My wife must love me. :)
In a few months, when we've padded our savings account a little more, she is going to let me buy a new computer. How sweet is that? My current one is about 2 1/2 years old, which isn't too bad, but it has been having problems lately, and has had problems handling things like Everquest II. So, I have while before I can be too serious about this, but as a geek, my mind has been wandering on the topic already.
I will be looking up prices on things, and will decide whether to just buy a system (probably from Dell), or build one. Now here's a question - has anyone on here used Windows Vista? I've not used it yet. The one person I've talked to about this so far has recommended that I stay with Windows XP instead of upgrading, because Vista slows things down and there really aren't that many improvements. Does anyone else have experience with it?
I have a set amount of money that I'm allowed to spend, and my wife really doesn't care what I get, as long as I stay within the amount. Whooah! :) I am hoping to get a nice LCD monitor, as I'm still using clunky CRT's at this point.
Anywho...
My wife is starting her new job today. She will have a week or so of orientation. Hopefully it all goes well.
TISCSOTD: Tim is so cool, that when he walks past a snowman during winter, it shivers.
8 comments:
I've not used it much personally, but I know 2 people who have and haven't really had any troubles with it. My thought is that while you could stay with XP and know what you're dealing with, then you'll still be with it in 3 years, and by then any Vista issues will have long since been fixed. I'd go with Vista. Besides, you're geeky enough to fix any minor glitches you might have.
I had a Vista laptop for a month or two and Vista generally worked well for me. I ran into a few problems with software not being compatible, such as our corporate VPN. Generally things worked ok. There are some driver issues out there; certain older printers don't have Vista drivers etc. But I would probably go with Vista on a new machine, because you will likely need it at some point (I imagine in a few years there will be new software written which requires it) and to actually buy the upgrade is rather expensive. I expect that within a year there will be at least one major servicePack which should fix vista problems. By the way, EQ2 ran fine for me on Vista.
I've used Vista both on my new laptop and on Mom's new computer (purchased in February.) Both have worked quite well. There was one problem with Office 97, it crashed whenever Mom went to the print screen, but then I found a copy of Office 2000 lying around the house, and that's worked fine. Everquest2 has run well (with extensive game testing.) Driver issues could be a problem as Erik said for older hardware, but with any newer products I haven't had any trouble. Just make sure to get a computer with good enough specs (at least 2 GB RAM is a must) and I think you'll be fine.
And I'd agree with Greg and Erik about wanting to have Vista eventually. As whatever issues there are arise and get fixed, it will slowly become the standard operating system. I'd go with Vista.
And I'd agree that you're wife must love you. Its a good thing she's blind. :)
One other note. When I put my own computer together once, it is quite difficult to save money if you need to buy much software. The installed software, even the operating system, has for me tipped the balance towards buying a pre-installed system from someone like Dell.
Thanks for your thoughts on this. I am definitely leaning toward Vista currently, and toward just buying a system. Too bad I have to wait a few months. :)
If you buy a system, you'll probably have to work pretty hard to NOT get Vista anyway.
When I built my DVR, I bought Windows Media Center Edition 2005 OEM and got a free upgrade to Vista Home Premium (this was before it shipped). I got the best of both worlds.
That said, my DVR still uses Windows MCE (although I don't use Microsoft's media program, since it's limited to 2 tuners) since drivers were an issue at the time. It's been working so well that I haven't felt the need to install Vista yet.
My Mac/Windows laptop has XP on it because the VPN client I have to use to log in to work from home does not yet work with Vista. Eventually I'd like to put a copy of Vista on the laptop. I do have one more copy of Vista that I qualified for just as I was finishing up my master's program at the U.
Vista is only worth it if you go all out: 4 GB's of RAM, faster duel-core processor etc. Plus the fact that many of the hardware companies don't have drivers yet.
However, I have read that if you have drivers and the 'raw power' vista is pretty nice. I guy here at work has it on a pretty high-end laptop and it's nice.
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