Running Vista and Loving It

Like many of you, I have been putting off upgrading to Vista for years due to its less-than-stellar reputation. Well, my ancient Windows XP install was seriously busted, so I finally took the plunge, and guess what. I love it.

I was able to get everything I absolutely need up and running in about three hours. My essential tools – Chrome, Firefox, PhotoShop, Irfanview, Winamp, FreeHand, AutoPano Pro and WinSCP – all worked perfectly. I had to use “Compatibility Mode” to get the software for my Nikon Scanner and Flix to work, but that’s a minor issue I can live with.

I had only one hardware compatibility issue. My antiquated Creative Extigy USB sound device was not recognized. So, I bought a Creative X-FI 5.0 USB audio device for 59 bucks, and it works and sounds better than the old device.

Of course, I turned off almost all of Aero’s annoying features. Now, my humble machine runs great! Certainly faster than the badly broken XP installation I had been using. It was well worth 119 bucks to make my machine usable again.

9 Comments Add yours

  1. Cindy says:

    Lovin’ a winblows product? Who are you and what have you done with Jim? 🙂

  2. thedude says:

    I know – this really is out of character, eh?

  3. mark says:

    Still, way to much time is needed to do the install. Still the OS is too much of a memory pig. Try using windows explorer to search for a file that you can’t remember the name of. I reinstalled Siobhan’s XP as she was having issues in under an hour 🙂

  4. thedude says:

    Well, the install took no more time than an XP install, and required much less hand-holding. Memory usage does not seem to be an issue. Of course, I have turned off most of Vista’s annoying GUI features. And searching is very fast once the drives are indexed. 🙂

  5. Cindy says:

    You probably have tons of memory on your machine, where most ‘normal’ user do not.

    Please install Spybot (enableTeaTimer) and Windows Defender. I know you don’t like stuff running in the background, but it’s the only way to keep the PC from becoming unustable. How much garbage (ActiveX) did we find on the XP machine when you ran PandaActive Scan about a year ago? Tons! Even with your endorsement, I’m not conviced I want to install Vista.

  6. thedude says:

    Actually, I have a very modest 3 GHz machine with just 3 gigabytes of RAM – the sort of machine you can buy these days for 600 bucks. I swear – it’s really nice. It has a lot of enhancements I’ve been waiting for. I Like it!

  7. Hugh Caley says:

    He drank the kool-aid! Is a virtual intervention required here?

  8. Oscar says:

    Good for you dude. I run Vista on my company laptop and I really like it. It’s had a bad rap due mostlydue to bad third party device drivers (can you say nvidia?). I’ll be upgrading my home PCs to it soon but I will need a little more RAM.

  9. SomeDude says:

    Hey Dude, curiously, which version of Vista? 64-bit? Business? Ultimate? Fill me in, i’m about to take the plunge myself – great dudes think alike I guess 😛

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