Alright folks, I took the plunge yesterday (Sunday) and upgraded to Vista Home Premium. I love it. But let tell you about it first.
The Version: Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit
The Computer:
AMD Athlon 64 3200+
nVidia GeForce 6800GS
2GB G.Skill DDR3200 RAM
Creative X-Fi XtremeGamer
Installation
Installation was pretty nice. Only gripes were that when I put the DVD in while running XP, it said it couldn't boot from XP and I had to boot off the CD. No big deal, just a bit strange that it didn't work off the bat. Then, the thing took ages to read the DVD for some reason and start the install process. Once it got going, it took about 30 minutes to install. Despite being at 800x600 or something, the installation was also much more visually pleasing than XP's.
Rating: 8/10
The First Steps
So I log on to Windows Vista. For the first time. It seems a bit slow, but that was probably the start up blues. The sidebar with the gadgets is quite nice. What impressed me the most was that it had drivers pre-installed for BOTH my printer and my network card! No need for D-Link's extra processes, I was connected to XNet (My network... I thought the name up in 6th grade and I've used it for all my networks since then) in a minute (I forgot to input the password the first time). The printer installed seamlessly. Very nice Microsoft, see Apple isn't all that evil . There are a few problems though:
-The User Account Control is a fucking pain in the ass. Unless you're a 10 year old or a 50 year old, you DO NOT NEED THIS GOD DAMNED THING. Let me save you the pains and show you how to turn it off:
-The Welcome Center is a bit annoying, and it doesn't give you a very nice intro of how to navigate through Vista. You should probably untick the "Show Welcome Center at Startup" on the bottom of it.
Rating: 8/10
Drivers
I was lucky enough to get compatible drivers for all of my stuff: Chipset, graphics card, sound card. They work fine so far.
Rating: 10/10
Easy Usage Performance
Despite all the naysaying, Vista's performance isn't that bad. With XFire, Firefox, Trillian, and iTunes open Vista uses only about 45%. It's not terrible. Turning off FF and iTunes and Trillian would bring it down a bit, and it should run games fine.
Rating: 9/10
Games Performance
I have not played any games yet, but I will today
Included Software
The sidebar has some nice things. The weather widget is nice. The new edition of Paint is cool too. The standard games such as Minesweeper, Solitaire, etc have all gotten some nice make overs. It could've included Office Home and Student considering the price, but I'll do fine with the trial edition I have until I find a way to get it for cheaper. I haven't played with Media Center yet, as I use iTunes for music. It does seem pretty sleek though.
Rating: 9/10
Software Support
All the software I've used so far works almost perfectly. XFire has this annoying habit where it resets the size of the windows, and it doesn't start up in the place where I left it. I hope they fix that soon. And of course, iTunes, Trillian, and XFire could be programmed in 64-bit but as long as they work I'm not complaining.
Rating: 9/10, hopefully they'll make more Vista and 64-bit native things soon.
Game Performance
Erm, wow. Where should I start? BF2 is incredibly laggy, running on lower settings than what I used on XP! I have not bothered trying 2142, I'm not going to be surprised if it is also laggy. CS:S performed pretty well. I'm going to try Company of Heroes later this week, since it's Games for Windows certified. Whether this is caused by crappy drivers or simply bad compatibility remains to be seen, but hopefully it's the drivers.
Rating: 6/10
Overall
I'm impressed. People acted like this was the end of the world, that Vista was Satan's own doing, and that George Bush collaborated with Microsoft in the development of Vista. WRONG! It's a great OS so far. Sure there are kinks here and there that might need to be worked out, and software developers need to get Vista and 64-bit native things out soon. If you can get your drivers for hardware, it's fine. Vista comes with lots of drivers pre-installed, but I'd download the latest compatible version just in case. You really only need chipset, graphics, and sound card drivers. For all the doomsaying that people gave it, I'm impressed. HOWEVER, games that are not certified for Vista will probably be laggy until drivers are better coded drivers are released.
Rating: 8/10
Final Verdict
As I said, if you can get drivers for your hardware, I say go for it. It's a beautiful OS, nice functionality, lots of drivers right out of the box. Sure it could come with free Office 2007, but oh well. Games are a bitch right now, but if you don't mind playing Half Life 2 then it's not too bad.
Screenshots
I'll satiate you all with some screenies of it (Note: chances are that Imageshack will resize a lot of the images):
Xfire opened, desktop and sidebar shot:
Live window preview:
Flip 3D:
IE7 and Firefox side-by-side, not maximized to show off Glass effect (Click for full-size):
Firefox maximized, with IE7 skin (I like IE7's look, but not its overall layout and function. No bookmarks bar??), click for full size:
New Aero shell:
New Picture Viewer, with some basic editing options including cropping. Featuring my dog:
The Version: Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit
The Computer:
AMD Athlon 64 3200+
nVidia GeForce 6800GS
2GB G.Skill DDR3200 RAM
Creative X-Fi XtremeGamer
Installation
Installation was pretty nice. Only gripes were that when I put the DVD in while running XP, it said it couldn't boot from XP and I had to boot off the CD. No big deal, just a bit strange that it didn't work off the bat. Then, the thing took ages to read the DVD for some reason and start the install process. Once it got going, it took about 30 minutes to install. Despite being at 800x600 or something, the installation was also much more visually pleasing than XP's.
Rating: 8/10
The First Steps
So I log on to Windows Vista. For the first time. It seems a bit slow, but that was probably the start up blues. The sidebar with the gadgets is quite nice. What impressed me the most was that it had drivers pre-installed for BOTH my printer and my network card! No need for D-Link's extra processes, I was connected to XNet (My network... I thought the name up in 6th grade and I've used it for all my networks since then) in a minute (I forgot to input the password the first time). The printer installed seamlessly. Very nice Microsoft, see Apple isn't all that evil . There are a few problems though:
-The User Account Control is a fucking pain in the ass. Unless you're a 10 year old or a 50 year old, you DO NOT NEED THIS GOD DAMNED THING. Let me save you the pains and show you how to turn it off:
-The Welcome Center is a bit annoying, and it doesn't give you a very nice intro of how to navigate through Vista. You should probably untick the "Show Welcome Center at Startup" on the bottom of it.
Rating: 8/10
Drivers
I was lucky enough to get compatible drivers for all of my stuff: Chipset, graphics card, sound card. They work fine so far.
Rating: 10/10
Easy Usage Performance
Despite all the naysaying, Vista's performance isn't that bad. With XFire, Firefox, Trillian, and iTunes open Vista uses only about 45%. It's not terrible. Turning off FF and iTunes and Trillian would bring it down a bit, and it should run games fine.
Rating: 9/10
Games Performance
I have not played any games yet, but I will today
Included Software
The sidebar has some nice things. The weather widget is nice. The new edition of Paint is cool too. The standard games such as Minesweeper, Solitaire, etc have all gotten some nice make overs. It could've included Office Home and Student considering the price, but I'll do fine with the trial edition I have until I find a way to get it for cheaper. I haven't played with Media Center yet, as I use iTunes for music. It does seem pretty sleek though.
Rating: 9/10
Software Support
All the software I've used so far works almost perfectly. XFire has this annoying habit where it resets the size of the windows, and it doesn't start up in the place where I left it. I hope they fix that soon. And of course, iTunes, Trillian, and XFire could be programmed in 64-bit but as long as they work I'm not complaining.
Rating: 9/10, hopefully they'll make more Vista and 64-bit native things soon.
Game Performance
Erm, wow. Where should I start? BF2 is incredibly laggy, running on lower settings than what I used on XP! I have not bothered trying 2142, I'm not going to be surprised if it is also laggy. CS:S performed pretty well. I'm going to try Company of Heroes later this week, since it's Games for Windows certified. Whether this is caused by crappy drivers or simply bad compatibility remains to be seen, but hopefully it's the drivers.
Rating: 6/10
Overall
I'm impressed. People acted like this was the end of the world, that Vista was Satan's own doing, and that George Bush collaborated with Microsoft in the development of Vista. WRONG! It's a great OS so far. Sure there are kinks here and there that might need to be worked out, and software developers need to get Vista and 64-bit native things out soon. If you can get your drivers for hardware, it's fine. Vista comes with lots of drivers pre-installed, but I'd download the latest compatible version just in case. You really only need chipset, graphics, and sound card drivers. For all the doomsaying that people gave it, I'm impressed. HOWEVER, games that are not certified for Vista will probably be laggy until drivers are better coded drivers are released.
Rating: 8/10
Final Verdict
As I said, if you can get drivers for your hardware, I say go for it. It's a beautiful OS, nice functionality, lots of drivers right out of the box. Sure it could come with free Office 2007, but oh well. Games are a bitch right now, but if you don't mind playing Half Life 2 then it's not too bad.
Screenshots
I'll satiate you all with some screenies of it (Note: chances are that Imageshack will resize a lot of the images):
Xfire opened, desktop and sidebar shot:
Live window preview:
Flip 3D:
IE7 and Firefox side-by-side, not maximized to show off Glass effect (Click for full-size):
Firefox maximized, with IE7 skin (I like IE7's look, but not its overall layout and function. No bookmarks bar??), click for full size:
New Aero shell:
New Picture Viewer, with some basic editing options including cropping. Featuring my dog:
Last edited by Hurricane (2007-02-26 17:18:01)