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A year later, Vista SP1 or XP SP3


iwod

A year later, Vista SP1 or XP SP3  

150 members have voted

  1. 1. Is Vista Good enough yet?

    • I am Sticking to XP
      84
    • Vista is great!
      66


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more overhead, more code, more chance for bugs... In principle.

Caching in RAM has very little overhead (basically none as it works when your PC is idle), and it makes things quicker. Bugs? I've seen 0 bugs reported about it so far, and there's millions of people using it everyday...

I meant Cluberti.

I know, I was just saying I don't have the same "bias" (different employer) like plenty of other people, yet, I (and a lot more people) completely agree on his points.

You say that, I ask how many people and what people?

MS listens to their big corporate clients, OEMs, MVPs and such. Wanna see people requesting features like UAC? Go to any *nix-centric site (like slashdot), and look at any Windows security-related discussion from before Vista was out, you'll quickly find hundreds of such "complaints" (i.e. Windows needing a sudo-like mechanism).

How usable is that to tinker on every reboot? I didn't know there were tools

Like Fredledingue said, 99% of people using Vista or such are getting it with a new PC, and they don't have driver signing issues out of the box. You're part of a small minority just by installing it yourself. And out of that minority, those using the x64 version is even smaller (albeit growing rapidly). And most of those self-installers of 64 bit OS'es tend to have more "cutting edge" hardware, not old peripherals without signed 64 bit drivers. And for the most part, those who get that far are usually able to google for the signing tools (and self-signing them), or using an automated app to disable it permanently like ReadyDriver Plus.

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If you want to send me a PM or email to take some of your questions offline, that's cool. I'd send you a PM, but your PM is disabled it seems.

It was, I tried to tweak the forum. :sneaky: No, it was just left that way from who-knows-when.

You can send now if you want to, but I have no special wish to discuss any of the questions in particular.

GL

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You wouldn't want fuel efficency if it's too much trouble for the maker

The thing is, you seem to only care about that. You'd walk off the lot with an engine on 4 wheels, because it gets that extra mile per gallon. Whereas we see a vehicle with airbags, ABS brakes, more cargo space, more leg room, a CD/mp3 player, DVD players at the back, air conditioning, GPS, power seats/windows/locks, remote starter, alarm system, that has smoother ride, doesn't break as often, is stylish and all that, and still gets decent fuel efficiency.

should bring me some so I wish I buy it.

I think it's safe to say you're not going to buy another version of Windows for a LONG time to come since you're not interested by anything new they seem to provide, and prefer to resist change instead of embracing it.

which side would be heavier?

The "restrictions" never got in my way, and I make use of the new features everyday. I think you can guess my answer.

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it works when your PC is idle
Snipped to the extreme, just to show you what you're saying. If it works, then PC isn't idle.
Bugs? I've seen 0 bugs reported about it so far, and there's millions of people using it everyday...
My guess (and yeah it's only a guess - opinion) is that people (all people, minus those with debuggers at hand and running) wouldn't know them if they see them. They would attribute it to something else.
MS listens to their big corporate clients, OEMs, MVPs and such. Wanna see people requesting features like UAC? Go to any *nix-centric site (like slashdot), and look at any Windows security-related discussion from before Vista was out, you'll quickly find hundreds of such "complaints" (i.e. Windows needing a sudo-like mechanism).
But MS also listens to their managers and shareholders. Wanna bet who they listen to more? "Complaints" on the Net don't mean anything - you can't measure them.
Like Fredledingue said, 99% of people using Vista or such are getting it with a new PC, and they don't have driver signing issues out of the box. You're part of a small minority just by installing it yourself. And out of that minority, those using the x64 version is even smaller (albeit growing rapidly). And most of those self-installers of 64 bit OS'es tend to have more "cutting edge" hardware, not old peripherals without signed 64 bit drivers. And for the most part, those who get that far are usually able to google for the signing tools (and self-signing them), or using an automated app to disable it permanently like ReadyDriver Plus.
1. We should throw away all our old peripherals? 2. Combatibility is fine for (all) apps (you say), but not for drivers? 3. Not from first hand, but in this thread some down sides of that/reports it's not working are listed.

GL

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The thing is, you seem to only care about that. You'd walk off the lot with an engine on 4 wheels, because it gets that extra mile per gallon. Whereas we see a vehicle with airbags, ABS brakes, more cargo space, more leg room, a CD/mp3 player, DVD players at the back, air conditioning, GPS, power seats/windows/locks, remote starter, alarm system, that has smoother ride, doesn't break as often, is stylish and all that, and still gets decent fuel efficiency.
Just replace the last few words with "there is no way to achieve fuel efficency" or "such a thing doesn't exist" and you'll see what I'm trying to say. Yes I want to buy a car with fuel efficiency but they sell me a car with a CD player.

GL

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Just replace the last few words with "there is no way to achieve fuel efficency" or "such a thing doesn't exist" and you'll see what I'm trying to say.

Except, Vista runs great on nowadays' commodity hardware, so there is no reason to replace that last part.

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Like I was saying, people were actually asking for those features.

I'm not sure. Many new features came out of M$ designer imagination rather than explicit demand.

Poeple do like new features and I welcome that too to a lesser extent. (Just see on the w98/95/Me forum how many are tweaking their system with XP style skin and as soon as Vista was out, with Vistaish stuffs, it's amazing. Personaly I find it a little bit ludicrous.) I admit that esthetical improvement since 2000 (the last block styled windows) is great.

Yet there are two kind of problems:

1/ When it eats abnormal amount of resources. I admited on this thread that on machines built today, there is little difference but that made de facto Vista a disapointement for those who hoped to instal it on an old machine. For example, myself, I could have installed Vista on my 5 1/2 years old computer and I didn't for this exact reason.

2/When new features comes in the way of productivity. You can get the fastest machine that money can buy, Vista doesn't make your human work faster.

As an example the little windows preview on the task bar. It doesn't help to have a postage stamp sized view of a screen, and it's rather disturbing. IMO, higher productivity comes with a minimal amount of events on your screen, especialy moving objects, unexpected balloons or dialogs, self-changing stuffs etc.

Now because it's my personal opinion, I won't say that they shouldn't exist since other users may like it, but it should be easier to disable/enable. Vista's control panel displays about 50 items and you never find the relevant app.

The more there are features, the more the customization interface should be clear and easy to use, like TweakUI but more complete.

---------------

\Windows\WinSxS is the biggest culprit by far (over 4GB on my system). Yes, one could say it's a bit over the top, but then again, disk space is dirt cheap, and it's doing its job great (when was the last time you run into the old DLL hell problem again?). These complaints of bloat about Vista should mainly be directed at that: they cache too many versions of different assemblies in there.

Thanks for the explanation, especialy since it's the second time you write it for me. :)

Whatever the explanation, it's clear that with a little effort they could significantly reduce the size of Vista. the old DLL hell problem? Don't exagerate, even on w98 it's been ages since I'v seen a "Dll not found" error and I'm using recent version of most softwares I use.

The folowing is no less interresting:

It's pretty hard to blame Vista for most of the other stuff:

\Windows\System32\DriverStore : 1.37GB of drivers (a LOT more than XP had), so stuff just works out of the box (including not requiring a *&^#$%@ floppy to install on any RAID/SATA/SCSI controller, or to have to slipstream all your mass storage adapter drivers on every disc, or not being stuck at 640x480 & 16 colors until you put video drivers on there)

This, I'v never understood: Why do they need to stash all the drivers known to mankind on every computers?

Every hardware sold comes with it's driver on a cd-rom which is always better and updated. Lost cd-rom? You'll find them on the firm website. While installing, it's fine to have as many drivers as possible on hand on the DVD, but why copying all the drivers on the HDD, for just the few pieces of hardware you will buy in the future and will come with new drivers anyway? Perfect non-sens IMO.

The only explanation is that Vista is pre-installed, and the computer is sold without the installation disc. Then the user has the installation disc copied on his hard disc, if you will.

And this only on the rarified cases when we are asked to insert the Windows cd-rom when installing something...

\Windows\Installer : 1.4GB worth (on my box anyways) of unnecessary installers (in case you decide you want to add or remove features to some app, without having to insert the disc again...) which are from other apps (thank Acresso/Macrovision or whoever happens to own Installshield these days for this mess)

This I understand even less, but you said yourself they were useless.

\Windows\Web : some multimedia content (wallpapers, etc). Not necessary, but hardly the end of the world.

I expected multimedia content to take more space. But wait, I'm sure there are tons of multi media contents in other folders, like Installers etc. If most of the bloat came from multimedia, it would then be easier to explain. :blink:

\Windows\Assembly : 552MB worth of .NET assemblies. It's a fair amount of space, but considering that includes 5 different "generations" of it out of that space, and that it gets reused a lot by all .NET apps (saving space), it's not that bad I guess.

Haha! So they installed 5 "generations" of .NET. As if .NET wasn't bloated enough! Instead of compiling a backward compatible .NET version.

That's a clear sign of lazyness.

\Windows\Fonts : 400MB or so worth of fonts

\Windows\Speech : ~300MB of speech etc.

....

Most of it went to well-known places. If you disregard the admittedly large (and you could say over-zealous) WinSxS cache, all the extra drivers it comes with, and the installer cruft left mostly by other apps, my Vista install would already only be like 4GB or so, which isn't bad considering all the extra stuff (even more so when you look at the parts of that taken by the extra fonts, MCE and such). So the OS itself isn't that much bigger. It's not like it's Aero Glass using up 10GB extra.

As I said, the only explanation is that most Vista user don't have an installation disc so just in case, they put everything.

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As much as I'm not a programmer, I'm with computers 20+ years and I know that more code executed is always worse then less (for the same assumed task). More chances for bugs, more attack vectors for malware, more electricity spent.

One issue that I have with Windows in general is that it's not optimized. It's more or less a blended mode where it runs on pretty much everything, but it could stand to have highly optimized specific parts to it. There was once a time when programmers actually cared about optimal performance from code. But it seems that in today's world of computers that fast machines=unoptimized code.

In response to the bolded part...

I've seen code that is pretty big that takes into account the register pairing and chache predictions execute quicker than small chunks of code. Smaller code is not always better.

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that made de facto Vista a disapointement for those who hoped to instal it on an old machine. For example, myself, I could have installed Vista on my 5 1/2 years old computer and I didn't for this exact reason.

Just like it's been the case with any new version of Windows. Nothing's changed there again. I'd love to see someone who installed XP on his 5 1/2 year old computer when it came out (that would be a pentium 1). XP ran quite slow on my box at the time until I got more RAM for it. Win95 barely ran at all on a couple year old box (a 486) that ran Win 3.11 great. Win 3.1 ran like crap on a 286 that was overkill for most DOS purposes. Yet, people make it sound like somehow it's different with Vista. And for the most part, it's been a non-issue, as the vast majority of people get a new OS with a new PC.

This, I'v never understood: Why do they need to stash all the drivers known to mankind on every computers?

It's nowhere near all drivers known to mankind (that would be countless terabyes)... But it gets perhaps 90% of the mainstream stuff working out of the box with no hassle (updated drivers delivered from Windows Update), and that's a good thing. Just how fun is it to look for a network card driver for your OS (can't download it from the 'net when your 'net is down), or surfing ATI's site @ 640x480 looking for that video driver... Good times for sure.

As for drivers on CD, yuck. Those were pressed like 2 years ago, are always super old, often full of bugs and all that. I never use any of them.

Instead of compiling a backward compatible .NET version. That's a clear sign of lazyness.

Yes, imagine that, they put in runtimes for their own development tools, so their apps run without requiring you to download hundreds of MBs (something people used to complain a lot about).

Also, you're dead wrong about all of it. Most apps will run on a newer .NET framework (backward compatibility is there). But regardless of that, the later versions include older ones:

-v3.5 is v3, plus some additions like LINQ

-v3.0 is v2, plus some nice stuff like WCF, WPF and all that.

So when you install v3.5 (the current version), you're also getting getting v3 and v2 out of it. It's not lazyness nor bloat.

But anyways, it's not 5 versions either. v1.1 seemingly isn't included in Vista (which hardly anybody uses anymore, so that's understandable), nor the super old v1.0, so it's more like 3...

And again, the "bloated" part about it is wrong too. Out of that $0.05 or so worth of space, you're getting a few compilers, a set of well designed & heavily tested (mature/stable) libraries for most tasks that your apps can all use (making them all smaller), ways for them to communicate in various ways, possibilities for them to have cutting edge 3D interfaces (WPF), etc. And again, it's a way for software developers to deliver quality apps to you quickly and for cheap (again, time and money constraints).

As I said, the only explanation is that most Vista user don't have an installation disc so just in case, they put everything.

Nope, not everything is installed by default, I had to go install some parts I need by hand. But they include most parts the average user might want.

That vocal 1% sure makes a lot of noise about Vista "being bloated" when again every other recent mainstream OS is no better, and that Vista's extra size is mainly due to that over-zealous WinSxS cache (using up about fifty cents of disk space -- that's such a big deal).

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it works when your PC is idle
Snipped to the extreme, just to show you what you're saying. If it works, then PC isn't idle.
That's kind of pedantic - when your system has had nothing to do for a period of time, it starts to do something proactive, and it does not use all idle time to constantly shuffle data from disk into RAM.
2/When new features comes in the way of productivity. You can get the fastest machine that money can buy, Vista doesn't make your human work faster.

As an example the little windows preview on the task bar. It doesn't help to have a postage stamp sized view of a screen, and it's rather disturbing. IMO, higher productivity comes with a minimal amount of events on your screen, especialy moving objects, unexpected balloons or dialogs, self-changing stuffs etc.

Now because it's my personal opinion, I won't say that they shouldn't exist since other users may like it, but it should be easier to disable/enable

I might be taking this example a bit literally, but easier than: right-click the task bar and un-tick the box "Show window previews (thumbnails)" on the Properties tab?
This, I'v never understood: Why do they need to stash all the drivers known to mankind on every computers?

Every hardware sold comes with it's driver on a cd-rom which is always better and updated. Lost cd-rom? You'll find them on the firm website. While installing, it's fine to have as many drivers as possible on hand on the DVD, but why copying all the drivers on the HDD, for just the few pieces of hardware you will buy in the future and will come with new drivers anyway? Perfect non-sens IMO.

But it's also not safe to assume people have the knowledge of how to locate the manufacturer's websites to get the drivers, or the website is available when needed, or that they have internet access, or that the driver packages can be silently installed (in the case of corporate deployments)...

Plus those annoying situations when doing rebuilds and you fall at hurdle 1 because of the lack of in-box disk controller driver, or at hurdle 2 because of the lack of in-box NIC driver meaning you can't connect to the Internet to get the remaining drivers...

The value of a large collection of in-box drivers is immeasurable when they are needed, and the cost (even when not needed) is comparatively trivial.

In quote 1 you seem to be pushing for an easier user experience, then in the second quote exactly the opposite?

I've seen code that is pretty big that takes into account the register pairing and chache predictions execute quicker than small chunks of code. Smaller code is not always better.
QFT - smaller code implies less boundary checking which implies possibly more (not less) vectors for malware or stability problems.

I would agree only with "less lines of machine code in a given execution path (i.e. disregarding exception handling code) would run faster than a larger number of lines in the same path" and "more lines of (source or machine) code increases the risk of introducing bugs".

Hhowever, the (security, stability, extra feature) benefits of the changes/extensions to code (IMO) outweigh the potential performance hit and risk of bugs (as the internal, alpha and beta testing phases before the release candidates will identify and nail the vast majority of the bugs anyway).

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it works when your PC is idle
Snipped to the extreme, just to show you what you're saying. If it works, then PC isn't idle.
That's kind of pedantic - when your system has had nothing to do for a period of time, it starts to do something proactive, and it does not use all idle time to constantly shuffle data from disk into RAM.

I replied short because there were many things to reply to, but anyway I think you caught my idea.

Of course some housekeeping must be done, but I disagree that the computer (CPU, RAM, HDD) has to work all the time (as said, to make my money's worth). Also, I think I was clear on my opinon on prefetching.

To give another example, I don't use indexing service(s) because my stuff is organized. When I need to search, 99% of the time it is in one folder with less then 100 items. Very rare, I search in 3-4 folders at once. And for that 0,01% when I do a full all-drive search, I just start it and get over with it when it's done, which never takes too long. But If I happen to see my hard drives grind all the time while the computer is idle (or half of the time, or quarter of the time), I would be very annoyed.

But that's just me. Anyway, I think that indexing is extremely wasteful even for the average user (if such a thing exists). The disorganized one. Not knowing (or wanting to know) basic characteristics of file types or the filesystem.

Why don't you turn it off, you say? Well I can and I do, but that's what my complaint about Vista (insert: every new generation of Windows) is about - less and less things are controlable. Maybe Indexing Service is switchable today, but won't be tomorrow.

And a semi-example: in a fresh Vista install, at friend's, I saw around 10 scheduled tasks. (semi-example because I don't remember them exactly.) IMHO at least 7 of them were completely unnecessary. Bureaucratic stuff.

Idle time can be put to good use in many ways (cancer research/distributed computing etc.) but this and similar (in my opinion unnecessary) tasks are imposed onto 99 % of the users that don't (care to/need to/are afraid to) tweak.

GL

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Anyway, I think that indexing is extremely wasteful even for the average user

Hmm, no. It's a godsend for a lot of people. Back in 1995, when all your docs could be kept neatly organized in a few folders, this wasn't required at all for sure.

But now with 100's of different file types for different stuff, in hundreds of folders, often across several hard drives and all that, finding something isn't so trivial anymore. If I'm looking for a that PDF file that contains certain words, and that I have gigabytes of them, I'd be searching for entire days. Whereas now it finds it in mere seconds. It could also search my email for the said words and such places too. Hell, it'll even use the index on a remote (networked) computer to search on it (that's always been a problematic one). So I think it's very useful, even more so for the "average", disorganized user.

BTW, indexing has been in Windows for a LOT of years, and has always been configurable (and still is).

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I replied short because there were many things to reply to, but anyway I think you caught my idea.

Of course some housekeeping must be done, but I disagree that the computer (CPU, RAM, HDD) has to work all the time (as said, to make my money's worth).

...

Idle time can be put to good use in many ways (cancer research/distributed computing etc.) but this and similar (in my opinion unnecessary) tasks are imposed onto 99 % of the users that don't (care to/need to/are afraid to) tweak.

I must have failed to explain the use of idel time correctly - the OS does not use all idle time to achieve its goals - in fact very little proportionally, plus if the system is given something else to do (user-initiated or based on a schedule) then prefetching and indexing have much lower process and I/O priorities so they get suspended again until the system has been idle for some time.

There isn't an endless amount of work to be done when idle, and systems spend a huge percentage of their time idle (servers and workstations alike) - there is plenty of proof for this given the number of dumps observed which record the "true" idle time statistics.

Don't think of the OS using idle time in terms of SETI or Folding @ Home projects - those are designed to use all idle CPU cycles.

It would make the concepts of SpeedStep and ACPI redundant!

To give another example, I don't use indexing service(s) because my stuff is organized. When I need to search, 99% of the time it is in one folder with less then 100 items. Very rare, I search in 3-4 folders at once. And for that 0,01% when I do a full all-drive search, I just start it and get over with it when it's done, which never takes too long. But If I happen to see my hard drives grind all the time while the computer is idle (or half of the time, or quarter of the time), I would be very annoyed.

But that's just me. Anyway, I think that indexing is extremely wasteful even for the average user (if such a thing exists). The disorganized one. Not knowing (or wanting to know) basic characteristics of file types or the filesystem.

Okay, so your file system was designed in an organized fashion - you're most likely in the minority of users worldwide - but you're also missing the point of the Windows Search service in Vista being designed around iFilters - so content of any type can be indexed, not just files.

So the Office team produced iFilters for their products, and now you can search inside emails held in Outlook with the same interface - 3rd parties can produce iFilters for their proprietary file formats to leverage the power of the functionality provided by the OS, instead of having to write their own engine.

Files can be tagged with metadata for use in searching, so you can locate images and videos through Search too - so for those times when a photo falls in multiple categories and your file system rigidly makes you put it into one folder, or have multiple copies of the same photo.

So I would disagree that the indexing service is a waste for most users - quite the opposite.

And a semi-example: in a fresh Vista install, at friend's, I saw around 10 scheduled tasks. (semi-example because I don't remember them exactly.) IMHO at least 7 of them were completely unnecessary. Bureaucratic stuff.
How do you know they were unnecessary, and did you look at the actual schedule to see how often they would run?
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Drivers and other bloats

I agree it's an advantage to have a collection of drivers on hand and ready for a quick install. However I disagree that drivers on CDs are worse or older. They can't be older than the hardware itself. And if the hardware is newer than the driver coming with Vista then it's not older.

But ok, if that doesn't slow down the system, doesn't make a virus check 10x longer, is not recopied endlessly at each system back-up, and can be deleted if I want to for some reason, then: why not? But that remains to be verified.

Had I to install Vista, I would prefer to have the option not to install all the "bloat" (pick another word for that if you want), and have everything copied on my HDD in a few minutes. Of course when Vista is not pre-installed.

Indexing service

Indexing shouldn't be a "by default" running service. Period. Many poeple don't need it. Some may need it more often but again, when you have some discipline and can sort and name your files correctly you rarely need to search anything.

That being said, it's not useless, but indexation shouldn't be a permanent process. It can be done manualy or suggested when the user use "search" very often.

It can be very useful when having thousands of files, like a database or something.

The problem is more that Windows decided what's best for me, without knowing my personal habits. That configuring it is not obvious and very limited. When I tried to "configure" the indexation service, I was appalled by the few options I had, none of them relevant to what I hoped to do.

The other problem with "searching an index" versus "searching in a directory tree" is that it too often either doesn't find anything or finds too many things.

Configuration

It cannot be easier than right-click on the taskbar

The problem is that you don't configure, personalize and optimize your whole computer by right-clicking on the taskbar.

It would be nice to have one tabbed interface from which we could manage all the existing settings instead of having them scattered among multiple "cannot be easier" locations. Actualy everytime I want to change a setting, it's a guess game against Windows, starting by right-clicks here and there, reading all the stuffs in the control panel, pressing "configure" where it doesn't configure anything serious etc.

Edited by Fredledingue
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Crahak

I think there is a very big difference between the Dos-to-Windows transition era and today,

When Windows 3.1 came out computers most poeple had were clearly not up to the task. Processors were ridiculously slow and hard drive were something new. Some computers still relied on floppy for all storage available! Not even talking about memory which was, what, 4 Mb?

But the concept was there and the program was there for those wh wanted to try. Fortunately, computer performances improved very quickely and a few years later were able to run windows95 which was THE real revolution in personal computing.

Now turn off Vista eye-candy, switch to the old ugly gryish "classic" theme, move the screen resolution slider to 640x480 and you have the same thing, visualy as windows 95. So why in absence of network or other special things, Vista cannot run on a w95 computer? See where I'm going to?

It's not like in six months all the computers will have doubled their speed or like a 3d effect is going to revolutionize the way we share and process informations.

There is also a big difference albeit not as big, with the w98-to-Xp era and today. For the same reason: computer hardwares don't evoluate as fast as before.

5 years ago, you could buy the fastest processor on the shelve, one moth later a friend of you would show up boasting an even faster one.

Today we rely on dual core and we hold our breath on the quad core promises.

Now let's say Xp needs 512 Mb (of memory) to run smoothly (not the minimum requirement but where we are confortable), and w98 128 Mb. That's 384 Mb more.

To be logic Vista sholdn't use more than 384 Mb more than Xp, which is 896 Mb, let's say 1 Gb. That's almost that, except that it's the minimum requirement instead of the confort zone.

What I mean is that requirement can't increase exponentialy forever. One day you have to stop and stay were we are.

Looking at what 10 years old boxes were already capable of and how close 5 years old ones are to nowadays computers, it's hard to understand why a new version of windows still need x times more resource to even boot....

I mean 2, 3 or 5 years old computers are not "clearly not up to the task" of running windows Vista. Hence the bad impression.

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