Microsoft Windows Vista Business 64 bit for System Builders [DVD]

Customer Reviews

Windows Vista Ultimate may be the Ford Edsel of operating systems

2007-11-27
I bought a new PC about 12 months ago. It came with Windows Vista Ultimate 64bit CD. It is a 2.66Ghz Intel Core 2 QUAD with 4 Gbytes of memory and a 500 Gbyte disk with 16Mbyte cache. I have two Nvidia 6200 dual head Graphics cards and 4 1600x1200 monitors. 12 months ago I installed Fedora Core 6. Performance was and is stunning. Indeed this machine is a massive over kill for Linux and X-Windows. I was running Windows 2000 SP4 under VMWARE server and this met all my Windows needs. Unfortunately, I have managed to break VMWARE under FC6 which is not officially supported. So I bought a new Hard drive to install Vista since I already had the DVD and a license. This is my experience over the last two days:

1. After a clean install, on an new hard disk, Vista is a dog. It takes up to 10 seconds to start programs. These are programs that start in 2 seconds on a much slower XP box.

2. Third party programs that run perfectly on XP and Windows 2000 actually freeze and hang.

3. It constantly comes up with pesky questions like: "Do you really want to run the program you just requested and you already authorized just 1 minute ago?" and when it asked these questions all four screens flash and go grey until you answer the question. This is really annoying. In the words of John McEnroe "You can't be serious."

4. It is a nightmare to use if you are familiar with XP and Windows 2000, enough has changed to make your life extremely difficult. This seems like the Ford Edsel of Operating systems. I had heard from others that they hated Vista, but it is not until you struggle with it that you begin to develop your own hatred for this product.

5. I was only able to get networking to work after configuring my router to act as a DHCP server. Of course, this may be normal, but Vista could not figure this out.

6. I am not sure if I am using the famed Aero interface or not. It does have transparent borders. To me, at first sight, the Vista UI is as useful as lipstick on a pig. I just don't have the patience to wait for it, or to the learn the changes in new UI at the moment.

7. Surprisingly, after two days of struggle, I have yet to come across a single advantage, I have wasted so much time trying to do things that I could have done almost instantly on XP or 2000 that I did not get as far as seeing the benefits. (I assume there must be some.)

I must now decide what I am going to do. I don't think Vista is productive enough for me to use as the main operating system on this computer. So I will have to find a way to fix VMWARE.

The staggering thing is that it appears that Windows 2000 is massively faster running in a 32bit VM with 768Mbytes of virtual memory and dual core support than 64bit Vista running natively on the same the same hardware but with 4 cores and 4Gbytes of real memory. I don't think the Windows development team need feel too proud of this achievement.

I believe each new version of Windows has forced users to upgrade their hardware, I suppose a pair of faster graphics cards might help, but my SFF case doesn't need the heat generated by high end graphics, nor does my electric bill. In any case, the performance issues seem more fundamental than just graphics.

I hope in time, I will be able to overcome my initial distaste and get to learn the advantages of the new features.

Meanwhile, does anybody know if the OEM edition of Windows Vista Ultimate comes with downgrade rights to Windows XP?

Gorgeous UI, Unnecessary and sluggish for 32-bit apps

2007-11-18
Although I love the UI, it did slow down my routine as I adapted to the new layout and menus and such. This was expected (somewhat) and was not the root of the problem, though.

The reason for the 3 star rating is the fact that all my 32 bit apps that I was looking forward to getting a perfoemance boost from due to the 64 bit processor I am running, ultimately were absolutely sluggish when it came to menu navigation and usability within the apps themselves.

Menu navigation was sluggish and showed unusual latency while navigating within Photoshop, After Effects, Premiere, Dreamweaver, Flash, Illustrator, etc. Windows itself was snappy, but interpolation of the 32-bit apps in the 64-bit OS was absolutely sluggish. Rendering times in After Effects, and compression times in Sorenson Squeeze, seemed fast enough, but hard to compare, as I was coming from a single core P4.

Also very much worth mentioning...aside from the occasional unsupported driver (which I expected)...after typing in my password and logging in OK, the touch of any key on the keyboard would immediately lock up the system. (It took me hours to narrow this glitch down to the Event Log Service!). Finally disabled the Event Log service and viola', keystrokes allowed. (odd, but worth mentioning).

My son also experienced Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) several times while playing both Stalker and Oblivion.

Also noteworthy for those with an interest in specific platform related info, I am running the OS on a ASUS Formula Maximus mobo, an Intel 2.4 Ghz Quad Core CPU, 4 Gigs of Corsair Dominator DDR2 RAM, and an EVGA Nvidia 8800 GTS w/640 MB DDR3 on board.

Suffice it to say, after paying full price for Vista and installing apps all week, I turned right around and overnighted XP Pro (32-bit version) on week 2, reformatted everything and am happily using XP Pro with no worries or glitches of any kind. ALL apps are BLAZING FAST, both navigationally and in their rendering perfomance. (Games have not BSOD'd since going back to XP either).

If you rely on your Workstation for a living, or expect high-end, production-class workstation performance, stick with XP for the next couple of years until Vista has been battle tested and proven, and apps have had a chance to port over to 64-bit.

(Anybody want to buy an original copy of Vista...cheap? Only used once!)

;~D

A big step up from XP and easier to install

2007-07-20
I was skeptical at first but decided to take the plunge and try out Vista X64.

Pros: I will say it was much easier to install then XP which I have installed numerous times over the years. Vista looks great, the drivers are becoming more mature so the early issues so most things I have installed work. The x64 version is more secure because of a better kernal and because fewer viruses are designed for 64-bit systems. Going from my Vista x64 home computer to my XP Pro work computer I must say that XP looks dated now.

Some cons: Even though the drivers are getting better there are some that are hard to find. Norton Systemworks does not work on Vista X64 though Norton Anti-Virus does. The X64 version I found works best with 4 GB or RAM though at minimum 2 GB should do okay because Vista can be somewhat of a memory hog.