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tangledweb · 12-10-2006, 06:54 PM

I took advantage of the cold weather and decided to forsake my outside work for a little computer experiment. I loaded Windows Vista - Business on my laptop last night and I am very surprised to say that I'm not disappointed. The install on my Sony Vaio laptop went smoothly and the only problems I have had have been minor glitches with installing older software. Some of the things that the Upgrade Advisor said would not work in Vista (such as my Wireless Network Adaptor), are working anyway.

I'll tell you up front that this version of Windows is going to come off l'ooking' like a GUI upgrade over XP. I say 'looking' because there is a little more under the hood of this release than just transparent panes and slick graphics. The bootup and shut down sequences are AWESOME and fast. My laptop now shuts down in less than 10 seconds and boots back up in less than 30 seconds. It accomplishes that task by hogging down about 20gigs of HDD space and keeping a trickle of power to the RAM, but so far it is well worth it.

The graphics overhaul is slick but requires more than an onboard intel chipset with shared memory. With a good enough video card, you can use the Windows Aero interface that basically gets 'Windows' to function like you would think an operating system called Windows should. You get slick thumbnail views and lots of tabbed subpanels for some true multitasking with a single monitor. The ability to monitor several different running tasks at the same time is finally here with the real-time thumbnail views.

If your computer meets the suggested requirements and you want to spiff up your computer's look and feel, then you might want to consider upgrading when Vista hits the shelves in late January. If, on the other hand, you are expecting an 'all-new' operating system experience, you might want to save your money. This upgrade will feel like the upgrade from Windows 95 to Windows 98 where Microsoft just took all the really clever and innovative software add-ons that had been developed for 95 and rolled them into 98.
There is more to Vista than that - but that is how it is going to look and feel.

12-10-2006, 06:54 PM	#1 (permalink)
tangledweb slightly impaired Location: Down South	Running Windows Vista - It ain't half bad!! I took advantage of the cold weather and decided to forsake my outside work for a little computer experiment. I loaded Windows Vista - Business on my laptop last night and I am very surprised to say that I'm not disappointed. The install on my Sony Vaio laptop went smoothly and the only problems I have had have been minor glitches with installing older software. Some of the things that the Upgrade Advisor said would not work in Vista (such as my Wireless Network Adaptor), are working anyway. I'll tell you up front that this version of Windows is going to come off l'ooking' like a GUI upgrade over XP. I say 'looking' because there is a little more under the hood of this release than just transparent panes and slick graphics. The bootup and shut down sequences are AWESOME and fast. My laptop now shuts down in less than 10 seconds and boots back up in less than 30 seconds. It accomplishes that task by hogging down about 20gigs of HDD space and keeping a trickle of power to the RAM, but so far it is well worth it. The graphics overhaul is slick but requires more than an onboard intel chipset with shared memory. With a good enough video card, you can use the Windows Aero interface that basically gets 'Windows' to function like you would think an operating system called Windows should. You get slick thumbnail views and lots of tabbed subpanels for some true multitasking with a single monitor. The ability to monitor several different running tasks at the same time is finally here with the real-time thumbnail views. If your computer meets the suggested requirements and you want to spiff up your computer's look and feel, then you might want to consider upgrading when Vista hits the shelves in late January. If, on the other hand, you are expecting an 'all-new' operating system experience, you might want to save your money. This upgrade will feel like the upgrade from Windows 95 to Windows 98 where Microsoft just took all the really clever and innovative software add-ons that had been developed for 95 and rolled them into 98. There is more to Vista than that - but that is how it is going to look and feel.