upgrading to Vista

[budoy]

guys advise naman...

here are the specs of my PC...

2.20 gigahertz AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core
onboard nVIDIA NF-MCP61
512MB DDR2 memory
80Gb SATA

and running on Windows XP. I have set it up as a web server (IIS) running PHP, MySQL, .NET 2.0, MS SQL Express, and I regularly use Adobe Photoshop CS3 doing web layouts, Dreamweaver CS3, visual studio 2k5 and 2k8, ms ofc 2k7 (outlook, word and visio most especially), i have a habit of listening to MP3s via WMP 11 while I work and a browser window is always open. i also play marvel ultimate alliance, star wars: kotor, NWN 2, NBA 2k8, Elder scrolls 4 and sims 2.

question is, if i upgrade my OS to vista, what should I upgrade to my hardware to be able to continue doing my normal PC routine without a sacrifice or dip in computing performance?

[Gide0n]

memory. make it 2GB

[loc0]

Is there any particular reason why you want to use Vista?

[im_the_one]

dont use vista! it sux...

[Zzzzz...]

bro, Vista gamit ko ngayon. Unfortunately, hindi na nagssell ng XP yung mga shops dito.
512mb din yung memory ko noon and paminsan bumabagal lalo na kapag magbukas ka ng folder :(. Also yung startup nya mabagal.
And kung gamer ka, yung ibang mga pre-Vista games eh hindi compatible sa Vista.
Kung gusto mo talaga yung Vista then bumili ka ng additional memory.

Lecheng Bill Gates na yan, yung 'jojo' kasi nyan "soft" na nga "micro" pa. :lol:

[SP-17]

Kung ako sayo dude, XP ka pa rin. May ibang shops sa Greenhills na nagbebenta pa rin gn XP. Marami pang OS installer dun. Wag ka lang mag-Vista.

Yung mga laptops na may Vista, genuine microsoft pero mahirap talaga siyang malagyan ng mga softwares. Vista sucks.

[smilewarrior]

^I agree. XP's a lot more stable and a hell of a lot easier to use than Vista.

Vista's such a resource hog. Gaya nga ng sabi nila, kailangan talagang mas mataas ang ram mo.

Perhaps I'm just doing it wrong, but with XP I can transfer batches of files en-masse using bluetooth, with Vista I have to give a confirmation for every file......:(.

Vista's incredibly quirky, I'm not sure if the soon-to-be-released Vista Service Pack 1 will bring significant improvements to the system (but I'm certainly hoping it does ).

I learned this the hard way, it's not a good idea to install updates designated as "optional" in vista. System restore's not easy to use either, you'll have do it while in Safe mode or else no changes will occur :(.

[DaVinciCode]

I've been using Vista for some time. Not much hassle to me so far. Yun nga lang, you have to download the Vista-compatible version of some of your pirated softwares that won't run. :lol:

So far, nung nag-Vista ako, hindi na gumana yung Corel ko, saka yung Alcohol DVD burner. Oh well, I just downloaded the latest CORE releases. :D

About resource hog, bumili ka na lang ng additional 1 GIG ram to make it atleast 2 Gig RAM. Sobrang mura na ng DDR2 RAM these days. Bagsak presyo.

By the way, pag nag-canvass kayo, mas mahal ang original Windows XP Professional kaysa sa original Windows Vista Premium. I think it's one way Microsoft is encouraging people to buy Vista.

[fnh]

I like Vista. If your hardware can support it, then why not run it. In a few years time, Vista will be the most-supported OS anyway.

I agree, upgrade your RAM to 2GB.

[la_flash]

XP is on its way OUT of the market, just like what happened to pre-XP OS. Well, that is in terms of support and updates.

[commoner]

you mean you want to "downgrade" to vista?:rotflmao:

[mildsiete]

guys advise naman...

here are the specs of my PC...

2.20 gigahertz AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core
onboard nVIDIA NF-MCP61
512MB DDR2 memory
80Gb SATA

and running on Windows XP. I have set it up as a web server (IIS) running PHP, MySQL, .NET 2.0, MS SQL Express, and I regularly use Adobe Photoshop CS3 doing web layouts, Dreamweaver CS3, visual studio 2k5 and 2k8, ms ofc 2k7 (outlook, word and visio most especially), i have a habit of listening to MP3s via WMP 11 while I work and a browser window is always open. i also play marvel ultimate alliance, star wars: kotor, NWN 2, NBA 2k8, Elder scrolls 4 and sims 2.

question is, if i upgrade my OS to vista, what should I upgrade to my hardware to be able to continue doing my normal PC routine without a sacrifice or dip in computing performance?

DON'T!!!!

I upgraded to vista 5 weeks ago but had to go back to XP because vista sucks! It kept asking for upgraded versions of programs I had installed. After I upgrade one, it asks for another, walang katapusan.


clickme
http://i218.photobucket.com/albums/cc318/mildmonaco/Bluewhiteheadertextbanner.jpg (http://keyboardmonologues.blogspot.com/)

[la_flash]

Ewan ko, pero parang unti-unting nawawala na talaga ang XP sa market eh. Observation ko lang ha, nung tumitingin-tingin ako ng laptops dito sa Singapore at Indonesia.

[commoner]

this is what microsoft does to phase out their old products.

ill still wait until everyone around me uses vista before i start making the switch. halos lahat ng kilala ko naka-xp parin.

[Gospel of Judas]

ang daming bitter dahil hindi maka-upgrade sa vista. :rotflmao:

it'll take a while to learn but once you get a clue about vista, it's all easy pickings.

[Afghan Loverboy]

DON'T!!!!

I upgraded to vista 5 weeks ago but had to go back to XP because vista sucks! It kept asking for upgraded versions of programs I had installed. After I upgrade one, it asks for another, walang katapusan.

Natural kailangan mo i-upgrade. Luma na yung mga programs na ginagamit mo eh. Pang-XP lang! Anong gusto mo? magic? :lol:

[Zzzzz...]

oh I forgot. Yung microsoft word ng Vista hindi compatible sa XP, wala pa kaming printer non and hindi ko maprint sa internet cafe.

And hindi ko rin mabukas yung .doc dito sa PC ko. Any solutions guys?

[TheWookie]

If you created your document using Microsoft Office 2007, choose "Save as", then select to save it in Microsoft Office 2003 format.

[Afghan Loverboy]

^ How much do you charge for switching ON my laptop? I don't know how to switch it on. :D

[Vhemvhol]

daming galit sa vista dito ah. :D baka naman kasi hindi umabot sa minimum requirements yung rig nyo kaya nababagalan kayo sa vista.

ako i've been using vista ultimate for almost 4 months now. no problems whatsoever. mabilis naman at very responsive. :)

[budoy]

hmm.. the consensus here seems to be in favor of windows xp.. i guess, if you're a power user, there's still no reason to upgrade to vista since its a resource hog nga.. as far as i know, Vista doesn't have a lot of support yet for development tools,aside from Visual studio 2k8..

[TheWookie]

^ Can you name a development tool that doesn't work on Windows Vista?!

[fnh]

If you are running with latest hardware, I won't really call Vista "slow". I have no problems with Vista so far.

[DaVinciCode]

majority of my customers who have vista, still wanted xp.

So paano sila nagkameron ng Vista in the first place????

Or maybe, majority of your customers still insist on using OLD software that only runs on XP. So kahit gusto nilang mag-Vista, hindi rin pwede.



like hardware stores, groceries and other PINOYS, majority of them would still prefer xp for speed and other features that make it less expensive for them.

What kind of "speed" is required in a hardware or grocery store anyway? Accounting?


sadly not all PINOYS can afford it and i am for them, hope nobody thinks of that as wrong

Licensed Vista is cheaper than licensed XP.

I think what you should mean is that if you already have XP and it is working ok for you, then there is still no need to spend money to upgrade to Vista.

But if you have a brand new machine with no OS, then it will cost you more to buy original XP than to buy original Vista.

[DaVinciCode]

anyway most of internet cafes have XP, some of them have 50 or more computers.

Are they licensed XPs? Well, it will only add to business cost for internet cafes to upgrade to Vista every machine they have. They are just renting out their machines to customers anyway so they really don't care for "user experience" from Vista.


some even buy surplus pentium 3s, with XP

Vista cannot run on Pentium 3. Why they are buying Pentium 3s is not because they hate Vista.



when vista came, microsoft last December released XP SP3

That's part of Microsoft's continued service support to legacy products. They were doing the same thing to Windows 2000/Windows NT before, when Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 were still brand new. Nothing unusual there.



many of my friends who bought laptops with vista paid me to install xp instead ........ and many more would ... 0928-6012287 for my home service

Did they install original licensed Windows XP? And if somebody doesn't know how to click the "fomat" command on his laptop and ask you to install XP on their machines, are you going to provide licensed XP to them, or just the pirated XP?

[sadirmata]

bakit kaya mas mahal pa ngayon ang xp kaysa vista. 7k+ pa rin ang xp pro samantalang ang vista home premium makukuha mo na ng 5k+.

[loc0]

Supply and demand?

[xyzseaman]

Napaaray ako dun sa specs ng PC ng threadstarter... 512MB tapos mag upgrade ikaw sa Vista? Hihina powers ng PC mo..

Kung upgrade ka sa Vista, upgrade ka ng RAM tol... the higher the better.

Pero IMHO, wag ka muna upgrade sa Vista not until they work out the kinks dun sa system. In my case, gagamitin ko XP until na ma-phase out na ito hehe.

[la_flash]

so far, this is the problem that i've encountered with vista.

my damn webmail is freaking me out. i cannot send or reply emails. searching the web, i've found a way to solve it. voila, the old problem is gone, i can now compose an email or reply to an email without that red "X" in a box appearing in the body of my msg (well as you know that means there's an error). However, a new problem came up. Sending the messages will show you another error. IT says that IE encountered an error and IE needs to restart the program... blah blah blah. :bash:

[slickmugen_13]

Get A Mac :d

[Rammstein]

bakit kaya mas mahal pa ngayon ang xp kaysa vista. 7k+ pa rin ang xp pro samantalang ang vista home premium makukuha mo na ng 5k+.

there's oem and retail, and many versions of vista.

microsoft recently slashed the price of vista, i don't know what sku's are affected. sana mas ramdam ang price difference.

[jescythe]

"according to a Florida performance testing software developer, XP SP3 is not only 10% faster than XP SP2, but more than twice as fast as Vista SP1, claims that Microsoft disparaged within days.

XP SP3, in fact, is the newest version of Vista's biggest rival, according to Forrester Research. U.S. and European businesses will delay Vista deployment, Forrester analyst Benjamin Gray said a month ago, in part because of application incompatibility problems unheard of in XP"

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9053518

many my friends who bought laptops with vista paid me to install xp instead ........ and many more would ... 0928-6012287 for my home service

AFAIK, yung SP3 is actually compilations lang ng mga updates since SP2. so walang new tools dito. kung updated naman yung WinXP mo, no need to install this.




why do you need to upgrade to vista??? dahil bago lang? eyecandy? wala namang performance upgrade. i don't think many of you care about security issues, baka nga ata di updated yung WinXP mo, tapos malamang IE6 pa ang gamit mo. tapos malamang outdated na rin yung antivirus mo since di ka makapag-update dahil pirated o lagpas na yung trial period.

[SP-17]

Get A Mac :d

True! *okay*

[st.anger]

im in no rush to upgrade. it's the same thing i did when xp first came out and 98 was still "in."

i can wait till they finally phase out xp or dont bother giving support for it.

[SP-17]

People's common OS in few years would be Mac OSX. :)

[loc0]

I doubt it.

[Kukuru]

"Upgrading" is a different issue than if you bought a new PC/Laptop with Vista already pre-installed.

First of all, you need a more deliberate and convincing issue to "upgrade" since it will require you to produce money just to pay for it (both for the OS itself + hardware upgrade if your computer is an oldie with poor specs).

Unlike if you bought a new PC/Laptop with Vista pre-installed, you already paid for the Vista as part of the package. So if Vista is working fine for you with your new computer, why bother to "downgrade" to XP?

[happy_soil]

I doubt it.


http://img149.imageshack.us/img149/5159/wss2qosxwq3.gif

[MangNato]

I'd advise against installing Windows Vista kung naka OEM install yung Windows XP dahil para sakin, hindi maganda ang performance nya.

Yung sa binili kong laptop sa futureshop na naka preload ang Vista (at vista ready according sa manufacturer) pero ang pangit parin ng performance, maski dinagdagan ko ng 2 gigs yung RAM.

At one point, ininstallan ko sya ng pirated na Windows XP para tignan lang ang difference kapag nag lalaro ako ng games, ang laki ng difference.

**Note: Isang pet peave ko sa Vista eh yung sa image viewer. For some reason, hindi sa proper order ng filename yung pag view nya mga pictures, parang random. Hindi ko sigurado kung me setting para dun. Kung merong makaka point out ng quick fix saken, I'd really appreaciate it.

Pero problema din ata sa Vista, napaka taas ng system requirements or pinabayaan nilang lagyan ng label na Vista capable yung machines na hindi naman kaya magpatakbo ng Vista.

http://www.tomshardware.com/2008/02/25/class_action_lawsuit_blasts_microsoft_s_vista_capable_designation/

[jescythe]

^^ meron nang case filed about those Vista Capable labeling, because of misleading marketing

Vista Capable sticker lawsuit gets class-action status - Engadget (http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/27/vista-capable-sticker-lawsuit-gets-class-action-status/)

[zerglings]

^ only computer illiterate fall for that trap... unfortunately, there are a lot of computer illiterate in the world that's why there's a class action suit.. sorry if i am being harsh...

it is also retailer's fault for hiring non-computer geeks in their sales floor... if they hire computer geeks or savvy then these geeks would suggest different things for the customers if they want to fully experience the capabilities of Vista (if there are any.. haha)

hmmmm maybe that's why Jim Allchin retired early because nobody sent him an e-mail about this marketing thing. Heck, he was in a situation to agree on something that he didn't want to agree on anyways. *** I kinda read the e-mails of Microsoft found on the web. c",)

[Shoofa Fly]

Mga "gamers" lang naman ang nagre-reklamo parati sa Vista, since most of their favorite video games were coded back in XP days pa.

Compatibility ng softwares? Nung unang labas ng Vista siguro. It's more than 1 year na. Almost every popular commercial software these days are Vista capable.

Others also dismiss Vista outright as "poor performance", but turns out he just doesn't know how to use new features in Vista.

I think what you guys are experiencing are the usual "resistance to change" syndrome.

[happy_soil]

Others also dismiss Vista outright as "poor performance", but turns out he just doesn't know how to use new features in Vista.

I think what you guys are experiencing are the usual "resistance to change" syndrome.


http://img149.imageshack.us/img149/5159/wss2qosxwq3.gif

[loc0]

It's not resistance to change. It's refusal to use a bloated/crippled system.

[happy_soil]

Didn't know people use Vista on them beige boxes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beige_box)...

[Shoofa Fly]

It's not resistance to change. It's refusal to use a bloated/crippled system.
Well, "bloated" and "crippled" are just english words that could mean anything under the sun in computer lingo. You should give technical examples. Or actual computer incident on Vista that you experienced.

If what you mean by bloated is it's a resource hog, I think that is already a given since Vista was designed to be "graphics-intensive" from the start. After all, software developers are aiming for more complex programs to take advantage of hardware advances. You can't forever be stuck on softwares built for 16-bit processors running on 256 Mb SDRAM, aight?

"Crippled" is I think an exaggeration. You need to specify what kind of Vista feature is broken that makes it crippled. And that broken feature must be visible to every other user.

[Zzzzz...]

Mga "gamers" lang naman ang nagre-reklamo parati sa Vista, since most of their favorite video games were coded back in XP days pa.

Compatibility ng softwares? Nung unang labas ng Vista siguro. It's more than 1 year na. Almost every popular commercial software these days are Vista capable.

Others also dismiss Vista outright as "poor performance", but turns out he just doesn't know how to use new features in Vista.

I think what you guys are experiencing are the usual "resistance to change" syndrome.
I think it's not "resistance to changes" alone, it's a new kind of thing with some faults and errors and it needs to be fixes with official updates.

[zerglings]

Didn't know people use Vista on them beige boxes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beige_box)...

i use Vista on 8086 PC... NOT!

back to the topic....

i loaded Vista on my old P4 3.4GHz with 2 GB RAM and didn't like the performance... i am debating if i should install it on my Q6600 with 3GB RAM PC but Vista doesn't offer any real advantages over my XP Pro so i don't know if i should install it...

does Vista 32bit still suffer to the 3GB RAM limit? yea, yea yea.... 32bit OS should be able to address up to 4GB but apparently it doesnt (MS only???)....

[Gospel of Judas]

ok naman ang q6600 sa akin. 4gb memory. pero baka nga lang kasi pang-internet, pang-chat at pang-nba live lang ang primary na gamit ko. vista ultimate gamit ko.

[zerglings]

ok naman ang q6600 sa akin. 4gb memory. pero baka nga lang kasi pang-internet, pang-chat at pang-nba live lang ang primary na gamit ko. vista ultimate gamit ko.

yung 4GB RAM mo kita sa Properties? meron ka rin ba video card na hindi integrated? if yes, ano ram? 32bit or 64bit? may mga nababasa ako na hindi raw nagshoshow yung 4GB sa 32bit ng MS.

[Gospel of Judas]

hindi nga sa akin. o baka di ko lang nakikita.

and sa vcard, di ko alam di ko binubulatlat e. basta alam ko intel ang graphics card neto.

[zerglings]

Oh ok. Kung Intel then integrated.. pag integrated that means shared memory... kung shared memory then hindi mo rin talaga makikita ang 4GB RAM... hmmmm...

anybody there that has 4GB RAM with Windows 32bit installed? care to share if 3GB RAM limit is a myth?? i found some explanation to this limit but i've never seen it on any computer books that i've owned so don't know if it is true or not....

[loc0]

If what you mean by bloated is it's a resource hog, I think that is already a given since Vista was designed to be "graphics-intensive" from the start. After all, software developers are aiming for more complex programs to take advantage of hardware advances. You can't forever be stuck on softwares built for 16-bit processors running on 256 Mb SDRAM, aight? Irrelevant point because projects like Compiz Fusion on Linux can give flashy 3D desktop effects on low to middle end computers, the OS doesn't even have to be installed for it to do that.

"Crippled" is I think an exaggeration. You need to specify what kind of Vista feature is broken that makes it crippled. And that broken feature must be visible to every other user. WGA/DRM. Even Microsoft employees are disappointed with Vista (http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/02/28/1746211&from=rss).

[Rammstein]

yung 4GB RAM mo kita sa Properties? meron ka rin ba video card na hindi integrated? if yes, ano ram? 32bit or 64bit? may mga nababasa ako na hindi raw nagshoshow yung 4GB sa 32bit ng MS.

vista pre-sp1 shows/reports the amount of system memory available to the os.

vista sp1 will report the amount of system memory installed to the os. therefore 32-bit systems equipped with 4gb of ram will report all 4gb in many places throughout the os, such as the System Control Panel. this depends on having a compatible bios.

but if you want to use the whole 4gb, you should use 64-bit.

[jescythe]

Irrelevant point because projects like Compiz Fusion on Linux can give flashy 3D desktop effects on low to middle end computers, the OS doesn't even have to be installed for it to do that.

right you are*okay* i installed xubuntu (ubuntu that is targeted to low end machines) with compiz fusion on a 256MB, 4GB eeePC. the eyecandies are there running smoothly :D

[fnh]

Vista is indeed bloated but I'm loving Aero. No, not because of its eyecandies, but the little things that improves user experience.

[loc0]

Flip3D is a piss poor app switcher, unfortunately.

[zerglings]

according to what've read so far... 32bit OS will only address 4GB including the Video's RAM... so if you have 4GB of RAM installed and you have 512MB RAM, you'll only see 3GB of RAM under Properties, dxdiag and etc.. that's the reason why MS suggested that you need to use 64bit OS... according to what i've read too... the 1GB missing from the OS are reserved for something else.. like PCI-E and etc...

[happy_soil]

More on this here (http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2007/11/15/the_secrets_of_pc_memory_part_1/1). Beware though, it's some hardcore reading, totally not for the faint of heart.

[Rammstein]

if you have installed a 4gb system memory to your system, your os won't be able to use all that 4gb memory. that's because of your other hardware that has memory in them. one would be a video card. or if you have a high-end x-fi sound card that has x-ram.

your video card's memory needs to be mapped in the address space, so say if you have a geforce8 8800gts 640mb videocard, that's already minus 640mb from your total memory.

so the more hardware you have that has integrated memory, the more it will take up from your available total installed memory.

bottom line, if you want to access more memory, go 64bit, but be ready to face compatibility issues with drivers and software applications.

now let's get on topic, this is a thread about upgrading to vista, not a vista bashing thread.

[reighun]

wrong post, sorry :)

[booksale]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/09/business/09digi.html?ei=5090&en=2204425bed58d728&ex=1362718800&adxnnl=1&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all&adxnnlx=1205209794-h5qqm2g021BioS7fMK+AvA

They Criticized Vista. And They Should Know.

By RANDALL STROSS
Published: March 9, 2008

ONE year after the birth of Windows Vista, why do so many Windows XP users still decline to “upgrade”?
Skip to next paragraph
Related
Microsoft's E-mail Messages (pdf)
Text of Plaintiff Complaints (pdf)
Text of Microsoft's Response to Plaintiffs (pdf)

Microsoft says high prices have been the deterrent. Last month, the company trimmed prices on retail packages of Vista, trying to entice consumers to overcome their reluctance. In the United States, an XP user can now buy Vista Home Premium for $129.95, instead of $159.95.

An alternative theory, however, is that Vista’s reputation precedes it. XP users have heard too many chilling stories from relatives and friends about Vista upgrades that have gone badly. The graphics chip that couldn’t handle Vista’s whizzy special effects. The long delays as it loaded. The applications that ran at slower speeds. The printers, scanners and other hardware peripherals, which work dandily with XP, that lacked the necessary software, the drivers, to work well with Vista.

Can someone tell me again, why is switching XP for Vista an “upgrade”?

Here’s one story of a Vista upgrade early last year that did not go well. Jon, let’s call him, (bear with me — I’ll reveal his full identity later) upgrades two XP machines to Vista. Then he discovers that his printer, regular scanner and film scanner lack Vista drivers. He has to stick with XP on one machine just so he can continue to use the peripherals.

Did Jon simply have bad luck? Apparently not. When another person, Steven, hears about Jon’s woes, he says drivers are missing in every category — “this is the same across the whole ecosystem.”

Then there’s Mike, who buys a laptop that has a reassuring “Windows Vista Capable” logo affixed. He thinks that he will be able to run Vista in all of its glory, as well as favorite Microsoft programs like Movie Maker. His report: “I personally got burned.” His new laptop — logo or no logo — lacks the necessary graphics chip and can run neither his favorite video-editing software nor anything but a hobbled version of Vista. “I now have a $2,100 e-mail machine,” he says.

It turns out that Mike is clearly not a naïf. He’s Mike Nash, a Microsoft vice president who oversees Windows product management. And Jon, who is dismayed to learn that the drivers he needs don’t exist? That’s Jon A. Shirley, a Microsoft board member and former president and chief operating officer. And Steven, who reports that missing drivers are anything but exceptional, is in a good position to know: he’s Steven Sinofsky, the company’s senior vice president responsible for Windows.

Their remarks come from a stream of internal communications at Microsoft in February 2007, after Vista had been released as a supposedly finished product and customers were paying full retail price. Between the nonexistent drivers and PCs mislabeled as being ready for Vista when they really were not, Vista instantly acquired a reputation at birth: Does Not Play Well With Others.

We usually do not have the opportunity to overhear Microsoft’s most senior executives vent their personal frustrations with Windows. But a lawsuit filed against Microsoft in March 2007 in United States District Court in Seattle has pried loose a packet of internal company documents. The plaintiffs, Dianne Kelley and Kenneth Hansen, bought PCs in late 2006, before Vista’s release, and contend that Microsoft’s “Windows Vista Capable” stickers were misleading when affixed to machines that turned out to be incapable of running the versions of Vista that offered the features Microsoft was marketing as distinctive Vista benefits.

Last month, Judge Marsha A. Pechman granted class-action status to the suit, which is scheduled to go to trial in October. (Microsoft last week appealed the certification decision.)

Anyone who bought a PC that Microsoft labeled “Windows Vista Capable” without also declaring “Premium Capable” is now a party in the suit. The judge also unsealed a cache of 200 e-mail messages and internal reports, covering Microsoft’s discussions of how best to market Vista, beginning in 2005 and extending beyond its introduction in January 2007. The documents incidentally include those accounts of frustrated Vista users in Microsoft’s executive suites.

Today, Microsoft boasts that there are twice as many drivers available for Vista as there were at its introduction, but performance and graphics problems remain. (When I tried last week to contact Mr. Shirley and the others about their most recent experiences with Vista, David Bowermaster, a Microsoft spokesman, said that no one named in the e-mail messages could be made available for comment because of the continuing lawsuit.)

The messages were released in a jumble, but when rearranged into chronological order, they show a tragedy in three acts.

Act 1: In 2005, Microsoft plans to say that only PCs that are properly equipped to handle the heavy graphics demands of Vista are “Vista Ready.”

Act 2: In early 2006, Microsoft decides to drop the graphics-related hardware requirement in order to avoid hurting Windows XP sales on low-end machines while Vista is readied. (A customer could reasonably conclude that Microsoft is saying, Buy Now, Upgrade Later.) A semantic adjustment is made: Instead of saying that a PC is “Vista Ready,” which might convey the idea that, well, it is ready to run Vista, a PC will be described as “Vista Capable,” which supposedly signals that no promises are made about which version of Vista will actually work.

The decision to drop the original hardware requirements is accompanied by considerable internal protest. The minimum hardware configuration was set so low that “even a piece of junk will qualify,” Anantha Kancherla, a Microsoft program manager, said in an internal e-mail message among those recently unsealed, adding, “It will be a complete tragedy if we allowed it.”

Act 3: In 2007, Vista is released in multiple versions, including “Home Basic,” which lacks Vista’s distinctive graphics. This placed Microsoft’s partners in an embarrassing position. Dell, which gave Microsoft a postmortem report that was also included among court documents, dryly remarked: “Customers did not understand what ‘Capable’ meant and expected more than could/would be delivered.”

All was foretold. In February 2006, after Microsoft abandoned its plan to reserve the Vista Capable label for only the more powerful PCs, its own staff tried to avert the coming deluge of customer complaints about underpowered machines. “It would be a lot less costly to do the right thing for the customer now,” said Robin Leonard, a Microsoft sales manager, in an e-mail message sent to her superiors, “than to spend dollars on the back end trying to fix the problem.”

Now that Microsoft faces a certified class action, a judge may be the one who oversees the fix. In the meantime, where does Microsoft go to buy back its lost credibility?

[fnh]

Flip3D is a piss poor app switcher, unfortunately.

No, I was not talking about the Flip3D. And no, I don't think it is piss poor.

Simple things like Vista adjusting your view when you are "exploring" via hierarchical folders, so you don't have to use the scrollbar when exploring very deep folders.

[Hakaider]

Don't upgrade to Vista, it sucks @ss. This is a screen shot of my system, which came with pre-loaded with Vista Home Premium.

http://Rowell.smugmug.com/photos/264584221_C2siT-XL.jpg

I have 4GB of DDR3 SDRAM, but the 32 bit version of Vista only recognizes 3.07GB. Even though I have the 2.4GHz Quad core chip, it doesn't run Vista any faster than XP. And Vista loves to crash. Have had 5 crashes already, and one was unrecoverable, so I had to use the recovery volume on the drive to restore the machine to factory specs.

One more time this happens, I'm gonna wipe this thing and install XP Home. :grrr:

[Verbl Kint]

Just out of curiosity, can you please try Vista SP1 and see if it resolves the issues?

[smilewarrior]

^ Good evening Hakaider. You could also try using System Restore in the future if it ever happens again (knock on wood), it's a lot easier [ but you'll have to be in Safe Mode ( continually press f8 after you restart until you get to the Safe mode option ) in order for it work and hopefully you've also previously set a good restore point ].

[Hakaider]

^ Good evening Hakaider. You could also try using System Restore in the future if it ever happens again (knock on wood), it's a lot easier [ but you'll have to be in Safe Mode ( continually press f8 after you restart until you get to the Safe mode option ) in order for it work and hopefully you've also previously set a good restore point ].

No, it would not even load far enough to boot up in safe mode. That's how bad it was.

[Rammstein]

^^ vista shows that amount of memory, because 32bit vista cannot use all of the available memory, in your case 4gb. as i've posted earlier, vista vanilla/sp0 will only show the memory it can use while vista sp1 will show the amount of memory installed.

ok now, if people really want to use 4gb or more on 32bit vista, it is possible to use PAE(physical address extension). but it is not officially supported and any/all device drivers *must" be written to use PAE. if not, you'll see BSOD everytime something tries a DMA(direct memory access).

[ViperXtreme]

based on your opinions, dapat i retitle yung thread as "Downgrading to Vista" :P

[smilewarrior]

No, it would not even load far enough to boot up in safe mode. That's how bad it was.

Really? I see. :(

[zerglings]

^^ vista shows that amount of memory, because 32bit vista cannot use all of the available memory, in your case 4gb. as i've posted earlier, vista vanilla/sp0 will only show the memory it can use while vista sp1 will show the amount of memory installed.

ok now, if people really want to use 4gb or more on 32bit vista, it is possible to use PAE(physical address extension). but it is not officially supported and any/all device drivers *must" be written to use PAE. if not, you'll see BSOD everytime something tries a DMA(direct memory access).

According to what I read, PAE don't do sh*t. I saw a blog of a Microsoft employee and explained why PAE does not work.

OT:
Went to Microsoft conference yesterday and they gave us free softwares again!

Free softwares:
SQL Server 2008
Server Enterprise 2008 (1 year license only)
Visual Studio 2008
and to my surprise (it wasn't listed when I signed up for the conference)
Windows Vista with SP1

[happy_soil]

Aren't they already free though? ;)

[soulassassin547]

XP SP3 upgrade + visual style upgrade para Vista-looking = made of awe and win :D

Seriously, one time may nagpa-ayos ng PC na kargada niya'y Vista Home Basic. Lintik e dami kong kakapain na kung saan ako pupunta para magperform ng system diagnostics. Tapos kahit na yung first bootable drive na naset ko sa BIOS ay DVD-ROM na may nilalaman na Hiren's CD, ay na-bypass at diretso ang booting sa hard disk.

Bottom line para sa lahat... stick muna sa XP. Why fix if it ain't broke?

At para sa mga OS preachers na nagrerekomenda ng OSX o Linux hayaan ninyo kaming magdecide kung anong OS ang gagamitin namin.

[loc0]

Or rather, why break what's fixed?

[zerglings]

Aren't they already free though? ;)

question is.... is it a legit copy?? c",)

[chrisboy]

don't do it! for your own good.

there is nothing vista can do that XP can't. so why bother with the 'eye candy' which only makes things slower?