A year later, Vista SP1 or XP SP3

[Fredledingue]

The same functionality is already there. Go to Control Panel > Programs and Features > "Turn Windows features on or off".

It's good start but it's far from what we need.

Half of the things we have no idea what they are talking about or we won't dare touch while many settings are not found there. And no on/off settings are certainly not there, such as passwords, color pickers and so on.

The window, actualy a dialog, is way too small. We are not working on 640x480 monitors anymore. With so many settings better take profit from the whole screen. The tree structure is not the much user friendly.

We need a real control console. Not a popup dialog.

As Mr Cobra said, it's only on/off options, it doesn't remove anything and we have no garantee that what we turned off won't be turned off by a third app or by windows itself as soon as we close the dialog or that the service is 100% iddle.

[AngelOfCake]

The constant thrashing of the HD.

I never experienced that

Jesus that use to drive me up the wall. I had raid 5 array of raptors and the noise that you would hear sometimes would drive me mad. if you disable superfetch it disappeared though.

Another complaint that I often hear is memory usage. I was rather shocked by this. When I installed I had dreams of an OS that would actually use the four gigs of ram I have installed and lightning fast startup times to applications I used most often. Never seen ram usage get above 3.5 gigs even with swapfile disabled. A little disappointed to be honest.

[Nexus_06]

I've been using windows since 3.11...

I am sticking to XP for now (which I just switched to THIS year, was using windows2000 still prior). I don't see ANY reason to upgrade to vista other than useless gadgets and eye candy which I can have on XP anyways.

DX10? please... not worth it for that alone. AFAIK no games require it yet.

I tend to skip over windows versions anyways, it seems to go release, beta, release, beta imo...

and vista is a retail beta version of windows7 imo, but that remains to be seen.

[epic]

Not too sure, Vista is a bit slower even with a high end system. I'm currently trying Vista again and is definitely something someone will need to acquire a taste / feel to, this eye candy GUI and the new start menu program scroll is too lacking...

Ok, so let's boot up. Select your profile and enter your password. Little Circle spinning stating Preparing Desktop, 5-10seconds, ok Microsofts way of stating "Oh your desktop loads faster". Well sure, after all the applications load in the background, mind you the "Preparing Desktop" screensaver is still displaying, then after those few seconds pass then pop your desktop is there. "Ooooo Ahhhh...." XP loaded much much faster without that "Preparing Desktop" gimmick. Heck, lets' just place the "Preparing Desktop" on XP SP4, XP will then load as fast as you can turn on the light switch!!

Still several visual defects in the GLASS UI bottom and right borders of each window. I've heard stories from some stating "it's suppose to look like glass," Well, quite frankly "GLASS" doesn't have that affect, if you ever worked in a GLASS FACTORY and actually seen glass you would know this. However, glass does give off a slight HUE or TINT on the edges displaying the coat (color) applied to it, but it's a DARK abstract of the glass color... NOT a "BRIGHT TURQUOISE BLUE." With VISTA, regardless of what color you change it to it's this "BRIGHT TURQUOISE BLUE!" Someone at Microsoft needs to get out more, instead of feeding their idealistic taste of what GLASS looks like. Hmmm BRIGHT TURQUOISE on BLACK or GOLD tinted glass?! Don't think so... /EndRant

A couple other issues I've discovered so far is the sequence at which VISTA restarts... Orb > Arrow > Restart ... Windows flickers to the login screen then back to the desktop, flickers a bit more... then finally states "Shutting Down"... didn't I just chose "RESTART"?! Soo, how about network sharing... wow what a knockoff... this is not what Microsoft "Claims" to be the simplest OS yet. Network sharing took me 15minutes to figure out and I'm very displeased by the friendliness, in order for me to share a folder from Vista to XP, I have to create the share > set everyone to the share permissions > THEN set everyone to the security perms, THEN make sure that directory is OWNED by the system administrator. Such a headache and a home user wouldn't have the slightest clue of what I just did. Secondly about Network sharing is after rebooting the system... the shares you removed (root$ shares) are back and the shares you've personally created are now missing.

Plus side of VISTA is there is Tiize (XPero & Vertigosity). I'm a big Tango fan and used Tango Patcher heavily on XP. Strong dislikes of Microsofts so called artistic ability. So, I get a taste of a Real Desktop.

For now I vote XP!

Edited September 18, 2008 by epic

[killerb255]

Whoever said Windows is one-size-fits-all is absolutely right.

In a nutshell, Windows is a jack-of-all-trades, master of none.

If you're an IT professional and want something better, use a Linux distro. Don't expect Microsoft to cater Windows ONLY to your group.

If you struggle with computers and Windows is too much of a hurdle, use a Mac. (although Vista seems to be a half-hearted effort in catering to the Mac group...)

Windows, in general, can do something for everyone, but can seldom 100% satisfy anyone.

Macs seldom satisfy the super-power computer geek haxxor person (I say seldom because Mac OSX is built on UNIX, which does allow control for the SPCGHP. )

On the same note, Grandma and Grandpa will seldom see any comfort with Linux (I say seldom because Ubuntu does provide some level of comfort, but its Linux roots are still there--grandparents shouldn't have to recompile anything--it should "just work")

To use a Dungeons & Dragons reference:

Mac = Fighter. Simple and effective. Gets the job done. Like the Fighter, the Mac has limited options for situations not optimized for it (Fighters can't cast Fireballs to toast large groups, while Macs can't run a good portion of the software out there). Attracts people because of the physique/muscles/showing-off/bling/whatever.

Linux = Mage. Plenty of options and tricks. Doesn't have much "bloat" (except for the spellcaster that learns useless spells, I guess). Turns people away because of initial awkwardness/introversion or arrogance ("I'm better than you are!").

Windows = 2nd Edition Bard. Can cast spells like the Mage and can bash stuff like the Fighter, but is not as good at either of those. Is not as socially awkward as the Mage/Linux nor does it have the physique of the Fighter/Mac.

Having said all that, I do like my Vista x64 box with 8 GB of RAM and a Q6600. XP 64 has had too many driver incompatibilities from my experience...

[cluberti]

Macs seldom satisfy the super-power computer geek haxxor person (I say seldom because Mac OSX is built on UNIX, which does allow control for the SPCGHP. )

Gotta call you out here just for correctness - Mac OS X is based on the Mach Kernel, which was derived from the Berkeley BSD implementation of NeXTStep (note that the actual name for the kernel is XNU - X is Not Unix). It is *not* a Unix. It's POSIX compliant, yes, but *not* a Unix. While a good post, I don't want noobs thinking that by using OS X, they're using a true Unix - they are not.

[beats]

Macs seldom satisfy the super-power computer geek haxxor person (I say seldom because Mac OSX is built on UNIX, which does allow control for the SPCGHP. )

Gotta call you out here just for correctness - Mac OS X is based on the Mach Kernel, which was derived from the Berkeley BSD implementation of NeXTStep (note that the actual name for the kernel is XNU - X is Not Unix). It is *not* a Unix. It's POSIX compliant, yes, but *not* a Unix. While a good post, I don't want noobs thinking that by using OS X, they're using a true Unix - they are not.

You're wrong. Mac OS X IS a certified UNIX. See: http://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/

That said, BSD is as close as UNIX can get. It's the UNIX that all other flavors are based upon. Nowadays, UNIX is just an expensive certification and licensing thing...

[cluberti]

You're wrong. Mac OS X IS a certified UNIX. See: http://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/

That said, BSD is as close as UNIX can get. It's the UNIX that all other flavors are based upon. Nowadays, UNIX is just an expensive certification and licensing thing...

Technically, only OS X 10.5 is a certified Unix (although I was unaware that it had received the certification - good find for you). I don't see 10.6 on that list, or 10.4 and older, meaning right now only 10.5 is a "true" Unix. As to it being an expensive licensing thing, maybe - the Unix certification means that any applications written for a Unix spec (in Apple's case, Unix 03) will run properly unmodified on the host system. And considering the highest license cost for the Unix trade mark is $110,000, it's not that expensive for a vendor to get the certification as a Unix if they pass the tests. It might not mean much to you or I on a desktop machine, but for servers and workstations in enterprise-grade environments, knowing that (when you need Unix) that you can buy anything on the list of certified Unices and they'll all conform to the standard is a big deal.