I recently upgraded to Vista just to give it a try. It fixed about half a dozen games I could no longer get working under XP, and broke about half a dozen others.
Beyond that, I’ve yet to find a difference beyond the strange UI.
I upgraded because I’d gone to 4GB of Ram and my 32bit version of XP couldn’t see it all.
As it’s always been when talking about upgrading your OS, you’ve got to have appropriate hardware for whatever you’re installing. You can’t just knock any OS on any PC and expect it to work it’s best.
For a small percentage, it works terribly. And, as in everything else, the people who have problems get the most publicity. And because this is Microsoft, it’s further exacerbated by the fact that so many people hate the company (though, as far as corporate culture and general helpfulness is concerned, Microsoft is Mother Teresa compared to Apple’s arrogant attitude.)
How many professionals would it take to convince you that what you wrote is wrong? What if like me, they always supported Microsoft over Apple? What if I tell you that XP SP2 is still the best Op Sys for the computer ever made and I started with the TI99/4A, used DOS from 3.0 on and Amiga and Commodore 64. XP was stable, worked with almost all software and ran somewhat efficiently (compared to Vista) without have many issues. It ran Business apps better on a decent machine, then Linux or Mac and especially Vista. Give it a Gig of Mem and at least a 2.4Ghz processor and it just ran great.
My laptop is more powerful than that and does not run nearly as well. Many businesses are avoiding Vista as their major apps and even their ERPs will not run on Vista or run buggy.
This isn’t directly applicable to the OP, but I did want to say that last week I turned Aero off on my Vista laptop (Aero is the app that runs all the nifty in-OS graphics; transparent windows, etc etc), and the boost in speed was incredible!
You can do it with little experience especially if you have done any upgrades before. It is hard to truly break anything because the different slots won’t let you force something in where it doesn’t belong. It takes a few hours to put the hardware together and have everything working right. Software might take a long while depending on how much you need to install.
Picking out exactly what parts you want is what building your own is all about. You have to pick at least some out before we can give good recommendations. You could build anything from a cobbled together older technology system to a screaming bleeding edge system. It is difficult to save money building a low-end system (but it is educational) but you can save money building your own high-end system.
You mainly just need to browse www.newegg.com many times to figure out what is available and what you want to do.
As I was saying, there’s not much that’s DX10 only. It’s not exactly what you’d call a selling point on a game. Microsoft kind of screwed DX10 developers over somehow. Not sure how, exactly, I forget.
I can’t dig up the article at the moment, but I saw somewhere that Dell was going to stop offering XP ‘downgrades’ completely at the end of this month.
FWIW, that doesn’t bug us as we blow away whatever’s pre-loaded and lay on our own corporate XP image. I’ve heard no mention at all of anyone in this company moving to Vista yet.
I really don’t have any major issues with Vista. I don’t know why they felt the need to change certain things for no apparent reason but oh well.
As I have to travel often I do like that Vista pretty much does everything but wipe your ass to get connected to a wireless network, not that XP is very difficult but still.
Overall, aside from it being prettier than XP there is really not enough improvement to overwhelm me. That being said, I don’t hate it at all, just kind of meh.
Like someone else mentioned earlier, Vista works fine for the vast majority of people. It could screw something up, or fix a problem that you’ve had for a long time. It’s a crapshoot, just like it will be for any operating system. No piece of software so large is going to be bug free.
Building your own computer is simple, sorta like a really expensive lego set. If you’re a quick learner or have some technical background, I’d recommend going to www.hardforums.com for information. Otherwise, I’m sure there are hundreds of how-to guides on the interent to help. Good luck!
Do it simply because it’s a very informative process. Its fun for many people and will eliminate any remaining timidness you might have over computers. I’m running on a AMD AthlonXP 2500+ CPU and Asus nVidia-based MoBo that I built in the Summer of 2003 right now for under $600 and it’s still a better machine than most and perfectly sufficient so long as you’re not a hard core gamer.
Nowadays you’re not going to save a fortune building your own machine unless you are really looking to build a bleeding edge rig because the typical consumer computer has gotten so cheap and Dell has the economy of scale on their side but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have it’s benefits.
One of the biggest upsides to BYOPC is that you get to select precisely the components that you need. A commercial PC is going to come prepared for the “average” user which is another way of saying one-size-fits all. This is helpful in some ways but it also means that you are going to be getting a machine that has a bunch of hardware and software that you might not need. That extra stuff costs money and they make compromises in other areas to keep the price down. By building your own machine you can invest in exactly the items you desire and therefore every dollar you spend gets spent wisely, the net result is more money to invest on the fundamentals.
Another nice feature is that you can buy a custom PC case that will probably be a hell of a lot prettier than your average Dell/HP machine.
The only tricky parts that I’d warn you about is the need to make sure your CPU, motherboard, memory and video card are all compatible. As much as it shouldn’t be the case, certain MoBos just don’t play well with certain memory. Asus and Kingston is one example. A web search can assuage any fears, so do a little Googling just to double check before you finalize your order.
Another little trick is getting the random ports and switches on the front of the case connected to the proper headers on the MoBo. This isn’t too challenging but sometimes things aren’t labeled particularly well and the connectors can be pretty tiny.
When you are ready to start shopping visit Tom’s Hardware and put together a shopping list for the big 5 components and then start shopping around online. Intel and various memory suppliers run sales pretty frequently and it’s likely that the components you want will show up on the “deal of the day” emails for the handful of reliable online stores and save you some serious scratch. When I bought my equipment I got my CPU on sale for like $99 when it was retailing at the big box stores for like $189 and up.
I got screwed into buying a laptop with Vista on it. If I could find XP drivers for the hardware, I’d rip Vista out by the bloody roots and fling it screaming into a fire.
OK, after a little digging - Windows XP is officially end-of-life at the end of June, according to Microsoft. Most PC makers will not be able to offer XP after June 30.
Dell will be able to continue a “downgrade” program for a while longer. On some product lines, you’ll have to pay about $25 to get an additional copy of XP Pro in addition to Vista that will be pre-installed on the computer.
The key point here is that it’s Microsoft that’s pulling the plug on XP at the end of the month.
In any reasonable sense of the word or in answering the question, no.
This has been addressed up-thread, but the DRM provisions are not an onerous burden unique to Vista. All devices capable of playing DRM protected HD content have to have DRM infrastructure that essentially ensures the path from the content to the display and back has integrity and supposedly makes it harder to copy the DRM’ed content. If you want an HD-DVD or Blu-ray player in your computer, you’re going to need this DRM crap in the OS. If you don’t want a Blu-ray drive in your computer, the DRM stuff doesn’t matter. It only has DRM to the extent that was necessary to be able to use Blu-Ray at all, and it isn’t “retroactive” to other technologies.
I actually went through hell last week with Dell to order an XP machine right before the “deadline.” (3 hours before, to be exact).*
Even phone calls, chats, talking with supervisors and supervisors of supervisors and I couldn’t get XP on just anything. Now that Dell’s deadline has passed, the options are either the very cheap machines or certain ones of the gaming machines where you ask for the OS to be “downgraded.” And then you get XP on the machine and a Vista disk. But the downgrade is only available on certain models - the articles I’ve read said that there’s another 6 months or so of downgrading.
*The machines I was interested were not downgradable. I begged.