Fun Stuff > CLIKC
Vista
Coming Home:
I like Vista a whole lot more than XP.
It doesn't go, "HURR! I WILL CRASH BECAUSE YOU USE THE INTERNETS!"
Overall, I think it's pretty cool. And darkish.
The Cosmic Fool:
It probably doesn't crash because there isn't anything on it to make it crash. Any hardcore PC users probably haven't switched to it yet. So Vista is probably running more Office software than anything else.
I've used it. Here are my thoughts:
Pros:
- The new GUI is slick. I like it. Unfortunatly, people often never change their desktops from Luna in XP. Those who did got sick of it and knowledgeable enough to spend some time doing it. Vista might kill off the skinning community because I can see more people sticking to Aero than ever before. Plus, it's not going to get old anytime soon. Nice work, skinners at MS. Or nice theft. Either way.
- I like how they reorganized some stuff. Now, when you select a wallpaper, you can load up multiple directories. So if you have a wallpaper folder outside of "My Pictures" you can finally pick one while seeing all of your wallpapers in your own folder. Another thing that I like is the new Explorer shell, and the enhanced search function. You can pretty much search for any file and find it in no time.
- More secure. This is mainly not for myself. But I'll be happier knowing that it's going to take alot more than inept computer users to screw something up. It makes your first account a "standard user" and then you need to make an administrator. It's alot like Linux in this regard. But this should make computers break a little less because idiots won't be able to fuck something up without putting a password in first or the system letting them know something is wrong. Vista is XP for people who don't know how to use a computer. Good stuff, MS.
Cons:
- Nothing works. Yet. The drivers, while getting better leave your computer (or at least mine) in a state of disarray. This isn't exactly MS' fault. But I still don't like it. Expect Vista and all your applications to run better once your video drivers get good. I've noticed a jump or two in speed since I updated my own. Biggest reason why to stay with XP for a bit.
- RAM. Two things. It uses about 500mb of RAM on any given time. (If you don't believe me, explain why my physical memory is sitting at 50%) And it freely uses your swap on bootup. It doesn't wait for you run out of RAM and then dive into your swap. It just takes out a chunk whenever it feels like it. Unless you have 2gb of RAM, I'm not recommending Vista.
Also, if you go into Task Manager and look at how much free RAM you have, it will probably tell you that you have like 3mb there. Want to know where it's going? Vista controls your RAM. Unlike XP where RAM would just sit there freely until you loaded something up, Vista actually takes all of your RAM right away and does things with that RAM. It begins to get intuitive and the programs you use more often will inevitably load up faster. It's smart, and some people might praise it...but I don't know where the hell it's going to. I haven't found anything that tells me what it's doing with the x amount of RAM that I'm not using. There are a few articles on the internet that explain this RAM thing better than I do.
- I'm very unhappy they remade the kernel. This means that every single software developer has to make a Vista version for everything they produce from now on. Compatibility mode is fine, but I refuse to accept that they just had to make it different. So all the XP software probably won't work on Vista natively without compatibility mode. Fucking jerks.
Fiddler:
You all have the pro's and con's of Vista down pretty well so I'm not going to critique it too much. What I will say is that there is something really cool you can do with Vista thanks to its new installation procedure. You can get a couple gig USB drive and set it up so the computer will recognize it as a boot drive and then just transfer the entire Vista install onto it. After that, you can use the Windows Automated Installation Kit to make it so that the entire thing is a silent install with no user input required. After that you just boot the computer off the plugged in USB and it installs in under 5 minutes. Which if you've had to sit through as many XP installs as I have, that is frickin amazing.
jmrz:
That is a major plus for Vista. One of the things that I didn't like about Vista, and I guess it is just because I have been set in XP for so long. Is the way the Start Menu works. If you want it to look nice and work like the XP start menu etc, and pop out of the side I could just not find a way to make that happen. Can it be done without reverting to Windows Classic theme?
Scytale:
--- Quote from: The Cosmic Fool on 15 Mar 2007, 20:18 ---
- I'm very unhappy they remade the kernel. This means that every single software developer has to make a Vista version for everything they produce from now on. Compatibility mode is fine, but I refuse to accept that they just had to make it different. So all the XP software probably won't work on Vista natively without compatibility mode. Fucking jerks.
--- End quote ---
I wasn't even aware this was an issue, we run XP at work, probably will make the switch eventually. Most stuff I write is in C and runs completely separate to the OS, but from about 2 weeks ago I've been doing a lot of C++, trying to build a common user interface for a lot of the process models we use at work, for the GUI stuff I used wxWidgets for so thats os - independent, but I've been using a lot of native MS DLL's and things for stuff like Database access, I just naively assumed it was going to work on all future versions of Windows. Is stuff like ADO broken or changed in Vista? What ODBC, are their Oracle drivers for Vista yet? I hadn't even thought about this, this is a pretty huge project and that post of your has almost scared me enough to start using Java.
On a (slightly) related note: Does anyone know if theres any software for Windows that does automatic dependency resoloution, similar to RPM or something like that in the Linux world, my project needs certain DLL's to be installed to work and in some cases certain versions as well, it would be good if I could write an "installer" that checks all this beforehand.
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