Why Vista?

[prx984]

A Kia Rio can haul you back and forth to work daily without issue.

A BMW 745iL can haul you back and forth to work daily without issue.

Why might someone buy a BMW over a Kia?

Why might someone buy Vista over XP?

cost/status

also, not too many people need that kind of performance from a computer, when you look at the average user market, what do they do? email and web surfing.

some people play games and stuff, and if they want to spend the money and buy a bloated OS (thats just because of the gui) then they can go ahead. but for the average user, XP is more than enough. its user friendly, speedy, and best of, friggin reliable.

theres more to life than computers, so why does MS consistently put out larger and larger os's?

in my opinion, they can put out an OS that doesnt need a smokin' fast computer and still be reliable. look at nLite, with that program you can slim down an install to quite a bit, why does MS bundle all that stuff? in the off chance that someone might use it

what they really should do, is make a home users edition that isnt 7gb to install. instead, they will release a home version thats a little under 7gb, when all of it can condensed into 900mb or less.

/rant

Edited August 23, 2006 by Cygnus

[Albuquerque]

also, not too many people need that kind of performance from a computer, when you look at the average user market, what do they do? email and web surfing. some people play games and stuff, and if they want to spend the money and buy a bloated OS (thats just because of the gui) then they can go ahead.

And where do they buy their computer? Best Buy? Circuit City? CompUSA? Dell? And which of those four companies is going to bundle Vista instead of XP? A dollar and a free cup of coffee says ALL OF THEM.

And are these generic users you speak of going to be smart enough to upgrade to Vista? Probably not, they won't care, and you're generally right in that they'll never know the difference.

But for the average user, XP is more than enough. its user friendly, speedy, and best of, friggin reliable.

Arguable... It's user friendly according to who? A 40 year old housewife, or a 25 year old guy who's been using a computer for the last 15 years of his life?

It's "speedy" when compared to what? Windows 3.1 on a 486DX2/66 booted faster, loaded faster and navigated windows faster. Windows 95 on a Pentium 233 probably went just as fast.

It's reliable compared to what? MSDOS 5.0 on a 386? Windows ME on a P3/733? In what way is it reliable? Is it reliable when you have dependable hardware? Is it reliable when you update drivers? Is it reliable when it gets infected with spyware?

Theres more to life than computers, so why does MS consistently put out larger and larger os's?

Why do people consistenly want more and more features? What else were you going to do with that extra 0.5% of the CPU it's taking up? What were you going to do with that extra 150mb of memory? Remember when XP first came out, computers with 256mb of memory were "normal"? You should, because even 128mb computers were being sold (at the low end) as normal. We're now at the point where 512mb is ridiculously cheap, and 1GB is becoming "the norm." When Dell bundles a Vista machine with a dual core processor and a gig of ram (the ram is being specified directly by Microsoft) your "normal user" is going to have no problem using the operating system -- even if it takes up 350mb to boot. Even if they play some basic Mahjongg it's going to be fine. And the uber gamers? Well, you don't expect to be a "leet gamer" on a $700 cheap rig, now do you?

And what about 7gb of space used? Who cares? When harddrive capacity can be purchased for ~35 cents a gig, why should we whine about 7gb of data? It's approximatley 4% of your entire disk on cheap 160gb drive. Maybe you're even CHEAPER and are trying to use an 80gb drive? Fine, it's like 9% of your disk. But when you buy a PC at that price point, you probably aren't going to care that you "only" have 70gb left for storage.

People keep bringing up the whole "bloated" issue, but I've yet to see how Vista is bloated when loaded on a current computer versus when XP was released on then-current computer hardware.

[prx984]

if your like me, you'll get irritated if you have to buy a new computer every 5 years just to have a supported platform. not everyone is made of money.

i have a 1999 model dell inspiron running windows XP pro and another laptop of the same model running 2000 pro. both computers run good. why do i need to upgrade when microsoft decides to outdate XP and 2000 and then i cant get on the net because the browser needs at least vista. as far as we know, firefox may not longer be supported on XP or 2000 after a few years, just like theyre dropping 9X support.

windows xp is reliable if the user doesnt do stupid things. they usually do that, then blame the manufacturer. nobody takes responsibility for thir own actions anymore.

now, i dont want to start anything, so ill just say, its totally up to the user with what they want to do with theyre own computer.

i use windows XP on an AMD athlon XP 1800+ with 640mb of ram and an ATi Radeon 9200 SE. its a decent computer and is in no hurry to be upgraded. windows vista ran pathetically on it. took 3 minutes to boot up, 20 seconds to load an explorer windows. control panel locked up (or else i got pi$$ed at it and closed it too soon because it was taking a long time to bring up all the icons). thats my experience with it, so thats why im mad at it.

[Albuquerque]

if your like me, you'll get irritated if you have to buy a new computer every 5 years just to have a supported platform. not everyone is made of money. <snipped the rest>

Irritated? No, I'm really not. Part of living is acknowledging that things change on a continuous basis which forces you to stay moving or get left behind and die. Other common examples might be: job duties, relationships (romantic and friendly), kids, income, cars, houses, health, clothes and of course electronics.

If you don't want to keep up, then don't. Simple as that, and nobody is going to force you. I have an old HP Vectra XA -- a P-166MMX with 192mb of ram, a 4200RPM 4gb drive, a pair of 3C905C nics and an old Matrox Millenium 2064W 2mb video card. It works fantastically as a firewall, NAT, DNS, internet cache, QoS, telnet and FTP host. It runs Windows 2000 and has chugged along nicely for the past seven years.

I will never on God's green earth put Vista on that machine. Why should I? Nothing that Vista offers is needed on that box. So what if Windows 2000 goes "out of support"? I still have drivers, I still have backup discs, the box doesn't need anything else.

But if you DO want to keep up (as you've stated) then you DO have to upgrade eventually. I'm sorry, that's just the way it is. Nobody's forcing your hand either way, but don't complain about something you want to do. All things come to an end, and you can't stay in the past forever. Nobody is going to feel sorry for someone who still wants to have their C64 supported, or their PS1 supported, or their Windows 3.11 supported. The same way that, in 10 years, nobody's going to feel sorry that XP isn't supported either.

[prx984]

i didnt say i wanted to upgrade, im just angry (im guessing for nothing) that they may stop support for windows XP and then IE or FireFox may not be supported on it, then ill be SOL.

windows xp is my os of choice, if i need to use and older os, i will.

if they stop support for XP, thats fine. ill just forget about computers and such because by that time, i'll be working full time with no time for this stuff.

if your like me, you'll get irritated if you have to buy a new computer every 5 years just to have a supported platform. not everyone is made of money.

if you thought that i meant that i wanted to keep up by that, you were wrong. sorry for mis-clarification. all i meant is that people may get fed up if MS keeps putting OS's out and forcing people to upgrade.

[liquidguru]

ok,

as i stated, i really don't want this thread to get too heated...i do want to upgrade to vista (eventually)..of course i do...technology and software will always improve with time ...

i have been using windows since version 2...i have really enjoyed using XP for the last six years...i know windows as a dedicated user...and i love new and improved versions of software

it seems though that there is no real point for me to move to vista until my application software has been fully re-written to exploit all the new enhancements vista will offer. Will software companies like Adobe make software packages that will have to be compatible with Vista/XP/2000, or will they produce separate versions for Vista?...either way it looks like i will have to wait a while after the initial official release of vista to see significant improvements in performance when using high-end hardware.

[emodel]

Nobody is going to feel sorry for someone who still wants to have their C64 supported, or their PS1 supported, or their Windows 3.11 supported. The same way that, in 10 years, nobody's going to feel sorry that XP isn't supported either.

I do because Id really like to install win3.11, which is just perfect to me (interface etc).

Well.

[prx984]

I do because Id really like to install win3.11, which is just perfect to me (interface etc).

Well.

windows 3.11 was uber 1337

it was a good os, for its time. it was actually more stable than win98 imo. although, you couldn't do too much with it. my elementary school used it until around 99, then they switched to win98. some computers were running windows 95 until about 2002, then they were all 98. now theyre just bringing XP in, and they have it looking like 98 >_< exact color scheme too, not even the one from 2000/me (which was nicer imo)

[Albuquerque]

Nobody is going to feel sorry for someone who still wants to have their C64 supported, or their PS1 supported, or their Windows 3.11 supported. The same way that, in 10 years, nobody's going to feel sorry that XP isn't supported either.

I do because Id really like to install win3.11, which is just perfect to me (interface etc).

Well.

You can still install it, nothing is really stopping you. Your video card undoubtedly supports VESA video modes, so install away. Just don't try installing it on a partition larger than 2GB, and it may be slightly more difficult to get anything resembling current software to run on it.

it seems though that there is no real point for me to move to vista until my application software has been fully re-written to exploit all the new enhancements vista will offer. Will software companies like Adobe make software packages that will have to be compatible with Vista/XP/2000, or will they produce separate versions for Vista?...either way it looks like i will have to wait a while after the initial official release of vista to see significant improvements in performance when using high-end hardware.

No, applications do not have to be completely rewritten. A lot of the kernel overhaul provides improved performance, stability and security to current (and past) applications. Examples: use of the cool TOE, RSS and RDMA acceleration functions in the new network stack is entirely transparent to existing applications. Depending on the NIC hardware you have (or purchase) your app could see a 40% increase in network throughput with no additional coding. Same goes for audio: using the much higher speed, much lower latency and much less kernel-overhead-inducing audio stack is also entirely transparent to existing applications.

But in both cases, even more functionality can be extracted if the app is patched or updated to support the better featureset. But that's not to say it requires an entirely seperate code base -- just like you can have a game that works on all graphics platforms from DX7 thru DX10. Yeah, if you want to play an older game, it will still work and likely will benefit (in performance) from some of the new technology under the hood. But if you want all the newest features, the app will need to provide a seperate "mode" to use them all. That doesn't mean the same app couldn't work on 2000/XP/2003...

[bonestonne]

if your like me, you'll get irritated if you have to buy a new computer every 5 years just to have a supported platform. not everyone is made of money.

i didn't go out and buy a new computer, in fact, the one i run vista is on is slower than $h!t compared to the others on this forum. just look at my sig, then realize i run Windows Vista. works just as well as XP. Vista isn't a complete OS, at least not the one i have, so it worked perfectly. it installs over XP. being as i have this computer, and it can run 3 different OS's, its all good.

its not exactly buying new, but ugrading. having a new OS just takes some experimenting. disable defualt features until you find a setup that you like. i disabled automatic updating, so i update/install only what i want to. sure i get popups saying windows defender is outdated, but i dont use Windows Defender. if you mix and match the right programs/settings, you can have a new system in an old computer that runs just as well as anything else.

[Pete_]

I looked the screenshots and upgrades than comes with Vista, personally i think all the 3d-thing, Rolex-clock in the right hand menu, RDS-news feeds, etc. are only tiny tiny enhancements, is there really anything usefull updates? Wouldn't want to give 15gb for Vista, only for these and some new games like Mahjongg

Maybe you should do more reading and less looking at the pictures?

It isn't even based on the same kernel anymore. WDDM (D3D10) is enough to write a book on; the new way it handles audio streams could be similarly long. The entirely new network stack and kernel level interface with TOE/RSS/RDMA functions take up about 100 pages in their whitepaper form and is incredibly different than what we have now. Native support for IA32/IA64/x86-64 architectures versus some tacked-on BS with XP is also incredibly different. Even the entirely new driver interface is WORLDS better in terms of performance, stability and functionality than the NT5.x kernel.

To someone who just looks at the screenshots, you might somehow say "well, you can do that with XP." The reality is, no you can't. You can't have sub-0.5ms response times from any audio streams let alone ones processed in full 32-bit floating point format. You can't virtualize video ram and send "multithreaded" apps to GPU functional resources. You can't use TCPOE technology nor receive side scaling on your network interface, the list can go on for miles. What is all that crap I just spewed and why is any of that important? Maybe you should go read a bit

I've mentioned it before on this forum elsewhere, and I'm going to reiterate it here. Vista will be the single biggest leap into new OS technology that Microsoft has ever undertaken. And yeah, it's going to soak up more resources because of the new features.

A Kia Rio can haul you back and forth to work daily without issue.

A BMW 745iL can haul you back and forth to work daily without issue.

Why might someone buy a BMW over a Kia?

Why might someone buy Vista over XP?

Yes ofcourse theres is something new, otherwise there wouldn't be sense to sell it, because nobody would buy it (This was mostly a joke, because every vista page, is showing huge collection of screenshots and the 3d effects, but its not even nearly the reasons why people will buy it when it comes out)

[Thunderbolt 2864]

No offense why did Microsoft design an operating system that uses massive and high end hardware? What the hell is Microsoft thinking? Guess they want more money, its all about money for all businesses.

I personally won't be using Vista too soon. I'll stick with XP, it works fine, thanks.

[prx984]

No offense why did Microsoft design an operating system that uses massive and high end hardware? What the hell is Microsoft thinking? Guess they want more money, its all about money for all businesses.

I personally won't be using Vista too soon. I'll stick with XP, it works fine, thanks.

finally, someone that thinks much like me

if they wanna go ahead and do it, fine, just dont stop support on the older os MS. thats all im asking.

[Albuquerque]

No offense why did Microsoft design an operating system that uses massive and high end hardware? What the hell is Microsoft thinking? Guess they want more money, its all about money for all businesses.

I personally won't be using Vista too soon. I'll stick with XP, it works fine, thanks.

You just got done typing that? But then in your sig you have more hardware than Vista needs already at your disposal?

Try installing Vista on a 1.4ghz P3 with 512mb of ram, a 64mb GeForce3 and a 4200RPM 40gb drive. Guess what? It actually works just fine. I don't understand why everyone assumes it absolutely requires uber-end hardware to run?

If you want to use all the FEATURES of your brand new hardware, you should probably buy Vista. XP has crappy multiprocessor support, has crappy tack-on 64-bit support... Why are people griping?

[fizban2]

Hardware that is massive today and high by next year will be outdated and slow, Microsoft has to design their OS so it will scale with the hardware that will be out in 5 years and like every OS before it it will be in use for as long as possible. Granted right now that mean you need what is considered "high end" today to run vista(though you really don't anything over a 2.0 with a gig of ram will work). for MS to scale vista so that it will be able to work well with tech that will be coming out soon they have to push what is needed for the OS to run.

@thunderbolt

your system seems a pretty high end to me, you shouldn't have any issue with vista,