My experience with Vista on my new laptop...

Ye' old general discussion board. Basically, for everything that isn't covered elsewhere. Come here to shoot the breeze, shoot your mouth off, or whatever suits your fancy.
This forum is not for asking programming related questions.

Moderator: General Moderators

User avatar
AKA Panama Jack
Forum Regular
Posts: 878
Joined: Mon Nov 14, 2005 4:21 pm

My experience with Vista on my new laptop...

Post by AKA Panama Jack »

Well, I bought a new dual core laptop last week and it came with Vista Home Premium installed. If you want a laugh read about my experience and what my final solution was.

Nightmare on Vista

Until you have experienced it you can't understand it. :madblow:
User avatar
shiznatix
DevNet Master
Posts: 2745
Joined: Tue Dec 28, 2004 5:57 pm
Location: Tallinn, Estonia
Contact:

Post by shiznatix »

Wow I thought I had a bad experience with vista. whew, buddy sorry to hear that. Why keep with Windows after that one? Go with Linux for gosh sakes.

My experience at work with vista has been quite painful as well. 2 computers crashed within a month and multiple BSoD for absolutely no reason. I was able to use the vista partition manager to cut my HD in half and install Ubuntu and now I don't ever shut my computer down or anything so no worries.

Take is from the Pajama and take it from me, do not switch to vista yet (if ever). Far far far too many bugs are still waiting to ruin your day without warning and without any real way to repair them.
Charles256
DevNet Resident
Posts: 1375
Joined: Fri Sep 16, 2005 9:06 pm

Post by Charles256 »

Works great over here. Sorry to hear you had problems.
User avatar
The Phoenix
Forum Contributor
Posts: 294
Joined: Fri Oct 06, 2006 8:12 pm

Post by The Phoenix »

I haven't experienced Vista yet, but it sounds horrifying. I decided at the launch of XP that I wouldn't upgrade any further on the windows side, and have been exploring various Linux distributions. But recently, I got a Mac Book, and wrote about that experience:

My experiences with Mac OSX.

In summary, I can't understand anyone choosing Windows as a Desktop system any more. Mac OS X is just that good.

Sorry for the troubles in Vista, AKAPJ. Of course, I'm not a fan of XP either, so I couldn't relate to your joy at the end. :)
User avatar
Benjamin
Site Administrator
Posts: 6935
Joined: Sun May 19, 2002 10:24 pm

Post by Benjamin »

I saw an article, I believe on DIGG, stating that releasing Vista has actually increased sales of XP. I can't see myself ever using it. I may end up buying a computer that has it preinstalled, but it won't stay on the disk very long.

It's just a resource intensive ad infested piece of cobbled together bloatware that runs about as well as a lawnmower with a broken sheer pin in my mind.
User avatar
AKA Panama Jack
Forum Regular
Posts: 878
Joined: Mon Nov 14, 2005 4:21 pm

Post by AKA Panama Jack »

Charles256 wrote:Works great over here. Sorry to hear you had problems.
If you have 2-4 gig of ram it probably SEEMS like it works great. Anyone who tells you it works great with only 1 gig of ram is lying through their teeth.

I have to admit that Vista LOOKS pretty but I can make XP look pretty too without the huge hit in CPU and RAM usage.

And I didn't go with Linux because there are some applications I am used to and there aren't equivalents on Linux plus there are a few games I would like to be able to play when I am not working. :)
User avatar
feyd
Neighborhood Spidermoddy
Posts: 31559
Joined: Mon Mar 29, 2004 3:24 pm
Location: Bothell, Washington, USA

Post by feyd »

mmmmac. :)

I'll be playing with my new Mac Pro tomorrow. Bye-bye Windows. :)
User avatar
The Phoenix
Forum Contributor
Posts: 294
Joined: Fri Oct 06, 2006 8:12 pm

Post by The Phoenix »

feyd wrote:mmmmac. :)

I'll be playing with my new Mac Pro tomorrow. Bye-bye Windows. :)
Every game I play is here on the mac, every application I use has an excellent equivalent, and the web browser is wonderful.

Come join the fun. :)
User avatar
John Cartwright
Site Admin
Posts: 11470
Joined: Tue Dec 23, 2003 2:10 am
Location: Toronto
Contact:

Post by John Cartwright »

AKA Panama Jack wrote:If you have 2-4 gig of ram it probably SEEMS like it works great. Anyone who tells you it works great with only 1 gig of ram is lying through their teeth.
I have run Windows Vista Ultimate on a 1.6-1.8ghz (I forget which) Pentium M with 1gb of RAM on my dell laptop for over a year now and have had very few problems with it. While I feel your pain about the other issues, I cannot relate to the speed issues you are having :?
User avatar
AKA Panama Jack
Forum Regular
Posts: 878
Joined: Mon Nov 14, 2005 4:21 pm

Post by AKA Panama Jack »

I have noticed that the Compaq F572US is on sale at a number of electronic chains this week. If anyone has bought one or is thinking about buying one and they would like to change from Vista to XP then I can help in the driver department.

Go to my blog linked above and scroll to the bottom. You will find a link to download all of the needed drivers. It is a large download of around 135 meg.

This is only a zip file of the publicly available drivers from the Compaq/HP website for the XP operating system and that's it. You still need to buy a copy of XP.
User avatar
RobertGonzalez
Site Administrator
Posts: 14293
Joined: Tue Sep 09, 2003 6:04 pm
Location: Fremont, CA, USA

Post by RobertGonzalez »

I hate Windows no end. Sorry to hear about your struggles AKAPJ.
miro_igov
Forum Contributor
Posts: 485
Joined: Fri Mar 31, 2006 5:06 am
Location: Bulgaria

Post by miro_igov »

I have no troubles with Vista Home Premium on Toshiba Satellite A200. It runs very fast and there are about 60% of free ram (1 gig). Maybe your platform makes troubles, i never liked the HP notebooks.
User avatar
AKA Panama Jack
Forum Regular
Posts: 878
Joined: Mon Nov 14, 2005 4:21 pm

Post by AKA Panama Jack »

Nope, it's definitely not the platform. The hardware cannot cause these kinds of problems with memory usage. That is a fault of the software. In this case Windows Vista.

I am running XP Pro on my desktop and laptop with virtually the same programs being loaded upon boot. The amount of memory and swap file space being used is almost the same with the laptop being slightly lower. So that tells me that it definitely is a huge problem with Vista.

I mean, I have Norton's Antivirus along with the latest Zonealarm installed and running on the laptop and still around 250 meg of swap file used and around 400 meg of ram used and that is with the shared video ram set to 128 meg compared to 1000 meg of ram used and 700 meg swap file on Vista. I mean the differences in the amount of memory being used is phenomenal. Running XP Pro uses half the ram and 1/3 of the swap file space compared to Vista Home Premium.

I even went to the local computer stores and checked the other brand of laptops they had on display with Vista Home Premium running and the results were pretty similar. Almost no free ram and high swap file usage. Some laptops can MASK the Vista bloated slowdown by using high speed 7200rpm hard drives. This does make a big difference in perception of speed when loading applications. And you will not find Vista Home Premium on any laptops with less than 1 meg of ram because it will barely run. :) You can find Vista Home Basic on 512 meg laptops but not Premium. That should tell you something right there.

Now I will admit that once an application was loaded things worked well because the swap file wasn't being accessed anymore. But when I tried running multiple applications like my favorite browser and UE Studio things started slowing to a crawl when I had to move between the two application windows. There would always be a nasty delay as memory was moved to the swap file. It was annoyingly unproductive. Having to wait from 1-10 seconds when moving between applications does not make for a productive environment. When I would load up a third or forth application things would get even worse in the delay when switching between apps.

Since I have installed XP Pro I have none of these problems. I can have 4-5 applications running and still have free system ram, far less swap file used and absolutely no delays when switching between application windows.

It's all about how fast can I get work done and Vista Home Premium with 1 gig of ram sacrifices productivity for being pretty and having an ineffective but more intrusive security package. I am sure that I could have cured the problem by adding another gig of ram to the laptop but that is still only MASKING the problem.

And the reason I posted the above information about the driver download is because I have had 2 emails from F572US owners who read my blog and wanted to know what drivers were needed so they could switch from Vista back to XP.
miro_igov
Forum Contributor
Posts: 485
Joined: Fri Mar 31, 2006 5:06 am
Location: Bulgaria

Post by miro_igov »

How then other people with different brands of notebooks (i know many) have no troubles with Vista?
User avatar
Benjamin
Site Administrator
Posts: 6935
Joined: Sun May 19, 2002 10:24 pm

Post by Benjamin »

miro_igov wrote:How then other people with different brands of notebooks (i know many) have no troubles with Vista?
Maybe they don't use the computer.
Post Reply