mid range DX9 graphics cards its incredible. Not a big performance hit in apps and a nice install with nearly all drivers (including speedstep) sorted.

on high end PC's (surprisingly) it's shat. Here's my list of problems.
x6800 will not go over 60% utilisation without power management cutting it right down, even though its been modified to use 100%
ATI Crossfire X1800's don't work in crossfire properly at all.
3gb of physical memory results in Vista using 1.9GB physical at boot! not so big a problem I hear you say, well yeah, if that didnt mean a 5gb page file that hangs the disk on boot being created/deleted.

The licencing thing only applies to OEM as far as I am concerned, which locks it to your BIOS version! Upgrading BIOS means no OEM install! there's a million other options and gotcha's with OEM.

In a nutshell, Vista (IMO) is great... really great.. Media Centre and meeting space are hot.

A LOT doesn't work... theres a lot of missing pages in control panel applets and stuff. 3rd party support , from my experience just is not there.

the only reason I upgraded is due to my software assurance licence and if I could snap my fingers back to XP64, to be honest, at this stage; I would.

John Dee · Post by **John Dee** » Fri Feb 16, 2007 2:44 pm

Some other bits and bobs about vista.

Data transfer over USB or burning CD/DVD's is allot faster within vista.
I had a dead hard drive that xp could not see, but vista fixed the MBR and got the hard drive working which allowed me to remove the data needed before the hard drive died completely. (and saved a £1400 ontrack bill)

Post by **Woz** » Fri Feb 16, 2007 8:09 pm

DE-G@vnor wrote: the only reason I upgraded is due to my software assurance licence and if I could snap my fingers back to XP64, to be honest, at this stage; I would.

And that's the important bit!
If you have SA, then the licensing is a no brainer, although even if I had it I'd wait for SP1 before I even thought about a major rollout.
As it stands, my office is way too tiny to get SA and I'm not going to get Vista at home until I get a new machine (if at all).

Post by **DE-G@vnor** » Fri Feb 16, 2007 11:54 pm

Theres no two ways about it, in case my post is open to misinterpretation (sp?) - no way would I install this in an office.

Roaming laptops (salesmen, directors etc) then well, on my experience, for Meeting Place alone, its probably worth a try.

Post by **Woz** » Sat Feb 17, 2007 7:47 am

Meeting Place? Is that the new version of Netmeeting?
If it's really good, then there might be a requirement for me to stick a Vista machine in the UK, India and the US.

Post by **DE-G@vnor** » Thu Feb 22, 2007 2:37 pm

Meeting place is not netmeeting, but does a similar thing.

Key features are this:

1. Shared Desktop, variety of choices, read only, view, slideshow mode etc.

2. Shared "Meeting documents" - so say I put a document in "Plan to hunt down and molest Woz.doc" with some action points in - this can be shared, each user gets a copy and can amend it. My version stays unchanged. At the end, I can decide whether to get everyones version, or let the system automatically include everyones changes etc.

3. Really easy setup for wireless laptops - I go to a meeting at a blue chip company with my laptop . They don't provide the projector they promised and I'm not allowed to plug into their network (really common for me this). Well, I can fire up meeting place ONLY - and select to setup an "Adhoc network" - put in a shared password. All other users fire up meeting place and simply select "connect to a meeting" and put in the shared password . Windows Automatically setups up an encypted wireless network and everyone joins.

4. people can send messages and questions to one another, privately, publically or a mix.

Point 3, for me, is a real real beauty. In my version of Vista (Ultimate) it works a treat, in Vista office it doesnt work yet

There's loads more to it, but thats all I've really needed

Post by **DE-G@vnor** » Fri Mar 02, 2007 12:50 pm

Woz wrote:It gets even more frightening if you read this:

http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/p ... _cost.html

Personally, I'd rather not touch it with a barge pole.

Hopefully most of you guys know I'm not the fanboy type.

I'm really not sure of the motive of the writer for the above link, I remember similar things with XP and product activation.

Here's my 2 findings that completely debunk that huge article.

1. CPU Usage from the media protection process does not EVER go over 2% on my machine - unless its looking for a codec.

2. If , when you setup Windows Media Centre or Media Player, you select "do not automatically download DRM information for owned tracks" then it doesn't even run that process ever.

Post by **Woz** » Sun Mar 11, 2007 6:53 am

Just a tip - if any of you happen to be in charge of roll-outs for this OS - Juniper SSL VPN bluescreens with Vista at the moment. A bugfix is coming from Juniper 'next month' but they are known for slippages on their bugfixes.

Post by **DE-G@vnor** » Tue Mar 20, 2007 10:47 pm

Aye, I'll edit an application compatibility thingy me bob on this post, maybe its helpful to someone. If anyone but us are still here *tumbleweed*

I'll mix the home stuff up with the office stuff

WORKS:
Avast AntiVirus
Microsoft One (just)
Microsoft ISA Firewall Client (2006)
Office 2007
IE7 (lot better on Vista for some reason)
Nero
DVD Decryptor / DVD Shrink

Overall - not overwhelming support.
DOESNT WORK:
(strangely) Windows Defender / Security Centre on 64bit
AVG etc.
VMWare (beta is available but shat)
Virtual PC
SQL Server 2000 Server Manager
MSPClient
Any peripheral by HP, unfortunately

(multifunction printers etc, drivers)
Deamon Tools
ATI Crossfire on x1800 and above, drivers claim it, but its shat
NVidia SLI not supported, drivers dont support it properly.
Microsoft ISA Firewall Client 2000
Lotus Notes works but is a complete shit to install thanks to Windows hiding loads of files (hehe, in your eye IBM)

Post by **Woz** » Wed Mar 21, 2007 7:07 am

I've read somewhere that the 2003 server admin tool won't run under Vista. Pretty much a show stopper if true!

Oh - Symantec Antivirus - you need to upgrade to get it working with Vista. You need your license key if you're a corporate, dunno the situ if you're a home user.

I've got a single Vista laptop deployed and it's been nothing but pain as the machine is in New York so I can't physically see the damned thing and remote admin tools aren't working.

John Dee · Post by **John Dee** » Thu Mar 22, 2007 8:21 am

AVG works on 32bit
U torrent also works

Post by **[]DAU[]_** » Sun Apr 08, 2007 4:48 pm

Has anyone got the creative X-FI game pro fatality to work with Vista yet? More to the point, the MIC as it shows the mic to be not available. This is a bummer because you cannot play the likes of BF2142 or use SKYPE etc. The latest driver on the creative website hasn't cured anything really yet!

Croooooky AKA []DAU[]_

Post by **Bob_The_Engineer** » Mon Apr 09, 2007 10:29 am

From what I remember this is down to the Vista DRM management module. The drivers have to be ratified by Microsoft before the mic will work in order to negate the possibility of using the anti-feedback routine to rip DRM content.

Post by **[]DAU[]_** » Mon Apr 09, 2007 11:44 am

That damn DRM has a lot to answer for..... I suppose it’s there for a reason but it makes life in the world of Vista Compatibility a bit unbearable

Post by **Woz** » Wed Apr 11, 2007 9:41 pm

The reason it's there is to get in bed with the movie studios, nothing more.

/me feels dirty for ever working for Macrovision