Windows Vista.

This question is not related to photography.

 

I currently own both Mac and Windows XP systems.

 

I use my Mac for all my photo work. (I'll be upgrading it this year and got a

lot of help for a question posted a few days ago on this forum)

 

My current win XP system is getting pretty ragged (dunno why) and I'm planning

on getting a new system.... probably one of those cheap bundles from HP or Dell.

 

I've noticed most of these systems come with Vista installed. I'm sure there's

an option to have the dealer install XP instead of Vista.

 

I'll be using it for simple stuff like surfing, online shopping, and mainly

video downloads/torrents (foreign commercials, japanese anime, car/bike

reviews, movie trailers...etc.)

 

So, should I just take the Vista or get them to downgrade to XP? I'm not

interested in having the latest technology or anything like that (all critical

stuff in done on the Mac)... I just want a stable platform for all the things I

stated on the previous paragraph.

 

Cheers.

I never buy the first model of a new car, or the first issue of new software. I'm going to stay with XP until MS irons all the bugs out of Vista, and all my periphals makers update their drivers to Vista.

 

You might be better off trying to diagnose the "ragged" operation of XP and fix it, instead of going to a new machine which you may not really need.

William,

 

My XP system is pretty damn old already.... It's got a CRT for Christ's sake.

 

Thanks anyway.

 

More opinions please!

<I> I just want a stable platform for all the things I stated on the previous paragraph.</i><P>

 

Microsoft has a long track record of not delivering "stability" with the first, second or even third revision of most of their operating systems. My .02 cents: Avoid Vista for at least another 6 months. I do belive I'll be avoiding it all together myself. Good luck!

Learn from my mistakes. DO NOT GET A COMPUTER RUNNING VISTA AT THIS TIME.

 

I purchase my computer a week ago and I have been having problems installing my old software. If the software does install then it has problems running it. Example, Photoshop CS2 asks me to register it every time I open it up. I've registered it three times already and I have given up registering it.

 

What also may happen is that the computer will not recognize your printer. My computer does not recognize my Epson 2200 and Epson does not have a Vista driver for it at this time. Someone told me on this website to just install the drivers for window XP but I'm very scared to do it. My computer has crashed installing 'old' drivers and it has taken me a long time to get her back up and running.

 

Again, learn from my experience.

 

P.S. The only software that loaded without a problem was Microsoft Office 2000. Interesting, don't you think?

Just a thought: if you're buying an Intel Mac soon, why not consider the Parallels VM for

Mac? That's how I run Windows: on my MacBook Pro. It works great. I run an old copy of

Windows 2000 and use it to run Quicken (the Mac version sucks) and any stuff I have that

requires Windows. Absolutely no complaints.

 

It costs $80 plus the cost of the Windows XP license. Lot cheaper than buying a new

Windows system, and it takes less room too.

 

If you want to run video games and such, I understand Parallels isn't very good. But you can

reboot Intel Macs into Windows using the Apple Boot Camp package. Unlike Parallels, you

must reboot, but then you have an Apple PC running Windows natively - Mac OS X isn't

involved in any way.

Just to clarify. I'm not big on trying to convince people to switch from Windows to Mac,

although I did so myself. What I am saying is that since you're planning to buy a Mac

anyway, why not run Windows on it and have just one machine to maintain and upgrade?

I would say, upgrade the Mac and dump the windows machine. All the thing you mention you

want to do you can do with a Mac. <br>

The following review in MIT's Technology Review is perhaps a bit of an eye opener about

Vista:

<a href="http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/17992/">http://

www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/17992/</a> <br>

Good luck!

I have a vista system. It is a Dell E1505 2.3 ghz duo processor laptop with 2gig ram, 120 gig HD, 256 ram video card. I am running Adobe CS2, Nikon NX, Nikon Capture Pro, Adobe Acrobat 7 Pro and I am not having any problems. I shoot 100% raw from a Nikon D200. I use Nikon NX for the conversion to JPEG and TIFFS. I then use CS2 to finalize my files. I have batch converted 400 raws files at one time and the system has worked flawlessly. The update of Nikon NX to 1.1 has increased the spead of the raw processing.I use a Pantone Huey to calibrate my monitor and it works great. Vista works twice as fast with my wireless not that it was ever slow on XP. I have no no horrors so far. Nothing but good............. Used the system tethered with studio lights for a wedding 02/17/07 and printed the photos on location. All worked flawless.....

I'm still running both XP, but also have a Vista box that I'm slowly moving thing over to. What prompted me to migrate over is that my XP box isnt' as healthy as it once was -- mostly likely to one of the million programs I've installed and uninstalled on it(I'm suspecting Google Desktop at the moment as a perf killer, but I don't know, I have about a thousand things that start when the machine boots up.) Also, since I'm a software developer, it doesn't hurt to be working with the latest technologies, because eventually they'll be mainstream.

Since you're going to get one of those cheap bundles from HP or DELL, I'd probably stick to XP on the OS. The cheap bundles will only come with a watered down Home version of Vista that doesn't include the Media Center (which is actually quite cool) or the Aero interface (which is the 3d rendering eye-candy that you see in most of the demos). While I do like a lot of the new Vista features, there's nothing in it that makes me anymore productive than in XP. BTW, my Vista machine is one of those Dells that you see advertised on techbargains.com for about $400 with about $300 in upgrades -- memory and a video card.

Many of the productivity features in Vista can also be had in XP with the appropriate 3rd party software, much of it free. (Like using Google Desktop for a sweet application launcher that is similar to the Vista's "Start Search"

Then again, for the most part, I'm the guy who 5 years after XP has been out, I still change the theme to look like Windows classic (Windows 2k).

The only real problems I have with Vista is that it's quite new and it doesn't have 100% software compatibility....like with iTunes, which Apple is hoping to have a release in the next couple of weeks. Anyway, in 6 months or a year, I'm sure Vista will be uber-sweet, because it's not that bad now, as long as your software runs on it.