Do I want Vista???

[JHZR2]

Hi,

My old dell precision workstation has abeen a great conmputer. however, something on it has gone wrong, and it is not working right. Im thinking of building a nice crossfire-certified AMD platform windows computer. While my main use computer at home is a mac, it is nice to have a good PC at home too... and Id kind of like to play some games too!

Anyway, I know that software often has bugs early on. OK, fine, I got win2k when it first came out, and I was happy with it from the start. Im not really scared. considering that if I build this machine, ill have athlons with 1MB L2 cache on each processor (dual core), 2GB ram, etc., Im not terribly worried about system resources.

So, since Ive been out of the loop in the PC world for a little while... why would/wouldnt I want Vista???

Thanks,

JMH

 

[Mystic]

Be sure that you have a computer that is powerful enough and that you have good graphics capability. Be sure that all of your hardware on your computer is Vista compatible! I am running Vista right now on a computer. It runs great! And it looks great in my opinion. Most of my hardware and software seems to run just fine with it.

In my opinion Windows XP had a kind of toy like appearance. I think Windows Vista looks better.

There is security in Vista that goes beyond what most people think. There is even software that checks all Microsoft software on the computer and can be setup to check all software even if it is not Microsoft software.

It is too early to tell if there will be any problems or not with security but from what I can see right now security will be much greater in Vista.

I had some misgivings about Vista when it was still being developed but I have to praise Microsoft right now. They did a good job.

 

[obbop]

May wanna' check into all that Digital Rights Management stuff and several reviewers mentioned how tired they becam of pop-up windows asking if they really wanna' do what they are about to do.

Lots of good reviews by long-time computer writers out there. May be worth a peek or, at the least, a peeklet.

 

[Virtuoso]

To kinda echo what Mystic said; stack up on RAM and a good video card. With 512 MB RAM installed (my other 512meg stick died..pff) Vista swaps to the page file a LOT and that's without the Aero interface or anything much running at all.

I went back to XP because my PC's just don't have enough memory right now. As soon as I upgrade, I'll be installing Vista again.

 

[blupupher]

Yea, the only thing you did not mention was your graphics card. You need at least 256 (they say 128, but 256 is better) and the card needs to be Direct X 9 compatable. Dual core processors and 2 gig memory is also the minimum you want if using anything besides the basic home version.

If what you have works for you, I would not worry about it. If you like to tinker nad have the latest and greatest, go for it.

Come tax refund time, I am seriously thinking about building myself a system to have Vista on. It has been about 6 years since I have had a "new" computer.

 

[ToyotaNSaturn]

A new PC = You've Got Vista.

I agree 100% with the suggestions to make sure you have enough under the hood to make it work *for* you.

I suggest a *real* video card (as was mentioned), 2GB RAM, 250GB SATA2 Hard disk, Core2Duo 2.0Ghz w/4MB cache (or higher) to get the best performance. Ain't cheap, but you'll be happy with the performance down the road.

 

[ConfederateTyrant]

Get a motherboard that can handle above 2 gigs of RAM. 2 gigs of RAM on Vista is, in my opinion, about the equivalent of 512 megs of RAM on XP. At least that's how the ones I've worked on have been. If you care for the Aero stuff, then make sure you have a beefed up graphics card.

obbop is correct that the popup is annoying to allow everything. To my understanding it is a service that can be disabled, but I haven't went looking for it yet.

 

[ToyotaNSaturn]

Link to tip on how to turn off pop up thingy in Vista

 

[blupupher]

Thats good to know. I have Vista Ultamate coming in a few days and want to try a dual boot with it before fully commiting.

 

[NJC]

ignore

 

[NJC]

I wonder if Vista is the next WinME? http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=is+vista+the+next+winme%3F&meta= WinME, as I understand, was a stop-gap between Win98SE and XP. And maybe Vista will be the same until Vienna is released 2009.

MS had to get something to the public.

I want a new PC but I want it to be FAST so I am electing to go with XP. It is also preferable since it is a mature OS and the support will be extended to 2014, according to Microsoft. http://tinyurl.com/36dop9. BTW, HP is still selling XP.

 

[Syntec-Man]

Go for it vista is not that bad, it has a few kinks that need to be tweaked, but otherwise i see it killing MAC!!!! i love the crossfire setup, go for a intel core 2 duo they are the "amsoil of computers" lol

 

[JHZR2]

I own a mac, and will continue using MAC as my primary computer... thewre is some software that I use at work which would be nice to run, and its PC-based... Id also kind of liek to play some computer games in my free time... my machine will have the top Athlon processor, be crossfire certified, etc., and so Ill have no issues with power - just if I want to make a jump...

Thanks,

JMH