Papa6 88 Posted January 25, 2007 Share Posted January 25, 2007 (edited) Ok, I've been on Vista for 5 hours now and have had some time to look around. First Impression: Great!. Works like a champ and the heralded UAC support inhibits the GOD user access as in prior windows. This is good and you MUST login unlike with prior versions. Aero interface: works great by adjusting your GUI (SEE post Below!) Q: What browser can I use Other than the IE in Windows? A: I can confirm that Mozilla firefox 2.0 does work well with Vista. do NOT try and run firefox 1.5 as it is too buggy and lagged me until I realized I was using 1.5. Q:Will my old games work with Vista? A: No. As I write this, I'm inclined to say that Windows Vista business and I'm sure as with other versions of Vista ship with DX10. GRAW would NOT run on my machine. Perhaps though if one downloads some sort of virtualization software you might. But GRAW crashed EVERY time. **NOTE** I did a dxdiag check and the dialog box informed me that I did indeed have DX10 installed. so keep XP nearby for a dualboot system I guess. something that was quite neat is the start menu. gone are the days of massive menus and confusing array of menus like in XP. Vista has advanced quite nicely. I might add with the tree hierarchy style menu "inside" the start menu . place your mouse pointer over "all programs" and you'll see the programs installed in a tree fashion that open up in a tree fashion. nice touch and it scrolls as you add apps. Control Panel This has seen one of the best improvements I've seen since I installed this OS. VERY aesthetic. alot of options I might add You can still adjust the look of Vista and turn off the bells and whistles as you like or run all the neat looking features. I'll report more as I run this more in time. but in the case of DX9 games, keep XP handy and try to dualboot for gaming DX10 came with my version and I'm seriously boned. Vista isn't too shabby guys. Edited January 25, 2007 by Papa6 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Papa6 88 Posted January 25, 2007 Author Share Posted January 25, 2007 **Update** Got aero to work perfectly! Here's instructions how to get it turned on for you; My computer meets the minimum recommendations, but I'm still not getting Windows Aero. Is there anything else I can do? Yes. Make sure that the color is set to 32 bit, the monitor refresh rate is higher than 10 hertz, the theme is set to Windows Vista, the color scheme is set to Windows Aero, and window frame transparency is on. To set the color to 32 bit Click to open Display Settings. Under Colors, select Highest (32 bit), and then click OK. (If you can't select 32 bit, check that your resolution is as high as possible, and then try again.) To set the monitor refresh rate Click to open Display Settings. Click Advanced Settings. Click the Monitor tab, and then click a refresh rate that's higher than 10 hertz. The monitor will take a moment to adjust. If you want to keep the changes, click Apply. If you don't apply the changes within fifteen seconds, the refresh rate will revert back to your original setting. Note Changes to the refresh rate affect all users who log on to the computer. To change the desktop theme to Windows Vista Click to open Theme Settings. In the Theme list, select Windows Vista , and then click OK. To change the color scheme to Windows Aero Click to open Appearance Settings. In the Color scheme list, select Windows Aero, and then click OK. To turn on window frame transparency To turn on window frame transparency, the color scheme must first be set to Windows Aero. Click the Start button , click Control Panel, click Appearance and Personalization, click Personalization, and then click Window Color and Appearance. Select the Enable transparency check box so that it is checked. Note If you see the Appearance Settings dialog box instead of the Window Color and Appearance window, the theme might not be set to Windows Vista, the color scheme might not be set to Windows Aero, or the computer might not meet the minimum hardware requirements for running Windows Aero. Now, how to activate the windows Flip 3D. It is quite handy and makes accessing any open window easier than prior windows versions. how to activate Windows Flip3d (really nice and handy to use) Using Windows Flip 3D With Windows Flip 3D, you can quickly preview all of your open windows (for example, open files, folders, and documents) without having to click the taskbar. Flip 3D displays your open windows in a stack. At the top of the stack, you'll see one open window. To see other windows, you can flip through the stack. To switch windows using Flip 3D Press the Windows logo key +TAB to open Flip 3D. While holding down the Windows logo key , press TAB repeatedly or rotate the mouse wheel to cycle through open windows. You can also press RIGHT ARROW or DOWN ARROW to cycle forward one window, or press LEFT ARROW or UP ARROW to cycle backward one window. Release the Windows logo key to display the frontmost window in the stack. Or, click any part of any window in the stack to display that window. Tips Another way to use Flip 3D is to press CTRL+Windows logo key +TAB to keep Flip 3D open. You can then press TAB to cycle through the windows. (You can also press RIGHT ARROW or DOWN ARROW to cycle forward one window, or press LEFT ARROW or UP ARROW to cycle backward one window.) Press ESC to close Flip 3D. You can also open Flip 3D by clicking the Switch between windows button on the taskbar. Click a window in the stack to display that window, or click outside the stack to close Flip 3D without switching windows. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Papa6 88 Posted January 25, 2007 Author Share Posted January 25, 2007 Ok, now this feature kicks serious butt. how many times have you had to search the internet for the latest drivers? I think we ALL have at one time or another. But if you go into control panel/hardware manager, you can view each piece of hardware and they have links to update the drivers for them right there and the hardware manager searches the internet(you can set that by default if you wish) at the vendors website for the latest drivers. Good stuff. I was able to upgrade my ATI x1800GTO driver from within the device manager. BRILLIANT! drivers at this point are scarce for vista but I'd suspect that drivers for Vista will pump out after the consumer release of windows Vista or shortly there after. as of this writing...4 days. Cheers! Papa6 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Papa6 88 Posted January 25, 2007 Author Share Posted January 25, 2007 Ok, I have a SB audigy 4 soundcard and it was giving me hell with crackling and it's inability to function properly in Vista business or Vista for that matter. I went into cantrol panel>hardware and sound>change system sound and a dialog box opened up that contained three tabs; Playback, recording and sounds. you will be presented under the <playback> tab "speakers" now you can either right-click on "speakers" and then on that menu "properties" or simply click on the "properties" button another dialog box opens "speaker properties" with tabs and go to "advanced" and under the "format"section you can adjust your speakers accordingly. so to fix my crackling problem i set my sound to 16bit, 32000Hz(FM Quality) and the crackling went away. and that sums up how to get around to fixing crackling sounds and getting around in deeper control panel features. Cheers! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Papa6 88 Posted January 25, 2007 Author Share Posted January 25, 2007 Next, remember in older windows (XP and before) when you right-click on the desktop a menu appeared and you could go to "properties"? now it's called "personalization". Now you can change the color of your desktop, change your mouse pointer dektop background from one major location dialogbox. this is an enhancement from the old days that should sit pretty well and bring these things quicker to the user then fumbling around like before Vista released. from there you SHOULD be able to access the features needed to turn on the Aero glass interface. Cheers! Papa6 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Colin 0 Posted January 25, 2007 Share Posted January 25, 2007 Windows defender Warning. This software is part of Vista final release, it does not do any where near a good enough job, please make sure you use other software, like PC TOOLS SPY WARE DOCTOR OR OTHER combined may be with ESET NOD 32. The os is not bad bells and whistles mostly, security better in some areas. Worth the money I would say no not yet. This site gives good feed back. http://www.winsupersite.com/vista/ Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Papa6 88 Posted January 25, 2007 Author Share Posted January 25, 2007 I'm not aware of the windows defender issue. I am a proponent of using 3rd party tools myself. I'm just having a good time with my copy. It will require some time to learn the new ins and outs but it should be ok. I'm just trying to give an early heads up on how to do things so folks aren't left wondering around here. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Rocky 1,224 Posted January 25, 2007 Share Posted January 25, 2007 Interesting reading Papa, thanks. Especially the section about driver updates, that does sound pretty cool. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Papa6 88 Posted January 25, 2007 Author Share Posted January 25, 2007 Good Rocky if it helps others. there will be a learning curve for a time until everyone gets to know Vista. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Papa6 88 Posted January 27, 2007 Author Share Posted January 27, 2007 I had a perplexing phone discussion with Compaq support lastnight. I was trying to locate and/or ask if they would release chipset drivers for my system to use windows Vista Business. The rep said for $65/US i could get 6 mo. support that would cover my system for ALL vista problems. $65 to get drivers!?! I was getting 100% CPU usage but the task manager wouldn't reveal what the offending process was. my kernel was jumping from 8%-21% and my wifes XP machine was using only 5% of the CPU. I don't assume ANYTHING but i do make guesses and my BEST guess is that the Vista OS doesn't like my Chipset. So.. I'm back on XP, Then I'll wait as long as possible to buy a machine for Vista. I'll drop the Compaq version as they ALWAYS add alot of crapware to the OS you get with a new machine. Then I can push my Business onto the system and get good fast OS. But Vista is nice. but right now, no need to actually think you have to upgrade right now as Roco claims MS will support XP until 2014. -Papa6 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.