Windows Vista

I downloaded it and burned it off, but I haven't installed it. I plan on putting my old 40 gig ATA in my system and installing Vista on it.

Maybe one day...

 

No wonder you are having problems that are not easily identifiable.

Bleeding edge technology always bleeds.

 

I installed it on a Dull Attitude . I mean Dell Latitude

I liked it at first but I am getting increasingly annoyed with it.
For one thing it is really slow on my system (2GHZ P4M, 512, 64MB Vid)
I did have a little trouble with the drivers.
Is my machine too slow to run the glass feature?
It is more like a Mac in the eye-candy but I find the 15 mouse clicks just to get on a wireless network to be particularly aggravating.
Oh, one other annoyance is that I can't run DVD maker.
That is one area that I really wanted to see if they had caught up with the Mac but it says I can't even run it.
The latest version of iMovie and iDVD works on my Mac Mini 1.25 with a 32 MB video card and 512 MB of RAM so why can't the DVD maker run on a 2gig P4 with a 64 meg radeon?

ONe nice thing though: I could use my Sprint EVDO card without installing drivers. Very good since the XP drivers wouldn't work
One of the main programs that I need Windows for(that won't run on a Mac) doesn't run in Vista.

So, there are a few decent things but I have found it over all to be even more clunky than XP, which was worse than 2k.
2K was great in Windows terms...too bad they couldn't add the Vista features without making it so annoying with all the little pop ups boxes all the time.

 

Ok, I told of my annoyances with VIsta, now for the good stuff:

The Sidebar is very cool. It is similar in function to the Dashboard feature in OS X. It is simply a little bar for widgets like a calculator etc.
It is a set size and I don't think it is as flexible as Dashboard widgets since you can't have some widgets larger than others.
It does have a neater appearance though.

The new start menu is an improvement over the double column start menu of XP. I really didn't like the XP start menu and I always changed it back to the classic start menu.

I like the fact that things like "My Computer" etc are now just "Computer" Documents" etc.
There are also new option for screen shots. I use them alot and I hate the way it is done on Windows. It is so simple on OS X.
I haven't gotten to fully test that yet but it seems to be improved in Vista.

 

From everything I have read, you really need at least 1GB of RAM to run Vista smoothly, and if you plan on doing much multi-tasking the experts recommed you have at least 2GB of RAM.

 

We had a demo of it at my office last week.

It looks a better than Windows XP (although I don't really like the look of XP), but Mac OS X still has a cleaner, leaner interface.

In my opinion, the best thing about Vista will be the Aero graphics capabilies (that's a knock-off of the Mac's Quartz graphics that were introduced about four years ago) that allows for variable levels of opacity/transparency for screen elements.

Finally Microsoft Office for Windows will have the technical capabilities to do things like semi-transparent bar graphs like we have been able to create in the last two versions of Office for Macintosh.

Speaking of Office, I was not that impressed with Vista, but Office looks like it is going to be a major, high-quality upgrade. The new "ribbon" interactive toolbar looks promising, and some of the PowerPoint interface updates should make my life easier.

Unfortunately, Office's new file format (*.xml) seems to be designed to force incompatibility so that everyone will have to purchase an "upgrade" to use newly-created documents.

 

I probably will not be "upgrading" to Vista anytime soon. It was apparently gutted of things that would have made it worthwhile, and although I am sure it has pretty eye candy, I can't see moving at this point.

For things I need for work where Windows is the platform, or for those programs that require it, I'll stick with XP. For everything else, Linux will be my primary OS. Maybe I'll get a Mac someday, but I have better things to spend my $$ on right now.

As for Office, Microsoft needs to get on the OASIS standard, like OpenOffice.org uses. Then file formats will be standard.

 

Yep. At least 1 GB, but 2 GB will be a lot better.

They have a lot of unnecessary eye candy (that will probably get annoying) that will steal cycles from the processor.

Those of us who are used to running InDesign, PhotoShop, Acrobat, Illustrator, Outlook and PowerPoint all at once are going to have to massively upgrade hardware to keep the same level of responsiveness that we have had with Windows 2000 and Windows XP.

 

Yep. Vista was supposed to have a bunch of things that I already enjoy on my Macintosh, but they were cut. On major thing I need is a search function like Spotlight (http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/spotlight/), but from what I hear, no such luck.

Go on, you know you want a Mac.

Microsoft doesn't like standards, unless they can control them so they can squeeze everyone out of the marketplace. If they couldn't leverage standards, they'd have to innovate to survive... and that won't happen anytime soon.

 

This is one of the most misunderstood facts of the computer industry. It is so true but most people don't realize it.
MS is the most proprietary company in the industry, more so than even APple actually.

Apple uses almost exlcusivly standard technologies with the exception of their OS, which is just a proprietary variant of..as standard OS. Is based on BSD.

The iPod uses standard mp3 and mp4 files rather than the proprietary WMA.

ANyway, I liked Vista at first...but it is just a pain to use.
You can't do anything without going feeling like you are going through AIrport security.

SO far my opinion is that it is a lousy imitation of a Mac with all the annoyances of XP times about three..meaning three times as many annoying messages popping up all the time.
Everytime you establish a network connection they ask you if it is a "public" or "private" network.....the average user is going to say...."get me online already!"

So far, it is the best LOOKING WIndows ever and at the same time, the most user UNfriendly.
That is my opinion but I suppose some will enjoy 15 mouse clicks to connect to yhe wireless at home.