[JoAnneM]

I need a new desktop computer. Dell offers computers with dual operating systems that boot up either into Vista or XP which sounds like a very nice arrangement. I don't notice any other retail computers offering this.

To those with Vista, do you wish you still had XP too? Do you have programs you can't run on Vista? My 5-year old puter is a Dell and I have been happy with it, I just don't know if I should limit myself to that brand this time.

My laptop is Gateway and it is good too, now that I replaced the harddrive after two years.

[kfay]

I recently got a new IBM (Lenovo) and had to make this decision. Ultimately I got Vista becaues the XP Business package was more expensive.

I haven't had any problems with vista. I don't regret my choice. For the most part I don't notice a difference except that Vista looks flashier, which I'm actually not a big fan of.

[pigpenz]

i have been using Vista since the beta days and havent had any problems with it, but the majority of business users seem to want to stay with XP. Microsoft keeps rolling back the end of service date for XP. All MS os's are a work in progress XP is up to service pack 3 and Vista is up to SP1.

Problem with Vista is that there are different flavors of it and most computers come with Vista Home. I tend to use Vista Business and Vista Ultimate

[Aberlour10]

There are informations in german special publications that Vista follower Windows 7 may be available already in next year, so I personally wait and see....

Robert

[hotShot]

Vista needs much better hardware than XP, if you buy a new computer everything is fine. Just check if the software you use will work with Vista and forget about XP.
Just make sure that you have at least 2GB of memory.

In a company all systems should run the same software to minimize trouble.
If they move to Vista, they would have to buy lots of new computer and they have to make sure that every software that is used will work in the new environment. With Windows 7 on the horizon, they don't want to go trough this twice.

[Rossoneri]

Vista is fine. For me I disabled most of the flashy stuff so it looks like and feels like XP. Only problem I have is that sometimes programs will lag a bit when they first start up, and my winamp seems to have problems playing mp3s once in a while, that, and a few other hiccups occasionally with programs which I've been trying to fix by using compatibility mode...

[hrothgar]

I'm not fond AT ALL happy with Vista

Lots of bugs and compatibility issues (Plus it won't talk to my Vonage router)

[TimG]

JoAnneM, on Nov 21 2008, 11:27 AM, said:

I need a new desktop computer. Dell offers computers with dual operating systems that boot up either into Vista or XP which sounds like a very nice arrangement. I don't notice any other retail computers offering this.

To those with Vista, do you wish you still had XP too? Do you have programs you can't run on Vista? My 5-year old puter is a Dell and I have been happy with it, I just don't know if I should limit myself to that brand this time.

My laptop is Gateway and it is good too, now that I replaced the harddrive after two years.

Doesn't your daughter work for Apple?

[inquiry]

Rumor has it Vista will not run Bridgebrowser.... maybe pigpenz can confirm that. So a double booting system would be a must for me. BTW, parallel desktop on a mac and windows XP runs it just fine.

[cherdano]

I couldn't get my Lenovo Thinkpad without Windows, and Vista was the only option. Vista occupies 21 GB of hard disk space without anything else installed (6GB recovery partition and 15G the installed version). I will probably delete the partition soon enough as I haven't booted into Windows since I was finished with installation (happily using kubuntu).

[matmat]

hrothgar, on Nov 21 2008, 02:26 PM, said:

I'm not fond AT ALL happy with Vista

Lots of bugs and compatibility issues (Plus it won't talk to my Vonage router)

i think a lot of the issues i've had with vista are problems with software that was not specifically written for this OS. Things like word, excel, ie, etc. run just fine, but the moment I try to use some software packages specific to my work, vista chokes. I am wondering whether MS actually tried third party vendor software in their testing, or only verified that their own programs work.

[Gerardo]

Second Arend here.

Vista in this Lenovo lasted 3 days

Ubuntu since then.

[akhare]

I will likely be in the minority here, but I am running the 64-bit Vista (Longhorn) server on my machine and have been very happy happy with it.

Vista isn't perfect, but SP1 goes a long way towards fixing many of most egregious problems.

[JoAnneM]

TimG, on Nov 21 2008, 08:42 PM, said:

Doesn't your daughter work for Apple?

Yes, my daughter-in-law! And don't tell her I am looking at computers!

My son uses several Macs in his animation studio but he has some PCs too. Their 3 year old has a Mac, and an iPod. But I am not really into Apple, I can hardly use my iPhone they gave me. The apps all work but I hate the phone.

Well, in this economy I will just look for the best deal. I used to buy computers by the dozen when I was working so it shouldn't be too hard to buy just one. By the way, my other son works in programming at CalPers and I believe they have never switched to Vista.

[sheepman]

My laptop (8 months old, middlerange toshiba) just cost me a pile of cash after vista massivly corrupted, wouldnt boot, rescue disk and all. I didnt want to lose my harddrive and didnt have the hardware to remove it before factory re-setting so had to have it done proffessionaly. Asked them to dualboot it, when I get it back not sure i'll ever boot with Vista again.

Anyone noticed how microsoft OS's go in a good/bad cycle? Vista,XP,ME,98.

[paulg]

I've been using Vista at home for a year without problems. My view is that it is not wildly different from XP but it will probably be supported for longer.

But, as others have said, it does require a more powerful system than XP. This is not a problem if you are buying a new system as long as you get at least 2GB memory.

The reasons that most businesses that I know have not upgraded to Vista are (1) there is little significant business advantage/value over XP and (2) their installed base of PCs includes a large percentage that would need to be upgraded to run Vista (essentially memory upgrades) and this is not cost-effective given (1).

Paul

[jkljkl]

JoAnneM, on Nov 21 2008, 11:27 AM, said:

I need a new desktop computer.  Dell offers computers with dual operating systems that boot up either into Vista or XP which sounds like a very nice arrangement.  I don't notice any other retail computers offering this.

To those with Vista, do you wish you still had XP too?  Do you have programs you can't run on Vista?  My 5-year old puter is a Dell and I have been happy with it, I just don't know if I should limit myself to that brand this time.

My laptop is Gateway and it is good too, now that I replaced the harddrive after two years. 

Hello,

I jumped from windows 95 to Vista so I cannot compare it to XP.

What I hate the most at Vista is the downright telling you lies about the structure of your folders.

One mess that you will not encounter is about language adaption, where depending on what program you use some folders are inexistent or have a different name.

But let us talk about BBO. If you use the BBO windows client you can choose "open bridge movie from your computer". There you get the impression that you are looking into the folder
C:\Program Files\Bridge Base Online\hands\

(ok here in germany it would be the fake folder "programme" that in reality is a link to the real folder "programm files")

The truth is that you get at the same time to see the lin fies in
C:\Program Files\Bridge Base Online\hands\
and!
c:\Users\stefan\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files\Bridge Base Online\hands\
as if they are in one.

Now if you want to open a lin file for instance with the double dummy solver you have to guess where the files are and face the fact the AppData folder is a hidden folder that you will not see. And so on.

No I am not happy with Vista,
ciao stefan

[paulg]

jkljkl, on Nov 22 2008, 10:13 AM, said:

[The truth is that you get at the same time to see the lin fies in
C:\Program Files\Bridge Base Online\hands\
and!
c:\Users\stefan\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files\Bridge Base Online\hands\
as if they are in one.

Now if you want to open a lin file for instance with the double dummy solver you have to guess where the files are and face the fact the AppData folder is a hidden folder that you will not see. And so on.

No I am not happy with Vista,

I'm rarely the first to defend Microsoft but I think what they have done here is sensible and it should really be regarded as a minor issue/bug/feature with the BBO Windows client.

[pigpenz]

Aberlour10, on Nov 21 2008, 12:57 PM, said:

There are informations in german special publications that Vista follower Windows 7 may be available already in next year, so I personally wait and see....

Robert

yes but then that will be the right time to buy VISTA!

[pigpenz]

inquiry, on Nov 21 2008, 03:56 PM, said:

Rumor has it Vista will not run Bridgebrowser.... maybe pigpenz can confirm that. So a double booting system would be a must for me. BTW, parallel desktop on a mac and windows XP runs it just fine.

no it runs bridgebrowser just fine.....its just getting harder to find Stephen to do updates to it so you can open files with newer dates.


Main reason not to run Vista
1. legacy hardware-but would probably be an issue with XP too
by that I mean old isa cards
2. SCSI components-for scanners and older scsi adapter cards- you can usually get them to install but finding the drivers can be a pain...and they usually arent written for Vista.
3.Drivers- has been slow to get driver support from some companies.