More Windows Vista: The Saga Continues...

"Linux sucks twice as fast and 10 times more reliably, and since you have
the source, it's your fault."
-- from Google Codebase Search


I have Vista Ultimate running on two PC's now, my notebook, and my "Main machine" where it resides on one hard drive, dual booting with Windows Server 2003 Enterprise x64 Edition on the other drive.

I'm getting to like Vista so much that I've even changed the Outlook default .Pst file to the one from the x64 OS so that I'll have the same Outlook data whether I boot into Vista or Windows Server.

At this point, I have everything pretty much set up the way I want, and I've gotten past a few of Vista's quirks with security and such to the point where I feel happy with the OS.

There are some plus items I've noticed about Vista, and also a few minuses:

Plus:

1) It boots FAST. Much faster than Windows Server.
2) You can put it to Sleep (like "Hibernate"). Your Computer's power light goes out, it "looks like" its off. But, when you press CTRL-ALT-DEL it comes to life in just seconds and all your stuff is still there. A big convenience feature.
3) It appears to be pretty good with memory and CPU management, especially with more than one program going.
4) Speech Recognition. They have made SUBSTANTIAL improvements. You can sit there with a headset mike and literally do anything you want, hands free. All it takes is a little study. "What can I say?"
5) the Copy folders/files dialog has been enhanced with conflict resolution and similar useful features.
6) For Developers, IIS 7 provides a number of enhancements, more programmatic API control, and improved stability, diagnostics, and throughput.

Minus:
1) The sidebar is still buggy and its a real memory hog. However, I'll give it the benefit of the doubt for now, since I probably will be developing a few freebie Sidebar Gadgets soon!
2) The Windows Mobile Device thing that replaces ActiveSync doesn't support Bluetooth. Apparently, corporate customers bitched to Microsoft, and they took it out. That's the pits, and you can't even install ActiveSync anymore.
3) The Copy folder/files dialog, because of the enhancements and computations of estimated time, etc. is now considerably SLOWER than in Windows Server 2003/ Windows XP.
4) The Microsoft Marketing Machine ("MMM") has completely failed me in describing whether Vista "Ultimate" is really the highest-end server-type product, or whether there will actually be a Longhorn Server that is still to appear. I strongly suspect that I am not the only person who is confused about Microsoft's proclivity for tinkering with the nomenclature, to the total and utter confusion of the end user.

Anyway, there will be more, I just wanted to get this started, and it'll be updated over the long weekend and beyond.

N.B. -- My first Sidebar Gadget: "Feed Search".

Linux What?


As if that weren't enough, have you ever searched Google Codebase? There are some pretty funny results. You can search for "Windows Sucks", but you can also search for "Linux Sucks" and get 5 pages worth of results!

Comments

  1. Quite informative first-hand experience of Vista "Ultimate". Thanks, Peter!!

    ReplyDelete

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