Windows Vista coming down the line...
 

I have been hearing some not so great reviews of the new windows coming out. Slow, takes up a ton of memory, doesn't run with older printers ect.

When this POS buggy Compaq that I am typing on gets replaced this year I'm getting a Mac! So long Windows.:D

Unfortunately, not everyone has that choice. I require MS Windows for my work, and the OS that I use must be supported. Therefore we can't run NT4.0 for new installations, for example. At some point, Windows Server 2003 will also be EOL'd and I'll use something else. But moving to Apple is not an option.

It looks like it has some cool features tho. Haven't installed it yet. I'll probably wait for a bit, in case (what am I saying 'in case') I mean WHEN, there are bugs found.

I really do like the 3D multi-windows bit though. Very cool feature. I have a nice new widescreen LCD, so it should come in handy.

I do some PC gaming as well, so DirectX 10 is going to be cool!

I don't do much gaming anymore. I just want a computer that works! If I can type, go on the net, wach TV/movies/DVD's and play a few games I'll be happy.

"If I don't make it . . . I want you to have my peripherals . . " :D

Hatterasguy, don't I recall that you are a young guy who is in college? Don't I recall that you have some business aspirations?

If yes, then be sure you preserve your Windows skills. Windows is a fact of life in business. The fact that your Compaq is buggy, doesn't make Windows XP buggy. Here is my perspective.

I am what I call, a pretend Geek. I taught myself database programming at age 50. I developed, and market, a very elaborate application that runs small privately held manufacturing plants in my industry.

I have experienced, hands on, the progression from Windows 95, to 98, to NT, to 2000, and now XP with Server 2003. From my perspective the stability of my application in these networks has vastly improved over the this transition. I am on call 24x7. The number of network related trouble calls now is virtually zero, I think 2 last month.

I have used Thinkpad laptops for the last 8 years or so. I don't have virus problems or buggy application problems. I am really happy with Windows XP. It allows me to make my living sitting in my chair at home. Broadband internet and remote control software has vastly reduced, but not eliminated, my need to be onsite.

just my 2 cents,

Steve

You are correct. But I was under the impression that I can now run windows and IE on Mac's. Is so why shouldn't I go with a more relaible system?

Granted a lot of my problems are probably from this tired computer.

I wouldn't mind your 2 cents regarding Windows XP as it runs on this machine:

I also agree that the platform is significantly more stable than it's predecessors. The problems with XP are probably 10% of the problems that would occur with '98.

My question concerns the speed of the machine. When new, approx. 4 years ago, it was lightning fast. Almost all applications would start in two seconds or less. The page loading capability for the internet was under 1 second. The machine had 512MB at that time.

Four years later, after the installation of another 512MB, for a total of 1024MB, the machine remains slower than when originally purchased. The software is basically unchanged. It runs anti-virus......always has........and it has anti-spam running in the background. But, I'd probably guess that it's speed remains at 33% of when it was first purchased.

Just to be clear:

It has no spyware, viruses, or any superflous internet pages.

It runs three different anti-spyware programs and also cleans out the dead files when I use "clean-up" on a periodic basis.

It's defragmented every month or so........never made a bit of difference.

It's had the benefit of "registry mechanic" to remove 400 items in the registry that were superflous.

None of these tasks has returned the machine anywhere near close to the original performance.

I remain suspicious of the operating system because of this malady. Others have commented that a full reinstall of the OS is required to cure it. This would confirm my belief that it's not a system that is properly debugged and suffers from ongoing maladies that infect its registry.

I refuse to spend 16 hours to reinstall the OS and all of the programs and data. After five years, it's time for a new machine anyway. It just confirms my opinion that the OS is not capable of running indefinitely without corrupting itself.

If you're running Mcafee or Norton for your virus scan, that will slow you computer down considerably. Try switching to AVG Free for virus and spyware apps. I'm running Vista and have been for a couple of months as well as Office 2007. It's ok, but nothing earth shattering.

Project Blackcomb aka Vienna is going to revolutionize the way a PC is used and how it works.. Vista is just.. Windows NT V7.1

Im upgrading to a mac next month :D

Wish I could help, but I really am a pretend Geek. Sounds like you have done all the things you should do. I doubt it's XP.

Seems to me that something is running in the background, like anti-virus, and slowing your machine down. Is your hard disk almost full? That will slow things down. I share your opinion about not having the time to mess the PC.

I often am asked about what to do with PC's that are say 4 years old. Now this is in a business environment, but has validity in the personal use situation. They call and say that they want to have the PC's upgraded. I tell them that I think they are nuts. In my opinion, PC's and laptops are disposable. They have gotten so cheap that you almost can't afford to fix the bloody things.

Wish I knew the answer to your slowness problem.

Steve

Running Windows on Mac. Yes, that's what I understand. I really don't know anything about a Mac. For me it would simply having to learn and remember two different systems for clicks and keystrokes.

Hey, your young, should be no problem.

Steve

Thanks. Nobody really can put a firm answer on it. Yes, anti-virus runs in the background, as it did when the machine was brand new. The speed that it operates at today is about 30% of the speed that it operated when new. Understand that it's still relatively fast, but, when new, it would open programs so fast that it was simply striking.

The hard disc has 8GB remaining out of 27.8GB, so, I'm doubtful that it's the culprit.

I agree completely regarding the disposable aspect of the machine after four years. The 286 powered machine lasted four years ('90-'94). The 386DX machine lasted five years ('94-'99). The 486 machine lasted four years ('99-'03). This machine is approaching four years and it's the best of the bunch after that time. The previous machine with windows 98 exhibited the same behavior. The problem became so severe that running applications became a problematic endeavor. It crashed at least five times per week.......sometimes more. Discussion with MS about the issue generally didn't solve much except in the very short term. The machine finally was replaced with this one.

The learning curve for Mac is about one week. I don't get this compatibility BS because Mac seems to network and share files with windows computers better than window computers.

For remote desktop RDC works perfectly one the Mac.

ActiveX is an issue and I think winders is going to run into another DOJ lawsuit because of it.

There's more to computing than user-level applications. "Compatibility" here means that you can accomplish the same tasks using different software written to attain the same ends. Since there are many users, it's profitable to port the software to multiple platforms.

When a programmer talks about compatibility, he means the operating system API. It's nontrivial to port software that uses the Windows API to anything else. This goes for pretty much any other OS architecture; porting OpenVMS software to Windows is also fraught with peril. If you have custom software, the cost to port to a new platform is enormous. Hundreds of thousands of dollars for a single server application. Millions, in many cases.

Hey Brian, try running just one anti virus program and just one anti-spyware program. When you have more than one they tend to conflict and cause problems. If you are using a program like Norton Internet Security or McAffee they are known to slow down a computer.

When you start up your computer do you have a ton of programs that pop up on the tray at the bottom right?

I hate to say it but every 2 or 3 years is a good time to reinstall Windows.. it just tends to get slower over time.

I run Trend Micro anti-virus and spyware all the time.

The tray has five items in it. Everything else is not running on startup.

Believe me, the machine is running as well as it possibly can and it's still 60% slower than when new.

I'm talking about user level be cause I don't give a $hit otherwise; the only thing I care about is turning my computer on; have a couple sips of coffee while it boots (not a cup) and it to play nice with printers on other networks that I may use. Developers need to realize that actual need of the end user and build around that. We do use custom software so I have to be winders mode for that but other wise I am almost always in OS X.

Our newer apps are Java based so they play nice with both, I am looking forward to that day.

Brian,

Anything of suspicion listed in the Task Manager?

Nope, nothing of consequence. Firefox, and the Trend Micro Spam and anti-virus suites are the big consumers. Everything else is negligible.

The machine is clean.

I could shutdown the Anti-virus and Anti-spam just to see if the speed returned to the as delivered condition, but, I'd sincerely doubt that it would.

Well, I did an experiment and shutdown both the Trend Micro suite and Outlook.

The speed of the machine returned to the level that I recall when it was originally delivered.

Word and Acrobat both load in about two seconds after the first attempt. Interesting that the first load was considerably slower.

So, clearly, the Trend Micro suite has the greatest influence on the speed.

Rather interesting because the machine has more than sufficient RAM at 1GB and it's still severely affected.

Oh well........

A lot of antivirus and anti-spam/firewall software programs eat up considerable CPU resources, which in turn slows everything else down. So while the extra RAM helps, when the CPU is handling multiple requests it can slow things to a crawl. My PC is pretty high end, but when I open Thunderbird to check e-mail, I may as well forget doing anything else significant as it consumes a good portion of the CPU's resources.

P.S. Outlook? Have you tried Mozilla Thunderbird?

Norton is one of the worst. It seems each successive release is more pervasive and resource-hogging than the last. What kills me is that the corporate edition of Norton AV is fantastic. It hums along, barely taxing anything. Then you have the home edition....Grrr.

I mentioned this earlier. Uninstall the virus/spyware you currently have and install the AVG versions. They are free and work well. Just google "AVG free"

Get a Mac Hatters, you'll never need Windows again.

I'd been a lifelong Windows person until a little less than a year ago when I was offered a Mac at a new job (still work there). I'm never switching back.

If you really need to do Windows stuff from time-to-time you can do the Virtual Machine thing with Parallels or VMWare which is already out in Beta for the Mac. If you really need a full-on Windows you can use Apple's BootCamp (free) to create a dual-boot machine.

I've been wedded to Outlook for so many years that I probably can't switch now......

Thankfully, I don't run Norton anymore.

The machine is certainly tolerable with the Trend-Micro suite and the 1GB RAM. I'm glad I've got a final explanation of the speed decrease.

Thanks to all of you who have critiqued it for me.

The dual boot works but I think there is some problem with MS recognizing the bluetooth keyboard. With regular wired keyboards everythings fine. This is on a Mac Mini.

Two more comments. I had forgotten about Trend Micro. That program caused slow down and other issues for me at a client about 5 years ago.
Now maybe it better now, but perhaps a different anti-virus is in order.

Also, in Outlook you have a choice of e-mail editor. If you choose Word, then it's runs in the background whenever Outlook is running. Outlook is a known resource hog, but with a gig of RAM you should have no problem.

Steve

Thanks.

It definitely affects the speed. No doubt about it. But, with 1GB, it's not intolerable. I rather like the Trend-Micro suite..........and I've now purchased it for two years..........so I'll probably live with it.

Outlook doesn't use Word as the e-mail editor. Word is another hog. I don't open it unless I'm using it.

DITTO.

Outlook doesn't use Word as the e-mail editor.

Don't know what version you have, but in Outlook 2003 you have that option.
Tools | Options | Mail Format.

Steve

Just another reason to go with a laptop. A MacBook is incredibly well equipped considering the cost. In fact, the only difference I can see (at the time of writing) between a MacBook and a MacBook Pro is screen size and video card. Oh and about $800.

If you're looking towards a desktop-type computer I would look no further than the iMac. They are also quite cheap and even faster than most MacBook Pros. Two co-workers have the 24" iMac and they are AWESOME!

For a whole new setup I would agree. I got my kid a macbook for college and he is very happy with it. We did the free OpenOffice download and got all the MS office equivalents. And this is coming from a pure PC/laptop background. The little Mac Mini is nice if you already have a good LCD monitor, and its sooo tiny, barely the size of a stack of CDs!

Did you install X11 off the CD? That all you should really need.

Around 7 years and counting on my iMac G3, Powermac G4 and Cube G4. I'm going for 10 on the G4's. My iMac G4 is only 3 years old, still a baby.

How's the G3 on speed?


I need a mac for studio work...

If all you're doing is editing then the G-3 may work. But if you're doing serious signal processing, fugettaboutit. Go for major horsepower.

I have a G-3 (I'm using it right now) and it works fine for most things I do at home. Where I work severals scientists have Macs for doing genetic and protein analyses (don't ask me what, it's not my thang). Whenever a bigger, faster Mac comes along they buy it. The protein scientist has been using parallel processors since multiple 68040 cards could be paralleled under Apple Unix (before System X, Apple sold a version of Berkeley, IIRC). The software is something strange that's evolved within their little community of extremely specialized scientists.

On my end we use big PC's with lots of RAM, huge hard drives, and a very highspeed LAN. On nights and weekends a statistician parasitizes my computer with a giant Bayesian ecological model that he projects will take 10 days on 5 big PC's. Another project that I don't understand. They get pretty graphs, though.

B

Some people just don't get it. Look who's still in the White House.

Then what is the deal with the little "use word as editor thingy'?

I don't get it.

The people who 'get it' have switched to a mac, the people who don't get it, voted for Bush (and are still using Windows).

Yes, I realize that. I don't need the power of Word to edit e-mail and I prefer not to have it running........for obvious reasons.

Geez. Keep your Mac arrogance out of this.

Brian, I was simply reacting to what you wrote. When you said Outlook didn't use Word as it's editor. I thought you didn't know that was an option.

I only use it when I need to insert a screenshot as a graphic.

Steve

This comment is not necessarily aimed at Mac's. One of the traps that a couple of my customers have fallen into involves laptops, and native screen resolutions. The marketing hype for laptops often uses very high resolutions in an attempt to upstage the competition. This is fine for ordinary users, but can present a problem if the main use of the laptop is a custom written business application. The application is typically designed for a certain screen resolution. That's probably 800 x 600 or 1024 x 768. If you buy a laptop with a high native resolution, then the application will either be small, or fuzzy.

Steve

I should have said that I don't use Word as the editor for Outlook due to the speed issues.

Sorry for the confusion.

Justin, what's your deal??

My point is completely relevant. There was an article in InfoWeek a week or two ago that said Vista, which has yet to come out, lags behing OSX which has been out for over a year. Vista is trying to copy several of the things macs already do. Vista has been delayed, and delayed and delayed. This is not news to anyone. People are switching to macs in droves. They're just sick of Windows.

Same goes for the President. His approval rating fell to 24%, his lowest of all time. 65% don't agree with the way he's handling Iraq. People are sick of him too.

Am I wrong? These are all facts.

Those are two facts, neither of which have anything to do with Apple or even computers for that matter. Everything else you said is just a little opinion from a Mac enthusiasts perspective. For the sake of keeping these discussions sane, we probably don't need to relate everything in terms of Mr. Bush and his failures.

Just my two cents from a Mac user and GWB disliker.

I myself am not thrilled about a new Windows release. All it means for me now is a hardware upgrade. In this case, it will be upgraded to Mac.