Is it worth upgrading to Vista?

Live forum: http://forum.freeipodguide.com/viewtopic.php?t=65325

gimme_m0e

25-06-2007 13:14:37

Sorry if this topic has opened some place else, but I was wondering if its worth it..

manOFice

25-06-2007 13:45:34

I'm leaving XP on my machine but if your machine can handle it why not

topbillin1

25-06-2007 15:04:18

With Vista on my machine, the screen freezes up at times, I have to reboot to fix the problem but I do like Vista....

But I might go back to pro... XP

Should I go back?

dmorris68

25-06-2007 15:15:57

Depends entirely on what you do. Vista is fine for those who do little more than surf, check e-mail, and run the general gamut of productivity apps. Venture far from that, especially with high-end gaming, audio/video editing, and esoteric hardware that it doesn't support, and you can expect a lot of issues. Not only that but you need a beefy machine to support it, at least 2x the recommended specs for XP. 2GB RAM is considered a real minimum for an efficient Vista experience.

topbillin1

25-06-2007 15:38:38

[quote6655677664="dmorris68"]Depends entirely on what you do. Vista is fine for those who do little more than surf, check e-mail, and run the general gamut of productivity apps. Venture far from that, especially with high-end gaming, audio/video editing, and esoteric hardware that it doesn't support, and you can expect a lot of issues. Not only that but you need a beefy machine to support it, at least 2x the recommended specs for XP. 2GB RAM is considered a real minimum for an efficient Vista experience.[/quote6655677664]

So my system freezing up is safe? I have to reboot after it freezes up....

dmorris68

25-06-2007 17:35:25

[quote054961066d="topbillin1"][quote054961066d="dmorris68"]Depends entirely on what you do. Vista is fine for those who do little more than surf, check e-mail, and run the general gamut of productivity apps. Venture far from that, especially with high-end gaming, audio/video editing, and esoteric hardware that it doesn't support, and you can expect a lot of issues. Not only that but you need a beefy machine to support it, at least 2x the recommended specs for XP. 2GB RAM is considered a real minimum for an efficient Vista experience.[/quote054961066d]

So my system freezing up is safe? I have to reboot after it freezes up....[/quote054961066d]
Safe? Well, it isn't going to destroy your computer, but it isn't acceptable either. lol Without knowing what is causing the freeze, I can't tell you what to do about it. But a lot of people who've tried Vista and had stability issues for various reasons, usually due to unsupported hardware or incompatible software, have gone back to XP.

I've had two installations of Vista, one Ultimate and one Home Premium. The Ultimate install is a dual-boot with XP on my primary rig, and I lineverli boot Ultimate anymore. Home Premium came on a new laptop, which I formatted after two days and installed Ubuntu.

JordanE

25-06-2007 17:57:48

[quotef19467c12e="dmorris68"]Depends entirely on what you do. Vista is fine for those who do little more than surf, check e-mail, and run the general gamut of productivity apps. Venture far from that, especially with high-end gaming, audio/video editing, and esoteric hardware that it doesn't support, and you can expect a lot of issues. Not only that but you need a beefy machine to support it, at least 2x the recommended specs for XP. [bf19467c12e]2GB RAM is considered a real minimum for an efficient Vista experience.[/bf19467c12e][/quotef19467c12e]

I don't know about that. The laptop i'm running vista home basic on is olny 512md of ram. I'm going to up it to atleast a gig. But its not running to bad at just 512.

dmorris68

25-06-2007 19:07:32

[quote3e3fe14057="JordanE"][quote3e3fe14057="dmorris68"]Depends entirely on what you do. Vista is fine for those who do little more than surf, check e-mail, and run the general gamut of productivity apps. Venture far from that, especially with high-end gaming, audio/video editing, and esoteric hardware that it doesn't support, and you can expect a lot of issues. Not only that but you need a beefy machine to support it, at least 2x the recommended specs for XP. [b3e3fe14057]2GB RAM is considered a real minimum for an efficient Vista experience.[/b3e3fe14057][/quote3e3fe14057]

I don't know about that. The laptop i'm running vista home basic on is olny 512md of ram. I'm going to up it to atleast a gig. But its not running to bad at just 512.[/quote3e3fe14057]
512MB is the absolute minimum memory requirement for Vista. 1GB is the recommended minimum for all versions above Home Basic.

http//www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/editions/systemrequirements.mspx

Home Basic is a stripped down version of Vista, which is probably why it's even tolerable for you. 2GB is widely reported as the low-end of Vista's sweet spot, with many systems now spec'ing 4GB for Vista. It just can't get enough RAM. Run the x64 version and it'll happily make use of 16GB. lol

I wouldn't even run XP on 512MB. XP really needed 1GB to stretch its legs, and 2GB has been my minimum RAM for a couple years now on my working machines. My wife and daughter are running 1GB on their PC's, and I have some minimal footprint Linux machines running 512MB, but all of my "serious" desktops and laptops run 2GB. And I'd never go less than that for XP, certainly not for Vista.

Microsoft specs are historically understated, to avoid alienating much of their market which the majority runs substandard hardware. However their stated minimums are truly miserable to work with IMO. I think once you've tried 1GB and then 2GB, you will NOT want to go back. Vista requires much more working RAM than XP, so try to multitask more than one app you're going to be swapping like hell. Come back when you've run Vista with 2GB and tell me how much better it runs. ;)

JordanE

25-06-2007 20:36:40

Yeah I know. Once I get all of my music and photoshop on here I have a feeling its gonna crawl. This isn't my main PC but I tend to use it more than my desktop. Just becouse I like to sit by the pool while i'm on the computer. Its an acer asprie 3680 have any ram recommendations?