Some ramblings about Vista after moving from XP

Message

rckrchrdsn · #31 Post by **rckrchrdsn** » Sun Jan 20, 2008 12:11 pm

The biggest issue most people have with Vista are software that needs to be updated (drivers and applications) and the change in looks (training). Under W95, W97, and ME almost 95% of all crashes could be traced back poorly written ISV software and drivers. Manufacturers to push out updates that did not meet spec or even come close. DOS compatibility that EVERYONE had to have hurt Windows for YEARS. Mind you, it was great for Microsoft because it also stopped people from switching to other OSs.

So if you are going to try Vista, update your software if it is more than three years old. Make sure to pick up the right Vista drivers. If the hardware you have such as a printserver is more than 5 years old, replace it. If it has drivers it will be poorly written. It costs hardware manufacturers a lot to try and update old equipment to support new concepts. Sometime its just impossible and you get a driver that sucks and crashes. THOUGH, it is far easier to track that now. I have to give my thanks to Lenovo on the Vista updates, they write good drivers and my updated X31s run great with no crashes. That's one reason I am sticking with ThinkPads.

In the X series, the oldest laptop I would use with Vista is an X30, because of RAM. Though I suspect an issue with the video processors might be too old on the X30. I am a RAM monster so I wanted the 2Gb that I get with the X31. (I run VM's a lot for Linux.) The biggest issue I have with Vista is the inability to use a second screen, which was available under XP. However the drivers are considerably different and some lines have to be drawn AND this one is drawn by Lenovo. I suspect the 16Mb video card isn't worth their time to tweak to the point where it could use two screens under Vista and 8Mbs each... However the support of resolutions is just great. (Again, who can fault Lenovo's support of their systems?) I also have seen passing references to such a driver being available. Even with this issue, I still will stay with Vista.

BTW, Vista and XP don't share a significant code base. Yes, I am sure there are some reused libraries. That was the whole issue with the delay, dropping the legacy code base and restarting. I applaud MS for doing it. Security changed everything. Security has been significantly rethought and restructured. Many issues that ISVs have yelled about for years have been changed liked changing system DLLs by applications, the single biggest crash issue of all time, is now arbitrated by the OS. System Admins don't have the go everywhere do anything clearance, because most people ignore security auditor advice and run day-to-day work as admins. Well, when that virus gets on your machine under XP it can do anything it wants, and probably to your buddy, too. Under Vista, it has to ask your permission, and I suggest that you read those boxes. Even if it gets your permission, many special areas are blocked. (Yes, there are ways for Admins to get anywhere, but you have to understand security and policies.) The firewall that is pasted to the back of XP, is integral in Vista.

Okay, I am going to stop there. The biggest issue is that Vista was marketed wrong. It is more of an infrastructure change. It makes a conscious decision to leave certain legacy issues behind. The marketers then asked for enough look differences that between understanding the infrastructure changes and understanding the new interface, most people eyes glaze over. You can see I have a real love/hate relationship with marketing.

BTW, I am a manual reader, so buying support books is second nature to me. I would advise most tech oriented people to buy two books: Windows Vista Secrets, by Livingston and Thurrot, and Windows Vista, Inside Out by Bott, Siechert, and Stinson. If you want to go nuts, pick up the Resource Kit. Also, BookPool.com has them cheap. You don't have to read every page, but they have nice contents and index pages for easy flipping.

mgo · #32 Post by **mgo** » Sun Jan 20, 2008 1:00 pm

rckrchrdsn wrote:The biggest issue most people have with Vista are software that needs to be updated (drivers and applications) and the change in looks (training).

<snipped the rest for brevity>.

Nice explainer. I learned some things, thanks!
-mgo

Trekk69 · #33 Post by **Trekk69** » Sun Jan 20, 2008 1:32 pm

I'm waiting for SP1 to be finalized to update my current Vista

rckrchrdsn · #34 Post by **rckrchrdsn** » Sun Jan 20, 2008 2:05 pm

I'm waiting for SP1 to be finalized to update my current Vista

Yeah, even though I have beta tested the last four Windows releases (and why I own a few shares of VMWare) including the strange server mix and now the stranger mix for Vista (are 6 versions really necessary? Marketing

<sigh>), I normally wait for SP1 to come out. I didn't feel the need to wait for Vista. It's very well tested. Ultimate runs just fine on my hand-built desktop and on the X31s. What SP1 will get you is a better mix of defaults. You can imagine the war between development, product management, and marketing on that. Like Sidebar, cool idea so marketing grabbed on and developement probably wanted to let it out, but just a bit half-baked. (I turn off "start at Boot up" in the control panel for faster starting, and turn it on manually when I want it. Which is most of the time.)

BTW, one of the reason I think Vista is well tested, is that as failures were found the faults were correctly pretty quickly without uncovering additional issue underlying the original faults. I like to use a Bayesian statistical model in my testing and though I didn't have direct access to the error db, I did get the "feel" of a well-designed system. The turnaround time for fixes, the lack of splatter, the smooth movement through the testing all add up to my conclusion. It is not statistically based, but experience is useful.

rckrchrdsn · #35 Post by **rckrchrdsn** » Sun Jan 20, 2008 2:54 pm

I tried to use Vista on the 3000 series laptop, and was staggered to see over 800MBytes of memory used just to boot to the desktop, leaving 200 free my applications.

Phil_l,

I don't know what is going on on your machine, but a butt-naked install with most optional stuff turned off comes in at the 350Mb range. My X31, on which I am typing now and has been running for 8 days with Sidebar up and some other development stuff going, is using about 560Mb. I just checked my desktop with Ominpage, Norton System Works, Hamachi, webcam, and all the attendant update/upgrade junk is only at 610Mb running for over 4 weeks. I don't doubt your numbers, but I wonder what was going on in the processes area.

serpico · #36 Post by **serpico** » Mon Feb 18, 2008 2:11 pm

I thought about upgrading, but given the very mixed reaction to Vista, I think I'll install XP SP3 (once finalized) and wait a couple of years for the next OS, which should be everything Vista was supposed to be.

mattbiernat · #37 Post by **mattbiernat** » Mon Feb 18, 2008 6:35 pm

im on the same boat, thinking about skipping Vista altogether, but hey maybe SP2 will offer much needed updates. They could reintroduce Explorer and perhaps revamp the search engine. The bugs will get eventually worked out for sure (at least that's what happened with XP).

rubbish84 · #38 Post by **rubbish84** » Mon Feb 18, 2008 9:04 pm

Does anyone know when such a SP2 may be issued?

I've downgraded from Vista to XP for most of the reasons sighted above.

I'm looking forward to returning to Vista once some improvements are made, as I thought the OS has some great potential.

berlin · #39 Post by **berlin** » Sat Mar 08, 2008 2:01 pm

tinue wrote:
Phil_L wrote: I tried to use Vista on the 3000 series laptop, and was staggered to see over 800MBytes of memory used just to boot to the desktop, leaving 200 free my applications.
Small kids tend to come over to one bed in the early morning. Knowing this, would you sleep all packed up at the side of your bed all night? I guess not, you would use all of the bed and move over when necessary.
Its the same with RAM: Vista would be badly designed if it wouldn't use up all of the available RAM to speed up things, as long as nothing more important uses it. As soon as an application shows up and claims the RAM, Vista makes room and frees it. I have 4GB in my Laptop, of which 3 are usable (I'll move th Vista 64 once the Service Pack is out). Of those 3GB, Vista reports 17MB as free.

Having said this, Vista does require more RAM than XP. In my experience, an XP system with 256MB RAM runs about as slow as a Vista system with 1GB. So I wouldn't put Vista on a system with less than 1.5GB.

But once Vista is installed, tuned, and has the necessary hardware to run on, I prefer it anytime over XP. Its the sum of many small improvements that count:
When I click to rename a file, the extension remains unselected. With XP one always has to un-select the file extension.
I no longer care about organizing the dozends of start menu entries. I type the first 1-2 characters of the app I need and press enter.
I feel safer, because no application can write into a protected area (e.g. c:\Windows) without me noticing and acknowledging it.
I get full disk encryption transparently (Bitlocker). Great for a Laptop which can be lost or stolen.

And probably many more things. I am annoyed about XP every day in the office. There the missing security features are added to XP (e.g. disk encryption, and paranoid Anti Virus Settings), so the machine (with 1.5GB of RAM) is actually much slower than my Vista machine.

Regards, Martin

Vista doesn't see Ram the same way xp or osx does. instead, ram = cache for Vista. it'll take a while to index one intial boot and this is where people start to panic and call Vista a failure, in the first 3 minutes.

Then they go back to good 'ol XP and post their rants on forums.

I prefer a clean install of Vista with just the basic, Thinkpad power manager, security/fingerprint, active protection, easy eject utility, graphics driver, bluetooth, modem, intel lan and wireless, pointer, keyboard utilities.

It also runs vmware workstation quite well. I have XP as guest, Ubuntu (which I think is nothing but hype and will delete) and soon OSX Tiger. I also deleted my XP partition through the Vista disk manager.

IBMorBust · #40 Post by **IBMorBust** » Fri Mar 28, 2008 5:13 pm

jdhurst wrote:Then, Phil, to add to your post - Vista cannot find 90 percent of what XP can find in terms of data on your hard drive. Much as I would like to move ahead, Vista was born brain-dead, retarded and crippled. It is, at this point in time, a worse mess than Windows ME. I apologize if I appear to be overly harsh, but when you load an OS and the clock turns back nearly a decade, it's a problem. Just my own opinion. ... JDH

Agreed. I.....HATE....Vista.

I don't use 'hate' often. No other word expresses my frustration right now.

Microsoft should be embarrassed, and vendors who caved in and don't offer XP as a no cost alternative are not looking out for their consumers.

#41 Post by **jdhurst** » Fri Mar 28, 2008 6:25 pm

IBMorBust wrote:<snip>
Agreed. I.....HATE....Vista.
I don't use 'hate' often. No other word expresses my frustration right now.
<snip>

Time goes by. I try to look at both sides of issues I face, and so I ordered a T61p with Windows Vista Business 64-bit. I know I will have issues, but:
1. SafeNet has assured me their newest SoftRemote client will work with Vista 64 and has all the same settings as Juniper's Netscreen client (oem'd from SafeNet). SafeNet has a No Return policy, but are an American company and are undoubtedly clueless about Canadian law which says product will do what it says on the can or vendors are legally obliged to take it back. I am hoping for the best, but we shall see.
2. Microsoft has come out with Windows Desktop Search V4 to address some of the shortcomings in the Vista Search (V3). Perhaps it will fix the search for OCR text. Again, we shall see.
3. I have concluded for my own use that Aero will be trashed, Eye Candy will be trashed, and I will use the plainest Windows Classic interface I can put together. That will help me adapt.

The machine is at the UPS depot now and I will pick it up next week. .. JDH

richarddd · #42 Post by **richarddd** » Fri Mar 28, 2008 6:58 pm

The best people seem to be able to say for Vista is that it is no worse than XP. Other than the possibility of using 4gb or more ram, and a bunch of eye candy, what does Vista do better than XP?

mgo · #43 Post by **mgo** » Fri Mar 28, 2008 7:04 pm

richarddd wrote:The best people seem to be able to say for Vista is that it is no worse than XP. Other than the possibility of using 4gb or more ram, and a bunch of eye candy, what does Vista do better than XP?

Just from a daily practical standpoint, Vista loads my Office 2007 programs twice as fast as XP used to.

Also, the screen just looks better. I read an article about how Vista handles video in a improved way, but for me, after sever hours of looking my eyes aren't as tired compared to XP.

#44 Post by **bill bolton** » Fri Mar 28, 2008 7:12 pm

richarddd wrote:The best people seem to be able to say for Vista is that it is no worse than XP.

You haven't been looking in many places then.

Vista has VAST improvements over XP in quite number of areas, not the least of which are the networking capabilities.

Whether those improvements matter to you will depend on how you use your ThinkPad, but they are there none the less.

Cheers,

Bill B.

tylerwylie · #45 Post by **tylerwylie** » Fri Mar 28, 2008 7:42 pm

I hate Windows with a passion, I hate XP, and I hate Vista. I've only used 2000 and XP for little bits at a time, and XP sometimes in a virtual machine but never for the host. I ordered my Thinkpad with Vista thinking maybe half of those reviews I read online were right and the OS does suck, oh well I'll be trashing it anyways.

Well, after tweaking Vista a little bit, I can firmly say this is a step in the right direction, it is much more usable than XP and 2000. It's trying to do security in the right way, which is taking from *nix more and more(A good thing). The one thing is it's a resource hog, if they could've implemented a similar security model with half the resources needed they'd have a winner. I did trash Vista on my Thinkpad for Fedora, hey it's easier to do my work in it, but I bought a 2nd hard drive and caddy to keep Vista on one, because unlike the previous OS's it's actually usable.

Stan · #46 Post by **Stan** » Fri Mar 28, 2008 9:02 pm

It seems that Windows Vista is popular on this board, particularly amongst those who administer it. That’s encouraging.

Will Vista work properly with my T42 version 2373Q91?

Sadly I can’t test it on this machine without spending money that needs to be spent on medical and dentistry bills as the major priority. I can’t be as selfish today as I was when I was without responsibility and physically able to provide for those that rely on me.

If I’m going to take the plunge and update to Vista I will need to know that it will work on this machine before I spend my limited savings.

Why hasn’t Microsoft offered a time limited version of Vista as it did with XP?

The Vista upgrade advisor doesn’t fill me with confidence, I’m afraid.

ArtShapiro · #47 Post by **ArtShapiro** » Fri Mar 28, 2008 9:30 pm

Stan wrote:It seems that Windows Vista is popular on this board, particularly amongst those who administer it. That’s encouraging.

Will Vista work properly with my T42 version 2373Q91?

Well, I don't own a Q91 model but can confirm that Vista Ultimate works reasonably well on a 2373-8ZU. But I keep it as a dual boot with XP Pro for Vista's sporadic bad hair days. I've also bumped the memory to two gigs and had previously upgraded to a 7200 drive.

I'd say Vista's stability on my T42 has improved over the months I've had it installed, and at this point I rarely go back to the XP partition. Most recently was several weeks ago where Vista just wouldn't connect to the access point at a coffee shop where it never had trouble before, whereas XP instantly connected.

At this point it's more a "can you live with Vista's idiosyncrasies" question than a "will I have nothing but hardware and software failures with Vista" on the T42.

Art

richarddd · #48 Post by **richarddd** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 5:36 am

bill bolton wrote:You haven't been looking in many places then.

Vista has VAST improvements over XP in quite number of areas, not the least of which are the networking capabilities.

Where do you suggest I look?

Most of what I see is to the effect that if you disable enough of Vista's features, it almost runs as fast as XP.

warder · #49 Post by **warder** » Wed Apr 02, 2008 2:57 pm

Depends what you're looking for.

Most people look at the surface of Vista rather than beneath the skin.

If security is of interest, try this article. http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/01/ ... ise_1.html

Google will help you find 'new vista features'

What everyone seems to forget is that progress requires more horsepower. You don't get things for free! Taking a Windows 98 PC to XP required buying more RAM, a faster hard disk etc. Everyone just appears to have forgotten that!

For me, things like improved security are great. I love the 'Previous Versions' ability to recover old files. Great networking support etc.

SP1 is no doubt better than the original Vista, but even that was good to use!

But if you're installing it on a five year old machine, sure it will struggle. Stick with Windows 98, XP or upgrade!

K0LO · #50 Post by **K0LO** » Wed Apr 02, 2008 3:50 pm

To me the most telling evidence came out of my own experiment with Vista:

1. Start with two identical 3-yr old machines (identical hardware and software builds).
2. Keep one machine running Windows XP Pro
3. Upgrade the other machine to Vista Business
4. Run both machines daily for a year

To me the outcome is striking. The Vista machine is simply better in almost every way. It is faster, it is more stable, and it is more pleasant to operate. Although it was a somewhat rocky start, as MS released updates and patches the stability of the machine improved slowly but surely. It has been over 6 months since I've seen an application lock up or crash. The OS has never locked up or blue screened. Sadly, I can't say the same for the XP box. Although it is good it just is not as stable as the Vista box.

As warder has said, the improvements beneath the surface are well worth it. My favorites, in order are:

1. The improved security model (I have gained enough trust in it to eliminate antivirus and antispyware software)
2. Previous Versions (shadow copies)
3. Instant Search
4. Superfetch
5. UI improvements in Windows Explorer

I will now move on and upgrade the XP machine to Vista.

mgo · #51 Post by **mgo** » Wed Apr 02, 2008 4:31 pm

k0lo wrote:To me the most telling evidence came out of my own experiment with Vista:

1. Start with two identical 3-yr old machines (identical hardware and software builds).
2. Keep one machine running Windows XP Pro
3. Upgrade the other machine to Vista Business
4. Run both machines daily for a year
I will now move on and upgrade the XP machine to Vista.

Yep, pretty much what I did. Run both and compare. No question, despite running a bit warmer, Vista is now my operating system of choice. Only the older R50p will keep XP mostly because Lenovo does not provide 100% support for Vista like it does with the T60 and the R52. (a couple of hotkeys and utilities aren't supported, that's all)

arni · #52 Post by **arni** » Mon Apr 07, 2008 12:25 am

Stan wrote:Why hasn’t Microsoft offered a time limited version of Vista as it did with XP?

It has. You are able to install every Vista version without a serial number for 30 day trial. Even then you can extend that grace period to 120 days.

Some ramblings about Vista after moving from XP

Vista on a ThinkPad X31

Re: Vista on a ThinkPad X31

SP1

Memory Usage

skipping a cycle

Re: skipping a cycle

Who is online