Yeah, Vista SP2 is pretty good. W7 is better, but not much better.

Vista SP2 is fine. It's still on several machines at my work. Recent hardware runs it a lot better than what it usually shipped on in 2007.

Vista's Explorer actually has some nice advantages over Windows 7 and 8... MS removed some features.

I run vista 64 sp2 on my main machine at home. I hated it when it first came out but now I like it because I find it's like an amalgam of the good stuff I like in XP and Win 7 without the stuff that bugs me.

Ok thanks, this all fits with what I'm finding, very pleasant surprise 😀

Have fun trying to get Silverlight working on Vista x64 if you wanna use Netflix... >_>;

Microsoft really dropped the ball here. Normally with Microsoft products, if it detects the wrong version to download and install you have the option of selecting the right version to download and manually install. Silverlight not only doesn't have this option, but on Vista x64 it detects a 64-bit OS and tries to install the x64 version of Silverlight... which is incompatible with Vista! You absolutely need to use the x86 version of Silverlight, but because there's no way to manually download it you have to go out of your way searching for a download from somewhere else which is ridiculous when the x86 version IS available from Microsoft, they just don't have a direct link to it anywhere. >:(

...yes, I had to deal with this just a couple or so weeks ago when Dad finally decided to try out Netflix on his 64-bit Vista laptop. :P

Gemini000 wrote:

Have fun trying to get Silverlight working on Vista x64 if you wanna use Netflix... >_>;

I wish Silverlight would just disappear already.

I used Vista from Beta 1 onwards through mid 2010. From RC (build 5700 iirc), I had very few problems. I do acknowledge I was an outlier, but the truth is that Vista was never all that bad. Most of the early problems were related to two factors: 1) bad drivers - the driver model changed significantly from NT 5.x to 6.0 (in particular graphics). Manufacturers dragged their feet adjusting to the new reality - partly out of laziness and partly because the Longhorn project took so long to complete. NVIDIA was particularly bad early on. Microsoft's own analysis showed 80% of crashes were related to graphics drivers. Eventually these were sorted out.

The other problem was the "Vista Capable" fiasco. Microsoft allowed manufacturers to put the Vista Capable sticker on computers with only 512 megabytes of RAM. Many of these had integrated graphics, which sucked more RAM meaning you didn't even have 512 to begin with. As someone who used Vista even on a 1GB system - I can't imagine the torture that would come to the human psyche attempting to run with only 512.

There was also the fiasco with the Intel i900/915 chipsets. Early on they were supposed to have "Vista Certified" support with full Aero - indeed they did through Vista RC1. At RTM that was eliminated and you were knocked down to Aero Basic because of the lack of a "hardware scheduler" (oops!).

As for Vista itself, most of the serious bugs (there weren't many - the biggest was some network inconsistencies and file copy issues) were resolved by SP1.

The main problem with Vista today is the immense amount of updates one must install - SP2 isn't cumulative so you have to go with SP1, then 2. Then there's a Platform Update which backports DirectX and several other things from Vista but Microsoft refuses to let you download in one combined hotfix outside of Windows Update. Microsoft also refuses to support current software on Vista anymore because "mainstream support" ended early in 2012. So no IE10+, no DirectX 11.1, etc.

EverythingOldIsNewAgain wrote:

I used Vista from Beta 1 onwards through mid 2010. From RC (build 5700 iirc), I had very few problems. I do acknowledge I was an […]
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I used Vista from Beta 1 onwards through mid 2010. From RC (build 5700 iirc), I had very few problems. I do acknowledge I was an outlier, but the truth is that Vista was never all that bad. Most of the early problems were related to two factors: 1) bad drivers - the driver model changed significantly from NT 5.x to 6.0 (in particular graphics). Manufacturers dragged their feet adjusting to the new reality - partly out of laziness and partly because the Longhorn project took so long to complete. NVIDIA was particularly bad early on. Microsoft's own analysis showed 80% of crashes were related to graphics drivers. Eventually these were sorted out.

The other problem was the "Vista Capable" fiasco. Microsoft allowed manufacturers to put the Vista Capable sticker on computers with only 512 megabytes of RAM. Many of these had integrated graphics, which sucked more RAM meaning you didn't even have 512 to begin with. As someone who used Vista even on a 1GB system - I can't imagine the torture that would come to the human psyche attempting to run with only 512.

There was also the fiasco with the Intel i900/915 chipsets. Early on they were supposed to have "Vista Certified" support with full Aero - indeed they did through Vista RC1. At RTM that was eliminated and you were knocked down to Aero Basic because of the lack of a "hardware scheduler" (oops!).

As for Vista itself, most of the serious bugs (there weren't many - the biggest was some network inconsistencies and file copy issues) were resolved by SP1.

The main problem with Vista today is the immense amount of updates one must install - SP2 isn't cumulative so you have to go with SP1, then 2. Then there's a Platform Update which backports DirectX and several other things from Vista but Microsoft refuses to let you download in one combined hotfix outside of Windows Update. Microsoft also refuses to support current software on Vista anymore because "mainstream support" ended early in 2012. So no IE10+, no DirectX 11.1, etc.

thats true vista was ok but usually had an issue with drivers slow to search and download, and sometimes gave me fits with webcams.
surprisingly though systems designed for vista run windows 7 quite well!
out of curiosity Ive installed 7 in a few different vista machines and they all out perform vista,

a persons choice of os depends on what they want to do with it
some favour linux some windows , some mac,
finding what you are comfortable and effective with is just a journey
one of my first ventures in animation was on an old gateway (pentium 2 with mmx 266 mghz)
god almighty the targa file took a month to render for a 25 second scene 😒

I think Vista was always going to be hated. XP had been out for so long everyone knew the OS inside out. from users understanding the interface to techies knowing how it worked under the bonnet.
Which ever OS that came after XP was going to get the backlash of "everything's changed" plus you could tell vista struggled on the hardware of the day.

I see Vista as a expendable OS for the real world. MS released it let everyone hate it but get software working properly with it. Then release Win7 and everyone will like it as everything works now and leave all the negativity with Vista.

The only things that I really hate about Vista is it does hog a little more than XP and 7 but mainly how it can degrade overtime. Still it is the most XP like os out there that is x64 and has some nice little extra features that are missing in 7. Tried 8 and then later 8.1 only to despise the UI.

nforce4max wrote:

Still it is the most XP like os out there that is x64

What about XP x64?

XP x64 is very nice, if you can live with the limited support and have drivers for hardware. Internally it has actually the core of Server2003 which shows when it comes to memory management. It even uses the same update packages.
Still Win7 brings some more modern stuff where XP x64 stays in the XP age.

EverythingOldIsNewAgain wrote:

The main problem with Vista today is the immense amount of updates one must install - SP2 isn't cumulative so you have to go with SP1, then 2. Then there's a Platform Update which backports DirectX and several other things from Vista but Microsoft refuses to let you download in one combined hotfix outside of Windows Update. Microsoft also refuses to support current software on Vista anymore because "mainstream support" ended early in 2012. So no IE10+, no DirectX 11.1, etc.

There is actually some software that supports XP and Windows 7, but not Vista! Figure that one out.

I jumped to Windows 7 when it became available, it was noticeably faster than a clean installed of Vista.

elianda wrote:

XP x64 is very nice, if you can live with the limited support and have drivers for hardware. Internally it has actually the core of Server2003 which shows when it comes to memory management. It even uses the same update packages.
Still Win7 brings some more modern stuff where XP x64 stays in the XP age.

I second this. People give XP x64 all sorts of crap for "compatibility issues", but I actually find that it's quite a nice OS, with great speed and stability, and it runs 99% of my 32bit apps just fine, as well as certain 64bit apps. 😁

mr_bigmouth_502 wrote:

elianda wrote:

XP x64 is very nice, if you can live with the limited support and have drivers for hardware. Internally it has actually the core of Server2003 which shows when it comes to memory management. It even uses the same update packages.
Still Win7 brings some more modern stuff where XP x64 stays in the XP age.

I second this. People give XP x64 all sorts of crap for "compatibility issues", but I actually find that it's quite a nice OS, with great speed and stability, and it runs 99% of my 32bit apps just fine, as well as certain 64bit apps. 😁

The only reason anyone gave XP x64 any crap that I was ever aware of was over drivers (or lack thereof) for a whole lot of popular hardware that was in use at the time. That same complaint resurfaced when Vista was released, too.