Mr. Athena got a new computer about a month ago, running Vista. He’s doing development work, editing photos with Photoshop, playing games, you name it. We’ve only found two problems:
for whatever reason, SQL Server 2005’s client suite won’t install. We’ve done some research, and I think it’s because we installed some components that came with Visual Studio 2005 before SQL Server. On the other hand, SQL Server 2000, which is NOT supposed to be compatible with Vista, but is the version Mr. Athena needs to use, installed like a charm.
his corporate VPN is not compatible with Vista. We got around that by installing Windows Virtual Machine and running XP on that. He actually likes it better, because it means when he’s connected to the VPN in the virtual machine he can still get to all his favorite web sites using his primary machine (the company he contracts with blocks a lot of sites).
Overall, I think it’s pretty cool. I’d probably upgrade my OS but I’m too lazy at the moment. It does a lot more than gmail and web surfing; other than what I mention above, we’ve had no issues with any of his software - and he’s got a lot. Last time he upgraded was 5 years ago, and he’s got a lot of applications he runs on a daily basis.
I bought a new tablet PC (Thinkpad X61) with Vista about 2 months ago. At first the reliability was atrocious (several crashes an hour was not unusual) but it turns out most of the problems were caused by the Lenovo/IBM proprietary utilities. Once I got rid of those the system runs reasonably well.
I’ve still had some software incompatibility issues that have nothing to do with Lenovo software. And I have the slow network connection issue too - not just on startup, but also upon resuming from sleep mode. This is a serious inconvenience on a tablet PC.
But the worst thing is, I don’t see anything positive to make up for those negatives. I don’t think I use any of the features new to Vista. Aero is a resource hog, I ended up turning it off. The Sync Center looks useful, I could really use it to synchronize my desktop and laptop - except it only works if both computers are running Vista.
I’ve got VS2005 SP1 and SQL Server 2005 management tools installed on Vista. No problems. Have you installed the SP1 for VS2005? I honestly never tried installing non-SP1 VS2005 before SQL Server 2005. I’m not sure if that could be it, but I know I installed VS before SQL.
I’m guessing his company uses the Cisco VPN Client? If I’m right, there are Vista-compatible versions – I think version 4.8.0300 was the first to support it and there have been a few releases since. It’s a tad clunky, but it does work.
Are you sure you are still using the same drivers?
Vista tried to update some hardware drivers on my system which screwed me up as well.
When I removed these updates and reverted back to the old ones everything worked (relatively) fine again.
I do get some odd errors now and then again about Volume Control all of a sudden not responding anymore but I just ignore those.
I’m pretty sure it’s SP1. I don’t know what’s really going on, but from the little research I did, it seems to be a somewhat common problem and shouldn’t be too hard to figure out once I have the time to spend on it.
Unfortunately they’re not using Cisco - they have some goofy homegrown client thing that they haven’t upgraded yet.
I went from an average PC with XP installed to a top-of-the-line PC with Vista so obviously I didn’t sense the slowness that people claim. I play a lot of games and the only one that I remember crashing is Oblivion.
My main problem is playing games with the knowledge that they would run better under XP. I can play Oblivion with all the settings on maximum, in HDR with 16xAF and 2xAA at 1680x1050 resolution, and very rarely drop below 25fps (90% of the time it’s at 50+). On XP I imagine I could move the AA up to x4 or x6. It’s not exactly a huge problem though…
Outside of playing games I have never crashed. I do get problems with a particular system file that likes to stop working whenever I’m watching videos, the videos keep playing but the message box steals focus, but a little searching on Google tells me it might be a problem with Nero or some third party drivers.
I’d still prefer XP but I wasn’t willing to spend the same or more money on a legal copy when Vista would be better for the future. Once DX10 gaming really kicks off I will be much more content in my choice.
It’s on my wife’s notebook. It persistently couldn’t find some hardware devices, but I finally cleared that up. I dislike the new UI for Windows Explorer: I like things to sit still until I tell them to move. Other than that, it’s not too bad, but I’m sticking with XP on my own machines.
I have yet to use a computer with Vista as its OS, so I’ve got nothing good or bad to say about it.
But from what I hear, it’s much more of a resource hog than XP, without being that great an improvement over XP. If so, that’s not much of a recommendation for Vista, even if it gives you no reliability, stability, compatibility, etc. problems.
I’m genuinely quite confused about the whole Vista thing - I’ve yet to read about a single feature it has that I’d want. Why upgrade to a whole new OS and spend £ to do it just to have a prettier background scheme? Any new program has bugs when it’s first released but I continue to hear Vista horror stories a year on so I think I’ll stick with XP ta. Even if I get a new computer I’m tempted to stick with XP if it’s available, and rather tellingly when I looked at some new rigs a couple of weeks ago it was - again, a year after Vista’s launch.
My roommate got a new desktop with Vista and she has never had any type of crash over the last many months. I have a new laptop with Vista and I, too, have not had any crashes.
Maybe we’re just lucky, but we both like Vista. My only thing is that my DVD player stopped working- it doesn’t even recognize the DVDs (the CD “half” works). That, though, seems like it would be an easy fix- I’m just too lazy to redownload.
I am shocked, and maybe a little chagrined, to hear myself say this but: I like UAC. It makes me feel safe. I’m willing to go through all the stupid, pointless UAC dialogues because I think it is possible that some day, one of those dialogues will end up saving my ass. Before I had Vista, I would never have imagined myself saying this, but there it is.
Wife hates it though.
My internet access doesn’t seem to have the delay a lot of people describe, but it does periodically disconnect for a moment. I haven’t been able to discover online what the cause of this is, except that it may be because NVidia has bad network card drivers. (But it’s not clear that that is the problem for everyone who has this problem.)
My understanding is that the idea that Vista is a resource hog is a bit overblown. It uses a whole lot of my RAM when I’m not doing anything. But what I read when I look up this topic online is that it just does that when you’re not doing anything. When you’re doing something that requires substantial resources, Vista stops using them so that your application can.
I’ve been using Vista on a Gateway laptop since last March (almost a year now) and haven’t had a single problem with it. Networked to the rest of the PC’s in the house and I use it as a remote (Media Extender) viewing machine. The main PC in the bedroom is hooked up to the incoming cable TV and I use that machine as the recording unit.
The laptop can wirelessly grab any program off that machine and then play it anywhere in the house. Of course I could have done that with an XP laptop too, but I have to say that so far this Vista OS has been perfect. No crashes yet.
Running simulations of an infinite number of monkeys on an infinite number of typewriters.
I have to say I’m also genuinely confused by Vista. The only possible benefit I’ve heard of is DirectX 10, and last I heard even gamers shouldn’t care because no one is using it yet. Meanwhile there’s the usual compatibility problems, much higher machine requirements, a security feature so annoying most people turn it off…and that’s assuming your copy works fine. Plus I’ve heard WoW doesn’t run as smoothly, which is a big mark against it for me
If I could I’d switch to Linux. For now, I’m sticking with XP–it’s $50 cheaper and I figure if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Oh they’re using it, unfortunately every review I’ve read of a game so far that supported DX10 makes the point that it runs badly (and in some cases is actually better on DX9). Obviously this will change over time, but given how long game development cycles are (especially for the more graphically impressive games that are the ones most likely to benefit from a higher DX version) we’ll probably be into a new version of windows by the time DX10 is being properly utilised by developers.
