What makes YOU use Vista instead of XP.

We think alike.

This sounds like that rant I heard while many of us were just updating from cpm->dos->win 3->win 3.1->os2->nt 4->win95->w2k->win98->me->linux->winxp->win64->vista...

What's your real problem (and be fair please)? If we don't upgrade, how are we ever going to run more than 3.25G of ram?

I don't "believe" commercials. I doubt many people do. But, you have to get your product out there and let people know you're offering it.

I'll let you know when I acutally decide to pay for Vista. Yes, I like Aero... and no... I don't "join the ride". My job requires me to know everything I can about Windows OSes... and that means testing them and using them personally; rather than relying on a bunch of opinions posted on a website.

Have heard this many times now, and I still see nothing concrete. I see DirectX10 being emulated in Linux (as with previous versions), but nothing stating that they are working on porting it to Windows XP. (If that is even possible).

I don't have Vista yet, until my next system build in a few months. But I'll move to Vista for the same reasons I don't use Win95 anymore.

1- It's the way forward.
2- It will be a more stable and secure platform, and yes I know it will need plenty of patches applied during it's life cycle. All software needs patching so just get over it.
3- I'll have to implement and support Vista at work, so I'll need to use it at home first.
4- DX10 and the wonderful new effects and physics in games beginning this year.
5- I have to "retire" my Athlon 2500+ and X1600 Pro anyway, and it would idiotic to build a new multicore CPU with new gen DX10 card just to run the 6 year old XP Pro OS.
6- Linux will be many years yet, if ever, in making any major inroads in home computing. The major reason is that it is "free". That entire stupid Linux community's "FREE!" mentality means that there will be little support from medium to large software developers. No company that has investors to answer to is going to pour 15 million dollars into a program or game just to give it away for free. Or let the Linux people crack it open and distribute it to everyone worldwide, just "because software wants to be free".

At this point Vista doesn't work on my best fast machine. I wouldn't mind building what essentially I would call a beta machine as long as XP is around to handle the stuff I need to do.

So I have a question: How long do you think XP will be around? I've heard til 2009 but this might have changed. Seems not quite right to have to build an entirely new rig around an OS.

I read a Technet interview where they are "mulling over" supporting it until around the 1st quarter of 2009, but charging if people want to re-activate their copies starting in the last quarter of this year. I doubt they would really go that far, but I would have to believe that they will do anything they can to force people over to the new OS like they did between 2000 and 2003.

Reasons for using Vista over XP:
* I get it for free because my Dad has a Volume Liscence.
* Flip 3D is cool.
* It looks pretty.
* I like pretty things.
* Pretty things make me smile.
* It has cool sounds.
* I Like cool sounds.
* Cool sounds make me smile and giggle.
* "Ribbons" is a cool screensaver.
* Gadgets are cool and useful.
* Too lazy to switch back to XP (MAIN REASON).
* My hardware is fully supported.
* DX10 when I decide to be buy a Geforce 8.

Reasons for wanting to switch back to XP:
* System and Applications run at half-speed.
* Operating System is constantly using 60% of 2gb Ram when idle.
* Don't understand why Vista must put 256mb of asside for graphics card when the graphics card has 512mb Ram.
* Vista seems to use a lot more resources considering it's pretty much a skin.
* Vista is always cold because it keeps freezing.
* 64-bit Half-Life 2 runs slowly (Not Vista's Fault really because ValvE buggered it.)
* I was using 32-bit Vista which was Worse.
* Vista is too inefficient.
* iTunes does not work very well on Vista and I don't want to update because then I can't use QTFairUse.

Well, if you ask me XP will still have a long life ahead as there are many people out there that really don't see the benifits of Vista. THey can use Microsoft Office to get all their work done. They can email. They can play some game. They can surf The Internet in style with for example Opera instead of Firefox and also using sandbox (many people never heared about this) to avoid spyware etc from running. Companies don't need Vista to survive. It will only cost them big money. Even better.....Did you know that whole municipality München is running Linux atm? More and more companies in europa say bye bye to Microsoft. I mean....what do companies benefit from Vista? Try to hack a router......I wish you good luck. Security does not play a role in this as most companies are not browsing The Internet collecting spyware and Vista is also hackable. The rest is up to you. They can still run their Excell/Office programms doing their thing. Do they need Vista? My guess.....no. Maybe in the future Vista will be much and much incredible faster ahum....we will see if we really see this with our bear eyes while running a stopwatch. Hell, our lives may be superb if we can gain only a few seconds running tasks faster.

I wonder what the next version of Windows brings >>>not being able to play mp3's anymore? If this happens everybody would switch back to XP again. No doubt.

1: what do you need 3GB of ram for lmao. To tell your friends that your pc has more ram?

2: Their support? Do you ever needed support for dx9? hello...wake up. And if you never ever heared of Linux....Linux has more support than Microsoft as it's an open source OS.

3:This is even more crazy to say that you went to WME instead. WME was even worse than W98. XP is like Windows2000 NTFS and Windows 2000 was a very solid platform and still is except for the media contents. All I'm saying is....you are comparing the problem history of XP with all the problems Vista is facing today. Let me tell you friend. The begin fase of XP could be called holy when you want to compare it to the many mistakes being made with Vista. Not ever in the history of Microsoft an OS was attacked on this large scale by the media/pro magazines/pro sites.

4: Because of people like you we are still using W95? lol you are so full of crap I don't udnerstand what you are doing here in this post. Hello wake up....I'm using XP and I was never against it at the beginning as it was a giant leap in computing.

And for your question.....I think this tells enough.....you say shut up while you should be saying Shut up media/pro magazines/pro sites cause you think you know it all. So, what have I got against Vista....personally a lot. What do I have against people using Vista comming in here to yell at people that personally think that Vista is not totally the bomb? Not much....I let them yell I will shut up now.

Around what? And who is WE (like you talk for everybody) etc.....I think you are here to only joke around. If you have any complains explain it orelse don't post at all.

lol, nice one m8 You are right....at the end we would (all) be using Vista because Microsoft (Bill one of the the richest man in the world) always finds a way to force people to use their shit. Too bad for him (not that he will feel this in his wallet as there are plenty of people going for vista without reading anything about it like a wild donkey (Sorry I'm dutch and I like beer so I guess everything I say is noncence atm. The Dutch are focred by america to support them in the war just like the britisch...orelse our oil prices will be so high we can say our economy goodbye (hey that rhymes maybe I should rap in america as it is the number 1 music there and I can buy a big ship like Ashanti My Shanti too just by yelling in the microsphone and break all windows like Birtney spears, mariah carrey, withney houston all trying to commit suicide) Maybe now we get terrorist attacks here too? God Blesh music understanding America. You guys own. Maybe now we get terrorist attacks here too? ) my computing needs are allready satisfied thank you. I can do all the things I want allready with XP. Good luck man....may the force be with you I'll wait for the next Microsoft OS release when they finally bann their DRM dirty tricks from their list as it will make them lose big money as many people still dont use Vista. For me this is nothing more than Microsoft ME. In The Netherlands we call it Meer Ellende. In English this can be translated as More trouble. God blesh Microsoft.

ps: please Super holy americans....dont take this responce to serious and dont get angry. I know you country is the number 1 in the world together with Microsoft and Bush (while the bible says respect your enemy and dont kill nomatter what). Money money money....must be funny....it's a rich man's world. Amen.

You seem to imply that everyone who uses (or likes) Vista is uninformed and forced into using Windows. I can speak for myself when I say I run Windows by choice, not because it is forced on me. I have used several different OS' in my 2 decades of computing. I have read the majority of reviews and blogs about Vista before deciding to upgrade. I have run Vista in beta for months before I decided to upgrade.

I am Dutch too, but I wholehartedly disagree with your opinion. The Dutch weren't forced into a war by the US, the Dutch were lead into a war by their own government, and by a prime minister who references the Bible, not common sense, when it comes to decision making. Countries like France and Germany depend just as much on foreign oil as the Netherlands, but they had the guts to say no to an tremendously stupid invasion, because they knew it was tremendoulsy stupid. Oil/Petrol isn't much more expensive here in France (where I live now) as it is in the Netherlands (is it?). And even if it is a few cents more expensive, that would be more then offset by the billions saved by not waging a stupid war, wouldn't it? The Dutch economy (as any other western economy)would serve itself better by assuming a lead role in the field of alternative/sustainable fuels/energy technologies, than by trying to gain 'control' over fossil fuel reserves at gunpoint (under the cloak of 'bringing democracy' and 'fighting terrorism'). There are dozens of dictatorships in this world (with several African countries as prime examples), yet the only countries were a regime change is deemed necessery, are countries with big oil reserves. The Dutch economy would serve itself better by supporting EU efforts in defense, instead of trying to compete with US defence companies for US defence contracts (if the US goverment has to decide between a Dutch contractor or their own costituents, who do you think will get the contract?), with the added condition that the Dutch buy their gear and fight their wars. But enough off-topic...

I will switch to Linux (or OSX) in a heartbeat if I thought it would be better for my PC needs than Windows. But that isn't the case, so Vista is for my needs the better product (as was XP before). It doesn't cost a dime more than XP for a similar OS version (unless you're wasting money on Retail versions or upgrading old PCs). My old PC runs fine on XP (or on Vista RC1), but I am not really inclined to spend money on Vista for that one, since I won't really benefit from running Vista on old hardware. But building/buying a new PC now, there is NO reason for me to not use Vista. There are however plenty of reasons for me to NOT use Linux.

1: what do you need 3GB of ram for lmao. To tell your friends that your pc has more ram?

2: Their support? Do you ever needed support for dx9? hello...wake up. And if you never ever heared of Linux....Linux has more support than Microsoft as it's an open source OS.

3:This is even more crazy to say that you went to WME instead. WME was even worse than W98. XP is like Windows2000 NTFS and Windows 2000 was a very solid platform and still is except for the media contents. All I'm saying is....you are comparing the problem history of XP with all the problems Vista is facing today. Let me tell you friend. The begin fase of XP could be called holy when you want to compare it to the many mistakes being made with Vista. Not ever in the history of Microsoft an OS was attacked on this large scale by the media/pro magazines/pro sites.

4: Because of people like you we are still using W95? lol you are so full of crap I don't udnerstand what you are doing here in this post. Hello wake up....I'm using XP and I was never against it at the beginning as it was a giant leap in computing.

And for your question.....I think this tells enough.....you say shut up while you should be saying Shut up media/pro magazines/pro sites cause you think you know it all. So, what have I got against Vista....personally a lot. What do I have against people using Vista comming in here to yell at people that personally think that Vista is not totally the bomb? Not much....I let them yell I will shut up now.

1: Get down to Earth buddy. Apps right now need 2GB to perform how they should to their full potential.Check some benchmark chart going from 1 to 2 Gb and you'll see. Same thing will start within 12-24 months when going from 2 to 4GB. Since my PC is new and I will use it for at least 3 years, 4GB is gonna come in handy before long.

2: Well, nobody needs support for Dx9 or 10 because it is Microsoft baby. Will it be the same for Linus Dx10 (if that thing is true to start with)???? Also, about support, I'll remind you that it, according to latest security reports, takes about half as much time to Microsoft to fix any security issue than it takes Linux user to do the same, without counting that Linux had more of them last years. I guess that comes in as support no???

3: Maybe, but you're using the same "scare the shit out of people" technique that people used then. And just like XP then, Vista WILL be a MUCH better choice in the long run. OH, and what "large scale attack by the media"???? All I see is moron on news site talking trash .

4: Can't read???? I'm saying that with people like you we'd (we would) still be using W95 if we'd listen to them (YOU) at every new Windows version and had not upgraded. You teach people scare of new technology.

Oh, and thanks for answering. You don't use Vista! It's clear. So for everybody elses here, I DO USE VISTA and I'M VERY PLEASE ABOUT IT!!!!! I do know what I talk about at least

I think the only valid complaint against this OS is the cost. On average, you're paying double what you did to upgrade to XP, which is simply ludicrous. The outrageous dream-world benefits of intellectual property (selling something that costs you a dime to make with the mass production of your box CD/DVD for around a hundred dollars a pop) should be enough, but this partitioning of functionality to squeeze every last penny out of the consumer is just uncalled for. If not for the fact that I got a free upgrade with my purchase of a new PC (even though Dell is taking its sweet time getting it to me), I wouldn't be upgrading myself.

That being said, having used the OS on another person's PC it seems that this is in fact M$s most stable release to date. Vista SP0 feels to me like XP SP1. It certainly doesn't "feel" like as radical of an update as XP in the sense that the interface paradigm isn't as radically different; nevertheless, one doesn't buy an OS for interface. In fact, I would argue that one buys an OS to AVOID interface, in the sense that the less the user has to do the better your OS can be judged to be. If you're not tinkering around with it, that means it's doing its job well and doing it intuitively. In this sense, I think Vista is a winner because in using it I have had very little awareness of the OS behind the applications I am running. I think this is behind what a lot of people say regarding Vista being a minor improvement: they don't notice it; but what they don't realize is that if they don't notice an OS that means they have a good one.

I haven't read the whole thread, so I'm not going to comment on what others have said, but I will answer the original question.

Why did I get Vista?
I built my first computer about a year ago, and I didn't have that much money. My dad said he could get me a copy of Windows from his work. So I used it. After Microsoft started doing the whole genuine windows thing, I couldn't get anymore support. I didn't even have service pack one. So pretty much it wasn't really that good of a situation.

I was recently looking at buying an OEM copy of XP, but then I realized I needed a receipt for a cpu, hard drive, motherboard, and RAM. I didn't havet that. I thought it didn't make sense to buy a retail version of XP when I would have to switch to Vista for DX10 soon anyway. So I just bought Vista.

I don't really see why people complain about it so much though. It is a little bit dumbed down for non enthusiasts, but its really not that bad. Its just kind of annoying that it doesn't show the chart thing for defragmentation, and I have to re learn how to do some things in Vista. Stuff like that. It's really not bad at all.

It doens't crash ever really. The only piece of hardware that doesn't work is my old TV tuner, but that was an old piece of crap anyway. I have on gig of ram and it works perfectly smoothly. Usually about 50% usage. In XP it was 40%. I don't know why some of you guys are getting such high memory usage....

Plus it looks better and is an overall better experience.

So I didn't really have a choice in what to buy, but I'm happy with it.

As long as content is digital and as long as a computer can be used to duplicate that digital content, we will have DRM in some form or another. It's a case of the dishonest few ruining it for the honest majority.

Of course, there are those out there that don't believe they're doing anything wrong. Whether I agree or disagree with that reasoning is irrelevant; content providers believe they have a right to protect the content they provide and make a "reasonable" amount of money doing it. The computer has proven to be a powerful tool in content duplication and distribution; so the computer is going to be a target for this movement for quite some time. Unless the DMCA is ratified or eliminated; this will be the status quo.

Also known as Electromigration. And there is no amount of cooling that can prevent that from happening...

Hey, how about we keep hardware in hardware and not in my software section boys.

Proceed.

Hate to cut in here and point the finger, but wasn't it Sypher that brought up the stuff about Hardware.

And as for the beginning, yes I will be getting Vista. If you read most sites, the poor performance is based on bad drivers at launch. This has been a problem with almost every Windows release. Now look at XP, it probably had the same problems when it first came along, and is now one of the most widely acclaimed and used operating systems.

Nice to hear that you are happy now using Vista But ummm....you say IT (your new hardware?) is far more stable than XP ever was? Does this mean your last pc with all the hardware problems that finally died never get to run stable? Ok...I think I get the picture here.

Everyone complains that Microsoft's OSs aren't secure.. so Microsoft goes out and adds this UAC feature in to show people what they're doing is a security risk and brings it to their attention.

Everyone complains.

But if you keep using Vista, get your software installed and the computer setup, UAC pop ups almost practically go away. If you really want to avoid those pop-ups, you can select to elevate privvies in the Local Security Policy.

As programs are created to use correct access instead of requiring Admin access when its not really needed, Vista will become more secure, the pop-ups will go away, and life will be good.

Basically, everyone using these programs coded for XP and earlier are all using Admin access whether its needed or not. Well, Vista is correcting that and saying "Hey, if you don't need admin access, don't use it."

But everyone complains when Microsoft does something to actually protect the user. The pop-ups make you aware that your actions open up security risks. Yeah, after that 5th or 10th time we're sick of them.. but then again, next time someone clicks ok on that pop-up and they get a virus, maybe then they'll realize its their fault, not Microsoft's.

Its security. Set your computer up, deal with the initial pop-ups and driver updates. After that, Vista will be grand.

You can't blame Vista for companies providing poor drivers. Nvidia needs to update their drivers, in time they'll have a working driver in place.

Deleting should require prompting.. You didn't say what the prompts were. They could have been security, could have been program related, could have been read-only files. I can't say anything on it.

The pop-ups go away for the most part once you get your computer setup. Find the right drivers as they slowly come out, pop ups go away.

Its just a matter of time for them to get their drivers out to function correctly on Vista.

There's no compelling reason to use Vista at the moment, for anyone. There may be in the future, but at the present time, there is none. Early adoption of it clearly isn't based on performance or usefulness, but on marketing.

Exactly. I'll switch when 64 bit become mainstream and useful. The security on Vista is nice if you're in a company with problems, other than that I won't be switching any time soon. We're testing out a few at work.. they're a pain to setup with all the customizing that needs done. But I see no benefit over XP at this point aside from its 64 bit portion.. but when that comes around full circle, I'll switch.