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K.Mandla
June 18th, 2006, 08:29 AM
In the interest of science, I installed Vista Beta 2 on a spare laptop (yes, I have spares ... doesn't everyone? ;) ) and the results were less than appealing.

The guinea pig was a 5-year-old Dell Inspiron 8100 -- 1 Ghz P3, 32Mb Nvidia Geforce2 Go, 512Mb PC133, ESS Maestro 3 sound, 40Gb 4200rpm hard drive and a lazy 4x DVD-ROM. Nothing fancy. Nothing exotic. This hardware has been around for half a decade.

When it was finally finished:

- No wired network (I didn't even bother with wireless). I didn't expect I'd have to download drivers to get online, especially with this old laptop. But Vista couldn't tell my built-in NIC from an Atari 2600 joystick.

- No native resolution. It didn't even recognize my video card. It automatically set my resolution to 800x600 at color depth 32, and response was laggy. I yanked the graphics down to "best performance" and still couldn't scroll Explorer windows without stutters. But my native 1400x1050 wasn't even an option under the display settings. Sigh.

- No sound. Silent at startup. Silent at shutdown.

- Installation took away 75 minutes of my life. Good thing I was playing Wolfenstein Enemy Territory on my Edgy machine while I waited.

And of course, no software of any kind. I would have had to install the Office 2007 beta just to type a letter to Mom ... or used Notepad. But then again, how would I have printed it? I doubt Vista would have recognized my Lexmark E232, if it didn't know my network card.

I think I'll stick with Xubuntu. Xubuntu can recognize my sound and video cards, and sets my desktop to my oddball 1400x1050 resolution without having to be told. I can type a letter to Mom about 45 minutes after I pop the installation disc into the drive. And Xubuntu can get me online without additional effort.

Ubuntu just works.

P.S.: Let me know if I've been unfair. I honestly expected better, given the age of my hardware and the relative popularity of this laptop. But if I was a Windows user and went out and bought Vista in this state, I'd want my money back.

aysiu
June 18th, 2006, 08:34 AM
But if I was a Windows user and went out and bought Vista in this state, I'd want my money back. That's why most Windows users don't buy Windows and install it. They buy computers with Windows preinstalled. That's how Windows "just works."

TitanKing
June 18th, 2006, 08:35 AM
Yea, Vista seems to be a mess, read this...

http://www.pcbuyersguide.co.za/showthread.php?t=3127&highlight=vista


In the interest of science, I installed Vista Beta 2 on a spare laptop (yes, I have spares ... doesn't everyone? ;) ) and the results were less than appealing.

The guinea pig was a 5-year-old Dell Inspiron 8100 -- 1 Ghz P3, 32Mb Nvidia Geforce2 Go, 512Mb PC133, ESS Maestro 3 sound, 40Gb 4200rpm hard drive and a lazy 4x DVD-ROM. Nothing fancy. Nothing exotic. This hardware has been around for half a decade.

When it was finally finished:

- No wired network (I didn't even bother with wireless). I didn't expect I'd have to download drivers to get online, especially with this old laptop. But Vista couldn't tell my built-in NIC from an Atari 2600 joystick.

- No native resolution. It didn't even recognize my video card. It automatically set my resolution to 800x600 at color depth 32, and response was laggy. I yanked the graphics down to "best performance" and still couldn't scroll Explorer windows without stutters. But my native 1400x1050 wasn't even an option under the display settings. Sigh.

- No sound. Silent at startup. Silent at shutdown.

- Installation took away 75 minutes of my life. Good thing I was playing Wolfenstein Enemy Territory on my Edgy machine while I waited.

And of course, no software of any kind. I would have had to install the Office 2007 beta just to type a letter to Mom ... or used Notepad. But then again, how would I have printed it? I doubt Vista would have recognized my Lexmark E232, if it didn't know my network card.

I think I'll stick with Xubuntu. Xubuntu can recognize my sound and video cards, and sets my desktop to my oddball 1400x1050 resolution without having to be told. I can type a letter to Mom about 45 minutes after I pop the installation disc into the drive. And Xubuntu can get me online without additional effort.

Ubuntu just works.

P.S.: Let me know if I've been unfair. I honestly expected better, given the age of my hardware and the relative popularity of this laptop. But if I was a Windows user and went out and bought Vista in this state, I'd want my money back.

Maupertus
June 18th, 2006, 08:39 AM
To be fair, the installation time is probably partly due because of your spec's. I've got a pretty gamer inclined box that constantly gets more RAM or GPU's when I can spare the money, and I believe that even that pc isn't "vista ready". If you believe MS (and why wouldn't we) only NASA can run Vista smoothly.

The hardware recognition is a very clear fault, in particular the network setup as Windows is leaning so very heavily on the net these days. When I installed a new firewall and wanted to be warned with every outgoing connection, I quickly developed a RSI in my right index finger for clicking on the 1001 Windows processes that apparently needed internet acces.

As for the Office part...doesn't Vista come with something like wordpad? Anyhow, it's not new, you've always had to install a OfficeSuite in Windows, and the fact that you don't have to with many Linux Distro's is only due to the existence of an OpenSource alternative like Open Office or AbiWord.

So although I agree with your conclusion that many things are lacking, I have to nuance it a bit.

jrcmuniz
June 18th, 2006, 09:51 AM
Yeah, I agree with all of you! The most interesting thing is that I know (and I believed that you also know) a lot of people that still not believe in the "power of linux"... I mean, when people see that I'm chatting with friends using webcam, skyping, watching the match of the day live on BBC and all the "multimedia and office things" on my (K)Ubuntu they always show the same surprising face!! But they all are waiting for the "amazing" MS Vista!!!! What a pity.

renis
June 18th, 2006, 12:11 PM
silent at startup and shutdown, thats how i like my windows

siimo
June 18th, 2006, 12:15 PM
- No wired network (I didn't even bother with wireless). I didn't expect I'd have to download drivers to get online, especially with this old laptop.

thats weird, on all my machines XP SP2 has always autodetected and had wired network up and running on install. - range of chipsets too.

UbuntuniX
June 18th, 2006, 01:26 PM
I'm unhappy with it too,
but I haven't even got to try it!

I can't burn the ISO cause the size is too big for any of my CDs >_<

I hate Windows :)

TechHut
June 18th, 2006, 02:47 PM
It is solely amazing. Look at how Vista guzzles 4GB for just an ISO. Now just look at Ubuntu, better yet, take other distrobutions out there. Even thouse rangnig 4 CDs. It is still less than 4GB. When I talk to a group of Windows users, they reply "Well 4GB is small compared to the standards today". It is amazing how I can get more functionality out of most Linux distrobutions than a single install of Windows. At least I can get my report typed, a presentation for class finished, and complete a spreadsheet in the time it takes to go out to a software store, purchase the expensive Micro$oft Office, then install.

Also another rant here, Bill Gates leaving Microsoft. Lets all just cry. Honestly, who really gives a fluff? Oh, the stockholders in them, ofcourse, but seriously, every news place I have seen, or at least most, have an article about Bill Gates leaving Microsoft in two years. Wooo lets just make a large deal like this for two whole years. What would really be tragic is if Linus Torvalds died or a serious health issue - in fact, if anyone majorly involved in the advancement of computers, but leaving a corporation, that is just a fruit shake compared to what really matters in life.

K.Mandla
June 18th, 2006, 03:55 PM
That's why most Windows users don't buy Windows and install it. They buy computers with Windows preinstalled. That's how Windows "just works."
True. I was thinking in terms of someone who bought Vista as a replacement for their existing operating system. Some 8000-series laptops shipped with Windows ME for example, but people would have had no better luck with Vista on those, for what I've seen.


To be fair, the installation time is probably partly due because of your spec's. ...
You're absolutely right. A newer, faster machine would have cut the installation time. I mentioned it in part because so many things failed that the time spent wasn't worth it, but also because Ubuntu gets so much more right in so much less time.


The hardware recognition is a very clear fault, in particular the network setup as Windows is leaning so very heavily on the net these days. ...
Absolutely. If Microsoft wants to look over my shoulder continually while I use my computer, they need to do a better job getting an Internet connection. How is WGA going to phone home if Vista can't find my network jack?


As for the Office part...doesn't Vista come with something like wordpad?
I think there was. I only spotted Notepad, but I'm sure some sort of WordPad v23.1 was on there somewhere. Still, that's hardly a replacement for AbiWord, let alone OpenOffice.org2, plus The GIMP, plus Gnumeric, plus. ...


thats weird, on all my machines XP SP2 has always autodetected and had wired network up and running on install. - range of chipsets too.
Same here. I've put a ... borrowed ... copy of XP SP2 on this machine (purely as a test measure, I assure you :lol: ) and there wasn't any trouble hooking up to the 'Net. But for some reason, Vista couldn't do that, and kept prompting for a driver disc on startup. :roll:

Anyways, my foray into Vista's beta versions is complete. I'm putting Xubuntu back on. :mrgreen:

gfg
June 18th, 2006, 06:41 PM
Well what annoyed me the most was the constant popups, "are you sure you want to do this", "this may not be safe". After ten minutes of all those stupid warnings I got tired and quit.

bruce89
June 18th, 2006, 09:09 PM
Well what annoyed me the most was the constant popups, "are you sure you want to do this", "this may not be safe". After ten minutes of all those stupid warnings I got tired and quit.
"Are you sure you want to use a real operating system?", would be a good dialog message for rebooting.

prizrak
June 18th, 2006, 10:44 PM
I never had any Windows recognize network on any Dell. Guess I'm not lucky with my dells :) Luckily I don't use Windows (or Dell) anymore.

Lord Illidan
June 18th, 2006, 10:54 PM
On our school's computers, DELL with Windows works...

But I agree with you..

4gb is way too high for what is just an OS. Suse comes with tons, and tons of apps, indeed, way too much for some people, and it weighs in at about 4 gig or less.

And you get multiple office suites, multiple media players, multiple browsers, multiple text editors, games, need I go on? Even Ubuntu which weighs in at 670 MB has more variety of content.

To be sure, it is a beta, but most betas are usable. Given that MS has less than a year to release it (until they push it back again), it is unusable on most machines.

bruce89
June 18th, 2006, 10:57 PM
They claim it is oversized as it is compiled in debug mode, I wonder if this is true?

Lord Illidan
June 18th, 2006, 11:00 PM
They claim it is oversized as it is compiled in debug mode, I wonder if this is true?

Could be. But still, it would be mega oversized for a debug mode OS.

gregb49
June 18th, 2006, 11:09 PM
My initial impressions of vista were that it looked quite good - detected all my hardware but it was a veery slow load. I only managed to use it for a couple of hours but on installing ubuntu, it vanished! Greg (Must investigae my grub settings)
Nehemia,1gb
(Does born in Malta count?)

Lord Illidan
June 18th, 2006, 11:14 PM
My initial impressions of vista were that it looked quite good - detected all my hardware but it was a veery slow load. I only managed to use it for a couple of hours but on installing ubuntu, it vanished! Greg (Must investigae my grub settings)
Nehemia,1gb
(Does born in Malta count?)

Slowness could be due to the debug mode.

(Really?? Then, I guess I am not alone...hehehe.. Do you speak Maltese??)

prizrak
June 18th, 2006, 11:41 PM
It's so huge because of MS's upgrade anytime or on the fly or some other ****. For those of you who are not familiar with the concept it basically loads everything onto your HDD (all of the versions) and you can pay and "upgrade" your Windows to some other version. You are basically unlocking the functionality that is turned off. It's prolly the most idiotic idea to date.

Lord Illidan
June 18th, 2006, 11:48 PM
It's so huge because of MS's upgrade anytime or on the fly or some other ****. For those of you who are not familiar with the concept it basically loads everything onto your HDD (all of the versions) and you can pay and "upgrade" your Windows to some other version. You are basically unlocking the functionality that is turned off. It's prolly the most idiotic idea to date.

If it is Ultimate?? why would it need to get all the other versions too? From where did you get this info?

Fallom
June 19th, 2006, 12:24 AM
But if I was a Windows user and went out and bought Vista in this state, I'd want my money back.

Do you understand what a beta is?

Please, don't knock an OS because of its lack of driver support in its beta form.

aysiu
June 19th, 2006, 12:27 AM
Do you understand what a beta is?

Please, don't knock an OS because of its lack of driver support in its beta form.
Why would Vista Beta have worse driver support than XP? Is driver support one of the last things that comes into a new version of an operating system?

I didn't see a big difference between Dapper Beta and Dapper final for hardware detection. Stability--that's another thing.

DoctorMO
June 19th, 2006, 01:04 AM
You won't get drivers in windows because microsoft are leaning on the hardware makers to make that all work for them.

This is why linux has _far_ better hardware support and always will. lets keep the drivers open source because no hardware should have to face being axed because it doesn't work in Kernel 3.4 and Wacom only compiled it for 2.6. :-/

Compucore
June 19th, 2006, 02:32 AM
This is why I avoid trying to keep up with MS for their OS's personally. They keep raising the bar up higher and higher. Its like for me personally I'll upgrade if I need to. But not because I need the latest and greatest things. The video that was passed around for VIsta. Didn't impress me one bit. Neither did the minimum or normal configuration for it. I said to myself over here. There is no way I am going to upgrade to that. I'd rather stay here with ubuntu or use an older version of Windows if I have to.

This next generation of OS from MS is just plain too bloated for any good reasion. And like what MS always does they never learn how to make something lean enough for the population.(Windows server 2003 is not part of this they did a good job on that for keeping it minimal to a P1 166 with 126 megs of ram.) Granted hardware wise the speed is going through the roof. THe memory iand hard disk space s going out the wazoo. But come on 15-20 gigs for the OS alone. Will it do dishes for you?

Compucore

Fallom
June 19th, 2006, 05:12 AM
Why would Vista Beta have worse driver support than XP? Is driver support one of the last things that comes into a new version of an operating system?

Maybe it is and maybe it isn't. Who's to say how it will end up until the actual program comes out?

The only conclusion that one should draw from Vista Beta 2 not running well on their machine is that Vista Beta 2 does not run well on their machine. No more. There's no sense in making hasty judgements.

If I based my opinion of Ubuntu on its driver support I would've thrown out the CD as soon as my ATI card caused X to fail immediately after the install.

prizrak
June 19th, 2006, 05:53 AM
If it is Ultimate?? why would it need to get all the other versions too? From where did you get this info?
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060301-6295.html
http://www.microsoft-watch.com/article2/0,2180,1933827,00.asp
http://www.eweek.com/category2/0,1874,1840947,00.asp

Here are some links on the subject.

JoeG
June 19th, 2006, 06:26 AM
silent at startup and shutdown, thats how i like my windows
I like windows uninstalled and replaced with linux.:D

Iandefor
June 19th, 2006, 06:38 AM
I like windows uninstalled and replaced with linux.:D I like my Windows when it's fried ;).

prizrak
June 19th, 2006, 08:38 AM
I like my Windows closed and my A/C blasting cuz it's like 90 here :)

K.Mandla
June 19th, 2006, 10:27 PM
Do you understand what a beta is?

Please, don't knock an OS because of its lack of driver support in its beta form.
Yes, I understand what they mean by beta. But Dapper beta gave the same machine no problems. And Edgy beta (pre-alpha?) sees the network card too. DSL betas worked fine too, and those are only 50Mb.

My point is this: Had I been using a flashy new triple-core processor with a gigabit-plus network card and a two-day-old, 768Mb video card with all the newest sub-pixelatorificatorics (plus hue control) ... I would have been willing to accept its failure.

But I'm knocking the OS because it took 75 minutes to install on 5-year-old technology and still couldn't run the graphics card, sound or network. :roll:

prizrak
June 19th, 2006, 11:41 PM
Yes, I understand what they mean by beta. But Dapper beta gave the same machine no problems. And Edgy beta (pre-alpha?) sees the network card too. DSL betas worked fine too, and those are only 50Mb.

My point is this: Had I been using a flashy new triple-core processor with a gigabit-plus network card and a two-day-old, 768Mb video card with all the newest sub-pixelatorificatorics (plus hue control) ... I would have been willing to accept its failure.

But I'm knocking the OS because it took 75 minutes to install on 5-year-old technology and still couldn't run the graphics card, sound or network. :roll:
While I agree that you can't expect much from a beta, it's a second beta and it's not that long before the official launch date. There are pretty big issues with Vista as far as drivers go, because it is more of a microkernel than any other MS OS AFAIK so all the drivers have to be changed accordingly since alot of them run in userspace. In this case the Dapper comparison is not a fair one as Linux kernel is still a monolith and is still using the same drivers.

mstlyevil
June 20th, 2006, 12:33 AM
I am going to give my assessment after using Beta 2 for a week. To be fair, it is a Beta so a lot of my critcisms may get fixed by the final.

(1) Vista is probally the prettiest operating system I have ever seen in it's default state. Some of the effects of Aero are very nice. The fading and shadowing effects are well done. Another nice feature that compiz can not seem to get right yet is you can hover your cursor over a minimized window and Vista will give you a crystal clear preview.

The glass effect on the windows looks nice but is very unusable when it comes to discerning focused and unfocused windows. The overall polish is well done but MSFT seems to worked more on the polish than the overall functionality of Aero itself. Compiz overall is far more usable on older hardware and uses a lot less resources. Compiz also has the potential to do many more things than Aero does.

(2) The install took me an hour on a Athlon64 3200@2.3 ghz, 1gig of RAM and a 7600GT. Some improvements over XP on the install was Vista better detected my hardware and fetched the drivers during the install. The graphical UI is much nicer than XP's install UI. Activation was done during the install and when the installation was done, Vista needed very little left to be done. I did have to fetch the video card drivers, but the rest of the hardware was detected and installed during installation.

(3) Vista is a resource hog. When I boot into Vista, it takes 5 minutes for everything to load up if you are using the sidebar and antivirus. I have a gig of Patriot RAM with 2-3-2-5 timings. Vista uses 46% of my ram upon boot and once everything is loaded it lowers to about 35% of my ram.

Vista feels slower than my 1.2 ghz celeron running Xubuntu with 256 megs of generic pc133 ram and onboard Intel graphics. Opening programs take 2-3 times longer than in XP. The overall feel of my computer is very slow.

Then I decided to test the video. I installed Doom3 on Vista. The installation took a lot longer than the installation in XP. I first tried to run Doom3 with Aero turned on. I used the utility on Doom3 to detect my best settings. It detected 600X400 resolution at medium settings.

The game was choppy and the video did not display properly at these settings. I tried higher resolutions and settings and these were even worse to the point I wanted to take a sledge hammer to my computer.

After this I turned off Aero and all the effects and then rebooted. I used the Autodetection again and yet the settings were the same. I tried playing again and there was no improvement at all. Turning off Aero apparently has no effect on lessening the load on the video card.

If you turn off XGL in Linux, you can play your games as normal. You can even set up Ubuntu to use XGL in it's own session so you can switch between XGL/Compiz and Nautilus. This is a major error on MSFT part to not be able to use a different engine that will improve performance for games.

MSFT better do something to improve the more effecient use of resources or Vista is going to be a major flop with consumers. The overall performance of Vista is unacceptable.

(4) UAP (User Account Protection). This should be called User Annoyance PIA. UAP gives you dozens of popups asking you if you are really certain you want to use your computer. It never ask for a password so I can not see for the life of me how this make your computer more secure.

All UAP serves to do is make computing a nightmare. Everything you do you have to go through several annoying popups asking, are you certain you want to do this? Whoever came up with this concept was smoking crack. Honestly, this resembles nothing of the Unix style permissions MSFT promised. It is one major annoyance, yet it is not easily disabled. I still have not determined how to disable it. I would never buy Vista if this is going to stay the same.

Linux, Mac and Unix have it right in asking for a password once and then letting the user do his/her task. MSFT nees to go and learn what a real UAP is and not this hack they have built.

(Summary)

MSFT has a lot more work to do. If these things are not addressed, you might as well call it Vista ME. I can see nothing redeeming about Vista in it's current state. I am taking it off my drive until the RC is out. If there are not major improvements by the RC, this is going to backfire on MSFT big time.

2000 and XP are overall wonderfull operating systems. Sure they are not perfect but they are very easy to use and perform excellent on modern hardware. Vista makes the same hardware feel like running XP on a 1200 mhz celeron with 128 megs of ram. I expected some performance hit, but not this major.

I encourage you to test this for yourselves before bashing Vista. You really need to experience this to know what I am talking about. I am not a MSFT hater or basher, so for me to be this critical of one of their products means something.

Fallom
June 20th, 2006, 12:35 AM
Yes, I understand what they mean by beta. But Dapper beta gave the same machine no problems. And Edgy beta (pre-alpha?) sees the network card too. DSL betas worked fine too, and those are only 50Mb.
:roll:

The betas of two completely different operating systems don't really compare well.

The fact is that you don't know if the final Vista product will have full driver support or not. I don't think it was a good idea for Microsoft to release a public beta in such a state, but even with the final release so close at hand (In 2007?) I doubt they would let the obvious problems slip through.

o_fortuna
June 29th, 2006, 10:35 PM
I just installed Vista myself. It's actually nicer than I expected. It's very polished and shiny; Aero glass is really nice and all the default backgrounds are really nice.

Hardware detection was poor, but just what I expected from a base install of Windows. Finding out what my sound hardware was took forever, and that was after I had to install Windows XP drivers for my network card, which caused no end of popups telling me that it couldn't find something. Then Windows pops up and tells me that the application crashed (as if I didn't know) and tries to "find a solution" to the problem. Very elegant. Very polished.

And yet completely useless.

And UAP is kind of ridiculous. Steps for installing Flash in Internet Explorer (which seemed determinidly slow):
1. Click on the bar that says that you need to install flash.
2. Click on the box that appears that asks you if you want to do this.
3. Click on the other box that appears that asks you if you want to do this.
Also, I can't stand how half the applications don't have "File" menu bars, or anything like that. It leaves me lost.

Conclusion: If you look at Vista from far away, it really looks beautiful and polished. But on the inside, it's terrible. It's like giving a 20-year-old car a new coat of paint. Sure, it looks great, but does it run?

jetset4me
September 15th, 2006, 06:07 AM
I have a 5 year old Dell Inspiron 7500 with ESS Maestro sound and
a Linksys Wireless G PC card and had no problems installing Windows Vista and getting on the Net or having any sound issues.
It's been great so far even though Vista is not supposed to run on this laptop.

3rdalbum
September 15th, 2006, 06:48 AM
From what I've heard, you can turn UAP off, leaving you with a nice virus-friendly machine. I still haven't heard whether UAP checks for mouse and keyboard grab like gksudo does. I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't, making it possible for viruses to "click the button" themselves. And, of course, I can't just check the source code and find out if it does!