Thoughts on Vista

Mike T. writes:

What world are you living in? I assure you that there are indeed billions
of ibm-compatible (so-called) personal computers in use in the world right
now.

Only if you include every PC ever made and still able to boot. Many
PCs are far too old to support any recent version of Windows.

Whoa. Granted, many systems are still running Windows prior to XP. But if
you look at the XP computers alone, they would account for billions of
potential systems to run Vista.

There are not billions of copies of XP running.

There is no need to upgrade to Vista unless
you want Aero (the new GUI), but that won't stop many people from installing
Vista on systems that are not Aero-capable. Vista can be installed in an
XP-like mode (without Aero). Many people just have to have the latest OS,
even if they can only run a crippled version of it.

True, although these are almost never people who actually use their
computers for productive work. Installing the latest OS and doing
useful things with a PC tend to be mutually exclusive.

Unless there is nobody above you.

That's only possible if you're the owner of your own business. But do
keep in mind that the majority of businesses that lose their IT
capability fold within the six months following the loss.

Actually, I see 'Vista-ready' as benefitting hardware manufacturers/vendors,
and actually HURTING Microsoft.

I think that the idea of "Vista-ready" is a huge red flag to
intelligent computer users who see computers as tools, but it might
seduce casual users and geeks.

Meanwhile, I don't doubt that
hardware components (especially mainboards, RAM, higher-end dual-core CPUs
and high-end video cards) will be in MUCH greater demand over the next year
or so, directly related to the release of Vista.

Maybe. But sooner or later even Joe Blow is going to see the light
and stop dropping thousands of dollars on new machines just to achieve
near-parity with the system he already had. Certainly corporate users
already understand this, much to Microsoft's chagrin.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

Mike T. writes:

You'd have to see it to understand.

The XP GUI didn't seduce me in comparison to the NT GUI; I'm quite
certain that nothing that Aero has would seduce me, either. I still
run the classic Windows GUI on XP; it's more compact, puts less of a
load on the hardware, is more streamlined, and requires no adaptation.
Every time I install XP on a machine, I switch it to the classic
Windows GUI.

If you are running a large monitor like
we are, Aero is much better suited to that. Fonts/icons/etc. scale better,
making everything easier to see, read and manipulate. With XP, I have to
tweak the HELL out of it to make it somewhat usable on (for example) a 19"
LCD monitor.

Why? XP looks great on my LCD monitor. The only thing I did was turn
on ClearType.

But Aero was quite usable at the default settings, as far as
the GUI is concerned. Even my wife noticed right away (and she's not a
computer person). She was impressed with Aero. It's not just eye candy, it
actually adds greater usability.

Virtually everything about modern GUIs is eye candy, and with each new
release of an OS, the candy gets more elaborate, busy, and
space-consuming. It's like the automotive industry a few decades back
when every new model of a car had 20 pounds more chrome than its
predecessor.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

"johns" wrote in message
oups.com...

My BFG GF7900GTO is just about the top video card
on the market, and Vista crippled its performance by
nearly 30%. This box is a top game box, and yet
Vista struggled on it. I think Vista has a severe
problem with memory management, and that is why
the hard drive was hard on all the time. It sounded
just like Tivoli ... big Bro's keylogger for the Feds.
I put the system back to XP this morning, and it
was like a cool breeze on a hot day. What a relief.

johns

Are you sure you weren't hacked? I installed XP once while connected to the
lan. In the 30 seconds or so it took to install a good firewall, the system
was hacked. The problem is, there are no good firewalls for vista, or at
least none that I've found. -Dave

Maybe. But sooner or later even Joe Blow is going to see the light
and stop dropping thousands of dollars on new machines just to achieve
near-parity with the system he already had. Certainly corporate users
already understand this, much to Microsoft's chagrin.


Well, if you look at it that way, Vista could be a huge boon . . . to linux.
Nothing wrong with that. -Dave

johns writes:

My BFG GF7900GTO is just about the top video card
on the market, and Vista crippled its performance by
nearly 30%. This box is a top game box, and yet
Vista struggled on it. I think Vista has a severe
problem with memory management, and that is why
the hard drive was hard on all the time.

You should not assume that high disk activity is a sign of poor memory
management. It probably indicates design flaws, but they aren't
necessarily flaws in memory management.

I put in a nice video card more or less incidentally, and it runs the
handful of games I have quite nicely. Of course, for all other
purposes, it runs like greased lightning. I see no reason to
sacrifice this just to give Microsoft more money.

You know what kind of upgrade I'd _really_ like to see? One that
preserves the _same identical_ functionality, but with 50% better
performance.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

"Mxsmanic" wrote in message
...
Mike T. writes:

You'd have to see it to understand.

The XP GUI didn't seduce me in comparison to the NT GUI; I'm quite
certain that nothing that Aero has would seduce me, either. I still
run the classic Windows GUI on XP; it's more compact, puts less of a
load on the hardware, is more streamlined, and requires no adaptation.
Every time I install XP on a machine, I switch it to the classic
Windows GUI.


Why? XP looks great on my LCD monitor. The only thing I did was turn
on ClearType.


Virtually everything about modern GUIs is eye candy, and with each new
release of an OS, the candy gets more elaborate, busy, and
space-consuming. It's like the automotive industry a few decades back
when every new model of a car had 20 pounds more chrome than its
predecessor.



Again, you'd have to see it to understand. I can tell you, without a doubt,
Aero (on Vista) will surprise you. I know that, as I've read your
expectations of it.

Aero makes huge demands on hardware, which is bad. I believe it does offer
real value in return, though. For starters (pun intended) the Start menu
doesn't fill the whole fricking screen, like it does in XP. It's much more
intuitive and easier to operate than the XP Start Menu. The eye-candy is
there, for sure. But with Aero it is LESS busy and LESS space-consuming.

XP can look good on an LCD monitor. The default settings on the XP GUI
don't look good, though. If you have a large monitor running 1280 X 1024
(for example), you need binoculars to read anything, unless you are sitting
3" from the monitor. You can set fonts to "large", but this makes little
difference. You can crank up the dpi above large to a custom setting to
make fonts readable. But, the drawback is that not all applications will
display menus correctly at custom dpi settings. Compare that to Aero . . .
the settings chosen by default were easy to read. No tweaking required.
Icons were reasonably sized with Aero also, as opposed to virtual background
noise on the XP desktop (at default settings).

Before someone gets smart, I have 15/20 vision.

But the difference (in Aero, as opposed to the XP GUI) goes beyond the
desktop. With Vista, Microsoft renamed Outlook Express. It is now
something like "Microsoft Mail". And the new Mail app. is much easier to
use at default font sizes. It is a different look. Both 'prettier' and
easier to read. If all Vista apps. scale fonts similarly, Aero will be a
blessing to all Windows users who spend more than a few minutes a day using
their computers.

To be fair, Vista adds more junk to the desktop. BUT, it turns off/hides
with a single mouse click. And you probably won't want to disable it,
anyway. I'm talking about the new gadgets area (not sure of the proper name
for it). But it has an RSS reader, a ANALOG (looking) clock and a picture
viewer on it, by default. Of course, it is totally customizable, and the
whole thing is optional. Turn it off, and the Aero desktop is cleaner than
you're used to if you run XP.

In fact, you see more of the desktop with Aero. Even the little clutter
that is there is see-through. It's a trip to see both the taskbar AND the
wallpaper behind it. -Dave

On Tue, 13 Jun 2006 16:11:34 GMT, Gank
wrote:

On Mon, 12 Jun 2006 16:18:38 -0400, Mike T. wrote:

The Aero interface alone
is worth the upgrade.

Why is that worth upgrading? Why would I want to run an OS that makes my
video card work all the time like it is "running a game"? Screw that ****e.


I agree. I'm looking for better performance, not bloatware.

You know what kind of upgrade I'd _really_ like to see? One that
preserves the _same identical_ functionality, but with 50% better
performance.

It's called linux. Well, to be fair, there are still some things that linux
won't do. Maybe it should be called linux, 2010. -Dave

"johns" wrote in message
oups.com...

My BFG GF7900GTO is just about the top video card
on the market, and Vista crippled its performance by
nearly 30%. This box is a top game box, and yet
Vista struggled on it. I think Vista has a severe
problem with memory management, and that is why
the hard drive was hard on all the time. It sounded
just like Tivoli ... big Bro's keylogger for the Feds.
I put the system back to XP this morning, and it
was like a cool breeze on a hot day. What a relief.

johns

You sure its not summat else with Vista? I've 'only' got a 6600GT card and
it hardly got pushed by Vista, which also seemed to hardly be pushing my
XP3500 either. It's just Vista I didn't like.

SteveH

You sure its not summat else with Vista? I've 'only' got a 6600GT card and
it hardly got pushed by Vista, which also seemed to hardly be pushing my
XP3500 either. It's just Vista I didn't like.

SteveH

Not disagreeing with you, but what did you not like about it? -Dave