[piyushsingh]

If you think vista is nothing but graphics gimmickry then you probably havent used vista .Its not just the snipping tool or the sidebar , the real power of an OS is inside which is well hidden from most users.Only experience can reveal that.The additional utilities added in vista over XP will save a user more money that he/she had spent on XP and buying those added 3rd party tools.

[JimH443]

If true, it presumes a person bought the "tools" that Vista has but XP doesn't. Most of the programs I use that didn't come with the computer are either:

A) Freeware, or

B) Not included with Vista.

[stepsx12]

I would like to know if anyone else has had problems with System restore with Vista Premium. I have Norton Anti Virus Suite. Some have told me it is Norton, ut even if I turn off "auto protect" it still will not work. I have to boot in "safe mode" to get it to work.

[rgreen4]

It not just whether NIC is turned on or off, but it's presence. It is virtually impossible to remove. You cannot properly remove it with add/remove programs, you must use Symantec's Norton Removal Tool, and even then Symantec admits now it leave behind registry entries on purpose. It's worse than the spyware it's designed to protect us from.
You didn't give any details of what problems your having with system restore. Please start your own discussion thread with that question in the windows section. This entire thread was a discussion thread, not a question answering thread, and is being ignored by many of the regular members.

[DarrylDWoods]

If Vista "sucks" everyone would have difficulties with it. This is not the case. Those who have difficulties should wonder at what they did wrong, and what others did correctly.

I have used every Microsoft operating system from DOS, including Millennium Edition, and have never had a problem with any of them. Simply...I follow the rules.

[Adama]

Hmmm.... these people still harping about hating Vista? Oh, Paallleeeezzz! It's time to get in on the Vista bandwagon, because Vista is here to stay!

!http://forums.pcworld.com/legacyimages/
1!

[dlsindt]

I am running Vista on two of my Dell computers and have not experienced any problem with it. I did need to wait for HP to get me a new driver for my printer but that was the only delay I experienced. I think a lot of the people who complain are not giving Vista a real chance. I love it.

[JimH443]

*+>Hmmm.... these people still harping about hating Vista? Oh,
Paallleeeezzz! It's time to get in on the Vista bandwagon, because
Vista is here to stay!+*

The exact same argument can be made for Macs and Linux.

[rickk1]

Let's look back at Microsoft throughout the years. Windows 3.1, 95, 98, 98se, ME, 2000, NT, XP all have the same OS infrastructure which makes them relatively easy to change from one operating system to another. IT personnel can change settings faster and easier too. But Microsoft changed all that with Vista. Why would they hide some settings/commands? Getting around in Vista is difficult too when trying to locate files, documents, etc., when you've been trained and retrained over the years in doing it differently and quicker. Another thing that bugs me about Vista is the 4gb limit in the 32bit system. I've got 4gb but my system says I've got only 3gb and that the rest went to my video card which already had 256mb. Someone lied about this too because I removed 1gb from my system and I my system shows it has 3gb...but according to their claims, I should have 2gb. I wonder how much more lying Microsoft is doing and not telling.

[rtfire1]

the system only seeing 3 out of 4 gb is an mainboard issue not a vista issue.

[rickk1]

WHATEVER!

[Vercer]

Being a 32 bit OS it is capped at 4GB of memory, this is true of all 32 bit OS's AFAIK. That includes video RAM. Not too sure what you're seeing there though since my system shows 2046MB RAM with 2 gig in it and a 640MB video card. I agree there seems to be a discrepancy in how it shows the memory.

[Marcomike]

My hate of vista comes from the stabilty issuse that i have with the OS. a least once a month it flakes out and chanes or revrts to the basic from home preium. if that isn't the beginning. I get an error message the CLCap Svc module has stopped working. To late , I haven't recieved a solution from HP or Microsoft to have this module work.I have researched it , and is one of the software coloboration, with HP ,Microsoft and Cyberlink,yet all the parties play the finger pointing game in lieu of resolving it.This along with so legacy drivers that will not work with vista is enough to make me revert to XP. Did Microsoft rush vista, Yes,is it worth it Hell no!

[rgreen4]

The 4GB limit is not unique to Windows, it is the fact that 32bit systems can only address 4GB of memory, period. Unless we change the laws of the universe so mathmatics changes. The actual number is 4,294,967,295 bits or 3.999999999 GB. Here is a reference in Wikipedia.

The hole in memory amounting to 768MB has been there since Windows went to 32 bits. It just that very few hit it until just lately. The memory mapping hole is there to provide memory for onboard video, which some MB's have. This mapping has been in effect since Windows 3.0 was introduced to run on the 80386 processer which is the i386 reference to all 32 bit Intel compatible processors.

If you remove 1 memory module and only have 3GB, and have a video card rather than onboard video, then because of memory mapping, you should see 3GB available.

[Marcomike]

In response to your post ,yes it does,but I upgraded to office2007 anyway

[DarrylDWoods]

'Windows 3.1, 95, 98, 98se, ME, 2000, NT, XP all have the same OS infrastructure...'
Somewhere, someone is misinforming you about several things, and affecting your expectations and experiences.

[rtfire1]

i so wish that was true. my mom would not hate xp so much

[rickk1]

Doesn't anyone comprehend what they' ve read? I already stated that windows 3.1, 95, 98, 98se, Me, 2000, NT, Xp all had the same infrastucture. His comment is one of the main reasons why I seldom post comments....




Edited by MPHEnterprises - No Personal Attacks

[rgreen4]

rickk1 said:

Doesn't anyone comprehend what they' ve read? I already stated that windows 3.1, 95, 98, 98se, Me, 2000, NT, Xp all had the same infrastucture.

That is not correct. Windows 3.1 was totally different from Win95. Win95 introduced the (in)famous "Start" button and was underneath Windows 4. It no longer sat on top of DOS as did all the previous editions of Windows (except for the NT line). Instead you had to use a MS-DOS command box. This line continued through 98 which was an upgrade only of 95, and ME which brought the "consumer" line of Windows to an end.

Windows 2000 was based on the Windows NT structure and was a major update of NT 4. The only reason it was not called NT 5 was because of marketing problems with the use of "NT", but internally it was knows as NT 5.0. XP was an update of 2000 (NT 5.1) and XP SP2 was likewise (NT 5.2). Vista is a major rewrite (NT 6.0) and the new Windows everyone seems to think is just around the corner (but still 2+ years away) is NT 7.0, and is referred to in the media as Windows 7.

When XP was released, those using NT and Windows 2000, had little or no trouble with drivers and programs working, however, the passage of 6 years had dimmed the memory of those around who remember the wailing, pulling of hair and knashing of teeth of those trying to go from Win98 and ME to XP. No drivers worked! Programs that ran fine in 98 would not load or run in XP. Even today when researching drivers for XP you will see 2K/XP for the driver and even some reference to NT as some of the old NT drivers would work.

XP was derided as "unstable", "boatware", "it took too much memory to run" (Win98 would run in 48 MB just fine, but don't try XP with that little) and it was "rushed to market". Much the same as is said now about Vista. In addition, Gasp!, it required activation! You had to get Microsoft's permission to run it. Conspiracy theories abounded. There were predictions that it would allow Apple to increase Mac's market share from the 10% it had.

I remember PC World articles about how to do something and in the upper corner of the article or tip would be a little box with 4 squares. In each square would appear the version of Windows to which this item related. 3.1, 9x, 2K, XP. At least I think it was 3.1, it could have been NT, but I am sure about the 9x, 2K and XP, because I had one of each.

[Evildave]

Um, no Windows 3.x,95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP are not all the same.

Windows 3.x, 2 and 1 all were built on top of 16 bit DOS. 3.x added a 'dos extender' to access more RAM. You booted DOS, you typed 'win' at the command line (or if you were like me, you made a 'lose.bat' to invoke win, though others just stuch 'win' in their autoexec.bat). It booted on the DOS FAT filesystem and used 16 bit drivers with some 32 bit extensions.

Windows NT was the first 'true 32 bit' OS, and it had terrible 'backwards compatibility' with the previous 16 bit software, and it tended to lag behind the 16/32 bit versions. It included the NTFS file system (long filenames, files bigger than 2GB). This was horribly 'bloated and pointless' to most Windows users of the time, though they certainly all booted 32 bit DOS extenders to play games. NT got extra 'server' support in the form of extended limits on the count of sockets available through their (still lame to this day) 'WinSock' library.

Windows 95 was also built on top of 16-bit DOS, but they added 32 bit drivers and FAT32 file system (with long file names, files that couldn't be larger than 2GB) as well. It had some backwards compatibility for some existing 16 bit drivers.

Eventually they added the DirectX SDK on top of Windows 95, which basically ended the days of 'DOS' games with their own sound, video and joystick drivers.

Windows 98 and ME were basically more of the same Windows 95, though they botched ME horribly in some manner; I never used or supported it.

NT4 cloned the Win95 desktop and Windows 2000 came from Windows NT4. As usual, they were considered 'server' or 'professional' software and charged bukoo bucks extra for having a few extra socket connections.

Windows XP basically took DirectX and some other toys from Win9x and slapped it on top of the NT 4 kernel instead of the 16/32 bit kernel that Win9x used. It had some initial problems with 'backwards compatibility' and lots of 16 bit applications never worked at all.

In XP SP1 they added a bunch of annoying new crap to the PC to make it 'safer', including that 'Security Center' app to keep reminding you to update virus scanners, activate the firewall, etc. Since then the growth of malware in XP has continued unabated.

At some point they made a new '64 bit' kernel. Like 16 bit to 32 bit, 32 to 64 bit is largely incompatible.

Now comes Windows Vista, where they took the XP DRM crap and added requirements for encrypted buses to support 'premium' media content and added the click-away dialogs for 'more security'. It broke basically every existing driver and demands 'driver certification' above and beyond that which was added to XP. At the time of its release, absolutely no video card would play 'high definition' content under Vista because no hardware or driver was certified by Microsoft to do it. Your HDMI ports are all just holes in the computer for collecting lint. Even if you get a signal out, it must be ENCRYPTED, which few HDTVs or monitors support, so you'll still get nothing. Vista also adds driver revocation, in case you like the Sword of Damocles hanging over your hardware. The idea is, if a driver for your video card or sound card or video capture card can be used for copying 'protected' content, it will be revoked, and you can use your $900 3D gaming video card it in basically 800x600 VESA mode.

Anyways, that 'Driver Revocation' was the last straw for me. I really can't afford to have my notebook PC be converted into a brick by Microsoft's paranoia over some activity I'm not even participating in, and there's not much recourse with a notebook PC if the hardware is revoked. You're basically done unless you change OS, either downgrading to XP or installing Linux instead.

I switched to Linux and keep a copy of Vista around in VMware to run the Windows apps there aren't replacements for. Mostly this was transparent, as I already used OpenOffice.org and Mozilla, and used the web interface for gmail, and also had previously used UNIX/Linux on the web, at work and in VMware sessions under Windows for testing.

The only difference is the computer boots and shuts down in half the time, and has multiple desktops mapped to facets of a pentagonal prism polyhedron, so I have the equivalent of however many monitors with desktops I want on a virtual 'lazy suzan' to work with.

And I never have to run 'defrag' because EXT2/EXT3 filesystems are inherently resistant to fragmentation until they're more than about 80% full and aren't as adversely affected by it when it does happen as Microsoft's file systems are.

And 99+% of the malware is written for the Microsoft machines that welcome it. I don't need to run spyware or virus scans, or patch and upgrade such things all the time. The remaining 1% is relatively ineffective for Linux machines, as there are too many kernel versions and such to make a binary compatible virus. You can still get a trojan installed in Linux, but if you stick to the managed packages the major Linux distributions support, this is virtually impossible.