Testing Out Microsoft Vista Beta1

[MaxxxRacer]

I just got beta one of Vista, and its relatively neat as far as looks are concerned, but is in no way an improvement over XP. The only really noticeable change is the look and feel of the installer which is much nicer, but comes at a cost of 95minute install times on a Atlon64 based system.

When actually running the system it seems there are a plethora of extra, seemingly useless services sucking up cpu cycles and memory. When the system is booted up with no apps running it needs a cool 550mb of RAM. After going on a mass servies murdering spree I was able to get it down to 275mb but this is still pitiful and MS should be ashamed of themselves.

I also did a little super PI testing and compared to a slightly tweaked out XP SP2 system, Longhorn looses an entire second in super PI 1m to XP. On a side note i lost 3k points in 3Dmark 01, but this can be taken with a grain of salt as the ATI drivers would not install and was only running off of stock windows drivers.

Now that I have dispensed with the bad news, here is some good news. If you dont mind swimming in services there is one new feature. The search function. Similar to that of the google desktop search, vole has implimented a new search function which indexes all of your files when the computer is idle, making for faster system searches. The downside is that it takes up more of your precious system memory, but isnt that was Vole's evil plan was to begin with.

For those of you out there fearing that the BSOD was a thing of the past, fear not, it is alive and kicking. In my quest to reclaim my RAM from the evil Vista I attempted to terminate the CRSS.EXE application via the taskmanager , and was meet with defeat as the system proceeded to not respond and then rear its ugly blue face of defeat, the BSOD. Though this time Vole decided to mix things up and instead of displaying the normal garbage about why the BSOD might have occured, you are left with a starkly flat blue screen with no text what so ever. It leaves you scratching your head as to who might have actaully thought up such a poorly designed error message. The least they could have done is put the words "Dont Panic!" in large bold letters across the screen when it proceeds to go belly up.

Despite Vista stil being in Beta1 stage, it is clear Vole is right on track to release another astoundingly bad and resource hogging OS. Just like the hitchikers guide to the galaxy Vista should come packaged with the words "Dont Panic!" on the rear of the box. The words might calm those who will at some point during the 95 minute installation, realize they just wasted 300 dollars and 95 minutes of their life that they will never get back.

For those of you chaps out there that cant be bothered to read the above here are two pictures of what Vista will look like with a Beta version of IE7 to boot.

[masterofpuppets]

You know why the BSOD is still there? Vista is practicly Windows NT 5.3 :rolleyes:

[sluflyer06]

I like the trash can :clap:

[Ugly n Grey]

Yeah I found no compellinreason to change either, seems like Vista is going to be the "Big Brother" OS, monitoring everything having to do with digital rights........making Hollywood and Government happy and leaving the average joe with more bloatware. I might not think pirating is right (in fact I hate it), but I think having digital rights managmenet imposed via chipsets and operating systems is worse. Why put me in jail BEFORE I broke the law?

I think Vista is as clunky as the Vista Cruiser station wagon that comes to mind whenever I hear the name.....

[EvlUndrWareNome]

How much resources does it use on average compared to XP ? I would think it would be a hefty sum do to all those purdy graphics.

I remember reading that there were ways to strip it down to a more performance orientated theme. Any word on that ?


-EvlNome

[perkam]

Why does it look more like a polished version of kde :confused: ...anyhoo, what are the min reqs on this ?

Perkam

[JfRsQ]

Microsoft already disclosed some early system requirement details regarding Windows Vista. The first beta version of Windows Vista was released on Wednesday to more than 10,000 beta testers and the MSDN subscriber network.

Here are the estimated minimum system requirements for Windows Vista (previously codenamed Longhorn):
512MB memory or more
A dedicated graphics card with DirectX 9.0 support
A modern, Intel Pentium- or AMD Athlon-based PC.
However, the final system requirements will not be known until summer 2006 at earliest. Don't worry if your system doesn't meet the minimum system requirements, there's still plenty of time to update your system as Vista is only expected to arrive by late 2006

:stick: I think this is where a X2 CPU and a powerful GPU will be useful. GPU for Aero, 1 CPU for windows and his services and 1 CPU for your app :p: But HEY!, it still a 32bits OS :slapass:

[MaxxxRacer]

I was able to tweak it out to and get 256mb of memory ussage. nto to bad, but i had to disable ALL of the new serives that it has and alot of the more common ones.

[.sentinel]

Pitiful Pitiful. :slapass: :slapass: :slapass: Microsoft should be ashamed.

[eshbach]

When i was testing the "Whistler" Beta (which later became XP) a LONG time ago it was chewing up about 180mb of RAM. We all know XP only takes 1/2 that or less.

it's BETA. it will get better.

[MaxxxRacer]

esbach, my nLite stripped down version of XP uses around 120-140 when i boot up.. Ive seen some ppl do 90mb and below, but their system was so stripped down they could barely use it for anything but benching.

[EvlUndrWareNome]

yikes.

Thats nuts I can see that OS using 512 loaded down. I think I will use XP SP2 until there is no more support for it.

[craig588]

I have gotten 2K down to ~60MB in memory and still have a usable machine. I have a whole bunch of crap running right now on this 2K install and it's still only 190MB. My browser and distributed computing app are 50MB of that too.

[masterofpuppets]

Windows * sucks, end of story. You can run a BSD system on 4MB of RAM, and it's 1000 times faster than Windows will ever be.

[Ugly n Grey]

Windows * sucks, end of story. You can run a BSD system on 4MB of RAM, and it's 1000 times faster than Windows will ever be.

With four megs of RAM I can make a more functional DOS build than that, including slip, concurrent DOS and networking etc...but why would I run anything on four megs? that's just dense... if you are going to compare OS's compare all functions or don't bother...

[craig588]

Windows * sucks, end of story. You can run a BSD system on 4MB of RAM, and it's 1000 times faster than Windows will ever be.

I ran a distro of BSD that fit onto a single 1.44MB disk. It was kinda cool, but pointless for real use.

If Futuremark released a bench for any other OS that is as useful as the combo of '01 and '03 I would start seriously considering the OS.

[Ugly n Grey]

I have one of those kicking around here somewhere I was using it to change windows passwords, wonder if it's yours

[IYP]

Why does it look more like a polished version of kde :confused: ...anyhoo, what are the min reqs on this ?

Perkam

thats exactly what came to mind for me lol....i have an os that runs off a little 64mb IDE flash drive....imna look at it now and ss how it runs

[IYP]

got a link to that distro of BSD?

[craig588]

http://people.freebsd.org/~picobsd/picobsd.html

For some reason I don't think this is it though.

[Sheik]

95 minutes ???

I installed it in 35 minutes on a 3800+ Venice, 1 GIG RAM, 250 GB HHD.

http://www.solosreviews.net/Articles/Index/Vista_01.html

[OV3RCLOCK3R]

Tried it, although the Theme and all that stuff is nice. It is very buggy atm. Gonna wait for the Beta 2

[Vapor]

I like the prettiness. :D I figure that if I'm gonna make my case look nice and take off the ugly covers on my speakers, I might as well have something pretty looking on my 2405....this is definitely a good look in my opinion.

I don't mind the 550MB of bloat...I've got RAM to spare. Anyway, it should be cut down to half that as someone said come release time...which isn't very good for the majority of users on 512 (some on lower!). Anyway, I'll wait to pass judgement later when I actually test it (Beta 2 time I imagine).

[MaxxxRacer]

Sheik, I dont know why it took so long, but there is nothing special or oddly slow on my system. Not sure why it took so long.. but it for a fact did. you can ask lestat. i was on the phone with him during the entire install.

[Sheik]

Yip that is strange. Maybe DVD ROM related and media or something.

Well I installed it. Played with it. Formated HHD. Totally useless if it does not load drivers for my LAN.

[[XC] leviathan18]

well my page file is like 500mb too but if you add all the services running is jut like 170mb so i think is a leak the Nvidia drivers sux bad

the search function is awesome the IE7.0 is mmmm how to say the same as Firefox the aero engine looks great so far that is what i tried...

[MRBIGSHOT]

i dont like the garbage they pack with but i really like the way it looks.

lol i also have my theme set to windows 98 :D

[Serra]

I'll add in there that when this is actually released some time in mid to late '06 we should have some faster hardware available, and that should help the speed issues. That being said, it still looks like a LOT of people are going to have to buy new computers just to run this OS... it's going to be like Doom 3 coming out, only this time non-gamers are going to have to upgrade too.

Lets all just say a silent prayer for the poor tech support people that are going to be flooded with questions 24/7 from people wondering why their 800MHz Intel Celeron Dell computer with a full 128MB of RAM that they only bought 5 years ago won't run this new operating system. Poor, poor tech support.

[KoHaN69]

screw XP ;)

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00003JAU9.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

I wish theyt made a 64bit Win2k :(

[trakslacker]

I like the trash can :clap:


now if only we could fit all of Vista inside of it....

[DeltZ]

500 megs of ram with all the services ? :(

i only have 512 mb ram though...

don't fancy running half life 2 or photo shop on even 200 megs of ram

[iS.Terminator]

Kinda looks like mine.... :D , aww crap, I was going to upload a pic of my desktop...how do you upload? I tried but it says it's too big....

[iS.Terminator]

hey guys, if you want it to look like Windows Vista d/l this...I have it and it works....
http://crystalxp.zerackiel.net/bricopack-vista-inspirat.php

[Dissolved]

Anyone try Build 5219? i think it just came out..

[Vandi423]

haha

I get a BSOD when I tried to install the new PDC build on my Dual Opteron system. It just loads and crashes. Loaded fine on a DFI board with a Turion though.

I am thinking about switching to linux for my everyday use and keep windows for compatability. :confused:

[del_fuego]

This is quite interesting - http://www.tomshardware.com/hardnews/20050916_022428.html

Talks a bit about hardware requirements including mem usage and such.

[jmg823]

I am also running Vista Beta 1 but i can not find drivers that work with my integrated network on my motherboard! If anyone co9uld help me that would be great! I have an Abit NF7-S and can not get my NIC to work. everything else works off the mobo but not this, and i cant really do anything without the internet.

[einCe]

wow, those icons are low res

[jahjahbinks]

I have Build 5219. After all my feeling is that it's just XP + some eye catchy features. I would say the biggest change in Windows history is going from 3.1 to 95. I mean after 10 good years, we are still stuck with a taskbar (start button).

[jmg823]

i disagree, win 95 wasnt much of an improvement over 3.1 it still executed EVERYTHING through dos, it was just hidden. Once NT, 2000, XP came out they used NT architexture, which is much much better than dos execution. So although interface didnt change much I say the best change was from 95 to NT 4

[stealth17]

yes, time for everyone to make the switch to linux. Id be all linux now if the damned programs and games ran better

[Chris_F]

With four megs of RAM I can make a more functional DOS build than that, including slip, concurrent DOS and networking etc...but why would I run anything on four megs? that's just dense... if you are going to compare OS's compare all functions or don't bother...

lol, I hope thats a joke. DOS could never be considered a functional operating system.

BSD is going to have much more functionality.

[Sentential]

I really like Vista's new scheme over XP. Especially as the theme files are on the internet now. Im definatly likeing this patched version of XP :)

[i found nemo]

i dunno what i got what version on my desktop it says build 3790 and it don't look like that (x64 professional) it uses 187mb of ram bare bone

[craig588]

That's a much older program, that build number sounds like it came from XP. I think you need to stop downloading weird warez.

[nn_step]

Why does it look more like a polished version of kde :confused: ...anyhoo, what are the min reqs on this ?

Perkam
because once again windows did a cut and paste with Open sourse software...

[TMM]

Anyone tried build 5231? I had Beta1 on my AthlonXP box, but then i tried build 5219 but i couldn't load my sata drivers because something is broked in that release! :p IM hopeing this is fixed in 5231...

[Master_G]

I have to say after a relatively long wait for this OS, the initial signs are nothing but underwhelming, i see very little in Vista that makes me want to upgrade, i know where most of my files are, and a system hogging search system is not going to make my life any better, XP already has easy connectivity for all the stuff i want, so all i see in Vista is big brother style DRM (im no fan of piracy but hate being controlled and having to tell the state what im doing, i like my liberty and privacy).
Atm what are the selling points of Vista?

G

[nn_step]

Microsoft is an advertising company that just happens to sell Software..
If you get more than 1 good product out of them I will be surprised...

as for the selling points.. pretty interface and it supports the latest games.. thats about it.. with a $400 price tag...