Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Windows Vista.............how is it, so far?

When I got my new computer last December, it was just before the new Vista operating system was out. I got a free Vista home premium express upgrade "kit" sent to me (after much chaos on line, and the phone ).
I have (and like) Windows XP now, and have not yet tried to "upgrade" to Vista.

I have not heard much "buzz" one way or, the other about Vista, so............I thought, I could ask the many IT types here, for install tips, and some of the pro's and con's about Vista..........before I try this, later on.

IT guys, what say you?

If your computer meets the middle requirements (not just the minimum), then it's not too shabby. You have to get used to a few new things. I've not used it for extended periods of time, so I can't really say much other than that. If XP is working fine for you, there's no real technical reason to upgrade.

What Peter said. If XP works great for you then it would be more trouble than anything to update, I don't think it's worth it at the moment.

Those are the same things that people said with Windows 98. "It is just Windows 95 with Internet Explorer built in." Wait, I remember myself saying that.

Anyway, I am sure that it is a nice O/S, and there will be a day soon that those of us using a Microsoft O/S will say "I can't believe that we lived with Windows XP for so long." but for now, I vote "Don't Rock the Boat" too and say stick with XP.

Likewise, especially if you're using an nVidia graphics card. The drivers simply aren't all sorted out yet.

Let's see -- 1GB is OK, more is nice. Anything less don't bother.

If you don't have a DX9 or DX10 graphics card with good Vista drivers (ie one of ours ) then don't bother. The compositing UI ("Aero" ?) is nice enough that it outweighs all the stupid little changes, but if you have to run the legacy UI then all you get are the stupid little changes and IMO you're better off staying with XP.

The tabbed browser is nice but you can get IE7 (or Firefox etc..) on XP.

I think I'm going to wait until at least the first service pack for Vista comes out. I'm overdue for building a brand new system, but I've had other priorities (sound system being the biggest thing). I figure the longer I put it off, the better. I used to upgrade every six months. This will be the most meaningful upgrade I've ever done, when I get around to it.

Thank You, IT guys.

I forgot to list my computer "specs". in my post........if it makes a difference in the advice, here they are.

HP Pavilion media center M7690E
AMD Athlon 64X2 4200+ dual core 2.2GHZ
2GB DDR-667MHZSDRAM(2X1024)Vista capable
250GB 7200 rpm sata hard drive
15-in-one memory card reader,2usb,1394 video
HP w19b wide screen monitor
etc, etc, etc.

I'm going to take the IT collective's advice.......and not upgrade for now.
I do want to try and keep up, though.

Does anyone have anything to say about Media Center functionality in Windows Vista? How improved is it?

I like Vista... but with all my various PC's I still run several XP's as well. (mainly cause they are older machines)

The new MCE is pretty, but I was pissed that there wasn't anything really "new" except for cable card support, and cable cards are (about to be) worthless so, meh. The new music library is my favorite thing about the new interface.