Is Vista Worth it?

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440roadrunner · #31 Post by **440roadrunner** » Fri Jun 23, 2006 7:32 pm

I'm not talking about a few minor bugs. I'm talking about something that is so bloated and overpowering that it's simply unconceivable.

christopher_wolf · #32 Post by **christopher_wolf** » Fri Jun 23, 2006 7:42 pm

Roadrunner has a point; not all of it is amazingly bloated however.

sugo · #33 Post by **sugo** » Fri Jun 23, 2006 7:49 pm

Bare XP uses about 80MB of RAM and 2GB HDD.
Vista B2 uses 600MB of RAM and 10+GB HDD.

I wonder if Microsoft forgot to turn off the debug compile flag in beta 2?

#34 Post by **Kyocera** » Fri Jun 23, 2006 7:55 pm

Consumers want more, bigger everything these days, why should OS's be any exception? Vista is the SUV for your software to reside in.

christopher_wolf · #35 Post by **christopher_wolf** » Sat Jun 24, 2006 1:06 am

Yeah, but because the, and I will say it, sheep-like consumer wants everything bigger, better, faster, stronger, "real-er," more better super-sized...we end up with severe amounts of bloat in computer software. Seriously, Go open up Word 2005 and then compare it with opening Word 2000 or a similar Word version on the same system. This is one of the reasons I picked Office 2000 and stuck with it, what made that also practical was that little has changed for all the Microsoft Office versions over the years. Very low bloat, with 99.9% of all the functionality of the latest version. This is also noticable when I fire up Word 6 on my 701c. It starts *faster* than the latest Word, not in Office 12, running on a system that is faster than the 701c by orders of magnitude.

Think about that.

When it takes a system, 2.0GHz, 2GB RAM, 500GB HDD, etc far *more* time to open the latest version of Word out of the box than it does for my little 75MHz 701c to open Word 6; you know that bloat has not almost caught up with Moore's law, but has pretty much kept most people from being more powerful and effcient.

#36 Post by **Kyocera** » Sat Jun 24, 2006 8:07 am

I drive a pontiac grand prix, no SUV here and no one is going to force me to buy Vista, but I will. These very arguments here (almost ver batum), can be found way back when XP came out.
Check the archives of the XP newsgroups, I remember it well.

sugo · #37 Post by **sugo** » Sat Jun 24, 2006 9:58 am

I hear you christopher_wolf. The outlook 2003 at work is slower, bigger and easier to crash than outlook 2000.

After Vista is released, I just hope that new hardware and software will still support XP.

If it wasn't software compatibility, I would probably have stayed with Windows 2000.

Torque · #38 Post by **Torque** » Thu Jul 06, 2006 12:38 pm

jdhurst wrote:This is a very good question. There are some features about XP that keep me in XP instead of Windows 2000. The key two are (1) Clear Type, and (2) general advancements. I still use the classic interface as I don't find the eye candy useful or productive (it gets in the way).

So if I use classic instead of Aero, what will Vista bring? As I understand it, one key feature is Windows Updates will happen in standard user mode. Businesses will embrace that feature.
... JD Hurst

This may be a silly question, and out of context.. but how is clear type better?

Just tried turning it on in XP, and the fonts seem more fuzzy to me. Or maybe they are meant to be this way?

asiafish · #39 Post by **asiafish** » Sun Jul 09, 2006 10:09 am

pphilipko wrote:
440roadrunner wrote:"Is Vista Worth it?"

IMHO, anything is better than those Apples.

And why is that? Lets see, Apples really suck if you enjoy spyware, adware and viruses, I'll concede that. Otherwise, sounds like an uninformed rant to me.

Why is it that people who obviously have no clue insist on bashing Macs? They are fast, reliable, user-friendly and high-quality. Okay, you may not like the interface, or you may need a Windows-only program. Thats fine, but it doesn't make the Mac a bad system.

Oh wait, I'm writing this on my MacBook running Windows XP natively at full CoreDuo speed right now. Hmmm, I CAN run that Windows-only program, and I'm looking at the Windows UI instead of the OS X one. I take that back, there are no Mac disadvantages anymore. Macs aren't even expensive like they used to be. Oh yeah, high prices went out of the Apple line in the late 90s, they are now priced the same as a comparable 1st tier (like a ThinkPad hmm) PC.

#40 Post by **Kyocera** » Sun Jul 09, 2006 10:26 am

Let's not develop into a flame war here, this thread will be locked up.

icantux · #41 Post by **icantux** » Sat Dec 23, 2006 6:06 pm

Many people just don't realize that different operating systems perform much better in different circumstances and and geared more towards certain applications.

Windows may be good for many people but it most definitely is not for everyone. Macs are in their own league when it comes to music or video editing (and I mean real music - stuff from scratch - not just mp3's). On the other hand, there's no substitute for Linux/Unix/BSD when it comes to stability, functionality and customization.

Many would be surprised how many top organizations (civ and military) use linux/unix platforms for their needs precisely for the reasons described in earlier posts and above... NASA, US Marines, US Navy, Pentagon, hollywood studios (Paramount, Sony, Pixar), Euro Space Agency, EU parliament (also for different reasons), most chartered banks (US, Canada, Switzerland, Australia, Germany...).... list goes on.

asiafish · #42 Post by **asiafish** » Sat Dec 23, 2006 6:58 pm

Ummm, Macs ARE BSD, have been since 2001. All the pretty stuff sits on top of a BSD foundation, very stable.

BruisedQuasar · #43 Post by **BruisedQuasar** » Sat Dec 23, 2006 9:15 pm

Cassirer wrote:hmmmm
is it worth it? Is it essentially all cosmetic or is it a better system that would justify the work to load it on to the T60??

I still prefer 2000 Pro SP4. Smaller, Faster, no constant rebooting required for almost daily updates. Firefox demonstrates with every update that Windows programs can receive even major upgrades without rebooting the system. So far, my 1.2 MhZ 2000 Pro Thinkpad can do whatever my XP desktops can do.

I only got the speed I thought an XP system should have, when I recently bought a dual core processor with a 800MHz motherboard and DDR2 memory system cheap.

I'm betting a person will need minimum a 7200RPM, large cache HHD, 900 MHz motherboard, a Dual Core 2 processor, minimum 2gig of DDR2 memory & a 800 ms flat screen DVI monitor to get the speed a user should have in a 2007 PC.

Want to see something funny? Ubuntu Linux live DVD version zap around like greased lighting on my high speed DVDRW, dual core processor system. Media version XP runs fast on this gaming system but not nearly as fast as Linux.

You gotta chuckle at the thought of the average joe surfing the net and typing letters (mostly what the average XP PC owner does) on a minimum Vista PC that the Pentagon would love to have had to run its nuclear war scenarios. The minimum system needed for Vista blows away the SuperComputers the Pentagon had during the Kennedy administration.

Ever wonder how the same people would react if GM & Ford put out gotta have 'em wheels every few years that required ever faster, more expensive new cars to mostly travel locally from point A to B at 35 to 55 MPH and those wheels required near daily recalls for patches?

#44 Post by **GomJabbar** » Sat Dec 23, 2006 10:09 pm

BruisedQuasar wrote:You gotta chuckle at the thought of the average joe surfing the net and typing letters (mostly what the average XP PC owner does) on a minimum Vista PC that the Pentagon would love to have had to run its nuclear war scenarios. The minimum system needed for Vista blows away the SuperComputers the Pentagon had during the Kennedy administration.

That reminds me of something I read several years ago. Here is the gist of it, but not exactly the same article. As far as I can tell, this article was printed in 1998.

In 1975, an IBM mainframe computer could perform 10 million instructions per second and cost $10,000,000. Today you can buy a home computer that will execute 200 million operations per second for about a thousand bucks.

http://www.warbaby.com/FG_test/comp_history5.html

ashleys · #45 Post by **ashleys** » Sun Dec 24, 2006 8:05 am

In 1975, an IBM mainframe computer could perform 10 million instructions per second and cost $10,000,000. Today you can buy a home computer that will execute 200 million operations per second for about a thousand bucks.

Yep, first machine I worked in the 70's was like that, although not as expensive. An IBM 145 with 512Kb (yes Kb not Mb) of main storage. Compare that machine, which ran *ALL* our company's data processing, with today's PC/Laptops.

Regarding Vista, waste of time and money. I'm sticking with Windows 2000 and Office 97 at home. It's stable, quick and does what I want. I see no reason to move either my home desktop or TPad to anything else.

pianowizard · #46 Post by **pianowizard** » Sun Dec 24, 2006 3:02 pm

BruisedQuasar wrote:I'm betting a person will need minimum a 7200RPM, large cache HHD, 900 MHz motherboard, a Dual Core 2 processor, minimum 2gig of DDR2 memory & a 800 ms flat screen DVI monitor to get the speed a user should have in a 2007 PC.

And of course, for Vista, a top-of-the-line graphics card.

ashleys wrote:Regarding Vista, waste of time and money. I'm sticking with Windows 2000 and Office 97 at home. It's stable, quick and does what I want. I see no reason to move either my home desktop or TPad to anything else.

I can understand sticking with Win2K, but Office 97 can't open documents generated with Office XP or 2003.

#47 Post by **jdhurst** » Sun Dec 24, 2006 3:14 pm

pianowizard wrote:<snip>
I can understand sticking with Win2K, but Office 97 can't open documents generated with Office XP or 2003.

Interoperability has been pretty decent for basic word and excel documents between Office 97, Office 2003 and in between. I use Office 2003, keep things simple and have no problems sending documents to users. This all changes with Office 2007 so far as I know. Of course, special formating and features are not backward compatible. ... JD Hurst

Zak · #48 Post by **Zak** » Wed Dec 27, 2006 10:55 pm

ashleys wrote:An IBM 145 with 512Kb (yes Kb not Mb) of main storage. Compare that machine, which ran *ALL* our company's data processing, with today's PC/Laptops.

Compare that with today's cell phones.

As for Vista, I don't really see anything compelling about it. Every Windows release in the past 10 years has been overhyped. Vista is supposed to mean the end of viruses, right? Didn't they say that about XP, and 2000, and....

Vista might be good for the gamer/media junkie right away, but it doesn't seem like there's enough there for business users to justify the risk of an untested OS.

pianowizard · #49 Post by **pianowizard** » Wed Dec 27, 2006 11:30 pm

ashleys wrote:An IBM 145 with 512Kb (yes Kb not Mb) of main storage.

Are you referring to this?

strohscw · #50 Post by **strohscw** » Thu Dec 28, 2006 12:55 am

Well, I baught the T60p to have a machine that works fast enough that I don´t have to wait for it. Waiting for the computer reduces my creativity.
My experience is, that every new operating system eats up a lot, if not all, of the additional power of new computer generations. We are installing the new operating systems that slow down the computer in a way that we are waiting again for a new computer and so on and on.
For me the operating system is what the name says, a program that let me operate the programs for my job. It has to be fast and reliable, not more, not less. I think that XP now finaly got this status
That´s why I am not going to install Vista, because I like the speed and reliability of my current T60p.

cchsiao · #51 Post by **cchsiao** » Thu Dec 28, 2006 3:55 am

Concerning the speed, actually I see the difference on the floating point usage. When running SuperPI 32M, it takes about 28 mins xx secs (I forgot the number) to finish 24 loops in XP while taking less than 26 mins 30 secs in VISTA. More than 5% improvement on the usage of the floating point. I think this is due to the capability of recognizing 2 cores in VISTA which enables the OS to put the whole work on one single core, instead of putting the work averagely two separate cores (which is used in XP. In this case, the data exchange between two cores becomes the bottle neck). So... for those who use floating point a lot, probably it's a good idea to move to VISTA although the latest matlab seems not working fine on VISTA

ashleys · #52 Post by **ashleys** » Thu Dec 28, 2006 6:38 am

Yes, pianowizard, that was it.
We had a second-hand machine and only a few months after I started working on it we upgraded to a System/370 3031, which is described here,

http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhib ... P3031.html

Aahh, those were the days

ashleys · #53 Post by **ashleys** » Thu Dec 28, 2006 12:49 pm

It's Microsoft's price gouging that is now a huge disincentive for people like me to upgrade anything.

I have a desktop machine which I built myself a year ago and my old T30 which is now a backup machine to the desktop. There is no way I can justify upgrading the OS on both and Office as well.

I may consider installing XP and Office 2000 on the desktop just to enable me to keep more up-to-date in the future. However, if I did do that, I'd still keep the T30 with W2k and Office 97.

seeplus · #54 Post by **seeplus** » Mon Jan 01, 2007 9:17 pm

I'll not be downgrading to vista. The PC has been a relatively open platform since the beginning; I can't justify paying for decreased functionality.

Extremely informative overview of Vista's crippling copy protection:

http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/p ... a_cost.txt

#55 Post by **tomh009** » Mon Jan 01, 2007 10:55 pm

sugo wrote:Bare XP uses about 80MB of RAM and 2GB HDD.
Vista B2 uses 600MB of RAM and 10+GB HDD.

That 80 MB for sure is with turning off the XP visuals. What is that assumption for Vista?

How are you calculating these numbers?

Saml01 · #56 Post by **Saml01** » Fri Jan 05, 2007 11:35 am

Short answer: NO

Long answer:

its bloated, confusing, slow compared to XP, consumes to much battery power, impossible to find things in(over complicated), [censored] driver support for thinkpads, and you gotta pay for it.

XP for me, until they refine it somemore. You shouldnt tac on too many features to something thinking it will be better, it just makes it worse and turns people of.

dfumento · #57 Post by **dfumento** » Thu Jan 11, 2007 1:33 am

http://www.tgdaily.com/2007/01/10/ces20 ... _hands_on/

pianowizard · #58 Post by **pianowizard** » Thu Jan 11, 2007 1:49 pm

dfumento wrote:http://www.tgdaily.com/2007/01/10/ces20 ... _hands_on/

Thanks for the article. The "improvements" listed are very minor IMO. And I wonder how familiar the author is with WinXP, e.g. he doesn't seem to know that Windows Media Player 11 is available in WinXP as well, and having a Games folder in the Start Menu isn't a new feature.

For me, the main reason to upgrade to Vista is its better (compared to XP) security features.

kf_man · #59 Post by **kf_man** » Fri Jan 12, 2007 2:16 pm

Although I'll agree it's a pretty worthless feature, the Games folder the author describes is quite different from the one in XP. The "folder" has the capability to keep track of what games and specific details about the game like the ESRB rating. It also has the ability (at least at one point it did) to set the rating level for each computer user so that younger children can't play GTA and other mature games.

Like I said, this feature is worthless to me as well, but it still falls into the "Minor Improvement" category.

benplaut · #60 Post by **benplaut** » Fri Jan 12, 2007 7:54 pm

When I get my new thinkpad, it will dual boot. I'll break my 3 year linux-only streak for the games (flightsim, really). No vista for me; not until I have a powerful desktop rig, anyway. For games, I see no reason to upgrade without a DX10 GPU.

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