you just seem like an angry and negative guy in general, lol.i have a dell xps410 which i'll upgrade to vista next month, and an incoming 24" imac. i LOVE them both. computers have come a long way.
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Vista Impressions (and comparison to OSX) (56k warning)
- Thread starter Chone
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you just seem like an angry and negative guy in general, lol.i have a dell xps410 which i'll upgrade to vista next month, and an incoming 24" imac. i LOVE them both. computers have come a long way.
memory is no big deal, its easy to install for desktop or laptop, but for a laptop, VRAM requirement is difficult to meet.
Yeah, that's what I said. They bit off more than they could chew and had to drop features left and right to make it work...
By the way, you have failed to comment on your opinion of Aero reverting back to the old WinXP look when it gets hold of something it can't handle. Care to post a screenshot of that?
Well, I am.
To be fair, the last time I used Vista was Beta 1. It's entirely possible, perhaps even probable, that things have improved somewhat since then. But even looking at those build 6000 screenshots, everything just feels... unintegrated. Older apps still have a gray background surrounded by light blue surrounded by glass, the menu bars don't fit in well at all... I guess what I'm saying is I'm just not sold on the look because so much of it doesn't fit together. Even with its several themes, Aqua feels more unified than Aero. And since none of the Windows apps (read: games) I play require Vista, I don't see it being a big upgrade priority for me.
Tiger has a 512MB requirement... or at least for optimum performance, I've seen how craptastic even 10.2 runs on older low RAM computers.
As far as video goes... all you need is a dx9 card, my 9600se works fine and that card goes for 30$ nowadays, any modern low end card like the 7300GT for example will OWN Vista's aero... there might be a problem for intel integrated graphics (ATI Xpress graphic chips are safe) but thats Intel's fault more than anything.
And thats for Aero, for Vista basic you get a basic set of effects and that has the same video requirements as XP and since you all hate Aero, then why the hell are you complaining about? The non aero interface is like a cleaner looking XP.
no i don't think i mentioned that but yes it does. for example when i ran RC2 and installed VLC Player on it it would open and the screen goes fuzzy for 1/2 a second and the windows won't be transparent anymore. so it would become a solid colour like blue instead of transparent blue. but the sudebar remains transparent. just all the app windows like IE, Firefox and such become non transparent. it doesn't disable AERO fully, just makes the windows not transparent anymore until you close the incompatible app..
thats just because VLC Player wasn't fully compatible with Vista but the videos play no problem.
i have yet t run VLC Player on RTM so i'm not sure if it still does it.
i will check later on tonight and post a screenie if it does exhibit the same results.
1. Tiger's official requirement is 256MB Memory, so u know u need 1G to run Vista smoothly
2. its not about how cheap the video card is, its about how difficult for a laptop owner to replace their video card, vast majority of <$1000 laptops using integrated, irreplaceable graphic unit.
3. You don't need to yell at me, I don't think im the only who want to have options even if some options i don't really like. Also,
4. maybe I don't like it, but there are many ppl out there who like aero, and have a cheap laptop, is that so difficult to understand?
Is VLC a java application? If so thats where your problem lies, Vista and Java don't click, it disables Aero (or at least the part of it that conflicts with Java), its a problem with Java, not Vista, the new version 6 supposedly is 100% Vista compatible and removes that annoying side effect but I have yet to test Java on my Vista installation.
Well anyhow, further impressions on Vista, the out of the box software is a lot better this time around, IE7 is actually very nice, with IE6 I usually found myself racing to the firefox page just to download Firefox, I haven't tried the media center but it comes included this time around, you also get WMP 11 which is nice but personally holds no candle to the more simple iTunes, you get nice DVD and Movie maker apps (they are actually called that, Windows DVD/Movie Maker).
There is also Windows Mail which I won't ever use but for people who will, they'll get a nice application and Windows Defender, which is a very competent anti-spyware software, additionally there is now a Photo Gallery which is great actually, it is the app that opens pictures by default and it is kind of integrated right into the OS, it allows you to make basic changes to the picture like tone, saturation, etc, good picture managing tool indeed.
There is also a few other gadgets that are pretty nice like the Snipping Tool or the Sync Manager, the system tools like the defragmenter also got a revamp and now are easier to use and will become more intuitive to the average joe.
Even the games got a welcomed revamp, the games are pretty fun, you have your basic card games like Solitaire, Hearts, Freecell, etc but they are all highly polished and addictive, even Minesweeper got a graphical update, there are 4 new games as well, Chess Titans, Mahjong Titans, Purble Place (a kid's game basically) and Inkball, they are very polished games as well, Chess is full 3D (with AA even) and the AI is a very tough opponent (maybe I suck at Chess but it checkmated me in 5 turns
), Mahjong is pretty fun (if you like Mahjong), sure it may seem stupid to analyze the games but hey, it shows Microsoft is trying really hard and the built in games are quite fun to play.I don't know I'm just loving Vista, I only really started using Windows since the first NT based version (Win2k) since before that I found that Windows was just hedious compared to Mac OS (don't even get me started on the DOS days, I wouldn't have switched back then for a million bucks), I'm really not biased since I recently spent around 5000$ on 2 expensive Mac computers but I also love Windows and I can't help but feel excited that Microsoft is upgrading the system I use more often like this, sure you may hate but I love it, hopefully Leopard will be awesome as well, I'm a sucker for software.
I can't stand the Aero thing, like killmoms said, it doesn't seem to fit. Just not nearly as smooth as Aqua, and the Flip thing would do me no good, not only does it not show the entire window, but it also gives you a smaller area to select the window. Some may scoff at that, but Expose is so easy to switch windows because you have a nice large surface area to click (or un-squeeze your MM ).
Those things aside, the biggest thing that would just drive me insane is the blurry text behind the windows. That's absolutely awful.
But, to each their own, Windows users will rejoice at this craptastic new OS. Whatever makes you happy I guess.
).Those things aside, the biggest thing that would just drive me insane is the blurry text behind the windows. That's absolutely awful.
But, to each their own, Windows users will rejoice at this craptastic new OS. Whatever makes you happy I guess.
i swear it stil just has the "feel" of xp! they might have some cool graphics, and have re-written it from the ground up, but it comes down to performance and visual appeal!
wow.. the desktop looks ugly... solid corners... haven't seen a solid cornered os since win2000
i actually have java 6 release candidate installed and it works great with my work apps that need java. but i don't think thats what was messing with VLC since its not Java based.
they kind of have to retain the look and feel of XP or else the learning curve would be steep especially for the older folks.
although i wish they really revamped the IU, the retention makes sense because they are trying to make the transition easier.
Actually looking at the flip thing, I'm wondering, can it do this (my most common usage for expose)?
Expose desktop
Grab icon / file on desktop
Expose all applications
Drop grabbed file into target window
I find that the expose copies (Kompose on KDE being another one) tend to focus purely on the visual aspect, and miss the underlying drag and drop functionality that it exposes.
i totally agree with every single word you siad.
i really want to see Leopard's new "Style". What was it called? Illuminous? Idk all the talk about it being black really gets me exited. i think it will be a good contrast agains most the white hardware.
i am deffinatly exited for both Leopard and Vista (for my desktop).
I use Firefox
You didn't even use it to change your default browser to Firefox? Hmmm...
Vista Basic also only runs 3 programs at a time.
But really, if people hate Aero, they can just turn it off (you can, right?!).Well, drag-n-drop on Windows has never come close to what MacOS offers, so I would expect not. But... it's always possible I suppose.
I don't know how I ever did things without Exposé's drag-n-drop ability.
I have been using Macs for two years now, had been using Windows almost all my life.
I would consider myself a good average user in XP.
Being able to use applescript - power user?
i have self taught myself applescript over the past 6 months and now write personal applications that interface with terminal that can do more and more complex things for me. Saving my time. I do not consider myself a power user but if doing what i am doing makes me a power user then i guess i am.
The addition of these items help good users become better users. The whole point of the OS is to provide an area for you to get your work done. Thus saving me time is a huge bonus.
Vista Basic also only runs 3 programs at a time.
Well, drag-n-drop on Windows has never come close to what MacOS offers, so I would expect not. But... it's always possible I suppose.
I don't know how I ever did things without Exposé's drag-n-drop ability.
Heh I'm talking about the visual style "Vista Basic" not the Vista version Vista Starter Edition lol, you can turn off Aero and without it, it pretty much looks like a cleaner more sleeker looking XP which should be what some people want though I'll admit you lose Flip3D and the cool fade in and outs and the minimizing effects and whatnot, in the future I guess there will be 1st or 3rd party solutions to turn off specific portions of the Aero interface for example the dreaded glass effect or maybe there is and I just don't know how to do it.
A few more pictures: This is Photo Gallery with the Graphite theme look for Windows, I like the default one better though.
And this are some of the games with their new clean look
I love me Mahjong and Chess.
See it looks bad because when you look at the pictures thats all you see, when you actually focus on the actual windows content and use the computer as normal... the glass effect goes down very smoothly and doesn't bother at all and looks pretty neat, I like it personally and doesn't bother me, in fact I can't go back to the non-glass interface but apparently I must be the only person who feels that way... it makes the OS feel more integrated within itself and gives windows a more blended-in look, but hey thats just my opinion, I can definitely see where the smudge complains come from.
A Voice of Reason
I agree totally. For all of you haters out there, this is coming from a dual user. I have both a Mac and a PC. To me its not which one is better, just which one does what I need it to better.
My two computers are a 5-year old e-Machine tower, and a 1.5 year old iBook G4. I upgraded the Video Card and the RAM on the tower from the standard to a Radeon 9200 SE and 768 of RAM. I have to say that I love Vista. I love the way it looks, I love the way it runs, and I love the way it is backwards compatible with legacy applications all the way back to the 80's. Correct me if I'm wrong, but if I recall, Leopard will no longer support Classic. This means that you will only be able to use OS X specific applications. Not so with Windows.
I work part-time at a Health Clinic and their primary machine is XP Pro, and uses a DOS application to do all of the patient information recording and transaction accounting. I would shudder if they did the same thing using OS X. I cannot imagine how buggy it would be to use a software package from OS 9 in Classic mode.
I ran Vista for close to a month on the e-Machine tower and it ran great. Almost all of my applications that I used on XP worked on Vista and those that didn't were no great loss. The user interface was not distracting and actually impressed a large number of my friends at college. And contrary to popular belief Windows is capable of scripting. DOS actually has a scripting language built into it that is capable of doing everything that OS X ... I mean Free-BSD can do.
Lets not make any mistake, OS X owes its success to Free-BSD. Without Darwin the Macintosh system would not be as good as it is today. Prior to OS X I hated Mac's. There was only one reason for this, OS 9. That operating system had memory leaks and other problems that made me not want to use it. In fact I didn't even switch until 10.4.
I actively use both OS X and XP. There are some applications that I cannot use on my Mac that I must have my XP machine for, such as Visual Studios programming. Conversely there are some applications that I prefer to use on my Mac, such as the iWork Suite and iLife Suite.
However my biggest problem with Macs is how poorly they cooperate with Windows networks. I also work at the Desktop Support Services area on campus. We have nothing but trouble trying to get the Mac lab computers to work with the existing network. Yes I know they are just supposed to work. However a lot of the nice bells and whistles only work in a Mac only network environment. A very good example is Software Update Service. We had to manually configure the clients to accept updates from the Server and also had to corral the Macs into keeping accurate logs of Active Directory logins.
In short I feel that each computer has its place. I like them both and cannot wait until I can afford a MacBook Pro to be able to dual-boot it, Leopard and Vista.
I agree totally. For all of you haters out there, this is coming from a dual user. I have both a Mac and a PC. To me its not which one is better, just which one does what I need it to better.
My two computers are a 5-year old e-Machine tower, and a 1.5 year old iBook G4. I upgraded the Video Card and the RAM on the tower from the standard to a Radeon 9200 SE and 768 of RAM. I have to say that I love Vista. I love the way it looks, I love the way it runs, and I love the way it is backwards compatible with legacy applications all the way back to the 80's. Correct me if I'm wrong, but if I recall, Leopard will no longer support Classic. This means that you will only be able to use OS X specific applications. Not so with Windows.
I work part-time at a Health Clinic and their primary machine is XP Pro, and uses a DOS application to do all of the patient information recording and transaction accounting. I would shudder if they did the same thing using OS X. I cannot imagine how buggy it would be to use a software package from OS 9 in Classic mode.
I ran Vista for close to a month on the e-Machine tower and it ran great. Almost all of my applications that I used on XP worked on Vista and those that didn't were no great loss. The user interface was not distracting and actually impressed a large number of my friends at college. And contrary to popular belief Windows is capable of scripting. DOS actually has a scripting language built into it that is capable of doing everything that OS X ... I mean Free-BSD can do.
Lets not make any mistake, OS X owes its success to Free-BSD. Without Darwin the Macintosh system would not be as good as it is today. Prior to OS X I hated Mac's. There was only one reason for this, OS 9. That operating system had memory leaks and other problems that made me not want to use it. In fact I didn't even switch until 10.4.
I actively use both OS X and XP. There are some applications that I cannot use on my Mac that I must have my XP machine for, such as Visual Studios programming. Conversely there are some applications that I prefer to use on my Mac, such as the iWork Suite and iLife Suite.
However my biggest problem with Macs is how poorly they cooperate with Windows networks. I also work at the Desktop Support Services area on campus. We have nothing but trouble trying to get the Mac lab computers to work with the existing network. Yes I know they are just supposed to work. However a lot of the nice bells and whistles only work in a Mac only network environment. A very good example is Software Update Service. We had to manually configure the clients to accept updates from the Server and also had to corral the Macs into keeping accurate logs of Active Directory logins.
In short I feel that each computer has its place. I like them both and cannot wait until I can afford a MacBook Pro to be able to dual-boot it, Leopard and Vista.