Electronic Punk

The pound has moved through the $2 mark for the first time since 1992, as investors bet that interest rates would have to rise further to slow inflation.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6562743.stm

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pinedawg

I gave Vista a 1.

After getting a new Dell w/ Vista, the thing has not stopped crashing and cannot stay online.

I've been a programmer analyst using MS products for years, so have a lot of experience with Windows and getting these systems to work.

Having non-technical customers to spend hours and hours on the phone or online researching how to get their computer to run when it's brand new is wrong.

A year ago I bought a couple Macs and as the story goes, I basically just plugged them in and they "worked." It's amazing how much frustration Windows customers go through just to use the product...

Wish I had a better story right now, but maybe after a couple weeks it'll all be clear...

muzikool

Sorry you had that experience with Vista, and I understand your frustration with Windows in general. I have a degree in information systems and have been using Windows since 3.1, but I switched to using Macs at home about 2 years ago.

For those using PCs though, I've been hoping that Vista would be another major step forward (like XP was) and that it would "just work" as well. I'm not interested in "converting people" to one OS or the other, I just want peoples' computers to work for them like they should. It's one thing when someone messes with things and creates a problem, but like you said, the computer should just work out of the box.

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madmatt

First of all, it is not fair to score Vista based on your experience with an OEM branded setup. Dell and others load tons and tons of software on their products before shipping it. I would advise you to perform a clean install and give it another go.

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jonny813

I gave Vista a four, which is well deservedeven if you include the £100 worth of hardware for it, graphics card and PSU, but as madmatt says its computer evolution and thats obvious just look at it, though maybe some members were wanting something more than "a visual review".
As for buying it preinstalled, my firends have had their troubles, one had to have to use a restore disk inside the first week. And my computer admin at school made an amazinr rig that gets a score of 5.6 in the WEI but can barely logon cause it doesn't like his (fantastic) hardware. Where heres me with an amazingly average PC thats base score is 2.5 and I have not had a problem, I guess it comes down to power over compatibility.
As for features, the only one that really is apparent is Aero, which I'm used to now and not amazed any more, though finnaly putting in Group Policy that can apply to users of standalone computers instead of everyone is a big plus. But we should wait at least a year till we compare it to XP as XPs been out for ages and this is a brand new OS, and for Vista sucking on benchmarks well thats whats gonna happen, new kit needs new hardware, thats how the process has gone and always will.

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muzikool

An OS is designed to have software installed on it, right?

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LordOfLA

yeah but not the crap that dell load onto them

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ray_gillespie

Hehe no OS, even Windows ME, deserves that awful stuff!

Well, maybe Windows Me. But not much else.

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Admiral Michael

I gave it a 2, why?

While I find XP alot better, Vista does bring a FEW new features to the table but I don't think Vista is really worth it. I used it in BETA and I installed the free version I got from being a BETA tester and after a week I went back to XP.

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ulyxes

I agree. Many PC-Brands put useless software on their machines...

I gave Vista a 3. I am using it right now, and have to say that Microsoft obviously put lots of really good improvements in it. Anyway, in my opinion, Vista is far too heavy compared to WinXP: older computers (like mine) hardly manage to run the system, which soon gets really boring 'cause of all the waiting time.