Windows Vista

Anyone got it yet.. If so I wouldn't mind seeing screen shots.. The multiple layering of the windows looks pretty cool. What is the requirements for MS Vista??

Here's a video of what the new accelerated desktop can do. These are apps take advantage of the new features.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gX4mwK09KxQ

Vista will be a nice upgrade IMO. DX10 is pretty amazing in what it can do, but I'm waiting for the hardware manufacturers to get everything together. Sounds like some drivers aren't quite there.

I had it, along with Office 2007 about a month ago.

s

XP vs Vista Breakdown
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/01/29/xp-vs-vista/

for the low end of it all:

Windows Vista Home Basic
Recommended system requirements
1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor

512 MB of system memory

20 GB hard drive with at least 15 GB of available space

Support for DirectX 9 graphics and 32 MB of graphics memory

DVD-ROM drive

Audio Output

Internet access (fees may apply)

Actual requirements and product functionality may vary based on your system configuration

I will never use it, to me it's the next ME...

Had it and Office 2007 since last fall (Volume License customer). Nothing impressive about Vista, went back to XP since most software doesn't work with Vista yet. That said, I really like Office 2007. Its much different (in a good, more useable way) than Office 2003. Not *quite* 100% stable yet, but not bad for a first-release Microsoft product.

And the thing that's even funnier is that Linux had shit like that back in the '90's, which means that Unix did as well. Funny how most of the decent computer software that people go really gaga over came initially from Xerox, they just didn't give a shit about it (stupid them).

Just invested in a copy of XP Pro. Luckily I have contacts at MS so got it from the Employee Store for $40 rather than the extortionate normal price. Not gonna be hopping on the Vista bandwagon for at least 12 months, been using it a little at work on a test machine - seems to be ok, nothing to write home about tho.

fawwwwwwwwwwwwk I need a hookup like that for XP Pro.

Think I'll wait untill they get the quirks worked out and release some updates. I got a hookup of XP pro from a friend's sister who works for MS for $30. Office Pro 03 was $70. Hopefully I can get the same rate next time and get them both for $100 again when they're debugged.

Best I've seen for XP Pro for the general consumer is $140 with a free upgrade to Vista. Check Global COmputers or Tiger Direct. Not sure if they're still offering that though now that Vista is out....

Employees can only spend $600 a year in the store, but they get those nice cheap prices on everything. Vista is $45 according to my friend - but the employee store sold out right away.

I finally gave up trying to use a downloaded illegal copy - MS won with their annoying inability to upgrade with an illegal copy

It depends...a friend of mine is a director up there (on the Xbox 360 team) and gets a $1000 allowance. The irony is that it doesn't apply to Xbox games so he has to pay face value.

MS have an EPP program too if your company has lots of MS licenses etc. https://epp.microsoft.com/ Should be a good discount over retail. Contacted our IT department a few times but nobody ever got with them to get me a code We have EPP through Dell which gives us pretty good discounts on computers.

Found this and had to laugh.....sorry for the size, but if it were much smaller, you'd lose the wording....

They did? That's news to me...

We have that too, but it doesn't list Vista or Office 2007 as one of the things we can buy. Actually it's doesn't list Windows XP anymore when I checked it today. Hopefully it will be there sometime, I don't mind spending $20.00 on Vista just to look at it. I also hope when they release the next Office Mac it will be on this list too, the others are.

That's the best chart I have seen yet

Ironically, it's one of the more accurate too...

I'm not upgrading. I'll just get a new machine with it pre-installed, but I'm in no hurry to do so - the only thing compelling (at home, anyway) for Vista is DirectX 10. Since there are no games that I just have to have that require DirectX 10, I'm good.

My current home computer is decent but I've noticed it's a bit sluggish with some programs so I'm looking for a new computer with Vista preinstalled. While reading Vista reviews I came across this site:

http://www.windowsvistatestdrive.com

thats cool.. Im going to wait till they get all the bugs out.

Ill never upgrade to Vista.

Time to buy an Apple

So your never going to go to Vista?

I don't know, the quality just doesn't seem to be there any more. Mine didn't survive a 5 foot drop to a concrete parking lot!

Actually the MacBook Pro survived pretty well, a few scratches and dents to the back of the case. The Hard disk and Optical disk are a different story. Tough way to get an unplanned upgrade to a bigger hard disk and dual layer dvd drive.

if thats the case.. Yea..

blah blah 1-2 years from now you will all be using vista and complaining about the next MS operating system that comes out.

Just install it and get it over with I'm hoping to get a copy from our MS TAM at work for cheap if I can.

And office 2007 is pretty neat. Lot to get used to for an end user though. And I didn't think it ran to well on XP PRO, but co workers says it runs great on Vista.

Did you say that when ME came out??

It's funny, because Microsoft has another OS about 6 months away from beta testing (according to one of the magazines I get - couldn't tell you which one because they're all at work). So why would I want to blow some coin on Vista when Microsoft doesn't think it's worth a damn?

As for Office 2k7. I am going to justify to my boss tomorrow morning why we should keep our SBS2003 (hell it's bullet proof - that's right a Microsoft server OS is bullet proof) and XP Pro machines, but upgrade all our machines to Office 2k7. I love the new look and functionality.

X2 on Chef Tyler comments, though "bulletproof" is a bit over an over-statement... then again, compared to our remaining Win2kServers..

Edit- What if its just a server O/S though? MS wouldnt push this hard on VISTA and already have something in the works....

MGJ

to hell with MS - I have an older IBM laptop that I was about ready to trash when a friend turned me on to Linux. I tried a several different distros (Puppy, Ubuntu, Fedora, Pocket) until I finally settled on Mandriva 2007 - its running great on a 700Mhz processor, 256MB of RAM and an 11 GIG hard drive... it came with OpenOffice (free, great MS Office replacment), and Firefox. I downloaded Thunderbird for my email reader and I'm in business.

http://www.windowsxlive.net/index.php?page_id=15

the above will give the Vista look... Google and Yahoo have great widgets...

and life goes on.

I will upgrade to Vista when I upgrade my pc.

Life is good now, don't need to "feed the MS bear"

So why reply to a "Windows Vista" thread?

My bad, forgot to mention the compared to Server 2k 2k3 does make things easy to take care of

As for why is MS pushing this hard, they can make a ton of money by having everyone move to Vista only to have to replace it with the next version when everyone figures out Vista is just the next ME.

The new server OS is Windows Server Longhorn (IIRC once again, the magazine is @ work), and I won't be upgrading it (unless my boss forces me to...bit of a gadget freak).

5 Trucks to you!! This program looks AWESOME!! Something definately worth looking into if you just want the loos of Vista with the stability of XP(yes, I said stability....I haven't had any problems with XP Pro SP2 :p )

So what? Then the cycle repeats and continues just like it has for every OS. Doesn't matter if a new one is coming out. My point is lots of people think the new OS always sucks, they stole this and that, blah blah. These same people eventually end up using the "latest one" anyways and quietly forget their arguments. (unless their mac users and go mac i have nothing against macs)

These are all the same arguments everyone had about 2000 and XP when they came out as well. Doesn't matter if they have a new one next month ready to go. It'll still get bitched about and eventually used

Embrace daddy gates!!!! He will set your soul free!

And yes to the other person. I used ME to see how it was for a while. So did tons of people. Many did not. And no I don't think I was registered here for that argument. What's your point?

"Embrace daddy gates!!!! He will set your soul free!"

That's just wrong!!!

Saying Vista is equivalent to ME is ridiculous.

ME was a last in the line upgrade to the Windows 95 product line. It gave a bit of a face lift to people not ready to step up to Windows 2000 which was part of the NT product line.

Vista on the other hand is very similar to Windows 2000, in that the basic architecture of the OS is a significant step away from what XP was, as 2000 was away from Windows 95/98. The difference between the two is 2000 was never really marketed to the home user. XP was intended to bring the 2000/NT architecture to the home user. Vista on the other hand is being marketed to both home and business users.

Anyone who tells you MS has another OS waiting to overtake Vista in the wings is misinformed. Longhorn is Vista, Vista is Longhorn. They were branched in mid 2005, and Longhorn is the SERVER platform, not the desktop platform. Unless you run server 2003 on your home machine, you'll have no interest in Longhorn. It went into beta at the same time Vista did by the way... Before that they were the same project.

You can expect a very similar life cycle to what you saw with XP in Vista. Probably about 5 years. There will be service packs, obviously, in the meantime.

Coop, I am well aware of the Longhorn to Vista/Server Longhorn timeline. As for Vista being marketed directly to business and home users how do you think XP was marketed? Heck they had a Professional and a Home version. Also, MS says their new OS timetable is usually 3 years...not 5, so I fully expect a new OS to begin beta testing within the next 6-12 months as that would put the new OS back on their regular new OS schedule.


ETA: Vista and Longhorn aren't the same thing...Longhorn had a completely different file system that MS figured out it would be too big a step from the NTFS and FAT32 world...

They certainly ARE the same code base. WinFS, the new file system will quite possibly be included in a Vista service pack. That's all speculation at this point, but any talk about any release beyond Vista at this point is nothing more than speculation as MS hasn't publicly said more than what their code names are.

If you think you'll see a MS consumer operating system in beta in 6-12 months, it'll be news to MS. We'll see Vista SP1 released pretty much at the same time as 'Longhorn' Server Probably 6-10 months from now. If you're hearing about Windows 'Fiji' that will be SP1.

Vienna/Blackcomb is what will be the next major release, and while I've seen speculation that it will be released in 2009, that's just not realistic to bring a product of this scale to market. 2009 is about when you can start to expect the beta campaign to begin for this release.

Has anyone here installed it or worked with it yet?
The company I work for is an MS partner, so we get all their software as part of the deal, so I got to set up a test system at work today.

First I tried making CD images from the version that's a DVD with CD images. The install kept crashing on the 2nd or 3rd CD, so no joy on the Frankenstein test machine I was using. I googled the error, tons of people getting the same error, with no real solution (and NOTHING on the MS KB!)
After trying a few things with no luck, I scavenged a DVD drive from another PC, put that in the test box, and installed from the regular DVD. Worked perfectly!

Haven't had time to mess with it much yet. Just got it on the domain, installed SAVCE, and the Citrix client (Check Point client is next)- man this is gonna take some getting use to. Gotta find out how to turn off that stupid user control thing or whatever it's called. One of our other techs went ahead and upgraded his laptop (that was bold!) and he's lovin' it.

For the record, this was a fresh install. My coworker did the upgrade from XP Pro SP2. He did it about a week ago and is not having any problems.

Not even worth arguing over. My sources tell me something different than yours do, that's why they're sources and not PR contacts

I have used Vista since it came out, I did not pay for it a friend gave me a cracked copy, however there are a lot of compatibility issues, and it is sluggish at times and I have a above average setup. I will be moving back to XP, probably a version called TinyXP, it is XP stripped and runs like the wind. If you are somewhat computer savvy and want a fast OS, try out TinyXP built by eXperience, you can find it on the web, just make sure to get revision 5.

If you got a hacked/cracked copy, it was likely a beta... and was a poor representation of the final product.

It runs best at about 4 gigs of RAM... yeah, I know... that's a lot... but that's the way it feels, everytime we see Windows Upgrades.

Shawn

The machine I'm testing on was newly build from spare not so great components we happen to have lieing around. It performs better than I expected, but I don't have and XP bench mark on this particular machine to compare.

However, my coworker, who upgraded his XP SP3 based laptop reports, it performs the same as XP, and he has had no compatibility issues.

The only issue I had was the install - it would not install from CD, but when I swapped out the CD drive for a DVD drive and installed from DVD, it worked fine.

So far no problems on either of our systems, which I find shocking.