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From:Microsoft , Microsoft Software ,
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User Rating: Amazon Sales Rank:#151 |
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2 of 2 customers found the following review helpful:
Messy, 2008-07-05
Installing this edition of Windows Vista has been rather frustrating. I suppose it's too early to judge definitively whether it has been worth it. Despite my machine bearing a "Windows Vista capable" sticker, it proved to be something less than that. It took seven hours to upgrade from Windows XP. I ran the advisory program beforehand to determine if my laptop could handle Vista. The results said "OK", but when the OS was finally loaded it turned out my computer was woefully short on RAM, and several of the drivers wouldn't work (including the printer.) I managed to track down drivers on the web that would work, and installed more memory myself. So it took me a couple of days to get everything in order. I'm still getting annoying notices about "program incompatibility", so I still have some tweaking to do.
Basically, Vista is just a somewhat more souped up version of XP--it's just another Microsoft program, nothing revolutionary. Although the media center is kind of cool, and the backup system is proving to be useful. I was cursing Microsoft the first few days I ran this, but am getting used to it. (I suppose I'll have to if I want to keep using their products, when XP is finally phased out.) I'm thinking of trying Ubuntu for comparison's sake. This whole experience has kind of opened my eyes about alternatives in operating systems, so it hasn't been a waste. You could do worse than trying Vista, although be forewarned about the problems I mentioned before.
 Definitely A Step Up Over Vista Basic..., 2008-07-02
Before receiving my review copy of Home Premium, I had been using the Home Basic Edition of Vista, so I was very interested in what the upgrade would offer. All versions of Vista are on the same disc, and one can update easily using the "Anytime Upgrade" feature, but I never got around to it. Interestingly, having now used both, their best points are are same ones that cause the most headaches. For the first time, Microsoft rewrote their OS from the source code up, which they claimed would increase security. They are right-not one virus has been able to attack my system. The only problem with this is that you must replace all of your security programs as a bare minimum. Products were rushed to market-Norton 2007 was such a disaster that purchasers were given the new version free as one of the updates. Updating from Basic, I really liked the Aero Glass interface ("No, we are not copying Apple!" the lawyers say...), as well as the Media Center capabilities. It actually includes most of the features of the "Ultimate Edition". But why can't one make a mirror copy of your hard drive for backups here? Nothing that you can't add from Norton, etc., but it would be nice. And if you thought Windows XP hogged computer resources, you haven't seen anything yet. In the end, if you have XP, there is no reason to rush to Vista-in fact, 200 new computers were just purchased where I work, and Windows XP was specified and installed on all of them. (The bugs are out of it by now.)
Incremental upgrade over XP, 2008-07-01
(There's a lot of rumor, debate, reviews, opinions about Vista out there. Because I am writing this as part of Amazon Vine, I tried to look at this with an open mind about Vista. I had been using Vista Business for testing, so I have some Vista experience before coming to this version of it.)
Looking through the included "Quick Start Guide", it's not clear what the point of Vista is--the meat of the guide is a "What's new" chapter that discusses only three things according to the Table of Contents: (1) the new start menu, (2) the new control panel layout, and (3) the "sidebar" for small applications calls gadgets. However, the chapter itself does describe a few bundled applications that come with Vista: Defender, IE, DVD Maker, Movie Maker, the new UI look, and a few other things. This is all well and good, but nothing is earth shattering.
And that's really the summary of Vista in a nutshell: It's newer. It's shinier. The desktop backgrounds are, by and large, gorgeous. There's a few new things here and there, such as the Control Panel (but you can switch to the old look if you cannot find anything in the new organization scheme). The Quick Start talks about Media Center capabilities, which in XP were a separate edition of the OS, but it's bundled here--in _this edition_ of Vista. It's not clear which features exist in which editions. Home Premium comes with a "Meeting Space" app for running a meeting. That sounds like a business function; does Business come with Media Center? Who knows?
So I see Vista as an incremental update over XP. When Windows 95 came out, a lot of people vowed to stick to Windows 3.1--The hardware requirements were steep for upgrading to 95, and the benefit was clear to some, but ambiguous to others ("does it run my new apps? Where is DOS?"). The difference between XP and Vista is certainly far less than the difference between 3.1 and 95, but eventually people will be upgrading their hardware and they will end up with the new OS.
Speed-wise, both Home Premium and Business feel "snappy" on my 2.2 GHz Core 2 Duo w/ 4 GB of RAM. Since Microsoft is no longer selling XP as of June 30th of this year, Vista is going to become the only choice. It's not a bad OS compared to XP, but there's also no compelling reason to upgrade to it if you have a working XP environment. If you're upgrading from an older version of Windows such as 2000, it might be worth the cost. But who is really running 2000 these days?
1 of 1 customers found the following review helpful:
 Wait for the next version - or stick with XP, 2008-06-27
There are numerous problems with this version of windows that I would recommend just waiting for the next version or sticking with XP. Most crucial is how slow it is loading. There are apparenrtly patches availble to fix a number of the glitches, but Microsoft should have done a better job testing this before unleashing it on the market.
1 of 2 customers found the following review helpful:
I Still Prefer Leopard, 2008-06-26
I have to admit that I come into this with a bit of bias, I have been a Mac user for over 20 years. Now that Macs are able to run Windows on the same hardware I thought I would be worth it to give it a shot.
I can't say if this is an improvement as compared to previous versions of Windows, but what I can say is that from the short time I spent with this OS I would not be inclined to switch to Vista as my main operating system. It has nice graphics and was not at all terribly difficult to install but it just isn't doing for me.
I'll be back in a few weeks with a more in depth review, but you know what they say, "First impressions mean a lot."
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