I have had a reasonable amount of time to run Vista x86 and x64 through its paces the past few months. I have settled on the x64 due to minor improvements.

 

I did not have any issues with the Vista WDDM NVidia drivers, they performed well. However, they did not support many of the features that video cards have the ability to utilize, SSE, Shared Memory, a current OGL, and many more. MS is fond of cutting out all that may have the potential to destabilize the OS, and NVidia has instituted a Beta driver program to resolve broken app issues.

 

Beyond the necessity of having to have a least one computer using Vista, and the rich graphic look of Vista, ReadyBoost turned out to be a plus. For those who use the x86 system and cannot upgrade beyond 2 gigs of ram, they now can give an additional boost to the system with flash ram. I tried the option and installed a 200x USB Flash module that reads at 32 m and writes at 16 to 17 m. ReadyBoost used the flash ram to cache out 640 megs of Operating System to the USB drive. This allows the 2 gigs of ram to function at full capacity, and together does give a slight boost to the system in speed. This also works well on the x64 OS, but is not a substitute for 4 gigs versus 2 gigs. Microsoft says it is considering altering this deficiency in a later upgrade to include the ability for x64 systems with less than 4 gigs to use the Flash as an add-on, giving the x64 an additional boost without upgrading the mobo.

 

Here are some of the problems I have encountered this past month:

 

SATA drives that are not VISTA certified are a problem. An SATA drive must now be initialized before operation, special ID’s and security features. Some drives do not have the software written that can accomplish this.  You can do this by adding the drive while running a PATA, and then setting up the SATA with the Microsoft OS, then install to the SATA. You can see the potential for later problems.

 

Of course all of the Video Card drivers at the present are struggling to keep up with Vista and will take some time before they have the bugs worked out. All and all, most programs affected are users of high-end 3D features, like Vue, but new drivers are being written.

 

Beyond the installation of software and UAC, other security, and compatibility problems with third party software is Windows Defender. It constantly crashes the system. However, blue screens are few, and usually Windows kills the app and restarts the OS under the hood. Restarting the app is usually possible without a reboot. 

 

Side by Side is a problem, but can be remedied by installing the correct redistributable MFC package. Vista has the Winsxs Folder that installs older application required MFC packages. Normally this would cause a lot of trouble, but not now, you can install MFC’s with the same version and different dates and vice versa side by sidfe. This keeps all of the apps working normally without taking the system down.

 

Vista is still not very good at cleaning up after itself and a lot of useless files can remain on the hard drive. Several programs write very large files when they encounter an OS crash or other problem. Mini dumps and now Maxi dumps are common. On my system, in two crashes 1.3 gigs of crash files were created. You can get rid of these files with the Clean Drive app.

 

Many third party progs like to download and install a patch, and leave a copy that remains on the drive. I am not fond of this procedure, knowing that there is always a virus that can evade detection.  I would rather download the patch separate and scan the patch later before install.

 

Corel recently downloaded more than 300 megs of install files to the Download folder. You get rid of the patches and you cannot repair the app later. In one of these 120 meg patches that I downloaded from Corel , was a serious Worm Virus that was installed to my system that Norton could not remove, but did quarantine. I had to dump the partition, and reinstall a backup to get rid of the Virus. I have since shut down all automatic downloads and use the manual feature instead.

 

There are a lot of smaller issues, log files that keep getting dumped to the temp folders, and other hidden files and folders that tend to get large without your knowledge.

 

Vista has about a dozen programs working in the background logging and tracking everything going on in the OS and this is a valuable resource if you know how to get at the info.  This could also be a serious security risk.

 

Other than Vista being a bit faster than Win Xp, Win Xp is more stable. 

 

I would still recommend that if you buy Vista that you buy the Ultimate, although expensive, it has all of the features you would want when using a 3D package.  Just make sure your system can handle the overload.

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