What are you getting out of Vista vs. XP? PLEASE READ!

[jdhurst]

I am very pleased that people are offering all these tips. I am reading and learning from them. I printed much of this thread and filed it in my Vista folder.

My point is being tripped over with all the good advice. Microsoft takes a tool that require zero configuration and exterminates it. Then they provide tools that people have to work on and figure out (= effort applied) to come to the point they used to be at (zero effort).

I have said my piece about Microsoft and will sign off. ... JDH

[tomh009]

But you should keep in mind that you (and I, and many of the posters on these forums) are not typical users. As a practical example, practically all non-technical users whose systems I have seen have stored their files in either (My) Documents or on the desktop ...

So the fact that Explorer shows Documents by default makes things easy for the 98% of non-technical users, at the cost of some adjustments for that remaining 2%. It's the tyranny of the non-technical majority.

[mattbiernat]

I couldn't stand the new explorer either. that's what made me roll back to XP.

[arni]

This KB article explains all explorer.exe command line switches. They are all the same thru every windows version beginning from w95 to Vista. The only thing that doesn't work in Vista is changing the default explorer view. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/130510/EN-US/

Just type explorer /root,c:\ and you ready to go.

[CrunchDude2]

I previously complained how much slower Vista RC2 was compared to XP. Yesterday, I received a T42 on which the seller had installed Vista Home Premium and have been playing with it for several hours. With eye candy removed and video settings optimized for performance, it feels significantly faster than my previous experiences with RC2, even though this T42 only has 768MB RAM. I don't know whether that's due to the 7200rpm HDD I'm using (vs. 5400rpm or 4200rpm in the past), or whether that reflects the difference between RC2 and the finished product.

That's the good news. The bad news is, the display still looks crappy at non-native resolutions. It looks sharp only at the native resolution, 1400x1050. This is surprising because many people have said that Vista is much better than XP in this regard.

There is an app called LiquidView, which works great. When I had a UXGA display (which I kind of miss, now I have SXGA+), I was able to switch it to SXGA+ and even XGA and it displayed everything just as clearly as the native resolution.

[tomh009]

I couldn't stand the new explorer either. that's what made me roll back to XP.

Hmmmm. I actually prefer the new Explorer. Much cleaner user interface, and better use of space (tree view underneath the favourite locations) -- important on an XGA display.

[K0LO]

Just type explorer /root,c:\ and you ready to go.

Or even simpler on Vista:

Code: Select all

C:\

[LasseFJ]

While I do wan't to use the latest operating system, I simply find the performance of vista on my system to be appalling! I upgraded it from 1gb to 2gb of RAM, and now it's my harddisk that's being abused by vista.

Sometimes the performance is so downright slow, that my harddisk clutter up a download of 400kb/s, due to not being able to do what the system is forcing it to do...

I won't change OS, but I will have to buy a faster harddisk at some time b4 i loose all my hair!!!

[KristianJ]

While I do wan't to use the latest operating system, I simply find the performance of vista on my system to be appalling! I upgraded it from 1gb to 2gb of RAM, and now it's my harddisk that's being abused by vista.

Sometimes the performance is so downright slow, that my harddisk clutter up a download of 400kb/s, due to not being able to do what the system is forcing it to do...

I won't change OS, but I will have to buy a faster harddisk at some time b4 i loose all my hair!!!

What system you running it on? My HDD's only an 80GB 5400rpm and Vista's working reasonably well on my T42. A 7200rpm drive is on the cards, but not quite yet.

That said, I'm not at all displeased with my Vista experience so far. Some minor niggles with compatibility, and I can't get my head around Media Center and making it recognise all my media files on my external hard drive (not that I was really planning to use it anyway), but it's what I expected it to be for my T42 - a competent OS that will improve as the updates continue.

[tomh009]

While I do wan't to use the latest operating system, I simply find the performance of vista on my system to be appalling! I upgraded it from 1gb to 2gb of RAM, and now it's my harddisk that's being abused by vista.

Sometimes the performance is so downright slow, that my harddisk clutter up a download of 400kb/s, due to not being able to do what the system is forcing it to do...

I won't change OS, but I will have to buy a faster harddisk at some time b4 i loose all my hair!!!

How long have you been running Vista? This sounds like the initial indexing of documents, which normally completes in a few days, depending on the number of documents and emails on your system.

[LasseFJ]

As the headline states, i've been running vista for 7 months. I've reinstalled 3 times in that period. The reason that i've reinstalled is not vista's fault, it's my own because I clutter it up. However, I must say that vista is extremely good at not being cluttered up, and getting slow compared to Xp.

My system is a Lenovo z61m:
T5500 CPU, 1.66Ghz
2048gb 667mhz ram
80gb 5400rpm harddisk

I have no idea why my harddrive is being pummeled, but i guess it's a combination of my usage and the harddrive being slow...

I'm quite a heavy user, and i run several heavy programs on it, at the same time. But the performance fall is huge, comparing vista to Xp.

I'm on my 3rd fresh install of vista now, and I think i'm going to use acronis ghosting software from now on, so I can reinstall without problems.

[tomh009]

I would recommend watching your processes with Task Manager to determine who's doing all that disk I/O. As I suggested in another thread, open Task Manager, maximize it, go to View > Select Columns and add I/O Read Bytes and I/O Write Bytes. Now sort by either of those columns and watch which process(es) are racking up the I/O numbers.

[MaloventEvil]

vista is BY FAR the best operating system that i have ever used. i don't know where all this hate is coming from. People who install it and expect it to be exactly the same as XP are obviously going to be dissatisfied.

It is much faster, more secure, and easier to use. (Ease of use comes after you toss away the notion of "the xp way" to do things, and genuinely give it a try.)

[MaloventEvil]

I couldn't stand the new explorer either. that's what made me roll back to XP.

Hmmmm. I actually prefer the new Explorer. Much cleaner user interface, and better use of space (tree view underneath the favourite locations) -- important on an XGA display.

+1

[erik]

Explorer.exe (available in 2000, XP and Vista) opens to My Documents. You then have to navigate to open the contents of C:

Explorer.scf (available in 2000 and XP but not in Vista) opens to the tree view of Drive C: instantly. I could not get Vista to do that (despite favourites and shortcuts).

i solved that by changing my explorer shortcut to...
"%systemroot%\explorer.exe /n, /e, ::{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}"
...to open to the root of 'computer' as i have multiple partitions spread over two drives.

"%systemroot%\explorer.exe /n, /e, c:\" will open into the tree view of c:\.

problem solved.

[ashleys]

I use explorer in the same way as posted above by Erik.

Furthermore, to remove the very annoying "Files Stored On This Computer" in explorer, delete the following registry key,

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\
Explorer\MyComputer\NameSpace\DelegateFolders

sub-key {59031a47-3f72-44a7-89c5-5595fe6b30ee}