Surfing Waves

Vista was hogging all my memory so decided to downgrade my xp since i got nothing to do

wow it was one heck of a journey just trying to format my vista then install my xp.

Had to do hell lot of research concerning drivers, bio system and etc trying to format that goddamning C drive.

At the end I realized what microsoft was trying to do, not let you change the operating system so you're stuck with vista.

Dang corporation these days... THEY ARE EVIL!

If you plan to upgrade(this is the correct term) your vista to an xp, be ready for some hectic adventure.

Look, I just got a laptop with vista on it, and the VERY best investment you can make is to go buy 2gb of ram, and slot it into your computer.

Mine came with 1gb, now I have 3, and it's transformed into the quickest pc I've had. My mem usage rarely gets above 50% even when doing intensive photoshop editing and playing w/ google earth!

vista reminds me of alot of the old desktop mangment software for linux only the linux ones ran a hell of alot better, i have vista consumsing far to much memory, i have 2gig of ram on my laptop and vista is taking up at least a gig even when i get rid of all the usless xxxxx i dont need running

Phil wrote:vista reminds me of alot of the old desktop mangment software for linux only the linux ones ran a hell of alot better

Yeh, it's true. Linux always runs better than windows, but it won't recognise my unusual 3g/GPRS modem, so it's back to windows for me for a while

You want a minimum of 2gb.. 3gb is better. Mind you even though vista uses around 1gb just to exist, I find most applications don't use much ram while running under vista, so it's not all bad.

vista baaad.....one comp at the office is on vista......she is always on my comp cuz hers won't do what she wants.


I think I'll go mac for my next.

I actually like Vista haha. But when I first got it and saw that stupid gadget sidebar whatever and that supremely annoying user account control (UAC) thing, I immediately went back to XP. But then I started realizing all the stuff I could do on Vista which was far more seamless than XP. In particular, being able to wirelessly stream movies from my PC to my HDTV via an Xbox 360. I just watched Step Into Liquid last night. You can do the same with XP but it’s not as seamless. So after a LOT of trial and error trying to find the best setup, I’ve settled on Vista Home Premium 64-bit. I am running 4GB RAM and a 2.4GHZ AMD dual core though so the system is just screamingly fast. I’ve disabled all the lame Vista doohickies except for the UAC which I’ve been convinced is actually very useful.

For what it’s worth, you’re specific computer model should have a website with all the drivers you need for various operating systems.

xp pro sp3 ll tht way.. before that it was 98SE or nothing else :p Am forever sick of unnecessary cpu nd ram usage of programs


btw Anyone using Firefox 3 now? its sooooo much quicker and uses hlf the mem.

Love vista here, worths 100%, perfect, nice gui, new features are good, especialy the security and the start menu.

Just need 2 gig to run it. Performance wise it improves as it learns what you do.


"At the end I realized what microsoft was trying to do, not let you change the operating system so you're stuck with vista. "

Thats why they allow you to use your vista licence on an XP install???

Not sure that Vista “learns” what you do. The lag I think people most complain about when they first step foot in Vista is the UAC (allow or deny?) and the constant whirring of the hard drive and CPU usage. The UAC kicks in whenever you want to make a change to the system – such as installing new apps. So of course at first this may drive you nuts. But once you’re done installing, you hardly see UAC. The hard drive and CPU usage is the mad indexing the thing is doing. This also is finished within a day or so. In both cases, you can turn them off.

I think Vista generally takes a new look on resources usage – specifically that idle resource is wasted resource. Presumably, the OS will utilize whatever it is you’ve got to provide the shiny new look, indexing convenience, and whatever else using up resources – when it isn’t being used up to begin with. Load up a processor intensive program, and it will let the resources free.

At the end of the day, I never see my CPU usage get beyond 20% under normal load. And my system is absolutely jammin. Granted, 64-bit, dual core, recognizing all 4 gigs of RAM, and a 10k rpm Raptor HD helps haha.

Vistas smart caching(Superfetch) watches what you run, when you run it, and in what order.

It takes time to learn what you do and how you use the computer, and then it caches your apps in the right order , and preloads them.

So over time your PC will get quicker to run the apps you want.

UAC is necessary. Its not the best implementation of elevated privs that could have been, but it will be tweaked.

I switch UAC off for the first week or too as I install/set stuff up, then switch it back on, it should be left on by default as in normal use you really shouldn't be seeing it.

Indexing - again most people have added things like google desktop search etc to XP, vista has this stuff built in, but needs to build indexes which takes a bit of time at first. Sadly this would have worked better with the improved filesystem vista was supposed to have but ended up not including.

You can switch it off but I wouldnt, the more thats indexed the more the 'start search' box will look at, and IMO thats the best new feature, usually 2 or 3 letters and the app I want is at the top of the list ready for me to hit return and run, together with the breadcrumbs etc makes vista a lot more usable than xp.

Windows classic apps menu is a total utter nightmare when you've more than a few apps installed.

Used to run vista on a 2gig A64 3000+ and it ran fine, since upgraded due to a dead vid card, couldnt do the swapping motherboard trick on vista though and had to reactivate via an automated phone system

Can we pin this as The Geek Thread?


(Get a mac people)

Hey I run Vista and I have been error free for a week.

Hey I run Vista and I have been error free for a week.

Hey I run Vista and I have been error free for a week.

I just built a nice system, SLI, quad core etc. got Vista (64bit) a number of software packages and plugins really do not like it..even after all the 'I am the boss let me run you' options!

Clean fromat then Xp SP3. True doesn't recognise 4 gig of memory as it should...runs quick though.

Got it all to look forward to again with Windows 7 'Vienna', although that will be 2010! so more like 2012!

another vote for iMac here, love mine.

I never used to go in for the whole PC vs Mac argument. I've owned PC's, and my current desktop is an iMac.

Bought a laptop with Vista on in June 2007, replaced it with a MacBook in August 2007. The MacBook is still running as fast as it did the day I bought it, despite the amount of shite I've loaded on and no matter how many programs I've got running, I love it.

Been living a windows free life for 5 years, and thank god! Linux, Solaris, OS X I can handle. Windows makes me miserable.

pkbum,
good on you!

ofcourse it isnt a major excercise, xp likely has all the drivers you need (to get up and running) built in anyhow, it has fdisk and format partition options as part of the install boot anyhow.

I suggest u get some tech skillz.