Vista RTM impressions | The Coffeehouse

daytrip00

I would say overall, I like it quite a bit. It's fast, fluid, and, for the most part, just works.

What's great:

(1) Flip & Flip3D - w00t!
(2) Glass - damn pretty
(3) Search - yep, and the indexer doesn't spike the cpu any more!
(4) App scaling - fixed!
(5) Media Center - way faster and way more usable.

That said, it isn't all roses:

(1) When I leave my Dell 5150 alone for a day or so, i return to a "Display Driver Stopped Working" balloon in the task tray. Now, I'd be fine with blaming NVIDIA for this, but if i click the X to close the bubble it keeps coming back. I've tried rapid clicking 100x and it keeps coming back. Is this really the best way to alert me to a problem?

(2) When I'm playing music in Media Center the damn thing keeps throwing up the screen saver. How hard can it be to shut the screen saver off while I'm in Media Center?! Apparently, since this NEVER worked in xp, quite hard.

(3) Sleep has never worked. I leave the machine alone and come back to the CPU spiking both cores in the morning. I'm prepared, right now, to blame NVIDIA, but if it doesn't get fixed soon blame could shift.

What do you guys think?

Larsenal
ready to give an answer

I'm not delighted with the search. For instance, I was searching for any file in my personal gadgets folder containing a certain string. I opened the file and knew the file contained the string. However, it returned no results.

Maybe I need to understand the indexer better, BUT the way the UI presents things, it would lead you to believe that the search isn't working at all. If I search a directory for something I know exists, search better help me find it--and fast too!

PetKnep
IE7 RTM'd yay!

My Dell insipron E5150 gets that video driver balloon when I open the top. I have the ATI card so it only shows up once.

Sleep/hibernate still seem a bit dodgy to me on this system. Dell upated the bios for RTM and it had a big improvement over RC builds, the screen wouldn't turn off when you shut the lid. The volume button screen overlays are still broken.

alwaysmc2
It's not stupid; It's advanced!

Larsenal wrote:
I'm not delighted with the search. For instance, I was searching for any file in my personal gadgets folder containing a certain string. I opened the file and knew the file contained the string. However, it returned no results.

Maybe I need to understand the indexer better, BUT the way the UI presents things, it would lead you to believe that the search isn't working at all. If I search a directory for something I know exists, search better help me find it--and fast too!

Are you sure the folder where that file you were looking for is indexed?

Go to the control pannel and type "index" and then click on "Indexing options". Click "Modify" and then click "Show all locations".

Cyonix
Me

daytrip00 wrote:
(1) When I leave my Dell 5150 alone for a day or so, i return to a "Display Driver Stopped Working" balloon in the task tray. Now, I'd be fine with blaming NVIDIA for this, but if i click the X to close the bubble it keeps coming back. I've tried rapid clicking 100x and it keeps coming back. Is this really the best way to alert me to a problem?

I have also had this problem when using Nvidia's beta 2 driver as none other was available (i rolled back soon after).

I was actually there when it failed, my screen flickered 4 times and i had 4 warning balloons. Perhaps your card failed more than 1 time and that is why you got so many "Display Driver Stopped Working" balloons.

Larsenal
ready to give an answer

alwaysmc2 wrote:

Larsenal wrote:I'm not delighted with the search. For instance, I was searching for any file in my personal gadgets folder containing a certain string. I opened the file and knew the file contained the string. However, it returned no results.

Maybe I need to understand the indexer better, BUT the way the UI presents things, it would lead you to believe that the search isn't working at all. If I search a directory for something I know exists, search better help me find it--and fast too!

Are you sure the folder where that file you were looking for is indexed?

Go to the control pannel and type "index" and then click on "Indexing options". Click "Modify" and then click "Show all locations".

I'd like Vista to index any folder where I manually edit a file. I don't have Vista up on my dual-boot at the moment... is there a quick "Index this folder" button somewhere?

(Thanks)

EDIT: However, if I set my search location to a specific folder and the folder's not indexed, shouldn't there be a notification saying "Hey, idiot! This folder is not indexed, so this search is doomed to fail."

alwaysmc2
It's not stupid; It's advanced!

Larsenal wrote:

alwaysmc2 wrote:

Larsenal wrote: I'm not delighted with the search. For instance, I was searching for any file in my personal gadgets folder containing a certain string. I opened the file and knew the file contained the string. However, it returned no results.

Maybe I need to understand the indexer better, BUT the way the UI presents things, it would lead you to believe that the search isn't working at all. If I search a directory for something I know exists, search better help me find it--and fast too!

Are you sure the folder where that file you were looking for is indexed?

Go to the control pannel and type "index" and then click on "Indexing options". Click "Modify" and then click "Show all locations".

I'd like Vista to index any folder where I manually edit a file. I don't have Vista up on my dual-boot at the moment... is there a quick "Index this folder" button somewhere?

(Thanks)

EDIT: However, if I set my search location to a specific folder and the folder's not indexed, shouldn't there be a notification saying "Hey, idiot! This folder is not indexed, so this search is doomed to fail."

(I underlined some stuff)
It does both in Vista RC 2.
Try a searcing an un-indexed location and it says "This is going to take a while" and "Want to add it to the index?"

There used to be an "Add to index" button that would appear in the same bar as the "Organize" bar, but I guess it was thrown out.

Larsenal
ready to give an answer

Thanks. I'll mess around with this after work when I can boot into Vista.

I look forward to the day when I'll be Vista 24/7.

typemismatch

Its pretty good, I just wish MS would give us a way to log issues. (not talking about the beta feedback software since its not beta...)

I still can't believe VS doesn't really work - should have been fixed long before release ...

Here are the issues I've found - all running Vista supplied drivers so don't blame those Wink

1. A 5 hour extended battery now only lasts 50 minutes ...
2. As above power management just doesn't work, screen never turns off etc.
3. Sound just works - the lineout doesn't - never worked on RC either.
4. It runs super hot but doesn't hang ... yet Smiley

5. No games work, the video driver gets me a 3.5 with Aero but reports a generic back to games so they won't load.
6. My desktop icons continously re-arrange themselves, no matter how I have it setup.
7. Returning from (Locked) takes minutes sometimes ... ? eh ...

Virtual PC Beta has been my life saver Smiley

)

-c

Charles
Welcome Change

Vista runs great on my Fujitsu Lifebook tablet (no Aero, of course, but transparent windows and flip 3-D are the least compelling features of our new OS, IMHO. Love the perf and security.)

C

kettch

I don't have a particularly beefy CPU and turning on full Aero actually increased my performance for certain things by 15-20%. I didn't realize that there was that much work being offloaded to the video card.

So far, the biggest wow factor for me has been the new event viewer. There are logs for everything and it's all got useful information.

I also love the perf on the network stack. I was doing some multi-gigabyte transfers between vista machines over 100Mbit ethernet and I was very impressed by the way it handled itself.

SecretSoftware
Code to live, but Live to code.

Here is something I wish to know: what was the bug count when Vista RTM'd? Around 600?

odujosh
Need Microsoft SUX now!

Whats wrong with this Video?

This gives you a great tour of the 'new' functionality in Windows Vista.

Another Tour:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRtg2avOE1I&NR

Nitz Walsh

Mixed impressions so far. It's definitely much, much faster than the betas, and no glitches yet albeit I've only been using it for about an hour. My system is a 2gig A64 3200 with a 256meg 7600GT and three drives, one 500gig SATA2 and 2 ATA-133's.

Indexing returns are incredibly fast - just blows away WDS on XP, very impressive (indexing both a 200gb & 60gb hd full of files - when I add the 500 gigger to the mix (no SATA2 AsRock Dual drivers in the release? WTF?), then we'll really have a test). The design of the search results though leaves much to be desired, I would greatly prefer if it filtered the results like Spotlight does (App/Folders/Emails/etc) - it's a far more friendly approach. Also dissapointed it's not real-time. It updates rather quickly, but still not real time.

Aero remains...meh. Didn't expect it to change from the betas of course, but there really doesn't seem to be a cohesive design direction, especially amongst the apps (Mail and Calendar are particularly amaterish). While it's generally "snappy", resizing is still quite slow and frankly, incredibly ugly - try resizing WMP11 when playing a video. The elements flicker and you can see them re-draw and position themselves. Now resize any app in OSX - no flicker, and it's quicker. I really, really wish double-buffering for resizing had been implemented in Vista, it basically looks like a mix of GDI and WDM in spots.

One minor detail that really bugged me in the betas - where is the mouse HZ setting?! I have a PS2 mouse which is stuck at a low hz, making window movement somewhat jerky - I'm used to 200hz. Would have been nice for MS to finally implement some interpolation like Apple's always done so you don't need a high sampling rate to get smooth movement, but alas.

Very superficial comments so far I know, but I've barely scratched it. Will be back for more. So far it certainly doesn't blow me away, but at least it performs like final code. I think most reviews will peg it as underwhelming, but delivered.

PetKnep
IE7 RTM'd yay!

SecretSoftware wrote:
Here is something I wish to know: what was the bug count when Vista RTM'd? Around 600?

Last guy stupid enough to comment on bug counts was fired. Less than a day after saying a number, his "friend" told the tech press and the headlines the next day were "OMG WINDOWZ HAS 1 MEEELLLION BUGZ!!!!".

sushovande
Smiley Face Sharp

Things that XP can do but Vista can't:

Take less than 6GB of disk space
Change icons for file types
Edit/Add actions related to file types
Save into different WAV formats using sndrec32 (sample rate, bits per sample, etc)
Run movie maker without a discrete graphics card
Configure power button on keyboard and on CPU to: "Ask me what to do"

Things that Vista can do that XP can't:
Too many to list out.

So, I am using Vista, but I miss certain functionailty.
Tongue Out

EDITS: Fixed typo

SecretSoftware
Code to live, but Live to code.

PetKnep wrote:

SecretSoftware wrote: Here is something I wish to know: what was the bug count when Vista RTM'd? Around 600?

Last guy stupid enough to comment on bug counts was fired. Less than a day after saying a number, his "friend" told the tech press and the headlines the next day were "OMG WINDOWZ HAS 1 MEEELLLION BUGZ!!!!".

LOL. But why is that a taboo subject in MS? Obviously a product would have bugs in them, that is why SPs exist. Just look at XP, or VS2005. There are no such things as a "bug-free" software in the absolute sense.

CannotResolveSymbol
{insert caption here}

SecretSoftware wrote:

PetKnep wrote:

SecretSoftware wrote: Here is something I wish to know: what was the bug count when Vista RTM'd? Around 600?

Last guy stupid enough to comment on bug counts was fired. Less than a day after saying a number, his "friend" told the tech press and the headlines the next day were "OMG WINDOWZ HAS 1 MEEELLLION BUGZ!!!!".

LOL. But why is that a taboo subject in MS? Obviously a product would have bugs in them, that is why SPs exist. Just look at XP, or VS2005. There are no such things as a "bug-free" software in the absolute sense.

Because of the press. One offhand comment can be taken and blown out of proportion.

There was one recent incident (well, today) where one sentence that a faculty member of my school said to the press was removed from its context, incorrect conclusions were drawn from it, and now the college is in a position where it's having to make up a lot of lost ground because of things this faculty member didn't even say. Imagine what would happen if the press got hold of something like bug counts for vista-- they don't care that there's no "bug-free" software.

Nitz Walsh

Well, back on XP. Like the beta versions, one reboot later and I can no longer connect to the Internet through my router.

They _still_ haven't fixed that very significant bug?!

Edit: Found the solution - put the PC into sleep, then back out. Viola, network restored. Apparently quite a few are having this issue, hopefully it's fixed by a WU soon.