Windows Vista

Posted on March 8, 2007
Filed Under Australia - The land down under, Irony Anyone?, Stupidity and randomness |

Yesterday, I upgraded my operating system to Windows Vista. So far, I like it. The features that I like about XP are still there and there are some pretty nifty new things to play with including; games, Windows Media Centre, Meeting Space and the funky little sidebar that keeps me up to date on how bloody hot it’s been the past few days, (Currently 34 degrees.) among other things.

The one thing that annoys me is that whenever you get a new piece of software, you find out how crappy your PC really is. For instance, I was all hyped about trying Windows Aero and the 3D flip option when you have multiple windows open, but alas… my graphics card can’t handle it! I can’t even test it out as the PC rates your system and if your rating is too low, windows doesn’t even off the option of trying it. It’s simply not there!

So now, we’re shopping for a new graphics card as I cannot handle not being able to try everything. Realistically, any card we get can be used in our next system (we’re looking at a Dual Core) but it really grinds me that we bought a new graphics card not long ago because the original wasn’t compatible with the wide-screen monitor I got Brian for Father’s Day. So this makes 2 new graphics cards in a matter of months. I’d better do the research before committing because I’ll be really cheesed off if the next thing (and there is always a next thing) turns out to be incompatible again!

So far, Vista has a thumbs up but watch this space… there is bound to be something that comes up.

[Post to Twitter] Tweet This

Comments

3 Responses to “Windows Vista”

  1. Stephen on March 9th, 2007 11:29 am

    I had to comment on this!

    I’m afraid you’ve fallen foul of being an early(ish) upgrader of Vista. The perceived wisdom is always to let everyone else do that until all of the really bad bugs have been found out and the inevitable service pack has been released. Not that that would have helped your graphics card problem but as you say it’s ridiculous that a newly purchased card isn’t cutting it to run vista. And what is vista exactly? Oh, it’s an operating system designed to be the interface between you and your computer to get your programs running. As sweet as the new 3D Aero interface might be it can’t possibly be a requirement for a user to browse the web, play a game, edit some photos, write a blog and so on…

    I appreciate that it must have some improvements on XP but when XP came along we needed it. Windows 98/ME was so often freezing up and ruining the whole PC experience but XP has removed most of those terrors and I can honestly say that I will not upgrade my operating system and find that I have to upgrade my hardware just to run it when it simply is an operating system. I find that XP absolutely gives me all that I need right now and the upgrade will take place when my hand is forced. ie when I want to run software that will only work on Vista (a long time to go for that) or when microsoft stop supporting XP which will also happen at some point.

    Ooops, a bit of a rant really. Sorry about that. What graphics card do you have at the moment?

  2. Christina on March 9th, 2007 4:37 pm

    Actually, the resaon we upgraded so soon was because we had an unregistered copy of XP that we couldn’t update with the service packs which left a lot of problems on the PC.

    Rather than buy an XP key, we decided to buy Vista and validate hoping that it would have none of the bugs that we were unable to fix.

    I think you may have misunderstood me. I can run everything on Vista and I have no problems with anything other than Aero (which is a theme setting that requires a decent graphics card.)

    So far I’m really happy with it and I think I may have solved the Aero problem with an upgraded driver… I’ll let you know.

  3. Stephen on March 9th, 2007 11:24 pm

    oh no, I realised that it was just the Aero feature that was causing the problem. In fact I believe I’m right in saying that the most basic version of vista doesn’t even have Aero.

    Your post just gave me the oppertunity to rant a little over microsoft setting a high minimum spec for an operating system. It’s good to rant now and again. :)

Leave a Reply