Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate

Tooo much talk of Vistaaaa.... Apple fanboyism taking ovver....

If you want a desktop, just get an Apple iMac. You get a stylish, silent, small (its an all in one machine), power efficient computer (power consumption is under 180 watts under full load for the top 24 inch model) that is fully pre-assembled right out the box. All you need is to hookup the power cable and keyboard to the back of the machine and then plug the mouse to the keyboard (built-in usb hub), connect to your wireless network and you are all set.

If you don't want OS X, no problem, run Boot Camp and pop in a 32bit CD/DVD or XP/Vista, install it and run Windows natively. Then you can switch back and forth or remove OS X completely and use the HDD completely for Windows (but why would you want to that anyway).

The following are my opinions on the XP, Vista and OS X, pro vs. cons really:

Best things about OS X:
1. NO VIRUSES, NO SPYWARE, NO CRAPWARE PREINSTALLED, no need for antivirus software.

2. Simple UI, simple drag and drop installation of Applications, no hunting for drivers. Great built-in apps; Mail, Calendar, Quicklook, Spaces, Exposé, Dashboard, Photo Booth, Spotlight, I could go on and on...

3. Its Unix underneath. (see #1) More stable, full 64 bit OS, with a mayor OS update on a practically yearly basis (paid upgrades though).

4. No confusing multiple editions of the OS, one version has it all, no Home Premium, Basic, Ultimate, etc. Oh and it retails for "only" $129, a small price when compared to the $399 price tag on Vista Ultimate.

5. Spring folders, you have to use it to appreciate it, when dragging and dropping, pausing on a folder opens that folder so its way easy to copy files in deep folders with only the mouse.

Worst things about OS X
1. Learning curve, we are teached even in gradeschool how to use computers, and 90% of them have XP. You might have a hard time at first but once you get used to OS X you will get spoiled and will never look at that beige box under your desk the same way.

2. Multi-minitor support, seriously it sucks. No support for some Windows specific files (like wma, wmv) without (mostly) free third party utilities. Mouse Right-click function disabled by default, you must enable it in the system preferences.

3. Microsoft still messes with you. Office 2008 is available for the Mac, but it is buggy and slow and very different compared to Office 2007 for Windows. Apple's iWork 08' has poor support for Office documents.

4. Its a closed system; OS X is only meant to run on Apple hardware, although its possible to run it on a normal PC, it requires the patching and hacking of the OS to work at all and its against the EUA and doesn't work too well.

I've been using Windows for years and switched like 8 months ago. I'm very happy with OS X. I work as a computer tech and using OS X has been a great learning experience as well as opened more doors as to possible clients, specially now with the higher adoption rate of OS X over Windows.

But Vista isn't all bad, I like a couple of things Vista does better than XP, some are even better than Apple's approach as well.

Best things about Vista:
1. Smarter copying of files: If a file exists with the same name, it asks you what to do, Skip, replace, or keep both. XP and OS X will just say there was an error and stop the transfer. ARRGGGG!

2. Ability to resize the OS partition non-destructively. Great for dual-booting Vista and XP with Vista pre-installed. OS X can also do this BTW although not as easy.

3. Good multi-monitor support, the same cannot be said for XP or OS X.

4. More secure than XP out of the box. IE7 a big improvement over IE6 but still less robust than Firefox or Safari.

5. Not to worry, Windows 7 is due out next year... or will it be Vista all over again and be released in 2012?

Worst things about Vista:
1. The smarter file transfers... well file transfers can/will take up to 3 times longer to finish copying compared to XP, OS X.

2. UAC is no annoying that its useless, forcing people to disable it and making things less secure by doing so. OS X has something that works like UAC but its way less intrusive, only asking for a password when writing a system file or with some updates.

3. Resource HOG, a Core 2 Duo CPU and 2gigs of ram should be the minimum requirements. Feels slow.

4. It still Windows kernel underneath. BSODs, Viruses anyone? Most of the spyware, adware and viruses that can infect XP can also infect Vista.

5. We seriously waited 5 years for it and it still needs more time it seems. Applying the Service Pack 1 had a 50% rate of crashing working computers!

Excellent summary Xcape… I couldn't have said it better myself. :clap:

We run four Mac Pro towers + 2 iMac 24" computers at our firm, each running Mac OS X 10.5.x and Windows XP Pro in a Boot Camp partition. We then use Parallels Desktop 4.0 to allow both operating systems to run at the same time; there is an on-going debate as to which virtualisation software is the best (Parallels, VMware Fusion, or an open-source solution such as Sun's VirtualBox), but we've used the Parallels product since it first debuted and it works fine for our purposes.

As Xcape notes, with a Boot Camp installation of a Windows OS (your choice as to which version… any flavour of 2000, XP, Vista), you can start-up the Macintosh directly into Windows and it runs like any similarly configured Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc.

But, you can also start-up in the Mac OS X operating system and then start up Windows via the virtualisation software (which can be configured to use the same Boot Camp partition). In most cases, you can configure the set-up so that the two desktops are one; in Parallels it is called "Confluence" and you end up with both the Mac & Windows menus visible at the same time, allowing you to essentially click on files in folders & on the desktop and have the proper software program under the correct OS open the file. You seamlessly work in both operating systems concurrently, sharing the one desktop.

It actually works very well. Video, Pictures, Audio files are correctly mapped into one folder that both Windows & OS X can access etc. Network and printer connections are also easy… I tend to use the simplest route and have the Windows XP install use the already existing OS X established connections - if the Mac can see/use it, then so can Windows.

:beer:

My toshiba " Qosmio" has vista ultimate installed. The older model toshiba satellite pro p100, is set up with windows XP. I like the vista ultimate for its visual appeal. Have only experienced random glitches on vista, but they are not a common occurence.

The thing i don't like with vista ultimate are those annoying pop up windows. Yes, of course i want to proceed with an application. Considering it is a memory hog, i feel relieved that the ' Qosmio' has 4gb. of system ram as standard. I recently made enquiries with my toshiba rep. It appears my australian specified Qosmio can be upgraded. I can opt for the lower end video card. This i regard as an odd marketing strategy by toshiba.

At the moment my laptop has the Nvidea 9800 M GTX video card with a dedicated 1gb. of video memory. I have experimented with some games, and the qosmio is quite a beast. Why should i downgrade to a Nvidea 512mb. video card.? HUH? No thanks but definitely not.

My two internal hard drives, can be upgraded for drives with more storage. Now that is a practical advantage, but i will consider it as a future project. The other upgrade is that my standard 4gb of system ram, can be set up for 8gb. of system memory. " 8GB. of memory? " WOW! :drool: :shock: :shock:

I do not like that AVG anti virus, and the windows live one care on Vista. The live one care application, became more of an obstacle than of any benefit. The AVG and live one care have been uninstalled. I re-installed with " Nortons 2009" anti virus software for vista. The " NORTON" program provides me with everything. Currently using " Norton" on windows XP also.

Quite happy with XP as a system on my satellite pro p100. I find XP is a vast improvement in comparison to WIN 98. Currently not having a lot of glitches with it. XP is reasonably stable and the odd system malfunctions are random occurences. The vista ultimate seems reasonable. It has beautiful graphics. But yes i agree with others ,that Vista is prone to issues and is not perfect.