Load Vista Beta 2 or stick with media center 2005?

[wilksj01]

Hi All,

I have just built a quality gaming rig but will also be using it for TV. I currently use media center 2005 but I've not been that impressed.

I have been thinking about loading Vista Beta 2 for the 64bit support but am wondering if it is full of bugs ir may just not even be worth upgrading.

Has anyone used it for a while?

Kind Regards,

James

[Digerati]

I've a had a little play and your main problem you will encounter with Vista Beta as a gaming rig is drivers really.

If you have a spare hard drive or even a spare partiion then install it on that and experiment away... but I personally wouldn't use a beta OS as my main OS.

[wilksj01]

My graphics card has vista drivers available for it and claims it is designed for vista, as does most of my other hardware. Is this worth little in terms of confirmation?

[XA04]

It's only good for messing about with now tbh.

I can't even get my sound card working on it yet. Drivers are hard to find, for the 32 and 64 bit version.


It's fun to see what's coming next but if you want a permanent system stick with MCE. Vista is not stable and won't be for a while yet.


Edit: Well if you can get your hands on the drivers you could give it a go, but don't expect it to be tottally stable. Like I said, stick with MCE.

[rox0r]

It's nothing to get excited about tbh, you cetainly won't say "ohmygod this is so much better than XP how can I ever go back?" Strip off Aero and it's not really anything more of a leap than 95 was to 98.

[FatalSaviour]

Your graphics card will most likely work with Vista.

Could be a different story for your TV card though.

You may have better success with the 32-bit version however.

[dangel]

It's nothing to get excited about tbh, you cetainly won't say "ohmygod this is so much better than XP how can I ever go back?" Strip off Aero and it's not really anything more of a leap than 95 was to 98.

You know, when I read stuff like that i'm somewhat saddened - because it's so utterly wrong.. I'm not 'having a go' and I actually understand why people say things like this - because it does look like 'windows' to joe user. The good news is that underneath this is pretty much a whole new OS and, in time (hopefully), we'll see the benefits as end users.
Want some pro's? Ok..

DX10 - has a far more optimal rendering path than DX9.1 = faster gaming. Good thing.
Desktop search - part of the OS and start menu and REALLY handy. Good thing.
Avalon/WPF/.NET 3.0 - whole new vector based display technology allowing fully scalable 3d graphics on the desktop without the context switching penalty of XP (ever wondered why it takes a few seconds to ALT-TAB out of a game or why windowed games run slower than full screen?). Paves the way for true innovation in user interfaces too - i'm having lots of fun with this right now as a developer. Snappier app switching, snappier desktop. Good thing.
Security - User Access Control a good idea (rubbish in Beta 2 admittedly, but much better in later builds), users not running as adminstrators, malware protection and a real grass roots effort to take security seriously. Good thing.
Networking - first modern network stack in Windows since the year dot. Much faster throughput possible, networking (part. wireless) simplified and easier to understand. Good thing.
Stability - much harder to install rootkits (signed ring 0 drivers), very few drivers run in kernel mode meaning it's far harder to kill the central kernel (unlike XP which can be killed instantly by a bad graphics or USB driver) of the OS. My XP installation, for example, BSOD instantly when you insert a USB key because some witty little developer who didn't understand the USB stack properly has spannered it up. Not having the same situation on Vista - good thing!

Of course it's all moot if they don't do it right lol - and the biggest mistake in some ways was beta 2 for the public because it's just not polished enough. But then it won't matter to some who'll write it off either because a: they don't understand the differences, b: it's from micro$oft and i'm l33t!, or c: they think a beta 2 release should be used as a full time OS (and therefore be ready for it).

I hate MS as much as the next man when their products suck - but Vista has a real chance at being a darn good product and easily the biggest change in the Windows world since they started over with NT. Come November perhaps we'll know for sure..

[ExceededGoku]

you have an ATI graphics card? I think only ATi is completely Vista ready at this moment (since they are working soo closely with M$ on this one). Drivers for vista aren't that hard to find tbh...

[javalord]

You know, when I read stuff like that i'm somewhat saddened - because it's so utterly wrong.. I'm not 'having a go' and I actually understand why people say things like this - because it does look like 'windows' to joe user. The good news is that underneath this is pretty much a whole new OS and, in time (hopefully), we'll see the benefits as end users.
Want some pro's? Ok..

DX10 - has a far more optimal rendering path than DX9.1 = faster gaming. Good thing.
Desktop search - part of the OS and start menu and REALLY handy. Good thing.
Avalon/WPF/.NET 3.0 - whole new vector based display technology allowing fully scalable 3d graphics on the desktop without the context switching penalty of XP (ever wondered why it takes a few seconds to ALT-TAB out of a game or why windowed games run slower than full screen?). Paves the way for true innovation in user interfaces too - i'm having lots of fun with this right now as a developer. Snappier app switching, snappier desktop. Good thing.
Security - User Access Control a good idea (rubbish in Beta 2 admittedly, but much better in later builds), users not running as adminstrators, malware protection and a real grass roots effort to take security seriously. Good thing.
Networking - first modern network stack in Windows since the year dot. Much faster throughput possible, networking (part. wireless) simplified and easier to understand. Good thing.
Stability - much harder to install rootkits (signed ring 0 drivers), very few drivers run in kernel mode meaning it's far harder to kill the central kernel (unlike XP which can be killed instantly by a bad graphics or USB driver) of the OS. My XP installation, for example, BSOD instantly when you insert a USB key because some witty little developer who didn't understand the USB stack properly has spannered it up. Not having the same situation on Vista - good thing!

Of course it's all moot if they don't do it right lol - and the biggest mistake in some ways was beta 2 for the public because it's just not polished enough. But then it won't matter to some who'll write it off either because a: they don't understand the differences, b: it's from micro$oft and i'm l33t!, or c: they think a beta 2 release should be used as a full time OS (and therefore be ready for it).

I hate MS as much as the next man when their products suck - but Vista has a real chance at being a darn good product and easily the biggest change in the Windows world since they started over with NT. Come November perhaps we'll know for sure..

Time to rip this post apart:

DX 10? I, and many others who use their systems for non-gaming purposes DONT CARE.

Desktop Search? Google Desktop.

.NET 3 will be available on XP without a doubt. Avalon again is a late attempt to use 3d acceleration on the desktop level and with regards to innovation well thats up in the air, have a look at OS X as to how far that went... And as for context switching - ever ran topdesk? Offers the animation features with 0 lag rendering layers in D3D.

Stability ? Wait till the horse is released. They claimed NT5.1 would be this and that too, look how far that went.

Networking? Wayhey they finally updated the tcp/ip stack...

I dont really think you should be celebrating these features until they're useable and proven not to fail like other microsoft implementations.

Some of the major useful features have been stripped, and the rest of these appear to be gimmicks waiting to fall over.

Saddened to think that someone believes this will actually be a real step forward! What a joke

[XA04]

Plus we're talking about Vista Beta 2, not the final release. So you can forget DX10, stabability, etc already.

[JimmyBoy]

BUT HALO 2 WILL WORK WITH VISTA !!!

xp has its faults, but for me, its stable as, unlike how things were when i was on win 98 and couldnt wait to get my mitts on xp once that was released, just so i could use a computer without treading on eggshells expecting the system to lock up or blue screen but computing isnt like that nowdays

i wont be upgrading for sometime...simply because i wont need to

i'll wait for it all to 'settle down' so to speak, drivers, bugs etc then i might decide to weigh up the pros and cons but im in no rush

im sure many others feel the same ??

one thing this thread made me think of though, what will vista be like with media?? will it have a similar thing like media centre does??

[rox0r]

The merits are all moot though if the price is prohibitive, and we all know how much MS OS cost. If I was paying for a major new OS I wouldn't mind but when it's just the latest version of XP I get a bit miffed at not having some form of rebate option on the OS that already cost me a fortune.

[dangel]

Time to rip this post apart:

Ok.. One of _those_ people

DX 10? I, and many others who use their systems for non-gaming purposes DONT CARE.

..except the desktop engine/rendering will sit squarely on top of it and be faster as result, freeing up your cpu for desktop apps.

Desktop Search? Google Desktop.

>Shrugs< Why install 3rd party software that doesn't have the start menu integration? I like it, you don't? Neer mind - not a problem.

.NET 3 will be available on XP without a doubt. Avalon again is a late attempt to use 3d acceleration on the desktop level and with regards to innovation well thats up in the air, have a look at OS X as to how far that went... And as for context switching - ever ran topdesk? Offers the animation features with 0 lag rendering layers in D3D.

You obviously don't understand quite what's going on here. Yes, third party apps exist that leverage the 3d card for rendering on the desktop - WindowFX being one that I have run. The performance is nowhere near as good as the dwm on Vista (beta) and no, you're not avoiding the basic limitation of context switching on XP - it's still there. Again, try running a game in windowed mode - is it faster than fullscreen? Why? Ah.
Topdesk can't even cope with updates to the windows in 3d mode and hogs the cpu so how's it any better? It's a nice trick but hardly the same technology.. Where's the desktop composition engine that my app can leverage? Window FX offers more effects but again it feels 'clunky' and slow compared to the smooth (and real-time) updates I see a 'beta' of Vista. Neither topdesk or WindowFX allow each window to keep it's own state and therefore avoid unecessary painting making apps feel faster and hogging less cpu - Vista does. Heck, even Visual Studio 2005 feels snappy under Vista compared to XP lol..

Stability ? Wait till the horse is released. They claimed NT5.1 would be this and that too, look how far that went.

I think I was pretty clear - but perhaps not. I said it 'Of course it's all moot if they don't do it right lol'. NT 5.1 was merely a minor revision of the 2000 codebase, it's nowhere near the sweeping change of NT 6.0 (the clue, perhaps, is in the version numbers..). By design Vista _should_ work out more stable - user mode drivers alone should push things forward massively (speaking as someone sick of the half-assed USB stack of XP).

Networking? Wayhey they finally updated the tcp/ip stack...

No, they re-wrote it. So you don't care if networking becomes faster and more transparent to the end user? I blinking well do!
http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=116349

I dont really think you should be celebrating these features until they're useable and proven not to fail like other microsoft implementations.

...and you equally shouldn't be so dimissive _just because_ it's Microsoft! A lot of them already are 'useable' (last time i checked anyway). I'll quote you 'Wait till the horse is released.'

Some of the major useful features have been stripped, and the rest of these appear to be gimmicks waiting to fall over.

Saddened to think that someone believes this will actually be a real step forward! What a joke

Yup, how on earth can the first major rewrite of Windows since NT be progress? Perhaps it's easier to stick your head in the sand than live with an open mind - personally I'll always opt for the latter _no matter_ the brand.

[javalord]

Your still missing the point. A lot of these new 'features' are gimmicks. Improved network stack wont help the fact that the SMB protocol is quite slow transferring files over gigabit ethernet.

Fancy graphics acceleration? Many systems including the macbook I'm about to buy are still leveraging onboard intel GMA. What use is this to anyone? If anything toying around with aesthetic layers will bring even more problems.

And so what if winfx can render the layer without repainting - I use my machine productively not just to glare at its pretty effects, so this would go wasted to many.

Looking at OS X applications, not many are really taking advantage of the acceleration features (aka Core Image etc) and thats been available for how long?

Why not install 3rd party software? Does the job. Windows indexing service is appauling.

I dont see why I shouldnt be dimissive given the current track record of Microsoft's lovely operating systems.

[Spud1]

Javalord you are so wrong it's untrue...but then I guess you are a fan of Java so what can you expect...

Dangle has made some good points there, I don't need to repeat them

I think that it's actually you thats missing the point here.

Yes Vista has lots of 'gimmicks', but they are there for a few reasons.

1) Most of these gimmicks that you can get now for XP are hugely popular - google desktop search for example, sidebars etc. These are all 3rd party tools that you have to install and run as a separate application and/or service. Fully integrating these tools into windows saves on resources, saves on hassle, saves you money - and ultimately for microsoft, they have market Vista as coming with them. They will help sell the product AND provide benefits to users.

What if you don't want them? Simple turn them off or uninstall them.

2) The graphics acceleration..ok yes so lots of computers don't have the raw power needed to display the glass theme properly - so? It still comes with a classic interface for those that don't, and if you do then you can have all the nice effects which really make windows more of a joy to use - more like OSX in fact, although it goes ALOT further. The possibilities for future UI extensions are huge as well - have you played with the SDK? Powerful stuff if you have the right hardware.

Also bear in mind that this will not be released for another 6months at least, it will not get into a corporate environment for a long time after that, by which time it's highly likely that PCs will have alot more graphics power. It's a none issue imho.

Home users that get Vista will likely either just buy a Vista-ready PC that comes with it, or upgrade their PC - remember that most home users are no more comfortable with upgrading their OS than they would be upgrading their CPU...


You say that lots of OSX apps don't take advantage of this though, and yes this is true. Why? Because of the lack of users. OSX has no-where near the number of users as Windows does, so consequently there will be more development done for windows apps than OSX ones. If there were god knows how many millions of potential OSX using customers out there developers might put more work into pretty UIs - which really can help sell products. Before you say anything I do love OSX and my mac, i'm not biased against it

Why shouldnt you be dismissive? Because Microsoft have shown that they CAN write good software. Visual Studio is the best IDE I have ever used - Xcode is great but I prefer VS, and the 2005 version is even better. Windows - while slated constantly for its security flaws etc - made some giant leaps for everyday consumers, being the first fully 32bit OS to get widespread use, and many other innovations that I really don't have time to lookup again. Sure Microsoft may not have been the first with these (as is the case with most of Vistas tech) but they have been the first to bring it to the general public...

Many of the improvements in Vista are under-the-bonnet so to speak - most users will not even notice, and 99% wouldn't understand it all anyway. Just because the changes are not immediately obvious doesn't make it a small step forward..

[javalord]

I agree VS 2005 is good, I use it all the time , but lets face it in a real environment, you wouldnt a lot of these functions.

I think the real reason developers dont use OS X's full ability in that graphics department is because its more of a *distraction* rather than bringing things to the table. What good is it when it takes 1 second for a window to reanimate back and forth? Ever heard of HCI?

Fully integrating into Windows doesnt necessarily make it any better - there have been theme engines for Windows 2000 prior to XP that ran fine!

As for DX 10 functionality in years to come - not so sure about that one, it has quite a high specification on the silicon.

And I think your wrong in presuming just because its under the bonnet therefore its better.

I think XP was a better operating system as it was just far more approchable than previous editions. However its got to a point where its going overboard.

I'm sorry but I'm just a little bored of hearing the next MS operating systems are be all end all, they're not. I'm a firm believer they're released so help stimulate the Microsoft economy more than anything.