Customer Reviews

Windows Vista Home Premium with SP1 [OLD VERSION]

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(35)
3 star:		(33)
2 star:		(24)
1 star:		(28)

 

 

Let's get one thing straight right off the bat- I'm not a Microsoft hater. In fact, I've been very satisfied with XP from the start, and still am despite having had experience with other operating systems which are probably more advanced and streamlined. However, with the release of Vista I can't help but feel that this product is another 'interim OS' - a la Windows 98/98 Second Edition or Windows ME - that Microsoft put out for several reasons: 1) the fact that they haven't introduced a new OS in a long time, thus tempting users to look to other alternatives in search of new features. 2) as support for the fact that Windows is still their major cash cow 3) that Apple and Linux are finally starting to seriously threaten the OS stranglehold that Microsoft has held for so many years.

On point one, the last and- most would say- best OS Microsoft has released is Windows XP. Despite the fact that it's starting to show its age, I believe XP is a superior operating system to Vista for several reasons to be discussed later in detail. Nevertheless, it's been a good 7 years since XP was released, which is an a very long time in the software industry.

Point two is reinforced by the acknowledged fact that another Windows OS is already in development and is due out relatively soon (within the next 2-3 years) and the fact that most Vista sales are made from OEM distributors with the price included in the sticker cost. In many cases, end users have no choice at all for their operating system- you either get it with Vista, or you don't at all. Additionally, the retail package cost of the OS is unusually high- especially for the 'Ultimate' version which adds a few extra security and media features.

Point three is somewhat speculative, but there is some evidence pointing to its truth. The recent change of Mac hardware from the unique Motorola architecture to Intel-based might have riled some hardcore Apple fans, but it was a master-stroke from the business perspective. Now Mac users can run Windows in native mode while also benefiting from the superior Mac OS (still unavailable on non-Apple machines) and thus be able to break the 'gaming block' that Macs have been hobbled with previously. As to the Mac OS's general superiority, there really has never been any doubt- one merely has to see how much Vista attempts to mimic it to find proof of that. On the Linux front, it's really difficult to argue with free- and Linux is steadily improving both in terms of user-friendliness and capability. It has advanced to the point now that one no longer needs any understanding of the command line to use it, and most software- including many games- can be run on Linux.

Let's get down to examining the improvements from XP home to Vista home edition, which is what most people that would pay for upgrades are looking for. Bear in mind I haven't examined an enterprise edition and don't particularly care about business applications of Vista, since I still use XP Pro at work and have no intention of changing that.

Vista's user interface offers a new look and feel, which in anything but the lowest cost version is much more attractive than XP. It has translucent windows, animation effects, and new UI features including the 'Flip' in Premium edition which is a more visual approach to the old alt-tab interface used to switch between active applications and windows. There are also Windows Gadgets, which are small desktop apps, and a Sidebar that can contain Gadgets for quick use. Additionally, dialogs and windows- especially wizards- are standardized and more consistent in look and feel than in previous Windows versions. For pure Windows users, these will all be excitingly new features. However, they aren't actually new- Mac OS X has had all of these features in place for three or more years. This isn't in itself a bad thing, as these are generally good features. The only problem is they aren't implemented very well. Take the example of the translucent windows: put two windows side by side and they look very similar- at a glance it's very hard to tell which one is the active (or 'topmost') window- the only difference is a white line going around the border of the active one. In XP, the windows didn't look nearly as pretty but at least you never had any doubt which one was active. Additionally, the new look and feel comes at a rather punishing cost- the system requirements for Vista increase dramatically if these features are all enabled, and it's highly questionable whether a machine meeting the minimum requirements will be able to run Vista at anything approaching acceptable speed- let alone applications running ON Vista. This means that machines that are 3 or more years old should definitely not be upgraded to Vista, as they will be reduced to snail's pace. If you prefer, you can run Vista with the classic XP layout and look and feel, which makes it look very much like XP and has much better performance on slower machines. However, if you do this it begs the question- what's the point, then? You're essentially back to XP with some marginally useful new functionality, and a few hundred dollars out.

Security features are one of the main selling points of Vista. When you install any software that alters the system- including any and all software drivers and almost any serious applications- you will encounter at least one security popup. You have to explicitly click the Allow/Continue button to get it to proceed. There is no 'Always allow' option, so if you see the dialog once, you will see it again if you do the same thing. Theoretically, this is a great idea- it means a user can't do anything dangerous without seeing a warning. The problem is the warnings are often unclear, and a user won't know whether it's a real threat or not, and whenever one shows up they have to stop whatever they're doing and consider it (or not). Additionally these don't just show up during installations- this security also fires popup warnings whenever applications- including web apps- do anything that Windows construes as 'suspicious,' which is nigh on everything. Example: you plug in an external hard drive. Security warning; click continue. You browse to it and launch an installation batch file. Warning; click continue. The program asks you to register, and sends you to a site that has cookies. Warning; click continue. Within about 10 minutes of using Vista, I had seen more of these than I have on my Mac in 2 months, and that with relatively frequent OS updates too. And no, being an administrator doesn't do a thing in this regard, since Vista's security treats administrators as regular users (huh? exactly...) This is bad for two major reasons that are related: it's so annoying it'll make you spit and holler at the screen, and as a result it (ironically) doesn't do what it was meant to do- which is to stop bad stuff like viruses from taking the whole PC down. Users will get so used to just dismissing the popups that when a REAL threat appears, they will likely just dismiss it out of hand. You can save yourself the trouble and disable User Account Control, but then you're essentially back to XP. Once again, this leads us to that question- what's the point in upgrading then?

Vista includes new versions of Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player, as well as some additional apps for recording movies and (in Ultimate) backing up data. In my opinion these bundled Windows programs have never been better than third party apps- and since I don't have a great deal of experience using them I'll leave others to review them. Perhaps the most important new package Vista introduces is DirectX 10. In my admittedly biased gamer's mind, this is the only Vista feature even worth examining if you're considering upgrading. Windows has always been the OS of choice for gamers, and the fact that XP doesn't support (and never will according to Microsoft, though technically there isn't any reason it can't) the new version of DirectX means that gamers will probably be forced to upgrade eventually. For now, a handful of titles support DirectX 10 in addition to 9, though these are very few at this moment and there are still none that support only version 10. Some of these include Crysis, Company of Heroes, and World in Conflict- to name a few. As is to be expected, version 10 adds a lot of improvements to graphical detail and image quality, and games that take advantage of these features look noticeably better. However, due to the fact that there simply aren't many available yet, it's debatable whether it's worth upgrading to Vista just to do this. It will likely be some years yet before the first DirectX 10-only games appear, so there is certainly no compelling need to upgrade immediately if you just want to play. In fact, upgrading for the sake of gaming is not without risk- and on that note...

Let's talk about software compatibility. Presumably, Vista is backwards compatible with anything that could run on XP. Realistically, it's anyone's guess what will work. Straight up, you can expect none of the drivers you use under XP to work with Vista. In fact, many drivers written FOR Vista don't work, or have very serious technical issues that include such nastiness as random blue screens of death and other unsavory results. I don't know whether this is a result of poor third party support or just the fact that Vista is so new, but no working drivers = no working hardware, which is bad news. In general, newer software and hardware tends to work decently, but if you're using older hardware and peripherals, you might be forced to upgrade those along with the OS. For gamers in particular, it's advisable you keep XP on a separate partition at the very least, since there are many known issues with Vista and older games- usually due to driver issues. These range from relatively minor things like graphical glitches, to games just plain not running. For most there are workarounds, but personally, I'm not the kind that likes to do research and work in order to play (and I think most aren't). Of course, if you don't care about anything but the latest titles, then this isn't a big deal- but in my experience most gamers like to revisit oldies for good times' sake (I certainly do). When running newer titles, there is another factor to keep in mind: If your hardware is borderline running on XP, you will likely need to upgrade your hardware to run the same games on Vista. This is because Vista is a resource hog compared to XP, especially in terms of RAM usage.

The bottom line is that those that have XP should probably not upgrade to Vista. It simply doesn't offer enough new and useful features to be worth the trouble- and can be a great deal of trouble indeed. What advances it does offer are also not all good; I personally think Vista is actually less user-friendly than XP, though admittedly I do have a great deal more experience with the latter.

For those that are looking to buy or build a new Windows machine and actually have a choice, the better OS is more debatable. For those that have little or no experience with Windows, I will be honest and say that Vista MAY be a better choice. I can't really say for sure because I'm definitely not such a person and don't know anyone that is, but if Microsoft continues to base its operating systems off the Vista model, it might be best to just get used to it. Additionally, for gamers looking toward the future and buying DirectX 10 compatible hardware, XP simply doesn't support it. Gamers are also presumably purchasing the newest hardware anyway- most of which works fine on the new OS. For those that are familiar with Windows and want a minimum of fuss (e.g. folks that work at home), I recommend XP instead of Vista because it's both more mature as a piece of software, and is generally a lot more like older Windows versions. Vista differs from previous releases of Windows enough that finding familiar functionality can be a pain, especially for power users or those that like to deal with low level configuration. Most of it is still there in one shape or form, but almost everything is renamed and moved. Aside from these and the above reasons, XP is substantially cheaper and uses far less resources (RAM/CPU/video/disk space). Especially if you aren't buying top-line hardware, this can make a very serious difference in overall performance.

It should be noted that Microsoft is always releasing updates, and Vista is no exception. Service Pack 1 is now available, and is essentially a huge collection of bug fixes, minor performance enhancements, and program tweaks- most of which have already been made available as downloaded hotfixes. Unless you've experienced one of the specific issues addressed, and for some reason haven't been using automatic updates, you will likely not see any significant changes. If you really want to know exactly what they changed, you can look it up in the Knowledge Base. The best I can say is, it doesn't look like they broke anything obvious with it, so there's no reason NOT to get SP1 if you already have Vista. Service packs are available from automatic updates, so this specific product is more of a convenience than a real 'new release.' Microsoft claims that service packs won't be used to make major changes to the OS, and in this case that's not good news. I believe it likely that the next release of Windows (currently known as 'Windows 7') will be when most of the big problems are addressed.

In conclusion, I believe Windows Vista is a tie-in to a 'real' operating system release, just like Windows ME was a stopgap between Windows 98 and XP. However, it's actually less polished than ME was- relatively speaking- and looks like it was rushed to market with many features untested or incomplete. In many ways, Vista is probably the most disappointing Windows release of all time despite the fact that it's technically more advanced and 'better' (at least in theory) than any other release. Maybe it's because of all the new and revolutionary features that were promised, and weren't delivered in the end, or perhaps we've all just been expecting too much after such a long development time. Vista isn't necessarily a bad product or a bad operating system- it does generally work, once you get past its quirks and get used to how it looks, and this is why I didn't give it the lowest rating. In fact, if it is evolved a bit I can see it becoming an excellent OS. However, due to its cost and the fact that in its current state it's hardly an improvement over XP, I really can't recommend it. Gamers are the only folks that should seriously consider upgrading, and at the moment there's no compelling need to. In the meantime, I'm looking for the next Windows release to see whether Microsoft is going to put out the true successor to XP.

Window Vista Home Edition now includes Service Pack 1. As an upgrade from XP, there is still the difficulty of hardware compatibility. In essence, you will need recent hardware upgrades, including a new graphics grade to take full advantage of Vista's effects. If you can upgrade, and want the latest technology from you OS, then Vista is a decent program. But if you do not have the hardware, do not even try to upgrade from XP. Wait until you have to buy a new computer so that someone else goes through the headaches of installing and making the system work.

Vista is definitely the most graphically attractive program Microsoft has made. With all the effects on, it is a nice program to look at, and the appeal is that you do not feel like you are using a clunky OS. Of course, everyone knows they borrowed those ideas from a MAC, but it is still nice to use on an everyday basis.

Vista made a huge leap forward for video game users. With DX10 and 10.1, there is an OS that was designed with games in mind. The graphic upgrades over DX9 will only be apparent if the game is written for this. So older games might not see an improvement, but new games that use DX10 will see better graphics and special effects. For some, this is reason enough to upgrade. But you might encounter games not written for Vista, which introduces an entirely new set of problems.

As far as general users, Microsoft made many changes from XP to Vista. If you are new to computers, learning Vista should be straight forward. If you are like me, someone who has been using computers since the days of DOS ( that is pre-Windows 3.1), then you probably know your existing OS like the back of your hand. Learning a new one then becomes more difficult, because you will constantly ask, "Why did they move this feature?" You will also ask, "I knew how to do this simple task before, and now I have no clue where anything is." Trust me, there is an adjustment learning Vista.

And this becomes the frustrating part--it might take a while to get your computer set and running smoothly. This is why, as an upgrade, Windows Vista is trouble. Between hardware, compatibility issues and the program taking a long time to learn, I recommend to most users NOT to upgrade on their own. If they buy a new computer, that is one thing. But to upgrade to a radically new OS can be trouble. If your computer works, I recommend not buying this program. Let your current computer go through its life cycle, then buy a new one. The upgrade process will cause you to have a headache and spend more money than you had planned. As an OS, Vista is not the end of the world as people claim in other reviews (all OS have positives and negatives) but be aware that there will be an adjustment period.

It's a long known inside but painful joke in the computer applications development world that Windows gets most of its QA testing from its customers. After spending 7 hours today in a failed attempt to install Windows Vista, I can tell you most emphatically that I am tired of doing Microsoft's quality testing for them.

Installation of Vista over my perfectly fine XP O/S crashed at least 5 times. Part of the installation involved the system rebooting itself during the process. This is a serious problem if you have one cd/dvd drive and your hard disk. It's a problem because most systems will be set at the factory to reboot off the cd drive first, then the hard disk. As the Install disk is in the drive, the reboot will fail and so will the install. So, being a bit savvy, I reset the boot order in the BIOS and went at it again. Still I got the same confounding error!

The error message is: Windows Installation encountered an unexpected error. Verify that the installation sources are accessible, and restart the installation. Error code: 0XC0000005.

I researched online forums and Microsoft's own aptly misnamed "knowledge base" to find a solution. MS's site was useless. Other techy forums were strewn with messages from poor annoyed people like myself having the same issues. Some say, oh just reset the BIOS, but that didn't work. Also, many users will not even know how to access the BIOS and may make an unfortunate error there from which they cannot recover. Forcing the user to change system configuration settings to install software is NOT a good business model at all.

So, on I went into hour 5. I ran the VISTA Advisor application which tells you if your computer is compatible to run VISTA. The application said that I was compatible. But there was a problem there, too. You see, Microsoft's own version of the Advisor failed. So I went to CNET and ran their version which ran perfectly.

During the first installation attempt, the installation showed success and even showed activity on the screen. But, I could tell that nothing was being written to the disc-- I knew it was a failure so I aborted the install. I rebooted the system again and started from scratch. Again, I got the same error message as shown above.

This was a total waste of an evening, and a great frustration. Do yourself a favor and don't get Windows Vista. Windows XP is highly tested and works great. I will keep XP until I have to get a new computer. Otherwise, I may just upgrade to Linux.

This absurd business model of having the customer do the company's testing is abysmal. Why do you suppose that Microsoft has few friends in the Systems world? This is why! I'm sure the O/S and U/I are all quite whizz bang and graphic intensive, but I like to access my 2 GB RAM for applications-- not to support my O/S. Maybe when enough customers have sent their trouble tickets in to Microsoft and the people in Redmond get the code fixed all correctly maybe then I just might take another chance with Vista. Wait, on second thought, no, I won't. VISTA - No Stars.

I hate it. It offers no real advantages over XP, is slower, works with less stuff, and keeps freezing up. I'm downgrading to XP...

Having read horror stories about installation problems, I installed Vista Premium on a computer I seldom use. I found installation quick and easy with no problems I could find.

However, it's not a good sign when the best you can say about a software program is that you were able to install it. And that's the only good thing I have to say about Vista Premium.

Why the developers change old straightforward labels for confusing new labels and icons? Did they really mean to add hours to simple tasks just because I'm wandering around in the program trying to find the icon for what I want to do? Whatever happened to "user-friendly?"

An ugly side of Vista is that it's a space hog. It's absconded with more than 40% of the space on my hard drive, and I want it back! Another irritation . . . a software program I love and use weekly no longer works. I'm not in favor of spending another $350 just to get the newer version of the same program that will work and play well with Vista.

My computer, although used infrequently, is not my toy. When I use it, it's because I want to create something, not waste precious time looking at irrelevant eye candy. I can find sites that will help me disable much of the useless content, but why should I have to spend hours tweaking the computer instead of writing or doing graphic work. Doesn't make sense to me.

Why Vista? I can't think of a reason. I'm going back to XP, thanks!

I bought this product only to have it crash my computer when I tried to install it and I had to go back to using XP. It was very disappointing.

From the perspective of a MacBook Pro user. . .

I run with 2 GB of memory and use Parallels Desktop to run Windows XP Pro simultaneous to my running my Mac OS. I allocate 1 GB to Parallels when I need to run Windows, which is very infrequently. While 2 GB is more than enough memory for me run my Mac OS and all my Mac apps simultaneously, that is the amount of memory required just to run Vista. Given that XP runs fine on my Mac and serves my needs, I decided not to load Vista.

Instead I tried giving Vista away to friends who are running XP on Windows machines; none of them would take it! They are so leery of new Microsoft OSs and none of them had the memory required to run it.

From the perspective of a Mac user I find this ironic. When Apple releases a new OS, Mac users line up in droves to get their hands on it, confident that the experience will be a positive one and worth the learning curve and occasional upgrade to an existing app. When Microsoft comes out with a new OS, Windows users have to be dragged kicking and screaming to upgrade their OS, in this case, even when it's free they resist.

You have to admit that Vista didn't get off to a banging good start. Many people thought it was bloated, slow, crashed all the time and the endless stories about those popups that kept questioning you would keep all but the reckless thinking twice before they upgraded from XP. In fact a year after its release it seems only a little over ten percent of the XP users out there have decided to upgrade.

I've been using Vista since it came out and have been very happy with it. Yes you need more RAM than you did a couple years ago, I've got 2 megs on my laptop, which is plenty for Vista Home Premium. And I've got a whopping 4 megs on my desktop, which is running Vista Ultimate and that's way, way more than needed. My computers both seem happy enough and I know they're not fooling me, because when they get unhappy they crash and that's something they haven't done in a long time (three months for my laptop and I think six or more for my desktop).

Is Vista bloated? Yes, sure, that's what happens when an operating systems (despite it's many flavors) tries to be all things to all people. Still, if you don't need the features, don't use them. It's not like todays computers are hurting for hard drive space. With 200 gigs in my laptop and 750 in my desktop, those features I don't use sitting in the background don't bother me at all.

And those annoying UAC (User Account Control) popups and they are annoying, you don't have to live with those. If you've been using computers for anytime at all and have more than a clue about what you're doing, why don't you just turn them off. I did. Just type "system configuration" into Vista's Start Menu's instant search feature. When the System Configuration Utility window opens, click the tools tab, scroll down, click on "disable user control," click "launch", click "okay", then reboot and voila, those annoying popups are history.

Now about the speed, yes, Vista "was" and that's the operative word here as far as I'm concerned, it was a bit slower than XP on my machines, but now thats I've installed the SP1 upgrades on my machines, they both seem zippier. So if you're still using XP and have been thinking about upgrading, now's the time.

I have had windows vista home premium installed on my computer for some time now. The new features are mostly pretty flourishes that anyone can live without. The only new feature that I enjoyed was the instant search feature in the start menu and I have noticed that on my friends slower computers, that even that doesn't work correctly.

The biggest issue I had with vista was not the fact that it was essentially a prettiness update, it simply crashed more than any operating system I have ever used. I would close my laptop screen and open it up again and the system would lock out and restart itself regardless of what I had open. Further, there were numerous driver issues. Slowly, overtime, through the traditional patching system, Microsoft did resolve most of these issues. I still had the crashing problem, but it had been been minimized. Naturally, I installed SP1 upon it's arrival hoping that it would fix my remaining issues with this half-baked operating system....




The bottom line that you need to know:

SP1 caused MY OLD ISSUES TO COME BACK.
SP1 caused MORE ISSUES WITH DRIVERS THAN I HAD WITH REGULAR VISTA
SP1 was clearly prematurely developed and is still a baby operating system intent on keeping up with the fancy visual features in Mac and is STILL NOT READY FOR PRIME TIME.


I do NOT recommend SP1 for anyone. Please stick with XP. If you don't, there's a great chance you'll regret it.

For having taken Microsoft over 5 years to build since XP, Vista has surprisingly little to offer that XP can't do with a few tweaks. There are a handful of useful new features, and Aero Glass is certainly attractive (if it works on your machine, it doesn't for many). But most of these, even the eye candy, are unnecessary and can be added to XP if you want them that badly.

I'm reminded of the "upgrade" from Windows 98 to the ill-fated Windows Me. Windows 98 was a "perfect" OS for its time, and while Windows Me was meant to bring exciting new features, what it really brought was a myriad of bugs, and actually took away features from Windows 98, which some die-hards still use. Although Vista is much more different from XP than Me was from 98, the situation is similar. There are no absolute must have features in Vista, but there are plenty of bugs, incompatibilities, and upgrade nightmares.

When it comes to upgrading by installing over your old operating system, my advice is this: don't. Move all your data off your hard drive, wipe it, and do a clean install of Vista, or don't upgrade at all. With today's complicated operating systems, installing over your old OS is bound to be a hassle. Even if it does work correctly, your system still won't be as fast, and will have a lot of junk left over on your hard drive from your old operating system. A clean install is always best.

This brings me to my final problem with Vista: performance. Despite its lack of hot new features, it does consume vastly larger amounts of resources than XP. Your old machine may not be able to handle it, and even if it can, it will still be much slower than if you keep using your old operating system. The best approach to buying Vista is to just buy a new machine with it preinstalled. It's not like you have the choice anyway, most new computers give you Vista whether you want it or not.

Overall Vista is okay, but not worth buying if you're happy with XP. As always, do your research and be ready for a big hassle if you choose to upgrade.