Windows Vista - A Users Experience

[Marc]

Hello all,

I would love to share some thoughts about the new operating system from Windows called Vista.

I needed to upgrade a computer from XP Pro to Vista. The computer has 1.5 gig of Ram and a quite a fast cpu for a laptop. In runs super fast with Linux and was doing quite well on XP.

So how is Vista running you ask? Well the machine runs at at least 20% cpu when I am not using it because of the new "super cool index feature" which by the way doesn't find half the stuff I would expect to.

Most of the ram is all taken up - 950mb to run Vista while Outlook and Word are running!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Surfing the net is very slow - which I found is a major problem in Vista and there are ways to fix that "if you are a nerd".

Oh and by the way I am writing this post on another computer (4 years old) which is running ubuntu linux on 512 mb of ram with all my development tooling running, email application running and surfing the net and a very fast speed. I currently cannot use my machine because the "very cool" new index function on Vista has hijacked my machine and I find it impossible to use while its running.

You can switch off the index function if you are a nerd.

I must say I am more than disappointed in Vista as now I have to wait for my machine to catch up with me. By the end of the week this "Virus" will be off all my machines and the Vista DVD will be used as a coffee coaster which really all its good for.

I wil go back to XP pro where all my software works and there are no "cool new features" that do not require over 10 gigs of ram to use.

Even better I should just go all the way with Linux.

Cheers

marc

"Don't buy Vista"

[whitt]

Thanks for the update Marc

[cube]

Similar experiences from my work place - my PC has a little sticker on it saying "Designed for Windows 2000 Pro/NT 4.0", so isn't likely to get an upgrade to Vista anytime soon.

cube

[Marc]

yeah its just mental - the Vista machine is constantly hammering the disks even though I have turned of indexing. When I did have indexing on which is default I searched for a file by its name and I knew it was in one of the directories that is indexed - it couldn't find it!

My computer now runs so slow its impossible to use in a productive manner.

I did notice a major slow down in transferring files within directories on the same computer - it was crap - I searched the net and some new cool feature was the cause of the slow down!!

Surfing the net is slow as well unless you turn off some compression stuff and IPv6 support.

Basically my machine is so slow now it causes me to waste time. Vista is off all my machines by the end of the week. I cannot understand why they are selling something which clearly is a MASSIVE resource hog.

If you take a look at ubuntu which is a Linux distro you will see some really good stuff - I think in a years time it will be super easy to install and use for the non-nerd - its very fast and smart already and has a great windows like look and feel. The only reason I am not fully on ubuntu is due to a couple of development tools which I need. I am trying to find applications on the net which I can use instead.

oh and by the way ALL my software on ubuntu is FREE!!!

Cheers

marc

[RentMaster]

I have a PC which I have set up as dual boot with Vista beta2 and Windows XP Pro.

I will not be using Vista again. It is too slow as you say Marc. I was trying to delete a few files and it took for ever to delete each one. And all the security warnings which keep popping up is too much to put up with. I know I can turn off all the security warning, but it seems like a backwards step.

I haven't tried linux though. I run a lot of PC software, so I will stick with XP for now.

[No Regrets]

Thanks for the useful post marc. This backs up what I thought, I recently bought a new PC and looked long and hard for one that came with XP rather than Vista for the very concerns that you have just mentioned.

They were just my assumptions until now...so thanks for saving some time, as I was going to look into it in the near future.

To be honest, I dont have any problems with XP Pro, it is relativley stable and seems to do all that is needed of it reasonably well.

I think MS have dug a bit of a hole here!

Sounds like you are onto something with Linux there though!

[Monid]

As far as I could tell the only advances in Vista were the pretty factors (memory hogs) and maybe the using pendrives as extra memory thing which is nifty.

I couldn't see any other selling point, sure they claimed greater security, but since this mostly seemed to be a nag system and it was microsoft... Who believes it.

There will be two ways Vista ends up taking over though:
1. New PC sales (Although Dell are now shipping with Ubuntu as an option over here at least)
2. When users need more than 2 GB of RAM which seems to be all Windows XP can appropriately handle.

Cheers
David

[Marc]

Yeah - I feel sorry for anyone who buys a brand new laptop with Vista on it - someone told me that Vista's sweet spot is 4 gigs of ram!!

The nice pretty user interface known as Aero is a massive resource hog (my opinion) but if you search the net for Vista performance the first thing they will say is change to another appearance theme - I selected Vista Basic which seems to have given back some memory and increased the performance a little.

By the way there is a setting to speed up the transferring of files even within the same computer - you are very correct that on some machines moving, copying or deleting files takes so long you can make yourself a cup of tea before the task is completed.

Check out this web page if you don't believe my ramblings

http://www.petri.co.il/tweaking_window_vista_performance.htm

Ubuntu rocks by the way! I have not rebooted by ubuntu machine in over 30 days - yep 30 days its been running 24 hours per day - upgrades everthing - no crashes and no reboots!

Cheers

marc

[deliveryman]

i'm happy with.....

.....a win XP pro laptop with 2 gb of ram and almost all the microsoft services turned off. if you want to find more about how to do this, and generally speed things up a little and free up your memory a lot, have a look at

http://members.internettrash.com/megapolon/winxptweak.html

i plan on moving to a mac when my business is making enough money.....

[Heg]

We bought a Mac three days ago. Everyone keeps telling us we will never go back to PC.
Hmmmm. I am a creature of habit. Watch this space.

[deliveryman]

you can go back without going back.....

the reason i plan to shift is that you can take windows with you - i plan to use parallels desktop and a cheap copy of windows xp

http://www.parallels.com/en/products/desktop/

[Rhys]

umm nerd speak here but... the symptoms sound to me like you may have either no page file or not enough space allocated to it.

the result of the above being
1 - use all available memory,
2 - then then force paging in tiny chunks = use the CPU and hammer the disk

where as a huge page file =
1 - effiecient use of memory by holding only code and data rqd for programs currently executing
2 - effiecient paging by only clearing page file when application unloads
3 - effiecient use of CPU & disk by paging nice big chunks

I could be wrong but I often find XP will display the exact same symptoms if the page file is disabled.
r