Hi everyone! I'm 24 and I'm here as I find it a useful place to read reviews and make a little bit ...
Hi everyone! I'm 24 and I'm here as I find it a useful place to read reviews and make a little bit of extra 'pocket money'. I'm a singer/songwriter and musician from the Carlisle area, but I haven't taken off yet...there's still time though...
Member since:09.02.2005
Reviews:38
Video reviews:1
When I upgraded my PC a few years ago, at the time I was glad it came with the new Vista instead of XP as I heard it looked nicer so I thought it would perform better. I was wrong. Upon purchase I had problems from the get go although bearing in mind I did get it early in its release.
I had problems with the shared graphics card. Sharing its memory with the main system RAM meant that only something like 797mb was left for Vista to use, which is no where near enough for such a resource hog! I ended up having to fork out some extra cash for both RAM and a new graphics card just to get it running smoothly! Windows would be jerky when moved, be unresponsive or sometimes fail to load at all. Menus would freeze themselves in the middle of the screen. At that is all on top of that annoying User Account Control. I think it is the beep and the screen fade that makes it even more annoying!
I also had problems when multiple devices are plugged in to the PC. On startup, having a few things plugged in would sometimes cause the computer to hang or re-boot continuously. I would get a crash blue screen and had to do a startup repair or unplug various devices. So far I've had to re-install it once but I have used start up repair from the bootable CD and system restore from there when I can't get into the system countless times!
All the problems I have had don't really have an explanation as to why they occur either. Things that have went wrong for me include Volume Shadow Copy Service failing to work or be detected which meant my system restore was disabled, services crashing on startup resulting in most of my programs failing and endless registry corruptions.
On to the good as there is some good. It is apparently more secure but still not all programs work with it. Those that do do seem stable however. It also looks nicer in its default theme than XP and the transparency is a nice touch. However, I only use this operating system as I am a computer musician so for Internet use I have a dual boot system into Ubuntu. All the fancy effects without a single churn of the harddrive, a new version every six months and it's free!
Another thing about Vista, sometimes the fans in your graphics card will just stop and start repeatedly for no reason causing an annoying noise. And no it isn't my graphics card! I think it is just the way it is set to run under Vista. It is easy to use, well as easy as XP although things aren't as obvious to get to sometimes, like it isn't as easy to share an Internet connection. Or it doesn't do what it's meant to anyhow.
Overall if your stuck with it, well it could be worse but there are better alternatives especially if you just use it to browse the Internet! Some people aren't aware that they are alternatives out there and Microsoft know that, that is why I feel they just skimp past the effort that goes into the creation of some of their operating systems. Vista is the new ME by the way, meaning there is already a better version available that promises to be less resource hungry and more stable! If you're an XP user, wait for Windows 7 before the big upgrade!!!
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Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition SP2, Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition, Microsoft Windows XP, Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition SP1, Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition SP1a - for PC - English - Quantity: 1, 3 - 1 user - CD-ROM
(+) Faster, good networking with other Windows machine, so far it has not crashed. (-) price, best to do a fresh install which will involve backup & restore of information
Preach. When I asked if I could have XP instead of Vista on my new laptop, the salesman looked at me like I had just declared I would like them to ship it to me disassembled as I thought it would be fun to try and put it together myself.
Leon79 05.04.2009 19:05
Vista = awfull. Only reason i havent taken it off my laptop is because i use wine on ubuntu 8.10 lol
Windows Vista Home Premium is the operating system for homes with advanced computer needs. ... more
It will help you use your laptop or desktop PC more effectively as well as enable you to enjoy new, exciting digital entertainment experiences-all with the benef...
Postage & Packaging: £4.99 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
Advantages: Latest OS, some nice features, looks and feels a lot nicer Disadvantages: Compatibilty, still some bugs, possible system shock, need a decent spec machine
Advantages: Tight security new entertaining games, Fast search Disadvantages: annoying when it always asks you if it should proceed into opening programmes
Advantages: If you have the hardware, the speed will be amazing. Disadvantages: If your not using a 64bit system. Only thing you will see different is the design.