Windows Vista Premium

[whabang]

I did a bit of testing with Vista Ultimate x64, and after a _lot_ of tweaking, I managed to get it perfectly usable, although still noticably slower than XP.

The big advantage is that Vista's UI management is far more accelerated (ok, it's accelerated in another way) than the one in XP, resulting in a much smoother feel on high-end systems (notice the "high-end"? no rants please!), even though total system performance is lower.

If all you're doing is surfing the web, and writing letters, then this new feel to the UI is probably an advantage over XP, but for gamers, productivity users, and others who need to squeeze every last bit of powa out of their systems, then XP is probably a better choice, at least until we are forced to use Vista because of DX10 and newer versions of Windows live messenger. :lol:

[trekiej]

I hope I have not opened a provebial can of worms.
Some are probably wondering why this dude is even bringing this up.  What can I say,Msoft is apart of peoples life.  Not everyone even use a computer though.
I like Msoft and I hate Msoft.  I do not feel they care about you and me, but people rip them off and I guess I would be mad too.  A part of me wants to buy there software and a part likes open source.
Thanks for listening to my babble.

[amigaksi]

>Without analysis of the methods used to communicate with the >para port in this software which you ran on two completely >different operating systems makes this benchmark a waste of >time and the results irrelevant.

The software used to communicate with the parallel port is the same-- MPDOS Pro available with floppy simulator or other link I gave:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320189136265

It uses assembly language instructions IN AL,DX and OUT DX,AL not high level languages.  You can try running the MPDOS Pro yourself on various operatings systems and see the results for yourself.  It works on Windows 3.x, Win 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP.  Vista too if they did not screw things too badly in creating upgrade for XP.

If you want to try without MPDOS, run the DEBUG program in the command prompt and try the following sample code:

Mov DX,378
DB 66
Mov CX,0
DW 1000
In AL,DX
DB 66
Dec CX
Jnz 109
Int 3

Use your wrist watch to time the above code which does 256MB of IN instructions.  You can similarly do other port addresses or OUT instruction.  378h is the port address for all the machines I mentioned.  The above code will work in DOS box for Windows 3.11, Windows 95/98/ME.  For 2000/XP, you will first have to disable I/O port trapping for the parallel port else you'll get much worse results than those I gave.

The IN/OUT instructions for reading/writing bytes is the same in 16-bit or 32-bit modes so it does not change when you switch OSes being discussed.

[AmigaHeretic]

Areo is cool.

Now you can scroll through all thoughs Blue Screens of Death in virtual 3D. Sweet!! :-D


It's got great features like Windows Defender built in.
This latest version of defender features "DCS" or Doesn't Catch Sh*t virus proctection. :-D

Check more out here... Link

[meega]

 :roflmao:  :roflmao:
 :roflmao:  :roflmao:
 :roflmao:  :roflmao:

[seer]

The speed difference between Vista and XP is noticeable, with XP being considerably faster, and the gap is about to widen even more: Early in 2008, Microsoft is planning to release Service Pack 3 for XP, and I have heard that SP3 will, for example, make XP running MS Word 10% faster than XP with Service Pack 2, widening the speed gap considerably.

You mean the "officebench mark" that was done on the same hardware ? read this. Real good test. Perhaps they should have included Win98 with Office97.

In issuing Service Pack 3 for XP, Microsoft is clearly on the defensive. It's nice to see them at least somewhat on the defensive for a change.

So far, SP3 is hardly any more then all updates that MS made for XP rolled into one. Strangely enough the RC1 of SP3 doesn't seem to feature IE7. It's nothing compared to what SP2 did to XP. And before SP2, XP was a very unstable OS (IMHO), offcourse, when SP2 came out people complained about all chances, just like they did when XP itself was released (hm.. A pattern..). Besides, SP3 has been in the planning since Longhorn was still based on XP (ie, years ago)

SP1 for Vista is somewhat the same, all updates for it rolled into 1, with the exception that several updates that are available for Vista are not obtained by using Windows Update like the "hotfixes", those hotfixes are available only if you need them and can't wait for SP1 but these may be better in SP1.

UAC isn't that bad at all, for a long read go here. It may be bad if you have the habbit of (un)installing programs every minute or so or changing your settings all the time.

I'm running Vista since Beta 1, and since RC1 as my main windows OS. There were some problems with third party drivers or programs and because the OS is made more secure some things just don't work like they used to (like sound drivers and those are therefore "less" then XP drivers, not to mention creative being "unwilling" to make drivers for a beta OS...) With all hotfixes and updates it's a very good Windows OS.

As for memory usage, yes Vista takes advantage of the memory instead of putting it all on disk. On XP, alt-tabbing out of a game could take ages as the OS tried to load everyhing back from disk to ram. On vista it's much faster, but it does depend on the game. Offcourse, there are people out there that have a memory meter just to look at how much (useless) memory they have free, or use "memory managers" that keep a certain ammount of ram free (while making the OS slow..).

Also, a lot of problems are from older non compatible programs that should have been forgotten allready. Like Norton 2003 giving problems on Vista. (As if Norton worked anyway).. Or not compatible drivers, just when XP hit the market.

Come on people. Have we forgotten how it was when going from 1.3 to 2.0 ? The joke was "the good thing about Kickstart 2 is that old virusses don't work anymore"

[Colin_Camper]

I upgraded my machine last week.

I now have Athlon 64x2 2.4GHz, 2GB DDR2-800, 8600GT 540MB graphics, Foxconn AM2 M/B and a 1/2 TB SATA disk.

I upgraded specifically for Unreal Tournament 3 and bought a copy of Vista Ultimate 64bit. (I didn't want any boot splash screen to say 'home' - I don't know who is running Microsofts marketing department but it might as well say Vista Dweeb edition!  :-D )

I find that Vista runs slightly faster than XP on my old machine (2GHz, 1GB Athlon socket 754) but it looks impressive and it doesn't slow down when I've got something substantial (like a video render) in the background. Obviously this is down to the other CPU not vista!
Normally I wouldn't buy windows at least before the first service pack and I used Win2K up to 2005.

However UT3 over ruled this. There is no Linux 64bit version. It runs on vista with everything maxed out at full wack - smooth as a babies bottom. The 8400GT particularly impresses!

A couple of niggles - my barricade print server wont work under vista - I had to get a standard tcp/ip port one (d-link) on ebay. £10.

I only paid £100 for my OEM vista ultimate - I'd say it was worth the money. Having said that, if UT3 64bit had been available on Linux I would have gone the whole Linux hog.

It would be interesting to see how many copies of Vista sold on the back of UT3. Unreal Tournament must have the highest proportion of people who absolutely will not compromise!    :-)

Now to find a beautifully rendered stairwell or recess - let the camping begin!!  :-D

[Colin_Camper]

I upgraded my machine last week.

I now have Athlon 64x2 2.4GHz, 2GB DDR2-800, 8600GT 540MB graphics, Foxconn AM2 M/B and a 1/2 TB SATA disk.

I upgraded specifically for Unreal Tournament 3 and bought a copy of Vista Ultimate 64bit. (I didn't want any boot splash screen to say 'home' - I don't know who is running Microsofts marketing department but it might as well say Vista Dweeb edition!  :-D )

I find that Vista runs slightly faster than XP on my old machine (2GHz, 1GB Athlon socket 754) but it looks impressive and it doesn't slow down when I've got something substantial (like a video render) in the background. Obviously this is down to the other CPU not vista!
Normally I wouldn't buy windows at least before the first service pack and I used Win2K up to 2005.

However UT3 over ruled this. There is no Linux 64bit version. It runs on vista with everything maxed out at full wack - smooth as a babies bottom. The 8400GT particularly impresses!

A couple of niggles - my barricade print server wont work under vista - I had to get a standard tcp/ip port one (d-link) on ebay. £10.

I only paid £100 for my OEM vista ultimate - I'd say it was worth the money. Having said that, if UT3 64bit had been available on Linux I would have gone the whole Linux hog.

It would be interesting to see how many copies of Vista sold on the back of UT3. Unreal Tournament must have the highest proportion of people who absolutely will not compromise!    :-)

Now to find a beautifully rendered stairwell or recess - let the camping begin!!  :-D

[Skyraker]

I've tried Vista for a couple of days and removed it pretty soon after (reasons already explained by others).

I've switched to Ubuntu (which I love) with a partition for XP purely and simply to play Team Fortress 2.

btw I've just installed Office 2003 under Crossover on Ubuntu, and it's as fast if not a shade faster than on XP.

Cheers.

*edit* oh and the eye candy is just as good as with Vista now that Compizfusion has been wedged into Gutsy. 4 Desktops with cube effect anyone?