Thread: Windows Vista RC1

I have taken the not so wise move of installing RC1 on my laptop which I use quite heavily during the working week.... now, I didn't bother to actually use Beta 2 in a 'working scenario' but just played with it on the odd occassion on some hardware lying around.

However, I decided to give it a go today to see whats its like. So far, its been okay but nothing amazing and worth shouting about. Few issues with things like Outlook and the odd drivers but its been quite sound so far.

Just thought I would ask out of interest, has any of you guys taken the plunge and started to use it in a more realistic environment.

What are your thoughts?

P

14 Day expiry means != Heavily Used Laptop

First OS since Windows 3.11 that I've not been active on the Beta Team... I'll wait for it to Launch, then upgrade to a New XPS Laptop to see the full benefits... certainly wont be upgrade installing...

Am half looking forward to it.. Bored of XP now.

J

I've not made the switch on my main laptop yet as I really need to know it definatly works when I open the lid on the datafloor, and i've yet to get that trust in Vista. It can still throw a funny every now and again.

My spare laptop has been running Windows Vista since the original Longhorn builds in May 2004, back when it was an obsolute nightmare. There was no support for my 1400x1050 screen without modding the drivers, no SATA support, a very messy UI and to be frank, it remained dog slow.

Things got progressivly worce until build 5231 when it became usable... the UI became cleaner and a decent array of hardware (still no sata) started to become supported... but unfortunatly it was all downhill from there, plagued with performance issues. Beta2 was usuable again, but very very slow - I didn't believe they'd ever finish the OS at this point, and started to loose hope, but the Pre-RC build 5536 of August this year shed new light.. near RC1 standard.

RC1 came along 1st September 2006. This now supports my SATA cards in my main desktop PC, so i've taken the plunge. I now use Vista RC1 and Office 2007 on a daily basis on my desktop. General applications now run faster than they used to on XP, on the same hardware, and some of the new Vista features are a dream.

Its still got faults, but its still a release candidate - so hopefully they'll be ironed out. One final warning, don't bother with the 64bit yet, it just doesn't work, full stop.

Anybody had a play with Longhorn Server yet... now thats a totally different ball game.

Originally Posted by SynergyWorks

One final warning, don't bother with the 64bit yet, it just doesn't work, full stop.

I came to the same conclusion with 2003 64bit... personally there were just too many bit of software that i use that simply wouldn't work, so it just doesn't seem worth the hassle. Maybe i'll try it again in a years time or so.

To get the OS installed was a nightmare. XP 64bit was easy to install, yes most of my common applications didn't work - but Vista 64Bit was entirely different.

Each time I tried to make any change in the disk manager part of setup, ie create a partition, format a partition (etc) it'd bluescreen... I believe the operation was being performed, so with persistance I could have installed it, but by the 4th BSOD during setup & lots of huge 'hangs' I lost the will to install it.

Problem with XP x64 and 2k3 64bit is that they came along to late in the day, no one was ever seriously going to support them with Vista coming along in the not to distant future, just not worth the effort. Vista 64bit will be properly supported IMHO.

Originally Posted by deastwood

have been playing around with office 2007, when you use it for financial tasks it works really well, makes things a lot simpler (excel) as for vista i still find it to slow to use all the time.

Im suprised, although I suppose it depends on your hardware. Im using Vista as we speak to write this post and do use it on a daily basis.

What 'rating' has Vista given your hardware overall ?

Office is certainly better, yes - Well, apart from the new version of Access, I do find that awkward to use.

Vista, if your using something like Beta2, it was dog slow. They've also changed the way the hardware rating works since they recieved a large number of complains from the OEMs. Build 5536 and indeed RC1 are very useable, and in some cases (launching applications) it runs faster than XP.