I am going to be getting a new Desktop through Dell, and as much as I don’t want to get Vista, I am wondering if I should just go ahead and get it anyway. Dell offers some computers that come with an XP “downgrade” and I was thinking of going that route (to stay with the faster, familiar, and less bugy XP), but that option isn’t available for the newer top of the line comps. Are most of the kinks worked out in Vista and would those problems even make a noticeable difference if I had a 64bit operating system and 8gb of memory? I know Vista is much slower, but I wonder if I would even notice with that kind of hardware. Any thoughts?
Is it a major mistake to go the route of Vista if getting a semi top of the line desktop?
If you don’t want Vista preinstalled, and you feel confident installing an operating system yourself, you can always order with no OS and install your favorite.
Keep in mind that a 32bit windows install won’t support more than ~3GB of memory.
Don’t forget to evaluate other computer vendors and/or other operating systems to make sure that what you’re about to purchase will best meet your needs.
I think I have only 2gb of memory and Vista works fine for me. I suppose more memory would be better though. I would go for Vista, especially if you have 8 gb of memory.
Another vote for Vista. Some things are different, but most are better/easier and that’s what I want. Home network sharing (non Domain) is MUCH easier. Also amost anything you don’t like can be turned off, or reverted back to the way XP did it. The key is dual core and 3 GB or ram and the performance will be fine, at least is has been for me on my new HP laptop. The only eye candy I turned off was the windows transparency. Otherwise I have all eye candy turned on.
If you MUST buy a Dell, I think you’ll do best with Vista at this point. Going by everything I’ve read from John Childs, Vista is built to be more secure than previous versions of Windows, and a lot of the early problems had to do with other software not being up to speed with the Vista architecture. All versions of Windows start out rough, then get fixed up. By the time Windows 7 comes out, Vista will be where you’ll want to be, probably for another year or two from that point.
I read that all 32-bit versions of Vista support 4 GB. However, some of it is set aside for something else, so the reported ram in that case is usually around 3.5 GB. See What Is RAM? (Random Access Memory or Main Memory)
Some legacy programs and hardware will not work with Vista…drivers are harder come by, as well, even for little cheap webcams…
It is a decent operating system, but I still like XP that I have on my office machine and home video editing suite better than Vista on my Sony laptop…(can’t even get drivers for an old Sony MiniDV camera (TRV-950).
I would only stay away from it if you plan to do a lot of audio recording. Not vistas vault, but quite a bit of VSTi arent working on vista yet.
Other then that, it is a fantastic OS, specially after you update it. Great support all around. DX10 really makes games look nice as well. =p
EDIT: If you can, wait for windows 7. Basically it is vista with a ver service pack updates. Like going from windows 98 to 98se. But better.
And with 4 gigs of ram or more, and using the 64bit OS to use all of that ram, vista is way faster than XP. I miss it, but because I cant record with ym software on it Im not using it. I should dual boot but have been to lazy to do that.
Vista is just not for me i guess. I hate the ‘user firendly’ interfaces and the ease of access controlls. Scripting is also weird on them too.
By the way, vista does have a huge bug, and you might be noticing it,(because you guys all have 2gb ram) but vista takes 50% recources right away if you are running one program. So you pull up fire fox and go intot the task manager, 40-55% recources will be in use.
That’s easy. Get Vista unless there is a specific absolute need for Windows XP (software that you need to run that recommends XP instead of Vista). The kinks have been worked out of Vista. Most of the kinks in the early days were due to bad drivers and bad applications. The bad drivers have been updated, the bad applications have been updated.
Stick with Vista 32-bit unless you have a specific absolute need for Vista 64-bit (software that you need to run that needs 64-bit or will run better with more than 4GB of RAM). 64-bit Vista has restrictions and fewer drivers. Very few home users have a need for 64-bit Vista.
Vista is plenty fast, especially when given enough RAM. There are features in Vista that you get used to and find you really miss when you have to use XP. Things like the way the Start menu works and the desktop search. Then there are the things behind the scenes that make Vista more secure than XP.
Vista does some dynamic caching that XP does not do. The caching is dynamic which means the cache grows and shrinks as needed. Some of the memory that you see in use is the dynamic cache. When another application needs the memory the cache will shrink.
Vista does a better job of keeping RAM in use with caching instead of leaving the RAM empty and idle. Idle RAM is wasted RAM.
I agree with every word of that. I had some minor issues early on, mostly with things (software and hardware) that were made before vista existed. Other than that I have been completely happy with Vista. I wouldn’t suggest that anyone pay to upgrade an older computer to Vista, but I don’t think most people should hesitate to buy a computer with it installed. I see those Apple adds that refer to “fixing Vista” and my immediate reaction is “I didn’t know it was broken.”
