I'm running RC2 here. It's pretty nice, but I've been having some video card issues a while back. Seems to be okay, though.

Guess I should head out to OfficeMax and grab a copy soon...

Got my copy of Vista last night at 10 P.M. EST. Nothing special, really. It's slick but I don't think people are going to adopt it too fast. It's nothing revolutionary as was the transition from Windows 2000 to XP, 98 to 2000, 95 to 98, etc.

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they say its windows getting closer to mac, do u guys agree with that??

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Yep. Have you seen just how much Windows stole from Mac? The list starts with the mouse. Then it goes on to Widgets, desktop search bar, and basically the entire GUI. Then the list goes on and on, then stops because I eat paper.

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>.< sigh, if anyone out there has NOT upgraded to vista, please do me a favor.


1. Read this, A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection by Peter Gutmann of Department of Computer Science at the University of Auckland in Auckland, New Zealand.

2. If your changing for the graphics, please look here, XGL Desktop for linux (using beryl to astound). It works for ALL linux operating systems, and this video was taken on a computer with 512 MB of ram and a 2.0 Ghz processor. *sigh*.

Oh, and on a side note, they have created a WIN32 installer for Debian, meaning you can install a dual boot system from windows with a few clicks, and have two OS's. You can see it here, and read about it here.

3. If you ARE going to upgrade, DO NOT FORMAT. Vista will NOT upgrade on a partitioned drive, even with a valid key (A stark change from every other operating system they have released, and a nightmare for those of us who fix computers). Read about this here.

4. I you still want vista, have at least 2 GB of ram, a new video card from NVIDIA (They worked closely with XP MCE, and since vista includes components of mce, you might wanna save yourself a lot of problems), at least a 40 GB hard drive (Preferably 80), and you should probably get an Intel Core Duo processor. You can see benchmarks of the pro duo here and here. (INTEL is faster because they run 32 bit and emulate 64 bit, while AMD runs 64 bit and emulates 32 bit processing. Since 98% of all software etc is 32 bit, AMD has issues.)

5. Not that I suggest it, but here is a story about a Security resercher cracking Vista DRM. So all that junk still doesn't protect you, or the media that the OS was built for.


Look guys, I am not going to really get into bashing or anything like that. Just please hold off until vista gets the bugs worked out of it...

OH, one more thing. DO NOT INSTALL THIS ON A LAP TOP. On a laptop, your resources are precious, and this thing EATS battery life. Also, try to find different drivers for going into sleep mode, as they are rumored as causing problems (see here)


I feel there is much more I should say, but I can't think of it right now.

Please, PLEASE hold off on this... I feel like everyone is upgrading their PSP's to 3.10, and I can't stop them...

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Install osx on your PC
www.osx86project.org

Or waste shedloads of money buying vista.

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Ive done near enough the opposite of everything youve said. Ive installed Vista on a laptop, with a AMD Turion64 CPU 2.0GHz (Single Core), only 1GB of RAM, 128MB of which is used for graphics.

More details of my machine here

The Aero Glass works perfectly. I got my copy from MSDN so cost doesnt affect me. Battery power isnt a problem as i use it next to a power socket so i can plug it in whenever it gets low.


Ive seen screenshots of Linux with XGL but which version of linux is the best to go for? Im dual booting Vista and Win XP MCE 2005 (Pile of bluescreening cr@p). Most of the distros ive looked at come with loads of software that i know i wont be using. All im after is a distro that has Firefox, openoffice and security features and can run the XGL.

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If you don't want a lot of crud, you might wanna consider DSL.

Damn Small Linux is only 50 MB, has 3 browsers, text editors, games, etc. Has a lot of stuff.

<link to DSL here>

And for the record, I SUGGEST 2 GB of ram, because I have 1.5 GB of DDR2 Ram on my XP MCE computer, and even stripping everything off and optimizing the rest, its hard to keep my ram usage low enough. On the other hand, I do like to multiask.

Also, I stand by my statements. Vista *DOES* eat battery life, it *DOES* help to have 2 GB of ram, and Intel's Core Duo *is* nice. The hard drive thing is optional, but since your supposed to have 15GB free (I have XP, all patches, with Openoffice, aston, etc under 10GB) just for the OS, I figured why not error on the side of space?

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Alot of that information is incorrect!

I only have 1gb of ram but Vista is running a lot quicker than my newish win xp install!

I've used the RC2 Version and i've been using the RTM version of Vista Ultimate for the last week

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