How do you rate Microsoft Vista?

Never used it, so I won't vote in the poll. But I have no confidence in Microsoft. I give them an F.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TimBikes @ Nov 14 2007, 10:40 PM) [snapback]539807[/snapback]</div>

As much as I love Apple, and have four Apple Macs, I run Vista on my Sony Vaio (it came with it), for some work related sites that only use IE. And for the most part, I give it a A-.

Of course, I am not using it for much more then surfing the web, and work; I have never even printed off of it. So I can't say much else, since there is no added on programs, outside of Safari for Windows and Firefox.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TimBikes @ Nov 14 2007, 11:40 PM) [snapback]539807[/snapback]</div>

I have an N wireless network in the house which connects 3 desktops all running vista. I have two new Dell laptops too that are running vista - so far not one glitch in about a year of operation. The security features and updating features are very good. The three desktops are HP machines that also do automatic updates and performance maintenance - all very good. The two Dell laptops have been flawless.

I think the biggest change for the best is the new 2007 Microsoft Office Suite - we absolutely love it.

We are about to connect a MyBook World Edition so we call all backup automatically and retrieve files from wherever - just waiting another month for the price to come down on the 2 TB model.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(dbermanmd @ Nov 15 2007, 07:20 AM) [snapback]539900[/snapback]</div>

I've been very happy with Acronis for doing disk-image backups. I used to use Ghost, but Acronis easier to use, and you can make a recovery bootable CD which boots up into Linux. I had a disk drive replaced on an older system this summer - I did a backup of the whole system, dropped the PC off at the shop, picked it up, and had it all back and running again in an hour - much faster than rebuilding the system from scratch!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Jeannie @ Nov 15 2007, 08:05 AM) [snapback]539904[/snapback]</div>

My understanding is that the World Book edition allows multiple users to also access files from wherever they are located as long as they are allowed access to the system - in addition to backing up all the separate computers both in and outside the house (i have two kids living away at school).

 

We had this discussion with our children (married & single) recently. Of the 12 computers we have amongst ourselves, we run Vista on 6 of them. I have it on both my desktop & my notebook however, I can boot to either XP or Vista on my desktop. I do a lot of programming & video work on the desktop & find that I still need to do most of that in XP.

I do use Vista's 'Ready Boost' on both machines & I will admit that most of my programs startup faster in Vista; for instance; Word 2007 starts up & is ready to use in less than 1 second in Vista while on the same machine Word 2007 takes over 3 seconds to startup in XP & almost all program 'initial startups' are somewhat similar between the two OS.

I dual booted between XP & Win 2000 for about 1.5 years before I could fully wean off of 2000 & stay with XP only. I suspect that will be the case again with XP & Vista. About twice a month one of the reasons I predominantly use XP gets solved & removed from my XP only list... I will guess that by April 2008, I will remove XP from the dual boot machine.

Best Regards,
Wayne

 

I can't vote because there isn't a score low enough to cover how I feel about Vista.

I'm what you might call a "power user." I do a lot of CPU and memory intensive professional work on my computers, and I also do a lot of "under the hood" work on all my computers to get them running the way I like.

I intentionally installed Vista on a non-top-of-the-line machine (2gHz p4 w/ 1GB RAM) to see if it could cut it. The install process was smooth and it was up and running in very little time. However, 2 things became immediately clear:

1. Vista is designed to only run well (I don't mean "optimally," I mean "sufficiently") on new hardware.

2. Every bit of customization, every control panel, every tool that is used to tweak/control the OS is buried at least one or two layers deeper through dialogs or menus, and/or renamed from what they were called in XP. In a way, that's fine and I could get over it, but add to that the fact that logical sets of tools that used to be grouped in tabbed panels are now split up into several different locations.

OK, so I tried to get over the initial annoyances and give it a chance. I tried and tried. And every new popup warning me about something to which I had already agreed just broke my spirit. I uninstalled and went back to XP.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(dbermanmd @ Nov 15 2007, 08:34 AM) [snapback]539912[/snapback]</div>

Acrons ROCKS...
works very well ... use it on every new load out to act as a base line with all the MS validations in place so you don't have to re-due, well as long as the hardware doesn't change much

 

well we have an EXTREME need for another laptop... so have been looking at getting a Windows one since the other is a MAC. also the primary user wants it to play her collection of windows only games...figuring Vista has been out long enough to take the plunge

 

We`ve decided not to upgrade to Vista at my office. Our systems are perfectly happy with XP, and M$ will be supporting it for years to come.

I just bought a UMPC that came with Vista Home. I hate it. Boot time is 10 minutes. There`s lots of swapping going on, even though not many applications are open. XP is going on here as soon as I get home.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(DaveinOlyWA @ Nov 15 2007, 11:21 AM) [snapback]539987[/snapback]</div>

Ok, but have your XP install disk ready for when you decide you can't bear it any more.