"That doesn't mean that I am blind to the fact that there are a lot of users who have a lot of problems with it."

There were a lot of people having problems with Win98 and then WinXP. Heck, there are even people having problems with OS X and Linux is not without its faults. No OS is completely immune to issues, some of them are funky code, some are pilot error. Then there are some folks that just seem to have a smooth ride regardless. Personally, my favorite OS was Windows 2000.

I'm getting a new Mac Pro next week.

For running Vegas on the Windows side, I am tempted to install Vista Business SP1 64-bit, now that 64-bit Vista is officially supported.

I figure Vista Business should be safer than Vista Ultimate, because it doesn't have all the Media Center code to create compatibility problems (remember Win XP Media Center Edition sinking a lot of apps completely?).

Has anyone here used this configuration? Any thoughts?

Out of ten people that have commented in this thread

Wow, your universe is expanding blink. It has now increased from you and Cline to the people responding in this thread. Now, expand it a little more. Include analysts from Gartner. Add InfoWorld to the list. Take Forrester into the equation. Slowly you will be approaching the real world where around 6 billion people live. Things are different there blink.

I will ask you ONE more time, please LIST (in simple point form

I already have blink, several times. Even in point form, but without the points in front of the sentences. Do you want me to repeat it with dots in front of the sentences?

I have quoted Steve Ballmer in one point. Do you think he might know this a little better than you? He's the boss of Microsoft after all. How about Mike Nash, Mike is the Corporate VP of Microsoft. When he says it is serious, do you think he knows it better than you?

Tell me blink, when InfoWorld says:

"Bottom Line: When the choice is between a buggy, bloated, immature OS with no tangible value add vs. a lean, clean and reliable (if somewhat dated) OS that has the broadest support base in the history of personal computing - plus performance to burn - there really is no contest."

Do you think that they possibly can arrive at that conclusion based on information that is a touch better than your religious convictions?

But hey, since you clearly have put away your ability to read today, I will list some issues again. Just for you.

- Vista has crippled networking code for interfaces faster than 100Mb/s
- Vista has altered important entry points thereby breaking many applications, not a problem if you can get a new version, in many cases in corporations that is not as easy since they also rely on a lot of software that isn't off-the-shelf software
- Vista has serious performance problems with a number of existing applications, as much as a 2:1 disadvantage according to an InfoWorld study.
- The new networking code in Vista will render some routers, routers that works with operating systems from Windows to Solaris, from Linux to MaxOSX, totaly unusable. A feature says Microsoft, the routers are outdated, odd that they work with all other operating systems
- According to Devil Mountain Software, a performance testing group, Windows XP SP3 is twice as fast on average (measured over a number of applications) as is Vista SP1.

Now, these points have been mentioned before blink, directly or through links. Are you going to keep ignoring them because it is inconvenient for you?

Yes Terje... I would REALLY be interested in hearing this one too

As I've said before, I have no issues whatsoever with Vista (running 64). It's more bloated than I'd like, but having 8G of memory alleviates this compared to XP (32) since XP can't utilize that amount of memory.

But, as I have said before, how is this relevant? The Lakers scored goals in both of their games in Boston, does that mean that they won?

There were a lot of people having problems with Win98 and then WinXP. Heck, there are even people having problems with OS X and Linux is not without its faults.

This is absolutely true John, but even given the scale of XP deployments compared to earlier versions, no version of Windows have had as serious problems as Vista. This is why the only way Microsoft can get it out there is to refuse to sell XP. The entire IT community is begging Microsoft to keep selling XP, but they probably can't (Microsoft that is). If Microsoft sells XP for another 6-12 months business will opt for Windows 7 in hopes that it is less of an issue than Vista.

Given the fact that Nash has driven important changes to the way Microsoft are approaching Windows 7, it isn't unreasonable to assume that 7 might be better.

What is making people angry about this is not the fact that Vista is problematic. So was ME. What is making people angry, IT departments in particular, is that Microsoft, against the will of their customers, is forcing companies to upgrade when the companies them selves know that this is going to be very costly.

And, again, as I've said a few times, even though blnk has managed to miss it each time, I am a happy user of Vista. I am also well fed, clothed, have great health care, freedom, liberty, a beautiful life etc. That doesn't mean that I think that this is the case for everybody in the world though.

Personally, my favorite OS was Windows 2000

My favorite Windows version was Windows NT 3.51. Stable. Good. Compatible. Functioning. It's been down-hill ever since. A few bleeps in the right direction, but the trend has been down-hill.

My favorite OS was NextSTEP.

"- Vista has crippled networking code for interfaces faster than 100Mb/s

This is your list of "serious issues"???

First of all Corporations are always the absolute LAST to change up from ANY os. I work for the Provincial Government and we just changed up to XP 2 years ago

Performance issues? I have Vista Areo running as well as sidebar and about 65 other processes and I notice no performance drops in spite of it.

Speed.... With all of the above running, my render tests are a whopping 2 seconds slower. That's a "serious issue"???

Routers? First my router is about 6 years old and works fine with Vista. Second.... we've been through this before.... when changing ANY os you may as well get used to the fact that you may have to replace some hardware

Vista has only ONE "serious issue" Terje, and that is a POPULARITY issue.... and it bases itself from slanted rubbish like this.

Unlike you who seems to rely on what ever anybody (even those nobody's out there that call themselves annalists) on the internet writes, I rely on my own experiences which are the following:


-Vista starts up and shuts down twice as fast as XP ever could... even with pretty much the same thing running
- Vista's error and information reporting logs are far more advanced than XP
-You can't run unsigned drivers (or at least have a hard time installing them) in Vista which eliminates a lot of third party software glitches.
I always had an audio/video syncing problem with my Hauppage tv card under XP that doesn't exist in Vista.
-My creative elite pro sound card never worked properly under XP the way it does in Vista.
-The added security is a pain but then we live in a supply and demand world. If there was no demand for added security then there would be no supply. Not to mention the fact that most of it can be either trained, or eliminated if it bothers you that much. But it IS there if you wish to use it.... unlike XP
-Vista Ultimate comes with Bitlocker so I can easily protect my data, which I worry about should ma machine ever get stolen.
-The control panel now has things like DEVICE MANAGER listed separately so now I don't have to open multiple menus to get at these things.
-Windows update is much more refined in Vista than XP.... and it too can be found right in the control panel
Vista's performance reporting tools are much more advanced than XP's
-Vista easily allows me to set up a software RAID that seems to be much more reliable than anything I could do in XP
-I can plug in any flash drive or harddrive and use it for additional memory if I need.
-Vista comes with a COMPLETE backup and restore system unlike XP
-Vista's Parental controls are easy to install and manipulate.... but XP...
-In Vista there is an auto start menu system that allows you to easily associate a an auto start program or action.

I can go on with this list but there's no sense.... you won't get the point anyway..... but from the seat I'm in.... I'm running more glitch free in Vista than I ever did in XP.

I use Vista 64 and have no problems with hardware routers, hubs, switches, etc.
Vista also has the "Memory test" feature and the "performance test feature index" Which Blink forgot to mention. The network performance is also very good---if you have a network Vista will find it even if you don't want it to find it. My renderings are also as speedy as other comparable systems. The only problem I had is with Nero 8 with all those GUI interfaces which are not required. My "preview to render" uses Nero instead of Media Player. The update system performs much better and it can also suck up older software.
JJK

This is your list of "serious issues"???

Well, if you don't consider broken network connections and and applications running at 50% speed serious issues, then of course these are not serious.

and I notice no performance drops in spite of it.

I wonder blink, do you really not understand the difference between your personal experience and the measured results on tests performed on a large number of applications by a dedicated testing group? I am just curious.

First my router is about 6 years old and works fine with Vista.

As I have stated before blink, and you really need to get to grips with this, the fact that The Lakers scored a goal in Boston does not mean that they won. Your single experience doesn't invalidate the fact that when Microsoft says that Vista will break some routers, that is probably true. Now, Microsoft\s statement came as a result of a large number of complaints that Vista did indeed do this. If Vista did not do this, do you think Microsoft would have said it does?

Let me ask you this question again blink, do your seriously think that the fact that you and I, and John too, have no issues with Vista means that all the reported issues do not exist? Are you utterly unable to fathom that there may be a universe that stretches well beyond the boundaries of your cranium?

a POPULARITY issue.... and it bases itself from slanted rubbish like this.

What rubbish blink? InfoWorld has documented serious problems with Vista. So has performance testing companies. The test results are public and anyone can get them. How is that "slanted"? When Microsoft admits that Vista breaks routers and it claims that the fact that playing MP3s will slow above 100Mb/s networking is by design is that also slanted? How is it slanted blink? Who is it that slants? Microsoft?

Now, I find your list of features you like in Vista to be very interesting, I would not use exactly the same list as justification for running Vista my self, but that is probably because you and I have different requirements. I, for example, do not care about parental controls since it is not currently something that is relevant for me.

So, we both think that Vista has some very neat features. How is that relevant? How does the fact that I measure, on my system, very reasonable performance with the small number of applications I run under Vista matter? How does the fact that I have had no crashes, hang-ups or networking problems with Vista matter?

Why do you insist on pitting yours, Johns or my personal experience with Vista against the measured results of systematic testing? Are you really still not aware of the fact that individual results are irrelevant in face of systematic testing?

"I wonder blink, do you really not understand the "

Sorry there guy.... the only hard headed one in this thread that doesn't seem to understand.... is YOU. Pretty much everybody else that has signed onto this thread is having a hard time relating to your argument(s)

While Vista is certainly not perfect, it is not the evil that you site and you have failed to list ANY "serious issues". John Cline said it best when he called you an "XP zealot". John was also a heck of a lot smarter than I in not carrying on any further than what is in his single post.... there's no sense.

So let me just say this before I leave... you are certainly entitled to your opinion but judging by this thread.... yours is quite definitely a minority one.

Please go easy on the personal attacks here, I'd like to be able to hear from both of you in the future.

What's in this thread is clearly against the written rules of the forum.

People have been banned here for breaking even unwritten rules, so violating the written rules is perhaps unnecessarily brave.

Most of you have heard people say, "Friends don't let friends vote [insert party here], go to [insert religious institution here], or use [insert NLE here]."

But we're not friends (duh!), we're just sharing our experience for mutual benefit.

On Vista: could it be that the MP3 problems are related to people running Media Center Editions of Vista? That sure broke a lot of programs in XP.

I'm trying to balance the benefit of a 64-bit Windows, where Vista 64 seems to be getting more traction with developers than XP x64, with the need to just have things working.

I gotta order today, either Vista Business 64,or if that's not looking so hot, XP SP3.

@ Coursedesign

I am running Vegas on Vista 64 Ultimate via boot camp on a Mac Pro.

The system is stable and very fast, any problems are known issues with Vegas 8b.

Order the basic spec Mac Pro from Apple, then source your hard drives, ram and graphics card from third party suppliers.
You'll save yourself a lot of money.

Installing ram and drives in the Mac Pro is a breeze.

The only issue I have hit so far is I bought the LG GGW H20L Blu-ray burner which is sata. There are two spare sata ports on the motherboard so I connected the drive to one of those.
The drive is seen in OSX but not in Vista. It seems the boot camp bios emulation does not enable the spare sata ports.
This may be fixed in the future but for the moment I have ordered a sata to ide convertor to get the drive up and running.

Sorry to interrupt the argument :-)

Thanks, that's good to know about the Vista!

I did order the basic Mac Pro, only adding the 8800GT that is mandatory for Avid Media Composter.

Ordered good RAM from OWC at best price, and will be sending them the original piddly 2x1GB sticks for credit.

I'm also swapping the 320GB OS drive for WD's latest two-platter 640GB drive ($99.99 with free shipping at Newegg), because it is faster than my 10,000rpm Raptors, keeping the 320GB drive as a pure cache drive, then Terabyte RAIDs for video.

In my dreams at least, I'd like to put my entire DJ library on one or more WD Green 1 TB disks (less performance, but uses much less power) to save space next to my editing station. Anyone here done that?

Where could I get a Mac graphics card from 3rd party suppliers? I know ATI is coming out with an HD3870 card in a few weeks that supports both ye olde BIOS that is the only remnant from 1970s computing, but is remarkably still found in today's 21st century Windows PCs (I'd like to know who is responsible for mobo mfrs. using this hobbled antiquity???), and the modern high performance EFI that intel has been pushing for and Apple gladly accepted.

The ATI HD3870 provides higher performance in SOME Core Image (great OS X APIs) applications compared to the 8800GT, but it's a no go for MC.

I held off on buying the Mac Pro until WWDC, because I was hoping that Apple would finally stuff some BR drives in them, but it was not to be...

What about replacing the default "Superdrive" with an LG GGW H20L? The Superdrive could then be parked in the spare optical slot.

I'm not violently opposed to getting Vista Ultimate 64 instead of Business 64, as long as the Media Center code doesn't screw up compatibility even more than basic Vista.

On Vista: could it be that the MP3 problems are related to people running Media Center Editions of Vista?

Not at all. As Microsoft has said when approached by this, it is by design in all of Vista. The issue is that the multimedia subsystem drivers now (new for Vista) run with higher priority than network and other drivers. This means that if you play MP3s on any version of Vista and you have a fast network connection (no 100 Mb/s is no longer fast) then your network performance will suffer.

This is not only well documented, when approached, Microsoft has stated that this is know, and intentionally designed this way.

I'm running Vista 64 with 8gig ram and no page file

By the way blink, this is generally not recommended practice, even with large amounts of memory. If you ar e worried about PF performance the recommendation would rather be to get a flash disk and have the Pagefile on that.

The problem is that no matter what, Windows (all versions) will page out pages of memory no matter what is going on and no matter how much memory you have. There are many reasons for this, the fact that some applications reserve space for memory-mapped files for example, is one of them. Even if that memory is never actually touched, Windows will commit that (not as in SQL commit). So, even if you never run even close to the max memory used, Windows wil page.

What does this mean when you run without a page file? Well, nothing except the fact that you have severely limited what Windows can actually page out. When you run with no page file, what you are doing is limiting the paging options for Windows to read-only allocated memory. This is generally memory where code resides, that is program executables and DLLs.

Yes, you might see speed boosts when running without a page file, particularly when maximizing applications that have been minimized for a while (Windows tend to page those out) but you do risk running into issues. That is why it is generally not recommended.

Terje, thanks for the info on media decoding and non-Media Center versions of Vista.

So what is the fastest flash disk that is actually quicker than a hard drive?

Most key fobs that are marketed for this purpose (with Vista) seem to be pretty slow.

Found a Microsoft page that describes the differences between the many versions of Vista, at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/editions/choose.mspx.

At the bottom of the page, you can press the green button marked "Upgrade Now" for information on upgrading to Vista Ultimate.

Now press this button to make sure that you really have confidence in the Vista experience and Microsoft's ability to service online customers....

Sigh.

So what is the fastest flash disk that is actually quicker than a hard drive?

The fastest flash disks today have rewad/write speeds of about 100 to 120 MB/s, this is comparable to the best hard drives out there, such as the WD VelociRaptors etc. Now that doesn't seem like such a good investment, but there is an additional thing that affects HD performance. Seek time.

The way that Windows stores files, they get fragmented. This isn't entirely bad, but it means that the disk must seek a little more often than if the files were contiguous. This may or may not have an impact on performance depending. It will have an impact if you have a lot of big files that are seriously fragmented.

Now, given that solid state drives (SDDs) have an order of magnitude or better seek time than a traditional HD, if used as a swap drive they should have some positive impact on performance.

Now press this button to make sure that you really have confidence in the Vista experience and Microsoft's ability to service online customers....

My office is rather far away, in Austin in fact, and am most of the time in New York where i live (now). My Vista DVD is in Austin. My wife, after having played with Vista, wanted me to upgrade her to Vista as well, and since she has a 64 bit machine I figured I'd get her the 64 bit version of Vista... now, being someone who craves instant gratification, I have no time for ordering and waiting for a DVD, so I'll just find someone who sells it as a download option. A, Microsoft does. Good. Buy. Start download. Go see a movie. That was last night. Today I was going to install..

Now, let's take a look at the market of Microsoft and ask our selves two fundamental questions. #1, what is the most popular version of Windows ever? The answer is Windows XP (the 32 bit version). In relations to the overall size of the Windows market, what is the least successful version? The answer is easy too, the 64 bit version of Windows XP.

So, anyway, I have downloaded the installer. I run it. It runs through the extraction process, one file... two files... OK, getting there... doing some stuff... BANG! Can not extract, please make sure ou have room on disk and permissions to write"

Well, given the fact that I had already extracted most of the installer, and I had 100G worh of free space,something was clearly amiss. I check everything. Nope, installer should be able to write. Ah, shit, the download is corrupt. Start it again, but call. But alo google... always google.

So, what do I find? The downloadable installer from Microsoft can only run on a 64bit versoin of Windows. The only operating system from which you can install (never mind upgrade, who cares) the downloadable version of Vista from is the least popular version of any Mirosof OS. It can not run from any of the more popular versions.

Testing? Who needs to test software?That is why we have users.

I have no doubt that some ppl here have gotten vista to work. As "enthusiasts" we typically upgrade hardware and software more often than corporations. The corporations are the bread and butter for m$ and those corporations are more dependent on productivity than most of us.

On a corporate level, vista is a disaster all across the board. "But it works fine on my 3 system" doesn't fly when you are talking about tens of thousands of systems and users. Just a little background, my day job is working for a large company that sells systems, authorized service providers, enterprise helpdesk services, outsourcing, network and security management... you get the point.

As an example, you have typical user that has a P1.8 with 512mb ram. They use an older network printer and fax server. They primarily run the office apps, some proprietary software, custom web pages for some corp functions and they are doing fine. Enter vista... their system won't work with vista so their system has to be upgraded. They call the helpdesk with help archiving all their data, email and personal files to ready for the upgrade. Their system is changed out. The tech setting up the new system finds that it won't work with their printer and fax server. No drivers available. They have to research a work around to get the printer working or explore buying a new printer. Since this is a network printer, they decide to replace it. The fax server is not working so they have to upgrade the server software to get the fax working. The end user then calls the helpdesk for help on restoring their data to the new system and questions about vista. They finally get the system up and running and are now able to print and fax. They go into their proprietary app and find that it won't work with vista, call the help desk, IT will have to research. They find that some function is not compatible with vista and the developers will have to fix it. They go to their corp web site. Ooops, it doesn't work now. It only stops at login. Call the helpdesk again. The web page won't work in IE7. Send tech out to downgrade (not easy) to IE6. The development group is alerted and start to work on a fix so it works in IE7.

Now, multiply the above scenario 10K times, uncovering various bugs or problems at each iteration. This is just so they can get BACK to where they were. What has vista brought to this equation? Loss of thousands of dollars for new equipment, redevelopment costs, service calls, onsite tech visits and frustrated end users. Not to mention the loss of productivity across the company.

Don't get me wrong, it's great from our business standpoint as we are selling hardware, upgrades and services but we too are having the same problems in going to vista. The company, a preferred microsoft vendor, will not be upgrading to vista...

Just $.02

Bill doesn't like to make the new stuff work with the old stuff. He never did get the "Western Electric/Bell Labs mindset". Steve finally caved in and based his OS on Unix, the old stuff that isn't worth a dam? Well maybe it is. Both Apple and Microsoft are going to be left behind in the dust if Google (old Bell Labs guys) comes out with their quad binery OS. I assume it is the equivalent of four OS's blended together into one.
JJK

Bill? Who is Bill?

Are you possibly referring to the guy who left the company 4-5 years ago?

In practice he did leave at that time, handing the reins to a bean counter.

He certainly was not the first top boss to make that mistake. "I started the company, now I just need to hire somebody who has experience with keeping a big company flowing, and it will all continue like before."

I will never forget the first time I saw one of these guys look at my company's organizational chart with lots of boxes. He streamlined the "look" of the chart, and a lot of the good people left, but that was no problem because he quickly hired a replacement for each so that every box had a name in it again.

Everything started to go downhill, and nobody cared anymore, because the boxes all had names in them. In spite of weekly whipping, the sales guys couldn't persuade more customers to part with their money, because support now sucked.

So finally one day the painful realization popped up, that this company was heading for complete destruction. The bean counter got a boot print in his rear, and a "relationship builder" was hired, somebody who cared about the company's relationships with its employees and customers more than he cared what the org chart looked like. Big shift, and the company took off again, with very happy customers.

I think the same thing will happen with Microsoft within 24 months tops, quite possibly even within 12 months.

One day the board will realize what the company has become, and they will do the right thing to ensure the company's survival.

Perhaps you think "survival" is too strong a word here?

Not at all.

Microsoft has a huge internal "sales prevention organization" of middle managers (25,000 if I remember correctly). Every one of these want to lift a leg and put their mark on every nook of every product the company offers, and the result is the mess we see today.

This is not Bill's company any more. It's a long time since it was.

This is not Bill's company any more. It's a long time since it was.

Actually, that is incorrect. Bill has been very much in control at Microsoft until this year in fact. When Gates announced in 2006 he was going to hand over control to Ballmer, he didn't actually do so effective immediately,as he said the, and as he did, there was a two year transition period where he would hand over the reins.

Now, to blame Ballmer for the fate of Vista would be about as wrong has giving him the full credit for the amazing success of Windows XP given the fact that Ballmer has been the CEO of Microsoft since 2000. Ballmer and Gates both are bean counters for sure, but that hasn't been the problem with Vista.

Given that Gates was the Chief Software Architect of Microsoft until Jun 15th 2006, the state of Vista must lay squarely with Gates. Nobody else. It''ll be interesting to see if Ozzie can fix it, but I doubt it. The time for Dinosaurs like Windows, Mac OSX, Linux and all the other stone-age operating systems that torture us users in our daily life today must be drawing nigh. At least one can hope.

The scary thing with the OS debate is that the strongest competitors to Windows, Mac OSX and Linux both are rooted in much older, much more antiquated and far less sensible technologies.