Vista

[Master Mason]

I am afraid that my computer is nearing the end of it's life, and it is almost impossible to find anything now that is not using vista. I have steadfastly avoided it to date. So now that I am apparently going to be given no choice, what are the gotchas I should be looking out for.

And before anyone chimes in with get a mac. I can not make that type of investment at the moment, with the cost of the computer and the cost of replacing software.

So what say you that have made the switch?

 

[DizzyV6P]

If you buy from Dell, they can load it with XP. If you goto Micro Center at http://www.microcenter.com/ or their brick and morter stores, they have a lot a XP loaded computers still in stock.

After a few issues with Vista at our office, I now purchase XP loaded computers. Microsoft even issued an annoucement that they will support XP much longer than originally planned.

So you do have choices if you want to stick with XP

 

[Villainess]

My dad just got a new laptop that has Vista - he has been arguing w/ it a lot. I will ask for specifics tonight when he gets home but I know one thing he hates is that in Excel he is prompted each time he wants to make a change (ie - copy/paste). I have yet to be on the computer so I don't know if there is a way to remove that prompt. I'll be back w/ specifics later.

 

[MICKEY88]

I bought a laptop back in november just for photography purposes, I wanted to be able to upload my pics on location shoots, to view them and make sure I had what I wanted, before heading home...

it wouldn't recognize my card reader, after countless hour of research online, I found that it's a common problem with vista laptops, they forget where the usb ports are, I don't remember if it's an issue with desktops, or not..

 

[orchjoe]

I haven't had any of those problems with my desktop or laptop loaded with Vista. What most users hate are the thousands of prompts but those are pretty easy to turn off if you look in the right place. Link

If you get a dell inspiron you can get $300 off anything over 999 if you use a coupon: Q4MVHZTFT04Z1W (before 5/28/08)

 

[orchjoe]

Here is a link for dell desktops with XP.

 

[LPZ_Stitch!]

it wouldn't recognize my card reader, after countless hour of research online, I found that it's a common problem with vista laptops, they forget where the usb ports are, I don't remember if it's an issue with desktops, or not..

I have this problem with my HP Pavilion desktop, too ... sometimes Vista just seems to forget what to do with a USB device (my HP all-in-one printer and my Sansa View MP3 player are most commonly forgotten). It's irritating, but not insurmountable ... usually, just rebooting gets it to "remember" as does, strangely, plugging in a different device (like my camera)....

By now, most of the hardware/software incompatibilities have been dealt with either by Microsoft or the software company. You'll probably have to hunt around on manufacturers websites for drivers or "Vista-versions" of things you might have, but *most* mainstream software will work right out of the box.

Vista is a very attractive *looking* OS, and it does have some nice features, but it is a real pain for someone who's already quite computer-savvy (I'm an IT professional, so it drives me NUTS with it's constant "do you *really* want to do this"!!!)....

 

[NostalgicDad]

A machine purchased pre-loaded with Vista should theoretically have no issues with current on-board hardware. However, when plugging in additional external hardware or adding internal hardware will be one area you are likely to see driver issues. They are aggravating but usually easily fixed with a little effort in updating drivers or upgrading firmware. Once everything "jives" your Vista experience should be a good one after you turn off all the alerts and messages of course.

I have built 2 Vista Ultimate machines from scratch in the past 18 months. One is the 32-bit version for my wife and the other is the 64-bit version for me. Both are AMD systems and both run great. With the 64-bit version, you will have quite a bit more of those issues and some things will simply not run on it. Luckily, all of my photography software runs fine even though some manufacturers still say they don't support Vista 64. Service Pack 1 just came out and I installed it about a week ago. So far, so good. Supposedly there are a lot of hardware compatibility fixes but since I was running fine prior to SP1, I haven't noticed any improvements thus far. One gripe I still have and probably the most annoying is that I am still not able to view Nikon NEF files in Windows Explorer. There is no codec from Microsoft and Nikon has no answer either. So, I have to continue to use 3rd party viewers to quickly cull through my NEF's.

If you decide to go the route of XP, Service Pack 3 just came out for that. I know there were some wireless network features added but I'm not sure of any other details. I think you would be fine to stay with XP since it will be around a bit longer. I was dead set against going to Vista but I decided to go ahead and make the switch to Vista and get the lumps out of the way now. So far, I'm glad I did. Given a chance, I personally think Vista is a decent OS.

 

[Furgus]

I just got a Dell 530 with XP. I am not going to Vista anytime soon......

 

[Villainess]

it wouldn't recognize my card reader, after countless hour of research online, I found that it's a common problem with vista laptops, they forget where the usb ports are, I don't remember if it's an issue with desktops, or not..

Yes, it did this w/ my reader too - my dad bought another one and thankfully it worked - we took his laptop w/ us to upload photos too.

 

[Anewman]

So what say you that have made the switch?

We are pretty much VISTA converts, 3 desktops and one laptop all with Vista Premium. Only computer still running XP is a backup Laptop that is a too slow(real world) for Vista.

The Laptop came preloaded from Dell with Vista and we have never had issues.

3 Desktops are all self built and other than some driver issues during install, once I have straightened them out they have all been very stable.

My kids love the Media Center function that is rock solid as a PVR vs XPs.

 

[MICKEY88]

I have this problem with my HP Pavilion desktop, too ... sometimes Vista just seems to forget what to do with a USB device (my HP all-in-one printer and my Sansa View MP3 player are most commonly forgotten). It's irritating, but not insurmountable ... usually, just rebooting gets it to "remember" as does, strangely, plugging in a different device (like my camera)....

..

reinstalled drivers, installed new drivers, tried all sort of supposed fixes I found, finally one friday after pulling an all nighter working on it, I thought I had it fixed, all 4 usb ports would recognize any devide I plugged in, rebooted several times without losing my ports, finally shut down and went to bed at 4 AM, got up at 10 AM Saturday turned on the laptop, no usb ports,

an friend of mine who is an computer guy, checked it out for me, eventually the answer he came up with was that the chip set used in the laptop, was not compatable with vista, so I bought a pcmcia -compact flash adapter,

I have found one card reader that says it's vista compliant, so I'm going to buy that to see if it makes a difference..

 

[bnorm27]

Rebel XTi user here, who uses a Vista loaded laptop for processing almost all of my photos. There was no problem with the Canon software, and I really haven't encountered any of the problems mentioned here. I did originally have an issue with my wireless connectivity, but that also seems to have been resolved. I was skeptical at first, but I kind of like Vista now. I upload photos directly from the camera, and not through a card reader.

 

[Code]

I avoided Vista for as long as possible but got it with my new laptop recently (the day Vista SP1 came out). I haven't had any significant problems and it runs well, but the laptop is a beefy system (2.4 dual core, 3 GB, 7200 RPM HDD, 512 MB video card). I'm glad I never tried to run it on a weaker system.

 

[boBQuincy]

There's always the ultra-mobile PCs, MS plans to support XP on them for a long time. I am typing this on a 2 pound Asus Eee with XP.
Realistically, I would get a desktop with XP and wait for Windows 7 at this point. Or there's the Psystar Mac clone that runs faster than a Mac...

 

[handicap18]

I've had a few USB issues with my Vista system. If I turn of the external HD then turn it on again, more often than not the OS doesn't see its there so I have to unplug it and plug it back in again. Mine came with a card reader built in. 98% of the time it works perfectly. But every once and a while when I put the card it the OS doesn't know its there. So instead I just put the card in the reader on one of my external HD's.

The biggest issue I have is that Vista freezes. A lot. Much like the older Window's OS did. I've had it happen 5 times in one day. Then it wont happen for a week, then it will happen once or twice a day for a few days, then nothing for a week.... bla bla bla. I find that VERY annoying. I don't recall XP freezing like this at all.

I've also been having some issues with IE over the last month. I'll open a page and it will say, page not found. Then I'll click reload and it opens fine. Or I'll come here and half the pics are red X boxes. Then I'll click reload and they're all there (though sometimes I have to click reload a few times to get all the pics).

 

[DueyDooDah]

I am using and have been using Vista successfully for quite some time, on a number of PCs from older laptops to my new power machine. The only issues I've had (and believe me when I say I run some funky stuff) were with compatibility with peripherals, such as scanners and printers. Everything works much better with Vista than with XP, at least those items MS told me would. The ones they said wouldn't, don't. Hmmm, imagine that. [soapbox on]As for the prompts everyone complains about, hmmm, same people that complain about viruses yet won't take any action to do anything about. They say it's MS fault. So, MS did something about it, and guess what. They complain about the prompts. Go figure.

Note: People always fault MS for not supporting peripherals, such as I mentioned above. Little do they understand, MS does not write the drivers that make those things work - the vendors do. So if a vendor decides not to support their own product, then MS can do nothing about it. Just sit back and take the blame.[soapbox off]

In any case, I am quite happy with Vista. It screams, it does what it's supposed to do and it does not crash. Make sure you install Service Pack 1 if it does not come preloaded. It adds some features and relieves some complaints (specifically relating to software activation so that pirates can steal the software more readily). As with any OS using photo software, the more memory you have, the better it will run. Vista 32 bit will take and use up to 4GB. You can buy and use more with the 64-bit version, although vendors have not supplied drivers for the 64-bit version as frequently (probably their programmers don't know how to write 64-bit code yet.)

One last note on the compatibility complaints. Just remember that we heard the exact same stuff when XP was released. I guess it's the cost of trying to to a point where we all have HAL in our homes. (and look what happened there)

Sorry, didn't mean to get too far off topic.

 

[Groucho]

One thing nobody's mentioned... have you thought about building your own PC and buying an OEM copy of XP?

Building your own PC is really quite simple nowadays, though some of the tradition price advantage has been erased by heavy discounting of prebuilt systems. As soon as you start adding options to the prebuild ones, they can get expensive quickly, though, whereas homebuilt ones usually don't have big jumps in price as you add more options like more memory, bigger hard drive, faster processor, etc. If you buy good components, I think you also will generally end up with better-quality hardware than the prebuilts. Another advantage is that you are more familiar with what's inside your PC, and it will be easier to upgrade or repair the PC if something breaks in the future. Heck, I don't think I've bought an entirely new PC in many years (if ever since my first PC), I just keep upgrading one component or another at a time.

FWIW, Microsoft has scheduled June 30th as the last day they'll sell XP, though that date could slip again.

As for Vista - I actually did beta testing for MS before it was out (finding a particular setup bug got me a free copy of Ultimate ) and I tried running it on my PC for a little after after a big upgrade - and I was back to XP within a week or so. I don't hate Vista, but there were just too many driver issues and such. I have been contemplating giving it another shot one of these days, though.

 

[Evad]

One thing nobody's mentioned... have you thought about building your own PC and buying an OEM copy of XP?

Building your own PC is really quite simple nowadays, though some of the tradition price advantage has been erased by heavy discounting of prebuilt systems. As soon as you start adding options to the prebuild ones, they can get expensive quickly, though, whereas homebuilt ones usually don't have big jumps in price as you add more options like more memory, bigger hard drive, faster processor, etc. If you buy good components, I think you also will generally end up with better-quality hardware than the prebuilts. Another advantage is that you are more familiar with what's inside your PC, and it will be easier to upgrade or repair the PC if something breaks in the future. Heck, I don't think I've bought an entirely new PC in many years (if ever since my first PC), I just keep upgrading one component or another at a time.

FWIW, Microsoft has scheduled June 30th as the last day they'll sell XP, though that date could slip again.

As for Vista - I actually did beta testing for MS before it was out (finding a particular setup bug got me a free copy of Ultimate ) and I tried running it on my PC for a little after after a big upgrade - and I was back to XP within a week or so. I don't hate Vista, but there were just too many driver issues and such. I have been contemplating giving it another shot one of these days, though.

I built a gaming computer for my ds and purchased OEM copy of XP for it and everything works great. We put in all top of the line components and saved a ton of money. I will avoid Vista as long as I can.

 

[cmwade77]

Vista is on it's way out, probably next year.

It's replacement will require you to replace most of your software (of course so does Vista)

If you make the switch to a Mac and talk nicely, most companies that have a Mac version of the product will deactivate you PC serial number and give you one for your Mac

Additionally Mac can now run Windows based software natively, get Parallels and a copy of Windows with it, if you buy from MacMall right now they are giving it for free preinstalled and you can buy XP for it. In addition they are offering cash rebates right now (saw this when I went into our local one today) which would pay for the license of XP. On top of that they are offering free shipping and a free photo printer.

This actually means right now Macs are more compatible with your existing software than PCs running Vista are.

Now, I just thought I would chime in here that you don't have to replace all of your existing software when purchasing a Mac, in fact you won't have to repurchase any other than the Windows Operating System and who knows, you might even be able to get native Mac versions of most of your programs without paying anything.

When I made the switch to Mac, all I had to do was email the companies that I couldn't find FREE replacement software for that made Mac versions.

This included:
Adobe Products
Docs2Go
I know there were others, I just can't remember right now, some also offer to convert it for about $20 or so and it usually includes the latest version.

Note that a lot of the software did not need replacing as equivalents came with the Mac, I have used OpenOffice.org for quite some time before making the switch, now I am switching to Google Documents as it is more convenient.

Also, I have never had a piece of hardware not work with Mac, even if it's not supported, yet with Vista I have had a lot of stuff not work.