How reliable is Vista?

I know it wasnt so great when i came out, has all the bugs/glitches or what not been fixed? Or should i just stick with XP when i get my new laptop?

 

For gaming,i think XP is still better.

In short depends on what you want.

 

I have never had a problem with Vista.

 

Video drivers have crashed on my HP about 10 times during my one year of ownership. I have never encountered a BSOD caused by Windows itself. So, to answer your question, Vista is really solid. People get reliability problems when they install software of questionable quality and origin.

 

No problems with vista here neither.

 

vista is fine, i will say however that games will have a higher fps in xp that in vista. If you laptop runs xp well (performance wise) vista should be ok, although i almost guarantee it will be slower.

 

Vista Runs Fine for me and never seen any performance lag in Gaming though maybe its because that i never compared it with xp

 

vista is fine now
people that are complaining has a garbage computer(1gb of less of ram, single core cpu, old craphics card and try to run aero,etc)

i love vista and but i wouldnt mind to switch to xp if it had dx10
my advice to you is get vista home premuim or above

 

That's how I see it as well. For general computing first and gaming second then Vista is ok. I have way too many PC games that run like crap on Vista but are flawless on XP.

 

Orly I have a E6750, 4GB Ram, 512 MB video card, 1TB of HDD space. As I previously stated for general computing Vista is fine, when you want performance out of your games VistaSP1 still under performs when compared to XP.

 

For Me Vista Is Great

 

Vista business and no issues so far.

 

suprisingly, Vista is a lot more stable on my Notebook than Xp, it seems like xp crashes and freezes on me alot more

and games seem better on Vista, graphics wise because of the Dx10, the only reason i cant keep my Vista, is because i have a Music Editing Program, Protools that isnt compatible with Vista Home Premium

 

After some tweaking I just love Vista. Too bad my older games don't work on it ...

 

Stick with XP. At least you are then assured to have a stable, proven OS so you can work with confidence.

If your computer is not that valuable to your income, then play around with Vista by all means. It looks so beautiful afterall.

Cheers,
Theo

 

Vista is beyond XP now, imo.

 

I do some gaming, not much mostly b/c my desktop is kinda old, so most games suck on it, if anything vista will be faster as long as all my older games will work on it, not holding my breath though. I mostly surf the web though, and am also a college student.

Here is what I will be getting, its a Dell Inspiron 1720

Intel Core 2 Duo T8300(2.4GHz, 800Mhz, 3M L2 Cache
4GB, DDR2, 667MHz 2 Dimm
Anti-glare, widescreen 17.0 inch display (1440 x 900)
256MB NVIDIA GeForce Go 8600
320G 5400RPM SAMSUNG Hard Drive
DELL RESOURCE DVD,BACK-UP,INSP1720
Media Direct 3.5
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium Edition, English
Integrated 10/100 Network Cardand Modem, for Inspiron
ADOBE ACROBAT READER 8.1 DIM/INSP
8X DVD+/-RW Dual Layer Drive
Roxio Creator DE 10
Integrated Sound Blaster Audigy
Microsoft Works 9.0, English For Inspiron

 

Why not a XPS1530? faster and more portable.
Vista is improving, SP1 made a huge difference...

 

Money and a screen size.

 

Vista itself is just about stable but the whole Aero GUI feels like it was just tacked on as an afterthought and falls away whenever there is any sort of glitch. Resource usage is through the roof as well, using nearly 1 gig of RAM idle.

The problem is that it lacks any real advantage over XP: DX10 is all fine and well but there is little noticeable difference in quality and it gives poorer performance, everything else is basically eye-candy.

 

Vista is more secure than XP, so why do you see that there is not a real advantage?

 

Argh!!!!! another vista vs xp thread.

 

The only noticeable security feature I have seen in Vista is the incredibly annoying "Are you really really really sure you want to run this program?" UAC. Yes, there is a lot of technical behind-the scenes improvements that they claim to have made but I never had a virus in XP and I've never had one in Vista. I run anti-virus software in both, from a consumes point of view: Where's the difference?

 

i agree and the only real reason i am running vista is because i love the theme and aero too much

 

Hi.

I have had a number of BSOD with Vista64, and all of my driver are Vista installed, apart for the NVIDIA which is a Vista64 approved version.

I was downloading a torrent and playing BF2142, and my computer just re-booted itself.

Every time i run crucial memory scanner, my system re-boots, I have reported this to Crucial.

And it has happened another couple of times as well.

I have done a number of formats and re-installs of Vista64 but it`s no Good.

I get a .5 second blue screen and that`s it, not even time to take a photo.

My memory is brand new, and i have done a number of tests with memtest+ 2.01 and vista memory test and i get no errors.

When i was using Vista32, I did not have this problem.

Regards

John.

 

Well, what can you really say? UAC was designed to annoy users as much as possible and that goal in mind it success more than better. There is even some sick purpose behind the annoyance. They want to force software developers to make their software so that they have custom made setting storage systems (eg. no registry for the programs), can't write anywhere except at some user spesific folder and generally speaking stink all over. All that in name of security.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080411-vistas-uac-security-prompt-was-designed-to-annoy-you.html

 

You can actually remove the UAC if you want.

 

Why don't you go back to XP?

 

You don't need photos for that. It creates a memory dump and then reboots. Now go here and download free tools to examine the memory dump file itself. That way you get quite good details at who actually caused the BSOD and was it in conflict with another driver/program.

You will need to download two things from the link:
1) symbols for your OS
2) the debugger

 

Hi.

thanks, I will give it a try.

Regards

John.

EDIT : I think it`s a bit beyond me.

 

UAC isn't the "Are you really really really sure you want to run this program?" BS you're claiming. Some interesting reading:

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=436

 

Yea, my first experience with UAC was with Real VNC service mode server. I don't know if it is already fixed or changed, but back then it gave warning at every startup and if you accidently clicked wrong place: it deleted some of the program files. I mean it actually gave a option to remove the "dangerous" parts. Hell, I was never able to get it work fully so that machine doesn't include VNC even today. Perhaps those commercial versions which are newer would work better, but I haven't tried.

Anyway, I would gladly take the points 3 and 4 to use and tolerate point 2 if implemented with "remember this" option. And point 1 is more or less like beliving to santa-claus: viruses and such can still operate with your own work files. Those same files that make your computer files so valuable in the first place. And administrator isn't going to be out-of-business because users are very effective at screwing their own settings. Many don't even read dialogs programs throw, they just click OK or YES or what ever button at the region they know will continue. However, point 1 is probably closer to reality now than ever before with Windows. Even while they have had guest/user accounts for decades now. And still, what use that point 1 is for single-user computer?

 

Vista has gotten better. It now copies files properly (something I think operating systems mostly got working in the 70s) and it doesn't lose its brain quite so often. Of course the most secure, stable OS ever still seems to get patched all the time. And it's still filled with timesinks, such as the constant messages. ("Vista is unable to find a network. Vista is diagnosing your connection. Vista is repairing your connection. Vista was unable to repair your connection. Vista is unable to find a network.") It's like they've built a long-winded Abort, Retry or Fail into every aspect of the OS now.

I'd probably be more willing to deal with it if it did something better than XP but I'm still looking. I think it's prettier. That is about it.

I've been using Windows versions and editions since 1.0 was little more than an API for Calc and Excel, moving to them on launch day and never looking back, and this is the first version that I've consciously had to decide to roll back to a previous version (XP). I don't know what Microsoft was thinking here. XP was buggy and problematic on launch, too, but at least I could see the promise it held. Vista strikes me as having been little more than Microsoft's excuse to keep thousands of developers employed and busy for a few years, and I am disappointed because XP turned out to be so good.

It sure takes some talent to turn a rabid Windows nut like me into a Mac Pro / iPhone owner in the space is 12 months. I really hope they are able to find their way and inject some clarity, sanity and creativity into the next Windows release.

 

I'm still having problems with copying, cutting and pasting groups of files. Sometimes it moves them over and other times it leaves files behind. So it requires I go back and move the rest over again.

 

Before SP1, I was getting some BSODs, and even when I wasn't, it seemed to be almost constantly accessing the disk. With SP1, these problems both went away for me. Also, you need to make sure to use up-to-date drivers.

The only reliability problem I'm having now is that once in a while it will fail to resume from sleep or hibernate, and I'll just see a blank screen. Sometimes I can sleep it and wake it again to fix it, but other times I need to reboot it. That's the only problem I'm still having with Vista. And it can be avoided of course by not using sleep/hibernate, but... it's still annoying. I wonder if it's some kind of driver issue... I don't know.

 

Vista is cool and worth having.

 

It makes sense in one way, but it is the wrong way to go about it. Why should their customers suffer for the sake of controlling the developers?

True, but you then remove the whole point of having it there in the first place. There should be a "Do not ask me again" option so you don't have to keep accepting the same program again and again.

I run as an administrator so I don't need to be prevented from making changes. Security is mostly common sense, a user lacking that is just as likely to click through 3 or 4 dialogue boxes as they are 2. More importantly, having just gone through: Start -> All Programs -> [Program Folder] -> [Program Name] it should be assumed that I do, in fact, wish the run that program!

 

Agreed. I am very happy with it, especially with SP1.

 

That is why it was a sick reason behind scenes.

 

Yes, I think Windows has become so ubiquitous that Microsoft have actually forgotten that we are customers rather than software testers.

 

Software testers are at one point "customers".

 

I am referring more to internal software testers (Assuming Microsoft do, in fact, actually test their software). I paid for the latest stable OS, not a beta, I also did not pay to be used as leverage.

 

When I got my new Dell D820 with Vista exactly a year ago, I reformatted for XP Pro after only a week of using it. I loaded Vista Business with SP1 on a rebuilt gaming machine two weeks ago and it was a much more pleasant experience such as faster bootup and smoother operation. Problems with XP compatible games arose, and running the games in Administrator and Compatibility modes did not solve the problem, so I am going back to XP Pro even though I have a great gaming rig with lots of horsepower. Vista does seem much more reliable and easier to use for business and newer games as ATI drivers have improved a lot. After I get my gaming PC set up with XP Pro, I am going to reformat my Dell D820 notebook and install Vista Business as I do not game on that PC. My opinion is that XP is for users who are looking back to the past, and Vista is for those who are looking to the future with current and future games and applications. I'm looking both ways

 

vista faster boot up ? i seriously doubt that

 

Truthfully, there will ALWAYS be bugs and glitches in any operating system. If you are wondering whether the software you buy will be compatible with Vista, the answer is yes. Vista has been out for almost a year and that has allowed developers to squash out the initial bugs of moving to a new operating system.

Should you stick with XP? While it has been around longer and thus been more mature, it IS based on older technology. Vista is far more secure from malware and viruses than XP. Vista is also more stable in dealing with misbehaving applications. Will you notice all these differences overall?

Unless you have setup a process to tally the overall gains and loses from using one operating system over another, then no, you will not notice the huge differences. I think you'll appreciate Vista after a year of use.

 

Still haven't got a random BSOD with vista.

 

Same here, I have vista for about 8 months, and I have gotten perhaps at most 3 BOSD because fouling around, but not because OS instability.

 

Vista for about 10 months here, I did a little bit of fooling around and never a BSOD. It's been working very well for me. IMO, (most of) the bad press is undeserved.

 

Vista is just another example of how hard it is to shake a bad rep. Here we are months later and a SP to boot, and people are still talking about 'Vista sucks' and other nonsense. The bottom line is that it's a very stable OS now. Compatibility issues are becoming less and less an issue. It only gets better from here.

 

ur right of course although i hope that the next sp will dramatically improve performance like xp sp2/3