I got my serial & 3.2 :shock: GB download from M$ today

Got VMWare Server (yay, its free!) and am installing it now.

it requires 15 GB of space to install, apparantly



Hooray, new installer..  no longer do you need only a floppy, to install a SATA or other special hard disk driver


further comments later on. Unfortunately, no Aero for me - only got 1GB RAM total, and for Aero you need 1GB for Vista..  ho hum, I guess I could but id be swap file crazy, so no thanks.

I got it installed in VM Ware and allocated 1Gb memorey (running 2Gb in the box), but still no Aero, I assume because the VM graphics card is somewhat teh suxxor.

Cant get it to install straight onto the box though, bluescreens just after the CD boots

Ive been running it for about 2 weeks now, its nice, i like it. It was a pain with my drivers (Nforce4 from shuttle sn25p). But once i got that sorted its been nice. Some things still refuse to work (webcam for example, drivers just dont install).

But yeah ive been gaming and stuff on it no problems. Its yet to crash too!

It looks OUTSTANDING (better than gnome tbh). Its damned fast; and i like the new way theyve done certain things (user folders for example).

Quote from: PuNkIve been running it for about 2 weeks now, its nice, i like it. It was a pain with my drivers (Nforce4 from shuttle sn25p). But once i got that sorted its been nice. Some things still refuse to work (webcam for example, drivers just dont install).

But yeah ive been gaming and stuff on it no problems. Its yet to crash too!

It looks OUTSTANDING (better than gnome tbh). Its damned fast; and i like the new way theyve done certain things (user folders for example).

Gnome looks and feels the way the user wants not what the OS thinks they should
 

Is it just another NT extension? or hav they actually wrote some new stuff this time?

Quote from: brummieIs it just another NT extension?

yup, the OS Kernel is just W2k3 SP1 with a fancy UI.  No WinFS, no massive advances, just a shiny new front end that most users with even high spec machines will not run. :\

I gave it a go. It looks nice and I really like the new image viewer.

But it ran like a bag of crap. Its probably due to the drivers so I will give it another try once everyone gets some decent vista drivers out.

think ill be waiting for SP2  :mrgreen:

Been running it almost a week now. Had very few problems with it but nothing major.

List of compatible software: http://www.iexbeta.com/wiki/index.php/Windows_Vista_Beta_2_Software_Compatibility_List

List of compatible hardware: http://www.iexbeta.com/wiki/index.php/Windows_Vista_Beta_2_Hardware_Compatibility_List

Quote from: Beaker

Quote from: brummieIs it just another NT extension?

yup, the OS Kernel is just W2k3 SP1 with a fancy UI.  No WinFS, no massive advances, just a shiny new front end that most users with even high spec machines will not run. :\

So its Win XP, with pretty graphics??
Why the hell did they make such a hoo-ha, then? theyve shot themselves in the foot, here - they would be better served to hold their horses start from scratch ala Mac OS X and then hype it when its a done deal... The technological gap between Mac OS X (and even linux) over Windows is growing ever larger...

Im sorry but its not just "pretty graphics" ok it might not be a completely new engine etc... but theres lots of little differences that make vista *alot* better than xp, simple things like thoughtful GUI Design and neat little tricks to help your experience.

I love Linux, but I love games more. This is the best operating system im used ever for me. Sure its windows and wont be perfect, but it runs Half life 2, so im damned happy.

Quote from: brummieIs it just another NT extension? or hav they actually wrote some new stuff this time?

Yeah, dig at all deep (ie change the name / workgroup of the PC) and up comes a fugly grey screen straight from XP

tbh, overall... I hate it after using it

If anything crashes, it comes up with some bollocks excuse, and says "windows vista is finding a solution for the problem" (total hogwash, as the program has effectively died already!) - it sits around for ages, with a loading bar.. and then goes "windows vista was unable to find a solution" and then you get the send error report thing, which obviously you just cancel its rather amusing, it may fool the joe pleb average user but not anyone savvy.

I think all theyve done is gloss it all up a bit (admittedly, it looks really nice - even without aero, but aeros effects dont change that[/]i much over basic vista, just transparent window borders and the like) and add a lot more prompts and extra clicks to get the same stuff done  

I like the start menu - quite neat, as it stays all tidy. I do like the "see also" and "recent" things though, as you can get lost in the control panel as its so mahoosive

I also *really* *really* REALLY like the navigation well done M$ with this..   on the address bar, every parent folder has a drop down menu beside it, which can display all of the options for that particular area of the PC. NEAT saves you navigating back there, and then opening X, Y or whatever.. cant wait for Gnome to copy  

In my opinion, microsoft need to learn that security doesnt come in the form of extra "are you sure?" messages and "this program needs access to X, are you going to let it?" and IE7s "do you want to check this website for phishing?" which pops up way too often for my liking


Ive got a spare HD though, I am tempted to burn a DVD and test it for real, outside of VMWare.  not sure how much slower running it inside VM makes it...  doesnt run tooo fast though.

for a laugh, check the services.msc :shock: just how much garbage is switched on by default!!

Remember that some of the intended features have been dropped, at least for the moment so it isnt going to be as good as it might have been.

for good read bloated, still a big download when compared to XP and its single CD...

Security has improved greatly in vista, as well as support for EFI (the new bios technology nothing to do with drm), and the hardware DRM schenanigans.

Granted its based on "NT" But then... so was XP, and to put it into perspective, The movie U-571 was based on a true story... doesnt stop it from being completely different to what actually happened.

Its no longer a "user with privs for everything" environment but an enhanced security environment much more similar to Unix style security, along with this comes enhanced networking security features, and a really natty thing I read about today in a magazine... Superfetch.

Allowing you to designate a flash or Solid state device to be "cache" memory, no longer does virtual memory need to be slow and clunky, with a 2gb CF in an IDE connector you can have speedy virtual memory, and not only that its smart... in the fact that it will determine what programs are run when, so if you run your favourite game on a saturday morning, it will preload it into the cache, so it runs almost instantly.

Boottime is also improved further without the evil nasty winxp "if it aint up in 30 seconds.. f**k it" routine (nightmare for networks when relying upon GPOs).

There will be more to vista than a pretty interface believe me, take some time to read the development blogs at microsoft, or the MVP website.

Superfetch sounds pretty cool....

think Ill hang on a bit before I install it tho

hopefully the 65bit version should be pretty good / speedy.... ended up dropping back to 32bit with XP for driver sup[ort etc... and didn;t really notice the difference.

yeah im quite interested in the superfetch stuff. XP currently does it in a crap way with prefetch but vista apparantly improves upon it, and the fact you can designate a solid state drive as a cache... is a godsend, it even extends to USB flash memory devices IIRC from what I was reading this morning.