[gevatter Lars]

I have also a creative card and I don't have any problems using Vista64. I have got all the options and control panels I had under XP.
Installing was also very easy. Inserted the DVD, booted the system, said install and waited till it was done. After the restart it found most of my hardware, except the scanner.
Then I installed the drivers for V64 that I previously downloaded, activaded the internet connection and I was ready to go.
So I had no difference between the XP and Vista installation, except that more hardware was automaticly found then with XP.

[Wobble73]

Believe it or not, but I am running Vista on a Athlon 1.25 ghz chip with 512mb of SDR ram and an Nvidia Geforce 5200 agp graphics card with very few problems, by which I mean the odd lag on a game.

[Scooby_Doo]

I think you mean UPgrade to XP, Tolwyn. Vista's the downgrade. *chuckles*

Me likes Vista/Windows 7.

Thing about Vista, you need to have a good PC to reap the rewards, otherwise you end up akin to the masses who lift up their copies of Vista and call "BULL****!" Because Vista is not kind to system RAM, however it does make some decent use of it at least

Same could have been said with XP, compared to 2K 

[IceFire]

I think you mean UPgrade to XP, Tolwyn. Vista's the downgrade. *chuckles*

Me likes Vista/Windows 7.

Thing about Vista, you need to have a good PC to reap the rewards, otherwise you end up akin to the masses who lift up their copies of Vista and call "BULL****!" Because Vista is not kind to system RAM, however it does make some decent use of it at least

Same could have been said with XP, compared to 2K 

Short term memory

There is a break even point where Vista's memory and CPU management outshines XP's.  Windows 7 is shaping up to out do Vista and XP from the looks of it so that seems like some good progress.

[Dilmah G]

Mmmm, I wouldn't know. At least give it a PROPER NAME! Seriously, Windows 7 is as appealing to me as solving a rubix cube with my elbows while being forced to watch Event Horizon on repeat. IMO it looks like what Windows 98 was to 95.

[gevatter Lars]

I don't know. W7 is as good for me as a name as XP or Vista. I don't care what its called. Could be "Stuff-done-totaly-wrong-but-you-will-buy-it-anyway" for me as long as it works.
I would still favor "Bull****". Just imagne a friend comes by and asks "What OS are you using?" and you answer "My OS is Bull****" ^__^

[Dilmah G]

I don't know. W7 is as good for me as a name as XP or Vista. I don't care what its called. Could be "Stuff-done-totaly-wrong-but-you-will-buy-it-anyway" for me as long as it works.
I would still favor "Bull****". Just imagne a friend comes by and asks "What OS are you using?" and you answer "My OS is Bull****" ^__^

I guess, there's always that feeling you have to buy something new when it comes out, so I guess the majority of people with money and an attraction to shiny things would buy it as soon as it comes out.

As for

Just imagne a friend comes by and asks "What OS are you using?" and you answer "My OS is Bull****" ^__^

I would say that about Vista, 

[Mancubus]

Heh. The very point of Windows 7 is how quicly it comes out. Both 2k and XP were around for 4 years before a succesor came, while Vista haven't been for two,  and Windows 7 is just around a corner... it says something about vista IMO. With all my conservativeness about OS and beeing extremally unwilling to downgrade to a new version (i always felt that way), I was unable to just wait XP over, and i'm pretty confident i'll go from XP straight to 7. Also, AFAIK now major corporation upgraded to VIsta, and thus it has been a commertial failure. I really don't know what you mean by saying that vista puts memory to good use, for me best it could do would be leaving as much as possible to other programs.

As for D3D and OpenGL. I don't know about now, but back in the early 2000's you could really see the difference, while running the same apllication under both. OpenGL looked way better, so there are good reasons to use it. Also, while many games use D3D, it's far frome every one, biggest example being ID games wich from the dawn of #d Accelerators used OGL exclusively

[IceFire]

Vista has better memory management...in practice its translated into quicker response on loading commonly accessed programs and much less skipping and pausing in memory intensive applications caused by XP's old memory management practices (I always set a static page file in XP to try and circumvent most of that problem).  Yes it looks like its eating up allot of memory but most of that is reserved for other applications if they need it and quickly given up if not.  You still need 2GB or more to really make that work so its gotten a reputation as being a pig on budget computers that have 1GB.

Win 7 looks to be better than Vista in every way which is encouraging.  A much more refined product from the sounds of it.

As for the name....is Windows 7 any worse than Windows eXPerience?

[gevatter Lars]

I just hope they give a price reduction for Vista users. I would be willing to change but not to spend so much money again.
I have pretty good experiances with Vista64 so far, except that I kicked out the Aero interface and set it back to W98 ^_^

[Mancubus]

yeah the name is back to the roots i think. After all my first windows was called 3.11 (i'm that old...) :-)

[Aginor]

Windows 3.1 and 3.11.....
Then you are old enough to remember the time when windows wasn't an OS but a graphical interface for DOS. (and everyone knew it. Was the same until WinME, but people thought it was different because they didn't see DOS anymore )

When I first saw windows 3.1, I thought: Nice! But then my father showed me it was still DOS, and I was like: WTF?? There is still DOS for everything? Almost never used it back then....

[gevatter Lars]

I also remember 3. and 3.11. I think I still got a pretty old Laptop that has it. Today the only good use is to use it as a weapon to smash thieves (that things is freaking heavy) ^_^
Still the good old DOS days when even deleting "importend" files just didn't matter that much. Config file deleted? Who cares. The freakn machine is still booting. Just make a new one or best you got a bootdisk that you could just copy the file from.

I think what Windows needs is a simple core for the very basic functions that is independent from the rest of the system and just makes sure that no matter what happens you can still start your PC and reinstall/overwrite any damaged file and be done with your repairs.
The freaking registry should be kicked out or every developer beeing forced to create an uninstall procedure that makes a perfect uninstall with all files and entries beeing deleted.
Also the "common files" that are used for more the one program should be either taken out or have some kind of overwrite/delete protection so they don't get messed up by another program you just installed or the other way around beeing deleted by a crappy written uninstall procedure.

[Captain Moran]

I also remember 3. and 3.11. I think I still got a pretty old Laptop that has it. Today the only good use is to use it as a weapon to smash thieves (that things is freaking heavy) ^_^
Still the good old DOS days when even deleting "importend" files just didn't matter that much. Config file deleted? Who cares. The freakn machine is still booting. Just make a new one or best you got a bootdisk that you could just copy the file from.

I think what Windows needs is a simple core for the very basic functions that is independent from the rest of the system and just makes sure that no matter what happens you can still start your PC and reinstall/overwrite any damaged file and be done with your repairs.
The freaking registry should be kicked out or every developer beeing forced to create an uninstall procedure that makes a perfect uninstall with all files and entries beeing deleted.
Also the "common files" that are used for more the one program should be either taken out or have some kind of overwrite/delete protection so they don't get messed up by another program you just installed or the other way around beeing deleted by a crappy written uninstall procedure.

Agreed. The windows registry was the stupidest idea ever spawned. I also agree there should be a minimum configuration option that is tuned for high resource requirement programs like games. (I do a periodic tune-up on my gaming system that essentially does this but it is not a trivial task nor one for the techno-challenged.)

An don't even get me started about using Windows as a business class OS..........

[gevatter Lars]

Concider yourself lucky if you can buy a "working" PC and a "gameing" PC.
I can't and there aren't any games I am much interested in on the Console. Well if the PS2 drops in price now I might concider it as I liked to play Final Fantasy games at my friends place but then I don't have much time to get into them nowadays.

As for the registry, the basic idea isn't that bad I think. From what I got the idea was to have a register of what programms are installed to sort drivers and what else the program needs into one place and give programmers of the same company the posibility to have common files that are noted in the tables, for their different programs.
That way you wouldn't need to install some files as they where allready on the system as the registry stated.
Problem was, oposite to Apple, MS did a terrible, say no, quality ensurance for the software that was allowed to run on a Windows system. Resulting in a total mess of this system.
Again something of the "Good idea, bad excecution" part.

[Captain Moran]

Concider yourself lucky if you can buy a "working" PC and a "gameing" PC.
I can't and there aren't any games I am much interested in on the Console. Well if the PS2 drops in price now I might concider it as I liked to play Final Fantasy games at my friends place but then I don't have much time to get into them nowadays.

As for the registry, the basic idea isn't that bad I think. From what I got the idea was to have a register of what programms are installed to sort drivers and what else the program needs into one place and give programmers of the same company the posibility to have common files that are noted in the tables, for their different programs.
That way you wouldn't need to install some files as they where allready on the system as the registry stated.
Problem was, oposite to Apple, MS did a terrible, say no, quality ensurance for the software that was allowed to run on a Windows system. Resulting in a total mess of this system.
Again something of the "Good idea, bad excecution" part.

I guess I am lucky. I work in IT and have access to "trash" PCs on occasion. They are certainly not top of the line anymore but they are adequate for most tasks. My gaming machine is OLD at this point and will have to last me much longer. Luckily it runs Saga very well and most other games I enjoy well with some tweaking of graphics settings.

Do not mistake me for a techo-junkie who upgrades/replaces equipment every few months. I have two kids in college.

[gevatter Lars]

Considering how fast hardware gets older...my PC is about the antice? Not stoneage yet but also not the youngest anymore.
If it wouldn't have been for the bigger screen that makes working so much more confortable I woulnd't have changed my graphiccard either. Old didn't liked the higher resolution.
So yes there is one up to date component in my PC...I am such a technojunky ^_^

Sadly I now feel that my CPU is stopping out the system. T_T
Graphic benchmark is fast and smooth, same scenario just with the CPU, dead slow. Before that it had been similar. But then I am currently saveing money to get the next version of my software that skips the CPU and goes directly over the GPU. I think that should give a good boost.

[Mancubus]

Maybe you should visit Poland. You cen get core 2 quad for less than 200 euros. Just be quick before exchange rate changes....

[Thundertrod]

PC parts have become so cheep has of late, I priced out a new machen on new egg, roung about 3x the one I built last year for for littel less then half the cost.

[gevatter Lars]

You get C2Q for about the same prize here. I found prizes from 120€ - 1300€ depending on what type of C2Q you want.
What I am looking for is a good price for a i7 system. I need to upgrade my working machine.