Microsoft Vista

[Johnny Bravo]

Is anyone running Vista yet? I will be upgrading my Dell laptop to Vista Pro soon and want to know what everyone else has run into.

[Tonerbomb]

I'm in a simalar situation, But I'm looking to stay with XP 'cause of some of my app's and drivers. Also Ricoh doesn't have Vista drivers yet and my IT customers aren't jumping either. BTW Vista has 4 flavors: home basic, home premium, business, and ultimate.

[JustManuals]

Is anyone running Vista yet? I will be upgrading my Dell laptop to Vista Pro soon and want to know what everyone else has run into.

Make sure you have ALL the device drivers for your laptop. Vista is not PnP and it will not find your hardware automatically. I loaded it on to my Dell P4 and then dumped it. It wouldn't load the driver disks that came with that PC or even find them when I pointed it to it.
From what I've read, its recommended that you don't do an upgrade but to wait until you need a new PC and get it preloaded.

HtH
paul@justmanuals.com

[Tonerbomb]

Also remember the golden rule about MS os upgrades.... WAIT WAIT WAIT. I forgot to post this earlier, got up WTF early today.

[MrCMYK]

I too am considering replacing my laptop. But I will load XP on it until vista has matured. Must have a stable, problem free laptop at work.

I can't believe businesses are buying and deploying computers w/o testing first.:mad:

[DallasTech]

I have not seen it in the field yet, but I tried the Ultimate version on my computer and it was really flakey. Norton Internet Security doesn't run on it and there are other applications that won't work yet. I would give it a few months, maybe 6 or so, then start asking about it.

[MrCMYK]

I am hearing that lots of software requires the latest versions. CHA-CHING

[wagon]

I will ask, WHAT does can it do for me, in a business environment, the XP does not? Why fix something that isn't broken?

Kendall.

[DallasTech]

That wouldn't make them as much money, now would it?

[suckis]

Wait for Vista SP1 and then load them.

[Cheeto]

I upgraded and it seems to work OK. I had one driver issue but I will live for a while. lots of cool features.

[Xrox]

The laptop I have my eye on has it loaded on it, and I hope to turn it into a quad boot system, ( Vista, XP, Mac OSX, Linux-Suse(or)Fedora5/6 )

I'm moving farther and farther away from Microsoft. I even used to be an MSDN member, and now I can't stand MS.

As stated above ....... wait for SP1 to upgrade, or dual boot to test it out.

I had to setup a Docutech DT135 the other day (to an NSPlus server) and Vista is lacking some LPR stuff as well. Got it printing from vista though.

[DallasTech]

On a similar note, Has anyone came across Word 2007 and TWAIN scanning? I found out yesterday that Word 2007 does not support the "insert from scanner or camera" function. One work around is to use the Microsoft Clip Organizer's insert function and then copy and paste them into Microsoft Word 2007.

[TonerMonkey]

Why not just get a Powerbook running OSX, MS are chasing what Apple did 7 years ago and Vista is just a second rate OSX.

What's the name of the company that's always chasing the game again...... that's right ... Microsuck!!!

[DallasTech]

You can say that as much as you want, but Microsoft is what you have to work on all day long, so it's still necessary. I myself am all about learning something new and trying Mac, but it's not easy for all of the businesses to change over, they aren't smart enough and don't have the IT resources to, plus it's a lot more stressful to workers to retrain on a different OS. I am a pretty good button pusher, but it is not easy to switch from Windows to Mac.

[Cipher]

I've noticed a few firmware updates trickling through for various Ricoh MFPs to fix some scan to SMB issues when using Vista.

[Johnny Bravo]

Well I upgraded last night and it went OK. I had one error when I was all done and there is was a pretty easy fix. The new interface is very easy on the eyes and it has some cool new features. I haven't had too much time to play with it so I will follow up in a few weeks if I run into anything.

[MrCMYK]

from what I've seen & herd, most Fiery RIPs don't have Vista 32/64 (or XP64) drivers. EFI is always very late on coming out w/ drivers for new OS's, its like they are the last to know. Most are never certified. The projected release dates are strewn thru-out the next 6-7 months... Vaporware... look for those dates to push.

Customers are starting to upgrade / buy new computers and have been asking about drivers.

Try XP drivers or OEM manufacture standard controller drivers and lookout for wierd problems... give the customer a disclaimer:D

[Scott_Lewis]

We've recently replaced two of our shop desktop pcs. One of then has Vista Ultimate loaded simply because we wanted one for experience and training.

The score at this point is one graphics program that won't run, one explorer type utility that mostly runs, and ALL printer drivers installed to date are crippled.

All of the printer/copier drivers installed so far are of the 'mini-driver' variety simply because the normal PCL drivers are not available ..... yet!?! or not Have not tried any PS drivers to date. This wasn't so much a test as it was an attempt to link with machines we have connected for our printing needs.

Scott

[DallasTech]

I did have some luck with a Di470 with a Fiery X3e. I just installed the XP drivers on the Vista machines and actually installed Remote Scan 5 to pull scans from the Fiery box. Everything was working fine, but I don't know if it was 32 or 64-bit. I haven't heard a complaint from them yet, but their IT guy is knowledgeable enough to know it's not going to be perfect. This was over a month ago and I haven't got a call back.

[Dukem]

I have Vista loaded on a removable drive on my home PC so I can experiment with it and keep my original configured XPpro system as my everyday use OS.(That and my wife hates it when I change everything just when she gets used to it!) I have found out several things while testing Vista:
1. It doen't like to be in a multiple boot environment.
2. It is a resource hog
3. Make sure programs are compatable before loading - if possible
4. There are (too) many tweeks that can make it faster
5. I'll wait for about a year before I make it my standard OS (If at all!)

[MrCMYK]

well, vista's SP1 is out now. I am setting up a system and loading my aps. Takes a little bit getting used to, I am surprised to see soo much stuff still running on beta drivers... man, its been a stinking year! Oh well, I guess I should have known, we still don't have the Fiery drivers for all the current models either.

so far, my card reader is the only casualty for hardware. Software is weeding out the stuff I haven't used regularly

[techathens]

Stick With Xp Or Xp Pro Or Even 2000!

[fausto1981]

Yeap, Same here

sticking with XP Pro after experimenting for a minute.

[MrCMYK]

well, I have been playing w/ vista for a while now... I get several " windows, run.dll, outlook, explorer, windows update stopped working" error messages a day.

Me thinks its time to roll back to XP.

the "Vista Sucks" video is right, it just plane sucks.

Uncle Bill, you are on my VISTA list ;-)

[djbass]

I laugh when I read most of this because 99.9% of it is utter toss.

Vista is a very stable and well rounded OS. It is not buggy, still in beta, a resource hog or the spawn of satin.

My home system has been running it since release and it is been rock solid for the majority of that period. There were some performance/stability issues in the first couple of months but that wasn't Vista's fault, rather the driver vendors for still having beta drivers at Vista's launch.

It is true that it consumes more memory than XP does but for the most part that is a good thing as its part of the prefetching feature and improves the more you use your PC, it also dynamically allocates more memory to programs as needed.

I have about 8 months ago purchased a laptop preloaded with Vista for service work and have not encountered any compatibility problems for the most part.

Vista doesn't suck, its just different, and the sooner people learn its not just a prettier XP but a whole new OS the better.

[wingnut132]

I agree with djbass, I was beta testing it since the get go, have 3 new systems with vista and a couple of upgraded sytems from xp, all works fine with no issues never crashed and I did try when beta testing, vista is alot nicer than xp, just wait until windows 7 comes out people will still bitch. You have to move on and come out of the dark ages.

[MrCMYK]

I do like a lot of the features...

but after being on the computer for 20 min today...

when i logged in, I was greated with 2 "sidebar stopped ..." messages

I checked email (outlook 07 w/ all updates), went well.

I hit the link in copytechnet's email to take me to hear, IE7 crashed... stopped working msg.

then a "windows update stopped working" msg.

on the puter 20 minutes and had 4 errors. Oh yes, sometimes when I get one of these "xxx stopped working msgs, my taskbar and window frames turns white and my theme is changed, I must reset to my default to fix.

"Its not a bug, it's an undocumented feature" ;-)


my system is a homebuilt system. all the hardware is vista cert, w/ oem vista drivers. MS office 07 w/ all the updates, vista ultimate 32bit w/ SP1 and all the updates.

due to it being a new system and I have been testing / learning the only non MS software I have is quicken 06 w/ vista update.

I frequent the mom & pop computer markets/stores and most are having trouble w/ vista and xp outsells vista.

I have also been pokin' around on the vista PCs at the big stores... HP, Dell, Tosh ETC. it does seem like the big named PCs are running more reliably than the homebuilts... perhaps those people are the ones that are living large on vista

[djbass]

I have found stability problems to be driver related, certified or not it seems there must be some fundamental change to the driver structure that vendors are having trouble getting their heads around.

As an example I started out with Vista running on an Abit mobo and it never skipped a beat, as Abit generally are very good with their drivers.

I recently upgraded to a Asus mobo to get support for the newer 45nm processors and have had a couple of issues due to buggy drivers, every other bit of hardware is unchanged.

I would say that is the same reason the big named PC's run reliably as the out of box drivers have already been tested and tuned specifically for their hardware under Vista.

You have to remember XP has been around 7 years now and vendors have had plenty of time to get used to its quirks, it wasn't smooth sailing at release either. If you really want to wait another 7 years for Vista to reach the same equalibrium go right ahead but we will be staring down the barrel of Microsofts next OS by then :)

[Steve Perks]

I've been running Vista Ultimate for a few months now.
The install/fine tuning wasn't a painless exercise but soon got everything ironed out.

It has worked flawlessly ever since.
I was originally running with a P42.8ghz processor and 1GB RAM.
I've just built a new machine with a Core 2 dual 2.2ghz and 2gb RAM and Vista is now flying.

I'm one of the minority that loves it.