Kevin's Watch

For the technologists amongst us ... a thread to share thoughts about Vista.

My VAOI - VGC-V520G is only two years old. Decent configuration:

Pentium 4 CPU 3.2 GHz HT
1 Gig main memory
250 Gigs hard drive
TV Tuner
NVIDIA GeForce FX Go5700 Video Card

Not too shabby for an old PC

Well ... not good enough for Vista Ultimate (Sony later told me - should of checked before I purchased - that it is just rated for Vista Baisc!!)

When I loaded it ... the nice Vista "eye candy" Aero Glass was not available ... only basic. The TV Tuner was gone! I had to fight to get NVIDIA drivers going. And Windows Media Player didn't play much media properly (Video - no audio.) SONY doesn't do much for old models in terms of compatability.

But the WORSE ... Vista is a DISK PIG!! Here's what happens ... say you have a number of games installed ... the big kind (e.g., Oblivion, NeverwinterNights, etc.) They might take up say ... 30 gigs of storage. No big deal for a 250gig Harddrive. Well ... a feature of VISTA ... to protect you ... is to establish 'virtual' copies of all 'old' programs for each user. The problem is that it makes ACTUAL copies of the data sources. So ... perhaps 25 of the 30gig copies for EACH user!!! Vista doesn't ask you if you want this done (at least I don't remember seeing it ask me!) ... it just does it!

Well last night I ripped Vista off ... restored an OLD version of Windows XP. Started at 8:30pm ... finished most stuff (with NO game program reinstalls) by 6:30am. I probably had over 120 PATCHES to apply!!!!

But I'm baaaacccckkkk!!!! TV Tuner works ... storage is low ... performance is great! I LIKE Windows XP!!!

What are YOUR Vista horror stories!!

[BTW, yeah ... I know ... should of backup up before I changed!!! ]

I have to say that Vista improved the performance of my PC and that there have been no issues with programs running.

Loremaster wrote:I have to say that Vista improved the performance of my PC and that there have been no issues with programs running.

Which version did you install? What are the specs of your PC and graphics card? And does more than just you use the PC ... mine is a family machine. At least three heavy users.

I bought Vista Home Premium. I am the only user of my pc.

3.4ghz Dual Core Pentium
x1800 ATI Radeon 512mb memory
2gig memory
240gig HD

Loremaster wrote:I bought Vista Home Premium. I am the only user of my pc.

3.4ghz Dual Core Pentium
x1800 ATI Radeon 512mb memory
2gig memory
240gig HD

Nice machine!

extra gig main memory, high end graphics card, and Home Premium on a single user machine ... should work for ok for you. VERY Sweet machine!

That's why Vista works so well. And everything else.

I've used Vista (and as a tech support guy, I have to know how it works) and it seems to be, in the main, very similar to XP.

There are a couple of very nice features in it (startup repair, auto-diagnosis of connection problems) but the preponderance of driver and compatibility problems makes it, in my opinion, not worth going for yet.

Especially if you're a gamer.

Edit: I'll probably get it at some point in the not-too-distant future once I can be sure that I'm not going to end up with any weird compatibility issues.

Ah-ha!

Hijack thread time! I've been waiting for some knowledgable computer types to show themselves, cos I've got a question.....

What the hell is 'AOL SP Scheduler' that runs every time I turn on my computer now (last 2 months or so)- it really slows things down and annoys the hell out of me. Is it spam or some sort of update thing?

I have no idea what AOL SP scheduler is.

You can stop it from running when you turn your computer on by clicking start -> run -> type msconfig -> click on startup -> untick it from the list.

If you don't know what it does then you probably don't need it to be running.

Oh buggery. I liked the days when my 286 humming along at a fantastic 16MHz on 2 megs of ram and a 40 meg hard drive - running windows 3.1, norton commander, word perfect 5.1 - was all I needed for a decent computer experience...sigh !

Ah, those were the days huh Vain?

--A

Avatar wrote:Ah, those were the days huh Vain?

--A

Yeah..and I can just hear the young ones saying: Huh? What's that? Gimme my DOS 6.0 back !!

I used to boot up off a DOS 2.3 floppy in the day. My first hard drive was 20 megabytes, and that was a few years after I got my first PC.

--A

Vain wrote:

Avatar wrote:Ah, those were the days huh Vain?

--A

Yeah..and I can just hear the young ones saying: Huh? What's that? Gimme my DOS 6.0 back !!

Nowadays people call the help desk in a panic because there's a "black box with some kind of C:\>" on their screen. Oh, the good old days when I could remember a long command line to ARJ several Megabytes to multiple floppies!

ARJ - soooo much better than PKZIP. Oh god we're showing our age

You had to remind me huh?

--A

Quick ! Let's pretend we're young......soooo like whatevah !!

Stonemaybe wrote:Ah-ha!

Hijack thread time! I've been waiting for some knowledgable computer types to show themselves, cos I've got a question.....

What the hell is 'AOL SP Scheduler' that runs every time I turn on my computer now (last 2 months or so)- it really slows things down and annoys the hell out of me. Is it spam or some sort of update thing?

AOL uses a program called Service Pack scheduler to automatically check for AOL program updates every time you connect. This is evil. Take it out of startup using the method Nathan has described.

...and if you don't use AOL any more, I suggest you remove it from your PC like the bloated virus that it is.

dw

DukkhaWaynhim wrote: ...and if you don't use AOL any more, I suggest you remove it from your PC like the bloated virus that it is.

dw

I was holding back seeing if anyone else would rightly compare AOL to the Illearth Stone.

I'm also an IT support guy. AOL is nice, it's pretty and give you *everything* you could possibly want at one time. Which is why it's a total resource pig.

Stonemaybe, I'd also do what Nathan said and then once you connect to the internet and all those AOL windows finish popping up, minimize them all and then open up Internet Explorer and surf the web. I find it much easier/faster to navigate with it than the AOL browser.
For about a year AOL was all that was available to me and just using a different browser after connecting made it easier for me.

Check it out.

I got Vista after my old PC died -

4600 AMD Athlon 64 X2
2 GB RAM
320 GB HD
NVIDIA GeForce 6150 LE

Overall, it's decent. But the software I use most isn't compatible, and the company isn't planning on releasing a patch; I have to wait for the 'new' version coming out later this year. I'm using the new edition - I upgraded right before my old computer died. I want XP back.

(I like AOL. But I've been using it since 1994, so I may be a bit biased. There's probably something better out there now, but the competition sure sucked back then.)