JohnMason Posted July 23, 2008 Posted July 23, 2008 For home use? I quite like it. It does it's job. I think I might have been better off sticking with XP, but I'm not sure i'd downgrade. However, I wouldn't even be too hot about using it at work myself, let alone running a school off of it.
Dos_Box Posted July 23, 2008 Posted July 23, 2008 I have Vista Ultimate (32 bit) on my desktop at work, but it still has dammed annoying bugs and does nothing that XP did not do (apart from run slower with twice the hardware requirements). My current 2 annoyances are: A. Vista claiming it does not have access\permissions to a folder when installing software only to click 'Retry' and it carry on as normal. B. When copying files over 2GB in size over the LAN it simply abandons the task at about 95%. Not good for an administrators computer. Vista simply does not have any features I require over XP and the only reason I'm running it is to get my teeth into it before my users begin to get new kit with it on.
sparkeh Posted July 23, 2008 Posted July 23, 2008 Only installed Vista to get to grips with it before I was asked to support it. Doesn't seem to have any advantage over XP, pretty much does the same things, only slower. Some very annoying issues out me off it pretty quickly. Slow start up times, slow close down time, reinstalling devices every time I booted, driver incompatability. No its not for me. Any Vista machines coming in get XP on them quick sharp. Give me a nice linux distro every time
torledo Posted July 23, 2008 Posted July 23, 2008 But when did Microsoft provide the best applications? The only native MS apps I run is Notepad and Windows Explorer. And even those two are decidedly average when you look at what options available on open source with file explorers and barebones text editors. Let's not kid ourselves, M$ has never been about best of breed....it's all about convenience, market share and marketing. They took the lead due to the ineptitude of those responsible for the unix workstation market and some decidedly shakey business and strategic decisions at Apple - everyone else has been playing catch up ever since forced in some way to play nice with windows and to cater for the largely Windows centric corporate IT base due to the monopoly. I wouldn't underestimate Microsofts ability to shift Vista or atleast shift Vista licenses to business in big numbers, and the leverage they have with the OEMs is also crucial in getting Vista out there....whether people want it or not.
CyberNerd Posted July 23, 2008 Posted July 23, 2008 The only native MS apps I run is Notepad and Windows Explorer. Thats really funny in light of the rest of your post ! -notepad and explorer are rubbish!
ZeroHour Posted July 23, 2008 Posted July 23, 2008 tbh I dont find it that slow either. Boot time is about the same and if you compare like for like (XP + Windows Defender + Windows Search) things start to get closer. Copy times do seem slightly slower in my experience but other then that its fine but I have not had the 2gb bug. As for work use, it does offer some admin benefits and user benefits but it will be a fair bit of work to test everything but the benefit is if you go to vista the kernel is going to probably be identical in windows 7 so your network could be more ready for that.
Gatt Posted July 23, 2008 Posted July 23, 2008 Gotta say yeah I am - Moving to Vista where I can in the school - in fact its making my life easier as I only need one image - rather than the usal 6! Got it on my new laptop, my Work PC and my Home PC (dual booting to XP!)
FN-GM Posted July 23, 2008 Author Posted July 23, 2008 in fact its making my life easier as I only need one image - rather than the usal 6! How is that then? Why do you only have one now? Thanks Z
MkII Posted July 23, 2008 Posted July 23, 2008 How is that then? Why do you only have one now? Thanks Z Vista imaging works differently in that it's HAL independent. No need to create a separate image for each hardware spec..
FN-GM Posted July 23, 2008 Author Posted July 23, 2008 Vista imaging works differently in that it's HAL independent. No need to create a separate image for each hardware spec.. So what would i do just to move the image to another machine? Thanks Z
Quackers Posted July 24, 2008 Posted July 24, 2008 Its easier having 6 images and running XP then having 1 image and running Vista. Unless of course you like the word "Welcome" for 5-10 minutes on your screen with a animated circle..... Please wait....... Please Wait...... Please Wait......, and o Please... wait some more......
SYNACK Posted July 24, 2008 Posted July 24, 2008 So what would i do just to move the image to another machine? Thanks Z The simplest way is to sysprep is and image it as is detailed here: Deploying Vista – Part 5: Using Sysprep It is way better to use the AIK and WDS though so I would suggest reading the whole article.
crc-ict Posted July 24, 2008 Posted July 24, 2008 Big no here. In fact, my experiences with Vista on some new laptops at one of my schools inspired me to buy a Mac! It was time for a new rig, and I didn't like the way Microsoft is going with Windows, so decided the time was right to jump ship. And to be honest, I'm not looking back. I've got Office which I need, Photoshop Elements, and of course the option to use XP via Boot Camp or Parallels. And my desk is so much tidier with an iMac on it than my old PC.
torledo Posted July 24, 2008 Posted July 24, 2008 Its easier having 6 images and running XP then having 1 image and running Vista. Unless of course you like the word "Welcome" for 5-10 minutes on your screen with a animated circle..... Please wait....... Please Wait...... Please Wait......, and o Please... wait some more...... Even without the HAL detection abilities of the new sysprep in Vista, surely you wouldn't need to maintain 6 different XP images for different HAL types. Aren't the HAL types basically divided into a combo of ACPI, Non-ACPI, UniProcessor and Multiprocessor and a couple of legacy HAL types that noone should have lying around. Seeing as most kit you'd want to deploy is of the uniprocessor variety and comparatively recent then you should only need to maintain a couple of different XP images at most - or is the reality different to that ....You could always go through the process of creating an XP HAL independent image to make life a little bit easier. Other than the different sysprep version used with WIM based imaging of XP with it's version of sysprep and imagex/wim you get many of the same benefits as imaging Vista, such as the file based imaging and SIS.
torledo Posted July 24, 2008 Posted July 24, 2008 So what would i do just to move the image to another machine? Thanks Z Vista will detect the HAL type if you use the new -generalize -OOBE switch in sysprep if your going to then image your machines with something like ghost.
Pottsey Posted July 24, 2008 Posted July 24, 2008 Although I voted no that was for school use. For home use I would never go back to XP on my main PC. The key to Vista is ram and lots of it. Once you hit the 6+ gig mark with a nice fast flash drive set as ready boost it’s a nippy OS. Wouldn’t dream of using Vista on a 2gig or less PC. Hi to all the Eve online addicts.
Dos_Box Posted July 24, 2008 Posted July 24, 2008 Although I voted no that was for school use. For home use I would never go back to XP on my main PC. The key to Vista is ram and lots of it. Once you hit the 6+ gig mark with a nice fast flash drive set as ready boost it’s a nippy OS. Wouldn’t dream of using Vista on a 2gig or less PC. Hi to all the Eve online addicts. Indeed. I find that 3GB of RAM is the ideal level, especially with the 32 bit flavours of Vista. 2 GB seems to lag a tiny bit and 1GB is a joke.
gshaw Posted July 24, 2008 Posted July 24, 2008 Nope still hate it with a vengeance... put it on a new PC with the intention of trying to use it in the office day-to-day but just can't bear the interface! Still there's no good reason why you'd install it, especially with XP SP3 booting lightning quick (wouldn't put Desktop Search near any of our PCs either it's dire ) 1GB = useless 2GB = jus about usable 3GB = XP level of performance with 2GB! The UI is horrible and takes double the time to do simple tasks, the colour scheme gives me headaches and the stupid animated windows are just irritating. All in all great for the unkowledgeable but hopeless for anyone who knows how to use a PC. Only problem is one day users are gonna ask about it thanks to it being shovelled on new machines... that's the day I dread I like Microsoft and prefer XP over Linux & co any day but this really is a dog of a product they need to get rid of asap
ctbjs Posted July 24, 2008 Posted July 24, 2008 and install Windows 3.1 wonderful operating system and file manager is wonderful. No really though, Vista is not up to the job in a school environment (my opinion only of course) in its current form. It provides us with no added features that are provided by Windows XP in terms of student teacher interaction. I had it at home (Ultimate) and after around 6 weeks of playing with it I got both bored and frustrated with it and have gone back to XP. At work I have two machines attached to a windows 2008 server to continue testing and determining whether there is any real benefit and at present there is not.
Guest Guest Posted July 24, 2008 Posted July 24, 2008 (edited) STILL doesnt work with my hardware and applications. Twice as slow as XP (if not more) at just about everything. Extreamly annoying interface which is more suited to a trained chimp than an IT professional. ("Are you sure?" Yes im friggin sure!) That config you needed, well its not where it was in XP, we're moved it to an "easier and more convienant place" Its under the advanced options in a subcatagory of a submenu of the options pages of the config file which is under this menu which is in network settings which is under control panel... Doesnt deliver on its main advantage for me which is "improved" audio in the form of WaveRT. If you want a media centre than the free MythTV is far better. If you just want to browse the internet than you dont need an OS which eats £200 worth of hardware before you even open Internet explorer. Theres a couple of things which i have thought "yeah thats good" but not enough to justrify Vistas existance nevermind its usefulness to me personally. Edited July 24, 2008 by Guest
Gatt Posted July 24, 2008 Posted July 24, 2008 Vista will detect the HAL type if you use the new -generalize -OOBE switch in sysprep if your going to then image your machines with something like ghost. The only thing to watch with Vista's OOBE (Out Of Box Experience) is that it strips out any drivers that didnt come in the, errr, box (hence OOBE!) One work around is to use Microsoft's Deployment Toolkit (MDT, was BDD) to allow you to inject the drivers into the Vista Install - This stops Vista's Sysprep from stripping the new drivers out As most of our hardware have tghe same hardware - more or less this isnt much of an issue - nor is Aero Glass - if the hardware doesn't support it with OOBE drivers - whatever.. So far a Vista Image built on an HP dc7700 has installed onto - an Acer ASspire T650, a dc7800, a dc5800, as well as other dc7700's as well as a custom built Pent-D.. So far - only the Acer supoprts Glass with the OOBE drivers..
DSapseid Posted July 24, 2008 Posted July 24, 2008 (edited) Im probably going to get lynched for saying this but i prefer Vista to XP!! I used to be of the opinion that vista was but i thought to myself ' Well its gonna happen sooner or later so may as well start getting used to it!'. The first few weeks were 'Where the hell have they moved that to?!' and 'What the the hell have they renamed that to?!?' (The add remove programs one still confuses me!!). I have now been using Vista at work for nearly 6 months and i can catagoricaly say that i wont be going back to xp. I run a xp virtual machine on my vista machine so i can test anything on that. I am even looking at buying a new machine at home so i can buy vista as i now hate using my xp computer at home! I have tried using linux and nearlly launched the machine through the skylight above my desk!! Edited July 24, 2008 by DSapseid
flyinghaggis Posted July 24, 2008 Posted July 24, 2008 The first few weeks were 'Where the hell have they moved that to?!' and 'What the the hell have they renamed that to?!?' (The add remove programs one still confuses me!!). I had that problem but the nice thing about the start menu / control panel in Vista is that you can simply hit the Start Key, type in what you want to run/access then press return and it'll automatically launch it! No more having to search through 2-3 screens worth of start menu listings to find what you want which is a colossal improvement IMO
ZeroHour Posted July 24, 2008 Posted July 24, 2008 and i can catagoricaly say that i wont be going back to vista. I assume thats a typo
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