Thoughts on Vista

In case you are the last person in the known universe to have heard this,
Vista has been released. No, don't run out to Best Buy or Circuit City, you
won't find it there. But Beta 2 (build 5384) is in "public" Beta, meaning
that soon billions of computer users worldwide will be using Vista. (say by
mid-July of this year, 2006)

I've installed it on two different computer systems. Before installation, I
ran the upgrade advisor downloaded from Microsoft. Both systems passed,
with one minor exception. System 1 didn't have enough hard drive space.
That was solved easily by re-partitioning the hard drive. ODDLY, the
upgrade advisor ignored a few hard drives on that system with several
HUNDREDS OF GB OF FREE SPACE and told me that I didn't have enough space to
install Vista because drive C: only had about 10GB free, at the time.
But like I said, a quick re-partition freed up about 30GB of free space, and
then the upgrade advisor gave the green light to both systems.

System one was a total disaster. Oh the installation of Vista went
perfectly, no glitches at all. But then I learned the hard way that there
is a quite common security "feature" in Vista that prevents people from
logging in with valid user names and passwords on many systems. The way it
works is this: You click your user name, type your valid password, see
logging in, loading personal settings, logging out, and you are back to the
login screen. The workaround is to log in using the same user name/password
combo in SAFE MODE. (which of course is crap)

System two wasn't much better. Oh, the installation of Vista went OK. At
least I got a working system, kind of. The upgrade advisor failed to
mention that my very common nvidia chipset (6600, no letters following it)
video card wasn't supported by Vista. (oooooops!!!). Oh it had video, but
it was very choppy. Moving the mouse would cause the whole fricking screen
to move (did I mention I have an LCD monitor?). I was getting seasick just
trying to figure out how to fix it. Luckily, nvidia had beta drivers
available to fix that problem. Other problems were harder to work around.
Like my firewall which I'd read was Vista compatible wasn't. I'm still
looking for a compatible firewall. And I had to change antivirus programs.
Luckily I found avast!, as a temporary solution. Then I discovered
Incredimail is not Vista compatible. That's fine with me, but my wife won't
use anything else for e-mail, so I had to downgrade to Windows XP again.

Thank God for Acronis True Image. Had both machines back to Windows XP with
all software installed and fully configured in less than half an hour total
for both systems. Luckily I'd imaged both C: drives before I started the
Vista thing.

I think Vista is going to be great someday. Note the someday. I'm guessing
2010 or so, it will be running great. If you think your hardware is ready
for it though, think again. It is REALLY power-hungry. I'm talking the OS
only. Forget Microsoft recommendations, try the following:

200GB hard drive (well, 30GB or so is needed, but you need room for apps,
data files, etc. also), 10K minimum RPM, 16MB cache. Otherwise, it will
take all day to install.
Geforce 6600 or later chipset video card with 256MB or more of RAM. Graphic
intensive OS, just like running a GAME constantly.
2GB of RAM MINIMUM. Again, this OS is just like running a game constantly.
DUAL-CORE processor with minimum 3GHz clock speed (not to be confused with
speed rating). The 3GHz because it's like running a game constantly. The
dual-core because Microsoft says so.
Dual layer DVD burner. You need to back up the OS disk, which is on DVD
media. If you buy a DVD drive, it better be dual layer.

But if you've got the hardware, you will probably like the OS, when the bugs
are worked out. It does a lot of unnecessary hand-holding, but once the
hand-holding is turned off, it's a darn nice OS. The Aero interface alone
is worth the upgrade. IMHO But the non-expanding start menu and gadgets
area are nice, also. -Dave