Vista - is it really worth it?

[Admiral Huddy]

I have it installed on my Workshop PC and it's very pretty, slinky and complete looking. However,that's about it tbh. I'm sure that once DX10 takes off then we'll see some real benefits from a gamers perspective but not sure from other angles.

Our 3 year road map at work does not include any Vista upgrade. Having said that, XP was only rolled out to the user workstations last year replacing NT 4 haha.

I quite like the media libraries. Something I could use I think.

[Mark]

Originally Posted by Daz

Is that still in beta? I used the beta, and while it was stable, the forced debug options made my VM's too slow to bear :/

It's released - I (well, work) bought the upgrade.

[Daz]

Originally Posted by Feek

It's noticably quicker.

Admittedly I've got better hardware, but it's just a lot smoother than XP and my XP was on hardware well in excess of what's recommended for it.

And you dont think you'd get the same or comparable speed running XP on that hardware? Just playing devils advocate for a moment

Thanks for the info Mark, might make a purchase (well, work)

[Stan_Lite]

I like the look of it but can't say I notice any real speed benefits - but then, I always have high-end hardware so every OS I work with is usually quick.

I haven't had much of a chance to play with it yet - especially the media centre bit due to lack of soundcard (will be remedied tomorrow).

Setting up a home network seems to be easier than XP for the ordinary user like wot I is. Apart from that, I haven't noticed anything which leaps out at me.

If I build any new machines, I will be using Vista because it makes sense to use the latest OS which will be futureproof for several years but up until now, I see no real performance advantage over XP.

Stan

[Mark]

So, the pattern I'm hearing so far is that it's good for eye candy but any other benefit is debateable.

If I'm honest, the eye candy factor doesn't do a lot for me. All the funky gradients everywhere do precisely zero for my eyesight.

[Daz]

You can of course turn it off.

[Stan_Lite]

Originally Posted by Daz

You can of course turn it off.

As you can with UAC if it's annoying you (it was, so I did ).

Stan

[Daz]

I ended up persisting with it, as I can see the benefits. Not so much for myself, but for the masses who aren't particularly responsible with their net access/email use (arguably through no fault of their own of course!)

The concept has been used in Linux/Unix for a very very long time (su/sudo), and is a proven effective last line of defence for malicious code execution. Microsoft have just adapted a much more obtrusive GUI version of that system.

[Mark]

Aye - my point is that if I turn UAC and the eye candy off, what benefit is there left?

If none, I may as well go back to XP which is tried and trusted and I've used for years.

[Daz]

Integrated search, some nice user experience bits (managing various media types is great in vista, very feature full and intuitive), and greatly re-worked sound and networking components in the kernel.

It's a strange one really because from an admins point of view, there's no reason to move to it, but if you're there and not having issues, no reason to move away either. If anything you're more secure on Vista because of it's small market share compared to XP and new kernel revision.