What is your favorite thing about vista?

[Tbirdkid]

I didnt like the rc2, it was buggy on my system, but i am running the actual business dvd release from msdnaa and it seems ok. I do want to know what you find is the coolest feature about it. I like the photo editor/viewer so far the best. Of course, i just got it installed last night.

 

[oldman420]

I like glass it makes everything look sooo cool

 

[rogue1979]

I'm not using it.

 

[SimMike2]

Originally posted by: oldman420
I like glass it makes everything look sooo cool

I like the Aero also. It makes the program feel much more sophisticated than XP. Maybe it is mostly style, and I'm usually not a sucker for style over substance, but in this case I like it.

I also like the sidebar. For me it just feels more responsive and doesn't hammer the hard drive as much as XP. If you have extra memory, 2GB, or 3GB like me, I think Vista utilizes it better.

 

[doog519]

I don't use it
I always give Microsoft OS about a year to mature.

 

[mechBgon]

What is your favorite thing about vista?

As a single home user: security enhancements, both above and beneath the surface. It didn't take them 5+ years just to make Aero Glass.

If I had kids, I'd probably say Parental Controls.


Least favorite thing so far: I saw that my 36GB Maxtor Atlas 15k II SCSI drive was not going to be enough capacity for the long haul, counting program files and data files. I've installed some cheap 250GB 7200rpm thing with 16MB cache for the moment

 

[loup garou]

So far I really dig the complete PC backup & shadow copies. Integrated search is great. Photo Gallery is nicer than I expected as well.

I really want CableCard support in WMC to be my favorite thing...I guess we'll see how well it works when PCs with them start coming out!

 

[Shooks]

Running Ultimate and I really like the new look and feel of Media Center, but the damn thing is so buggy. If I try to adjust the sound at all it becomes all static filled and I have to restart Media Center entirely. I am guessing it is just a case of bad drivers from Nvidia, hopefully they fix it soon.

 

[LouPoir]

Aero - lot of eye candy - not many changes after you get beyond that -

 

[thehstrybean]

It's nice...but I can't get a driver for my ****** video/chipset driver for Aero to work!!!

 

[Shooks]

How do you even check if Aero is running. It's not listed under Themes for me

edit: never mind, guess it's just called the Vista theme

 

[ProviaFan]

My favorite feature by far is the intelligent caching. I used to want one of those perpetually postponed and extremely expensive 64GB solid state disks, but now I can be perfectly happy with a 150GB Raptor and 4GB of RAM.

I also like the way shell folders are organized now. Since it's possible to point Pictures, Videos, etc. wherever one desires, I now actually use those "folders." They can simply point to existing locations on my extra hard disks for data storage, instead of forcing everything to reside on the system drive under \Documents and Settings\username as with XP.

 

[Shooks]

Originally posted by: Shooks
Running Ultimate and I really like the new look and feel of Media Center, but the damn thing is so buggy. If I try to adjust the sound at all it becomes all static filled and I have to restart Media Center entirely. I am guessing it is just a case of bad drivers from Nvidia, hopefully they fix it soon.

Well just an update on my situation, I installed the AC'97 drivers off Realtek's website and it is running flawlessly now. Vista rules!

 

[cockeyed]

Some of the things I like: Aero, Gadgets, Photo Viewer, HDD Defrag, HDD partitioning, Voice recognition and other things I can't think of at the moment. I keep finding new things to like.

I need a modem driver (not used anyway) and a printer driver (it works with the XP drv ok but a new Vista drv will be available soon). One of my main programs is not fully functional, but a maintenance update will be available next month. Overall, not too bad. So far, Vista has been running good for me.

 

[Shawn]

Windows Media Center for sure!

 

[w3stfa11]

There's no feature that really stands out. Initially, I thought SuperFetch would be great, but I don't think I have enough memory (1.25GB) to really benefit from it. However, I love the new Start Menu and the indexing, although I'm well aware I can just use Launchy and Google Desktop instead on WinXP.

 

[Markbnj]

Originally posted by: LouPoir
Aero - lot of eye candy - not many changes that I understand or know anything about after you get beyond that -

Fixed.

 

[Verse914]

for anyone who likes Aero...just buy WindowsBlinds for $20 and save yourself a couple hundred bucks and a lot of headaches...

 

[BladeVenom]

Originally posted by: rogue1979
I'm not using it.

That's what I was going to say.

 

[gizbug]

No boot screen.

 

[spherrod]

much better power management on my laptop

 

[miniMUNCH]

Things I like about Vista:

1. Interface looks nice.
2. Install was even easier than XP SP2... for me anyhow.
3. Media center
4. Speech recognition is really good
5. Windows Backup -- very nice
6. Very snappy and responsive -- more so for me than XP.

Negatives

1. Driver support -- 8800 beta's are working good for me so far but still...
2. Learning curve of a new OS, figuring out where everything is... not really a negative -- the curve is pretty short/smooth.
3. Little or no 64-bit application support -- not MS's fault, yet...but 32-bit everything that I have tried works just fine either natively or under XP SP2 compatibility mode.

 

[GimpyFuzznut]

ABSOLUTELY BEST FEATURE:
The "Documents and Settings" folder has been renamed to Users and contains one nice folder which has all your documents, information, favorites, etc in one nice, easy to use, navigate, and searchable location.

Obviously the Aero graphics and the smoothness of everything are nice. I found a lot of people overhyped Vista as being a huge resource hog or whatever, but I have a feeling they are just Microsoft haters. From my experience on my old P4 3.0 with a gig of ram, it runs fast and smooth.

New Media Center is really nice too.

 

[Verse914]

I agree...the overall speed wasn't bad at all. I just had tons of problems installing software...

I installed photoshop, rebooted, BSOD...I installed intel matrix storage manager, booted, BSOD.

Just a very small plus for Vista...the screensavers are pretty sweet I just wish I could bring them to XP...