Microsoft VISTA OS

[CMasten]

Didnt see any threads about Vista so thought I would strike one up.

I have been running this OS on several machines now for about a month. I have access to the release on my MSDN subscription, so I have the Business release.

There is one install, that I got, and it does a very good job of reporting on your user experience to install or upgrade (Before) you start. Nice

I have one workstation that is dual core and it installed Ultimate on that one, Both of my laptops are similar in configuration so they both got Business edition. I have several other machines running XP Pro.

Over all its been a very pleasant ride, in my experience more compatable than even XP was. it even told me there was not a Vista driver for my HP all in one printer/scanner unit and after install it actually created a twain driver based on what it found and it works better than the stock HP drivers did!

There is no doubt it is a resource hog, but very nice interface. The only issue I have with it to this point (and in all fairness I have not played in that area enough to know the limitations) is in networking resources and file shareing.

It seems to be a pain in the butt going from XP to Vista workstations, but not the reverse, Im sure its something I just need to know, but its no super intuitive.

For anti virus and spy-ware et all, I am running Microsoft's One Care, nice package, they have a 60 day eval for release versions and it covers up to 3 PCs and has all kinds of features that seem useful. CostCo has the release of One Cares subscription available for just 32.00 that covers your 3 pc's for a whole year. Doesn't seem too bad and most of the features can be turned off as you deem them not necessary.

I am planning on getting a new rocking Dell 17" laptop after the holidays when the prices become more reasonable and Dell usually blows out its Xmas inventory, Should be interesting to see how it performs on a new Core 2 Duo with a couple of gigs of Ram.

Over all I really like it, in fact i like it better than XP, but then I started off as a Mac guy.. so maybe its the pretty interface

Happy Holiday all you Piloteers!

[jrinjax]

We are planning a migration of our server and work stations to Vista by the end of next year. Hopefully that will be enough time for them to work the bugs out and get the file sharing features finished.
We get very good service from our XPP workstations and 2000 server. There seem to be occasionally a few more glitches popping up that we attribute to all the "patches".

We are already using Windows Livecare and have been satisfied with every thing but the original beta that screwed the registries trying to clean them up.
Until we reloaded, the only way to run Microsoft Update was to blow away the softwaredistribution folder and then install the updates.
JR

[N_Jay]

Not to drift too much, but my Mcafee is coming up for renewal.

I have been using MS Definer beta for spy-ware protection.

Should I dump them and go for "one care"? Thoughts??

[jrinjax]

The best anti-spyware/anti-adware that I have found is the Lavasoft.com.
The SE edition is free to personal users.
http://www.download.com/Ad-Aware-SE-...bj=dl&tag=top5

[CMasten]

I think LavaSoft makes good products, I have been using their AdAware now for a few years, its updated often and works well.

What i like about One Care is that its Anti Virus, Anti Spyware and it has a very intelligent internal firewall that keeps track of what applications are allowed through and what are not. This is helpful in the event that "extra' stuff gets installed with applications that you put on your machines, I have already caught a few on some games my boys installed. I know that standard anti spy ware and AdAware would not have caught it, as it was also installed on the XP workstation that has it running.

I also like the fact that if something is installed internally One Care should catch it when my Hardware external firewall would not. Its easy enough to use and its integration to Vista specifically is pretty seemless. I was going to spend a lot more than 32.00 for just anti virus on 3 machines so I think its a good deal. Its also completely automated as part of the MS daily updates so just set it and forget it.

[jdeanski]

Originally posted by N_Jay

Should I dump them and go for "one care"? Thoughts??

I've been using One Care for several months now with no problems, runs much smoother than Norton.

[5Gs]

Originally posted by CMasten

Over all I really like it, in fact i like it better than XP, but then I started off as a Mac guy.. so maybe its the pretty interface

that was my first impression, that it seemed very similar to a mac.

I wonder how many people will actually upgrade to vista, considering the potentially huge cost in hardware upgrades? vista won't be able to run on most current systems due to its high hardware requirements.

[N_Jay]

Originally posted by 5Gs


that was my first impression, that it seemed very similar to a mac.

I wonder how many people will actually upgrade to vista, considering the potentially huge cost in hardware upgrades? vista won't be able to run on most current systems due to its high hardware requirements.

It should run on anything more than a real cheapie built in the last 2 years.

I just built two real cheapies, and both are Vista ready.

[CMasten]

On the desktop when you select properties on "computer" - they took the My Computer naming off.. you will get a nice interface that shows you the Windows Experience Index. It breaks down how your Vista experience will be based on an index that they measure and monitor and where your system might be weak, i.e memory, CPU, Disk IO etc. You will also find Device Manager, Remote Settings, System Settings and Advanced options here. It nice they included your workgroup or domain and computer name options here also, in addition to the network that were all used to.

Also for measuring the bottlnecks, Performance Monitor got some major upgrades. You can select RUN and type perfmon /res to get the new resource monitor that is much easier to read than the old version. There are many more layers to Vista, but they have tried to put the functions you want most within easy reach.

I am also running Office 2007 that has the Ribbon interface and that is really cool! hard to get excited about Office, but its the first program that will actually dynamically build your menus based upon the way you use them most. Its the first Office upgrade that I am excited about, 2003 was ok, but not much different than the XP version.

Yea, this is all getting pretty expensive , thank goodness for MSDN subscriptions!! If I was building out a new machine (and I will be in Jan) I would set it up with Vista Ultimate, Office 2007 Pro Plus, One Care and all on a nice new Core 2 Duo with a min of 2 gigs of ram, a fast current video card with 256 megs of vram and a fast IO Sata Drive. WOW has this all shifted up in the hardware dept fast!

[jrinjax]

I did the Pre-Vista checkout on my Office desktop workstation, my Home desktop workstation, and both of my Dell notebooks and I only had 1 HP scanner that was going to be a problem with getting the Vista drivers.
All four are 2 years old or less but still seem to be less problems than what I was expecting.
JR

[CMasten]

Originally posted by jrinjax
I did the Pre-Vista checkout on my Office desktop workstation, my Home desktop workstation, and both of my Dell notebooks and I only had 1 HP scanner that was going to be a problem with getting the Vista drivers.
All four are 2 years old or less but still seem to be less problems than what I was expecting.
JR

For the HP scanners you will find that Vista will create a Twain driver that will work inside of their interface or inside of any 3rd party scanning software. The issue at the moment is that HP is still getting caught up so their software isnt compatable, but chances are good that the hardware will talk to Vista just fine using the Twain driver.

[jrinjax]

Thanks for the advice on the TWAIN driver.

We are going to wait a while on "adopting" while we check on how some of the possible "show stopper" issues like the "Authentication Layer" play out.

I have run afoul of the Genuine Windows advantage and had to call Mother Microsoft after just making some configuration changes on XP.

The "thought" of an onboard program malfunctioning/being hacked and shutting down my workstations or server OS is "unthinkable".

We are going to give the Hackers at least 6-8 months to do their worst against the new Authentication Layer and then decide if it is time to make the move.

I used to be an early adopter with 95,98,2000/2000 server, [skipped NT] but was smarter/slower with XP since IS failures have become more critical for us and I have less time to devote to IS issues.

Merry Christmas,
JR

[CMasten]

One other item that is good to know about Vista, is that it protects everything... so you will run into applications that need to run under administrative rights. Its easy enough to do, just right-click your application EXE and select properties, under the compatibility tab you will see a box at the bottom "run this program as an administrator" , just select this box and hit Apply. Your good to go.

This can act in strange scenarios, i.e Itunes runs just fine, but will give you a meaningless xxxxx error when you try and make a CD. but applying admin rights to the exe it now runs just fine. It has not been a big issue, but it is annoying over XP. ALL of the issues that I have had to this point with Vista and incompatable applications have been resolved by this method.

[jrinjax]

When I read all the reviews, I have seen alerts that say the mal-ware protections are ineffective when using my webmail or Lotus notes. They have several 2 year old trojans that have the double extensions that will run on Vista. These ARE detected/disabled by using it's internal mail system but not on the webmail I use when traveling.
Merry Christmas,
JR

[krygny]

Originally posted by 5Gs
...
I wonder how many people will actually upgrade to vista, considering the potentially huge cost in hardware upgrades?
...

Only the PDBs you see standing on line outside CompUSA during Midnight Madness.