I was given a free copy of Vista Ultimate (don't ask) so I took it for a test-drive...and I really like it! The aero-glass graphics are cool, and it runs very smoothly on my rig, surprisingly. I recently purchased some near-legacy hardware from digitalayon, so I decided to experiment. The CPU is a Pentium 4 3.0ghz oc'd to 3.2 with a mondo Thermaltake Big Typhoon h/s. The mobo is a Gigabyte GA-8KNXP and it has only 1.5 gigs of DDR RAM (PC3200) running in single-channel mode. The video card is a Radeon 9800 Pro AGP. The hard drive is an 80 gig WD IDE @ 7200rpm. Vista installed all of the drivers except for the sound, so I visited the Gigabyte website (no Vista drivers there ). Since the sound is Realtek AC'97 I was able to easily find a Vista driver on the internet. When my son saw Vista run for the first time he commented that it looked just like my XP rig with Vista Transformation Pack! But, man, Vista is so much smoother. Now I am not a gamer, so I can't comment as to how much slower my frame-rates are (!), but for web-surfing it is very enjoyable. The Windows Experience Index on my rig is 4.3. That index is determined by the lowest subscore, and my CPU is the lowest of the groups. I would like to have installed Vista on my I-RAM SSD but it only holds 4GB, and Vista requires over 6GB. Anyway, if any of you are considering Vista for your older hardware I hope this will be informative to you. Take care.

 Hey Dave, Yeh you have experienced first hand why I get kinda tired of seeing the bashing of Vista. They treat it like the plague and honestly it isnt bad at all. I think a big number of people are experienceing Oem installs of the Operating System that is boged down with bloatware or something. Then of course you also have the Culture that has the mentality that if you dont hate Microsoft then your not elite enough or something.

 

I guess the big suprise is how many people are runing such terribly old machines.. I mean stuff like pentium 3 500s and they expect Vista to run perfect but eventially upgrades need to be made. I was doing some tech support over at Visiontek forums one day and some dude was flaming that his pentium 3 600 was having problems runing a ATI 2400HD, Even though his computer didnt even meet the mimimum requirements he insisted it was there card and that his computer is fine. I know I like to squeaze as much life as possible from my systems but that system was what I used or similar to it to learn networking in college 10 years ago.

I agree with you guys. I ran the Vista beta and loved it so I went out and got it on Jan. 1st. I get really mad about the bashing that it gets. I think most of the people that bash it have never even used it. I have it on my girls computer and she loves it to. I did have to install some more ram in her rig though. At the time she had a sempron 1.8GHz, 512mb RAM, ATI X550. It was slow and aero wouldn't run. I spend $50 on a 2GB kit of ram and it ran perfect. I get called a fanboy for defending it even though I run Ubuntu more than windows. I'm glad to be back at HH were people make sense. I run Home Premium. When I had the beta I never used any of the Ultimate features so I decided to save a few bucks. Overall a great OS.

bob_on_the_cob:

I ran the Vista beta and loved it so I went out and got it on Jan. 1st.

I ran Vista beta RC-1 on an nForce 2 motherboard but it wouldn't install the ethernet controller (Nvidia has never bothered to write Vista drivers for the nForce 2 platform because it has passed the product life-cycle). That experience was no fault of Microsoft, but it left me with a bad taste for Vista. I was prepared to just pass on Vista altogether but I couldn't refuse a free copy! I might just break-out that old nForce 2 board and install Vista on it again. I can always install a wireless PCI card or NIC that is Vista-compatible to connect to the internet!

Ah the nforce 2 days. I still have a NF7 and a mobile 2500+ somewere. Yeah there were a few things that didn't work like my ati media remote, tv tuner, and my printer. My printer never did get drivers. Darn HP. I got a new one.

*UPDATE* - I broke-out the old Shuttle AN35N-Ultra nForce 2 board and installed Vista on it..neither the sound drivers or the onboard ethernet controller installed. I was hoping my Airlink AWLH4030 Super G wireless PCI adapter would work, but there are no Vista drivers on the Airlink website for it. Nothing at DriverGuide.com, either. Rats! I sent Airlink an e-mail asking if there are any Vista drivers available, or if they ever plan to make any available (hope to hear from them soon). So as it stands I probably won't be able to access the internet with that rig unless I get drivers for my old hardware or spend some $ for a newer wireless card.

*UPDATE #2* - No answer yet from Airlink on the Vista drivers, but I discovered something else quite peculiar about Vista when I tried to dual-boot it with Windows XP: they don't like each other! I installed Vista by itself on one hard drive, and installed XP on another hard drive by itself. When I installed them in the same rig they have a tendency to duke-it-out! From the little reading I have done on this subject it seems the boot files try to change each other. Fortunately XP wasn't altered (because I booted it first?), but Vista started showing error messages at boot. I used the Vista DVD to repair the boot record and all is well, for now. I'll have to disconnect the power lead to one of the hard drives until I get this thing sorted-out. I have so much to learn!

They play much nicer if XP is installed first. Vista's bootmanager is a little lackluster. I have killed it a few time installing different linux distros and upgrading/partitioning  my harddrives. If the vista partition changes in anyway it wont boot. The vista disk fixes it with little fuss however and if you dont have a retail disk you can download a cd here( http://neosmart.net/blog/2008/windows-vista-recovery-disc-download/ ) to fix it. Its a torrent. cant find the download on the microsoft site but its there somewere.

 Im playing with Vista on a friends computer so far I like it just want to get use to it then start doing some tweaking to see what I can get out of it!

SuperDave: The Airlink 4030 is actually an Atheros Communications, Inc. AR5212 802.11abg NIC (rev 01) so look for vista drivers for the Atheros AR5212 and you should be set.

digitaldd:

SuperDave: The Airlink 4030 is actually an Atheros Communications, Inc. AR5212 802.11abg NIC (rev 01) so look for vista drivers for the Atheros AR5212 and you should be set.

COOL! Thanks for that info, digitaldd, I will check it out!

 

With untimate you can have some cool moving backgrounds on your PC... Thats why i like Ulitmate over permium, but thats about it really...lol

Hi All

After hearing a lot of negative talk about Vista & then talking to Folk who had a more positive view Flying & Super Dave come to mind, I took the plunge & installed Vista Ultimate 64Bit. I don't know what all the Fuss is about. Very easy Install RAID drivers from a USB drive. This is the first time I have a System with no Floppy Drive. All I can say is that Vista has really gotten a bum rap.

All this talk of Vista, you are making me want to try it! I was given a copy a while back I tried it on my laptop; but Disney's Toontown didn't play so nice with it, and since that is one of my daughters favorite sites I was forced to go back to XP. I'll have to go back and try it again. Perhaps on my desktop this time.

Airlink replied to my query about Vista drivers for my wireless card. Here is what they wrote:

Unfortunately, we currently do not have Vista support available for that model adapter. At this time, there isn't an ETA on when we will be able to provide Vista support for the awlh4030. Once we have any new information, we'll make an announcement here:
http://www.airlink101.com/support/index.php?cmd=announcements&_a=viewannouncement&id=33

I apologize for any inconvenience caused.

I am really glad digitaldd supplied me with a good lead on getting a driver. Thanks again, digitaldd!

 

i have been running it since the beginning and i can tell you it has gotten much better. I really like vista over XP now

its been almsot 2 years , i'd say its pretty good. But many cmpanies are skippn vista and goign to the next OS.

People act like that's something new. My girlfriend works for Ruby Tuesday and they have 2 computers plus the touch screen pc for the servers. They upgraded to XP around a year ago on the to main PC and the touch screen boxes still run 2000. I work for a small restaurant and are computers run 2000.

Unfortunately I was unable to find a Vista driver for my AirLink AWLH4030 Super G wireless card so I purchased another card. The new one is an AirLink 101 Wireless 150N AWLH6070 and it works great on both Vista and XP. On sale at Fry's it was only $17.99 (such a deal). Now all I have to do is locate an nForce2 motherboard sound driver. If I can't find one, can someone recommend an inexpensive Vista-compatible PCI sound card?

amdcrankitup:

 Im playing with Vista on a friends computer so far I like it just want to get use to it then start doing some tweaking to see what I can get out of it!

 

The only thing I don't like about Vista is that annoying confirmation nag. Every time you try to do something it asks you to confirm that you really want to do it! If you are bothered by this, too, then you might like to read this article: DOES WINDOWS ASK YOU TO WIPE YOUR BUTT? . I disabled the nag and life is good!