Hopefully this thread wont be another comparison thread between
operating systems, we all already know how typical and predictable
microsoft is and/or can be.

I haven't been computer active for a while now, in a sense of
doing research and keeping myself up-to-date; specially in the
microsoft windows area, but i see a lot of potential within the OS.

I had the opportunity to install (Dual Boot) Windows Vista Build 5365,
which isnt the Beta 2 build, but a very close build to what is released.

The Dvd sized file was about 2.96Gigs, i was able to install it using
Deamon Tools from WinXp. The install took about 30 minutes with
1 crash during the installation (But it may have been hardware failure).
Very colorful and Hi-Def install which only asked a couple questions.

As soon as i got to the desktop i checked the Task Manager and it was
using about 700megs of memory + another 200 swap with 40+ processes.
I have 1gig of DDR400 and everything ran smoothly.

Things that i noticed right away were the annoying questions (UAP) about
any and all little changes to both system settings and/or programs:



Another thing i noticed was the sidebar with extra gadgets feature:



The transparacy is a really sweet deal; eye candy all the way. I noticed
the colors are very vivid, and everything is so jumpy and interactable.

I played Eve-Online (had to install direct X & Nvidia latest drivers),
but it was very laggy. It made the whole system lag (most deff. due
to lack or RAM) but it ran okay (better then i expected).

Its been a very fun OS so far, picture & music folders are a dream-come-true.

You need a pretty decent system to run this OS, and a lot of free time
to mess with it.

You can download it and run it for free 'till June 1st of 2007 right off the
Vista website.

Any of you guys mess with it yet?

[Pictures credit to http://www.winsupersite.com; i'm at work and dont
have my own screenshots here.]

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Not used it but i've been keeping track of it for a long time and read like everything on it lol.

Laggy performance is going to come from device drivers. nVidia etc are offering Vista drivers now I believe but as far as I know they're nothing more than hacked XP drivers to make them work in Vista. The Operating System is changing too much to bother writing real drivers for it yet.

As for using 700 MB of memory and 40 processes while idle... What the heck was actually using the memory? What process? Was there some program running using like 600MB all to itself? Doesn't sound right.

"UAP" can be turned off if you want, but not using Control Panel. You need to go into the Local Security (Group Policy) settings through Administrative Tools.

Sounds like a shitty OSX. I have a buddy that's working on Vista, it doesn't sound like anything special.

As a developer?

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Yeah

I'm pondering under what category does "special" fall when it comes
to a operating system developer; a Microsoft developer at that.

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From what I understand of Vista in general, they're playing catch-up with OSX. They're finally trying to do what OSX did 5 years ago (or whenever it came out)

And from hearing what my buddy says about it it just doesn't sound too special. They had to push the release date back like another year or something, and the bugs in it are just ridiculous. Even when it's working correctly it doesn't seem to be worth any hype.

I don't know, i have very complex thoughts about Vista.

We all know its always been a game between the giants Apple & MS.
In all their similarities, both OSX & Vista are still very different.

Its kinda like comparing Ford and Chevy. Just because Ford was
invented, doesn't mean there isnt a place for Chevy.

On the aspect of bugs... Well bugs are inevitable; look at OSX's release,
and how buggy that OS was. I rather have them delay release dates,
then releasing something not functional.

I see a lot of special things, special features; maybe its not a world
changing specialty, but sure counts.

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I'm not home yet; when i get home i'll post a screenshot of this.

Here's a screenshot of Longhorn back in the day when i first
had the opportunity to install it:



As you can see here, quite a bit has been tuned down; but having 2gigs
of RAM nowdays is kinda common, so i guess it doesnt really matter.

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It could be the "Windows SuperFetch" feature I guess. Supposedly Vista reserves some memory when you're not doing anything to load up programs you use often so they're already in memory ready.

XP does this to an extent but it was always kinda crappy because it kept Page File-ing it all off, which just made your performance crappier.

I don't want to derail the thread, but EVE rocks. Ok carry on.


(I hear Vista is a rehashing of XP with some things they poorly lifted straight out of OSX, though)

Probably "heard" that somewhere on a iPod site or something then, lol. Because as far as I'm aware, a hell of a lot of the Windows Kernel was completely rewritten, which is probably why there's lots of bugs and stuff in there still.

Notice it's actually Microsoft Windows 6.0 now.

Windows NT was 4.0
Windows 2000 was 5.0
Windows XP was 5.1

Windows 95/98/ME used a completely different Kernel architecture (looking back, you can't help but wonder why) so it doesn't really fall into the same revision list. Strictly speaking the 9X Kernel wasn't even an Operating System, it was just a huge program that sat on top of DOS.

So it's a pretty big revision. Sure you might be thinking "A lot of it looks like Windows XP." but the Kernel is different from all the DLLs and crap that sits on top of it.

Yeah it's a complete overhaul. Something OSX did 5 years ago lol.

It's good windows is coming out with an upgraded system, they really needed one. But OSX is just so sexy, Vista doesn't sound innovative anymore. The only think I would wanna look forward to in Vista is stability.

Actually, I heard it from my uncle, who has used macs exclusively since the eighties. He's the tech guy for University of Washington, lol.

So I'm actually running Vista on my main PC now, after downloading it from Microsoft and I have to say I'm pretty impressed with it so far.

It was a nightmare to set up though, video card drivers were buggy as hell til I got the nVidia ones, and even those caused some problems for a little while. Once I got it stable though it's was really nice to use. All the fancy effects are subtle, inobtrusive and visually pleasing, which makes just using anything just... nicer, kinda like using a Mac I guess.

I also downloaded Office 2007 from Microsoft while I had the chance, and I must say the new interface overhaul for it is awesome, it's worth a try.

Oh, just a little bit of a warning though: PlayOnline Viewer does not work in Windows Vista.

Well that's not entirely true, I eventually got it working, but it wasn't easy, and isn't something everyone can do. It turns out the version you install from your CD is lost without a cause. You can't get that working for love, blood, or money.

However if you have another PC in the house (or just a backup) that also has POL installed on it, you can copy that one across and replace your vanilla one. It still won't work however, until you go into the Compatibility options for POL.EXE and set it to elevate itself to Administrative privaledges. Then it'll work.

If you have the patience and technical know-how to get past the few BSODs, driver problems, and stuff you'll get after first installing it, the Vista Beta is really nice and worth a try.

The big question I have is Preformance.


How does the system preform? Sluggish? Smooth? Choppy? I expect there to be more crashing than normal, but does the system feel bogged down. Do games run well with it? I mean I assume stuff like this will be worked out but I wouldnt mind loading the beta on.

Is this an open beta now. I havent followed Vista very much (clearly). I havent even read the threads on this forum regarding it lol. I didnt even read most of this thread lol.

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COBRA KAI DOJO NEVER DIES
RIP Shiloh

It's runs really smooth actually, then again I have a pretty beefy PC, or at least it was a year ago anyway.

The new 3D accellerated Desktop (Aero) makes it look a hell of a lot smoother than XP. The system reverts the desktop back to "Aero Basic" when you run 3D Games (it does when I run POL/FFXI anyway) which stops it hogging resources you're likely to want given to your game, until you finish with the game, then it switches back to Aero.

Windows actually gives you an overview of your system and it's "Performance Rating" to give you an idea of how it'll perform. Stupidly enough, Windows reckons my Athlon 64 3500+ "Venice" processor is the weakest part of my system, supposedly. Guess it's time to go Dual Core.

As for games performance, well honestly I don't really have that many recent games, and I didn't really get around to installing those I do have yet. I'll probably install Doom 3 or something later to try it out.

FFXI runs perfectly with all my usual stuff cranked high, if that helps, lol. It was always a big CPU hog.

EDIT: Just FYI, my "Windows System Performance Rating"...

Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3500+ (3.2)
Memory: 1.00 GB (4.0)
Primary Hard Disk: 46.34GB Free (78.32GB Total) (3.8)
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT (5.9)
Gaming Graphics: 256 MB Graphics Memory (5.1)

Overall Rating: 3

Lame HDD size dragging me down, lol. Don't download movies and music and stuff so never needed a bigger one.