Vista.....The ongoing struggle.

Well, I have been using Windows Vista Ultimate now for about three months or so. My PC is powered by the Intel Core2Duo T7200 @2.0GHz with 2GB of DDR2 RAM, and a 7200RPM 160GB HD. These specs are more than enough to run Microsoft's monster of an OS, but still it aggravates me sometimes.

A little background.... Vista has been widely smeared for its driver issues, software issues, issues period, and so for the purposes of work I decided to get my hands on a copy. I went with the Ultimate version, which is the "everything but the kitchen sink" version, and so far it hasn't been unpleasant experience. On the other hand it has not been thoroughly enjoyable either. I am also a gamer at heart, and so most of my complaints have been discovered while indulging in my favorite pastime.
Ok...background out of the way, now on to the meat of the issue!

As I mentioned above, I installed Vista on my personal notebook that I use for work, and therefore I spend more time on Vista than XP, which is till on my three-year-old desktop machine at home. Therein lies my first complaint with Vista...There are a lot of times where my 2.oGHz, single-core, old AMD Athlon 64 powered system will outrun my 2.0GHz Core2Duo-powered notebook. So I first changed the power settings up from the "Balanced" plan to the "High-Performance" plan....no difference. So I tried a few other things, and still I am trounced by "Old". Interesting, huh? Well...it's downright frustrating! I bought this notebook to kick the perverbial pants off of my old system! Under WinXP MCE 2005, it did! But under Vista..no such luck! The performance issue is my first complaint. My next one is not so much a complaint as it is a suprising realization. I noticed the first day after moving from XP to Vista that my RAM usage continually hovers at or around 55% (approx. 1.10GB - 1.20GB). I figured that this was just because Vista, in an effort to be faster, seems to have been designed to cache everything it needs in RAM. Upon reflection, this is a great idea, but it doesn't seem to have paid off. Isay this because simple, run-of-the-mill, day-to-day, Windows activities still take as long or longer than they ever did on XP. O well. My next issue comes from the area of driver support. In particular I am referring to the Video Driver. The video card in this notebook is a Nvidia GeForce GO 7600GS 256MB, and I also realize that the video driver is designed and supported by the individual notebook manufacturers. There is little I can do to improve the performance of the graphics driver, because notebook graphics cards, unlike desktop models, are not updated that often. Again..o well. The next thing is odd, and I have to do some more research. So here is the issue...my connectivity to the Internet will occasionally disappear. Just like that, I will not be able to acces anything on the net. So naaturally I checked the Network and Sharing Center to make sure it's not going through the whole Identifying process again, and every time I have this issue...it isn't. Connectivity doesn't usually come backe until I reboot. I also turned off all power-management functions of both the wireless card and the wired NIC...no difference. These are just a few issues that I have, but I am sure that as Vista ages, things will get better. I also HATE, LOATHE, ETC., User Account Control. I turned it off, but it still tells me that it is turned off!! ARRGH!! O well..

Now on to the things I like! I like all of the revised or new games that are included with the OS. I also like the concept of "Ultimate Extras". I have downloaded all of them, and so far I like the feature very much. I particularly like DreamScene. DreamScene is a seemless video loop that is set as your wallpaper. It looks awesome! I also like the new GUI. It is very Web 2.0 looking, and brings a more modern feel to the OS. I also like how some thigs are condensed and centralized. FOr example: the Network and Sharing Center. It is so nice to be able to manage all network connectivity from one place. I also like that Vista comes with a "System Administrator" feature for the individual User Accounts. Under normal circumstances, when UAC is on, this feature leads to fewer alerts. Nice!

In closing, I realize that Vista is still growing as an OS, but it has been out for almost two years now. I think that the general opinion of Vista would be better if it wasn't for the fact that Vista spent about five years in development. Microsoft also announced the first Service Pack(major overhaul of the OS) 2 weeks before the OS hit store shelves. I am sure that there are other reasons that Vista is generally disliked, but as this is my personal blog, these are just my personal views of the matter. Hopefully Windows 7 will be an improvement.