Upgrade to Vista OS?

[feedback]

If we are not all old and grey by the time Vista OS is released,http://users.pandora.be/eforum/emoticons4u/sleep/schla01.gif are any of you guys and girls planning on upgrading to Vista?

If I may be so bold, if answering yes to upgrading why are you and if no why not?

Seems I heard here @doom9 in some thread that Vista actually inhibits DVD backups or causes backup problems.

[smok3]

i will switch to mac most likely in the near future.

[Koepi]

I'll have to install vista at least when it's out. It'll be on a second partition though because I don't like the idea of protected media paths.

I think I'll kick out my M** ** * (which I don't use anyways) partition for that, even if it's just 8 GB in size and vista certainly demands for more ;)

Cheers
Koepi

[Shinigami-Sama]

'upgrade'?
the only thing I see as an upgrade is 64bit versions and a new FS
but the FS isn't due till SP1 or 2, so a year or more after release
I'll probly switch to solaris or some other *nix

[edit] dam you koepi, you beat me [shakes fist in jest]

[communist]

You mean WinFS? Where did you hear that it will come with SP1/2?

[Shinigami-Sama]

doom said something about it, or was it wilbert...
I dont remember which

[foxyshadis]

WinFS debuted in 1993, and it's been 2 years away ever since. Don't believe any reports of it ending up in an SP until you actually hear that a final version's been released for download.

[fccHandler]

it's just 8 GB in size and vista certainly demands for more
Are you serious? :scared:

IMHO that is outrageous bloat.

Only three years ago, I was finally persuaded (though kicking and screaming) to upgrade my Win98SE to Windows XP. I've been quite happy with XP overall. But I read somewhere that Vista will only support NTFS, and if that's true I definitely won't upgrade to Vista. Looking back, I consider formatting my C drive as NTFS to be one of the worst decisions I ever made.

[SeeMoreDigital]

I'll have to install vista at least when it's out. It'll be on a second partition though because I don't like the idea of protected media paths.

I think I'll kick out my M** ** * (which I don't use anyways) partition for that, even if it's just 8 GB in size and vista certainly demands for more ;)I recently completed the Micro$oft form for the latest beta version of Vista and when the disc arrived I duly installed it on a spare 10GB partition.

After installation, to my dismay I was not presented with any boot options, meaning I was unable to access either of my two XP partitions :eek: Anyway, as one of my XP boot partitions had become a little skittish I elected to format and re-install Win XP - hoping it would find Vista and the other XP partition.

Well it found the other Win XP partition but not Vista.... So I'm in the ridiculous situation where I have Vista installed but can't get access to it..... Nice one Microsoft :angry:

[Soulhunter]

Guess I gonna throw it on one of my external HDDs for testing purposes... ^^


Bye

[Doobie]

Why upgrade from XP? It's plenty stable, it multitasks, and it runs all windows software?

Maybe you just like giving MS your money? Maybe you want all those resource-hogging bills and whitles? Maybe you like the new DRM?

[bratao]

I´m already using Windows 2003 woking like a workstaion,
Not(much) of M$ bloat, and running SO stable over years !

But When Vista come out, sure i will be using Reactos(www.reactos.com)
Its a Open-source windowsXp Clone, that have a great pontencial !

[foxyshadis]

The cheapest 2k3, SBS, which is easily the best value, is still $350+, much more than vista. Unless you need more than 2 cores, or a domain at home, I don't know why you'd need more than xp pro though.

I have no intention of even trying Vista until SP1 or SP2 (I like my OSes stable, thanks), if ever, so I'm not the best to argue for the merits it does have.

[buzzqw]

@SeeMoreDigital
Microsoft never had a multi OS boot manager... thats why first install windows than linux... or better let's format and install only linux (when avisynth 3 arrive...)


BHH

[Kurtnoise]

@SeeMoreDigital
Microsoft never had a multi OS boot manager...
mmmh, I've got a M$ boot manager when I installed Vista on my XP partition...

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/index.cfm?newsid=6600

[ChronoCross]

WinFS was canned completely about a month ago. If I remember correctly. So I doubt we will be seeing it ever.

As for upgrading to Vista I don't see a reason to until at least a year after it comes out (once hackers find the major flaws and patches are released.)

[markrb]

Eventually, but the Beta I tried was extremely bloated with eye candy. It looked nice, but bogged down performance.
Once the apps catch up to using whatever unique features it will have then I will consider it.
I have had XP-64 sitting in a drawer forever waiting for more 64 bit apps to come out. I am not doing that again.

Mark

[Hard Core Rikki]

Vista ? Better run away to ANYTHING else, or stick with XP.

The best choice being fleeing to a windows-like GNU/Linux system like Linspire or Xandros.

An upgrade is supposed to give you MORE, NOT LESS.

The only major thing in Vista that might make it worthwhile is the de-integration of Internet Explorer from the explorer interface, will make system widely more secure (read less piratable).

What about "Trust" chips ? Will those be mandatory for Vista to run in a "Trusted" state, if at all ? That Trust stuff was already implemented in XP SP2 in software, but will the presence of a Fritz chip be necessary for a system to be able/approved to install Vista FINAL version ?

[reepa]

I'm mostly happy with Windows XP right now. My biggest gripes are memory usage and responsiveness (Win98 is about as responsive on a 133MHz computer as WinXP is on a 2GHz Athlon). Vista just makes matters worse, so I probably won't upgrade in years. I also heard that the DOS subsystem has been removed, which means no more late DOS games like Carmageddon.

[foxyshadis]

At this point it's better to just use DOSBox for such things anyway, its compatability is much higher than Windows' and much nicer looking and functional to boot. (The one huge caveat being the need for a good cpu, as well as gpu if you use opengl/directx.)

[Inheritthewind]

While I share all the sentiments expressed here, am I the only one feeling a sense of deja vu? I get a feeling of inevitability with each MS release, we all moan about the bloat and lack of new features, but most of us are probably running XP, the latest MS OS. I think we'll see most of us running it in the end - if for no other reason that everyone here likes the to be at the bleeding edge of technology.

WinFS. I'm sure I read somewhere that it would be introduced by stealth in SQL. No, I didn't understand it either.

I've had difficulty multi booting with every OS release. Always managed it, but not before a lot of blood, sweat and tears.

Don't forget that VMware and MS Virtual Server are free now. I've been running Vista for a while now on VMware, which has a Vista profile included. Granted you won't get to see the flashy animations and glass effects, but you can still investigate the new features (if you can find any!) without screwing up your PC.
Less of an issue for me 'cos I have an HTPC and do everything over RDP from a laptop.

[Inheritthewind]

Some links re: the above post

http://blogs.msdn.com/winfs/archive/2006/06/23/644706.aspx

http://www.vmware.com/products/server/

[Blue_MiSfit]

We'll all switch sooner or later. I tried Beta 2 and was not really impressed. Still lots of showstopper bugs, and the new UI seems pretty illogical. It certainly is pretty though...

To system integrators and repair shops it offers some nice advantages in installation and maintainence - no more loading RAID drivers off a floppy, you can use a CD-R or a flash drive now :)

Anyway, I think XP will be around a really long time.

Also, someone said that changing their drives to NTFS was the worst decision they had ever made? This makes no sense, unless you need to share data between Windows and Linux on the same computer. NTFS is better than FAT32 in all respects except for its proprietary nature.

~MiSfit

[foxyshadis]

Linux supports NTFS fine now, anyway, but back in the past it would've been a major stumbler - and I bet that's one of the "features" microsoft was counting on with WinFS.

Surely in five years running XP will be more like running 2000 now, old fashioned but stable and functional, instead of surviving on 95/98's crankiness and dwindling software support. Unless microsoft gets their act together and turns windows into an OSX-like powerhouse of annual feature-pack updates, there won't be any extraordinary reasons to upgrade. Just minor convenience features and gaming support.

[fccHandler]

Also, someone said that changing their drives to NTFS was the worst decision they had ever made? This makes no sense, unless you need to share data between Windows and Linux on the same computer. NTFS is better than FAT32 in all respects except for its proprietary nature.
I used to like to boot into DOS, to have direct access to my hardware and low-level stuff, and run my older programs. But now DOS can't read my stupid NTFS drives, and I've been crying about it ever since. But I also dread the idea of reformatting and reinstalling XP, and the hours/days I'll have to spend "taming" it. It wasn't fun the first time.

As for Linux, I'm not touching that topic. People would flame me to death if I said what I really thought about Linux.

[Blue_MiSfit]

I can see that. Unfortunately, the newer platforms (nForce 3+) dont properly support DOS memory allocation. I cant play old DOS games on my box :( I've got some awesome old flight sims (ATF etc) that are very persnickety about their memory configuration requirements and video and sound cards.

My opinion of Linux is that it's a great OS for certain applications, especially servers, development, and scientific computing. As a home consumer level OS it is not an option. Period. I don't care how easy it pretends to be. Doing simple day to day tasks is just too complicated for the end user, especially considering the radical conceptual differences when compared to Windows.

Mac OS X really is the perfect OS, if only AviSynth existed for it, and a nice front end like MeGUI :)

Also, I wasnt aware that read/write support in Linux was now bulletproof. Last I heard, read support was solid, but write support was still a guessing game, unless you purchased the Paragon proprietary driver. Perhaps this is no longer the case, but a read-only file system is a waste of time IMO.

But I digress and am getting very off topic. Screw vista :D

~MiSfit

[wmansir]

I tried out the build following Beta2, which is said to be much more stable and faster than Beta2 itself. I had quite a few issues with the system, like it refusing to open my profile after the first day and so I kept getting bumped to a generic desktop and could any profile changes. Also while it did setup a bootloader initially it seems to have disappeared, that may be because I already had a bootloader for 2 installs of XP I had on my system. Now I don't have any way to actually boot into Vista without tinkering with the boot files.

But, as far as windows itself, it was a pretty good experience. My lowly ATI 9550 handled Aero Glass very smoothly, I didn't notice any slowdown vs the Classic mode, and I didn't encounter any program crashes or instability. I installed DVD-RB and AviSynth and they worked fine. It even installed the drivers for my TV tuner card, so I know that will work in Vista. It also correctly mounted my flash drive, something XP doesn't seem to like doing even after a fresh install (I have to manually assign it a drive letter).

There were a few standout improvements that I encountered. The help system is much improved with better searching and more interactive content. Also, the task manager has a very cool resource monitor. It helped me figure out it was the auto-defrag that was killing my performance after the initial install. IE7 is much better, but XP will be getting that so it's moot.

User Account Protection was annoying has hell and, as much as I want to run in a non-admin mode for security, if the result is anything like this then the price is too high. Of course most of my time was spent configuring the system, which requires privileges, but I still think it needs to be streamlined. For instance when deleting a protected file it gives a confirmation prompt and then if you say 'yes' it gives a UAP prompt to grant permission. Why not just use the UAP prompt as a confirmation prompt in those situations?

I really want to give the beta a more thorough testing. I've read about the new audio subsystem and I want to see what changes have been made to directshow. I played around a very little with WMP11 and wasn't very impressed. I didn't even try a 3d game.

Now, will I actually switch? Probably at some point. The Vista beta was much more evolutionary than revolutionary. In some ways that is good, but after 5 years I was expecting a bit more. I've read that MS put a lot of effort into the back end, so hopefully that will show. My main concern is stability and UI responsiveness. Neither of which are the things a beta demonstrates very well. I really only got in on Beta2 so I could grab the last RC to help me decide when to upgrade. I'll really put that through its paces and if it plays well with my programs and runs well then I may get it upon release, but otherwise I'll wait for SP1 or a it comes preinstalled on my next system upgrade.