[Ammalgam]

Guys,
So I read this review http://techrepublic....ag=feed&subj=tr

Am I the only one that thinks the following line

After about an hour and a half, the Installing Windows phase was complete and a wizard titled Set Up Windows appeared.

is ridiculous?

1.5 hours.

90 minutes

5400 seconds!!

My 10 cents....

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I think it took my PC about 20-30 minutes

[yurimxpxman]

I think it took my PC about 20-30 minutes

[warriorscot]

It appears he is using a less than up to date system 3400+ he must be using 754 at best, thats not a bad chip per say but it is old. And he has a gig of ram but its single channel, i would put money on an ide HDD. And express200 gfx yes its better than intel integrated but not by that much.

[Ammalgam]

Scot,
You raise a good point. Philosophically, should we have to upgarde our PC's to run an O.S.

I remember the transition to XP when hardware was still expensive. Microsoft never made anyone upgrade hardware then..

I think it's lazy (inefficient) coding at work here...

[warriorscot]

You dont upgrade to the OS the OS upgrades to the hardware, an XP system should stay XP its not broke dont fix it. Only exception is for a high end xp running system.

If you look at the latest benchmarks of hardware coming this summer its got enough juice to run vista and then some, those are the systems Vista is made for not the computers XP is running on. At least not really, its one OS design philosophy of which there is really two camps. More elaborate features to match hardware imporvements and more effiecient features to cope with older hardware. Windows has always catered for the first camp, you look at how prevalent 2000 is MS only cut it off recently because it was becoming a hassle to keep maintaining it and the hardware of 2000 which had lasted a while was mostly replaced with XP level hardware.

Vista is also pretty efficient at the stuff it does, however the extra stuff is in its nature relativley inefficeint. But you can turn it off which no one ever does for some reason just to show the point when they review it.

There is also DX10 to still come the imporvements of 10 over 9 make that "ineffecient" GUI suddenly become easy going, remember just the new gfx API(developed by MS as part of windows by the by) is 6 to 8 times more effieceint than 9 at least and thats still not considering the hardware improvements on dx10 cards. When Vista is released at the end2006/start2007 there will also be the first gens of x86 quad core cpus again this summers dual core releases have more than enough power imagine what these can do.

There is alot of code that is incredibly effeiceint however its overlooked for the more in your face features, the back of the shop has an all new level of organisation. And remember almost every review is not using hardware that Vista is intended to be used on either, remember you dont upgrade the hardware for the OS you upgrade the OS for the new hardware.

If you have an old system you use the same old OS, as a point to note MS are also supposed to release a big XP update around vista release time again showing that XP is going to still be prevalent for current/old systems allready with it.

[yurimxpxman]

I happen to be writing a review of build 5365 right now as a matter of fact. I'll show it to you guys when I'm done.

You're right, Scot, about turning off the new Vista GUI in favor for the Classic Theme. But my complaint about that is this: there is no way to run the Luna and Royale themes, which happen to be my favorites because they don't suck resources like Aero Glass, but they're really pleasing to the eye.

[warriorscot]

Im sure MS will fix that or someone else will, (have you tried installing royale in vista). Send a feedback to MS and ask them about putting luna and royale in. I like the look of the vista default myself its like the themes i always put in XP but royale is half decent as well, ill often just use classic for a while though, a little colour tweaking makes it look pretty cool actually, a kind of dark grey/black works really well in classic.

[Ammalgam]

Scot,
I am actually writing an article on this which I will post on my site soon but my point is this. Hardware reached a point of diminshing returns with XP!

People have 2 to 3ghz PCs with 1 gig of ram and 256 meg graphic cards for XP.

A friend of mine told me that this system would be "ok" for Vista. My point is, this system should be more than "OK" for ANY OS.

While it is true that some hardware out there is more powerful than this, I think it's pretty unrealistic to expect people to be going post 3ghz to run an OS.

Let's remember. It's an OS. Make it work fast and efficient. Add the rest of the sh*t as add ons. Thats what I say...

sheesh....

Oh and i think that Windows 2000 Professional was the best OS MSFT ever developed. Run XP for 6 months and then go back and see how much faster win 2000 browsing is.

Thank God for Windows 2003...

You dont upgrade to the OS the OS upgrades to the hardware, an XP system should stay XP its not broke dont fix it. Only exception is for a high end xp running system.

If you look at the latest benchmarks of hardware coming this summer its got enough juice to run vista and then some, those are the systems Vista is made for not the computers XP is running on. At least not really, its one OS design philosophy of which there is really two camps. More elaborate features to match hardware imporvements and more effiecient features to cope with older hardware. Windows has always catered for the first camp, you look at how prevalent 2000 is MS only cut it off recently because it was becoming a hassle to keep maintaining it and the hardware of 2000 which had lasted a while was mostly replaced with XP level hardware.

Vista is also pretty efficient at the stuff it does, however the extra stuff is in its nature relativley inefficeint. But you can turn it off which no one ever does for some reason just to show the point when they review it.

There is also DX10 to still come the imporvements of 10 over 9 make that "ineffecient" GUI suddenly become easy going, remember just the new gfx API(developed by MS as part of windows by the by) is 6 to 8 times more effieceint than 9 at least and thats still not considering the hardware improvements on dx10 cards. When Vista is released at the end2006/start2007 there will also be the first gens of x86 quad core cpus again this summers dual core releases have more than enough power imagine what these can do.

There is alot of code that is incredibly effeiceint however its overlooked for the more in your face features, the back of the shop has an all new level of organisation. And remember almost every review is not using hardware that Vista is intended to be used on either, remember you dont upgrade the hardware for the OS you upgrade the OS for the new hardware.

If you have an old system you use the same old OS, as a point to note MS are also supposed to release a big XP update around vista release time again showing that XP is going to still be prevalent for current/old systems allready with it.

[yurimxpxman]

XP isn't all that bad at all - now.

It just occurred to me that I was against the new GUI when XP came out because XP was too slow for my taste. But after a couple of service packs and better hardware, XP runs as fast as DOS now. My hope is that Vista will also.

My opinion is that the OS should use a very minimal amount of resources because the OS is not the program I need to run. The program I need to run is a seperate process from the OS, and I need it to run quickly. I don't want my OS hogging the resources while I'm trying to do my work.

And yes, I tried to install Royale in Vista, but it didn't work

[Ammalgam]

My opinion is that the OS should use a very minimal amount of resources because the OS is not the program I need to run. The program I need to run is a seperate process from the OS, and I need it to run quickly. I don't want my OS hogging the resources while I'm trying to do my work.

Yuri,
That is as eloquent as ever. It should be a silent partner using the bare minimum of resources and giving you basically ONLY what you NEED.

My take is that MSFT got Apple Envy.. (big mistake..)

[warriorscot]

cant see it as apple envy as windows is alot fsater when it comes down to it doesnt look as nice but it does the job better.

I found a decent review http://arstechnica.c.../os/vistab2.ars the guy is using a pretty powerful but fairly standard system with the current releases, apart from the gfx cards its the kind of system the OEMs are selling by the dozen. Runs well for him.

If you want a silent partner dont use windows, i dont want the silent partner i want the guy sitting in the background making my experience more enjoyable. If you want the silent partner use Linux thats its design philosophy but you cant judge windows against Linux in meaingful terms because they are designed to work in different ways, windows is supposed to be the silent partner if it was it wouldnt be as popular.

So the new hardware coming out and has been out and being bought alot on the last year or two will easily run vista and still have plenty to spare. That article also touches on the two new solid state drive functions to boost speed that are being built into new HDD when you see these technologies implemented Vista allready a fast OS on the appropriate hardware even though people whinge will be blazing the superfetch and readyboost performance gain is HUGE.


Also as a hardware point post 3Ghz isnt going to happen to much the way CPUs are developed now is using lower clock speeds the fastest are 3Ghz but you wont need close to that, the reviewer i linked to is using a 2.0Ghz system with good performance and intels new range are also ALOT faster than that and pricing is the same and clocks are lower, EE core 2 duos are over 3Ghz when autooverclocked but arent normally.

To surmise i dont want a silent partner thats the reason i use windows, when i want the silent partner i load up a linux OS for the job but it doesnt have the easy use and no brainer function of windows so i dont like it for my day to day i prefer windows because ive got plenty juice to spare for the monkey sitting on the shoulder as well.

[yurimxpxman]

I think there's a fine line between user-friendly and eye candy.

XP is user-friendly. Vista is eye candy.

[Ammalgam]

Once again Yuri,
even if I tried, I couldnt express that better...

[admin]

It's still beta, and it's a lot faster than it used to be. The early versions sometimes took hours to install. I expect they'll have much better install and desktop performance when it ships.

The number one reason to upgrade to Vista is security. Too bad we're forced to pay for a security update, but it took a major rewrite of Windows to get it right. Look for much more innovation in the next version of Windows (in a couple of years).

[yurimxpxman]

Eek! One of the main reasons why I DON'T want Vista is its stupid security annoyances! It drives me crazy!