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05-05-08
Duration of ownership:
Strengths: Less demanding on hardware comparing to other versions of Vista. Better security settings.
Weaknesses:Lacks some of the better Vista features. Still uses quite a lot of hard drive space and memory comparing to XP.
Overall Evaluation: Got it for a bargain price and installed fine on a desktop with AMD X2 4200 and 1GB memory. Installation took longer than XP although it's still acceptable. You can't do straight upgrade from XP Professional to this version so you'll have to do a clean install of Vista Basic first (you could use the same media) and then do upgrade from there. Vista Basic does not have the bell and whistle of other versions such as Aero. You could still activate Aero by editing registry. Make sure your machine has enough power to support Aero though. I have Aero running with 1GB memory but you could hear hard drive running for swapping quite frequently. You may need 2GB or more if you want to run Vista Basic with Aero smoothly.
04-30-08
Duration of ownership:
Strengths: Has the latest DirectX 10 (if you're into games), good safeguards against doing stupid things (like running malicious code), excellent power management for laptops.
Weaknesses:Crashes a lot when transferring large files, the changes from XP are very non-intuitive (way more of a learning curve than there should be).
Overall Evaluation: After using Vista for many months, my assessment is that it is a slight step up from XP, but not nearly enough to justify actually paying money for. The biggest changes I noticed was how the My Documents are structured (totally different place and different way to get to them and use them), and also network connections (connecting to Wi-fi, the internet, etc.) Once I got used to them I liked them better than XP, but it took me weeks to figure them out completely. The big selling points I've heard in Microsoft advertisements (the new Aero look and feel, better searching/indexing) is a complete joke. Sure, Aero looks cool, but you stop noticing that in about 20 minutes. As for searching, it works fine if you search by file name, but if you are searching by file contents, it's terrible and you're better off using 3rd party programs. In short, if you're getting a new computer, I'd give Vista a try, especially if it's a laptop because the power management on Vista is good. But if you're doing fine on XP, stay where you are. The small baby step improvements will most likely be outweighed by the new negatives and surprisingly steep learning curve.
04-09-08
Duration of ownership:
Strengths: It's the latest version of Windows.
Weaknesses:It's not free but is reasonably priced.
Overall Evaluation: Search for yourself and you'll likely see that the "advantages" of any version of Vista are largely overblown and for the majority of users (like myself who own both Vista Home and Ultimate) Vista Ultimate is far more money for the very small bit of "extra" features and all the more so for the price. The first extra upgrade that I recall getting was for Texas Hold 'Em....
03-09-08
Duration of ownership: 1 Weeks
Strengths: improved graphics, improved security, better interface
Weaknesses:not same capabilities as Home Premium or Ultimate; need to increase RAM for best results
Overall Evaluation: Vista Basic is pretty musch "as advertised"--not the bells and whistles of the more expensive versions, but (at least when loaded on a clean hard drive) more capable, prettier and secure than Windows XP. I ordered this for a computer that was not going to be used for heavy media work, but did decide to add 512MB of RAM to facilitate the program operation.
02-20-08
Duration of ownership: 2 Weeks
Strengths: Next-gen operating system, simpler/efficent ways to do old tasks. Direct X 10 gaming.
Weaknesses:Memory hog, "Basic" version dosen't include Aero 3D Desktop, OS only reads up to 3.25 of my 4GB memory kit.
Overall Evaluation: I purchased Vista Basic to run on a new gaming rig I was building. The system would only be used for gaming so I needed a DirextX 10 compatible OS. This version of vista is called "Basic" and it is exactly that. It has all the perks and improvements of Vista, but is missing a few bells and whisltes like the Aero 3D desktop. Overall I am happy with this purchase. Just make sure your system has plenty of RAM because this OS is a resource hog, I recommend atleast 2GB of RAM because just the desktop alone uses close to 1GB of memory.
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