Which version of Vista to get?

[NetRyder]

I'll stick with it. I'm downgrading to x86 in just a bit. No need for x64 at this time.

Don't you have 4GB of RAM? Vista x86 won't be able to address all of it.
http://forum.osnn.net/showthread.php?p=775847#post775847

 

[madmatt]

I have 4GB, x86 shows just as much as XP x86 did. It's okay; having the ability to install the applications I use on a daily basis (for my business and such) is more important.

 

[danbola]

does anyone know how much they are going for?

 

[Electronic Punk]

Well you would need to be a little more specific about your location, what version you want and whether you want a pretty retail copy or an OEM paper case.

 

[danbola]

home premium package. And can you get them cheaper anywhere else like ebay or amazon???

 

[Brad]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16832116142 <-- Retail

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16832116202 <--OEM

 

[ray_gillespie]

Check this out!

 

[sean.ferguson]

MS could repackage and re-release ME and the two of you would pine over it.

Just noticed your comment Joe, and as you know I'm a unix/Mac man. I currently use Windows Vista, MCE, OS 10.4 & FreeBSD at home. Im not a Windows wonderkid.

Vista, on my system and with my setup is a huge improvement over XP. XP ran sluggish, looked horrid and crashed... alot. Vista, runs very quickly looks nice and hasnt caused a single worry since I have been using it.

 

[NetRyder]

Vista, on my system and with my setup is a huge improvement over XP. XP ran sluggish, looked horrid and crashed... alot. Vista, runs very quickly looks nice and hasnt caused a single worry since I have been using it.

I didn't ever have the problems you mentioned with XP, but like I said, I still agree that Vista has been a definite improvement in terms of performance and features for me. Never have I claimed that it's the perfect OS, or that it doesn't have its issues and shortcomings.

But of course, since our experiences don't match j79zlr's, we must be liars and Microsoft shills, right?

 

[madmatt]

I love Microsoft; consider me one happy Partner. I reinstalled Vista Ultimate 32-bit last night and my experience has been awesome to say the least. Combined with Office 2007 and my Exchange server it has been a breeze. I plan on posting some of my favorite features later on.

 

[sean.ferguson]

I didn't ever have the problems you mentioned with XP,

They were few and far between, but when something did go wrong... it really went wrong :laugh: I never had a happy medium with XP.

Mind you though, I have learnt a little more with regards to systems maintenance. So perhaps that may have helps experiences. Still, it runs even better now I have the X1300 XT

 

[Smoke286]

I purchased two new computers last week, I bought Vista Home Premium for both. I am very pleased with it and in day to day use I see little difference to that I has with Ultimate As someone who did some Beta Testing of Vista it has come a long way.

Those considering which version to purchase should be aware that Vista offers "Windows Anytime Upgrade" in the Welcome Center, so if you buy a lower end OS you can alway upgrade later if you find you need to additional features.

I have loved Vista since its Beta versions, aside from tardy hardware manufacturers who have had plenty of time to produce drivers I have had few headaches.

And yes Office 2007 is great on Vista

 

[vern]

I ended up getting Vista Ultimate. I'm not one to play OS politics. Don't see the point ... if it works, it works and it's been working beautifully. I've got a few questions though ...

1. I got the 32bit version of Vista, is it possible to "trade" it into Microsoft for a 64 bit version?
2. How do I get rid of the arrow on my desktop icons?
3. Are there any theme sites for Vista that don't require oneto use an external theme app such as ThemeXP?

 

[j79zlr]

1) If you bought Vista Ultimate it should have both 32 & 64 bit editions.
2) http://vistasupport.mvps.org/remove_shortcut_arrows_from_desktop_icons.htm
3) Doubt it, MS has never let you change the themes without some hacking. Not sure why.

I didn't ever have the problems you mentioned with XP, but like I said, I still agree that Vista has been a definite improvement in terms of performance and features for me. Never have I claimed that it's the perfect OS, or that it doesn't have its issues and shortcomings.

But of course, since our experiences don't match j79zlr's, we must be liars and Microsoft shills, right?

The fact that you never criticize anything they do is why you are a shill. You just posted in another thread that you upgraded your drivers and had to reactivate windows. Why in the world would you have to reactivate windows without changing a single piece of hardware? I wonder why you should have to reactivate after changing any hardware, but upgrading drivers? That is horse****, and you wonder why I don't like them.

BTW, I don't think you can find me complaining about XP or 2000, why? Because I've never had any problems with them. Hell, XP has made me thousands of dollars simply removing spyware over the last 5 years.

Just because I can keep an open mind and call a spade a spade doesn't mean that I am not entitled to my opinion. The fact that a lot of the uber-pro-MS guys here haven't even seen a linux or mac desktop, yet they feel qualified to say that Vista is the greatest thing ever, well, compared to what?

I just think that it should be known to someone looking to waste lots of money on Vista and probably new hardware in order to run it, should know that there are a lot of shortcomings. I pointed alot a few of them in a normal post, yet I get flamed simply because it does not follow your blind ideology. I simply think that is wrong.

 

[NetRyder]

The fact that a lot of the uber-pro-MS guys here haven't even seen a linux or mac desktop, yet they feel qualified to say that Vista is the greatest thing ever, well, compared to what?

Obviously, I'm one of those "uber-pro-MS guys" according to the posts you've made about me earlier in this thread, correct?

First of all, I've been working with Linux off and on for the last seven years. I don't use it as my primary desktop OS, but that's doesn't mean I'm ignorant. I currently admin two servers for our university ACM chapter - one running Debian, and another running FreeBSD. I also worked in a 100% Linux environment at Google last summer, doing software development work that was far more advanced than what you've probably ever done. So before you make judgments about people, I suggest you verify your "facts" first.

Secondly, I'd like you to point me to one post in which I've claimed that Vista is "the greatest thing ever." Go on. Show me.

The fact that you never criticize anything they do is why you are a shill. You just posted in another thread that you upgraded your drivers and had to reactivate windows. Why in the world would you have to reactivate windows without changing a single piece of hardware? I wonder why you should have to reactivate after changing any hardware, but upgrading drivers? That is horse****, and you wonder why I don't like them.

Exactly. If I were the kind of person who blindly defends Microsoft for whatever they do, as you claim, I wouldn't have even mentioned the re-activation issue in that thread. It makes them look bad, doesn't it? Sure, I didn't throw a tantrum about it, but that's because (a) it's an isolated incident that's obviously not affecting everyone, and (b) I felt like I would make better use of my time reporting the incident to Microsoft and voicing my disapproval directly to them. You can go read my post on the MS WGA forum. From my last post there:

I see this as being a workaround, rather than a fix, because I'm now forced to use a set of generic SATA drivers rather than the official NVIDIA ones. If driver updates trigger off the activation system, I really think it's being a little over-sensitive. After a quick search, it seems like there are numerous reports on the Neowin forums of the nForce 4 drivers causing re-activation issues, so it doesn't look like I'm the only one. Any idea if the product activation and/or WGA teams will be working with NVIDIA to resolve this? I really hope this doesn't become a common occurrence in the future. It really causes a lot of inconvenience for legitimate customers.

http://forums.microsoft.com/Genuine/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=1208676&SiteID=25

Notice the parts in bold? I made it very clear to them that it's something I don't like at all. Unlike whining in a forum thread that they probably won't ever read, that's good use of my time.

I pointed alot a few of them in a normal post, yet I get flamed simply because it does not follow your blind ideology. I simply think that is wrong.

Stop trying to act like you're a victim here. There is not one post in this thread in which I "flamed" you. Anyone with two eyes and a brain can figure that out. I suggest you go back and look at the sequence of posts.

Sean first posted this - "Good OS though - so far it is a huge improvement of XP, performance and feature wise."
You followed up with - "Every time I see a comment like this, I wonder if they've actually used Vista."

First of all, that post itself was uncalled for. Just because your experience with Vista may have been negative, there's no need to make generalizations and claim that anyone who has anything positive to say about Vista must have never used it. Obviously, Sean is running it on his machine, as you can see from his signature, and he was simply stating his experience. No need to shoot him down for it.

So at that point, I responded, simply backing up Sean's comment based on my own experience - "I have. Since the early builds in 2005, in fact. And I agree with him completely."

Then you shot back at me with this - "MS could repackage and re-release ME and the two of you would pine over it."

So who's the one "flaming" here? You're certainly entitled to your opinion, but you just indirectly called me a shill, simply because my experiences differ from yours. If anything, I should be the one whining about being "flamed" here.

I had absolutely no problem with your later post, pointing out the shortcomings of the OS. I might not agree with all your points, but as I said, you're fully entitled to voice your opinion, so I didn't even respond. And for that, you directly called me, and other moderators on this site, Microsoft shills. That's direct flaming for no good reason, and next time I see something like that, you can be sure I won't be as accommodating as I was with you this time.

 

[j79zlr]

Every time I see a comment about Vista performing better than XP I do wonder if they've used it. Honestly. There is no way that anyone could derive that subjectively. That is why I posted that.

As far as the pining over them comment, over the top, maybe, but maybe you should point out what you think is wrong with Vista instead of only consistently saying how great it is. Seriously, I only wanted to provide some info on why you shouldn't upgrade to Vista. There are reasons not to upgrade, believe it or not, and someone researching upgrading should be aware of them.

I actually wasn't referring to you in the uber-pro-MS guys comment either, other mods/admins, yes. Ban me, I don't really care.

 

[danbola]

Vista ultimate is good if you have an IQ of around 60+

 

[madmatt]

Now that post makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

 

[Geffy]

I belief an IQ of 50 is required to at least breathe and an average IQ is 100 so Ultimate is good for all?

I don't think IQ relates that clearly with MTB* value


*MTB - Money To Burn

 

[Khayman]

Every time I see a comment about Vista performing better than XP I do wonder if they've used it. Honestly. There is no way that anyone could derive that subjectively. That is why I posted that.

How could they not?

I used to run XP64, now i run Vista64 on exactly the same machine, what makes me unable to compare the two? True i don't keep detailed stats or run benchmarks because i don't think they necessarily prove that much and i don't really care. But i can say applications i run such as Visual Studio, PSP, IE7 and others which are the same version as i ran on XP start quicker and seem more responsive. Other 'new version' software like Office run even better. Games are running at least as well, I've not noticed any degrade in speed or frame rate.

Again ,like nets, I'm not saying its perfect. My machine crashed last night burning a DVD using the built in "sent to.." thing, that sucked arse. The windows index on the reliability monitor is quite low atm mostly because I've had it since November and have been experimenting with it a lot which causes things to crash.
But overall, the performance is better than with XP. On my machine. In my opinion. How can that not be a valid opinion?