Vista or XP?

Boogahz · Post by **Boogahz** » May 30, 2007, 11:50 pm

My point was simply that 1000 posts does not mean that there are an assload of people experiencing the same thing. There are just enough people willing to bitch and moan about it constantly until they get an answer. Good luck on that btw.

noel · Post by **noel** » May 31, 2007, 12:08 am

No you fucking assfucker. For the last time...

Your initial statement was this idiotic drivel that you're now attempting to say yet again.

Vista + Nvidia + EVERY Intense 3D app = driver failure.

That's not fucking true. It's never been true. It's not going to be true if you keep repeating it.

THERE ARE MILLIONS OF PEOPLE USING VISTA AND HAVING NO ISSUES. There are also people that ARE having issues with Vista on specific applications with specific drivers and specific hardware. It is a COMPLETELY false statement to say ALL VISTA + ALL NVIDIA + ALL 3D APPS. I don't understand why that's so fucking hard for you to understand.

I'm running Vista with no such issues, Winnow is running Vista with no such issues. There ARE LOTS of people that aren't having such problems. I'M RUNNING THE VERY GAME YOU'RE WHINING ABOUT with no issues, so that means that it's NOT an ALL case, it's a SOME case. That doesn't mean it doesn't exist, but it's not fucking EVERYTHING like you want so badly to believe. STOP saying it's fucking everything because it's not.

You bet your ass I'm going to flame you, make fun of you and discredit you when you keep spouting utter bullshit CONSTANTLY. Again, if you can't make it work, with one application or a set of applications, it's specific to those cases. If YOU can't make it work with anything, THAT is on YOU.

Here are the possibilities in your case since you seem to be unable to figure it out:
1. Lower your fucking settings - If you're failing in everything, your shit is failing because not every setup is designed to run 1680x1050 w/16xAA and all settings maxxed.

2. Try different video drivers - If you're having problems with EVERYTHING this is the most likely cause. I assure you there ARE drivers available, barring YOU having defective hardware that work with MOST everything. It's certainly possible that a specific application (like for example CoH) or at the most a FEW specific applications are having issues with the driver version you're using or perhaps a specific enhanced setting you're using that's common to those applications. Lower your settings, lower your resolution and try some different fucking drivers.

3. You MIGHT have bad hardware. *gasp* - Swap your shit out with something that's known good (borrow it from a friend) until your shit works.

4. You might need to reinstall your OS. It's entirely possible that when Vista was fixing a problem you didn't even know you had it was a problem you fucking caused. Reinstall it and do a clean driver install.

If you try all of the above things and NOTHING works OPTION 5 might be for you....

5. Get rid of your computer and buy yourself a fucking XBox 360. You're TOO STUPID to own a computer because YOU can't get ANY intense 3D (laugh) application to work under Vista with Nvidia.

I'm laughing at you, not with you.

Fash · Post by **Fash** » May 31, 2007, 12:42 am

How about just using XP, genius? We all know there's no real reason to go to Vista until we're forced to, to play DX10 games.

Aslanna · Post by **Aslanna** » May 31, 2007, 7:50 am

I agree. Uninstall Vista. Use XP. Monitor forums until the issue is reported fixed for most people. Then give it a try if desired.

noel · Post by **noel** » May 31, 2007, 10:37 am

I agree Fash and Aslanna. That's what any sane person would do. Sadly, as Leonaerd volunteered either early in this thread, or in one of the other threads he's been menstruating all over, he doesn't have a copy of XP anywhere and he's incapable of finding one.

He's more interested in having another soapbox to stand on and post falsities than actually resolving his issues.

Aslanna · Post by **Aslanna** » May 31, 2007, 11:13 am

I'll help him out:

Subscribe to Agent News service. 10gb (or 30 day) free trial: http://www.forteinc.com/apn/index.php

Retrieve headers for alt.binaries.cd.image. Look for microsoft.windows.xp.professional.corporate.sp2.integrated.may.2007.repack.eth0

Download. (Will need a newsreader that does binaries. Fortunately you can download a free version from the Agent site!)

Cancel Agent News if desired.

Total cost: Free.

And if you have a licensed copy of Vista I wouldn't really consider 'downgrading' to a previous version of Windows as piracy. But I like to justify things like that!

miir · Post by **miir** » May 31, 2007, 5:14 pm

If I was having any issues with Vista and games I would roll back to XP without hesitation.

Fortunately, Vista is working great for me!

masteen · Post by **masteen** » June 1, 2007, 3:17 pm

I haven't seen Aranuil's vagina this sandy since a night in Velks many moons ago.

archeiron · Post by **archeiron** » June 2, 2007, 2:56 am

masteen wrote:I haven't seen Aranuil's vagina this sandy since a night in Velks many moons ago.

Bring up something about Lance doping and I bet we can get him frothing at the mouth.

noel · Post by **noel** » June 2, 2007, 3:28 am

My attitude about that is far from 'religious'. It's entirely possible he did it. Unless he admits it we'll honestly never know for sure. I hope he didn't and choose to believe he didn't, but it's sadly unlikely that he did it clean.

Siji · Post by **Siji** » June 3, 2007, 11:32 pm

Maybe he did, maybe he didn't.. it's becoming apparent that a lot of others did. And he still beat them.

Boogahz · Post by **Boogahz** » June 4, 2007, 9:17 am

I noticed one benefit to upgrading from XP to Vista this weekend. Most of the files I thought "lost" when previously reinstalling XP showed back up! I knew they were still on the drive, so I did not try to manually get rid of them before. XP just would not admit they were there.

Overall, it seems to run "cleaner" than before.

Aslanna · Post by **Aslanna** » June 4, 2007, 1:30 pm

noel wrote:Well, DX10 *is* a good reason. Of course I forgot about it because there are currently no games that support it. Company of Heroes was supposed to be supporting it early, but from what I hear, they've got other issues at the moment...

Sounds like they moved beyond those issues:

THQ Makes Company of Heroes First DirectX 10 Title

Today, THQ released a patch for its award-winning WWII real-time strategy game, Company of Heroes. The patch adds DirectX 10 support for those gamers with Windows Vista and DirectX 10-capable video cards. Developed by internal studio Relic Entertainment, Company of Heroes is now the first commercially available DirectX 10 Windows PC game.

Including hefty boosts to model and map details, lighting, shadows, and overall image quality, the patch "takes advantage of the many new features available on DX10 compatible hardware, such as geometry instancing, improved per-pixel lighting and shadow calculations, advanced alpha blending, and new anti-aliasing techniques."

"As one of the first Games for Windows branded titles, Company of Heroes took the RTS genre to an entirely new level," said Kevin Unangst, Global Director of Games for Windows at Microsoft. "By delivering full support of DirectX 10, THQ and Relic Entertainment continue their tradition of innovation and leadership in PC gaming."

Senior vice president of worldwide marketing for THQ, Bob Aniello, added, "Company of Heroes features the most incredible visuals and game-play available on the PC. With the integration of DirectX 10, we've set the bar even higher as the first to take advantage of this great leap forward in gaming technology."

Released September 13th last year, Company Heroes was a critical hit with a 94% rating on GameRankings. The first expansion, Opposing Fronts, will be available for PC's this fall.

noel · Post by **noel** » June 4, 2007, 1:38 pm

Awesome news. Hopefully that will fix the video issues for the few people that are having them.

Fash · Post by **Fash** » June 4, 2007, 1:40 pm

I'm on day 3 of Vista.. decided to give it a shot again as I was bored and sick over the weekend.

It's running well... but it took a while to get Planetside to work, and it runs a lot slower than on xp.

noel · Post by **noel** » June 4, 2007, 2:27 pm

Yeah. There's a definite FPS hit running Vista.

At this point, I believe it has more to do with the fact that the games aren't yet written in DX10 than a failing of Vista itself. At least I hope that's the case. Fortunately, with the video card I have, the FPS drop is around 1-2% at the very most, so it's really not that big a deal.

Fash · Post by **Fash** » June 4, 2007, 2:37 pm

noel wrote:Yeah. There's a definite FPS hit running Vista.

At this point, I believe it has more to do with the fact that the games aren't yet written in DX10 than a failing of Vista itself. At least I hope that's the case. Fortunately, with the video card I have, the FPS drop is around 1-2% at the very most, so it's really not that big a deal.

I would think dx9.0c should still run like normal... In XP I can run planetside at 1920x1200 with absolute max settings and it runs great... In Vista I'm at 1280x720 and it's only good when nothing is going on. I've also had latency/packet loss issues that I didn't have in XP.

Since planetside is the only game I'm playing at the moment, if I can't tweak it to run as I need it to, I'll be taking a 10 minute ride on the acronis true image bus back to xp black.

Aslanna · Post by **Aslanna** » July 8, 2007, 4:45 am

miir wrote:It's not as much of a resource hog as people (who have probably never used vista) would have you believe.

Well having hardly anything running (browser, messenger, few things in system tray) my memory usage sits at 1GB which is about a third of my total memory. Now it's not a huge deal as I have more than enough memory, and a lot of others do as well I'm sure, but any way you slice it you can't consider that as not being a 'resource hog'.

And since I've now used Vista I can claim that.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » July 8, 2007, 6:12 am

Aslanna wrote:
miir wrote:It's not as much of a resource hog as people (who have probably never used vista) would have you believe.
Well having hardly anything running (browser, messenger, few things in system tray) my memory usage sits at 1GB which is about a third of my total memory. Now it's not a huge deal as I have more than enough memory, and a lot of others do as well I'm sure, but any way you slice it you can't consider that as not being a 'resource hog'.

And since I've now used Vista I can claim that.

Something doesn't seem right there. As i type this my memory level is:

That's with 2GM total of RAM.

Load up the Performance and Reliability app (just type "performance" in the Start menu search field) It's part of the Administrator Tools.

Nice app to monitor system stuff with.

Even better, pull up "Computer Mangement" by typing it in Start Menu search or find it in Administrator Tools. That's the command center. Can manage your hard drives, etc there as well. Nicely done.

Xatrei · Post by **Xatrei** » July 8, 2007, 1:10 pm

"Computer Management" is nothing new, although it did get a couple of new tweaks / improvements. Since Win2k at least, maybe NT4 (it's been so long I forget), right clicking "My Computer" and choosing "Manage" has brought up the same applet. The new resource monitor is a nice addition to Vista, and for those that prefer to get there without typing into the search box on the start menu, launch task manager via the ctrl-alt-delete menu, or by right-clicking the task bar and choosing it. Then click "Resource Monitor" from the performance tab.

For the record, I've had no issues with Vista and any games I own using my Nvidia card, not that this means anything in the grand scheme of things.

Aslanna · Post by **Aslanna** » July 8, 2007, 3:09 pm

I don't know what to tell you! On a fresh reboot my memory usage is at 905MB. I closed the sidebar thing. The only 'extra' things running are virus checker, DynDNS client and an SSH server. Virus program may suck up a few MB but the last two are pretty light. I'm running with no page file so maybe some of your stuff gets cached out.

I used the Manage feature in XP a lot. Not sure why they took disk defragmenter out of there in Vista and made it a stand alone non-GUI program (other than the frontend). It was sorta nice seeing disk fragmentation and current progress etc. Other than that it's a handy place.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » July 8, 2007, 3:27 pm

Aslanna wrote:I don't know what to tell you! On a fresh reboot my memory usage is at 905MB. I closed the sidebar thing. The only 'extra' things running are virus checker, DynDNS client and an SSH server. Virus program may suck up a few MB but the last two are pretty light. I'm running with no page file so maybe some of your stuff gets cached out.

I've noticed memory management in Vista being quirky. I've ranged anywhere from 28% to 51% memory available with no apps besides the trey stuff running. I'm sitting at 45% right now with the same things I had open last night. Maybe Vista only dumps things out of memory when it needs the memory. I read somewhere that Vista analyzes which apps you use the most and keeps them in memory or something like that.

BTW, the "Event Viewer" in Computer Management is great. I've used it to track down issues. I don't recall anything that nice in XP. maybe I never looked.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » July 8, 2007, 4:14 pm

Anyone have advanced write caching selected? I don't care about data loss so am giving it a try:

I'm curious how much of a speed improvement it provides.

Oh, and BTW, I don't use the Vista Sidebar (disabled it so it doesn't start on boot up) so that may be some memory savings for me. I may start using it again as my Saitek doesn't have the G15's little LCD screen I used for performance monitoring! Ah, but the keys! The keys!

Xatrei · Post by **Xatrei** » July 8, 2007, 6:32 pm

Aslanna wrote: I used the Manage feature in XP a lot. Not sure why they took disk defragmenter out of there in Vista and made it a stand alone non-GUI program (other than the frontend). It was sorta nice seeing disk fragmentation and current progress etc. Other than that it's a handy place.

AFAIK, it's a new defrag utility. The old one wasn't actually a MS product, it was one they licensed to include with 2000 & XP. Due to licensing restrictions, you couldn't schedule it to run automatically unless you paid for a full license from the vendor. That version included a plugin to operate in the windows management interface, unlike the new one. The new utility is one that MS either developed or purchased so they can have it run as scheduled maintenance without operator involvement. I assume this is why they broke it out of the management console, since they don't intend for people to need to use it interactively any longer.

Winnow wrote:BTW, the "Event Viewer" in Computer Management is great. I've used it to track down issues. I don't recall anything that nice in XP. maybe I never looked.

This is one of the things that got tweaked / improved a bit in Vista vs. in 2K/XP/2K03. The event view functionality has always been a part of the management console, but they really improved upon its functionality in Vista with everything from the interface for browsing events to the ability to create custom views for it.

miir · Post by **miir** » July 9, 2007, 12:10 pm

Aslanna wrote:
miir wrote:It's not as much of a resource hog as people (who have probably never used vista) would have you believe.
Well having hardly anything running (browser, messenger, few things in system tray) my memory usage sits at 1GB which is about a third of my total memory. Now it's not a huge deal as I have more than enough memory, and a lot of others do as well I'm sure, but any way you slice it you can't consider that as not being a 'resource hog'.

And since I've now used Vista I can claim that.

No doubt if you're using aero with all the bells and whistles and running a few apps you can easily chew up more than half a gig of RAM. But if your system is using close to a gig, there must be something else going on.

If you tweaked your system for maximum performance, you could cut your idle memory usage down to around 100-150 megs.

Aslanna · Post by **Aslanna** » July 9, 2007, 12:29 pm

As stated that was with no apps running except for antivirus and a few extra services... There's nothing else going on!

Again, I'm not saying it's a huge deal to me. However it fits my definition of 'resource hog.' Your opinion may vary which is fine and dandy.

miir · Post by **miir** » July 9, 2007, 12:36 pm

Can you post a screen of your running processes?
Be sure to check the Show processes from all users box.

I'm really curious as to where all that ram is being used.

Aslanna · Post by **Aslanna** » July 11, 2007, 7:29 pm

miir wrote:Can you post a screen of your running processes?
Be sure to check the Show processes from all users box.

I'm really curious as to where all that ram is being used.

Soon as I figure out how. I don't have a server to place things that can be linked to.

Anyway, as far as the disk defragmenting goes, for those who like an app where you can see current defragmentation and defragment at will here is a free utility to do so: http://www.auslogics.com/disk-defrag/ It's pretty small and seems to do the job.

Post by **Xouqoa** » July 12, 2007, 12:31 pm

I reformatted this weekend and put Vista x86 version back on my machine. The performance differences between that and the x64 version is amazing. You'd think the 64-bit version would be better, but it is way slower.

Boogahz · Post by **Boogahz** » July 12, 2007, 12:36 pm

Xouqoa wrote:I reformatted this weekend and put Vista x86 version back on my machine. The performance differences between that and the x64 version is amazing. You'd think the 64-bit version would be better, but it is way slower.

I have a friend that swore the opposite, so I tried it myself when I upgraded last month. I am still trying to figure out what made him think the 64bit version was faster.

miir · Post by **miir** » July 12, 2007, 2:39 pm

Aslanna wrote: Soon as I figure out how. I don't have a server to place things that can be linked to.

Just get a freebie account at photobucket.com

edit: or you might be able to attach a jpeg to a post... testing it here

Mak · Post by **Mak** » July 18, 2007, 1:00 am

Aslanna wrote:I'll help him out:

Retrieve headers for alt.binaries.cd.image. Look for microsoft.windows.xp.professional.corporate.sp2.integrated.may.2007.repack.eth0

Download.

I'm curious- my PC came with XP pre-installed, but no copy of the program itself on disk. Once a year or so I like to wipe my drive and do a fresh install but haven't been able to do so because I don't have the OS. So...

1. Could I use something like you outlined above and use the key code that is on my PC? Does that keep it "legal"?

2. At some point Microsoft installed some sort of verification thing on my PC- I forget what I was installing- a SP or something. Would the use of the above dl'd version trigger that?

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » July 18, 2007, 1:20 am

Mak wrote: 1. Could I use something like you outlined above and use the key code that is on my PC? Does that keep it "legal"?

Yes, all they care about is your product code and that it's the right version of windows. Installing versions with all the service packs and updates included saves a bunch of time.

Zaelath · Post by **Zaelath** » July 18, 2007, 3:11 am

Winnow wrote:
Mak wrote: 1. Could I use something like you outlined above and use the key code that is on my PC? Does that keep it "legal"?

Yes, all they care about is your product code and that it's the right version of windows. Installing versions with all the service packs and updates included saves a bunch of time.

Yeah, except they change the CD-Keys between "releases", so an SP0 key won't work with an SP2 CD, usually. That said, you *should* be able to install with a dodgy SP2 CD key, then change the key to yours when the activation fails, it seems to accept all valid keys at that point.

Normally when you get a pre-installed windows with no CD there's a "recovery partition" or some such on the HDD... which means you have to do a key combo during the BIOS bootup screens to reinstall the system. I'd check for that first.

As an aside, Dell do that with their Vista machines too, but they can't hide the partition so you have this extra "drive" on the machine that just confuses the users. Nice.

Siji · Post by **Siji** » July 19, 2007, 11:32 am

So I decided to give Vista a shot, just because I was bored.. after a month or so of running it, I've decided it's not worth the headaches, slowdowns, lack of drivers/program compatibility and program crashes to keep it.

Seriously.. wtf is the point of running a more bloated OS that offers no additional (useful) functionality or productivity? For Aero? For a nicer looking performance monitor?

I honestly can't think of a single thing that Vista has that I'm going to miss when I reinstall XP, but I can think of a lot of things that I won't miss.

miir · Post by **miir** » July 19, 2007, 12:01 pm

slowdowns, lack of drivers/program compatibility and program crashes

Are all of your applications running slower?
Does it take longer to launch programs, deconde/encode and burn DVDs, do you get noticeably poorer framerates in games?
Do you have a reasonable amount of RAM (2+ gigs)?

What devices do you have that lack Vista drivers?

What programs are you running that have compatibility issues?

What programs are crashing on you?

Not trying to be an ass... I'm just curious because I haven't experienced any issues whatsoever since putting Vista on both of my PCs at home.

Aslanna · Post by **Aslanna** » July 19, 2007, 12:10 pm

Not too pleased with Vista myself. While it's been fairly stable the past 3 days (because I haven't really had time to do much) I basically had some sort of crash everyday before that. Reliability Index was down to 5.50 after only a week.

And honestly I can't see where all the memory is going. 1.74GB in use at the moment with only a handful of applications running. Basically the same apps I used under XP where the usage never went over 1GB. Although I see sidebar taking up 200mb at the moment and 50% CPU. Seems a bit buggy so I shall kill that.

Boogahz · Post by **Boogahz** » July 19, 2007, 12:13 pm

Did you end up going with Vista 64 or 32?

Fash · Post by **Fash** » July 19, 2007, 12:14 pm

miir wrote:I haven't experienced any issues whatsoever since putting Vista on both of my PCs at home.

I call bullshit!

I haven't met one person outside of VV that has had a good experience with Vista, which is absolutely ridiculous for an operating system. Again, there is absolutely ZERO reason to leave XP.... ZERO. Because I know someone will mention it, even DX10 will be hacked to run on XP.

Boogahz · Post by **Boogahz** » July 19, 2007, 12:18 pm

Fash wrote:
miir wrote:I haven't experienced any issues whatsoever since putting Vista on both of my PCs at home.
I call bullshit!

I haven't met one person outside of VV that has had a good experience with Vista, which is absolutely ridiculous for an operating system. Again, there is absolutely ZERO reason to leave XP.... ZERO. Because I know someone will mention it, even DX10 will be hacked to run on XP.

Still no problems with Vista for me! It hasn't crashed even once! I have Vista32 Ultimate installed.

Xatrei · Post by **Xatrei** » July 19, 2007, 12:20 pm

I've been using Vista as my primary Windows desktop since getting a new PC about a month ago. There are things I like about it and some things I don't. Overall I have yet to see any compelling reason to upgrade now, although this will change when DX10 games become prevalent sometime down the road (as Fash mentions, this may or may not even be a compelling reason by that time). If I had upgraded my old box from XP to Vista, I'd be annoyed right now at the lack of real improvement, and having to work through a few headaches. Getting an X Window server to properly run remote X clients has been a pain in the butt, which is a big deal to me. This is more of an issue with the software provider than a Vista issue, but it was still rather annoying. Overall, nothing is bothersome enough that I'd consider downgrading to XP at this point. If you're happy with XP and it's getting the job done for you, there's no huge reason to make the switch.

miir · Post by **miir** » July 19, 2007, 12:24 pm

Fash wrote:I call bullshit!

I haven't met one person outside of VV that has had a good experience with Vista, which is absolutely ridiculous for an operating system. Again, there is absolutely ZERO reason to leave XP.... ZERO. Because I know someone will mention it, even DX10 will be hacked to run on XP.

Yeah... I guess I'm a shill for Microsoft.

I first installed Vista on a brand new machine. I built it myself and got only quality hardware. After running it for a few weeks, I slapped it on my old PC which was overdue for a OS reinstall. XP was running slow and crashing too frequently. I've had no issues with either one.
I don't do much other than internet/email, gaming and watching movies/TV on those PCs.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » July 19, 2007, 1:02 pm

I wouldn't go back to XP.

Only main issue I had with Vista is some 2nd tier games needing tweeking and some older freebie type online games.

Vista is for those buying new computers or upgrading to new systems. It's also for those that have the patience to understand the many small improvements over time and not for those looking for some sort of jaw dropping new feature.

Vista 32 works great for me and I'm pretty demanding on my OS.

I recommend most people stick with XP. My OS is one thing that I don't like to mess around using beta products with, yet I'm happy with Vista. Do what you want. I'm not motivated to stick up for Vista as with some other apps and products. That's not to say that I don't like it. It's that I don't feel like convincing the pessimists on this one!

Post by **Sylvus** » July 19, 2007, 1:21 pm

I've been running Vista as my work machine for about a month now, I haven't had any OS crashes or anything like that. Any program crashes I've had, the reporting of what caused the problem has been much more helpful than anything I saw in XP.

I haven't run into any noticeable performance issues or anything, either.

miir · Post by **miir** » July 19, 2007, 1:23 pm

Any program crashes I've had, the reporting of what caused the problem has been much more helpful than anything I saw in XP.

That's high on my list of 'likes' for Vista.

Xatrei · Post by **Xatrei** » July 19, 2007, 1:34 pm

Ditto

Aslanna · Post by **Aslanna** » July 19, 2007, 1:41 pm

Winnow wrote:That's not to say that I don't like it. It's that I don't feel like convincing the pessimists on this one!

It's not exactly pessimism when it's based on real life experience.

I hadn't really noticed the error reporting being that much more informative. Most of my system crashes lately did not generate any sort of messatge. Everything simply froze up for a couple seconds then the machine rebooted or I had to manually hit the power. I never really had an issue with XP and could run weeks without seeing a single error. So whatever improved error reporting Vista supposedly has it's not a huge consideration to me.

And I went with the 32bit version. I could never get the 64bit version to install.

Boogahz · Post by **Boogahz** » July 19, 2007, 1:44 pm

The only issue I noticed where the system would freeze up on me was the automatic updates. It would actually slow my system down when it would check for an update rather than when it would actually download or install them which was odd.

Fash · Post by **Fash** » July 19, 2007, 2:02 pm

miir wrote: Yeah... I guess I'm a shill for Microsoft.

No more than Winnow is!

Siji · Post by **Siji** » July 19, 2007, 3:44 pm

miir wrote:Are all of your applications running slower?

That would be unrealistic to say yes, and I've never run benchmarks. I can only go by "feel", which while completely non-technical - is really the only thing that matters to me. The slowdowns I was referring to are more OS slowdowns for simple stupid stuff.

miir wrote:Does it take longer to launch programs, deconde/encode and burn DVDs, do you get noticeably poorer framerates in games?

I've never had so many problems with Nero and DVD Rebuilder as I have currently in Vista. I could probably count the number of coasters I made in 2 years of running XP on one hand. In the last week alone I've made at least 7. DVD Rebuilder also seems to take much longer, though I've never benchmarked it so perhaps that's just "feel".

As for games, I don't generally look at my frame rates and honestly I don't play that many anymore since my daughter was born. What has been happening however, is that they'll just crash. Often. Halo 2 (wuwu a Vista only game) took multiple tries to even get installed, and crashes often. GRAW2 seems to run ok and has only crashed once.

miir wrote:Do you have a reasonable amount of RAM (2+ gigs)?

Two gigs, yes.

miir wrote:What devices do you have that lack Vista drivers?

Most recently a USB iRDA adapter, which is rather annoying as my PC doesn't have a serial port and I can't find another way of getting my Polar HRM to xfer data on this PC with Vista installed. You can say that's a niche crowd that would even need such a thing, but that doesn't help me do what I need to do as a user. Browsing through Vista's add hardware process, I didn't even see a single driver, generic or non, for USB iRDA adapters.

miir wrote:What programs are you running that have compatibility issues? What programs are crashing on you?

By program compatibility I more meant program crashes. I worded that badly. I don't use any programs presently that won't run on Vista, or that haven't come out with Vista versions. But several programs crash often, than never used to. BitDefender, AnyDVD, Trillian, etc.. These often crash just while Vista is loading after a reboot. My "feel" is also that it takes longer for programs to load in Vista and that's also annoying. Remote Desktop also seems much slower (and looks like crap) in Vista (using BitVise).

miir wrote:Not trying to be an ass... I'm just curious because I haven't experienced any issues whatsoever since putting Vista on both of my PCs at home.

I didn't take it as you being an ass, and I fully believe that you and probably many people have no issues or none of the ones I have with their installs. But I believe that many do, and I fall back on the whole "whats the point?" issue with Vista. I don't see any increases in stability, I don't see any improvements - minor or not, and while it looks pretty and is a change of pace from ol' XP, personally I don't believe it's worth either the money or the headaches.

* Yes, I could have turned off Aero and things probably would have been a bit faster and such, but that would only give one less reason to run Vista imo.