Vista 5472 Ultimate Up and Running

Published 22 July 06 05:28 AM | Sam Gentile

I'm posting this from Vista 5472 Ultimate Edition and everything looks good. Again, a trivial install with 2 or 3 questions. Nice job. Of course, the first thing I do when I bring up any machine is to go right to Scott Hanselman's Repave Essentials page and get that all installed. I actually keep that as a directory on my backup USB drive. So far, so good with Office 2007, Feed Demon, Google Earth, Notepad++, SlickRun, TortiseSVN, and others. The big test will be SQL Server and the development environments although the .NET Framework 3 RC comes with Vista as well as WAS and CardSpace for my Indigo explorations. The Glass is outstanding again and for me, it just seems to make such a difference that when I am on XP, I miss it.

The Good

  • As mentioned, the install is trivial and fast
  • Office 2007, SQL Server 2005, and VS2005 all install and operate correctly
  • Easy to turn on Aero Glass with the NVidia GeForce Fx5200 even default driver was not WDDM - 1400X900 Widescreen Glass
  • All my other drivers including audio all installed by default
  • Most of the tools in the Repave Essentials install and work

Ok, so now the bad

  • DRM is really screwed up; I can't even play the music I bought (from Urge) and own in Windows Media Player!! It wants to download an "upgrade" component that never exists and complains about "no Internet". It seems to not identify any rights.
  • URGE is screwed up so I can't do anything with; dealbreaker as I have been playing and buying a lot of music from it. If it doesn't work with Vista then don't ship it with the betas!
  • As Tomas said, deleting files is really bad (in performance)
  • Windows Search performance is so bad that I had to turn it off to even be able to do decent work with Vista
  • Performance is not so good - too much paging even with 2 GB Online RAM 
  • Feed Demon crashes in Vista
  • There are no Windows Ultimate Extras ever
  • UAC is so bothersome that its useless and the first thing I shut off. Design it it like the MAC OS X and only really ask for a priveledged operation by popping up an Admin dialog only when truly neccessary. Popping up a useless dialog everytime I click on anything and just letting me do it anyway is not security
  • SQL Server brings down performance to its knees.

Comments

# TrackBack said on July 23, 2006 05:57 AM:

wcf.netfx3.com/.../vista-5472-ultimate-up-and-running.aspx

# http:// said on July 24, 2006 12:01 PM:

> Performance is not so good - too much paging even with 2MB

I hope you meant 2GB, otherwise I think I found the source of your performance problems :-)

# SamGentile said on July 24, 2006 02:12 PM:

Yes-) 2 GB

# TrackBack said on July 24, 2006 02:16 PM:

winterdom.com/.../vista5472notsogood.aspx

# TrackBack said on July 24, 2006 02:16 PM:

wcf.netfx3.com/.../vista-5472-ultimate-up-and-running.aspx

# Larry said on July 24, 2006 02:20 PM:

Thanks for the no-nonsense mini-review because I didn't have the chance to download this release.

FYI, I run a Windows Vista website at http://www.vistaultimate.com

# mario contestabile said on July 26, 2006 03:18 AM:

Hi Sam,

Well here's Jesper's blog entry on the virtues of UAC...

blogs.technet.com/.../438316.aspx

# SamGentile said on July 27, 2006 02:43 PM:

I believe in security 1000 percent, and its about time Mario but this is *not* effective secuity. Look at how the Mac does it. I read his whole post but I dont buy it. This security should have been built in 20 years ago and not put on top as an afterthought.

# http:// said on July 30, 2006 07:37 PM:

i am running the new build of vista and i havent ran into any problems like you have

# Ari Pernick said on August 10, 2006 03:57 PM:

Uninstall and Reinstall Urge. Things should get working again.

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