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Have You Made the Vista Switch Full-Time?

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Have You Made the Vista Switch Full-Time?

Or are you still dual-booting?

from WinCustomize Forums

Well Windows Vista has been out for a little while now, and several us have written about our experiences at the beginning.  I have read probably hundreds of forums posts across many communities about peoples experience with Vista, and how some are using Vista as their main OS, and some just using it as a secondary on a dual-boot system.  The reactions have been very mixed, but the biggest complaints seem to be hardware compatibility, especially in the video card area that is stopping people from running it full-time.

I recently built a new PC and tried to run Vista as my primary OS, but with my printer not working with Vista, and a few other incompatibilities I had to partition off some space and go back to dual-booting again.  Now I have been reading many posts here at WinCustomize and have noticed a few people who have purchased Vista, so I was interested in knowing how many members here are using Vista full-time, or are dual-booting still.

 

 

17,261 views 62 replies
Reply #51 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Vista Ultimate full-time !!!! - I got vista 2 weeks before the national release and loaded on my Media Center PC - there are a few things that don't work yet , but no biggie as far as programs go and some hardware -

thing is I have Vista 64bit and allot of the WC/Stardock stuff doesn't work yet with 64bit - bummed about that - lucky for me the Dream thing is keeping me busy for now with plenty to do ,,,,,

anyway back to Vista as I said re-did my computer but i'm still not done loading everything back in ,,,,,,,,, because I'm finding with Vista i'm spending more time playing on the computer now and less time having to fix it - Vista Ultimate is the best , so far !!!!
Reply #52 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I switched over completely a month ago or so and I love Vista. It boots up extremely fast compared to XP which was starting to take forever to boot up. I haven't had any problems with it so far, but I did have to upgrade my video card in order for some games to work.

I still have XP Media edition on my 2nd HD, but never use it anymore. After using Vista, I would never go back to XP.
Curtains - Customize Windows with additional styles
Reply #53 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Both my Mom and I run Vista Ultimate exclusively (the only issue between us is my Mom's printer; however, we licked that by sharing out my printer, which Vista supports with included drivers). My Mom's PC has integrated Intel 845GE graphics (so no Aero) while I have an ATI Radeon 9700 Pro AGP (therefore I have full Aero Glass support). The printer with issues is a Lexmark P700 inkjet, while mine is an HP Deskjet 940C (I have suggested that Mom replace the Lex with another Deskjet, which is known to be supported by Vista and is less than $100).

I planted WindowBlinds 5.5 Public Version on my Ultimate box today and am running the Stargate SG-1 skin. So far, I couldn't be happier.
Reply #54 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Well for what it's worth, I took the jump to Windows Vista Ultimate a couple of days after release. I still miss Duke Nukem, but that hasn't run since Windows95. I am mostly happy with it, but there are the odd quirks here and there. My X-Fi sound card will quit working while playing EQ2, but I just downloaded (another) new driver for it today so we'll see how that goes. The transition from XP to Vista seems to have went much better than with other upgrades. Here's a refresher for those who might have forgotten, I'm sure many of you went through the same experiences:

Millennium to XP, never did it, went back to 98SE one week after installing Millennium (Microsoft - I still want my money back for that upgrade);

98SE to Millennium - see above. 'nuf said other than horrible experience. ( I think I enjoyed visits to the in-laws better);

98 to 98SE - was glad to see that the 9X OS was finally mature. This was the operating system I had been waiting for. The transition was perhaps easier than XP to Vista, but was it really a "newer" OS? No, they just finally fixed everything.

95 to 98 - ouch. Stuff didn't work anymore. I could see DOS based games starting to lose some support (Yes Duke started to suffer )

3.11 to 95 - hmm what can I say but remember upgrading ALL your hardware first, then wondering where the improvements went? Lost speed, even though we upgraded to a much faster processor, but finally had a visual OS.

I've left out the NT line, and Windows OSes prior to 3.11, I was sure how many actually used those, and those of us who did probably can't remember back that far. (Okay you caught me, that's the real reason - I can't remember back that far )

Other than the memory requirements, which might be fine for the average user that doesn't have Photoshop, Flash, 2 different web browsers, Dreamweaver and whatever else open all at once, Vista is a pretty great OS. I have 2G Ram, and am seriously looking at upgrading to 4, but other than that I wouldn't go back. To quote a famous wart-hog "You've got to put your behind in the past."

My only advise - run the Vista upgrade analysis tool, see what you might need to upgrade, and take the plunge. The water's warming up!
Reply #55 from WinCustomize Forums Top
No, standby still doesn't work, so I have to boot into XP whenever I leave my computer on as a PVR. All my drivers are WHQL, so it's quite baffling. I am beginning to suspect that WHQL doesn't mean a thing, given that even Nvidia's current garbage got WHQL.
Reply #56 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Gollums I think virualpc by microsoft is now free. That is, 2003 version.

It could run windows 95 just fine.
Reply #57 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Full-Timer with Premium here since January 29....

When I first installed, I left XP as a dual-boot.... I haven't gone back a single time since - there was no need.

Had a few minor issues... my brand new printer from HP that was promised a Vista driver by the end of January, that still hasn't received a driver... so I shoehorned in the XP driver. HP also said in January that there would never be a Vista driver for my scanner, yet they published one on March 1 (scanjet 3970 in case you have one)...

A few programs here and there are twitchy, but nothing I couldn't replace. Games work great, the system is fast.

I have an Opteron 170 (dual core 2.0ghz overclocked to 2.9ghz), 2gb DDR, ATI x850XT video... so perhaps my system is atypical... but I wouldn't go back.
Reply #58 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I've got two machines, a Tablet PC and an old Athlon 64 3400+ Socket 754 that I swapped out the RAM on (for some reason the old RAM I had in the system was running slowly, took my Vista Performance index down to 2.1, now I'm at 4.2) and I upgraded my old 6800GT to a VisionTek X1950 Pro AGP.

The system actually is running better than I had expected. Vista is not really any more of a pig than XP. It needs more RAM, but that's about it.

The tablet is working pretty well. One thing that I've noticed is that if I'm typing in a textbox in IE 7, keystrokes will drop now and then, but not anywhere else. Need to see if its happenging in FireFox. But the hand writing works a lot better.
Reply #59 from WinCustomize Forums Top

*whistle* No Photoshopping..
Reply #60 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I'm still using Xp Home. There are way too many bugs for the drivers as it is right now, but when Service Pack 1 goes out and my dad's willing to spent the money for Vista Ultimate, I'll use it soly for home-based use. School: well, they still use 95/98 so I can't change that. (NEVER have the money, the damned government!!!)
Reply #61 from WinCustomize Forums Top
they still use 95/98


Why fix it if it ain't broke?
Reply #62 from WinCustomize Forums Top
School: well, they still use 95/98 so I can't change that. (NEVER have the money, the damned government!!!)


Thank yourself very fortunate.....my old school (from back in the 60's) is still using the abacus. The cheapskates got in 'A' calculator once...but that went South the moment the batteries died.