So I got my new laptop last night, pretty nice too.

After reading lot of Vista horror stories, I was dreading the Vista pre-install. I'd pretty much resigned myself to stripping it and getting an XP lcense to chuck over the top.

I've been quite pleasantly surprised - Vista is running nice and quick for me without any of the horror stories I've heard. I even don't mind the confirmations too much, its almost vaguelly reassuring that my computer is checking with me if what's going on inside it is cool.

I'm a bit of a sucker for shiny bells and whistles too, and I much prefer Aero to Luna or (rofl) Windows Classic themes. I would never have forked out dollars for Vista, but it came standard with the machine and I'm not disappointed.

So far I have no complaints about networking or performance. Its a reasonably good machine tho (T7500 duo core thingy, 3g ram, 8600M GT w/ ddr3) so possibly I have just Moore's Law'd my way past the performance over head of Vista.

Any Vista pitfalls to be aware of? Those of you who have upgraded to Vista, is it working ok for you?

wait until trustedinstaller.exe thingo starts running while you are trying to play a game

There are two types of people who hate vista.

a) People who don't know how to use it
b) People who have friends who hate vista.

There are two types of people who hate vista.

a) People who don't know how to use it
b) People who have friends who hate vista.

There are 4 types of people who like Vista:

a) People who have seen it but haven't tried it themselves ("oh it's pretty")
b) Microsoft Fan-boys ("it's new so I must use it")
c) Trendies ("oh it's pretty and new")
d) People who don't know any better or have basic needs ("works fine for email and office")

Which are you? Oh that's right ... the hidden 5th category:

e) Elitist f***s who want everyone else to conform to their habits and opinions.

last edited by parabol at 19:08:47 19/Jan/08

Someone has sand in there vagina ^ same bulls*** has been said about every O/S but we all end up using them dont we !!

same bulls*** has been said about every O/S but we all end up using them dont we !!

I think I should have been more clear. I see myself switching to Vista in the future, but only after it's more mature with better hardware/software support and drivers available. There are quite a few specialised programs and hardware I use that just do not work on it, which is a deal-breaker for me.

Sure there are bugfixes around for some of these problems and others (which include the annoyances like slow file copy and network transfers, etc), but I don't have the time nor the patience to chase up on each one when Win XP can do everything fine as it is, and with less or no f***ing around.

When SP1 comes around, I'll review my opinion and give it another go. Until then I'll let others do the "beta testing".

last edited by parabol at 19:58:31 19/Jan/08

^^ Seconded

I'd also like to add another category to the people that don't like Fista.
People that don't have 2+ Gig of RAM to run it.

If you have progs that won't run under Vista then fair enough.

I haven't come across any essential stuff that I use that has failed to work and I am running 64 bit. After the SP1 RC1 patch most of the small problems I still had disappeared. I haven't had a single problem appear after installing the RC1 either its all been fine apart from the aids watermark that noone made a patch to nuke it for x64.

Driver support is no problem now unless you are running an ancient printer.
Game performance difference is bugger all now the drivers have matured.


I also like the Aero theme and I hated the bubble style XP theme.


For me everything works and I like the pretties, so I use it.
It really is as simple as that.

Vista is to XP what XP was to 2000. Same functionality apart from some extra features, and it looks better. The original release was full of bugs etc.

Basically XP didn't come good until SP2 i reckon. Similar thing will happen to Vista.

I'm running DOS 3.3, it's super stable and quick and does everything and fits on a single 720k floppy! :P

I'll probably end up getting Vista the next PC I buy.

Yeh pretty much as I expected.

I remember people ranting about how XP was s*** cf. 2000, and that there was no point upgrading.

In fact the only MS OS that I can remember not being greeted with disdain was 2000, the performance & stability benefits were obvious and hard to deny.

As an MS Dev a relatively early switch to Vista was pretty much inevitable. I'm just glad it wasn't quite as painful as I had been led to believe!

There are quite a few specialised programs and hardware I use that just do not work on it, which is a deal-breaker for me.

doesn't that highlight at least 1 large flaw in your angst-ridden list in post #3?

doesn't that highlight at least 1 large flaw in your angst-ridden list in post #3?

The second half of part (d) of my "angst-ridden list" covers why I don't like Vista in its current form. (ie: more than basic needs)

Unless you are referring to something else.

last edited by parabol at 21:15:40 19/Jan/08

I mean that your list doesn't say anything about people who don't have any specialised software/hardware that doesn't work under Vista - and thus running it is fine for them

I've got a soundcard with external mixer that is only supported in win9x. I forked out several hundred bucks for it around 6-12 months or so before winxp came out and it was a great setup for me, so finding it wouldn't work with the nt-HAL was a real bummer.

Should I make a post like yours, and substitute vista for win2k or xp?

I mean that your list doesn't say anything about people who don't have any specialised software/hardware that doesn't work under Vista - and thus running it is fine for them

If you haven't picked up on it yet, my list was a deliberate mix of cynicism, truth and incompleteness to highlight the silliness of the list I was replying to. I thought the quotes would have given this away, but obviously not for some people.

Should I make a post like yours, and substitute vista for win2k or xp?

If you can go back in time to the moment you are describing, then you are absolutely entitled to complain. WinXP took quite a while to mature, and I ignored it for a long time. I only switched when XP-SP1 came out, as that was when (for me) its features and usability outperformed W2K's. I'm predicting the same sort of deal with Vista, which I find sucks at the moment. Maybe in a year's time ...

last edited by parabol at 21:41:56 19/Jan/08

who's talking about complaining though?
my point is that it wouldn't have been reasonable for me to cling to win9x and derogatorily label people who didn't

my point is that it wouldn't have been reasonable for me to cling to win9x and derogatorily label people who didn't

False, windows 2000 was a technically massive step up from Windows 9x. It would have been reasonable to cling to Windows 95 or 98 and laugh at people that upgraded to Windows ME though.

Someone has sand in there vagina ^ same bulls*** has been said about every O/S but we all end up using them dont we !!

Not really...Vista is a bit of an ME. It is a stop gap OS with Vienna due out at last ¹/4 of 2009/early 2010. A lot of the cooler features of Vista which were dumped are just going to appear in the next OS.

I agree that Vista probably doesn't suit everyone especially those who have incompatible hardware and software.

Your rant was a bit over the top tho parabol I think you may have got trolled man ;) Its possible to have Vista work for you and be useful without being a douchebag.

I'M GOING TO ABUSE PEOPLE WHO LIKE A DIFFERENT OPERATING SYSTEM TO ME!!!

my point is that it wouldn't have been reasonable for me to cling to win9x and derogatorily label people who didn't
-
Its possible to have Vista work for you and be useful without being a douchebag.

Do I have to spell this out even more?

My rant-list was meant to match the "if you don't like vista then you are a noob or are copying what your friends say" post in incompleteness and point out how stupid it was. It's not trolling when I'm freaking telling you guys this.

Later in my serious posts I actually backed up all of my claims with facts about my Vista experiences (yes, I've spent *many* hours playing with drivers, compatibility patches and bugfixes to find out if I could make a permanent move to Vista).

I'll be sure to use [cynicism] and [serious] tags in future for you guys.

If you're so worried about incomplete lists Jim, why not point out this quote:

There are two types of people who hate vista.

a) People who don't know how to use it
b) People who have friends who hate vista.

... and why it has a huge flaw in that you can dislike Vista for genuine reasons?

last edited by parabol at 22:07:00 19/Jan/08

My rant-list was meant to match the "if you don't like vista then you are a noob or are copying what your friends say" post in incompleteness and point out how stupid it was. It's not trolling when I'm freaking telling you guys this.

I didn't accuse you of trolling; I said you had been trolled.

I'M GOING TO ABUSE PEOPLE WHO LIKE A DIFFERENT OPERATING SYSTEM TO ME!!!

I think you'll find that most people that are anti-Vista (like me) are so because its a pointless upgrade that just gives you eye candy at the expense of reliability (see: all complaints about missing drivers), performance (see: reports of DRM sucking CPU power, plus the fact that you can't buy a PC with Vista without 100GB of RAM), security (see: DRM suckage and monitoring your rights) and convenience (see: hilarious Apple ads).

You can upgrade to Vista and just stay in Microsoft's perpetual vendor lock-in cycle of death if you want though!

(PS, Vista causes cancer of the face, cancer of the colon and cancer of the wrist)

Leopard for life!

False, windows 2000 was a technically massive step up from Windows 9x. It would have been reasonable to cling to Windows 95 or 98 and laugh at people that upgraded to Windows ME though.

that doesn't even remotely come close to making my comment false in my opinion. people were making the move to xp, and large numbers or even most of them found the benefits outweighed the negatives. to sit there and smugly call them beta testers and then admit I have a soundcard that only works in win9x so moving to xp is a deal breaker would not have been reasonable.

my experience with vista (64bit) has been great, but I only started running it about 3 months ago, aside from a quick test way back in beta. I'd pretty much agree with everything in hogfather's first post. my only issue which I thought for sure was nividia's 64bit vista drivers was company of heroes crashing all the time. so I wiped and went back to xp32 and it was exactly the same so I guess it's just opposing fronts and wasn't vista after all. apart from that it was great.

Listen, if you're going to expect me to go around reading what you're actually saying rather than picking random bits to pick apart, then this conversation is going nowhere.

Do I have to spell this out even more?

spell it out for yourself
I was referring to your calling people beta testers
anyway, I don't fully buy your excuse for your first post - sure it's a joke, but you can still see your attitude behind it nevertheless

If you're so worried about incomplete lists Jim, why not point out this quote:

cos it was clearly mongie being mongie

I think you'll find that most people that are anti-Vista (like me) are so because its a pointless upgrade that just gives you eye candy at the expense of reliability

I wasn't talking about you, my comment was more aimed at statements like:

e) Elitist f***s who want everyone else to conform to their habits and opinions.

Also, I'm curious to know what exactly people are having problems with, with regards to drivers. Since the day I first started using Vista, I haven't had a single problem finding 64bit drivers for any of my hardware. In fact, it has by far been the most simple OS I've ever used with regards to getting my hardware working. Printer, scanner, Wacom, wireless, 360 controllers, all worked moments after plugging them in.

I also can't say I've noticed any difference in performance compared to when I was running XP. My games get the same framerates, apps load just as fast as they always had, and I don't know what all of these DRM issues are that you keep talking about. Granted, I did turn off User Account Control as soon as I could, because it annoyed the f*** out of me, but one simple checkbox and reboot and it was gone.

Listen, if you're going to expect me to go around reading what you're actually saying rather than picking random bits to pick apart, then this conversation is going nowhere.

well if it was me responding to something you'd written, I'd just blunder in without having properly read your post and then totally take it the wrong way - I'd appeciate at least the same level of dopiness from you in return thanks

Apology accepted

I tried vista and currently am running XP again. Only reason for that is I lost a huge fps drop in all the games I play (which right now is only TF2). Back when I still played wow I would average around 65 fps on XP. on Vista i'd get around 35 at most, usualy around 25. thats a massive drop. Not sure if its gotten any better in the 4 or so months i've been back on XP though. If it has i'd considering re-installing. I did like it though.

That is going to depend highly on driver support and there have been many releases since then, I presume you are Nvidia based?

The performance gap is supposed to only be around 5% these days which is fairly negligible.

Running Vista on a Dell Lattitude D630, Dell Inspiron 6400 and home-made PC parts without a problem.

Would I buy it though? Hell no, not worth the dollars.

Also, I'm curious to know what exactly people are having problems with, with regards to drivers.

For starters, I was trying to get a modern USB-serial cable working so that I could do firmware coding + uploading from my laptop. It had a widely used USB bridge chipset, so I went to the manufacturer's website:

http://www.prolific.com.tw/eng/downloads.asp?ID=31

NOTE: Prolific will not be providing Vista drivers for end-users. Please contact the vendor of your cable for Vista driver availability and support. Prolific recommends to purchase from following Cable Makers that provides Vista driver and tech support:

So it's supported on many versions of Windows, as well as natively in Linux but Vista is a no go from the manufacturer. Well the vendor of my device wasn't one the list, and I had to go through half a dozen 3rd party drivers and reboots until one just happened to work on Vista.

While one could argue the manufacturer is to blame, I can understand their frustration at having to support yet-another-platform that has enough deviations to make drivers incompatible, without a similar magnitude of benefits to make it worthwhile.

The IDE I wanted to use for coding also happened to crash consistently on Vista (well-known problem), so that pretty much made half of my uni work on Vista impossible. They might have a fix for it by now, but we'll see.


last edited by parabol at 23:48:16 19/Jan/08

I have installed Vista about 4 times now (a legit copy that I own), and every time I have ended up having to go back to XP for some reason, whether it is software that doesn't work, games that run much slower, or bugs. I hate to say it but:

XP > Vista

is similar to

Tiger > Leopard

Vista/Leopard will both be great OS's once all the bugs have been fixed, the performance is tweaked, the user experience has been refined, and software takes advantage of the new features. That being said, when XP came out 2000 owned it, and when Tiger came out Panther owned it. Its just a matter of time before that happens again. I think the saddest thing is the fact that Vista/Leopard took much longer than XP/Tiger, and arguably weren't as well polished, with not as many new features.

I'm still boggles why you ignorant bastards keep consistantly blaming vista?

you keep saying "I'm going to wait until vista matures cause half of my programs don't run as well on vista"


who's problem is that?
the software manufacturers and the f***ing lazy hardware vendors who can't pull their lazy fingers out of their asses for two seconds to support the products they manufacture.

NOT microsoft which simply makes the base that they put the toppings on.

It makes NO sense to say "I'm waiting until 'X' bugfix or service pack comes out, because afaik, there's so far been no real complaints about security of the OS, which is mainly what these hotfix/service packs address.


would all you luddites get off your soap-boxes and stop complaining about change and improvements? would you rather that things NEVER advance?

you keep saying "I'm going to wait until vista matures cause half of my programs don't run as well on vista"
who's problem is that? the software manufacturers and the f***ing lazy hardware vendors who can't pull their lazy fingers out of their asses for two seconds to support the products they manufacture.

This has already been addressed. You can't lay the blame solely on the manufacturers. If you're not sure what I mean, I suggest you read the thread where it was discussed, before calling hardware vendors "lazy" from your arm-chair.

It makes NO sense to say "I'm waiting until 'X' bugfix or service pack comes out, because afaik, there's so far been no real complaints about security of the OS, which is mainly what these hotfix/service packs address.

Security issues are only a minor portion of the problems addressed by SP1. I suggest you read the RC change-list before ranting on any further:

http://technet2.microsoft.com/WindowsVista/en/library/005f921e-f706-401e-abb5-eec42ea0a03e1033.mspx?mfr=true

Many of the other fixes are for annoyances, ranging from power-management problems to file-copy slowness. I'm waiting for SP1 for them to get all of the hotfixes together into a single, exhaustively-tested executable to fix it all in one go.

would all you luddites get off your soap-boxes and stop complaining about change and improvements?

Please list the improvements that make it worthwhile to fork out several hundred dollars for a Vista license, when one is happily running XP with 100% functioning software and hardware. All I see is an OS released for the sake of it, without any substantial benefits for the end user.

I'm still boggles why you ignorant bastards keep consistantly blaming vista?

I have no doubt that your mind boggles easily.

last edited by parabol at 01:44:12 20/Jan/08

If i buy a new computer with Vista OEM in a couple of weeks, will it be SP1?

no it won't. They have to finish SP 1 first then make it available then ship it. You will be lucky if you see sp1 disc's for a month after it's release.

I don't think Vista can be compared to ME. Me was in a class of it's own and that was just poorly written.

As for problems with vista I have only seen incompatability issues with software and NOT issues with the operating system itself (not including obvious things like it booting slower and running games/programs slower than XP).

Apparently the slowness is supposed to be resolved in SP1 but I'll beleive that when I see it.

I think it can be rescued in due time but for now I'll stick with XP.

I don't think Vista can be compared to ME.

me either. but that's because we're people, not operating systems

lol!

I decided to go to vista on my new PC. The only issue I have with it are slightly dodgey sound drivers. But hey, I have used creative products in the part with more problems.

I ended up turning off the UAC and vista doesn't bug me for administrator access anymore when I want to scratch my balls.

The two things I like in Vista are:

A) DirectX 10 (at least I can now use it lol)
B) The Aero interface is much smoother than XP. Like muchies.

Theres a few things that piss me off in Vista:

A) The all programs menu should be a POPUP menu PLZ!
B) UAC (my vLite'd business x64 only iso has that disabled and many other features pre-turned off)
C) Drivers/hangs for/due to old hardware, however I now have brand spankin' new hardware so I shouldnt have a problem :)

I feel MS takes the windows title too seriously. Seriously, every two damn seconds it will pop-up some window alerting the user to some useless piece of information they didn't need to know. Constantly trying to get the user to micro-manage everything.

The bummer is, people now take this as the norm for OS behaviour.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v379/water_man3/sigs/l0389ebfed61ce4d66ca760bd2.jpg

A) The all programs menu should be a POPUP menu PLZ!

I've got to disagree here, the new start menu is way better. It is heaps faster to scroll through, and it actually acts like a normal directory structure. You can have more than one program folder open at a time, and it clearly displays the nesting, etc. The old start menu wasn't in any way confusing, but I still feel that the new one is a huge step forward.

UAC needs to die in a fire. But its extremely easy to get rid of. I don't know why people keep complaining about it. "AWW IT KEEPS ASKING ME TO CONFIRM STUFF BUT I MEAN I COULD JUST TURN IT OFF... DUHHH"

Let me just say right off the bat that I was sure to disable UAC right away on my Vista machine, but having said that, I don't think it's such a bad idea.

There's nothing wrong with the theory behind it, and I find those Mac ads that bash it to be pretty hypocritical, because OS X does the same damn thing whenever you try to install a new program (except if your account has a password, you actually need to type that in too, instead of just pressing a button).

I used my dad's Vista PC recently, and it had UAC enabled. I decided to just deal with it, and I was surprised to find that it wasn't anywhere near as annoying as I thought it was. It was popping up very seldom.

It's not for everyone, but I can see its advantages for the regular user.

My first thought on UAC was "wow, MS finally decided to implement proper permissions for the file system, good on them".

I've now turned it off and just run as administrator.

It is a good idea, but has been implemented poorly. Third party programs have little knowledge of it and it becomes a hassle.

Yes, OSX does have a UAC type thing, but since it is based on unix it is actually implemented in such a way (I'm assuming) as to prevent the user reaching for a knife to stab themselves in the groin.

i don't see the problem with UAC. UAC in osx is implemented in a similar way but it is more inconvenient because you have to type in a password and less secure because malware can spoof and interfere with the dialog. i think uac authentication in osx is also session based and not process based (not exactly sure!) so it might be more convenient but it is less secure because if you run malware after you install a program the malware will have free reign.

It is a good idea, but has been implemented poorly. Third party programs have little knowledge of it and it becomes a hassle.

If it's enabled, do you need to approve ANY install?

nope

My gripes with Vista are compatibility and the UAC, and the fact that as an "upgrade" it offers so little value. Also the Aero interface which I find ugly and pointless, and bizarre issues with file permissions (seen on numerous systems).

In XP you could turn off security warnings on a case-by-case basis - you could turn off auto update and disable the warning about that AND ONLY THAT.

In Vista you can only turn the warning off on ALL or NOTHING. This is idiotic. If I could turn off the UAC *without* having to also disable the auto update / antivirus / firewall warnings, there would be no problem, but apparently Microsoft thinks fine-grained control is a bad thing and has removed it.

Compatibility: I have five, count 'em, five different USB network dongles - two wireless, three wired. Guess how many work under Vista. Yup, a big fat zero.

Some are old, some are new (released less than two years before Vista came out). All have readily available XP drivers of course, but not a single one for Vista.

There are lots of other widely used hardware components with no Vista drivers too, or with only basic drivers (for example GeForce4 Ti video cards).

It's certainly a far cry from "only old printers aren't supported".

I don't care if YOU don't have this unsupported hardware, and I don't care if you think it's old or useless.
What matters is that people DO have this hardware which is still working just fine for them and is fully supported under XP, and the prospect of having to replace perfectly good hardware which they find useful, often for a pretty substantial cost, and additional cost if they don't have the technical know-how to replace the hardware themselves and have to pay a technician to do it.
Also, my USB dongles are examples of EXTERNAL hardware which can be plugged into any modern computer, so you don't even have the "oh that's for OLD computers" excuse for Vista non-compatibility.

And for what?
Glassy effects on window borders? Vista advocates will say it's "fancy" or "pretty". I say it's "flashy" and "annoying". You can turn it off, but Vista in 'classic' mode looks far, far uglier than it does in XP. The interface elements simply aren't designed for it. Things don't line up properly.
A 'revamped' start menu? (I hesitate to say 'improved, since it's fairly subjective).
Flip3D, which doesn't even have the sense to fall back to alt-tab functionality if you happen to be running a program that's not Aero-compatible, and doesn't really add any extra functionality?
DirectX 10? This is the only major new capability from the perspective of most end users - and unless you bought your PC within the last six months or you shelled out the big bucks for a GeForce 8800, chances are very slim this will be of any use to you.
Even for those who own a low end card that's technically DX10-capable - a Radeon HD 2400 or a GeForce 8500 - the framerate in any DX10 game is likely to be unplayably low. Great, you can run the game but you can't actually play it, so the DX10 capability is a moot point until you get a faster/more expensive video card. The point is, it's yet another Vista "selling point" which affects almost nobody.
Oh, and if you're a gamer who likes NVIDIA's span mode which lets you spread pretty much any game over dual screens? Surprise! No span mode in Vista. According to NVIDIA, span mode isn't possible with the Vista display driver model, so unless the game explicitly supports dual screens, you're out of luck. This for me was the final straw.

If you're a mainstream computer user who uses little to no older hardware or software, rarely triggers the UAC, and got Vista OEM with your PC, you probably won't have any more trouble than you would with XP. Great, I wish you the best of luck, and I certainly don't think you're an idiot.

If you're a ranting fanboy who blindly ignores all the valid criticisms of Vista and insists that anyone who hates it is old, wrong, and/or stupid, then you are a moron and should go die in a fire.

UAC is actually pretty important, for reasons that have been touched on here. It is not in itself the answer to Windows' permissions problems, but it is a big step forward for reasons that may not seem obvious.

There is no good reason for users to run in an elevated permissions state - see Linux. Here, you just 'assume root' whenever you need to install apps or work with system wide settings.

However because of the progression from Win9x -> NT many consumer applications have been written on the assumption that the end user will be running with local administrator rights. This is not a bad assumption given that the account that is created during setup of Windows is given Administrator rights, and this is the one that is most often used day in and day out.

Things like storing basic user preferences in HKLM, writing to the Program Files directory etc just shouldn't be happening. Many application vendors take this access as a given because they've always been abe to do it. They are doing it wrong and UAC is a huge fat finger pointing out their flaws.

When Vista becomes more mainstream, vendors will become pressured to clean up their act and write more responsible code that doesn't rely on elevated priveliges. At that point it will no longer be necessary (as much as it is now) to carry around an administrator security token.

5 different USB dongles? I am genuinely curious to know what they all do. If they are fairly obscure it would not be a big surprise for them to not be supported natively, then it comes down to the vendors to supply support.

GF4 cards are 5 generations old... 4, FX, 6, 7 and 8 being the latest. If you are still using that level of hardware Vista is not the correct choice for your hardware. The official Nvidia drivers even put them into the "legacy" category.

People trying to install Vista onto old obsolete machines are just as stupid as that argument.


last edited by rubba-chikin at 18:09:10 20/Jan/08

vista is the best operating system ever made.

vista is the best operating system ever made.

...

vista is the best operating system ever made.

I don't know much about fishing, but I can imagine you are less likely to catch anything if both you and your entire fishing rod are underwater.

5 different USB dongles? I am genuinely curious to know what they all do.

They're USB *network* dongles, what on earth do you think they do?
They provide an Ethernet port, or they provide access to 802.11b/g access points.

Yes, GeForce 4s are old. However congratulations for completely missing the point which I went to great lengths to spell out, which was: Vista offers nothing new to people with this hardware, and will in fact TAKE AWAY functionality they currently have.
However a machine of this age is well within the recommended specs (in fact it may well exceed the specs of many current systems being sold as Vista-certified) and is supported hardware. It just doesn't have GOOD support, but to my knowledge Microsoft doesn't differentiate between different levels of support.
So it's not exactly "stupid" to expect Vista to work properly on that hardware.
XP works just fine on most hardware brought out years before its release, and by just fine I mean with FULL support.

Hogfather: most of the times I see the UAC popping up are when I'm doing general housekeeping stuff in Vista itself - no third-party stuff involved.
OS X does this too, but Vista seems to do it far, far more often, and consequently it's far, far more annoying.
OS X only seems to do it when it's actually justified.

at least they finally changed "install new font" so it doesnt use 3.1 code.

Do you expect XP to function well on a pentium 100?

It may install and boot, but whether it is functional is another question.

It's exactly the same principle.


On the topic of USB ethernet dongles, I've had the chance to use several in the course of my work. IIRC 3 different brands and the ONLY one to be natively supported by XP was the SMC branded one. There's plenty of weird USB adapters out there, it could've been anything.

XP works just fine on most hardware brought out years before its release, and by just fine I mean with FULL support.

XP has been maturing for the last 7 years.... No wonder things work....

It's like trying to put a 4 cylinder datsun bluebird in a Funny-Car drag shell and complaing that you don't get 7 second quarters.

Do you expect XP to function well on a pentium 100?

That's a crap analogy.

We're talking the very incremental (and unnecessary) jump from XP to Vista.

That's a crap analogy.

I find it a pretty valid analogy at least for those who complain it runs slow on their s***ty computers. I mean come on; any software that is made way after your computer parts is gona run like ass, it's the way of computer technology and always has been. Although XP provides updates of its own it is still based off a foundation of software engineering and for technology that is 7 years old. Vista was inevitable, but seemed almost rushed as a strategy for higher revenue.

I'm not talking about being natively supported - the only dongles I have which are natively supported in XP are SMC also. I'm talking about whether it ultimately WORKS - ie whether full-function drivers are available.

And per your example, XP is FULLY functional on a Pentium 100 - your example is nonsense for two separate reasons.
First, I was talking about the HARDWARE being fully functional, whereas your P100 example is talking about the software being functional on the hardware. Completely different thing.
Secondly, your example is obviously trying to say "well it will be really slow on the P100" but performance is not the issue - FUNCTIONALITY is.
I was quite deliberately ignoring the performance issue since that's entirely a matter of "use faster hardware for better performance".
The issue is hardware that DOES NOT WORK as a result of an "upgrade".

last edited by Target at 20:49:45 20/Jan/08

If they aren't natively supported how is it different from XP to Vista, that is solely down to the vendor for either OS. If they only made 98 drivers you'd be s*** out of luck for XP as well.

A GF4 era system is now ~5 years old believe it or not. I'd bet you there is plenty of hardware that would not work on XP that was manufactured 5 years prior to its relase - modems, soundcards, etc.

Components that are 5 years old are obsolete, theres a reason they stop supporting them.

1) PC components fail after extended periods of time. Ever wonder where 3 years manufacturers warranty comes from? It's not a random pick, its about the expected life span of the product. Of course there are things that soldier on, but a lot of s*** fails.

2) Its crazy to expect more demanding software to run well on components that were developed 5 years before it was coded.


It's like trying to use a HD set top box with a TV from the 90's, any salesperson would just laugh at you if you told them what you were trying to hook it up to.

It's like trying to use a HD set top box with a TV from the 90's,

Even my 2 year old 'powerhouse' lags like a mofo on 1080p. Do I cry to sony or toshiba that the 20mbs video doesnt run well enough on my crappy old A64 2ghz well enough?

A question - has anyone else noticed that Vista reads 4gb of memory with the beta service pack?

Any idea when the full service pack is due for release , i hear that the beta has a limited life span true /false ??

Yeah I'm waiting for the release through windows update in hope it will fix some of the issues I have with startup :(

This has already been addressed. You can't lay the blame solely on the manufacturers. If you're not sure what I mean, I suggest you read the thread where it was discussed, before calling hardware vendors "lazy" from your arm-chair.

bitch please. Tell me that nvidia taking 6 months AFTER vista's release in Australia before they finally made drivers more suitable for SLI etc, ISN'T them?

Microsoft made them take that long? or more likely they didn't react quickly enough to the beta testing period, in which they should have been more pro-active in their driver testing throughout the beta/RC testing which was at LEAST a year before final release.

Things need to progress. No, vista isn't necessary. It's not DESPERATELY needed to supercede XP, but god dammit it just is. The simple matter is, Microsoft NEEDS to make money. As a corporation, they need to sell product, or they fail.

Why does winamp still make new versions? surely if people wanted to play mp3's, and stream web-radio, couldn't they do that back on ye' olde version 2.80? it's cause now they're not free, they need to make money, or their company sucks ass.

there are a lot of unnecessary turds that are just polished time and time again, but that's business. It just annoys me that time and time again, we have vista bashing sessions, when I don't see "f***ING NVIDIA" or "GOD DAMNED CREATIVE" threads, complaining about THEIR shortcomings.

Vista is by no means running stable on everyone's machine, but is that solely Microsoft's fault, or, like I said, also the hardware manufacturer's?

Rev the beta is time limited, but it expires after SP1 goes live. So you just uninstall the RC1 and install the final release.

Pretty simple really, if you have a spare ~130meg download quota just grab it and if you experience any problems just remove it. It does actually come down through windows update, it will appear after you have applied the required patches.

Cheers Rubba i will give it a shot

I think the point some are trying to make is, 'Why pay to run Vista'
Microsoft is charging a fair chunk of change to buy Vista, but what does it really offer?

If they dropped the price(or oem it) and you have current hardware then by all means hook that s*** up. Might as well have the latest.
But i personally cant justify going out and paying that amount of money for what feels like an inbetween Os.

Me personally think Xp has been a great Windows Os for some time now and im enjoying just not having problems.

Things need to progress.

Vista is not exactly the prime example of "progression".

The simple matter is, Microsoft NEEDS to make money. As a corporation, they need to sell product, or they fail.

I don't give a flying f*** what Microsoft NEEDS to do. It doesn't justify anything from the end users' point of view.

Why does winamp still make new versions?

Who cares? As long as they don't break compatibility between revisions. As in, you're not required to download brand new MP3s or download new audio drivers everytime a new Winamp release is out, no matter how insignificant the release.

I'm still waiting for the Vista apologists in this thread to list some genuinely useful features and reasons for someone to fork out that much cash for a new license or upgrade. So far all I hear is noise about "it's new, get with the times". So f***ing what.

I am no diehard fanboy of Vista, theres just too many people slagging it off without really having thoroughly experienced it. Half the arguments against it make very little to no sense.


If XP is working great for you on your current PC there really is no burning reason to upgrade to it.

If your new PC comes with an OEM Vista copy there is no need scream and flail your arms around in panic format the drive and install XP. Vista works just lovely with latest gen hardware.

If you have obscure or unusual hardware and you know it is fully supported in XP, its best to stick with good old XP.

^^ well said. being a developer you want to work with the latest. soon software will become vista only too.

rubba - get out of my head!

I am no diehard fanboy of Vista, theres just too many people slagging it off without really having thoroughly experienced it. Half the arguments against it make very little to no sense.

Which ones?

If XP is working great for you on your current PC there really is no burning reason to upgrade to it.

If your new PC comes with an OEM Vista copy there is no need scream and flail your arms around in panic format the drive and install XP. Vista works just lovely with latest gen hardware.

If you have obscure or unusual hardware and you know it is fully supported in XP, its best to stick with good old XP.

+ If you want to play games in DirectX 10, you could upgrade or dual-boot.

last edited by ³dee at 17:00:47 21/Jan/08

huge fail jim.

describe your life, like an infi

From a support point of view Vista is poo because they have moved things on me and I am too lazy to look. But I must say the problems with Office 2007 far out way Vista. I have not met a single user yet who is happy with 07 they all hate it. Once again MS f***ing s*** up just because they can.

I don't mind Office 2007, except for the part where the Ribbon is bigger than it needs to be and hence takes up significant vertical screen real-estate when used on a widescreen laptop LCD dedicated for office-work or assignments (a big deal for students).

last edited by parabol at 18:07:34 21/Jan/08

Well might I say, the world would never go anywhere if people didnt change things. For better or worse.

I don't think Vista can be compared to ME.

me either. but that's because we're people, not operating systems

lol!

bahaha

hahaha.

IM RUNNING DOS 6.22 IN MY BRAINZORS

And per your example, XP is FULLY functional on a Pentium 100

BBZZT, i call bulls***.

from microsoft's site.

PC with 300 megahertz or higher processor clock speed recommended; 233 MHz minimum required

you can't even install the OS on a p100. try again.

i feel like posting pics today:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v683/shorty323/owned.jpg

you can't even install the OS on a p100. try again.

That's a bold claim:

http://www.winhistory.de/more/386/xpmini_eng.htm

The target of this project was to find the weakest system where you can run Windows XP. Keep in mind, that Microsoft official requirements are a CPU with 233 MHz an 64 MB of RAM.

Experimental setup:

Asus PIV-486SP3 socket 3 Mainboard, SIS 496/97 chipset
Pentium Overdrive 83 MHz @ 16/8 MHz
64 MB RAM, later 20 MB
EIDE drives
Vision964-PCI graphics-card

The frontsidebus was set down to 8 MHz, XP runs now with the clock of an ISA Slot!

http://homepage.powerup.com.au/~boldajis//images/8mhz.gif

xp does a CPU check on install. the copy used in that article was not installed using a P100 processor, furthermore you are glossing over your statement of it being fully functional.

but hey, what would microsoft know about their own operating system's requirements.

last edited by ara at 23:10:41 21/Jan/08

I've installed and run XP on a P166 with 64MB of EDO RAM just for s***s and giggles

I ran a 7200rpm hdd and a 52x cd-rom to make it as painless as possible.

It was a really cheap NAS box.

133Mhz is the hard cut off, same as W2K

xp does a CPU check on install. the copy used in that article was not installed using a P100 processor

You pasted a link and quotes to minimum specs in an attempt to prove that XP doesn't run on a slow system. It does, as has been proved in that article. Installation on a slow system or a P100 in particular? irrelevant to your overall point.

furthermore you are glossing over your statement of it being fully functional.

Wrong, I never made any such statement.

last edited by parabol at 23:26:06 21/Jan/08

I posted a link to what microsoft recommends the OS to run on and stated my opinion that the OS is not fully functional running on a P100.

If you think fully functional means the OS will run run, however slow, then that is great for you but i don't see that as a functional or useful.

Furthermore, from my experience you can not install W2K or XP on a P100 processor. Any CPU slower then 133Mhz will cause the install to abort just as the GUI loads during install with a message indicating the cause.

The point relating back to the thread is that you probally can run Vista below its requirements too, but don't expect to get any value out of it or to have it fully functional. Vista has some large recommended specs and even then they should probally be min specs but if you run it to specs or overspecs it is a really pretty OS.


last edited by ara at 23:45:30 21/Jan/08

Oh, I don't expect XP to be useful in any way on an old Pentium. I just react when someone says "you can't do X" when there's obviously some really fat and un-laid nerd out there who spent a week getting it to work :)

(On another note, why do post numbers revert to #0 sometimes?)

except for the part where the Ribbon is bigger than it needs to be and hence takes up significant vertical screen real-estate when used on a widescreen laptop LCD dedicated for office-work or assignments (a big deal for students).

Geesus... significant real estate? What res do you run in? 960x600?

I haven't got an earlier copy of office to test but by eyeball(and based on icon size which doesn't look like its changed) i'd say that the ribbon takes up about 3 maybe 4 old toolbars. Which means that for double the size of the toolbar(most people would have 2 depth toolbars unless your screen is ultra-wide at which point you're probably not worried by losing 96 pixels) you're gaining the first office menuing system i don't have to terminally scrub every time i want to do something.

YMMV, but i find the ribbon system is the big bonus of the new office.

Geesus... significant real estate? What res do you run in? 960x600?

My laptop LCD's native resolution: 1280x800. If you haven't tried typing a document on such
a screen, then you wouldn't understand.

All I can do is illustrate in the screenshots below, with Ribbon on and off. The extra space used
up by the ribbon given such limited vertical real-estate is much more useful when allocated to
actual text input instead of a menu.

If you still disagree, that's entirely your opinion, but I'm the one sitting here
having to write 4000 word reports and I can do with as much text-input space as possible.
Minimising the toolbar and clicking on demand isn't very optimal either.

Obviously one could argue that I should have bought a laptop with a larger screen, but
the screen and laptop are the perfect size for everything apart from a ribbon-enabled Word.

http://homepage.powerup.com.au/~boldajis//images/off_0.jpg

http://homepage.powerup.com.au/~boldajis//images/off_1.jpg


last edited by parabol at 15:24:01 22/Jan/08

My laptop LCD's native resolution: 1280x800. If you haven't tried typing a document on such
a screen, then you wouldn't understand.

Not sure how many words it was but i did a technical design for the outbound dialler interface i'm building that ended up being about 20 pages with diagrams/pictures. My res is 1024x768 so basically same as yours.

I did my thesis on my old laptop but that was 1280x1024 so it doesn't really count.

All I can do is illustrate in the screenshots below, with Ribbon on and off. The extra space used
up by the ribbon given such limited vertical real-estate is much more useful when allocated to
actual text input instead of a menu.

I'll be honest with you... i didn't even know you could minimise the ribbon. However you're kind of comparing apples and oranges here. You're comparing with ribbon and without ribbon when you should be comparing with ribbon functionality and old toolbar functionality(since thats what you'd have if you were using the old word).

If you still disagree, that's entirely your opinion, but I'm the one sitting here
having to write 4000 word reports and I can do with as much text-input space as possible.
Minimising the toolbar and clicking on demand isn't very optimal either.

My suggestion would be to use the zoom in the bottom right. My 9pt design doc is still legible at 80% at which point i can see about half of the page. Also something worth doing is turning off double line spacing (or is that one and a half line?) while you're actually doing the business end of writing. (Use the styles menu to make it quicker to undo the change)

Also... whats wrong with Minimise/click? When i first read this i thought you'd have to re-minimise after clicking. Instead after a bit of search/playing i find that you can click the function you want and it goes away immediately. I'm looking for the downside.

P.S. Thanks for pointing out minimised ribbon btw. I'm all for hiding things away until i need them.

P.P.S Sorry if i'm coming on a bit strong here... The closest i've ever been to a MS fanboy is over office 2007. It's a seriously awesome piece of software. The licensing is a bit bogus same as with vista and if it wasn't for the menu re-org i'd hate the new look but(in my opinion) they've managed to merge pointless graphic upgrade and functional improvement really well.

I have not met a single user yet who is happy with 07

Hi there. You've met your single user who is happy with 07.

I did my thesis on my old laptop but that was 1280x1024 so it doesn't really count.

My desktop is at that resolution and the ribbon is seriously not an issue whatsoever. It's just when I go below a critical vertical resolution that documents become really irritating to write and vertical space becomes an issue :)

P.P.S Sorry if i'm coming on a bit strong here...

That's cool, we each have our own opinions.

I was expecting to dislike Office 07 but actually ended up liking it (apart from this tall ribbon thing). The program in general doesn't get in my way, lets me do what I want.

The trend towards widescreen, while great for movies and games, and for screens large enough to have two documents side by side, really sucks for a single portrait-oriented page. The Ribbon further aggravates this.
Notice the huge amount of completely unused space on either side of the document?

A pivoting display would be hugely useful, *especially* on a laptop with a smaller / lower res screen.

On a 1280x800 screen you'd suddenly have more than fifty percent extra height, and taking into account the space used by the titlebar, the ribbon, the status bar, etc, your document space is practically doubled.
Consider the cost difference between a laptop with a 15.4" 1280x800 screen vs one with a screen large enough to have the same height and vertical resolution as that 15.4" turned on its side.

Heck, it would be awkward and impractical in many cases but you could actually turn your laptop sideways, pivot the display via the display software (I believe all Intel, ATi and NVIDIA drivers do this) and use an external keyboard.

No good for in class, but useable on a desk.

Isn't it possible to re-align the menus to the RHS of the document, like you can the start bar? Would recover quite a few lines on a 1280x800 then I'd reckon?

Oh wow, I just realised that the 3-row Ribbon has an entire row dedicated to the title/description of that segment of the ribbon: "Clipboard", "Font", "Paragraph", "Styles", "Editing".

What a waste of space ... as if any regular Word user reads the segment description when they can recognise each item by its icon. Hoping for some for of Ribbon customisation in a future patch or a mod of some kind, as this is just stupid.

why don't you get a monitor that can spin 90 degrees to a portrait orientation?

then you can set the same in your driver settings in windows and you won't have any problems.

why don't you get a monitor that can spin 90 degrees to a portrait orientation?

Is this targeted at me?

Oh wow, I just realised that the 3-row Ribbon has an entire row dedicated to the title/description of that segment of the ribbon: "Clipboard", "Font", "Paragraph", "Styles", "Editing".

What a waste of space ... as if any regular Word user reads the segment description when they can recognise each item by its icon. Hoping for some for of Ribbon customisation in a future patch or a mod of some kind, as this is just stupid.

Leaving aside the buttons at the bottom of the segments that open more complex windows (i use the style one to open the style sidebar), the point of those title/descriptions is to make scrubbing the ribbon easier.

Essentially it becomes a search tree.

What am i dealing with... Tables,
What am i trying to do... Format them,
OK so chances are the button i want to press is somewhere in there.

I agree that for power users customising the ribbon to get rid of them would be cool. But by and large the biggest non-power user complaint about every word up to 2003 is that unless you know exactly where to find that feature that you've used twice in your life, you pretty much have to search everything because you've got no clue where it will be.

And thats the entire point of the ribbon.

Essentially it becomes a search tree.

What am i dealing with... Tables,
What am i trying to do... Format them,
OK so chances are the button i want to press is somewhere in there.

Yeah but you can tell at a glance what the group is without effort.

* You see a bunch of horizontal lines, most likely the Formatting.
* See single letters of different styles? Obviously the style section.
* A group with Bold, italics and colours? The Font section.
* See a clipboard? Obviously the clipboard section.

It's a no-brainer, no text needed .. even for hardly used items or people who use Word casually, it's pretty bloody clear and intuitive. Hell I didn't even know there were text descriptions until I looked at my own freaking screenshot .. have unknowingly completely ignored them until now.

In my opinion the top-menu division between Home/Insert/Page-Layout/etc is sufficient for grouping. The rest is just redundant and takes up too much room.

-----

And if ara was talking to me, carrying a rotatable monitor around defeats the purpose of a portable laptop. I -do- have a rotatable desktop LCD at home, but its vertical pixel dimensions are big enough that I wouldn't even need to use portrait mode. Also, VGA-out on laptops are sometimes crap due to interference and the fact that it's just ... VGA. Also ClearType is screwy when you rotate.

* You see a bunch of horizontal lines, most likely the Formatting.
* See single letters of different styles? Obviously the style section.
* A group with Bold, italics and colours? The Font section.
* See a clipboard? Obviously the clipboard section.

It's a no-brainer, no text needed .. even for hardly used items or people who use Word casually, it's pretty bloody clear and intuitive. Hell I didn't even know there were text descriptions until I looked at my own freaking screenshot .. have unknowingly completely ignored them until now.

In my opinion the top-menu division between Home/Insert/Page-Layout/etc is sufficient for grouping. The rest is just redundant and takes up too much room.

While i don't disagree that at times it is obvious to me(and obviously to you), the entirety of the usability field disagrees with you and have plenty of hard data and examples to back this disagreement up.

The problem is called "being an expert user". Step back and look at your examples a bit. I'm going to reword them without the expert knowledge.

* A whole heap of boxes with AaBbCc in them? Obviously the style section.
* Some buttons with B I and U and some colors on them? The Font section.
* See that yellow box with a white box on it? Obviously the clipboard section.

While thats kind of overstating the case a little, it's accurate for someone who doesn't use office. There's no inherent reason why any of those things _HAVE_ to be obvious. They're obvious to us because we're use to the kind of mental models that office uses.

It's good that you didn't see them until you went looking for them. But should you be wondering what button you should be pressing at 4:45 when your assignment is due at 5:00, Assuming you have the presence to take a deep breath and do a rational search rather than frantically pressing everything, you'll thank them for including it.

While thats kind of overstating the case a little, it's accurate for someone who doesn't use office.

I'm an Office newb. I don't even know how to do a TOC properly or to get page numbering working without dirty hacks. Hardly expert. That's why I like it how many [other] programs allow you to chose between Text, Icons and Text+Icons .. which I doubt takes much programming effort on their part to implement. With this, everyone wins.

I do most of my report writing in TeX, but use Office for assignments I don't care much for ... or when I need to think up bulls*** instead of writing decent content. I find WYSIWYG editors somehow give you immense bulls***-generating capabilities .. the spaces fill up in no time :)


last edited by parabol at 16:32:57 23/Jan/08

My laptop LCD's native resolution: 1280x800. If you haven't tried typing a document on such a screen, then you wouldn't understand.

IIRC 1280x800 is the most common running resolution for laptops, and (I’m at work so I don’t have my IA,IxD hotlinks here) but MS specifically tested on low to high end visual screens for both 4:3 but also widescreen/laptop configurations.

The laptop I wrote my 78 page thesis on was 1280x800, and the ribbon took up a negligible amount of space.

If you still disagree, that's entirely your opinion, but I'm the one sitting here
having to write 4000 word reports and I can do with as much text-input space as possible.
Minimising the toolbar and clicking on demand isn't very optimal either.

I can't help laughing at the 4,000 word report line. Wait until you've written 4,000 words and you've only just jotted out your notes, then you can complain your need of vertical space.

I have not met a single user yet who is happy with 07

Here’s two.

Actually, most of my office uses Office2007 and there’s been very little complaints (290 consultants, not including office admin, support staff or project staff).

Oh, I'm so stingy with vertical space, my task bar is actually vertical (on the right side of the screen).

I can't help laughing at the 4,000 word report line. Wait until you've written 4,000 words and you've only just jotted out your notes, then you can complain your need of vertical space.

4000 words was the average word count of my regular reports and assignments. The two Theses I've written are an entirely different matter, so no "wait" is required and you've wasted a laugh. But my point wasn't to boast and belittle, like you are attempting to do.

The laptop I wrote my 78 page thesis on was 1280x800, and the ribbon took up a negligible amount of space.

Good on you. That's your opinion, just like I stated mine.

Anyway, I can only talk about Microsoft products for so long before tiring. Enjoy.

last edited by parabol at 16:59:02 23/Jan/08

I do most of my report writing in TeX, but use Office for assignments I don't care much for ... or when I need to think up bulls*** instead of writing decent content. I find WYSIWYG editors somehow give you immense bulls***-generating capabilities .. the spaces fill up in no time :)

Seriously dude, if you can make the claim that you can use TeX(and i'm not disputing that) let alone you mostly use TeX, you are so far away from the Office user experience curve that you're not even a shadow of a blip on Microsoft's user radar.

Office is designed for someone that can't even pronounce TeX let alone write ANYTHING let alone write what they want. If you just make the general assumption that anything you think is obvious isn't, you'll be right more often than you're not. Believe me when i say i speak from harsh painful experience.

I have office 07 at home, and office 03 at work, and although I'm happy with office 07 at home, I still personally prefer 03, I think that's more to do with familiarity. 07 isn't BAD IMO, but it's just different, and as yet, I'm still not completely familiar with it, so I wouldn't install it at work to run.

07 isn't BAD IMO, but it's just different, and as yet, I'm still not completely familiar with it, so I wouldn't install it at work to run.

And bringing this full circle back to the original discussion, thats the biggest problem with the current generation of MS products. They've gone all over the place and introduced all these changes at once and people are getting mullish and resisting(which is a natural reaction).

Personally i can see all the advantages to my workflow in O7 so essentially i like it for the changes rather than in spite of them. I can't say the same about vista where the only thing that i'm likely to get out of it is a 64bit OS(and since it's almost impossible to find a 64bit version of windows for sale not even that).

well...

I just put my new Core 2 Duo 3ghz, X38 chipset, 8800GTS system together and chucked vista business x64 on and my god is it fast and smooth.

I had one small problem pertaining to the use of vLite but fixed that. The whole operating is very smooth,stable and fast. Not one problem unlike with my old hardware.

Put oblivioon and UT3 on and they both run 60+ fps constant (dunno how high coz of vsync) on the highest possible detail. All in all this is waaaaay smoother and faster than I expected and vista is running perfect.

So vista ain't s*** afterall. I don't even think I'll put XP on dual boot anymore. Doesn't look like it'll need it.

seems kind of hasty seeing you only just installed it

So what's the verdict with this RC SP, should I install it or not ?

Good on you. That's your opinion, just like I stated mine.

At least my opinion seems to follow the research done on the subject matter, not “omg I write 4000 word reports and it takes up so much of my precious vertical real estate boohoohoo”.

4000 words was the average word count of my regular reports and assignments

4000 words is still exceptionally average for any kind of report.

But my point wasn't to boast and belittle,

You where trying to denote some sort of verbosity in your reports that makes your work precious and more difficult because of the negligible amount of vertical real-estate that the ribbon bar takes up.

like you are attempting to do.

No, looking at the peers I graduated with, I’ve got nothing to boast about. The other two honours graduates in my year both pumped out well over 150 pages. My point was that 4,000 word reports are small enough that you can write it in the QGL reply box, and they are not a metric worth mentioning.

In my opinion, lol 4,000 (if we're epenis measuring, my generic user manual is over 6,000 words long + a bajillion screen shots and I only run 1280x1024 most of my peers report you be avg. of 100+ pages and few if any screen shots and no one is complaining about "screen" real estate) words. That's not even worth complaining about "vertical" real estate.

Besides the topic is vista and not MS word or screen real estate....

Quit your f***ing whinging and tell me whether or not I should install THIS BETA SP

Well only if you're having problems. I'm gonna wait til the final release as I've not noticed any problems so far. Though it is sitting on my hard drive...

4000 words was the average word count of my regular reports and assignments.

I've downloaded a 4000 word journal article from OZChi, and changed my resolution to 1280x720 and the ribbon consists of slightly less than 5 lines of text. Given that the average line is 10 words or less, you're having a cry over 50 words. Whoa, 50 words (or less).

It's a no-brainer, no text needed

Also, it's people like you that keep me in my high paying easy job. Please, keep being ignorant.