Safe to use Vista RC2?

[fishboy25uk]

Just about to get a new rig, and I'm trying to decide whether to buy a new copy of XP, and then wait until Vista comes down in price, or save myself £60 by using Vista RC2 until then.

Only thing I'm concerned about it whether RC2 will have some kind of authentification that kicks in after a few weeks, meaning I won't be able to use it.

The other option I suppose is getting a copy of XP with a 'Vista' voucher inside, but how does that work? I can believe you can just pay £60 for XP Home and get a free Vista upgrade!

[ExceededGoku]

You can use Vista RC2 for upto a year afaik, and its stable as any version of XP I have used... In fact its very hard going back to XP

[Kezzer]

But why bother? It IS unstable (in fact, we tested it out at work). Just be patient and wait for the final version to come out which will be in Q1 of next year.

It's like getting a kite with holes in it and just expecting it to be good.

[fishboy25uk]

Cool, that sounds like a plan then.

The Vista upgrade coupon is too good to be true. According to this article (http://blogs.pcworld.com/staffblog/archives/003020.html) it'll just be a discount voucher, so you'll still have to pay a fair whack to go from XP Home to Vista Basic, and even more to go to Vista Premium. Still, a discount is a discount, and if I go for XP with voucher I still have a copy of XP to fall back on.

Goku, what features does RC2 have? Is is Vista Premium?

[fishboy25uk]

Posted that before I saw your message Kezzer.

I'm in no rush to switch, just didn't think it was worth spending £60 if I could get as OS for free, but as I said, if I get XP I can upgrade cheaply anyway with the voucher. Might do that but have a dual boot to try out Vista RC2.

[Chimpanzee]

I use it it dual boots fine, no issues has a useful bios memory tester too.

[gman1981]

Vista RC2 is the Ultimate Edition of Vista.

[fishboy25uk]

Cheers for the info guys, very helpful.

[dangel]

RC2 is rock solid for me... unless i install the dodgy ATI drivers

[ikonia]

take it as what it is - a release candidate. It WILL have bugs, things will NOT be supported.

If you can live with that without crying on here "I can't find a driver for my printer for an unreleased OS yet" or "My video drivers don't work on Vista yet" then do it, if not use XP and upgrade.

[this_is_gav]

I personally don't think RC2 is quite there yet, but it's not MS's fault - as an OS it seems fine from what I've tested - it's still 3rd parties that are letting it down. Most things can be sorted though, and it's got to be better than buying XP if you have no intention of still using it in a few months.

[PHTC]

I use vista RC2 and it does all I need. The only problem i've found is that if you use nero, only the latest version is supported but then it generates an error when vista tries to produce a thumbnail of a video. There are more and more drivers being released to support it and now the RTM driver kits released hopefully it shouldnt be long before the majority of apps are vista compatible.

If I were you i'd try vista (as the RC2 is free) see if you like it, like ExceededGoku said. Plus once vista is released if you dont like it XPs price will fall dramatically.

[this_is_gav]

The only problem i've found is that if you use nero, only the latest version is supported but then it generates an error when vista tries to produce a thumbnail of a video.

It will depend on what you use Nero for, but if it's just the actual burner, then Nero 7 Lite apparently works perfectly. I've not got a Vista install at this exact moment to test it, but Nero Lite does all I need on XP, so might be worth a go.