Vista Upgrade - Yay or Nay?

[Keiron]

Some recent testing has shown that Vista is only truly happy with 4gb, couple that with driver nightmare still, insane DRM infestations, slower OS all around due to various reasons and there rapidly becomes little reason to upgrade. The WGA is a complete nightmare on Windows Vista and is soon set to be intensified even more making genuine user's lives a nightmare.

Don't do it, there really is no need at the moment whilst XP does a more than ample job. It does nothing better than XP, and many things much much worse. Oh, it looks nice sure enough, and if that is reason enough for you to want to change then that's perfect.

[DannyB]

Been running it on my work laptop since about October, I've a dual core with 2GB RAM, it's still pretty slow, fair few bits of software don't work with it and some drivers have not yet been released.

I described it to a client as "Looks good but doesn't work very well." To which he replied, "Just like my Secretary."

Made me laugh

Danny

[Lazlo]

Originally Posted by Keiron

Some recent testing has shown that Vista is only truly happy with 4gb, couple that with driver nightmare still, insane DRM infestations, slower OS all around due to various reasons and there rapidly becomes little reason to upgrade. The WGA is a complete nightmare on Windows Vista and is soon set to be intensified even more making genuine user's lives a nightmare.

Don't do it, there really is no need at the moment whilst XP does a more than ample job. It does nothing better than XP, and many things much much worse. Oh, it looks nice sure enough, and if that is reason enough for you to want to change then that's perfect.

That mostly sums it up for me. I've been doing some testing at work to make sure that our existing products are compatible. Turns out that one of the 3rd party components is NOT compatible, so the product fails to load. Now, if that happens to us it can happen to anyone. Expect software problems.

Also - expect hardware problems unless you have a recent model.

The test machine I've been using isn't a high enough spec to run Aero - so I've only seen the "basic" interface. I would echo the comments about annoying confirmation dialogs. REALLY annoying dialogs. I couldn't turn them off fast enough - which kind of begs the question: what's the point of them? I mean - do I really need to confirm a folder delete THREE times?

The main explorer window has some interesting new features - including the useful, like an address bar with drop-down selections for each folder level, and the useless, like the possibility for ENORMOUS icons. I started off liking the extra functionality - but now I think: Just how hard was it to navigate a folder tree before? Answer: It wasn't. So now I just dislike the extra clutter. In any case, after a few minutes I realised that the interface was only a superficial "skin". Pretty much all the sub-dialogs are identical to the old ones. How much time do you actually spend gazing at the desktop instead of actually doing some work, or playing a game, or whatever? No, me neither.

As a user that likes to work with full administrator rights - Vista make life really difficult for me. I haven't found a way to create a "proper" admin user with a "proper" set of privileges.

The only good thing I can say about Vista is the new Search facility - it's extremely good. It's quick, and you can save old searches. So if you're the kind of user that isn't capable of organising your own files, then you'll like that.

Oh, and Vista is evil

[Keiron]

Originally Posted by Lazlo

I haven't found a way to create a "proper" admin user with a "proper" set of privileges.

I hadn't realised that. The scariest thing is that Vista gives every program you install FULL administration rights during the install, how insane is that? You download Tetris from Free Games (made up url no clicking needed) and then all hell breaks loose on your system as it gets full access to everything on your machine.

[GCParris]

Go for it if you've got a farily decent PC and the memory!

Been running VISTA in various forms for over a year or so now from my MSDN subscription. The final release of Ultimate Edition is very good indeed and I agree that a decent graphics card and at least 1GB of memory is a good start. 2GB is lovely even on my VAIO laptop, especially as they've now released all the drivers.

My laptop performance rating in VISTA is 3.8 and my Shuttle Desktop is 6.1 which is pretty awesomely fast!

Keiron by default VISTA doesn't allow installs to run with full administration rights. You have to elevate the priviledge level by right clicking and selecting the install menu item with the shield icon next to.

Creating an administrator is just like before in XP, but everything runs in user mode unless administration permissions are needed in which case the elevation prompt is popped up everytime (which does become annoying!). As mentioned earlier this can all be turned off by disabling the UAC.

[DIVE BUDDHA]

ive had a quick look at vista and looks to be a little too much for what i need and am gunna stick with xp for now anyway

[Garf]

If your current operating system is still supported (2000,XP) and it does what you need it to do, then why on earth would you voiluntarily spend money on an upgrade that doesn't yet have enough drivers for it, and will eat up twice as many resources.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

[Keiron]

Originally Posted by GCParris

Keiron by default VISTA doesn't allow installs to run with full administration rights. You have to elevate the priviledge level by right clicking and selecting the install menu item with the shield icon next to.

Microsoft Vista has enormous gaping hole

Don't forget if you have an nVidia GFX card, or a Creative soundcard, or iTunes you might also not want to upgrade just yet

Quote from Microsoft:

That means that a process with a low IL could create a shared memory object (called a section or memory-mapped file) that it knows a higher IL process will open, and store data in the memory that causes the elevated process to execute arbitrary code if the elevated process doesn’t properly validate the data.

That kind of escape, called a squatting attack, is sophisticated and requires the user to execute processes in a specific order and requires knowledge of the internal operation of an application that is susceptible to manipulation through shared objects.

[wilbo]

Originally Posted by Garf

If your current operating system is still supported (2000,XP) and it does what you need it to do, then why on earth would you voiluntarily spend money on an upgrade that doesn't yet have enough drivers for it, and will eat up twice as many resources.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Exactly. I agree.

[Richard Mason]

Originally Posted by MartinS

I have been looking into purchasing an upgrade to vista premium for the laptop I recently purchased, and as it's inside the eligible period, thought I'd look at the cost.
First page - chose the existing OS (XP Home) and edition to upgrade to (Home Preium) - £49, then after filling in all the details, it came back with just under £70 (VAT plus shipping) - I appreciate that once the offer expires, I'll lose the option, but just wondered if anyone had any comments on whether it is worth the money?
I don't play games, and it will be for surfing/work via a Citrix link.
I'm assuming £70 is the cheapest I'll get a legitimate upgrade for?
Thanks in advance
Martin

I haven't seen it/used it, so no comment on the specifics..

However, all three of our IT guys at work are unanimous, as is my local computer shop.....don't even think about it until SP1 comes out. That way you benefit from everyone elses problems, much better than being one of Microsoft's guinea pigs.