I have drunk the Vista Kool-Aid...

Lee DeRaud

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Got a deal I couldn't refuse on a mid-grade HP laptop: 17" screen, 2GB RAM, 250GB disc, AMD dual-core 2GHz, slots for the memory cards my cameras use, yada yada.

But of course it came with Vista installed. :eek: Played around with it for a couple of hours just to get a feel for it: ok, but not sure what all the hoopla is about. Ended up setting every setting I could find to "Windows Classic", which makes it look more like 95/98 than XP, but then again, I had done the same thing with all my XP machines anyway.

I have Quicken and Outlook running, all my IE7 settings moved over, and just finished copying all the data folders off the old machine. (Turns out the wired LAN connection of the old machine wasn't working, so it literally took all night over the wireless connection...glad I only have to do that once.)

So far I only have one issue with the whole thing: apparently they decided that being able to move the main menu bar to the top of the screen was a feature no one used, because as far as I can tell, it's stuck hard to the bottom edge. Anybody know if it can be moved?
More to follow as this progresses...
 
Lee, you are probably talking about the Task Bar, right?

I have Vista (business Edition) on my work PC and I was able to drag the bar to the top without any problem. Did you make sure that the task bar is not locked?

Right click the task bar and Un-check "Lock the taskbar" option. Then try again.
 
Got it, thanks for the assist. Knowing something is actually possible is always half the battle.:thumb:

I'd already tried the 'unlock' trick...no joy. Turns out you have to double-click the bar in just the right place (free area right next to the 'Start' button) or it ignores you.
 
Welcome to the world of Vista. I bought a new computer some months ago and it came with Vista. I've had a number of problems but Microsoft keeps doing updates which seem to resolve many of the problems.

I had to buy the Vista version of several products and a couple of things won't work on Vista. For example, I have an HP scanner and when I went to the HP site to get the Vista driver there was a note saying that they're not going to provide a driver for it. So I had to buy a new scanner.

My opinion - it's still a work in progress, but generally a good operating system.

And even though my new computer is a dual processor, with much faster clock rate, the performance is not that much better. I don't know whether Vista uses more system resources or whether the disk access, and Internet access, is really the limiting factor. We really need to break the disk access bottleneck, either with multiple drives (like RAID) for a wider access, or solid state disks.

But I'll probably stay on this one for many years, like I did with my old computer.

Mike
 
One more note, in case you use this.

The Start menu doesn't show the "Run" command by default. If you use the run command, you can get it to show as follows:

Right click either the "start" death star, or just next to the death star.
Select "properties"
Select the "Start Menu" tab
Next to the start menu button, select "customize"
Scroll down about 2/3 of the way, check the "run command" box
Back out with the "OK" buttons

The run command will now show in your menu.

Mike
 
Hey Lee, welcome to the Vista experience. I have the 64 bit version installed and i have had no problem with it beside some of the programs are not Vista friendly yet. That always is going to be the case unless you are going to Linux, or Mac. I hear those have their own problems and benifts as well. Some of the hardware needs some upgrading and that again is not really something to worry about as the technology is developing at such a pace no matter what you get it is always going to be one step behind. I taught my son everything that I knew years ago and now I go to him for advice as I don't have the time to keep up with it all. I have turned off lots of the fancy features as they just use slow the system down and I personally feel that they are useless. Just flash. Anyways have fun with the system.

Drew
 
Sounds like a nice laptop, Lee. :thumb:

Of the 4 or 5 machines I deal with, only one of them is running Vista. I've not used it enough to find all my familiar stuff. My primary complaint is that the model of keyboard I insist on using is not supported on Vista. And it's a stinkin' Microsoft keyboard. :bang: There is a scroll wheel on the keyboard that I rely on a lot, and that scroll wheel sends the Vista display into the ozone. Just touch the wheel, and all icons (desktop, Explorer, wherever) are blown up to gigantic proportions. The only way to resolve it is to reboot the machine.

If I do a remote desktop connection into the Vista box from an XP box, it works fine. :doh:
 
Hey Lee, welcome to the Vista experience. I have the 64 bit version installed and i have had no problem with it beside some of the programs are not Vista friendly yet.
Haven't encountered any of that (yet)...is it a "not-Vista-friendly" or a "not-64-bit-friendly" issue?

I've got the 32-bit version now, but when the upstairs desktop gets replaced, it will probably be quite a bit further up the food chain.
 
If Lee will allow me to highjack this thread, I'll ask Drew a question.

Drew - what's the advantage of running 64 bit Vista, other than more memory addressing and larger disks (over 750GB if I remember)?

Mike
Drew will likely have more pertinent info, but as I understand it, most 32-bit applications won't see any improvements when run on 64-bit systems. If an app is written specifically to take advantage of the 64-bit architecture, then the difference can be significant, though, particularly if the app is CPU-intensive, doing serious number-crunching or various scientific tasks. Unfortunately, there are not a lot of apps yet that take advantage of the extra bits, as I understand it.

I believe you're right about the additional memory addressing (but I'm not sure if it makes much difference to 32-bit apps that don't know to take advantage of it). If there's a disk volume limit, I'm pretty sure it's higher than 750 GB. I have a 1 TB RAID5 array on my 32-bit WinXP box here at home, and it's formatted as a single volume.
 
I got a Mac, (now have 2) and will never go back...
The Mac is a great platform, but some of us are bound to the Windows platform for professional (or other) reasons. I work from home, and my home system needs to run the products that I'm working on. Those products run on Windows. Therefore, so do I. ;)
 
Haven't encountered any of that (yet)...is it a "not-Vista-friendly" or a "not-64-bit-friendly" issue?

I've got the 32-bit version now, but when the upstairs desktop gets replaced, it will probably be quite a bit further up the food chain.

Lee the 64 bit version is offered as a free upgrade.

The only problems that I have experienced have been with the drivers for certain devices not being compatable with Vista. That is the problem with getting the first generation anything. Bugs have to be worked out and modifications made.
 
most 32-bit applications won't see any improvements when run on 64-bit systems. If an app is written specifically to take advantage of the 64-bit architecture, then the difference can be significant, though, particularly if the app is CPU-intensive, doing serious number-crunching or various scientific tasks. Unfortunately, there are not a lot of apps yet that take advantage of the extra bits, as I understand it.

I couldn't have said it any better Vaughn.
 
The Mac is a great platform, but some of us are bound to the Windows platform for professional (or other) reasons. I work from home, and my home system needs to run the products that I'm working on. Those products run on Windows. Therefore, so do I. ;)

This has always been the problem between the two platforms. Like the old Beta vs VHS wars. Billy targeted the big business initially and apple has been playing catch up since. Not saying that it is an inferior system or anything like that, but most business's have the windows platform and they were not compatable with the apples. So to bringing work home from the office you had to have the windows platform at home. The advantage to the Mac is that most hackers and viruses are not designed to go after Mac system as they are not as main stream (yet). Gee remember the commador 64? How long ago was that?
 
Lee the 64 bit version is offered as a free upgrade.

The only problems that I have experienced have been with the drivers for certain devices not being compatable with Vista. That is the problem with getting the first generation anything. Bugs have to be worked out and modifications made.
Drew - I don't mean to offend you - I'm just trying to understand...

If the 64 bit version of Vista doesn't offer anything unless you have software written specially for it, why run the 64 bit version on a workstation? I think some 32 bit versions of software have trouble running on the 64 bit system (don't know that for sure), and drivers for many things are not available. I can understand running it on a server because the software is unique to servers and servers need lots of main memory and disks.

But why run the 64 bit version on a workstation? There must be some advantages or MS would not have developed it.

Mike
 
The only problem I have with vista so far is the lack of power toys. One of my favorites for xp was the image resizer: I could take a whole group of photos and reduce them to 800 x 600 in seconds. Haven't figured that out in vista yet.

The 64 bit thing is cool, but we've got 2,500 workstations and hundreds of servers, and haven't found a compelling reason to run it yet. It's coming, and support for it is in our three year plan, but not even the high end researchers are clamouring for it at this point...

At some time, we'll all be running it, but we're not there yet... ;)

Thanks,

Bill
 
The only problem I have with vista so far is the lack of power toys. One of my favorites for xp was the image resizer: I could take a whole group of photos and reduce them to 800 x 600 in seconds. Haven't figured that out in vista yet.
Eh? I use PixResizer (available free here)...works just like on XP, only a lot faster on the new silicon.
 
Drew - I don't mean to offend you - I'm just trying to understand...

If the 64 bit version of Vista doesn't offer anything unless you have software written specially for it, why run the 64 bit version on a workstation? I think some 32 bit versions of software have trouble running on the 64 bit system (don't know that for sure), and drivers for many things are not available. I can understand running it on a server because the software is unique to servers and servers need lots of main memory and disks.

But why run the 64 bit version on a workstation? There must be some advantages or MS would not have developed it.

Mike

Oh geez Mike no offence taken. The 64 bit version is a more organized code system, while the 32 bit system has been used for the better half of a decade, it has been bogged down with runtime drivers such as the older versions of direct XX and Visual C++ which have been replaced with the 64 bit versions of windows. in fact, most 32 bit software runs better if anything (this is mainly apparent in 32 bit gaming, where the graphics are optimized to run faster on a 32 bit system, the 64 runs it more efficently). however, you will not see a noticeable difference in performance unless you have a benchmark running. not until you actually use 64 bit programs (most are now available for vista, such as internet explorer 64 bit and a few antiviruses. the reason i would say to stay with the 32 bit is because anti-virus protection is not as well developed for the 64 bit runtime environments, unless you have an industry grade antivirus like NOD32 (the 32 in the name has nothing to do with the 64/32 bit) it is optimized for a 64 bit environment and performs much more powerfully than macafee and norton. (for example, microsofts and sun microsystem servers use NOD32). in the end i would recommend 64 bit for gaming, but otherwise there really isnt any difference other than upgradeablility, where the 64 bit version is designed for upcoming programs.
 
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