I just installed Windows Vista, and I have never seen spreadsheets calculate so fast! (Pun on Mac commercials)
I couldn’t even wait two days for my paycheck. I went out the day it came out and made the purchase. And I didn’t just get the Home Premium version (that’s for grandma and grandpa), I got the ULTIMATE. Think of FATALITY from Mortal Kombat every time I say ‘ultimate.’ Yes Mac fans, all 5% of you, I am excited! It’s been 5 years in the making - you got to be excited if your last OS was made of duck tape, rocks, and sticks. And I know, you’ve got all these features and Microsoft couldn’t think of their own. That’s all for you Sterno, and your Mac Book. 
Hey, I am just happy that I have an OS that matches the speed and hardware (not to forget the blood, sweat, and tears) that I put into this system.
- 3.4 Ghz Hyperthreaded CPU
- 2 GB Ram
- X800 All-In-Wonder Graphics Card
Everything in XP was fast, but it lacked pizazz. Of course you could bedazzle your copy of XP but it wasn’t the same. I’ve been playing with Vista on my laptop for about a month. Today was the first day I got it installed on my workstation. I like it.
I wish I could tell you that the upgrade went like hot butter on bread, but I had a few snags.
I first decided to upgrade over my current installation of XP. It took a long, and I mean long, time to cycle through all the applications and hardware to make sure that they were compatible with Vista. It found one program that wasn’t compatible, Nero DVD burning software, and after I un-installed the application I had to start all over again. Yet more waiting.
It took a long time to do the upgrade. I was able to fall asleep to American Idol last night and come back to it just finishing the install. Just as I thought it was about done, it started rebooting and getting nowhere. I tried to debug the problem, but it was just easier to rollback to XP and start over.
Instead of going through the whole process again of checking compatibility and watching it fail, I decided to do a clean upgrade. A clean upgrade means that it will wipe out the hard drive before installing. It also means any programs that I had installed would need to be reinstalled. I backed up all of my photos, music, and video on to a secondary hard drive before starting this process.
I started the install this time at lunch so I don’t know exactly how long it took to do its thang. When I came home Vista was ready to setup the time and date and get things started. I didn’t have anymore errors and everything has worked just the way it was supposed too. I did go to a few of the manufacturers’ website to download updated drivers. The only driver that I don’t have now is the one for my TV tuner.
First impressions:
- Windows open and move much smoother.
- The sidebar and gadgets are awesome. (Note: you can drag them off the sidebar) My favorite is the weather gadget.
- Album art has been loaded in the MyMusic folder. It’s like looking through your jewel cases when trying to find an album.
- You have to approve each program to install. (Part of Window’s security to prevent programs running without permission)
- I have never been a fan of Window’s media player, but I like this version.
Who should not upgrade?
- If your first thought is to call Shoo. Then not you.
- The fan in your computer has been turned into an air purifier. Nope, not you.
- You paid the Geek Squad to install Microsoft Word. Umm, have them do the upgrade.
- It runs your business. Nope - I’d wait a while.
- Popups make it difficult to find the Start button. Noda
Who should?
- Geeks like me.
- You bought a new computer last month.
- Your buying a new computer. (All new retail computers come with Vista now)
I’ve read a lot of blogs, articles, and watched a lot podcasts about Vista. I think I have about the same consensus as everyone else. Vista is nice. It is fast. It is sharp. Windows veterans will enjoy it, but if you’ve got an okay PC for just checking email, commenting on Sj-r.com, or downloading photos it may not be for you.
I’ll put some snapshots up later.
I think I am going to like Vista. Will take some getting use to after using XP for so long. Course having a much faster processor & more memory is sweet too. So far am loving this dell.
This post is too geek-speaky for me. Give us something we understand, Shooster!!
Sorry GTG. Can’t do puppy pictures all the time.
I don’t know what I think of Vista yet. I don’t understand why they changed so much of what they did, seems like a lot of unnecessary things, but nothing that seemed to add any sort of productivity.
I am however using it on a laptop I got the other day, so I didn’t bother with the bells and whistles I would have with a desktop. I take it the system you have vista on is a desktop, let me know what you think about it after you use it for awhile. Maybe I should just get vista on my desktop, and put the laptop on XP instead.
I like(d) XP man, I think a lot of good stuff got all outta wack with vista. Ohhh welll, time will tell.
Conrats on that computer by the way, 2 gigs, I’m a f*in connoisseur and I haven’t even thought of doing that yet. Don’t worry I still pull “mad fps.”
This laptop though. Yeeeash, no mad FPS there. But it still gets the job done jaaaa’know.
Hey have you tried that ready boost thing for Vista? You can put a USB drive in and uses it as some sort of plug and play fake ram I guess. I only have a gig of ram on the laptop, including the 128 dedicated to the GPU, so I’m trying it right now with a 1gb mini drive.
No f*ing idea if it’s working, but I’m trying to find a good game to benchmark and see if it gives any boost by way of the FPS. Again, maybe I should just put XP on it; no way it can dig as deep into system resources as vista does. ACk its so hard to talk about this with out going all nerd. And it is far too late to say that.
Dude, let me know what you think of vista. Holla.
Go Bears.
Dustin,
I’ve got Vista on my laptop and workstation. I’ll probably throw XP back on the laptop because Vista drains the battery really quick. Vista doesn’t have all the power management setting for all the different laptops.
No, I haven’t tried the ‘boost’ thing. I forget what it’s called. With 2 GB, you don’t really need it.
I just loaded Battlefield 2 back on it last night, don’t know how it is going to perform. It will probably be the same.
Vista has gotten an A in my book so far. I’ll have to post a follow up.
I have XP and my album cover art is already in My Music… I figured out how to do it on my own
Yeahhh..
After turning the bells and whistles on, and putting combatibility issues with older games aside I’ve found myself currently enjoying Vista’s basass qualitys.
The number one thing for down the road I stumbled upon was the windows defender, tells you start up programs and info of the companies that makes them, as well as *gasp* the processes curently running on the computer? Good call, annnd about fucking time. I say stumled upon, because it’s not adversited within vista at all.
And that elaborate turn style way of tabing, sh!t I dont even know the name of it, but it is impressive.
I stillll don’t know if I’m going to go to XP on the laptop, but I’m going to give the potential green light on the desktop… I hope I can mess around with the this odd “vista upgrade” disk that came w/ the gateway laptop and get it probono for the desktop from microsoft.
Somehow I feel cheap for enjoying vista now… I just know its the operating system mac user would/will love.. and that makes parts inside of me hurt.
Then again.. with the new mac books doing all this “intel inside” sh!t, that may be just what microsoft wants….. Hope they have their minds on a cell phone next year.
Anyyywayyyyss man, its nice being your penpal on the vista topic, lets perfom these actions someday in the real 3d.
Go Bears.
Post Sript
While laying on the couch pretty much motionless besides my hands typing, I paused and had a momment where I felt like steven hawking jabbing into his “robot-voicebox doodad.”
I installed Vista on my Mac, but that was like 7 years ago and it was called OX 10.
To bad it was a mac!
Woot!
I know. It’s a shame when good software is wasted on good computers. ‘To’ bad you lost me at “woot.” You might want to have that checked out.
dave, it’s that damn Steve Jobs and his time machine. Always looking ahead at the future.
Dave, Shoo just made fun of us, calling us “grammar geeks”…but this is also coming from the guy who confused “shutters” with “shudders”.
Shoo just tried to correct my punctuation by telling me that the period needs to go inside the quotation, and I told him that I’m aware of that; however, I think it looks much prettier outside the quote. I’m all about aesthetically pleasing grammar.