Stark Likes Vista

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2007-07-09 10:44pm

I installed Vista as a part of my move from a 160 to a 320 for Windows boot. I kept the 160 unchanged, as I expected to be almost immediately wishing I'd never tried Vista.

However, my experience so far has been largely positive. My system ain't so great (6600GT, 2gb, 3200) but I've got no performance problems. My only compatibility problems have been bad initial video drivers and a frustrating inability to change '2 speaker stereo' to anything else.

I like the UI (of course I fucked off the worthless gadgets almost immediately) even if I *hate* the Control Panel layout of Nested Confusion. At the Vista Control Panel, I typed 'network' into search and got no results!

It's pretty, it's fast, and with 2gb I haven't noticed any performance issues at all. I particularly like how the windows are appropriately themed. I usually hate shiny bullshit, but I haven't been tempted to turn it off yet. The new Start Menu is much easier to organise (after you fuck off the horrible default setup). I've had no problem moving my data, sharing it, and configuring the system (I changed back to 'classic Control Panel').

I know many people have tried Vista and turned back, so I'm curious what negative experiences they had. I know the security popups bother many people, but I've been using other OS's (which have had the same thing for years) and it's not a problem for me.

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2007-07-09 10:46pm

So far my only negative problems have been Adobe Acrobat apparently not liking my machine and deciding to fuck around with the default program file type associations. -And- apparently the video thumbnails gave me Com Surrogate crash error messages for awhile. It was fixed, but just today it started up again. Oh, and Aero is pretty, but a fucking huge memory hog.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2007-07-09 10:52pm

I haven't installed Acrobat yet, so I've yet to encounter that. My system sits on 720ishMb with a dozen windows open, iTunes running and Firefez eating up almost 100 of that, so I'm not too fussed. I expected a performance hit, but some of my games actually seem to run smoother.

Oh wait - I can't find the checkbox to put the nvidia settings in the system tray. That's irritating, because with a 6600GT you've got to do a lot of tweaking.

Elessar · Post by **Elessar** » 2007-07-09 10:58pm

Curious, have you changed the skin settings away from Aero and its transparency effects?

I hated Vista until I swapped its horrific skin with the Classic interface. I also killed UAC after being harassed too much in the first two or three hours. Now it's basically XP, but eats up a bit more RAM. I'm only using it for testing compatibility and don't really know what benefits I'm gaining by using Microsoft's latest. Explorer's new interface just doesn't cut it.

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2007-07-09 11:01pm

Elessar wrote:Curious, have you changed the skin settings away from Aero and its transparency effects?

I hated Vista until I swapped its horrific skin with the Classic interface. I also killed UAC after being harassed too much in the first two or three hours. Now it's basically XP, but eats up a bit more RAM. I'm only using it for testing compatibility and don't really know what benefits I'm gaining by using Microsoft's latest. Explorer's new interface just doesn't cut it.

Getting rid of Aero was one of the first things I did after I realized how much of a memory hog it was. It sped up performance quite a bit on my machine at least. (Even with 2gb of ram it slowed down considerably).

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2007-07-09 11:03pm

Nope, totally default desktop/themes for Ultimate (whatever they are). Under XP I hated the blue XP theme and just used the 95 theme, but I don't mind the Vista one.

Oh yeah, the explorer with sidebars and (as far as I can tell) no way to configure what information is shown or how is crap. It's also worth noting this is purely home use, and I haven't even poked around to see what it'd be like to use in a corporate setting.

EDIT - Zod, how do you mean 'slows it down considerably'? Boot time? Load times? My software runs at similar speed and the windows themselves are far less 'tear-y' than the XP ones. Believe me, if I'd noticed any major hit I'd have kicked it back to '95 Grey' like I always did with XP.

Elessar · Post by **Elessar** » 2007-07-09 11:06pm

Stark wrote:Oh yeah, the explorer with sidebars and (as far as I can tell) no way to configure what information is shown or how is crap. It's also worth noting this is purely home use, and I haven't even poked around to see what it'd be like to use in a corporate setting.

I use it entirely in a corporate setting. A funny story about that... Vista marketing managed to catch one of our IT guys off-guard. Since Dell has been screwing around with delivery dates, we were forced to get a system from the local Best Buy. He buys a Vista system, we put it on the network, find out it's Vista Home (and lacks domain support).

Of course, he tells us it's Vista Premium. Which it apparently is. Vista Home Premium.

Hurray for marketing.

Oh, and you can change the shortcuts in the sidebar (not the hierarchal folder view). Just drag and drop the shortcuts of your choice. However, Microsoft failed to keep the view standard throughout the OS. You'll find different folders popping up in the sidebar when using Word or Excel.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2007-07-09 11:09pm

Yeah I already tried to re-home some of the shortcuts, but it's not consistent and thus useless. I can't find the 'turn off x pane, add y pane' panel, but explorer itself appears to have no options at all beyond the folder view options. Let's make it hard!

Zod, I just threw on Acrobat 8.1, and it's running fine. I saw some articles about Acrobat/Vista problems, but it appears they're resolved. After initial startup, it opens PDFs far faster than the bloated mess that was Reader 7.

EDIT - oh oh I've got one. The 'security popup' things do absolutely bizarre things to my display: instead of fading to black (as I imagine it's supposed to) it looks like it's changing resolution and flicking the screen on and off. It's not too bad (I can see the options anyway) but it's a bit strange for such a common thing (just a popup window) to do such things.

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2007-07-09 11:18pm

Stark wrote:Nope, totally default desktop/themes for Ultimate (whatever they are). Under XP I hated the blue XP theme and just used the 95 theme, but I don't mind the Vista one.

Oh yeah, the explorer with sidebars and (as far as I can tell) no way to configure what information is shown or how is crap. It's also worth noting this is purely home use, and I haven't even poked around to see what it'd be like to use in a corporate setting.

What do you mean exactly? As in the information that the file will display?

EDIT - Zod, how do you mean 'slows it down considerably'? Boot time? Load times? My software runs at similar speed and the windows themselves are far less 'tear-y' than the XP ones. Believe me, if I'd noticed any major hit I'd have kicked it back to '95 Grey' like I always did with XP.

Whenever I tried and go through the menus in the task bar there's a noticeable lag between clicking on the dropdown button and it actually appearing, or even being highlighted. I suspect it's because my video card isn't exactly that powerful. But as soon as I turned off Aero the menus are working smoothly.

Zod, I just threw on Acrobat 8.1, and it's running fine. I saw some articles about Acrobat/Vista problems, but it appears they're resolved. After initial startup, it opens PDFs far faster than the bloated mess that was Reader 7.

Weird, though I suspect it's a registry problem. I'm betting that Windows didn't do a complete wipe and reinstall like I tried telling it to somehow. So it probably is mostly my end.

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2007-07-09 11:19pm

Destructionator XIII wrote:
General Zod wrote:[Disabling Aero] sped up performance quite a bit on my machine at least. (Even with 2gb of ram it slowed down considerably).
Curious, what graphics card do you have?

I haven't actually tried Vista at all yet, but scored a copy after a week and a half of Live Search Clubbing, and am curious if it will work well on my system with my 5500FX card.

I'm on a laptop, so I have a built in nVidia Go graphics card. Uses integrated memory. Apparently it's enough to run most of my games reasonably well, but Aero doesn't like it very much.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2007-07-09 11:32pm

General Zod wrote:What do you mean exactly? As in the information that the file will display?

Looking at an explorer window, I mean 'do you want the shortcut pane displayed', 'do you want the file tree displayed, and how', and 'what information should be in the 'selected file' tab at the bottom'. Things like that: I can't find options for them. It's not a huge thing, but having a giant file tab that appears at the bottom of the window and tells you nothing you didn't already know is lame. Also, what's so hard about telling me how big a folder is? The options for explorer windows are probably buried in the Control Panel somewhere but a few quick searches turned up nothing.

Whenever I tried and go through the menus in the task bar there's a noticeable lag between clicking on the dropdown button and it actually appearing, or even being highlighted. I suspect it's because my video card isn't exactly that powerful. But as soon as I turned off Aero the menus are working smoothly.

Hmm. I don't have the menus appearing instantly, but that might be a UI decision - after I click on a menu, all the other menus are instantly down. Now that you mention it there is a bit of tearing if you click a menu and then quickly drag back and forth across the menu bar, forcing it to draw them all quickly, but I don't get anything like that with regular use.

Weird, though I suspect it's a registry problem. I'm betting that Windows didn't do a complete wipe and reinstall like I tried telling it to somehow. So it probably is mostly my end.

I'm not sure, some of the articles I skimmed suggested there may have been something about the early Vista versions that Vista didn't like.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2007-07-10 01:27am

Turns out Bear was right: Vista *hates* Safedisk. I had to unwrap the System Shock 2 executables myself. Seems to work fine afterward, though, so the 9x compatibility for Vista isn't as bad as I expected.

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2007-07-10 04:13am

Destructionator XIII wrote:
General Zod wrote:[Disabling Aero] sped up performance quite a bit on my machine at least. (Even with 2gb of ram it slowed down considerably).
Curious, what graphics card do you have?

I haven't actually tried Vista at all yet, but scored a copy after a week and a half of Live Search Clubbing, and am curious if it will work well on my system with my 5500FX card.

There shouldn't be any issues.