Quite nice, but has some flaws. Here some suggestions

First of all let me say, after all the negativity towards vista in forums
etc. I expected worse, but it is not bad.

I have a fairly lame computer (athlon xp 2000+ [32 bit of course], 512 mb
ram, 80 gb hd, geforce fx 5600), and it works fairly nice on it. Yes, it's
slower than xp, but not that much slower. I even tried a game on it (warcraft
iii), it was slower than under xp, but still fairly playable. (again,
consider beta drivers, and beta OS..) I even played it online, while I
downloaded something from the net. I had no lags. Sound didn't work though.

But, the system swaps a bit too often for my taste. OK, I have only 512 MB,
but still.

The installation was fast and smooth, and done in 40 minutes.

So far so nice, BUT:


Increase the driver database, don't decrease it! My NIC (3Com officeconnect
NIC (3CSOHO100-TX), wasn't detected by Vista, I had to install the windows
2000 driver for it (worked). This card worked under XP out of the box. The
same with my SB Live! value (the original, not player, 24 bit edition etc),
XP had out of the box drivers for it, under under Vista, they were not with
it by default, I started Windows Update, there were drivers for it, sound
works now, but the gameport of the soundcard still doesn't. Windows said
something about a missing entry in the inf file. OK, this devices are older,
but they still work, and work in all newer motherboards (they are PCI cards).

I can understand, if all drivers for ISA, EISA and VLB cards get dumped, but
the driver database for PCI cards should not be decreased. Drivers for PCI
cards, that came already with XP must not be dumped! Especially since devices
like sound cards, NICs (along with scanners, printers.) usually have a much
longer livespan (they don't outdate as fast) than graphic cards or CPUs.


Vista alone takes around 6 GB on the hard disk. OK, WinFX, all the new
libraries and tools, but.. that's a bit much just for the core OS. Is that
because of Debug symbols?

Cleartype and fonts: If I deactivate clear type, the fonts look worse than
on xp (on XP with deactivated clear type of course). It looks nice with
activated clear type though. Still, that should be fixed.

The user interface is a bit too black. I don't want the default XP fisher
price look back, but.. I always liked the luna silver theme on xp. A bit more
grey and silver would be better.

Feature deactivation doesn't work that good. Under control
panel->Programs->Turn on or off Windows features, I have deactived the
indexer, but the task manager still shows SearchIndexer.exe

By the way feature activation and deactivation - nice idea, but it should
offer more options which I can activate or deactivate.

Why does dwm.exe eat so much system RAM? My graphic card has 256 MB RAM,
shouldn't desktop composition use mostly the VRAM?

The default user still an Administrator, just an UAC protected
Administrator. I can live with that, but maybe the system should urge you a
bit more to user a real restricted account.

UAC - Many people seem to have problems with it. I don't. It comes only up,
if you try to write something into the windows directory or program files
directory and so on, if you write just to your desktop or to your own home
directory, UAC doesn't bother you. Of course, it does come up too, if you
install new drivers or software, etc. but, that's the point of it. I think it
should not be dumbed down too much.

----------------
This post is a suggestion for Microsoft, and Microsoft responds to the
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http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/co...69e&dg=microsoft.public.windows.vista.general

 

Trust me, the system is secure "enough" with UAC, I actually think it needs
to be toned down. If you think it needs to be more secure, there is always
the Standard User account - its there waiting for you to take advantage of
it. As for performance, Vista is still a work in progress and no real
optimizations have not been added yet, so lets wait and see. As for any
other problems you have, there is the Feedback link on your Vista desktop to
send them in and make an impact.
--
--
Andre
Windows Connected | http://www.windowsconnected.com
Extended64 | http://www.extended64.com
Blog | http://www.extended64.com/blogs/andre
http://spaces.msn.com/members/adacosta

"the friendly display name"

 

The same devices that don't work in my Vista install are the same ones that
don't work on my install of Windows XP (with service pack 2) and Windows
Server 2003. I am referring to "out of the box" installation. After
installing the drivers that come with my devices, they work.
For my Vista install, once I installed the driver for my NIC from my
motherboard CD, I was able to get the drivers for the rest of my devices
from the Microsoft Internet method of driver updating.


"the friendly display name"