10 Days With Windows Vista Ultimate Edition

Ok, it’s been ten days since I installed Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate Edition on a basic Compaq laptop and its time to talk about how things went. Did the world end? Am I ready to run to Linux screaming yet? Maybe, read on to find out what’s good and what’s bad with Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate Edition.To be fair, Windows Vista has a lot to offer, and in ten days I did manage to try most of the major features and found more than a few significant bugs. Windows Vista is by no means a small upgrade, but you won’t find any major functionality features or groundbreaking technology that you can see. What you will find is lots (and I mean LOTS) of tiny changes and improvements that sometimes help but often confuse you if you are as accustomed to Windows XP as I was. One interesting point to note, if you have used Mac OSX you might find Vista easier to use than XP since many of the latest user interface changes seem to borrow some of the ideas found in OSX (not a bad thing!). Overall I think Windows Vista is something to keep a close eye on but this first version leaves much to be desired when it comes to stability and compatibility. I found several issues, some minor annoyances (correct display resolutions not detected in World of Warcraft) to the more serious hardware power management issues many other reviewers have also reported. That is not to say that Windows Vista is all bad but these issues to detract from what rumor tells us might be the last version of Windows for quite some time.

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First things first, let’s talk about the installation. I decided to upgrade a mainstream Compaq V6101US which had Windows XP (Media Center Edition) pre-installed that I picked up at the local BJs. I decided on this model since it sported the “Vista Ready” sticker and had very average specs for a notebook. Initially I decided to try Vista with the included 512mb ram so I could establish a baseline for later performance testing using more (and faster) memory.

One good thing right off the bat I noticed with the Vista installation wizard was the quick hardware and software compatibility check it does before you begin the upgrade. Kudos to Microsoft for saving me time and hassle when it detected several applications which may have prevented a successful upgrade (Symantec Systemworks was the culprit according to the wizard). Once I entered the product key I was off to the business of watching progress bars for about 30 minutes or so till a reboot started the next phase of the installation. One good point here is how non-interactive the installation is, saving time and leaving human error out of the process as much as possible.

Post installation I had a few minor snags, mostly related to some startup applications which seemed to become very confused with the new OS. Also, since this was the first boot Vista wanted to run what appeared to be the indexing service which resulted in sluggish performance until that process was complete. It was here that I encountered my first problem with Windows Vista, the default video driver it installed was downright horrible and did not support any hardware acceleration whatsoever. But before I could really get worked up about this problem a quick trip to Windows Update resulted in a new video driver being install which seemed to resolve this problem. Not perfect but a good recovery for Microsoft on this point because nobody likes having to visit a vendor’s web site for a driver if they don’t have to!

All things considered my upgrade seemed to go smooth with all the major hardware components of the Compaq V6101US being detected more or less correctly and the required drivers being installed and working by the time I was let loose into the new desktop. Thanks to the initial video driver issues the new Aero interface/theme was not enabled and it did take me several minutes to realize what I needed to do in order to enable it. Microsoft really needs to make this (and other interface tweaks) much simpler, not spreading out the settings among several menus and dialog boxes.

Moving on to some basic performance testing I decided to try some basic tasks and see who things responded when compared to the previous XP installation. Many other sites have benchmarked Vista and that is great for those who need to see hard numbers but I much prefer to discuss not just how fast single task can be performed but how fast I was able to complete a workflow process, such as loading Outlook to check email or browsing the internet. I won’t mix words here, Windows Vista on 512mb ram is a dog. XP clearly outperformed Vista in web browsing and many basic tasks when these tasks were done in a linear fashion (open browser, visit site, close browser etc.) but when applications were left open and multiple tasks were executed at the same time Vista began to outperform XP by a what felt like a small margin. Clearly Microsoft has improved memory management with Vista but not quite enough to make using on systems with only 512mb ram a pleasant experience.

Moving on to more advanced tasks I decided to upgrade the memory (and save my sanity) to 2GB using two matched DDR2 SODIMMS. This made a drastic improvement in overall performance and brought Vista up to a very tolerable level of performance. Most applications loaded just about instantly (Vista seems to learn what you like to use and preloads it post-boot for you) and I found the new GUI to be snappy and smooth. Once in a while I would run something which would force the system to turn off all the eye candy but once the application was closed Vista would switch everything back to the way I had it. Memory installed, and my settings the way I like them I decided it was time to move on to some real world tasks.

All over the web I see reviews where they test hardware and software in “labs” and generate interesting charts and graphs showing how fast (or slow) the results are. My big complaint with this process is that all this data does not really tell me much since what I most often want to know is simply “will it work”. So to get an answer to this basic question for Windows Vista I did just that, I brought it to work and for 10 days I used Windows Vista on this Compaq notebook as my daily workstation. After 10 days of Windows Vista at work, this is what I have found so far:

The Good:

Windows Vista can join an existing Server 2003 Active Directory domain with no issues whatsoever. Only gripe, if you need to log into multiple domains then you need to get used to typing those domains in like so <domain>\<username> each time you log in.

Windows Vista does work just fine with Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) and lets you update things like Windows Defender same as XP.

Buy a fast USB jump drive (flash memory stick) next chance you get since Vista lets you use it as a buffer for your HD. This saves power when on battery and gives you a small boost when plugged in.

The Bad:

Multiple monitors and energy star power saving modes do not get along in Windows Vista. Walk away for too long and kiss your mouse cursor goodbye and only a reboot gets it back. I only had this problem using an external monitor, it did not happen when just using the primary LCD on the notebook itself.

Windows Vista WILL forget your display settings the minute you disconnect the external monitor. Why? Who knows.

Don’t crash (or force terminate) Windows Explorer or you will regret it. Even after a trip to the task manager I was unable to resurrect it and had to reboot.

As many others have reported, S3 suspend (the default when you close the lid on a notebook) seems to not always recover as gracefully as it should. The fix is to just tell it to always hibernate, never had a problem with it yet.

Don’t bother looking for the Documents & Settings folder, it’s gone. The party moved on over to the /users folder instead.

Overall Windows Vista is most definitely a strong effort by Microsoft to replace Windows XP. Unfortunately thanks to many of the problems I ran into over the last 10 days I can’t recommend it for anyone but early adopters or those who don’t mind finding work-arounds for these types of problems. Ultimately Windows Vista does remind me of the ill-fated Windows Millennium product in that it is not really a new product at all but mainly a refresh of a previous one. Does it look better? Sure. Is it faster? Only for those with the right hardware. Is it ready for prime time and corporations? That depends on how brave they are! But after 10 days, my recommendation is still to wait. Microsoft will fix most of these issue with time and then maybe Vista will be worthy replacement for Windows XP.

The Testing Hardware:
Compaq V6101US Laptop Computer
15.4″ Widescreen (1280×800)
Mobile AMD Sempron™ 3400+
Built-in 802.11b/g wireless, 10/100 Ethernet
512MB DDR2 memory (later upgraded to 2GB)
80GB hard drive (5400rpm) / DVD/CDRW Drive
OEM OS: Windows XP Media Center Edition

Related posts:

1. Windows Vista: A Critical Update?
2. 4 Reasons Why Windows Vista Is Just Not Worth It
3. 3 Reasons Why Corporations Are Going To Hate Windows Vista