Windows Vista: New Vista Computer - no problems
New Vista Computer - no problems
by chaslosh - 7/19/07 4:38 PMI've put off buying my new computer for 6 months due to the posts on this forum. I finally dove in (Alienware Area 51-7500, 2 X 8800 GTX in SLI, 4MB memory, Blue Ray, overclocked processor, plus more)and I couldn't be happier. Downloaded iTunes, no problem. Vista recognized my HP 3310 All-In-One and needed no updater. Installed 5 of my old programs, and Vista immediately notified me of a conflict with Vista, provided a link to the company, and automatically downloaded the Vista update. I'm telling you this OS is beautiful. I can only conclude that upgrading an old computer is risky, but a new one with power is magnificent.
i agree.
by bklynrickel - 7/19/07 5:15 PM In reply to: New Vista Computer - no problems by chasloshi' enjoying vista a lot with no hitches. i was put off for a while because of all the negative comments, but i'm happy i made the choice to go with a new system with vista.
Yep!
by alwayssomething - 7/19/07 6:18 PM In reply to: i agree. by bklynrickelI agree wholeheartedly! It's an awesome system so far. Smooth, fast and sexy.
Early adopter, couldn't be happier
by kjdinoc - 7/20/07 8:49 PM In reply to: New Vista Computer - no problems by chasloshI bought two new HP PC's (one desktop, one laptop) one week after the O/S release and COULDN'T BE HAPPIER with them!
My desktop is Windows Vista Home Premium and I have not experienced any problems with it. My little neices and nephews are here on vacation playing with it and I am very pleased to see it stop them in thier tracks when they try to hit "questionable" websites. The parental controls are pretty cool. I did not experience any compatability issues. Every piece of hardware and software connected and or installed with ZERO problems.
My Laptop that is primarily used for work actually came loaded with Windows 64Bit Ultimate! Again everyhing worked flawlessly with one exception which was 64Bit related (not Vista) but later resolved with a new software release (my Etoken for VPN connection). In 6 months time I've had one BSOD on the laptop and it was due to me installing an incompatible driver. Since then it's been smooth sailing and extremely stable.
When I read about all of these people scrambling to get back to XP I just don't get it. With a little patience I think they would come to like the new O/S.
Couldn't be happier, I agree
by MChigeeng - 7/21/07 3:52 AM In reply to: Early adopter, couldn't be happier by kjdinocI bought a HP PC with Windows Vista Home Premium. IT’S GREAT!! It took a day to explore the system and setup the programs and features I wanted, and disable some programs in the start-up that were using to much of the resources. I’m still finding my way around, but I can shift from the Vista view to the Classic view no problem. I did the “Windows Vista 101” course on Cnet. It gave me more confidence to stay in the Vista view rather then returning to the Classic view and I understood the features better .
I like the speech recognition feature, still learning though. The Snipping Tool is great, so convenient. I love my Sidebar, it’s more versatile the Widget dock.
i forgot to mention....
by bklynrickel - 7/21/07 6:28 AM In reply to: Couldn't be happier, I agree by MChigeenga speedier boot up and shut down with Vista than XP. XP always took a long time to load. also, Vista has a more fluid feel to it overall.
New computer with vista
by taxman - 7/21/07 4:29 PM In reply to: i forgot to mention.... by bklynrickelI have been using Vista on a new computer for 2 months. As soon as I complete one project, I will go back to XP Pro. As far as boot time, I checked it against my other and even with less programs installed on it, it only booted up just a little over 1 sec faster. Yes it does hang and yes it won't always shut down. One thing is better "alt crtl del" does work much better than the others. I use a computer for it's utility, not it's looks. So the beautiful graphics is not a plus to me. Same reasons I sold my Mac. To me vista is ME2. Those who like it I am glad. Please no flames, as I am not to change my mind.
sorry about the taxman's negative experience.
by bklynrickel - 7/21/07 4:55 PM In reply to: i forgot to mention.... by bklynrickelbut i stand by my speedier boot time with Vista, although it could have something to do with my new processor too...hum. regardless, it's faster. i used to be able to boil an egg waiting for XP (on a single core processor) and my virus program (avast - which continues to be my virus program with vista) to load.
taxmam maybe...well, never mind.:)
Very Few Problems
by retexan599 - 7/21/07 4:27 PM In reply to: New Vista Computer - no problems by chasloshI really like Vista on my new HP Pavilion desktop. I made sure I bought plenty of RAM (2 GB)and a good fast procesor (Core2 Duo E6420) and a fast hard drive. Also treated myself to a 22 inch LCD monitor to see these pretty screens. Easy Transfer brought most of my stuff over from my old XP machine with little problem. I did have a problem learning how to get the Vista machine to sleep and wake up properly; also had to learn about Backup, Restore, Recovery, Shadow Copy, etc. which took some time. I eventually bought an external hard drive to be my Backup location, well worth the small cost. Also switched to Office 2007 and very happy I did; the new interface is easily learned and quite facile.
Still learning the ins and outs of the new Search facility(s), but on the whole, it is very powerful.
Norton Internet Security 2007 gives me a bit of trouble sometimes freezing during Live Update. IE7 is much better than IE6, I like the tabbed browsing a lot.
I try to keep computer systems for about five years before upgrading, and now well set for the next five years.
Acer MT500A good deal
by reilly_nc - 7/21/07 4:58 PM In reply to: New Vista Computer - no problems by chasloshI got a good deal on an Acer MT500A at Best Buy, a computer package for $599, which includes Vista Home Premium, 2GB of memory and a 320GB hard drive, Dual-core AMD 4400+ processor..they were out of the 19" widescreen monitors, so Best Buy threw in a 22" Westinghouse monitor to take its place, plus an all-in-one printer.
I added a Hauppaugue WinTV USB2 TV tuner from CompUSA so I could take advantage of Windows Media Center. That made the total investment around $750. The WinTV application is great, although for some reason I can't get any audio from the FM radio.
I strongly recommend getting Acronis True Image version 10.0 to backup images in case you mess something up while you are experimenting with Vista. I've had to use Acronis True Image once or twice so far to restore a previous image...at one point I wasn't getting any sound from the sound card.
A few programs from my older PC's do not work with Vista, including Microsoft Works 4.0 (I like this version of Works better than the newer versions) and Super MP3 Recorder (from Admire Soft). Microsoft Office 2003 works with it, as does Microsoft Money 2001 (I like Microsoft Money 2001 better than the newer versions.)
It can see my Windows XP and ME computer, although my ME computer cannot network with Vista. My Vista computer cannot connect to my older Epson printer which is attached to the older ME computer (I like that older Epson printer as it is not an ink hog, like some newer printers.) But I am able to easlily move things to my ME and XP computers from Vista if I ever need to print something.
But overall, I am very pleased.
Acer mouse problem
by reilly_nc - 7/21/07 5:15 PM In reply to: Acer MT500A good deal by reilly_ncI might add that I had a problem with a "jumpy" Acer mouse, where the pointer would be "all over the place". I replaced it with a Logitech LX3 mouse...the Logitech mouse is working great.
One positive, but I'll be honest about the negatives.
by QuadFather - 7/26/07 10:45 AM In reply to: New Vista Computer - no problems by chasloshWell no wonder you love Vista so much: you bought a mega computer that can handle it! Granted, I find it curious that your experience with 4MEGA Bytes is superior to my experience with 2GIGA Bytes, but I guess the SLI somehow makes up for this ... ? lol. Ok, seriously: My first experiences with Vista were not positive at all - and I do still hate and loathe some things about the OS. But I'm starting to think that my original problems with the OS were due to crappy HP drivers, not so much Vista. For example, I frequently got the BSOD on my recent HP laptops running Vista. (yes, plural. don't ask. just know that i've got experience.) When I first got my HP laptop, the bootup and shut-down were both INCREDIBLY slow! This was a shocker, since my old laptop running XP was blazingly fast on startup and shutdown. Just to test things out, I installed XP on the laptop, and presto magico: The blazingly fast startups and shutdowns returned. So I COMPLETELY disagree that Vista startup and shutdown is faster than XP ... My experience has been completely opposite when testing both OSs on the same system. And my laptop is not slow: 2GB memory and AMD Turion X2 TL-60 2.0 GHz (was the fastest available a month or two ago), NVidia 6150. The gpu isn't the greatest, but it is by no means bad - certainly, it ought to be good enough to smoothly run simple tasks. But Vista is too bulky to allow that! And it doesn't give you the option to revert to the XP style - only the mind-numbing 98 style. Bah!
But I recently built (and am continually building upon) a gaming powerhouse, and I have to say: Vista is a whole different experience when running on a computer that can actually handle it. I can actually *enjoy* looking around rather than dealing with an underlying frustration with lag. And it's nice. There are, however, several things that still bother me to no end that are inherent to the system: (1) I cannot for the life of me understand why the new start menu with a scroll bar is an improvemnt. I like to see EVERYTHING, not peer through a keyhole. (2) The intrusion of the security features is infuriating. It actually asked for my permission to copy text to the clipboard!!! I kid you not. (3) Networking harddrives is unreasonably difficult. (4) If you read forums much, especially forums for mice, you'll find that the jumpy-mouse problem is a *very* common problem. I was lucky enough to resolve the issue by unplugging then re-plugging in my mouse receiver. So ... Those are some things that I really loathe about this OS, and some things that are just irritating.
However, here is the *positive* thing that I have to say about Vista: I LOVE the Media Center! It is the most amazing media-managing program i've ever seen/heard of. It's incredible for watching television and browsing pictures, videos, and everything else. It's fantastic. And when I combined it with the incredible HP remote and tv tuner (that I had to buy a pci-to-express-card adapter for), the experience is just ... beautiful. And now that I've fulfilled my duties to this topic, I should also mention a third con: It is INFURIATINGLY difficult to adjust the resolution of the full-screen MediaCenter when it's on an external display! I often have to exit the program and start it back up ... Sometimes, the issue doesn't get resolved at all, and the picture just gets cut off around the edges and I learn to live with it. All because it's basically impossible to figure out how to adjust the resolution from inside the program ... And no, adjusting the resolution of the display via the display settings doesn't do squat because MediaCenter re-sets the resolution when you put it on full-screen. It makes my blood boil!
So ... Vista is bad on an average system. It's fair of a mega-system, but even then there are things that will turn your stomach.
My question for the original poster: What kind of power supply did your Alienware come with?
If anybody can help me with the MediaCenter resolution problem, I'd seriously appreciate it.
1000 watts
by chaslosh - 7/26/07 2:06 PM In reply to: One positive, but I'll be honest about the negatives. by QuadFatherSorry about the MEG/GIG memory lapse (no pun intended). The Alienware comes with 1000 watt power supply which is required when you choose the 2 X 8800GTX/SLI, as is liquid cooling. Some have commented about the slow boot, not me. After pushing in the "Alien" power button, I get full screen in about 10 seconds. I guess I'm helped by the WD Raptor 10,000 rpm system drive.
Nice
by QuadFather - 7/27/07 10:17 AM In reply to: 1000 watts by chasloshYeah, 10,000 ought to do it. Now with that 1000 watt psu, are you running dual processors? You think 1000 watts would be enough for dual processors as well as sli? How about dual *quad core* processors and 8800GTX sli? (i'm thinking of the future here)
I'm just asking cause I've been trying to figure out an adequate power supply for my system whenever i upgrade it (though it's brand new right now), and I'm concerned that more powerful power supplies might be too big for my case. And God knows how much power I'll need for microsoft's up-and-coming "Windows 7"! Heh.
Here's what I got...
by chaslosh - 7/27/07 11:14 AM In reply to: Nice by QuadFatherI no computer geek, just did a lot of homework reading mags and this forum. I'm no gamer, but I wanter rig that would last 5 years without becoming a problem, wanted top graphics capability, and wanted speed.
This rig has the Dual Core 2 Duo Extreme QX6700 overclocked to 3.2 GHZ. I'm going to try my damndest to keep junk off it so it doesn't slow down over time. I got the Raptor system drive ONLY FOR PROGRAMS, and an additional 500 GB drive for data. I was going to get a external hd for backup, but the Blue Ray disk holds so much data, who needs one? I know this rig was expensive ($7200) but I figure I got upscale assembly and stuff that will last a couple of years longer than a less expensive computer, evening out the price.
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