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So, it's been a year since I got this here laptop with the Ultimate Vista on it. A year already. Wow.
So, my impression of Vista as it stands right now? I'm shocked at how stable it's been. Not a single crash. I've had some weird software issues with older stuff, but that's normally resolvable by running it in compatibility mode in the Windows version for which it was released (and most things don't need this). For a few, even that doesn't work. For that, I have Virtual PC installed with a Windows XP Pro VM set up. The drivers for this Nvidia card were incomplete initially (all DirectX and OpenGL capabilities were there, but the control panel bits allowing you to tweak them weren't), but that was taken care of after a few months. Everything else has just worked. The USB stack occasionally flakes out if I move the KVM focus to another host while I have a USB flash drive in and Ready Boost turned on (which is odd, since the flash drive is plugged into a USB port directly on the dock, and not the hub on the KVM (IOGear GCS1764)), but I can log in remotely or open the lid and use the built in keyboard to shut the machine down when that happens. This only happens with Ready Boosted flash drives. I'm guessing Vista resets the entire USB subsystem when the KVM hub disappears. This is a fairly major flaw, but easily worked around (take the flash drive out or turn off Ready Boost first).
I haven't seen the massive file access and copy delays a lot of folks have reported, so I can't speak to that. It's pretty. Being able to set a movie as my desktop background only works in Vista Ultimate (Dream Scene), and is only a decade and then some late compared to *BSD/Linux, but I don't normally do that sort of thing anyway, so it's a minor thing.
The Vista Media Center (Home Premium and Ultimate) works, is easy to use, and it's really annoying that you don't get a DVD decoder unless you have one of these two versions. I don't really give a fuck about the media center in and of itself, but it'd be nice to be able to view video content on DVD that we've made in house without having to install a third party decoder on Vista Enterprise. We don't need the whole media center, and have no interest in it, but Windows Media Player ships with ALL versions, and it could include a decoder, damn it. A minor thing, but one that's come up.
Over all, it's not worth upgrading an existing machine running XP, but for a new machine, Vista should not be any problem.
So, my impression of Vista as it stands right now? I'm shocked at how stable it's been. Not a single crash. I've had some weird software issues with older stuff, but that's normally resolvable by running it in compatibility mode in the Windows version for which it was released (and most things don't need this). For a few, even that doesn't work. For that, I have Virtual PC installed with a Windows XP Pro VM set up. The drivers for this Nvidia card were incomplete initially (all DirectX and OpenGL capabilities were there, but the control panel bits allowing you to tweak them weren't), but that was taken care of after a few months. Everything else has just worked. The USB stack occasionally flakes out if I move the KVM focus to another host while I have a USB flash drive in and Ready Boost turned on (which is odd, since the flash drive is plugged into a USB port directly on the dock, and not the hub on the KVM (IOGear GCS1764)), but I can log in remotely or open the lid and use the built in keyboard to shut the machine down when that happens. This only happens with Ready Boosted flash drives. I'm guessing Vista resets the entire USB subsystem when the KVM hub disappears. This is a fairly major flaw, but easily worked around (take the flash drive out or turn off Ready Boost first).
I haven't seen the massive file access and copy delays a lot of folks have reported, so I can't speak to that. It's pretty. Being able to set a movie as my desktop background only works in Vista Ultimate (Dream Scene), and is only a decade and then some late compared to *BSD/Linux, but I don't normally do that sort of thing anyway, so it's a minor thing.
The Vista Media Center (Home Premium and Ultimate) works, is easy to use, and it's really annoying that you don't get a DVD decoder unless you have one of these two versions. I don't really give a fuck about the media center in and of itself, but it'd be nice to be able to view video content on DVD that we've made in house without having to install a third party decoder on Vista Enterprise. We don't need the whole media center, and have no interest in it, but Windows Media Player ships with ALL versions, and it could include a decoder, damn it. A minor thing, but one that's come up.
Over all, it's not worth upgrading an existing machine running XP, but for a new machine, Vista should not be any problem.
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Only other problems: some software needed to be revved to a Vista compatible version, or run in XP compatibility mode.
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Also... sometimes when I turn the comp of one of the fans (sounds like a fan) makes a REALLY loud whirling sound. It doesn't sound good at all, and I have to turn it off and turn it back on to make it stop. Any idea about that?
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Tuesday. The new computer with vista arrives tuesday.