interesting vista observation

[Perris Calderon]

I suppose the following is a spin off from the post sazar just made comparing the vista release to the xp release;

here's the interesting observation;

you either love vista or hate it

I suppose those of us who've had vista issues with speed, usability, stability hate it

those of you who have had no or few issues love it

I remember coming off of windows 2000, I told everyone who had 2000 to just wait for a while, there wasn't a good reason to switch to xp yet and there would be bugs to work out

I told everyone who had 98 that they should switch as soon as possible because they were getting a professional operating system and and entry price when they got xp

so my first box has a dual core 64 bit amd processor, two gigs of memory and up till a week or so ago, has been nothing but trouble

that trouble seems to have been sorted and I think I prefer vista to xp on this machine though it is quite a bit sluggish, especially compared to an xp box that would have had the same processor and memory

my second box has dual core but 3 gigs of memory and this is an incredible machine, blazing fast, no stability issues and probably faster then xp would be given the same hardware

so that's my observation, most people either love it or hate it but those that hate it should just give it time, the os will grow on you

I guess that's what sazar was pointing out on his thread, that once vista gets the kinks out it's going to be an excellent os

me, while I think I prefer vista now, I still think it's a waste of money unless you are gonna use the 64 bit os and install more then 4 gigs of memory

so, this thread is what?

me being bored and wanting to type, that's what

 

[Dark Atheist]

i had issues with xp when it first came out and was often going back to win2k, but after xp shipped sp1 it wasn't so bad - that and the fact that sp3 onwards on win2k messed up my box, as with anything there will be issues, i mean im no fan of MS but you have to understand that there are millions of combinations of pc hardware out there and trying to make an OS than can work on all the different hardware and all the different drivers that the hardware will require without any issue what so ever is an impossible task.

I believe that some people have had bad experiences and they have written their blogs or web reviews and that is what people are going on, they wont know if the reviewer is a numpty and mis-configured his system and that's why he has issues, there are 3 things i do when i install vista that greatly improves the performance

1. turn of indexing
2. turn off search
3. turn of hibernate

And the box is much more responsive, MS has things set so it should work out of the box, but with any system you will have to tweak it to suit your hardware.

 

[falconguard]

I prize stability more than raw power, so when My old desktop a p4 1.8 went belly up, My wife made me look for a new computer, we got the same specs that you have on your second machine 3 gig ram and dual core 64. and this is pretty stable. Considering that people are still updating drivers, this has been pretty stable for me. So all in all I like it and am condsidering putting it on my laptop.

 

[Dark Atheist]

i can honestly say that on all the pcs i have put vista on i have has little to no errors with it.

p4 3.4 - 2gb ram - 32bit
amd64 - 3gb ram - 32/64bit
q6600 - 4gb ram - 32/64bit

 

[Perris Calderon]

3 things i do when i install vista that greatly improves the performance

1. turn of indexing
2. turn off search
3. turn of hibernate

And the box is much more responsive, MS has things set so it should work out of the box, but with any system you will have to tweak it to suit your hardware.

indexing only thrashes the hardrive till it's indexed, then it interferes hardly at all and it was a much faster search...I search tons on my box and indexing was a boon

why would turning hybernate 6ff speed up your box, it's only used when you hit the hyernate button

and search, what do you mean you turned it off and how does that affect performance?

 

[Lawman82]

I had very few issue with the load of Vista, just getting everything to see the same picture was my only problem. So far everything is work good, I don't think I will be changing back, may update to 64 version some day soon.

 

[Dark Atheist]

indexing only thrashes the hardrive till it's indexed, then it interferes hardly at all and it was a much faster search...I search tons on my box and indexing was a boon

why would turning hybernate 6ff speed up your box, it's only used when you hit the hyernate button

and search, what do you mean you turned it off and how does that affect performance?

indexing and searching will contently read and write to the disc, even if one file changes it will re-index the lot - same with searching - plus there are security concerns with them, as to the hibernate i should have added i also up the power profile, but as with search and index hubernate can be a security issue, all im saying is, is that whn i did have the issue of slow disc access and slow hard drive transfer speed turning off those programs/services did improve the performance of the pc

 

[Erbmaster]

Kinda didn't know which of the two threads to post in, but as my post is more directed at the switch-over benefits/drawbacks of comparative OS's I guessed here.
Please move it mods if you feel it belongs in the 'other' thread

I know from direct experience the NHS never uses the latest OS. Despite buying new units with Vista pre-installed, they're re-imaged with XP.
When XP was current the same applied only using with Win2K images.
This was obviously not of any financial benefit.

This was a direct result of several factors including stability, the requirements of the environment versus the features of the OS, and of course most importantly security.
There is also the issue of the longevity of a secure system that meets current needs.
If the old system runs faster than newer, less tested/stability proven, and potentially less secure systems, there is little need or desire to 'upgrade' to the newer system.
Especially if you're rolling this installation out to several thousand users.
Bear the costs of additional software required in new formats to run on the new systems also.
Compatibility issues with necessary software currently in use on a daily basis by thousands of users in a hospital is unacceptable.
The upshot being they won't be going to Vista until the next OS is out and Vista has a proven stable secure track record over a sustained period.
Despite having Vista licences by the cartload.

Server side there's the whole mix, from every flavour of provider and systems.
Client side is ultimately where my point lies.

I guess many home users feel the same, and are reluctant to adopt the new OS until they feel it has something they need that their current OS quite simply doesn't deliver.
Until then, they'll go with what they know works.

Just my two penn'orth

 

[Sazar]

I will be honest, and you can do a search for my original Vista related posts. I was not completely impressed initially because I had a very customized and highly stable XP professional build installed and running for many years. No issues and everything worked well.

I was apprehensive when I installed Vista because it was not officially released all around and then when it was, because Ultimate was not completely up and ready with all features available.

After I spent about a week with it and kept discovering the new and cool features that improved my functionality, I was sold. I haven't looked back since and my paid for and moderately expensive copy of XP Professional is just sitting around gathering dust.

Indexing is a pleasure and my work system, with Office 2007 enterprise, is a surprising brisk system (1.6Ghz Core Duo, not exactly a spring chicken, with 2 GB Ram). I typically have about 60% RAM usage because of all the applications I am running at work, but my system never slows down.

Memory management in Vista is superior to XP and this was the key feature that sold me Also, my MX Revolution mouse is way better under Vista than XP because of the added funtionality (flip 3D ROCKS, and oh, btw, I have an Intel IGP and am running AERO fully with no performance drop).

I took it upon myself to not be dismissive and actually work with Vista. For a while I was triple-booting between XP, Vista and Feisty Fawn. I dropped Feisty after a few weeks because it was simply too trouble-some and time-consuming. XP was dropped soon after, once I realised that I could actually play and run all my applications from before.

There were some growing pains, primarily because not all 3'rd party vendors were quick with their drivers. But the OS has performed splendidly for me thus far. It doesn't crash and my home computer has been up and running for several months now, almost non-stop. I did put it to sleep a couple of times, but it was never turned off.

Speaking of Sleep, it is by far my favorite feature in Vista A million times better than XP's implementation. I do not hibernate my system.

 

[Electronic Punk]

I actually need to think about it and write down what does annoy me about Vista for the most part tho its running great on my system which is now well over 3 years old.

 

[Geffy]

I know from direct experience the NHS never uses the latest OS. Despite buying new units with Vista pre-installed, they're re-imaged with XP.
When XP was current the same applied only using with Win2K images.
This was obviously not of any financial benefit.

I'd imagine this has more to do with their Common Operating Environment, COE, more than any problems with Vista itself, real or perceived.

Additionally they might have bespoke software which was designed for XP and it hasn't been tested yet or it might simply not be the time of year for an IT COE review.

 

[Erbmaster]

I'd imagine this has more to do with their Common Operating Environment, COE, more than any problems with Vista itself, real or perceived.

In part this is true, although this is only one of several reasons as mentioned above.
Stability, security and performance are all highly desirable in a hospital environment. The security risks real or perceived are self-evident and a major player in any such transition decision.
Data protection is paramount in this environment.

Additionally they might have bespoke software which was designed for XP and it hasn't been tested yet or it might simply not be the time of year for an IT COE review.

The bespoke software is largely written in house by staff DBA's or via trusted partners.
So really the Vista upgrade is less of a concern in that area.
The amount of machines that actually use bespoke software is surprisingly low, and those that do and are network enabled have their own servers to work from (usually unix). Vista would bring nothing new/needed to the table here.
The IT review wouldn't really impact upon a decision to change unless the new system had merits/features that warranted a hospital-wide change.
In it's current state, Vista does not.
Productivity would be decreased due to decreased system performance compared to XP on like for like systems.
Government targets are a biatch to hit anyway without throttling the users

 

[Sazar]

Erb, I'll be frank with you. If the IT personnel were worth their salt, they would have pre-production or production machines of their next implementation with Vista available and be running through them with their image and ensuring functionality.

In the process of this they would also be checking and validating speed and, to be frank with you, I would be very surprised if any IT peeps, if they knew what they were doing, would not be able to experience snappier performance under Vista. It is highly customizable and given the degree to which many of these techs work to get their images just right, I seriously doubt there would be an issue.

 

[Erbmaster]

Erb, I'll be frank with you. If the IT personnel were worth their salt, they would have pre-production or production machines of their next implementation with Vista available and be running through them with their image and ensuring functionality.

In the process of this they would also be checking and validating speed and, to be frank with you, I would be very surprised if any IT peeps, if they knew what they were doing, would not be able to experience snappier performance under Vista. It is highly customizable and given the degree to which many of these techs work to get their images just right, I seriously doubt there would be an issue.

I kinda agree with you, if they were worth their salt..lol
You must remember the NHS is a government body.
Public Sector wages are lower than private sector wages in this instance.
I guess you get what you pay for eh?

That said, there is a lot of 3rd party software to consider, not necessarily bespoke.
Then there's user training.
Medical professionals aren't naturally as PC literate as say a medical secretary. They have more important things to learn.
New versions require updated training. Seems a bit much, but sadly that's the case.
The norm is small in-house training 'lodges' that accommodate a very limited numbers of users at once.
The performance may be better under Vista, but the performance benefits will not be noticeable as PC kit tends to stay with a user for more than 1 year.

There's also budgets. Each directorate has to finance it's own PC's bought through the IT dept.
You can't force them to update, and a global update with throw the costs back onto the IT dept which is already pretty much stressed to the max funds wise.
That's just bad senior management, but again I refer you to my 1st point.

To be clear in summary, It's not that anyone dislikes Vista per-se, moreover it's a case of - 'Is it financially beneficial in terms of the gains at the end of the chain' - and as it stands currently XP delivers all that is needed. for end users.
Vista requires modern hardware which many depts are reluctant to invest in.
Once an OS is adopted on a global scale, they tend to stick with it for as long as it's financially viable.
Kinda why nurses uniforms aren't made of silk. It's a better quality cloth for sure.
It also has additional costs involved over cotton. Plus you then have to throw the cotton ones out as they're no longer used.

Funds for cutting edge are usually aimed at the 'patient' side of the operation.
There's also the disposal of redundant kit.
Everything and I mean everything is destroyed.
Once it's in the hospital, it never leaves, even if fully functional when swapped out.
Sad fact of the confidentiality clauses all staff are required to work under.
Global updates generate an awful lot of this material.
Understandable in a publicly funded health institution I'd wager.