Windows Vista Experience

[Neutron]

I got a copy of Vista Business from work, thanks to our MSDN subscription.

I got home and installed it on my 3 year old machine, an Athlon64 2800+ with 2.5GB of RAM. I installed it on a blank 320GB hard drive I had purchased some time ago.

Well, everything was fine until I started installing drivers. Everytime I installed a driver it would BSOD on me.

Then, when I would go to launch a program like Firefox or Winamp it would shut those programs down for no reason.

No thanks. I'm using XP again. I will wait for SP1 to release for Vista before trying again.

 

[tonyp56]

Yeah, well Vista has issues with computers that are brand new, unable to load drivers etc... So I could imagine with a machine that is three years old.

I agree, I won't be "upgrading" to this until at least Sp1, and even then, 2-4 months after it comes out so that all of the SP1 bugs can be fixed. Though, I am not sure that Vista will ever impress me like XP did, even from the very beginning XP was impressive to me (so different than 98SE). Vista don't look that hot.

 

[meStevo]

Never had a BSOD, and very few driver problems (just the expected early adopter stuff).

Overall been a Vista has been has been a good experience for me.

 

[KE4EST]

I can deal with Vista on a brand new computer, with lots of ram. But I have seen problems on ones that are only a year or less old. I agree I am waiting on SP1 for Vista before I put it on my stuff again. Even then I will be gun shy.

 

[diogen]

I got home and installed it on my 3 year old machine, an Athlon64 2800+ with 2.5GB of RAM.

A 2 years old PC with an ASUS mainboard, AMD 3700+ single core and 2GB of RAM runs Vista as good as XP for me.

You haven't tried a 64-bit version by any chance, did you? That one by default accepts only signed drivers...
Also, you have probably 1+1+.5 RAM sticks. Leave just two idetical sticks.

Vista ain't Linux. It won't run on something ready for the garbage bin.

Diogen.

 

[Jared Twomey]

I have had no real problems with Vista.. and i just installed the SP1 RC the other day, and while I haven't really noticed a big difference, I haven't noticed any new problems yet either.

 

[johnmac59]

I felt like they tried to make it more user friendly, but they actually made it tougher for technical people. I had an easier time with OSX from Windows than Vista from Windows XP.

 

[BigTimMN]

never had any issues to speak of on my 2 systems, and I have set up about 10 customers new PC's and havnt heard any issues either... and some of them usually call whenever there computer does ANYTHING out of the ordinary.

 

[navychop]

We've had nothing but problems with Vista. And we've never tried to install it on an old machine- only on newly purchased laptops. In fact, our outside computer help has been here all day (again) working on getting a laptop working. I'm shopping Dell for a new Windows XP laptop.

 

[goaliebob99]

The problems that im having is vista freezes up randomly. Some times 30 seconds after boot up or a few hours. its really annoying.

 

[John Kotches]

Bob:

That's relatively benign. I get crashes for Memory Mgmt fairly constantly. This is likely a BIOS level issue for my laptop.

Cheers,

 

[Hall]

It won't run on something ready for the garbage bin.

Are you suggesting something's wrong with his PC ?

 

[vurbano]

I got a copy of Vista Business from work, thanks to our MSDN subscription.

I got home and installed it on my 3 year old machine, an Athlon64 2800+ with 2.5GB of RAM. I installed it on a blank 320GB hard drive I had purchased some time ago.

Well, everything was fine until I started installing drivers. Everytime I installed a driver it would BSOD on me.

Then, when I would go to launch a program like Firefox or Winamp it would shut those programs down for no reason.

No thanks. I'm using XP again. I will wait for SP1 to release for Vista before trying again.

I am not touching it.

 

[diogen]

Are you suggesting something's wrong with his PC ?

No, I'm not.
I'd suspect the motherboard (BIOS) and maybe memory.

Nobody had a clue what Vista will be about three years ago...
It could be simply too old.

Diogen.

 

[Hall]

There's no "compatibility" involved with RAM and an operating system. If the RAM is defective or dying, he should have had issues with XP previously.

A BIOS update may be in order and I'll bet that ASUS has one for that board. They typically provide support for a couple of years.

 

[Hall]

I got home and installed it on my 3 year old machine, an Athlon64 2800+ with 2.5GB of RAM.

What motherboard model # ??

Well, everything was fine until I started installing drivers. Everytime I installed a driver it would BSOD on me.

What hardware ? If Vista has built-in drivers, use them if possible. You might miss some feature that the hardware has but if you don't need it, stick with Vista's own driver.

Then, when I would go to launch a program like Firefox or Winamp it would shut those programs down for no reason.

Make sure WinAmp is fairly current but Firefox should have NO issues. I'm typing this in Firefox on Vista....

 

[diogen]

There's no "compatibility" involved with RAM and an operating system. If the RAM is defective or dying, he should have had issues with XP previously.

I don't think so.
Vista has much less tolerance to memory timings mismatch. Even when claimed being identical.
Especially on DDR (I assume it is not SD RAM). Especially mixed capacities.

A BIOS update may be in order and I'll bet that ASUS has one for that board. They typically provide support for a couple of years.

I don't think Asus has Vista certification for most of their 3 year old boards.

Diogen.

 

[docthy]

Vista is really something, during the summer I bought a Dell inspiron laptop which they offer with 512MB Ram, as soon as ordered I went to my memory website and bought 512 mb more to make it usable. The requirements are nobody secrets, very stiffs. In the first 3 boots, in which config and deinstallation of crapware took place, almost 4-5 minutes passed every time; However, after all was set and a restore point made, the machine was working fine, the puntuation went from 2 points to 3.1 I believe, so it was acceptable enough for what it was going to be use for.

Remember again not high requirements were needed for the laptop's user at that moment.

 

[Kb Cool]

64 bit Vista runs great and fast on my q6600 intel quad core w/ 2 gigs of ddr2 800.
On the other hand it's kind of slow on my daughters xp 2400 w/ 1.5 gigs ddr 400.
So my opinion is if you have a real fast machine and in need of a OS that microsoft will support for a while go with Vista otherwise stick with XP. I wouldn't dare put it on my Centrino 1.73 ghz laptop w/ 1gig of ram.

 

[HCI]

Im running 32 bit version on a Celeron M @ 1.6 GHz and 512 DDR2.

The only problem I have have had was a program that commissions Chevron modems over a phone line. The program would install but would never recognize the modem via USB.

Some things I don't like about Vista is the way they have the networking center. Looks like they tried to make it to idiot proof but its just a mess. It takes to many steps to the connections if you have to change ip addresses or renewing etc if your not familiar with DOS. Also what happen to Hyperterminal?
And you have to enable the Telnet client if you wish to use it.

When I first got Vista it did take me a good 2 days to turn all the security crap and other unnecessary programs off. The user account control is the biggest joke I have ever seen.