Just wondering if any of you have gotten Vista already, and if so, what do you think of it? Any crashing, or compatibility issues with important stuff? Would you recommend it to others?

If you don't have Vista, I'm not interested in what you have to say about it, but I won't ask you not to post because you will anyways

Macs still look better.

I considered getting it to try it out, but seems to be far, far too much trouble.

It doesn't seem to have any really useful new features besides being pretty (I can make Linux look prettier, though, so I don't particularly care) and is, besides that, dangerously infested with evil DRM measures.

I saw a friend of mine using it and it looks neat, but I haven't used it myself.

http://reviews.cnet.com/4660-10621_7-6688316.html?tag=vid

this video amuses me though

I won't be getting it for a few months, however, when I do get it I will be very happy. And not because of any of the visual features.

I'm going to be really excited about being able to use the parental controls, and some other neat features my sister keeps telling me about. (She just got a new computer with it)

I've had it and uninstalled it. It is nice and nifty, but it isn't really that much different from XP. It makes pretty high demands on your computer.

I installed Vista Enterprise, the final release, 3 weeks before xmas and wasn't very impressed. Apart from the eyecandy there really wasn't much that I liked. The enterprise licensing was painfull and took several phonecalls to Microsoft and our account manager to sort out. No enterprise license key like in xp, you have to have an internal license server or connect up to microsoft to activate. On site licensing has to be renewed every 180 days!! Yay for laptops ! Yeah it does look nice, but really I wasn't impressed, I used the flashy tab window browsing twice... to show other people how flashy it was... give me alt+Tab any day! Also, what the hell did they do to file copying, there seemed to be a general problem with it and it was much slower on several different PC's all less than a year old. I expected some slowdown, but on a dual core 3.2 with 1Gb of ram... not THAT much slow down. I actually got so fed up I have switched back to XP on my main workstation. However, I will keep playing with Vista to see if I can find anything that will make it worth switching. Actually the only bits I do like are the little preview windows on taskbar items and the sidebar, but then you can get a hacked out vista sidebar for XP too.

Vista's major selling point seems to be the whole 'HD content media center' thing it has going on. Ironically, no Vista PCs currently in existence can play HDDVD or Blu-Ray content - At all. And it seems Vista won't ever be able to use S/PDIF audio, RGB component video, or DVI video for HD content... rendering it utterly useless.

In my view, Vista is for new computers only, it shouldn't be used on upgrades.

Uh... Verithrax sweetie, my computer is HD-DVD capable, sorry to burst your bubble...

Anyways, I have Vista, but havn't got around to installing it yet.

Caffrey, why would you install Enterprise? That's meant for large-scale, IT controlled roll outs, not for small businesses or home users. You're not supposed to buy it at retail. I would've used Windows Ultimate.

File slowness might be a part of the File Transaction system and version control. It's built into the OS now so you can get back copies of your changes.

I'll purchase this when I get a new computer, in 4-8 months or so.

There are a lot of new features:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_new_to_Windows_Vista

Verithrax is correct about the DRM and authorization issues though--I suspect they'll cause issues. In the same book that debunks a lot of the "Microsoft was successful because they had a monopoly" BS (it was stupidity on IBM, Digital Research, Novell, Borland, Ashton-Tate, Micro-Pro, and WordPerfect that gave Microsoft it's Windows/Office success), he also points out two major mistakes taken by Microsoft. (The first was Bill Gates image problem, which occurred in the mid-late 1990s to the general public). The other is a chapter on "The Strange Case of Dr. Open and Mr Proprietary". The end of this chapter and the appendix compares the stupidity of Windows Genuine Advantage and how it flies in the face of current trends.

What I meant was that HD-DVD capable computers today won't run HD-DVDs with Vista. Vista will only let you use protected devices with any sort of premium content, meaning you won't be able to use S/PDIF, component video, or DVI interfaces, and that it most likely will refuse to display HD video content with your current hardware, or will downgrade image and sound quality while using it (Which defeats the purpose of HD content in the first place, of course).

This is of course the logical progression of proprietary software monopoly and what Stallman was warning us all about 20 years ago - First they came for freedoms 2 and 3 (Redistribution and redistribution of modifications); then they came for freedom 1 (Access to the source code and ability to modify it); Digital Rights Management, Trusted Computing and other thoroughly evil initiatives are basically them coming after freedom 0 (Freedom to run the program, for any purpose). Microsoft quite clearly sets the convenience and satisfaction of consumers as a profoundly low priority (Which is typical monopoly behaviour)

DRM is, of course, immensely dumb. Pirated content runs on any device, without the overhead of DRM decryption, and is free to boot. In their ridiculous scheme to kill all the content that isn't produced by them (Which is, make no mistake, the real reason for DRM) the MPAA has made pirated products more attractive to consumers than the legitimate thing and alienated all the people who would by their content but now have all the reason to be resentful, since the MPAA and Microsoft have been sending a very clear message to consumers that 1) They don't matter and 2) They can't be trusted.

Well, to be fair, DRM is separate from Trusted Computing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_Computing

There are benefits to the concept: Protection from Identity Theft, Spyware/Viruses/Bots, Preventing cheaters from gaming, and Encryption. Encryption, Authorization, and Central Management are not bad concepts in and of themselves (and they are not "Evil")

Stallman may have good points, but he can also be a bit paranoid and pedantic. DRM is only one subset of what they are trying to deal with. I have a feeling to protect e-commerce and citizens in the future there will be some sort of Trusted Computing efforts needed, or at least some of the concepts. This is why I noted that I think the Internet structure may evolve into something newer to prevent the problems we have now.

I work at CompUSA, and a person was appointed "Vista lead" and was forced to train us all about Vista. This guy was a good choice, because he's really pro-microsoft, and talks of nothing but how great Vista is. However, he recommends upgrading the RAM of some computers *out of the box* because Vista is so resource greedy that some of the new computers its put on can't handle it well.

Let us know how it goes! I'd be interested in hearing about how the installation is as well. I've heard that installing the upgrade is a long and tedious process, but installing the full version takes about 1/5 the time and is easier. Good luck to you

Protecting e-commerce and one's identity can be accomplished through strong asymetric key encryption under any and all circumstances. Trusted computing has nothing to do with e-commerce and network security, and everything to do with preventing untrusted software from running on your computer - The key point of it is that it gives someone else (IE, not you) power over what your computer is allowed to do, which is fundamentally bad. It is not the same as DRM, but is usually viewed as a means to enforce DRM use. Trusted computing and DRM are, fundamentally, about implementing controls over how you can manipulate the content in your computer - Controls which are built-in, architectural enforcement of policies that aren't necessarily legal or desirable. Trusted Computing consists of enforcing the availability of those measures down at the hardware level, rather than simply through proprietary software. It is profoundly evil on many levels. The fundamental purpose of Trusted Computing is to give content originators full control over content - This could allow a huge slew of bad things, such as remote censorship of data. The supposed advantages can all be accomplished through other methods, or have nothing to do, deep down, with trusted computing. It does not, for example, allow you to use your own software for viewing content you own, or to view the content you own on another hardware - Content is bought and managed for that single combination of hardware and software. Essentially, Trusted Computing means you don't own your computer anymore.

Internet security can be provided using encryption at the software level; for example, to create a completely secure channel of communication, you create two key pairs. The private keys are put into small USB devices (Like a pen drive). One is given to Alice, another to Bob, along with a pass phrase (Which can be another key, or a simple password) while the public key is exchanged. Communications between both sides is as secure as the algorithm (Which for modern encryption algorithms usually means it's only unsafe against a brute-force attack which would take literally ages on high-end hardware) as long as the private key is not stolen, which can be ensured merely by using software that iterates it directly from the device, or by making the device a self-contained box which will encrypt and decrypt by itself without providing any means for the actual key to be stolen. Most Internet communications (And yes that includes e-banking and e-commerce) is perfectly safe using SSL and PGP key pairs without any such complication - The biggest threat to Internet security is stupid users (IE, phishing) rather than a lack of encryption that works.

ANY means of enforcing ANY policy through architecture is inherently flawed, because you can't build architecture that makes informed, real-life decisions.

I refuse to support any form of DRM, so I won't be using (and certainly not PURCHASING) Vista.

I have the same laptop that microsft itself sent out to bloggers with vista installed for them to test it on. I'm assuming it should be more than good enough to run the OS if Microsoft were using this laptop to advertise it...then again Microsoft have done sillier things.

I didn't buy it retail, my company added it to our license agreement in order to evaluate it and see if we wanted to have a large scale, IT controlled roll out this summer

The transactional file system might be to do with it, but the version control (which we use on a couple of 2003 server already - it's volume shadow copy) should not slow it down that much. Whatever it is, I found the slowdown unacceptable. Yes there are a lot of new features, from a Enterprise viewpoint I like the new PC imaging technology and the large number of new policies. Like I said I'm still playing with it, and what is good for my company in terms of security and management is not the same as what's good for me personally. From a user point of view, I don't like it yet.

http://infotech.indiatimes.com/First_flaw_...how/1556169.cms

I just read this article... Its the first "hack" into Vista.

I find this article HILLARIOUS!