Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 31-35 of 104
 I'm not sure I see a compelling reason to upgrade March 26, 2008
M. J Lane (USA)
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
I would like to start this review by encouraging you to run the Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor. I'm not going to paste a link because links change but you can find the tool very easily on the Microsoft website. That tool will tell you, up front, if Vista is going to give you problems. You would do yourself a great service by NOT skipping that step.
In my case the upgrade advisor told me that I'd lose several things and most of them didn't matter much to me. My Adobe Acrobat Professional 6.0 is now useless and I was warned that it would be. I was also warned that my video card was not fully supported and it isn't. It works but I can't change the resolution. When I ran the Advisor on my desktop it told me I'd lose Nero 6.0 and that was a deal-breaker (so I put it on my laptop).
My laptop has a 1.5 ghz single core processor, 1gig of RAM, and an 80gig hard drive. My install of Vista was done as an upgrade and it managed to do the upgrade without any intervention from me at all (that made me very happy, I started it and went to bed--it was done in the morning). The very first thing I noticed was that Vista has a very pretty interface and I immediately turned that off because that just slows the computer. The next thing I did was begin stress-testing. I opened up lots of programs and ran a virus scan and got some torrents running, etc. So far the only major thing broken is that my Nortel VPN client will no longer connect to the server at work (even after upgrading to the Vista-compatible client). The only minor glitch I encountered was that one of the folders that Azureus wanted was marked as 'read only' so I had to fix that. Aside from that everything worked fine (except Acrobat 6.0 but I was warned about that up-front).
The next thing I did was look for things that this OS has that XP doesn't have (that is the whole reason to do an upgrade right?) One thing that looked promising was the drive encryption but you need a special chip on your motherboard to use it and I don't have it. That was really the only thing that specifically interested me and I can't even use it. Vista does have some very nice improvements in security and that is great because it will help prevent people from getting viruses.
Overall I would say that Vista has the "feel" of a Windows XP service pack. I don't think it has slowed down my computer at all and if anything I think it works a little faster under stress. It WILL break some old legacy soft/hardware and that is why you really need to go to Microsoft's website and run Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor. If you get a clean bill of health from the advisor I don't see any reason why you shouldn't upgrade though I'm also not sure why you should.
 The Ultimate Vista Experience March 27, 2008
Martin P. McCarthy (North Chili, New York)
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Windows Vista has a serious public image problem. It stems, in part, from Microsoft's hasty deployment of Vista into the marketplace coupled together with its massive PR push touting it as a revolution in computing. Well, Vista's debut fell flat, about as flat as a lead balloon. Those computer consumers that jumped right onto the Vista bandwagon (myself included) found an operating system which was ALREADY in need of a Service Pack. We also found that when Vista rolled out, almost NOTHING worked properly. Take your pick - from iPods to HP printers to computer programs very little worked correctly with Vista. The final indignity (at least for me) was the crippling inadequacies of Vista Home Basic. Having purchased a new computer with Vista Home Basic pre-installed, I was immediately confronted with the frustration of having none of my component computer devices functioning with the indignity of being constantly reminded by Vista Home Basic that "this feature is not supported by Home Basic." Oh, and let's not forget about the "Cancel or Allow" nonsense. I was pushed into a direction many others took last year - rolling back to Windows XP.
After a year, I thought I would give Vista another shot. I ended up installing Vista on my laptop (1.4 P4-m 30 GB HDD 768 MB RAM). Installation took a very LONG time. When installation was complete, the computer initially ran sluggishly. After a reboot however, it booted up in approximately the same time as XP. Vista is designed for the mainstream computer user - as evidenced by the "cancel or allow" nonsense. Yes, you can go into the account settings and disable it.
One improvement Vista has made over XP is the way in which it handles errors. If there is a conflict with an installed driver and an error report is generated, Vista will eventually provide you with an answer (i.e. in attempting to set up a Canon Printer, Vista generated a message saying the printer driver was not compatible and directed me to the Canon website to download the proper driver). This feature makes it easier for the casual computer user to troubleshoot problems with their computers.
PC World recently tested Vista w/ SP1, Vista w/o SP1 and XP side by side using its WorldBench 6 benchmark test. The result: XP won convincingly. One of the more perplexing and disappointing results came in the gaming arena. Vista was touted as the next generation in computer gaming. Yet, in benchmark tests, XP outperformed Vista in FPS and anti-aliasing tests. Also, based upon the PC World benchmark test, XP will SIGNIFICANTLY outperform Vista on laptops as a result of Vista's graphical demands.
What does this signify? Vista has some growing pains. Much like its predecessor XP, it will probably require a Service Pack 2 to unlock its potential. Obviously, the other thing is that components (motherboards, graphics cards, memory, etc.) will also have to catch up to deliver on the graphical promise of Vista. It will take some time, but Vista will eventually deliver. Now that Vista is stable and more hardware friendly, perhaps it may be time to think about upgrading.
Works with Mac March 29, 2008
Tim E Robertson (Battle Creek, Mi United States)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I was mostly interested in having Vista work on my Macbook Pro using Bootcamp. There are some programs (visio) that do not have a Macintosh program, and I wanted to find out if Vista would work well or not. It does, and installation was a breeze. I know some people don't like Vista, but I have to say it work perfectly well on my Macbook Pro. All applications work, it saw and used my three printers, and networking (wireless) was perfect.
 Mission Not Accomplished April 3, 2008
Rebecca Haden (Fayetteville, AR)
2 out of 5 found this review helpful
I always think of installing a new operating system as a kind of spa day for your computer. I expect it to be an improvement, and to make the computer happy. Wanting a happy computer, I was happy myself to offer to review this software for the Vine program.
As soon as it arrived, I began hearing dire warnings about how installing Vista had killed mightier computers than mine. My software wouldn't work any more, people assured me. And maybe the machine wouldn't even start any more. Other Vine reviewers using the same software were having the same kinds of problems, and all my friends and family echoed their experiences.
I pointed out that this was the Ultimate with SP1, and probably all those bugs had been fixed. I showed them how it said on the box that you could move effortlessly from work to play, which is just the thing I would like the computer to do.
I searched around for a machine I could test it on without leaving myself without a computer for work.
Eventually, I found a laptop whose owner would allow me to try the Vista out. It would not install. We spent a lot of time with the online help, but finally had to give up.
So I have to say that I was unsuccessful with this software. And I'm afraid of it now, too.
 What a piece of bloatware. April 4, 2008
Robert Nelson (New Orleans)
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Sure, it's pretty, but my computer is blazing fast with XP and when I threw on a copy of Vista Ultimate, it slowed down significantly. I had problems finding software to work with Vista. I'm going to close my eyes and hope that Vista isn't here when I open them.
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