Just got a new laptop with Vista pre-loaded. Anyone else have it? Anything I should know? Does it suck? Should I just load XP before I get everything set up too much?

depends... i recomend reinstalling vista. this will take all the crap off, and there is a ton of crap.

even after you do that, its still a heavy program. its also not compatibal with a lot of stuff (my mp3 player, for example).

BUT, ive heard rumors that w/ new computers the drives or whatever will only work with vista. might be BS.

also, ive had vista for close to a year and it still runs like new. when i had xp my laptop was F'd within weeks.

if it were my call, i'd say keep vista. i mean, you already paid for it, you might as well use it.

Thanks, I think I'll give it a shot. The first computer I ever bought for myself had Windows ME which was a total piece of crap so I'm a little leary.

You had a computer with Windows ME? No wonder you feel like you've been burned before.

Like b-diddy said, if Vista is pre-installed on your machine, you may as well roll with it.

Personally, I've been very happy with XP. Five years with XP pro on two machines and it's been all good. Unlike the jump from 98 to XP, there's nothing really new or compelling about Vista. I figure XP should be good for at least another 2-3 years before something comes along that forces me to upgrade.

I hate vista, very confusing, I want XP back

Vista SP1 is supposed to be coming out soon. i suspect there will be added driver support and hopefully some speed/stability enhancements.

it's not as great as MS was touting it to be, but i think it'll come around with some SP releases. from what i remember, XP was bashed left and right when it first came out too.

Vista is the new Windows ME. I'm sticking with XP.

Vista is lame. I use alot of Music and VST programs. Most of them are known to have issues on Vista, so I dare not touch it. Vista is a big choke on Microsoft's part IMO.

I wonder what Mr. Oobir would say in a thread like this?

it's not as great as MS was touting it to be, but i think it'll come around with some SP releases. from what i remember, XP was bashed left and right when it first came out too.
I thought that was ME. I remember XP being great compared to ME when it came out. Not perfect but light years ahead of the last series. Dont get that feeling from vista. They could prove me wrong. But I'm not impressed right now.

Windows ME was basically a mistake that microsoft would just as soon pretend never happened. It was windows 98 with extra flashing lights grafted on and some tweaks that accomplished little except to undermine application compatibility. Under the hood, windows 98 was just another layer of shaky construction built on top of plain old DOS.

Windows XP was the move to finally let go of the DOS roots. It was built on windows NT which was a relatively modern operating system that was an improvement really in every way over the old DOS legacy stuff.

Now Vista is basically just XP with a few nice tweaks, a lot of bells and whistles, massive bloat and a boatload of new bugs. There's nothing radically new, rather just another layer built on the NT foundation.

Apparently Microsoft recently changed their Vista license so that it covers an install of XP if you want it. Businesses HATE Vista because it pops up so many new windows and introduces so many new incompatibilities that IT costs are now through the roof. They're all begging MS to keep supporting XP.

I read that Microsoft has moved up their release date on their next OS too. Something like from 2011 to 09. I don't think I was dreaming. Can anyone confirm that?

My son has it, and he is so tired of all the popups asking if this or that should be allowed. The commercial covers that one pretty good.

I was checking some stuff on my buddy's laptop, which is preloaded with Vista. It was fucking stupid.

Stay one major OS behind. Vista's release was the signal that it's ok to go from Win2k to WinXP.

Apparently Microsoft recently changed their Vista license so that it covers an install of XP if you want it. Businesses HATE Vista because it pops up so many new windows and introduces so many new incompatibilities that IT costs are now through the roof. They're all begging MS to keep supporting XP.

I couldn't agree more with this. The Vista climate for corporate sales is incredibly low. In my case it's helped me sell some non-Vista compatible software to companies even now.

And it's a small window (no pun intended) inside to how flawed the process of getting Vista on the market was IMO. Every major PC and laptop maker strongly backed Vista before it came out because at the time sales were declining (or looking to decline) and they felt that Vista would be a boost in sales, which it was (of course it can also be argued that the decline in growth was due to the expectation of Vista coming into the market). But then every other major issue with Vista (it's demand on resources, how user-friendly it really is, huge compatibility issues with both software and hardware, etc.) came to the surface, businesses wanted no part of Vista and top makers had to get MS to allow them to keep XP available.