I finally just had enough of my Windows Vista installation on my quad proessor 4gig system NVidia 8500GT. After the most recent Windows update poser was running dead slow (unusable).

So I used an old Win XP Pro disk and installed a dual boot. I didn't connect to the net once so no updates etc. I activated by phone.

Oh my God. Poser is actually working sooooooo much better that its frightening. No, not frightening - its FANTASTIC!!!

So, in case you've been wondering whether to do it or not, thats my story.

Incidentally, if your PC is running nothing but Poser is there any reason to have Vista?

best wishes to all

Here are some related links folks may find interesting:-

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9040318

http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=543

http://blogs.consumerreports.org/electronics/2008/02/vista-to-xp-the.html

http://weblog.infoworld.com/save-xp/

I purchased a new PC at the beginning of the year. I wanted one with XP but was told that they only came with Vista. After 6 hours of frustration the box still failed to communicate with my network so I took it back invoking my customer satisfaction rights. The store ( CompUSA ) was as good as gold and "found" an XP computer "in the back room". Back home unpacked, cabled up, switched on and all up and running in 5 minutes. I will not allow Vista in this office.

If it ain't broke don't fix it. Either that or the Vista installation should come with an initial user option screen:-

Do you want to be treated like a child? Y/N

Click Yes for Vista
Click No for XP

Sounds familiar. I have only 1 Vista machine in my office--and it's a new notebook PC that I purchased to replace an older one. Everything else is XP or OSX. Not a fan of Vista--at all.

And if you have only Poser on your machine, then there is no reason to require Vista. It works quite nicely under XP.

Since I worked in Tech Support for our cable company for nearly 3 years I've dealt a lot with Vista and the one thing I can say is that it defaults to a DSL protocol for internet.  In all the time I was doing internet support we never did get an answer from Microsoft on how to change that so, like PhilC, Vista is not allowed in my house. 

For  those of you interested, XP Pro is still available at newegg.com for $139.00

Victoria

Hello,
 Question: Is XP Pro a 64 bit operating system? I always get confused over the different varieties.

Thanks...

There's XP Pro 32 bit and 64 bit.  Both are available at newegg.

Thank God Poser is actually running really well under Vista for me.  But Vista is an incredible pain in the butt, really incredible pain in the butt.  Many of my old programs will make it lock up and freeze or just do plain funny things to it, it's such a pain.

Have no desire to run Vista myself, in fact once I get a bit further along I'm hoping to be able to dump windows on my primary machine entirely.  I'm currently running Win XP Pro x64 only because I have to to run Poser properly.

I've tried Poser running under wine on various Linux boxes and just can't get a satisfactory result, however once I get a bit further along with the open source replacement I'm working on I'm hoping to be able to dump windows entirely and switch over to Linux on my primary machine.

I like a lot of windows apps, but as for the OS itself, never really been much of a fan.  Way to much of a resource pig for what it does.

I was one who was prepared to put up a good fight for Vista because I think a lot of Microsoft haters were trashing it for 'political' reasons. I was also one who went with XP fairly early when the prior generation fans were screaming about it. I fell in love with XP for 5 years.

So.....Vista 64, Q6600, GeForce 8800 GT, 8GIGS RAM, Intel motherboard, etc etc.

.....trouble trouble trouble, including the aformentioned Poser slowness. I mean it loaded textures so slow I was sure I had done something wrong.  It WOULD NOT FIND my hard drives until I performed several exhausting maneuvers with the assistance of a (paid) GeekSquad guy.

I took it off and installed XP Pro.

I found out you can "downgrade" as Balmer calls it from vista to XP. THat's for me.

::::: Opera :::::

I built a Core2Quad Machine last year. I started with a 2 GB (I added 2 more gb a couple of months ago) of  RAM, 500 Gb SATA3 HD (I added an additional 500 GB internal HD and an external 500 Gb HD, you can't have too many backups), GeForce 7600GT, Intel Motherboard. I have one 22in LCD, and a Cintiq 12UX hooked up. I installed Vista 64. I have Poser 6, VueInf64, ZBrush 3.1. Hex2.2. Except for an few occasional crashes on the Hex 2.2 everything else works fine.

The last machine I built 5 yrs ago (AMD 2800+ Shuttlebox) still works, but it had windows 2000.

JV

A lot of recent Microsoft "upgrades" have been on the shitty side. Excel was a bit shitty already, but 2008 is very shitty. I imagine that IE 8 will probably require that you use 3 separate sessions each time you want to type a URL, and then you'll have to log in as admin before you're actually allowed to visit that URL you just typed. Then you'll have to approve each and every HTML tag on the page as it loads.

This new security initiative is known as the Dynamic Integrated Administration for Local User Protection - note that this may result in the false perception that one's internet connection is slow. Also, starting with Windows Avanté, there will be a new file system, the Finite Linked Object Protection/Private Interface Execution system, which will use an advanced magnetic drive to ensure that sensitive files do not last long enough for criminals (or anyone else) to use them after a couple of days.

I'm in the Beta group for IE 8 and, actually, it's a nice piece of software.  It will emulate IE 7 and manages tabs better.  I've had far fewer problems with the beta of IE 8 than I had with the beta of IE 7 (I've been on the Microsoft IE beta team for 5 years now).

Quote - A lot of recent Microsoft "upgrades" have been on the shitty side. Excel was a bit shitty already, but 2008 is very shitty. I imagine that IE 8 will probably require that you use 3 separate sessions each time you want to type a URL, and then you'll have to log in as admin before you're actually allowed to visit that URL you just typed. Then you'll have to approve each and every HTML tag on the page as it loads.

This new security initiative is known as the Dynamic Integrated Administration for Local User Protection - note that this may result in the false perception that one's internet connection is slow. Also, starting with Windows Avanté, there will be a new file system, the Finite Linked Object Protection/Private Interface Execution system, which will use an advanced magnetic drive to ensure that sensitive files do not last long enough for criminals (or anyone else) to use them after a couple of days.

Lol - well, Windows has taken quite a beating about the fact that their OS is rather insecure when compared to others such as Linux, of course that insecurity has also been one of there biggest selling points since it provides much easier installation of programs and other operations.  However I think, at least from what I read, that Vista apparently went too far in the other direction - a bit of an overcompensation from what I understand.

Not sure how much good the new file system would do to be honest, I guess it might come in handy if your laptop was stolen, and you kept a bunch of sensitive info on your laptop, but barring that I just don't see that as being a really useful feature for most, in fact it sounds to me like it's probably going to cause a lot more problems then it actually solves - just hope they don't do something really stupid and turn it on by default.

But with any luck by that point the only windows box left in the house will be the wife's laptop, I'm hoping that I'll be able to go full Linux on all the desktops. 

Ok, first off, i'm very much on the side of those that don't like the security 'features' in Vista. I find them to be largely a pain in the butt and the most of my users are experiencing many problems trying to adjust to the new operating system. Please bear with me because I have tried to take some technical concepts and turn them into 'simple' english which may not sound 100% right. :biggrin:

The thing is, I fully understand why Microsoft have done what they have and where it all comes from originally. It comes from the Secure Computing Initiative that Microsoft have engaged in with other players in the industry. Basically, there is one group of people that we can all thank for the issues that we are experiencing with things like LUA (least privilige user account), limited access to administrative-level accounts, and other assorted crap like Digital Rights Management (DRM). With the exception of DRM, these measures have been put in place because the majority of home and business users demanded them in the first place!

Windows used to be notorius as an 'insecure' operating system that was easy to infect with viruses, trojans, etc, and just as easy to subvert to perform tasks and functions for hackers and other missfits at their whim. This stemmed largely from the fact that the older Microsoft operating systems were designed to give as much control to the users as possible, thereby letting them do whatever they wanted to with their own PC's. The major drive was to allow people to install, change and remove as much as they wanted to because, well, they wanted to ... This is part of the common belief that 'It's my PC therefore I have a right to do with it what I want to so don't stop me!'.

Ok, now the problem with that is that as a result of the operating systems being so open to 'tinkering' and full/administrative access they were also open to malicious code and intent too. This of course made users very uptight because viruses and malware were spreading throughout the Windows-based PC's like wildfire, and often without the knowledge of lesser technically oriented users. This of course was a ripe playground for people wanting to destroy data, spread viruses, steal personal information, and use other people's PC's to do their bidding.

So, along comes a new change in the attitude of the market place. 'Make our PC's safe, secure and hardened to security and vulnerability threats!'. Microsoft in effect say to the world 'look guys, they can either be safe, secure and a pain in the butt to work with or they can be open to use and abuse as you want to but at the same time vulnerable to outside attacks, malware, spyware, viruses, etc. Which is it to be?'. The resounding answer from those canvassed was 'make em safe, secure and hardened to outside threats!' so here we sit with Vista with all the security measures put in place to ensure that it is as difficult as possible for outside hackers, developers and so on to manipulate your PC into doing things they want it to, or for subversive software to grab hold and cause damage or loss of data to your PC, applicaitons and data.

It's a bit like the proverbial rock and a hard place to be honest because there has yet to be a product that is as safe and secure as possible that doesn't place limitations on the use thereof.

There are a lot of sources of information on the internet that go into detail on the Secure Computing Initiative and the way in which these principles have been implemented in the Vista operating system and why. Google will return a large number of hits if anyone is interested.

I purposefully didn't go into any great detail on DRM (Digital Rights Management) because that is another whole kettle of fish that has been enforced on the operating system and application developers by the music and movie industry to protect their products from piracy and illegal distribution. The jury is still very much out on that one too!

As per usual, just my 2c-worth, or given the length of my post maybe $5-worth! :biggrin:

I never thought I'd say this but Vista seems to be working just fine for me on this new dual core birthday present that was placed in my hands earlier this week.

Vista is and has always worked terrific for me also, I get fed up seeing all these negative Vista threads!!
I use Poser 6 and 7, Vue6Infinite, Photoshop CS3, Hexagon2.5 plus all the usual crap that we all have and I haven't had a single issue with Vista apart from having to re-learn a few basics that Vista does differently!!
And incidentally it runs my home network with 2 other computers with no problem!!

When I bought my new Toshiba laptop a few weeks ago, it had Vista pre-installed, and I didn't notice any problems. So I'm not quite sure what all the fuss is about.

Then again, I did of course install Linux on it as soon as I could and never looked back. After using Windows XP almost exclusively for over three years, I think I've advanced from hating Windows for 'political reasons' to hating it for being the impractical piece of shit that it is. ;)

The only drawback of not running WIndows natively on my machine is having to fire up a virtual machine for Poser, because Wine apparently can't handle its various quirks.

Quote -
The only drawback of not running WIndows natively on my machine is having to fire up a virtual machine for Poser, because Wine apparently can't handle its various quirks.

For me Poser 7 works under Wine quite fast and reliably. However, I spent a lot of time tweaking it about, but it does work. I have a virtual machine with a stripped down XP which I intended to use Poser in, but so far Poser runs very nicely under Wine after I resolved some issues. Just to say that it IS possible to get it running under Wine. And it's much faster in Linux than it never was in Windows under the exact same hardware I have.

Quote -
For me Poser 7 works under Wine quite fast and reliably. However, I spent a lot of time tweaking it about, but it does work. I have a virtual machine with a stripped down XP which I intended to use Poser in, but so far Poser runs very nicely under Wine after I resolved some issues. Just to say that it IS possible to get it running under Wine. And it's much faster in Linux than it never was in Windows under the exact same hardware I have.

Well, I have to admit I don't know much about Wine configuration and haven't really tried anything to make it run. If you feel like sharing your tweaks, I'd be very interested. It would be awesome to be able to run Poser under Wine. At the moment, I'm still using Poser 6, but I'm thinking about upgrading to 7 or 7 Pro soon.

I actually didn't mention one other problem I have with my current hardware: Wings3D is incredibly slow on both Vista and Linux, but only if run natively. On XP within a virtual machine, it runs fine. On my other Linux machine at work, which has an NVidia card, it runs fine, too. So apparently, it has something to do with ATI's drivers.

Quote -
Well, I have to admit I don't know much about Wine configuration and haven't really tried anything to make it run. If you feel like sharing your tweaks, I'd be very interested. It would be awesome to be able to run Poser under Wine. At the moment, I'm still using Poser 6, but I'm thinking about upgrading to 7 or 7 Pro soon.

Here goes ... 

I now run the most current Wine version (1.0). In the preferences I forced Wine to be using "virtual desktop emulation at 1920x1200" (which is my native screen resolution) and have nothing else selected. Also I had to copy some (or all ... don't remember anymore) of the .dll files from Poser installation directory to Wine installation's System32 directory. I also copied some dll files (msvcrtl.dll, shell32.dll and maybe some other depending on what Wine whined about) from Windows/System32 directory but I'm not sure they are really needed anymore now that Wine has matured to version 1. I installed Poser in Wine using Poser installer, but the Sr2 updater doesn't run in Wine so I had to copy modified files from a Windows installation (not really convenient, but it works). When Poser launches I have to resize the main application to about 300x300 pixels size and organise all tools to be shown in that window (well they stay where they are since Poser remembers their position from launch to launch). Rest of the windows will flow and stay where I want them to (document window, libraries, parameter dials etc). This maneuver is to prevent an issue that happens when running Poser under Wine that "loses" other tool palettes behind the main window. It unfortunately forces one to possibly ditch some habits regarding tool palette placement, but other than that it's just cosmetic. I have an NVidia card and have no idea how Poser behaves with ATI cards.

My biggest problem was memory errors that prevented all Poser menus (except "Help" ... go figure) from showing up ... totally. It was caused by a Wine limitation and the only way I was able to overcome it was to strip down the number of directories I have in my single huge Runtime. Apparently Poser reads every directory in Runtime/Libraries/Character,Materials,Pose,Props etc and creates a menu structure from each taking exactly 80 bytes/menu structure. The space reserved for menu structures in Wine eventually rans out in less than 4000 directories and I had over 4500. After I stripped down and re-organised my Runtime I had Wine fully working. It's painless to calculate the number of directories used by issuing something like "find ./ -type d | wc -l" command when in Runtime/Libraries. I actually calculated them separately and pruned down the most consuming structures first.

These steps are by no means trivial and it's very apparent that running Poser under Wine takes some dedication and computer savvyness. On the other hand Poser rans very fast in Linux so it's worth the time spent in the end. Particularly rendering and very demanding Python scripts (like Wardrobe Wizard 2 clothing conversions) are much faster than in Windows.

Thanks a bunch, 12rounds! I'll try this as soon as I'm back home.

It's been awhile since I have worked in Vue6Infinite, and I see that once again, I need to re-install it because it won't even load up. I keep getting a Vue6Infinite has stopped working error message.  I've had to re-install Vue6Infinite about six times already and I'm guessing that it Vista that causes that.

Quote - Ok, first off, i'm very much on the side of those that don't like the security 'features' in Vista. I find them to be largely a pain in the butt and the most of my users are experiencing many problems trying to adjust to the new operating system. Please bear with me because I have tried to take some technical concepts and turn them into 'simple' english which may not sound 100% right. :biggrin:

Well, personally I rather like the idea of a secure OS in which admin privledges are limited, but then again I'm a Linux fan so this is something I'm accustomed too and appreciate.

However the scuttlebutt I've heard about Vista is that it's a royal pain in the keester - even some simple operations, like copying a file from one drive to another, often requires multiple acknowledgements that access should be granted for this operation to occur.

Ok, I'm all for hardening the OS, don't get me wrong, but since most viruses install themselves by piggy backing on other installation programs, and most end users don't know enough to say "no" to a process their not that familiar with, I just don't see this multiple yes/no acknowlegement as being a really good idea as far as a security feature for most.

It's something akin to the boy that cried wolf - after the 20 or 30th time you see the same box pop up asking you for permission the more likely it is the end user will just click yes without actually reading the contents, after all they are installing something intentionally anyway so they expect that annoying box to pop up already.

So while I understand and respect how difficult it is to secure certain portions of the OS effectively and still have the system be "user friendly" in many regards, I don't see the new features in Vista as being very effective over the long term for most users. 

Personally I think Vista should be paranoid about anything that overwrites files in the system directory, anything that tries to install itself as a root kit, and anything that tries to set itself up as a "service".

I think it should also be rather suspicious of anything that tries to access a port for external communication, but this utter and extreme paranoia it seems to have about something as innocuous as copying or moving non-system files is where I see the big downfall.  It pops up so many warning boxes that the warnings themselves become ineffective.

Just my 2 cents worth, mind you, but I prefer the Linux method - you enter an admin password for such critical operations, and then it performs them.  It doesn't stop at each stage and ask you over and over and over again to reconfirm.  You can't access any of the critical OS files, or overwrite them, without enteirng an admin password.  It's a simple approach, but pretty darn effective overall.

Maybe I'm lucky?

I've been running Vista on a new Dell system with zero .. yep - thats right, ZERO issues or problems.

Connected up to my wireless network in about 15 seconds and havent had any performance issues at all.

I still love my XP boxes (I have 2 of them) but the Vista box has been running just fine for me.

Just thought I would pass along some info on a good experience with Vista since most of what you hear has been bad.

Clint

well, let's see for how long anyone will be able to buy XP.

"Windows XP reaches its end of life on 30 June but Microsoft has now said it can continue being sold until June 2010 but only on cheap desktops."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7435278.stm

I think if you already have a license you should be covered for longer than this, I assume.

I have Vista at work and XP at home, and though my work PC is meant to be faster and has all the new bells and whistles, the difference is not that great. And some of my everyday apps at work do not work as well as they used to. I noticed Adobe imageready CS gets stuck on network traffic a lot.
And like everyone else, I had to turn off about 95% of the security features to get it going properly, which is not a problem at work, since the network is secure. But I can see how this at home would be a more risky and confusing setup, I would have trouble coming up up with a working compromise between a secure and fully working environment.

I personally have no need for Vista, and will not be getting it. The 'improvements' are mostly about security, which is fine for a new user, but I don't need them at all since I know what I'm doing. The bad side of Vista is its dog slow boot up speed, and huge system requirements boost over XP.

However there is one thing to note, that as far as hardware support goes, if you go from XP 32bits to Vista 64bits, you're really making 2 different upgrades. 64bits drivers need to be completely rewritten, you can't use the 32bits one. It's the same thing for XP. Also unless you are running a server, or want more than 4GB of RAM (a 32bits OS can only support around 3.5GB of RAM address space), most people could stick with a 32bits version.

I also agree with the statement "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."

Interesting discussion
Brings me to me questions:  all I really care about is my rendering time, getting it small (fast) as possible in a number of applications, actually. Will 64 bit OS be the way to go, if wanting to maximize potential of  quadcore machine, even if it only has 4 gigs ram ? Does ram really affect render times?  isn't it primarily the processing speed?
And, if a render slave network is created, do all the slaves have to be uniform (either 64 or 32 OS)? IOW, is "mixing" allowed by the best render slave apps?  
thanks
eye

From all the bad news I read on the net I was totally prepared to rip Vista off of my new PC when I bought it but I gave it a chance. Turned off UAC as soon as I could find it and other than a few minor network blips where it's taken longer than I expected for it to find my other computers on the network, it's not given me any issues.

activate by phone???? i didnt know you could do this with XP, how is that possible????

as for vista, tis a no no for me, i just bought XP pro 64 for the machine i will be building soon, as apparently xp will be off the shelves next month...

Running a render farm here at home: 3 Q6600 /8GB /XP64 machines. This renderfarm allows me to create and render scenes that are just plain impossible under 32 bits - renders that take up to 30 GB of virtual memory, far more than the 3 GB that Win32 allows.

Vista 64 Ultimate? In short, if I want an OS loaded with useless graphical gadgets, I'd go for a Mac - Apple's gadgets are just as useless as Vista's, but they look nicer (Apple has a lot more experience with creating good looking useless gadgets).
No, I want an OS that is lean, mean, lets me use a boatload of RAM and virtual memory, and runs the apps that I use. That OS is WinXP 64 bit.

PS: If Vue and Poser would run well under Linux native, I'd use Linux. Wine is too limited to run those apps well.

svdl, I am really interested in what you are saying, and would like to know:
what graphics card did you choose? And, does the graphics card matter all that much in frame renders (as opposed to real-time: gaming and 3D scene interfacing)?
thanks
eye

Graphics cards do not matter at all when rendering in Poser/Vue/Max/Carrara. At least, not as long as the rendering engine is CPU based - you just need a fast CPU.
Graphics cards do mantter in preview - the faster the card,, the more responsive your work area is, even at higher quality previews.

The RT2 rendering engine uses the graphics card instead of the CPU for rendering, and is amazingly fast (rendering on a modest nVidia 6600GT was ten times as fast as on a dual core Pentium D). RT2 is not usable from low end or midrange 3D products, but Maya and Max can use it.
I fervently hope that the Gelato project (non-realtime rendering on nVidia graphics cards, 8xxx or higher series) takes off, the graphics card is just far better suited for rendering than the GPU. Actually, the new nVida GTX 280 chip can do about 10 times as many calculations as the fastest Intel quad core CPU, and the newest ATI chip (4870) is even faster...

Still, I'd go with nVidia, since nVidia is far ahead of ATI when it comes to utilizing the graphics card for non-graphics usage. I expect it won't take too long before you won't use render farms anymore, instead, a single PC with a relatively low powered CPU and 4 fast nVidia graphics card in SLI mode will be faster than a current render farm consisting of 32 high end CPUs...

And another thing: nVidia supports XP 64 bit. ATI doesn't.

What graphics card did I choose?
I have 3 fast systems (Q6600/8 GB RAM), 2 of which are dual monitor graphics workstations. One has a nVidia 8800 GT, the other one (somehwhat older) has a nVidia 7800GTX. The third workstation, which I use for programming, rendering and Internet communications, has an nVidia 7900GS.

My server runs on an Athlon64x2 3800+, and has a 8600GT graphics card. Overkill for a server, but I just had that graphics card laying around, and it's slower than the 7900GS.

Thanks svdl, for turning me on to Gelato, that sounds like it has some promise!
I would love to speed up ALL my rendering, of course, not just Poser, but probably even more so my Lightwave (9.3)  and (eyeon) Fusion (5.3) renders... and they are high-end enough that I have some hope that Gelato plug-ins will appear eventually. Unfortunately, they aren't the most popular programs around.  That's the best part about the CPU approach is that everything becomes faster across the board, ...but those GPU based speeds are sounding irresistible!

Quote - Vista is and has always worked terrific for me also, I get fed up seeing all these negative Vista threads!!
I use Poser 6 and 7, Vue6Infinite, Photoshop CS3, Hexagon2.5 plus all the usual crap that we all have and I haven't had a single issue with Vista apart from having to re-learn a few basics that Vista does differently!!
And incidentally it runs my home network with 2 other computers with no problem!!

Yep, what he said! No problems with Vista and I'm running the same programs as above mentioned plus PoserPro, PhotoImpact, Carrara 6 Pro, Dreamweaver MX Studio 2004 (which would not run under Vista 64 like some experts claimed), Mailwasher and lots of other stuff that I had on XP 32 and that is now running as good or even better on Vista 64 - especially Poser 7 that runs much better on Vista 64 than it ever did on XP.

Okay I recently noticed that along with Vue6Infinite not working anymore, that P3dO Explorer isn't either.    With both I get "a problem caused the program to stop working correctly" error message even before the program loads.  I haven't used either program in a while, but I'm wondering if it's because of an update with Vista.   I did try to re-install P3dO Explorer, but it still won't start.  I don't know how to troubleshoot the cause, so..... I'm just hoping that another update will fix it.

Well, all I can say is if you're using an older machine with older hardware (doesn't even need to be that old, really, even only a year or two), then XP is probably the route to take.

Myself, I have all fairly new stuff, because I'm in a continuous state of updating. I have an XP 64 bit partition and a Vista Ultimate 64 bit partition, and I can say with 100% certainty that all my apps run smoother and quicker under Vista on this machine. Particularly, my 8800 GTS definitely performs better under Vista than XP, with the same driver release. Especially with Poser. I don't use Poser much at all anymore, but it only takes a minute to see the difference between OGL performance between Vista and XP.
These things are dependent on many factors. You can't just say Vista sux! because it won't run your favorite program well, and you can't say it sux because you haven't learned how to use it.

Vista works, and it works exceedingly well. For most people it works fine right out of the box, for others, it needs some tweaking. Sometimes you have to know what to turn off and what to leave alone.
For those put off by that idea, for those who don't know how to deal with that, for those with mismatched hardware, weak links like cheap RAM, undervolted hardware due to wrong BIOS settings, for those simply not interested in keeping up, then XP is still here, and will be for a while.

For those who are into getting the most out of their system and those who are into buying the latest hardware, and who want the best performance, there's Vista, preferably 64 bit.

XP is an excellent OS. So is Vista. Hundreds of thousands of custom PC builders and those of us who play games and use apps requiring huge amounts of power and RAM can't all be wrong.
One thing I've noticed is the Vista bashers tend to have outdated or mismatched hardware, software, or are often fairly computer illiterate.

Vista is where MS is headed. Windows 7 will probably be alot like it. Stick with XP for as long as you can, but don't go around saying Vista is garbage because you or your system can't handle it and use it.

All systems that I have can run Vista. Actually, they all can run Vista 64 bit. My oldest computer (a Sempron 2600 with 1 GB of RAM) wouldn't have many resources left when Vista is loaded, though. XP Pro uses far less resources, so that's what I run on that Sempron system.

I run Vista Ultimate 64 on my laptop. Couldn't find some essential drivers for XP64, that's why.
I've found that several utility apps don't run well  on Vista 64, utillies like Spanki's STOMP and Objaction Scaler.
It's far easier to manage XP than to manage Vista, especially when it comes to networking. In XP, I can easily find out what's wrong (if there is something wrong, that is. Doesn't happen all that often), and I can easily correct it. With Vista, things aren't as easy to manage.
Security out of the box in Vista is better than in XP. But configuring Vista to make it usable is more work than configuring XP to make it safe - especially since I run an Active Directory domain so I only have to join the machine to the domain.

On my laptop, I've disabled as many of the gadgets as possible, and I use the classic Windows 2000 user interface. It's clean and far less resource hungry than Aero. Still, Vista 64 gobbles up 700 MB of RAM on its own, while a clean XP 64 installation uses less than 200 MB.

I'll skip Vista for my desktop systems. I'm curious as to what MS will put into Windows 7 - I expect that they will think long and hard about why Vista doesn't take off the way they thought it would, and I hope they'll make Windows 7 into an OS that is both usable and secure, leaving out the unnecessary gadgets.

There's a new trend in hardware too. Fanless computers. CPUs and GPUs designed to use a minimum amount of power, not designed for maximum performance. Fanless PSUs with modest power output (300W) are already available. It's possible to build a completely fanless computer nowadays, but it sure doesn't have the raw computing power that is required by Vista.
So if Microsoft is smart, they'll make a lightweight version of Windows 7 that'll run fine on these fanless PCs. Right now, XP is the only Windows version that will not overload these machines.
I expect that the fanless PC will have a sizalbe market share - low power consumption, absolutely silent, it'll be great for a home theater PC.
As for powerful PCs - I want to use the CPU/GPU/RAM for my applications! Not for the OS.

In my opinion, despite some good ideas in the system, Vista is a step in the wrong direction, and the market has rightfully slapped MS on the wrist.

svdl,

After I typed the above, I went back and read all the previous comments. I was only replying to a few here, but also responding to many previous Vista bashing threads I've read elsewhere.

I wasn't responding to you. I know you know your stuff, and I suspect your opposition to Vista is more a preference than a lack of understanding.

I probably was a bit more harsh about it than I should have been, but these kind of threads tick me off.
I do agree MS has kind of screwed up with the way they've implemented Vista. I do know it's not really the fault of many of the people out there when the PC manufacturers and dealers are creating and selling machines which aren't up to the task. That is a problem which I know alot of casual users aren't even aware of until it's too late.

As for power, well, I suppose the home user market will be heading in the lower power direction. Myself, I want more more more. I just bought a 1000 watt PSU for the new machine I'm building, which is going to have a Core 2 Extreme, and possibly a pair of nvidia 9800's in it, if I decide to go SLI - I might just get another 8800 GTS for now and leave the SLI for later.
Well, the 9000+ series uses less power than the 8000+ series, but even so, with 8 gigs of DDR3 and a 150w core 2 extreme quad core CPU, there's a definite need for high power and much cooling. Those of us who use powerful number-crunching 3D apps and want to play the latest, greatest games simply need all that power and performance.

Well, I'll end this with this: I personally like Vista, and have had no troubles with it since I beat it into submission. I have also seen the evidence with my own eyes how on my system almost all my graphics apps and games do better on Vista x64 than on XP x64. LightWave and Poser, for example definitely perform better and quicker. Not drastically so, but int he case of Poser and OGL, the performance in Vista is drastically improved. Other programs such as modo don't seem to run quicker, but not slower, either, and are very bit as stable. I haven't had a single - not one - BSOD under Vista x64 in all the time I've been using it, which is since October '07.
And of course, you can't have DirectX 10 in XP, which is a definite good reason to go Vista, especially if you're a gamer.

If other people have other opinions, that's fine. :-) 
I just don't like reading "Vista is a steaming heap of crap" all the time, mostly from people who simply don't understand it.
For the record, I do believe MS should have made the basic versions, such as Vista Home (or whatever it's called) a little more intuitive and less automatic in its maternal ways.

Any of you having any trouble with getting your graphics tablet to work in vista?

Quote - Any of you having any trouble with getting your graphics tablet to work in vista?

I recently bought a new Wacom Intuos 3, 4"x6" and have had no real trouble with it under Vista x64. I did have to update to the latest Wacom 64 bit drivers from their website though.
Some people have had some problems with that same model and Vista , but I'm not one of them. Occasionally it gives me trouble dealing with my dual monitor setup in Painter X, but can be reset. I think that's a Painter thing though, not Wacom, as it always works flawlessly sculpting and painting in ZBrush and modo and painting in Deep Paint 3D.

I've got the new drivers but every time I install them my tablet quits working period.  I'm running vista 32 though maybe that's the problem.  It's on a new Dell XPS core2 quad core Q6600. But I cannot seem to get this wacom intous 3 tablet installed properly on it. Sometimes the screen goes black and nothing works at all, actually have to unplug the machine and reboot.

Max, Zbrush and Poser work great on it but I really need my tablet.

Something I remember reading somewhere in some other forum - in the Tablet Properties panel, try disabling the function keys. I don't know if it's a Wacom problem, but I remember reading some people saying that was causing crashes and lockups with some programs.
They do work for me, though, except in Deep Paint 3D, although that doesn't cause any crashes.

Well I'm through fighting with this OS I'm going to XP X64.  I just dont have the time or patience to redesign the whole OS to work, truthfully I'm plain disgusted with it.  If I could I'd go back to Win 98.  Someone mentioned Linux? Will Linux run Max, Zbrush and Poser? I am totally ready to give up on microsoft forever if I can find an alternative.  I have an old linux slackware I think or something like that, I think I have redhat too, theyre probably too old for this though.. I,m running a new Dell XPS core2 quad Q6600, and I especially want my Wacom intous 3 graphics tablet to work. How about linux/ Can it do what I want?

Will Linux run Max, ZBrush and Poser?

Not out of the box. You'll need Wine or something similar.
And if you don't want to redesign the whole OS to work, stay away from Wine! It can be bullied into letting Poser and other apps work, but it takes quite a bit of configuring.

Poser and Max work fine on WinXP64. I'm not sure about tablet drivers though. Drivers is the main problem area with XP64.

Phantom, as for your Wacom not working, you simply have some other problem somewhere, maybe a driver conflict. But I can tell you, the Wacom Intuos 3 definitely does work in Vista. They just came out with the 6.08 drivers 11 days ago. Maybe try the 6.05 drivers?
But since you're having problems, and don't want to dick with it, you should go back to XP. I wouldn't recommend Win 98 though. Win 2000 is more stable.

I have the tablet drivers for XP X64, and I ordered XP Pro X64 from Newegg, I could only get the OEM, it's all they had.  I don't mind finding drivers I'm used to that, as long as they will work when I install them.  I also have a driver CD for this computer that has all the drivers on it for a 64 bit OS. And I like to be able to uninstall all the extra crap from an OS that I can because they're usually useless to me. I do absolutely nothing at all with my computer other than 3D graphics. Don't even surf the net with it, I have an old junky machine for that. Hope XP X64 works for me, and its at least somewhat familliar.  Vista might be a great OS I don't know, but I am old and do not want to go through a whole lot of fighting with the damn OS to do what it should do easily.

Quote - Well I'm through fighting with this OS I'm going to XP X64.  I just dont have the time or patience to redesign the whole OS to work, truthfully I'm plain disgusted with it.  If I could I'd go back to Win 98.  Someone mentioned Linux? Will Linux run Max, Zbrush and Poser? I am totally ready to give up on microsoft forever if I can find an alternative.  I have an old linux slackware I think or something like that, I think I have redhat too, theyre probably too old for this though.. I,m running a new Dell XPS core2 quad Q6600, and I especially want my Wacom intous 3 graphics tablet to work. How about linux/ Can it do what I want?

Well, it is possible to get Linux to run such apps, but if your lacking the time and patience to tune Vista to your needs I wouldn't recommend Linux.  Although I am a Linux fan myself, the power and speed are remarkable, the OS's biggest downfall is that you do have to do a lot of tuning and tweaking to get it working properly.

If your interested in trying LInux for the first time, I'd recommend you try a distribution like Ubuntu or Debian and setup a small partition on your drive for this purpose.  If you'd like to just "preview" LInux (or any other OS really) and see if it's worth actually getting into, you might want to try Virtual Box:

http://www.virtualbox.org/

You can install this under Windows and it setups a "virtual machine" that allows you to try out other OS's by installing them in a virtual enfironment that runs under windows.  This way you don't need to worry about dual booting, partitioning, or any of the other things that come with trying out a new os.  You can set it up as a "virtual machine" and test it out, see which distro is the one for you and go from there.  If you decide you like a certain brand of LInux you can always install a dual boot partition on your system at a later date, the virtual machine sort of allows you to try it out and see if it's of any interest without affecting any of the partitions on your harddrive.

I generally recommend either Debian or Ubuntu for most because both are built on the debian package system, it allows you to quickly and easily install a wide variety of software without jumping through a lot of hoops.  Instaling software on other Linux distributions can be a complicated and sometimes frustrating procedure.

I had Redhat running once on a partition.  I don't mind a little tweaking as long as I'm allowed to do it.  I have to fight vista every step of the way to get it to allow me to do anything at all.  If I want to do something let me do it, if I crash my system its my fault! Christ! Vista is an infuriating OS.

Thanks for the link I will try it out. I do really want to switch to linux eventually because it is so much more secure and maleable. Soon,  I have to finish these models I'm working on and then I can sit down and learn it.  I was thinking I could run linux with a virtual windows for the apps that wont run in linux.

Quote - I had Redhat running once on a partition.  I don't mind a little tweaking as long as I'm allowed to do it.  I have to fight vista every step of the way to get it to allow me to do anything at all.  If I want to do something let me do it, if I crash my system its my fault! Christ! Vista is an infuriating OS.

Thanks for the link I will try it out. I do really want to switch to linux eventually because it is so much more secure and maleable. Soon,  I have to finish these models I'm working on and then I can sit down and learn it.  I was thinking I could run linux with a virtual windows for the apps that wont run in linux.

Not a bad solution, only problem I ran into is the hardware I have at home is somewhat limited, and a virtual machine of any sort doesn't really give you the full "oomph" of the hardware - so most of the apps I would want to run under windows being rather high-end and memory intensive this wasn't really a great solution for me personally.

At the moment I run a dual boot system - I use Ubuntu for coding and general purpose work, and windows for the 3d apps that require it (like Poser).  I've messed around a bit with Poser under Wine but wasn't really overjoyed with the results, yes, it will run, but it had some issues with video refresh that while livable got to be a bit annoying. 

So for now I'll run a dual boot till I can get FAST far enough along that I can ditch Poser and Windows altogether :)

What about a dual boot with XP X64 on one partition and Linux on the other? Would that work?

Attached Link: http://tech.msn.com/microsoft/articlepcw.aspx?cp-documentid=8354050&GT1=40000