Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 11-15 of 104
 Watch what you get July 3, 2008
hz
5 out of 7 found this review helpful
Amazon apparently either doesn't know or doesn't care about the differences between 32-bit vs 64-bit, OEM vs retail, and who knows what else because they lump all these categories together in big listings like this one, with no indication what you're going to get when you open the box--if yours came with a box, which incidentally mine didn't.
I followed a link to this page from an old retail version I was viewing. The link said this version was newer. I scoured the page for any details about 32/64 bit, and whether it was OEM...all there was was a picture of a box of Windows Vista Ultimate--with multiple product images to view! so I figured that's what would be coming in the mail.
Wrong. I got "promotional" (read: OEM) 32-bit only DVDs in paper sleeves, no box at all. Gee Amazon, thanks for the lovely pics though.
I guess they really don't know the difference, otherwise why not have these listed under different product categories according to type.
 As per the usual March 24, 2008
Y. Mann (United States)
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
Received Windows Vista Ultimate with SP 1 today in the mail, as is the usual with Mircosoft products, I backed up everything of importance and then took my chances trying to upgrade my XP pro system to VIsta Ultimate. Can you guess what happened? That's right, SOMETHING went wrong, not sure what, but when it was practically done installing, my computer would boot up and I'd see nothing but black and my mouse pointer. It could be because of my Nvidia drivers, perhaps I should have installed the vista ones before I upgraded, but I'll never know. In either case I did a clean install and wouldn't you know it, works pretty well. I would thus caution those wanting to simply upgrade their system that it would probably be best to just do a clean install as you'll avoid, I'm sure, a lot of problems in the future.
Starting up Vista I like that you can easily find what programs in your system need to be upgraded (video card, etc), very convenient. It took me a while to get aero working, had to call a few friends and find out why it wasn't working from the start, but otherwise it's working more or less flawlessly for the past few hours.
What is quite annoying is that anytime you want to do anything a message pops up asking if you want to let this or that program be installed or do you want to let a program that is already being installed do its job and finish its installation...really? It gets annoying but something you can obviously get used to. Overall, it's a nice new OS, is it worth the money? I think it is over-priced at the moment. This is in fact my first time using Vista, I tried to keep away from it because of the high price and because of all the horror stories, I figured with SP 1 and a year since it's release a lot of the driver issues would be fixed, etc.
Overall this is a system you can use if you're used to XP, there are a lot of similarities but there is also a lot you'll have to learn anew. I can't comment on the difference between SP 1 and Ultimate without SP 1 but since SP 1 is out I'd suggest everyone get it and use it. I'm not a programmer, I can build a computer and I have enough friends around me who can help when I have a problem, if I can use this system most of you will be able to as well. As with anything new, or just plain anything, you'll have to take the good with the bad.
Good OS but you better have the right requirements March 26, 2008
Daniel McKinnon (Tewksbury, MA USA)
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
Windows Vista has gotten a lot of flack and negativity and I will be one of the minority? to disagree. Microsoft spend many years developing this operating system and I feel that they succeeded with improving the flagship OS of PCs overall. The biggest difference with Vista vs XP and earlier OSs is the overall look and feel. Mac OS X had beautified the OS experience for many years and Microsoft had to change things up to compete in the market. With their new 'Aero' look letting you tile windows in 3D and integrating a sidebar with the OS, this is the prettiest Windows you have ever used. A new black system bar replaces the XP blue look and I think it's much easier on the eyes.
With all the improvements spoken of here, my favorites are without a doubt the new Instant Search that lets you easily search for files from any Explorer window (very hard to go back to XP without this) and the way pictures are managed in Vista. I have XP and Vista systems at home but whenever I want to scan through photos I always go to the Vista machine for speed and performance benefits.
Along with these improvements you also get Internet Explorer 7, Windows Media Center, Enhanced Backup and Restore. For computer newbies it's a pleasant experience, for veterans it might take some time to get used to the newest flavor of Windows but it shouldn't take that long.
Negatives that jump out to me are the massive system requirements that are needed. If you install this on a system with anything less than 2 GIG of RAM you are asking for trouble but with the reqs of systems purchased today that shouldn't be much of an issue. The same issues go for graphics cards. If you don't have a decent one you can't use many of the Aero effects that are part of Vista.
Ultimate Edition has all the goodies of the other versions of Vista along with Business Networking, Remote Desktop, and Bitlocker to better protect data. This edition is recommended for power users that want the FULL version of Vista with nothing missing.
All in all a great effort by Microsoft that will only improve over time with the myriad of service packs which are released.
**** RECOMMENDED
 good upgrade after 7 years old interface April 7, 2008
Rich (Seattle, WA)
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
I am not sure what this anti-vista movement is all about. I got Vista Ultimate on my personally built computer and Vista Professional on my Vaio laptop at home, my office still use XP. I could be shocked that people would like to stick to an older OS (XP) that interface is so boring that I was thinking about getting a Mac just for Leopard. There are way too many positives to upgrade to Vista.
First off, if you have an older computer or a 4 year old laptop, chances are Vista won't work. My old Dell, a top of the line in 2003, did not past Vista spec, so I got a new Vaio laptop. Vista will run with 1 GB of ram, but that is a joke, upgrade to 2 GB at least. Yes, my XP Dell had 512mb, but need at least 1gb back in 2003, a far cry from Window 2000 256 MB min; you get the picture here.
Upgrading problems.
A few minor software I tried to reinstall on Vista didn't work, so I found newer software to replace them. Some of my printers and scanner software didn't worked, but Vista just uses their default drivers, but you lose some control. This was the same case when I upgraded from 98 and 2000 to XP, history repeating itself.
Here are lists of major software that passed and failed:
Passed:
AutoCAD 2004, 3d Studio Max4, FormZ. Photoshop 7 and Roxio passed in the 32bit version, but failed in 64bit. HP inkjet software and driver. PC Chilin Virus software. SoundBlaster X-fi. Office2007 Ultimate. All my games passed like Diablo 2, Hero M&M 3to 5.
Failed:
Corel Draw 7, 2000 Olympus digital camera software, Canon 950 software and driver (but Vista default works great, nero7.
So basically all software that failed was easily replaced by upgrade or Vista default drivers. Some were so generic; I had no reason to install them.
The different between Vista Professional and Ultimate are minor.
Aero works fine on both my systems, PC: ultimate, laptop: professional, but is much more responsive on my more powerful PC. Adding too many sidebar with little ram is a no-no on the laptop. Also your wallpaper can have a movie or some flash software in the background so that is very nice. I did this for XP, but it crashes and was very slow or ram intensive.
Finger scan works on both, but not on Basic, which is very convenient after awhile. Also I did do a system backup, since the Vaio didn't come with any reinstallation CD, which was easy to do.
Professional has no Window Media Center, which is terrible and is the same one from XP. Media Center is old and too slow to be enjoyable to use, if you have huge files. Also I noticed there were no window's games on Professional, chess and Mahjong were actually very good. So Professional is a better valve.
The Bad:
There is annoying admin popup screen that always ask if you want to give permission, which XP totally bypass. You can turn this off, but I don't recommend this, even if it is annoying.
The Good:
Vista is as stable or better then XP, unlike 98 and 2000 with the blue screen every other week. The user interface is refreshing compare to a 7 years old XP, but is not as elegant as MAC's Leopard.
I enjoyed the refreshing upgrading to Vista. I don't mind upgrading every 3.5 to 5 years, but don't like every 2-3 years which happened with 95, 98, 2000, and ME coming out so fast. The hardware and OS must keep up with all these newer complex software these days. Too bad Window 7 is coming out next year in 2009, which make Window road map of OS every 2.5 years again. SP1 upgrade is a slightly faster version of Vista. Unnoticeable to most people, but the game charts have shown that games are as fast and even to XP now.
Update:
After a year with Vista 32bit I have upgraded to Vista 64bits. I could not install Photoshop 7 and Roxio Creater 7 and countless other small software that did install on Vista 32. The only benefit of 64 is the future speed and more ram can be install. Vista Ultimate 32 bit can max out at 4GB of ram and only show 3GB of ram. 64 bit can max out at 128GB.
I'm Pretty Impressed, So There You Go 5 Stars April 8, 2008
Sara Hackett (from the Darkside)
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
I've been using Vista with SP1 for a couple weeks now on two different computers, my MacBook Pro and my iMac, both running on Bootcamp partitions and I have to say I'm pretty darned impressed.
I have lots of ram, ram to spare in both my machines, as I'm a Photoshop girl and both my machines are the latest and greatest Apple has to off, so I was good to go as far as hardware was concerned. I had no problems running the Aero eye candy and though it's no Leopard, it's quite nice. I liked the transparent window frames and I liked the minimizing and restoring effects, but again, I'm used to the Mac, so for me they were no great shakes.
I like the search box in the start menu, but I like spotlight better. Still it's very handy. The Widgets are a copy of Mac's Dashboard and Flip 3D is a copy of Expose, but then again Microsoft has been copying Apple for years.
I had to go online and download the printer driver again for my Brother printer, but that was no big deal and a couple of my Photoshop plugins had to be updated, but then I hadn't used them for awhile. I was just checking everything because of the new Vista install.
In conclusion I guess I'd say if you've got the hardware and are not a Mac person, this is a pretty good operating system and it seems stable. I know, I know, you've probably read all the same stuff I have about how Vista crashes and crashes and crashes and I've experienced plenty of crashes myself, but those problems seem to have been solved with the SP1 upgrade.
The Home Premium version I have on my MacBook hasn't crashed yet and Vista Ultimate on my iMac has only brought down my machine one time. Granted, it's early days yet, but as for now I'll say it again, I'm pretty impressed.
However there is one thing I just cannot seem to wrap my mind around. Why oh why are there so many versions of Vista. Well that bothered me with XP as well. Do you really need:
Vista Home Basic with SP1
Vista Home Premium with SP1
Vista Business with SP1
Ultimate with SP1
Vista Home Basic Upgrade with SP1
Vista Home Premium Upgrade with SP1
Vista Business Upgrade with SP1
Ultimate Upgrade with SP1
That's an awful lot of Vistas. Then there's:
Vista Anytime Upgrade Pack with SP1 [Home Basic to Home Premium]
Vista Anytime Upgrade Pack with SP1 [Business to Ultimate]
Vista Anytime Upgrade Pack with SP1 [Home Premium to Ultimate]
Vista Anytime Upgrade Pack with SP1 [Home Basic to Ultimate]
Come on, Microsoft, how about a one size fits all operating system like they do over in the Mac world. And this business about your copy protection, lighten up. Maybe some people do rip off Mr. Jobs' Leopard, you know buy it and put it on more than one machine, but how many computers can they use at a time. Yes, yes, maybe a husband and wife could be on at the same time, or one of the kiddies, but sheesh, give us a break.
I know you have to protect yourself from the hordes who want free software, but Apple's making a pretty penny with Leopard even while they trust their users, you could too.
Still, I guess I have to give all your Vistas with SP1 five stars, grudgingly, because of the way I think you do business, but I've got Vista working fine on two different computers, plus my husband has it on a couple others and we're not having major problems, so there you go, five stars.
Reviewed by Sara Hackett
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