Windows Vista thread (only for Windows users)

[jemsite]

read this before posting in this thread
http://www.jemsite.com/forums/showpo...&postcount=139

... glen

[chef21]

OK so I have a new computer, an HP Media Center M7640N. It's got a AMD64 live dual processor 5000+, 2084ram. integrated invedia 6150LE graphics. I just got it in November, and it come with a free Vista upgrade. I tryed to follow the other thread, but don't know much about this and am more confused after the old thread. Should I install, vista, now or just receive my copy and install it later. I use my computer for gaming, pictures, music and TV. So now or later, can I install it myself, I also received a coupon to have future shop do the install for free. chef21

[Wis Redz of Silvanost]

Glen I just wanted to tell you that your last post in the old thread cracked me up. I'm still laughing at your decision to open a new thread and the threat you made

[Rotti]

Originally Posted by chef21

OK so I have a new computer, an HP Media Center M7640N. It's got a AMD64 live dual processor 5000+, 2084ram. integrated invedia 6150LE graphics. I just got it in November, and it come with a free Vista upgrade. I tryed to follow the other thread, but don't know much about this and am more confused after the old thread. Should I install, vista, now or just receive my copy and install it later. I use my computer for gaming, pictures, music and TV. So now or later, can I install it myself, I also received a coupon to have future shop do the install for free. chef21

If it was my computer (and I wish it was) I would go for the upgrade. But I'm not afraid to try a new OS and deal with any issues that might pop up.

[jemsite]

chef, i'll be in your position in a few weeks as my upgrade arrives from Dell. i would probably upgrade sooner than later for the media center stuff and ability to run 64-bit OS with that cpu. Still, run the vista upgrade checker to verify all components pass... but really HP wouldn't be shipping free vista upgrades if all the components of those PCs weren't already tested.

other thing is you might want to upgrade while you have the "software" support warranty. that is often 90-180 days thru the vendor... glen

[Randy Rhoads]

I wont be buying Vista, for starters, my Win doze PC is only used for gaming (I fly a lot on X-Plane) and "used" to play Guitar Pro but now there is a version for "other computers " so it will be relegated for gaming, as it is its not blazing fast even if I have top notch hardware, so I guess putting Vista will even make it slower and cumbersome.
The problem with MS and with Vista is the miriad of products of a miriad of vendors that interact in weird ways and some of them clash constantly, that happened when I switched (for example) from my original Nvidia 6800GTX PCI X press to a Radeon 1800 , the drivers were a nightmare to uninstall and then to put the new ATI ones, eventually the whole thing came down like a house of cards and had to reinstall from scratch XP.
A good friend of mine recomended to partition the OS on its own and th e other partition for games, programs and such, now it got viruses in most probably some info will be lost (good excuse to restart from the begining that Half Life 2!!). (th eonly time I connect to the net is when Steam acceses the database, we dont even open or have any mail instaled on there!..
Anyways I can imagine the nightmare the upgrade would be, and I consider myself lucky that MY hardware can handle Vista, but I wont...

(in case you want to know)
MoBo is a MSI dual SLI 939, with an AMD 3800+, 2 gig of Fast RAM, dual 160 gig hD in an array, dual CD DVD R, Radeon 1800 PCI express on an ASUS Vento cabinet and a "insert evil brand here" 23 inch flat panel applecinema monitor.
For the price MS charges for Vista, I wonder what would happen if "new" hardware did NOT ship with it installed, would you pay its price?

[jemsite]

teetering very close to a February vacation ...glen

ps - vista install over XP moves your /windows folder to /windows.old so you can revert back to XP if you like.

[crevis]

Originally Posted by Randy Rhoads

I wont be buying Vista, for starters, my Win doze PC is only used for gaming (I fly a lot on X-Plane) and "used" to play Guitar Pro but now there is a version for "other computers " so it will be relegated for gaming, as it is its not blazing fast even if I have top notch hardware, so I guess putting Vista will even make it slower and cumbersome.
The problem with MS and with Vista is the miriad of products of a miriad of vendors that interact in weird ways and some of them clash constantly, that happened when I switched (for example) from my original Nvidia 6800GTX PCI X press to a Radeon 1800 , the drivers were a nightmare to uninstall and then to put the new ATI ones, eventually the whole thing came down like a house of cards and had to reinstall from scratch XP.
A good friend of mine recomended to partition the OS on its own and th e other partition for games, programs and such, now it got viruses in most probably some info will be lost (good excuse to restart from the begining that Half Life 2!!). (th eonly time I connect to the net is when Steam acceses the database, we dont even open or have any mail instaled on there!..
Anyways I can imagine the nightmare the upgrade would be, and I consider myself lucky that MY hardware can handle Vista, but I wont...

(in case you want to know)
MoBo is a MSI dual SLI 939, with an AMD 3800+, 2 gig of Fast RAM, dual 160 gig hD in an array, dual CD DVD R, Radeon 1800 PCI express on an ASUS Vento cabinet and a "insert evil brand here" 23 inch flat panel applecinema monitor.
For the price MS charges for Vista, I wonder what would happen if "new" hardware did NOT ship with it installed, would you pay its price?

You'd that mobo would work best with Nvidia, If it runs slow its probably because the G/C isnt powerful enough for the hi res monitor. What res do you play games at?

[microdmitry]

I've tried to go 64 bit a couple of times at work, always end up going back to 32 bit. Some things are missing, some don't work. Besides all three Dells that I have show only 3.25GB of RAM even though 4GB is installed, EVEN in 64 bit mode. I've asked knowledgeable folks and they say that there's nothing an OS can do about this - it's a mobo problem and third party mobos usually have a BIOS setting that allows the OS to see all 4GB.

One good thing wrt 64 bit support is that Microsoft now mandates that hardware drivers have both 32 and 64 bit versions in order to get certified for Vista, and 64 bit Vista won't run unsigned drivers. Time will tell how well that works.

[Randy Rhoads]

I play Far Cry, Half Life X-plane, Doom 3 , and counterstrike at 1600*1024 and the frame rate is always better than 45 FPS with a good setup (antialiasin and such), the speed of the games is no problem in fact thats why I buoght it this way, admitedly the Nvidia card was almost as fast as the Radeon but I got better framerates with X-plane with everything turned up (insane levels) at 1280*1024...
I installed Photoshop and Illustrator and tried to make some work there but , altough I wont say it was slow It was not Blazing fast, it was nothing amazing.

Even if Vista installs and saves the Old Xp, I wont switch, just seeing the nightmare a single video driver makes is enough for me to keep my Game machine as it is (well now that it comes back fixed...)

[microdmitry]

Glen, I don't think you can really go back. It just renames the old folder for "backup" purposes, not for the purpose of going back. So be careful there. Back up your data first.

[crevis]

Originally Posted by Randy Rhoads

I play Far Cry, Half Life X-plane, Doom 3 , and counterstrike at 1600*1024 and the frame rate is always better than 45 FPS with a good setup (antialiasin and such), the speed of the games is no problem in fact thats why I buoght it this way, admitedly the Nvidia card was almost as fast as the Radeon but I got better framerates with X-plane with everything turned up (insane levels) at 1280*1024...
I installed Photoshop and Illustrator and tried to make some work there but , altough I wont say it was slow It was not Blazing fast, it was nothing amazing.

Even if Vista installs and saves the Old Xp, I wont switch, just seeing the nightmare a single video driver makes is enough for me to keep my Game machine as it is (well now that it comes back fixed...)

You probably would have had some HDR problems with the old nvidia card anyway, I have an X850XT and run HL2 with everythign max at 1440 X 900 and it runs pretty quick. If you want to test it download lost coast in steam and see how it runs, mine got 53 FPS in the stress test with mid fx levels and 1024 X whatever the wide ratio is.

[AirGuitar]

I got a hold of Vista Business edition last week, and have been running it since.

I mostly use my pc for uni work/coding and a bit of gaming.

At the moment, the drivers availible for my hardware are very lacking in the stability department. Ive had a load of random lockups, and a few crashes. I'm pointing directly at the ATI drivers for these as ive had quite a few problems installing them. Also, if you have an XFI sound card, there are no decent drivers availible yet.

Apart from the negative stuff, i do love the way Vista looks and runs. Theres so many little improvements to the interface which make it much more pleasent to use. I'm sure once the manufacturers catch up and improve the driver support it'll be a great OS.

For now, however, i would keep away for a month or two. I installed Windows XP again last night (though vista is still ready to run on another hard drive) because i'd had enough of the lockups. I WILL deffinately be using vista at some point, but its not quite ready yet.

My System:
Asus A8R32-MVP Deluxe Mboard
Athlon X2 4200+
3GB DDR400 Ram (Corsair and OCZ)
ATI Radeon X1900 XTX
Dell 2405 24" Monitor

[Rotti]

For anyone who is unsure how Vista will run on thier machine they can choose to dual boot.
I think it's an option when you install Vista, (maybe someone can confirm). This way you can try Vista and still have your old OS intact if you want to use that for some reason.

[crevis]

Just make two partitions on the drive.