Has Vista become more stable?

[mikeny]

Fpr a gamign machine, has Windows Vista become more stable since its 1 year anniversary? I am wondering if I should go to DX10 when the Penryns are released but I want to be sure Vista is more stable.

 

[PsychoFanatic]

It will supposively come SP1 which should be released shortly.

 

[aahz]

I have Vista running 32 bit on laptop, 64 bit on desktop both with SP1 beta installed. Both are remarkably stable.

 

[notherdude]

Many new driver updates have come out over this past year, so the game stability issue does not necessarily rely on sp1, though it may help. Not to mention the OS fixes and updates that MS has released, some of which have addressed gaming issues. SP1 is to a large extent just a roll up of the available fixes, though it adds some new stuff too, I have heard.

Many of us here are gaming very happily on Vista. I do not believe there is any serious, widespread stability gap on games at this time, not on Nvidia cards at least (non SLI, though SLI may also be working well too, I don't have it myself).

If you have a specific game you simply have to run you might want to visit the support forum for that game and pose the question. Be sure you get an answer from someone who actually uses the OS because mindless, repetitive Vista bashing is a very popular juvenile obsession at this juncture. Not that Vista is all it should be, mind you.

Vista 64 is a very popular choice at this time. RAM is so cheap that a lot of people are running 4 gig or more RAM and to do this you really need a 64 bit OS. Drivers tend to be more stable too on 64 bit Vista. Though occasionally finding them is an issue. Thankfully for most mainstream hardware this isn't hard.

Detailed report here: http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/amd_nvidia_windows_vista_driver_performance_update/default.asp
This was a seven month update to their original Vista vs. XP gaming roundup (the original showed Vista lagging badly) - the update shows the frame rate gap has all but closed.

Personally I think Vista 64 with 4 gig or more of RAM running on a modern dual core system is the BEST gaming and general use platform at this time, overall, though this is a matter of taste. My system with a core2duo @3.5 ghz and 6 gig RAM runs perfectly smooth. I run any game I want and get no crashes beyond what I occasionaly had on XP too.

 

[Gravemind123]

I don't think Vista was ever really unstable, it is more the fact that drivers and software had initial compatibility issues. I haven't had any troubles with it, I used it for a chunk of time last year, until I decided to go back to XP due to issues with wireless card drivers. Not Vista's fault that the companies didn't make drivers for the OS.

 

[poup23]

I did pass over to Vista since almost a month now and I was one of the most sceptical about Vista and gaming issues. But now I will be one of the most happy person with it. I didn't got any issue at all from anything, hardware to software.

I have the Vista business 64 bit edition.

But I do have a friend who got some problems with is soundcard and he decided to go back to XP64. So I would say you must try it to know. But has Psycho already said, we are awaiting for the SP1.

 

[ImajorI]

My vista Ultimate 64 has been flawless.

 

[StevieD]

I have never had a stability problem with Vista64.

Every peripherial works with Vista. Granted a couple things needed to download a new driver, but that is to be expected.

 

[bydesign]

Vista has always been extremely stable. I've been running it for over a year (RTM). Driver were an issue and still plague older hardware so Gravemind is spot on. I don't run XP except in a virtual for work and home.

As for SP1 honestly can't tell a difference even though alters more than half the OS.

Vista sales numbers aren't great because businesses aren't adopting it. Mainly because there is no ROI and vitalization has finally come of age. It's better than XP it's just the average worker bee at the office would benefit much before the PC is refreshed. Also many legacy apps would have to be addressed and that cost a ton.

In hindsight Vista should have been 64bit only. This wouldn't have helped Vista sales but may have eased the transition to their next OS. At least that way there might have been more of an effort to get the 64bit apps out. Kind funny in way, their core business didn't push for the change for 64bit but they tried and failed to push HD DVD.

 

[homerdog]

I just reinstalled Vista for the first in almost two years. I had abused it heavily and it just kept on trucking. My recent exploits with the SP1 Beta finally pushed me over the edge.

Other than my beta testing woes I have found that Vista is more responsive than XP ever was, and prettier too

In short, Vista is fine, but you must disable UAC.

You MUST disable UAC

 

[geofelt]

I had no problems with vista 32-bit.

When I changed to 64 bit, There were two issues with civilization-2.

civ2-2.42 can't run because 16 bit dos programs of any kind can't run on a 64 bit os.

civ2-mge will run with a small patch.

In all other respects, vista 64-bit has run well. My perception is that it is even a bit snappier than XP.

UAC is there for a reason. Learn to live with it.

 

[skittle]

Funny thing about UAC... I dont find it any more intrusive than the privileges protection in linux. Its there for a good reason, even if you might find it annoying. initially you will see a lot of UAC prompts, but as time passes you will see less (presumably since you wont be doing driver updates and software installs as frequently).

Back to the OP... Vista is very stable... but so is XP and XP64 these days.

 

[runswindows95]

The only time I've turned off UAC is when I'm installing Vista for the first time and have to install all the programs and do the tweaking. Once everything is up and running, I turn back on UAC and it never shows up at all really.

 

[StevieD]

UAC serves a purpose. It is not that intrusive. And it does serve a purpose.

 

[jalek]

One thing Vista did that XP didn't for me.. it survived a data drive's slow deterioration into garbage without self-destructing the OS.

I HAVE triggered the activation routine while overclocking when certain services don't launch, but haven't hit any activation limits that I've noticed.

UAC's off here until I take the time to figure out how to adjust it to allow me to delete files from specific folders without prompting. I also use some older programs that don't seem to like not being able to manage their own files. DVR that can't erase programs just doesn't seem that useful.

 

[croc]

Some of the early beta releases were... A bit buggy. (Like curse a lot buggy, bang your head against the wall buggy...)

But every since the last two beta's, RC1, RC2, and RTM for the most part its been error free in and of itself. Drivers are improving, I'm very happy with how its turned out. I hope that the 5000+ bug reports I turned in helped....

Now beta testing the SP1, the first public release was a bit buggy, more than I like, and there are still some issues with 6001. I've only filed about 50 reports across the two releases so far. One major 'bug' that I find for the SP1 releases, is the manual uninstall feature one has to do of a previous version prior to installing the next version. This has to be fixed, I feel, prior to unleashing SP1 to the general public.

UAC? I turn it off, but I'm behind a firewall appliance. I also use good AV with ad protection, spyware protection, etc. I also set the IE permissions rather high.

In short: There's no reason, in my opinion, not to start using it. I still have the option to dual boot into XP, and do about once a month... to get the upgrades, patches, etc.

 

[homerdog]

UAC is there for a reason. Learn to live with it.

UAC may be good for the average user, but if one knows what they are doing and is careful about what they install it is a major annoyance. I do in fact install drivers on a regular basis and if I leave my computer for 10 minutes expecting the install to be done when I come back only to find a "Are you sure you want to install this driver?" message staring me in the face I get quite angry.

UAC can cause problems when trying to use the command prompt, which is something I do a lot as well. And those Apple commercials; they aren't really much of an exaggeration. Are you sure that you're sure you want to leave UAC enabled?

 

[Black$heep86]

Very rarely have i had a bug with Vista (ultimate). Its been Flawless and well rounded i dual booted with XP And not once have i used XP. I Think they did a good job, As for Dx10 it looks very good i do recommend vista for gaming even older titles have released patches so you shouldn't worry at all...

 

[rodney_ws]

Not Vista's fault that the companies didn't make drivers for the OS.

Nor is it the fault of the hardware manufacturers that Microsoft changed its driver model so completely with the introduction of Vista.

 

[ausch30]

I have been using Vista since March and when I use a XP machine it feels less responsive. I have never had stability issues but I did have to buy a new printer because my old one wasn't supported (Lexmark's fault, not MS). I have UAC off and if you know how to be safe and smart about keeping your system clean you don't need it. Most of the people bashing Vista have never used it and/or don't know what their talking about. People complain about Vista for the same reason they complain about Crysis, their system is too old and slow to run it properly.

 

[tlmck]

I have Vista Home Basic and have never had any stability problems. I still have trouble with copying large groups of files, and it is slow connecting to the internet after startup. Other than that it is pretty fast, even in games.

If I had not received it for free, I would have bought another copy of XP. Some of my older games do not like Vista, but I can play them on a Linux box under the Wine emulator.

 

[russki]

Nor is it the fault of the hardware manufacturers that Microsoft changed its driver model so completely with the introduction of Vista.

rodney, I agree with you for the most part in all your comments but here I have to disagree. Partially because I see this statement all to often and it bugs me. Bear with me for a second.

You know, even in the early days of Linux I remember everyone (technical enough) oohing and ahing about how it was a system written the right way, etc. Which I can't dispute. It was also super slow at anything graphical, 'cause Unix was never designed to handle GUI. Over time, of course, it evolved, to what it is today, but still less than perfect from the standardization perspective (actually, compiling the system and configuring it custom for users is counter-standardization in the sentiment, really).

Windows has always taken a different approach - they gave you the low level access to the hardware you will never have in a proper Unix clone, and that gave us performance at the cost of proper system design.

Now that we have evolved to where you can add a level of abstraction between the driver and hardware and still get decent performance, the complaints that driver crashes should not crash the system became very addressable, and, frankly, should have been addressed. Which MS did. And I, personally, applaud them for it. I have always said that Vista is a much more soundly designed OS, as far as OS design theory is concerned (if only we could get multiple file system support, it'd practically be a sound Unix alternative). So for that matter everyone who says that Vista is no different than XP is very wrong. Under the hood it is way ahead.

So humor me this. How is it that the same people that for years screamed about the inadequacies of Windows as an OS - first it was coop multitasking which is not truly multitasking (improved in XP and even more in Vista), security (greatly improved with Vista to where the kernel finally runs on a separate higher privilege level), better file systems (NTFS is at least somewhat feature-rich), etc., and now finally a driver model that does not crash the system in the event of the driver failure - are now complaining that these changes have been made? It is really weird to me.

Now, about the driver model. I am fairly confident that partners were involved in the design of the driver model, as well. At the very least, they knew about it way before the system went gold, and so it is difficult for me to assign blame to anyone but the IHVs.

And it is, at the very least, difficult to blame MS for doing the right thing. It wasn’t change for no other purpose other than change, it was actually good.

Anyway...

 

[mikeny]

Wow I wasnt expecting this much Thank you for all the responses. i was reading a lot of reviews on games and Vista seemed to be the culprit. I was thinking of upgrading my system in June when the Penryns are out and reviewed. I was looking either at the Wolfdale (the 8400 is out now and surprisingly cheap--cheaper than my E6300) or the QUad 9xxx series ( i forgot the codename of it..the ones that are along side the Wolfdales which are the dual core 45nm processors). I saw theres a 10 gain in clock speed from the Conroe to the Wolfdale. It's got me salavating. So my headache is which to go to---Wolfdale or the new Quad 9xxx series, new mobo, then the video card (DX10) since everyone here is saying Vista is much better now. By the way, which Vista--Home or Premium? I was watching my finances when I built my gaming machine 2 years ago...but not this time