[mdlug] First impressions of Vista

[Richard Harding]

Ingles, Raymond wrote:
>  As I'd noted, my wife was unsatisfied with OpenOffice and Crossover. It's
> possible she could be persuaded to get used to either, but in the interest
> of marital harmony (arguing with pregnant women can be problematic) we
> picked up a Windows computer for her. In particular, the cheapest possible
> desktop Dell offers, the "Dimension C521".
> 
>  The specs are all right - an AMD Sempron running at 1.8GHz, 80GB disk,
> GF 6150 graphics. But since it would come with Vista Home Basic, I bumped
> it to 1GB of RAM. Ironically, at least on paper the specs are roughly
> equivalent to our current Linux machine. I bought that almost exactly four
> years ago; it seems that nearly equivalent power is now available for ~20%
> of what I paid then.
> 
>  The good:
> 
>   1. It's *much* quieter than the old machine. Almost silent.
> 
>   2. Once the data was copied (see below) Thunderbird and Firefox
>      were easy to migrate. (I'm not *stupid*; I've hidden IE7 from
>      view.)
> 
>   3. Maybe I'll put a couple Windows games I have on it. I kinda liked
>      Tron 2.0 and NOLF2.
> 
>  The bad:
> 
>   1. I am *very* glad that I added the extra RAM. Vista is a pig. It's
>      even more sluggish than I anticipated. I haven't booted a Linux
>      live CD on it yet for direct comparison, but it takes quite a bit
>      of time to boot, to log in, to switch users, etc. Why is a 1GB
>      machine swapping when not running anything in particular?
> 
>   2. Vista UAC is not *quite* as annoying as anticipated, but pretty
>      close. It shows up for program installation, which I expected,
>      but it *also* shows up for apparently *any* file operation, like
>      just deleting files. First it warns you that you'll need to confirm
>      the action, then it asks you to confirm it, then it asks if you
>      really want to delete the file. (Then, of course, if you *really*
>      want it gone, you have to empty the "Recycle Bin", too.)
> 
>   3. The interface has changed, again, and not for the better. Took
>      me a web search to figure out how to see hidden files and full
>      extensions. (How can I find Thunderbird's profile if I can't see
>      the directory it's in?)
> 
>   4. I couldn't connect to the Linux box via Samba to migrate the
>      data over. Not sure what the deal was there, but Cygwin and
>      scp to the rescue. Got the data copied over in reasonable order.
> 
>   5. It came with a bunch of cruft from Dell that I've managed to
>      delete, but it was annoying. I still don't think I have all of it
>      cleared out yet, but given how slow Vista is every bit helps.
> 
>  The indifferent:
> 
>   1. It has no PS/2 ports. I wanted to keep my favorite keyboard (where
>      you can mechanically swap the functions of Caps Lock and Control)
>      with the Linux box anyway, so the fact that it wouldn't work with
>      the new machine was just fine.
> 

I tried it out for about a week. I figured I'd have to help students 
here with it eventually as new machines start shipping with it. I posted 
my thought/notices here:
http://mitechie.com/index.php?/archives/198-Windows-Vista-Day-1.html
http://mitechie.com/index.php?/archives/200-Vista-GoodBad-Initial-Impressions.html

The RAM is very important. I never got around to loading up an IDE, but 
I was constantly over 1gb used. Thank you for laptops with 2gb of ram.

Rick