Windows Vista Questions

[NeedMoreFans]

So I am about to embark on the purchase of a new laptop computer. I am going with a Dell (I think). I can get a system with either Vista or XP (yeah, they still sell a couple systems with XP). I have XP now, and like it and am used to it. The system with Vista I am considering has enough memory to support Vista (2 GB), but I just am not sure about it.

 

So, how easy is it to learn? Will older programs work with it? I am going to put Office 98 on the system, so will that work with Vista? To those who have it, do you like it? If you had a choice between Vista and XP, which would you choose?

 

Thanks much for any help. It will make my buying decision much easier.

 

(added tags --1992)

[thablingster]

Vista isn't as terrible as I'd feared/heard. I was skeptical of it when I got my new computer, but it isn't bad. Of course there are a few software incompatibilities here and there, but for the most part you can put older stuff on Vista. I haven't noticed too many differences, and some stuff I even like more than what was on XP.

[Crazyk1294]

I echo blingster's thoughts. Vista does have some neat features and it was relatively easy to figure out. I haven't had any problems with it so far...

[fstorm1]

In March I purchased a Gateway with Vista from that nice BF.net fella, Jason21nl. As nearly all of the units that they (Best Buy) sold at the time already (only) had Vista, it was hard to heed his warnings about Vista, so I bought the system and hoped for the best. Yikes.

 

The biggest problem, and it's a biggy, was the graphics card. In my case, it is an nVidia, and it simply just wasn't compatible with Vista, plain and simple. This despite the label on the box saying it was. It took months and months before they released a driver that was/is stable enough, and it's barely that. Depending on usage, I would get blue screens of death, lock/hang ups, freezes, etc. on average of about 5-10 times a day. Just ridiculous. Pretty sad that I had just bought this good but not uber rig and I spent nearly all my time at the nVidia forums looking for answers. It's finally pretty stable now (knock on wood), but it was shear madness for 4 months or so.

 

There's still quite a few apps and hardware that aren't completely compatible with Vista, and the real kicker is they may say they are. Lots of lists out there to check, but I can tell you already that some don't work, despite what the box says.

 

I like Vista, it's might pretty, has some real nice features, but to be honest, if I had known then what I know now, I would've gone with XP and waited a year or so till they fix all the bugs. It's just the nature of the beast with new OS's. At any rate, if you decide to go with Vista, post it here and I'll list all the sites I have bookmarked to fix known probs with Vista...little tips and tricks.

[DHonks]

vista is very nice and aesthetically pleasing. The only flaw was one where it struggled to buffer all music in WMP, but by May they released a way to fix the problem, and now all of my songs play properly.

[sgtcluels]

If you are going to game, I'd say stick with XP. Since Vista moved it's drivers into a protected space API the graphics are no longer part of the kernel and have to go through some API junk (Makes it more stable, but slows it down). I heard they might do some major improvements in Vista SP1, but that's, from what I hear, is pushed off until next year.

[jason21nl]

going to a vista machine now will be ok. A lot more software and hardware are now compatiable with it then a few months ago. My girlfriend has a Vista laptop and hasn't had any real problems with it. Just some quick play problems but thats all fixed now. I myself have a Vista upgrade disk but will not be using it. I have a lot of older programs on my computer that will not work with Vista.

[NeedMoreFans]

I'm thinking that since I would be custom ordering the computer, there shouldn't be any hardware issues with Vista. I'd hope that Dell would give you hardware that is all compatible with Vista. Also, I'm not a huge gamer...the only game I play on my computer is Sim City 4, and I'm assuming that will work with Vista as well.

[blkhwk91b]

Every couple years I build myself a new computer from scratch. There is one principle I generally live by..... patience. Whenever there is a big shift, be it AGP to PCI-E, XP to Vista, or new CPU socket engineering, I always wait about a year. I find that a year is about the right amount of time to allow the companies/manufacturers to work out the bugs in the hardware/software. Like someone mentioned above, it's usually not hardware compatibility that causes the issues, it's the outdated drivers.

[NeedMoreFans]

In the end, I went with an XP system. I could get a great computer without having to fork out tons of money to get the proper amount of RAM. I did my homework and it appeared as if a lot of programs that I have and would run on a new computer didn't work so hot with Vista.