# My Two-Cents on Windows Vista



## Archlute

I just received my new laptop yesterday. It came with Windows Vista Home Premium installed. I booted it up, read the tutorials in about a half hour, and it's all over - no pain, no confusion. 

I actually think that it is a significant improvement over Windows XP. The layout is clean, and understanding it seemed to be quite intuitive. The graphics are great, and the rotating 3D display of your running programs is a pretty cool piece of eye candy. It runs my old Office Professional 2000 suite, and Bibleworks 5.0 (after a patch for the fonts) without a glitch. The 3GB of RAM allow it to run very smoothly, and I have had no problem with freeze ups, crashes, or slow performance.

The OS came pre-installed, and I wonder if most of the complaints have come from people attempting to upgrade from XP as opposed to a clean installation, or with insufficient RAM?

Anyway, I'm very pleased with it. No problems here.


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## Semper Fidelis

I like it too for the bells and whistles Adam. Vista is a bit buggy on a couple of my upgraded machines but the bugs don't keep me from getting things done. I find the new Explorer interface to be the most convenient.


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## Backwoods Presbyterian

My only problem with Vista is the annoying "must check every bit of info for a virus" thing that it does.


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## Richard King

Sure Adam, if a guy reads tutorials and instructions. 
I suppose that approach could work.
I hear that works with all kinds of stuff. You have almost convinced me to start doing that.


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## Herald

Adam, it works fine for me. I have 6 gigs of RAM (overkill) and no problems.


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## Backwoods Presbyterian

Sweetness. You da man Josh. 


(How do I do that?)


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## PuritanCovenanter

My Dads is terrible but I just found out he only has 1 gig of ram. Does he need more Ram?


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## Backwoods Presbyterian

dumb question Josh , how do I get there?


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## Herald

Control panel ===> User Groups


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## Backwoods Presbyterian

Got it thanks!!! (Have to Restart)...


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## Reformingstudent

PuritanCovenanter said:


> My Dads is terrible but I just found out he only has 1 gig of ram. Does he need more Ram?



My PC has 1.0 GB Memory and 200GB Hard Drive and a 3500 AMD Athlon 64
processor. I am not computer savvy so I don't know if that's good or not. When I bought it two years ago I thought I had enough but now I'm not so sure. It's a lot better then what I used to have though. My last PC ran Windows ME and was real slow and Kept crashing all the time. made me wish I never had bought or looked at a PC.


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## danmpem

Reformingstudent said:


> PuritanCovenanter said:
> 
> 
> 
> My Dads is terrible but I just found out he only has 1 gig of ram. Does he need more Ram?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> My PC has 1.0 GB Memory and 200GB Hard Drive and a 3500 AMD Athlon 64
> processor. I am not computer savvy so I don't know if that's good or not. When I bought it two years ago I thought I had enough but now I'm not so sure. It's a lot better then what I used to have though. My last PC ran Windows ME and was real slow and Kept crashing all the time. made me wish I never had bought or looked at a PC.
Click to expand...


If you can get to 2 GB RAM, then it will be just great for Vista. You know, I used Windows ME once.

Once.


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## Archlute

Richard King said:


> Sure Adam, if a guy reads tutorials and instructions.
> I suppose that approach could work.
> I hear that works with all kinds of stuff. You have almost convinced me to start doing that.


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## Archlute

danmpem said:


> Reformingstudent said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> PuritanCovenanter said:
> 
> 
> 
> My Dads is terrible but I just found out he only has 1 gig of ram. Does he need more Ram?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> My PC has 1.0 GB Memory and 200GB Hard Drive and a 3500 AMD Athlon 64
> processor. I am not computer savvy so I don't know if that's good or not. When I bought it two years ago I thought I had enough but now I'm not so sure. It's a lot better then what I used to have though. My last PC ran Windows ME and was real slow and Kept crashing all the time. made me wish I never had bought or looked at a PC.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> If you can get to 2 GB RAM, then it will be just great for Vista. You know, I used Windows ME once.
> 
> Once.
Click to expand...


'Tis true. The reason being that the Vista OS takes up 80% of your 1 Gig just for itself, leaving you with a measly 200 MB. Everything that I had read stated that 2 Gigs was the satisfactory minimum.


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## toddpedlar

Archlute said:


> danmpem said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Reformingstudent said:
> 
> 
> 
> My PC has 1.0 GB Memory and 200GB Hard Drive and a 3500 AMD Athlon 64
> processor. I am not computer savvy so I don't know if that's good or not. When I bought it two years ago I thought I had enough but now I'm not so sure. It's a lot better then what I used to have though. My last PC ran Windows ME and was real slow and Kept crashing all the time. made me wish I never had bought or looked at a PC.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> If you can get to 2 GB RAM, then it will be just great for Vista. You know, I used Windows ME once.
> 
> Once.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> 'Tis true. The reason being that the Vista OS takes up 80% of your 1 Gig just for itself, leaving you with a measly 200 MB. Everything that I had read stated that 2 Gigs was the satisfactory minimum.
Click to expand...


And you really ought to just get 3 Gig for the best performance. You can use most of 4 (3.4 to be exact, if memory serves, but because of the limitations of a 32-bit system you can't practically use all 4 Gb). Bill's 6pack is truly overkill ('cause unless he's hotwired something, or if he's using Vista-64, he can't access more than about 3.4Gb).


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## toddpedlar

I've just ordered a 2.4 GHz tablet PC from Toshiba, and it'll run Vista, with 4 Gb installed (plus a 1Gb disk cache for faster access time).


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## danmpem

Archlute said:


> 'Tis true. The reason being that the Vista OS takes up 80% of your 1 Gig just for itself, leaving you with a measly 200 MB. Everything that I had read stated that 2 Gigs was the satisfactory minimum.



It does, but understand that Vista utilizes the RAM and processor on faster computers much better than XP. While I am not a big fan of Vista, I must still be balanced and acknowledge the perks.


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## DMcFadden

Archlute said:


> The graphics are great, and the rotating 3D display of your running programs is a pretty cool piece of eye candy.Anyway, I'm very pleased with it. No problems here.



Best Buy finally replaced my old computer (after 8 separate trips to get it fixed!!!). The new one has 3GB of memory and seems to run very well with Vista Home Premium.

Adam, how do you get the rotating 3D displays of your running programs? I have heard of it but never knew how to do it.

Dennis


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## danmpem

Ctrl + Alt + Left/Right



Oops, sorry. You meant with Vista.


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## Staphlobob

danmpem;404693
If you can get to 2 GB RAM said:


> I've got 2 GB RAM. But I still got rid of Vista and went back to XP because it was so slow. I know I'll have to get it in the future, but I'm going to make sure I've got at least 4 GB RAM first.


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## danmpem

Staphlobob said:


> I've got 2 GB RAM. But I still got rid of Vista and went back to XP because it was so slow. I know I'll have to get it in the future, but I'm going to make sure I've got at least 4 GB RAM first.



Good move in upgrading to XP!


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## pilgrim3970

I'm not all that crazy about it. I have it on my personal laptop and had it on my PC at work. All that whiz bang=resource hog. After Vista went belly up from a update, I reisntalled XP on my office PC (which isn't a slouch - 3 Ghz Dual Core Pentium, 2GB Ram) and saw exactly how much faster XP is over Vista. 

Of course, my OS of choice is Linux. Will probably wipe my laptop and install Linux in the near future.


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## LadyFlynt

Dude! That's wicked! I've never seen such before....



danmpem said:


> Ctrl + Alt + Left/Right
> 
> 
> 
> Oops, sorry. You meant with Vista.


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## Davidius

DMcFadden said:


> Archlute said:
> 
> 
> 
> The graphics are great, and the rotating 3D display of your running programs is a pretty cool piece of eye candy.Anyway, I'm very pleased with it. No problems here.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Best Buy finally replaced my old computer (after 8 separate trips to get it fixed!!!). The new one has 3GB of memory and seems to run very well with Vista Home Premium.
> 
> Adam, how do you get the rotating 3D displays of your running programs? I have heard of it but never knew how to do it.
> 
> Dennis
Click to expand...


Start + Tab for Flip 3D
Alt + Tab for regular Flip


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## LadyFlynt

Okay, for fun I pressed Ctrl + Alt + Left to see what would happen on XP  And yes, it does do something!

(and Ctrl + Alt + Up will fix it  )


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## VictorBravo

LadyFlynt said:


> Okay, for fun I pressed Ctrl + Alt + Left to see what would happen on XP  And yes, it does do something!
> 
> (and Ctrl + Alt + Up will fix it  )



WOW! I never knew that.

Now I have to go out for a walk to rid myself of dizzyness.


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## Archlute

Davidius said:


> DMcFadden said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Archlute said:
> 
> 
> 
> The graphics are great, and the rotating 3D display of your running programs is a pretty cool piece of eye candy.Anyway, I'm very pleased with it. No problems here.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Best Buy finally replaced my old computer (after 8 separate trips to get it fixed!!!). The new one has 3GB of memory and seems to run very well with Vista Home Premium.
> 
> Adam, how do you get the rotating 3D displays of your running programs? I have heard of it but never knew how to do it.
> 
> Dennis
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Start + Tab for Flip 3D
> Alt + Tab for regular Flip
Click to expand...


There is also an icon located in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen on your task bar. If you select it, it stays in 3D mode w/o needing to keep the above keys depressed. You use the up/right or down/left keys to rotate your screens, and if you want to exit that mode then you can select the desktop icon to the left of the 3D icon.


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## Archlute

joshua said:


> Davidius said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> DMcFadden said:
> 
> 
> 
> Best Buy finally replaced my old computer (after 8 separate trips to get it fixed!!!). The new one has 3GB of memory and seems to run very well with Vista Home Premium.
> 
> Adam, how do you get the rotating 3D displays of your running programs? I have heard of it but never knew how to do it.
> 
> Dennis
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Start + Tab for Flip 3D
> Alt + Tab for regular Flip
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> What is the "start" button? The one with the windows logo?
Click to expand...


Yes.


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## Reformingstudent

danmpem said:


> Reformingstudent said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> PuritanCovenanter said:
> 
> 
> 
> My Dads is terrible but I just found out he only has 1 gig of ram. Does he need more Ram?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> My PC has 1.0 GB Memory and 200GB Hard Drive and a 3500 AMD Athlon 64
> processor. I am not computer savvy so I don't know if that's good or not. When I bought it two years ago I thought I had enough but now I'm not so sure. It's a lot better then what I used to have though. My last PC ran Windows ME and was real slow and Kept crashing all the time. made me wish I never had bought or looked at a PC.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> If you can get to 2 GB RAM, then it will be just great for Vista. You know, I used Windows ME once.
> 
> Once.
Click to expand...


I take it that Once, was more then enough?


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## danmpem

Reformingstudent said:


> I take it that Once, was more then enough?



Oh yeah...


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## DMcFadden

Archlute said:


> Davidius said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> DMcFadden said:
> 
> 
> 
> Best Buy finally replaced my old computer (after 8 separate trips to get it fixed!!!). The new one has 3GB of memory and seems to run very well with Vista Home Premium.
> 
> Adam, how do you get the rotating 3D displays of your running programs? I have heard of it but never knew how to do it.
> 
> Dennis
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Start + Tab for Flip 3D
> Alt + Tab for regular Flip
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> There is also an icon located in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen on your task bar. If you select it, it stays in 3D mode w/o needing to keep the above keys depressed. You use the up/right or down/left keys to rotate your screens, and if you want to exit that mode then you can select the desktop icon to the left of the 3D icon.
Click to expand...


Thanks!


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## Archlute

joshua said:


> Archlute said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Davidius said:
> 
> 
> 
> Start + Tab for Flip 3D
> Alt + Tab for regular Flip
> 
> 
> 
> 
> There is also an icon located in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen on your task bar. If you select it, it stays in 3D mode w/o needing to keep the above keys depressed. You use the up/right or down/left keys to rotate your screens, and if you want to exit that mode then you can select the desktop icon to the left of the 3D icon.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> I do not see this. Also, pressing start+tab is not making it happen, either.
Click to expand...


Do you have Vista Basic or Premium? Only the Premium and Ultimate editions have this feature.


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## danmpem

LadyFlynt said:


> Dude! That's wicked! I've never seen such before....
> 
> 
> 
> danmpem said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Ctrl + Alt + Left/Right
> 
> 
> 
> Oops, sorry. You meant with Vista.
Click to expand...


It's Linux - the best thing to happen to computers since Moore's law.


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## LadyFlynt

danmpem said:


> Reformingstudent said:
> 
> 
> 
> I take it that Once, was more then enough?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Oh yeah...
Click to expand...


Yep, we had ME once...and it did exactly what it's initials stood for...


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## wallingj

PuritanCovenanter said:


> My Dads is terrible but I just found out he only has 1 gig of ram. Does he need more Ram?



Turn of the Aero interface. MS recommends the min of 1gig of mem and 128mb video card for the interface to work. It will slow down the system. You can ddd another gig of memory if you want to keep the interface and work at a decent speed.


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## danmpem

LadyFlynt said:


> Yep, we had ME once...and it did exactly what it's initials stood for...



Hmm?


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## LadyFlynt

danmpem said:


> LadyFlynt said:
> 
> 
> 
> Yep, we had ME once...and it did exactly what it's initials stood for...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Hmm?
Click to expand...

Might Explode


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## wallingj

You go under the personlinization settings then Window Color and Appearance, then if you have to click open classic appearnce settings and choose Windows Vista Basic. You loose the pretty 3D graphic interface but you gain back some memory. MS Home Premium min requirements are 
A 1 GHz 32-bit or 64-bit processor 
1 GB of system memory 
A 40 GB hard drive with at least 15 GB of free space 
At least 128 MB of graphics memory 
The reason why is because of the Aero Interface. That is why the Vista Home edition minium requirements are only 512mb of RAM and a video card with less memory. Vista Home Standard does not provide the Aero interface.


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## danmpem

LadyFlynt said:


> danmpem said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> LadyFlynt said:
> 
> 
> 
> Yep, we had ME once...and it did exactly what it's initials stood for...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Hmm?
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> Might Explode
Click to expand...


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## servantofmosthigh

I'm running Vista now on my new computer. I love the new OS. But I can't stand the Office redesign of the toolbar. I called MS to complain that I didn't like the new design of MS Office toolbars. They said to me, "Waaaaaaaaaaa!"

haha!


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## jbergsing

I have $.02 worth of input for Vista ... buy a Mac! (Sorry, I couldn't resist!)


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## diverumve

*scanning for viruses*



Backwoods Presbyterian said:


> My only problem with Vista is the annoying "must check every bit of info for a virus" thing that it does.



do not get annoyed at vista when the antivirus does this virus scan as the only real virus scan is a thorough one. if the antivirus overlooks a single file it can easily contract an infection in the system. and believe me viruses can get past antiviruses very easily regardless of how upto date the antiviruses are as the antiviruses are only as good as the definitions for viruses they have provided by the manufacturer. 

Matthew "umve" Unverferth
affiliation (RPCGA)
Largo, Florida


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## etexas

jbergsing said:


> I have $.02 worth of input for Vista ... buy a Mac! (Sorry, I couldn't resist!)


Chuckle!


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## servantofmosthigh

LadyFlynt said:


> Dude! That's wicked! I've never seen such before....
> 
> 
> 
> danmpem said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Ctrl + Alt + Left/Right
> 
> 
> 
> Oops, sorry. You meant with Vista.
Click to expand...



I think Vista's task manager is just as wicked.


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## Ivan

Wow!! It jumps off the screen like that?!?! Are the edges sharp?!


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## servantofmosthigh

Ivan said:


> Wow!! It jumps off the screen like that?!?! Are the edges sharp?!



Sharper than the blade edges of Bruce Wayne, Prince Caspian, Aragorn and Dragon Emporer combined.


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