Windows Vista - A Second Look

[skeletor]

I have installed Vista RC1 again to give it another chance, as it is now for sale on OcUK, world wide release 30th January.

To be honest now that the drivers are there, I can say it's pretty good. It lags now and then around Windows but I am 99% sure that is due to the fact that it is only RC1 and the drivers are not optimal.

Although the driver support is lacking for the time being I am sure this will be no problem in a month or two when Vista will truely be mainstream.

One nice touch is the Sidebar. It uses up extra memory, but can be closed when gaming. You can add components to the Sidebar very easily and download new ones off the internet. I have CPU and RAM usage being displayed as well as the current weather where I live, it's actually getting it's data from the local weather station which is nice, so the figures on it are accurate. As well as the game server monitor that I downloaded. I can see how many people are currently on our server. Although it would be nice to see who was on at the click of the button but that is not available yet.

It also has a performance analysis, which gives your computer a score on how good it is with Vista. Unfortunately my rig scored 1.0 the lowest score that will run Vista, but this is all because of my Graphics card not natively supporting Vista.

It does seem to have limited the amount of annoying baloon tips that you have popping up from the bottom right of your screen, but this has been replaced by ridiculous messages that stop you from doing anything else at the same time in the middle of the screen.

Also with Aero Glass, which is the new GUI of Windows, makes the outsides of the windows transparent, which looks nice and doesn't seem to make much impact on performance. The slight bug with this is once your maximize the window to full screen the outside of the window turns black. I think Microsoft did this purely for performance than looks. I have heard though that Microsoft have changed this in the final release, although it is not as transparent when it isn't maximized it is better than just a black bar.

Vista also ships with Internet Explorer 7 and Windows Media Player 11 as well as a Media Center (would of been nice for them to change it to Centre for us Brits) which I think may be a new version of the one from XP Media Edition.

1 negative of the final release over the release candidates is that the icons have changed, unfortunately for the worse.

A major positive is DirectX 10. This is supposed to take a lot more strain off the CPU which will mean your frames per second will rise a lot more. Unfortunately I can't find any pictures comparing DX9 and DX10 in terms of looks but performance wise it should be good.

I am hoping that most of these bugs have been fixed in the released version, but not having £130 to spend on Vista, I will not know.

Currently £130 will get you the Ultimate Edition, which is everything in 1 package and that is OEM, the Retail will set you back £400!!

With OEM you don't get a fancy box or any paper work with it, just a CD and a Key.

Conclusion

Overtime as Vista becomes more mainstream and possibly drops in price, the driver support as well software support will improve significantly. This is nothing but positive and it's good to see such a big improvement over XP.

I say wait a couple of months before purchasing Vista, let the bugs be fixed first then make the switch.

I have attached some screenshots for you to look at.

[sparksy]

thought you said vista was no good for copying things ?/

[skeletor]

copying what?

[BlacKBlazE]

Looks good to me does the vista i'd get it if i

1. Could afford ( could crack it illegally but i'd get found out by the valid crap)
2. Could find my shitty BT voyager 105 modem driver for it.
3. Could be assed looking for soundcard drivers/graphics Drivers ect.

But still looks nice.

[PowerDrive]

XP users can try this....Vista Customization Pack!!!

Free download....

Take a peek

http://www.softpedia.com/progDownload/V ... 37585.html

[skeletor]

lags down the computer but it does mean that you don't have to search the net for drivers that don't exist.

[BlacKBlazE]

Yeah i've installed it lol fuck it