The Windows Vista Thread

Tzen

Windows Vista is here. I was going to include general information and pricing, but, really, where can you NOT find that stuff? Instead, I'd like this thread to be a place we can share various tips and tricks and other valuable but not readily available info. Have something useful to add to this post? Tell me!

Where can I get it?

MSDNAA (Free/Cheap! See if your school can hook you up with a copy. Be careful, though, you may only be able to use your key for one activation!)
Newegg (Cheap! Also, you can enter the Newegg Vista Sweepstakes.)

What doesn't work?

Software:
[list:a769bd7c77]
Apps:[list:a769bd7c77]* Adobe Reader 8 install error (fixes: turn on User Account Control)
* AIM 5.9 won't run (fix: turn on UAC [see above])
* Media Player Classic ? (unconfirmed)
* Trillian/Quicktime messing up Aero (fix: "Open the QT client, hit: edit > preferences > quicktime preferences, then the "Video Settings" option in the drop-down menu. Select "Safe Mode (GDI Only)", and close quicktime, as well as the system tray icon." - Thanks Morskittar!)
* VLC not showing video (fix: in Settings > Preferences go to Video > Output modules, check the Advanced options box and change the Video output module to DirectX video output)
Games:

* Counter-Strike: Source is slow (fix: install the NVIDIA ForceWare 100.59 drivers - unconfirmed)[/list:u:a769bd7c77]
Hardware:

?

[/list:u:a769bd7c77]

Drivers:

NVIDIA ForceWare 100.59 32-bit Vista drivers (SLI support - Thanks Sushisource!)

Tips, tricks & tweaks:

Disable Hibernation: Free up good chunk (1GB for me) of HDD space by entering powercfg -h off into a Command Prompt (cmd in Start Search).

Enable/Disable ClearType (aka BlurryShitAssFuckType) font smoothing: Click on Personalization in the Control Panel (or Right-click your Desktop > Personalize), go to Window Color and Appearance, click Open classic appearance properties... and and go to Effects....

Other information:

Vista Edition Feature Comparison Charts (Though, some of this seems wrong. My copy of Business came with the non-HD Windows Movie Maker.)
How to do a clean install with an Upgrade version of Vista (Thanks, fogeyman!)

LaCabra

Any decent display drivers out for it for Nvidia and ATI yet?

Tzen

LaCabra wrote:

Any decent display drivers out for it for Nvidia and ATI yet?

Good question. I use the 100.40s from http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/. I had to modify the INF myself to get the resolutions I wanted. Can't seem to find the Overclocking stuff anymore. Performance seems good from the little bit of HL2 I ran.

KKprofit

I should be getting a copy of business for free...

What can I not do with that that I can with home premium?

Dublo7

So does this really need 40gb hdd space, or is that just M$ telling lies?

LaCabra

It doesn't.

KKprofit

This guy makes me feel safe....

(he's from the vista page...)

Dublo7

That sweater is so white.

Dusda

Dublo7 wrote:

That black guy is so white.

Dublo7

Dusda wrote:

Dublo7 wrote:

That black guy is so white.

He ain't got no street cred.

I should probably get a student edition of this. If I get a student edition, will it be an update, or a full version?

Airan

Gonna try dual booting Vista with XP when my new comp arrives. Any startup programs I should disable to ensure smooth running on 1GB of RAM? I'll get another stick eventually but at the moment I've only 1GB to use.

LaCabra

1GB of decent RAM will do just fine.

Variable

I know this talk was going on in the other thread, but if I get the 32 bit DVD (which is all I see on newegg... currently looking at home premium) do I get the 64 bit dvd as well? It seemed that way from what was said in the other thread but newegg gives me no indication.

Corrosive Monkey

I just looked into vista, I get the impression that you are only getting a 12 month liscence ????

Merovingi

I'll probably just get the Home Basic edition since I don't plan on using the Media Center functions for a while (don't own an HDTV and don't need to store media on my computer). Besides, who needs that stupid Aero desktop when you're going to be using your computer for running DX10 games later on?

LoneIgadzra

Merovingi wrote:

I'll probably just get the Home Basic edition since I don't plan on using the Media Center functions for a while (don't own an HDTV and don't need to store media on my computer). Besides, who needs that stupid Aero desktop when you're going to be using your computer for running DX10 games later on?

Well, to its credit the acclerated GUI is a lot smoother and snappier to use. Non-accelerated is just more of the same ol' XP kludge-fest. I don't notice it slowing anything down really.

Zoolander

So MSDNAA is only offering Windows Vista Business. That's a shame, I was thinking of dual-booting Vista to check out the media center stuff.

Dublo7

Zoolander wrote:

So MSDNAA is only offering Windows Vista Business. That's a shame, I was thinking of dual-booting Vista to check out the media center stuff.

Students get business edition? How fucking stupid.

Maybe if I go to a participating store over here, I can get student discount somehow.

Deusfaux

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=5887

No More Clean Installs Using Upgrade Discs With Windows Vista

victor_c26

LaCabra wrote:

Dublo7 wrote:

So does this really need 40gb hdd space, or is that just M$ telling lies?

It doesn't.

It certainly hates old 40 gig 5400RPM IDE drives though, so don't even try installing it on one if you were.

Magus`

I think by the time the first service pack comes out, I'll try and get Vista.

What's the cheapest route to getting a x64 version? This is for home use, so I don't need fancy doo-dads and whatnot.

Edit - Also, this MSDNAA (?) thing. How could I tell if my college is in it and thus I can score free software? (Unless I'm misunderstanding)

Edit 2 - I found that my school is a part of it. I have no idea how to actually download anything. Also, Vista isn't on the list, in any form.

TexiKen

There's been no reports of problems when using graphic design apps like CorelDraw or Adobe Illustrator/Photoshop, is there?

That's the only reason I'm holding off on buying Vista.

Zoolander

Magus` wrote:

I think by the time the first service pack comes out, I'll try and get Vista.

What's the cheapest route to getting a x64 version? This is for home use, so I don't need fancy doo-dads and whatnot.

Edit - Also, this MSDNAA (?) thing. How could I tell if my college is in it and thus I can score free software? (Unless I'm misunderstanding)

Edit 2 - I found that my school is a part of it. I have no idea how to actually download anything. Also, Vista isn't on the list, in any form.

You'll probably need to email the dude who's in charge of it. If XP is on the list, you'll probably get Vista eventually.

Magus`

Zoolander wrote:

Magus` wrote:

I think by the time the first service pack comes out, I'll try and get Vista.

What's the cheapest route to getting a x64 version? This is for home use, so I don't need fancy doo-dads and whatnot.

Edit - Also, this MSDNAA (?) thing. How could I tell if my college is in it and thus I can score free software? (Unless I'm misunderstanding)

Edit 2 - I found that my school is a part of it. I have no idea how to actually download anything. Also, Vista isn't on the list, in any form.

You'll probably need to email the dude who's in charge of it. If XP is on the list, you'll probably get Vista eventually.

Well, it lists my college 3 times. Once with the old name and once with the new one. The new one has the most software available (though still no Vista).

I hope I don't have to have a major in a certain area to qualify (I'm CJ/Philosophy).

JHunz

Magus` wrote:

Zoolander wrote:

Magus` wrote:

I think by the time the first service pack comes out, I'll try and get Vista.

What's the cheapest route to getting a x64 version? This is for home use, so I don't need fancy doo-dads and whatnot.

Edit - Also, this MSDNAA (?) thing. How could I tell if my college is in it and thus I can score free software? (Unless I'm misunderstanding)

Edit 2 - I found that my school is a part of it. I have no idea how to actually download anything. Also, Vista isn't on the list, in any form.

You'll probably need to email the dude who's in charge of it. If XP is on the list, you'll probably get Vista eventually.

Well, it lists my college 3 times. Once with the old name and once with the new one. The new one has the most software available (though still no Vista).

I hope I don't have to have a major in a certain area to qualify (I'm CJ/Philosophy).

Well, I know that at my school it was limited to the CS/EE departments. On the other hand, maybe it'll be different if your CS department isn't thousands of people large.

AbsoluteZero

Dublo7 wrote:

Zoolander wrote:

So MSDNAA is only offering Windows Vista Business. That's a shame, I was thinking of dual-booting Vista to check out the media center stuff.

Students get business edition? How fucking stupid.

Maybe if I go to a participating store over here, I can get student discount somehow.

So here's what I've always wondered about getting a copy of Windows on the mega-cheap via MSDNAA...

When you do that, what is to keep you from selling it like on eBay or something?

fogeyman

AbsoluteZero wrote:

Dublo7 wrote:

Zoolander wrote:

So MSDNAA is only offering Windows Vista Business. That's a shame, I was thinking of dual-booting Vista to check out the media center stuff.

Students get business edition? How fucking stupid.

Maybe if I go to a participating store over here, I can get student discount somehow.

So here's what I've always wondered about getting a copy of Windows on the mega-cheap via MSDNAA...

When you do that, what is to keep you from selling it like on eBay or something?

Do you know if you can upgrade from Vista Business to Ultimate? If not, I'm just going to have to buy Home Premium :x .

Corrosive Monkey wrote:

I just looked into vista, I get the impression that you are only getting a 12 month liscence ????

That's not true. You get a full license, just like XP.

Tzen

KKprofit wrote:

I should be getting a copy of business for free...

What can I not do with that that I can with home premium?

Windows Media Center, Windows Movie Maker HD (you get a non-HD version), Windows DVD Maker...

TexiKen wrote:

There's been no reports of problems when using graphic design apps like CorelDraw or Adobe Illustrator/Photoshop, is there?

That's the only reason I'm holding off on buying Vista.

Not that I've heard. I read there were some issues with Photoshop and the beta versions of Vista, but apparently they've been fixed.

FreddyD

Dublo7 wrote:

Dusda wrote:

Dublo7 wrote:

That black guy is so white.

He ain't got no street cred.

I should probably get a student edition of this. If I get a student edition, will it be an update, or a full version?

I need to know this as well. Is there anyway to tell by inserting the disk?

Tzen

FreddyD wrote:

Dublo7 wrote:

Dusda wrote:

Dublo7 wrote:

That black guy is so white.

He ain't got no street cred.

I should probably get a student edition of this. If I get a student edition, will it be an update, or a full version?

I need to know this as well. Is there anyway to tell by inserting the disk?

If by "student edition" he means from MSDNAA, I believe they are all full versions. With my copy of Business from MSDNAA I was able to insert the DVD I burned, reboot, format C:, and do a fresh install of Vista.

FreddyD

Tzen wrote:

FreddyD wrote:

Dublo7 wrote:

Dusda wrote:

Dublo7 wrote:

That black guy is so white.

He ain't got no street cred.

I should probably get a student edition of this. If I get a student edition, will it be an update, or a full version?

I need to know this as well. Is there anyway to tell by inserting the disk?

If by "student edition" he means from MSDNAA, I believe they are all full versions. With my copy of Business from MSDNAA I was able to insert the DVD I burned, reboot, format C:, and do a fresh install of Vista.

Yeah, I just verified this. That is the only option I have because my C partition is too small. But there is an option to do a clean install with an upgrade version if you have a genuine install of XP. If you want to install Home Premium on XP Pro it is your only option.

If I install on another partition can I still recover my XP install or will it get hosed?

bombardier

The XP MSDNAA copy I got only let me use the CD key once. I reformatted and it didn't let me use it again. Might be the same with Vista, not sure though.

blanknogo

AbsoluteZero wrote:

Dublo7 wrote:

Zoolander wrote:

So MSDNAA is only offering Windows Vista Business. That's a shame, I was thinking of dual-booting Vista to check out the media center stuff.

Students get business edition? How fucking stupid.

Maybe if I go to a participating store over here, I can get student discount somehow.

So here's what I've always wondered about getting a copy of Windows on the mega-cheap via MSDNAA...

When you do that, what is to keep you from selling it like on eBay or something?

Supposedly MSDNAA licenses are monitored more closely than your normal license, and if you're caught giving/selling it to an unauthorized user, then you will get in trouble with not only Microsoft but also your institution. Basically, regardless of how good they are at catching you, it's just not worth jeopardizing your education over a few hundred dollars of software.

Tzen

bombardier wrote:

The XP MSDNAA copy I got only let me use the CD key once. I reformatted and it didn't let me use it again. Might be the same with Vista, not sure though.

Yeah, that's really scaring me. I haven't activated this copy with my MSDNAA key yet. I am going reformat and do a clean install, activate it, and then make a ghost image of the partition. Hopefully, I'll be able to use that image over and over again.

Kreutz

Do open-source apps like Firefox and GAIM run on this? If they do, I could put this on my school laptop, otherwise the only computer I could put this on is a 4 yr-old Gateway, and I know it would run like shit on that.

iTunesIsEvil

Kreutz wrote:

Do open-source apps like Firefox and GAIM run on this? If they do, I could put this on my school laptop, otherwise the only computer I could put this on is a 4 yr-old Gateway, and I know it would run like shit on that.

They both worked for me. ... Actually I'm using a GAIM 2.0b so previous versions might not play nice.

Spindrift

LaCabra wrote:

Any decent display drivers out for it for Nvidia and ATI yet?

ATI has 32- and 64-bit drivers available already. They're labeled as beta, but I've been using the 32-bit driver for almost a week now and I haven't had any problems.

For the compatibility issues list: Xfire in-game support has been hit or miss. The only way I've been able to get anything to work is to run the game from Xfire's "Launch" menu, but that doesn't work for every game I've tried.

imbalanced

So does Windows Home Premium really not come with Remote Desktop? I mean if that's the case then I won't be able to buy anything other than Ultimate because of work, and that really sucks considering you can get Remote Desktop even on Windows 2000....

At least that's how this page read to me, maybe I'm wrong: Win Vista Editions Comparison Page

fogeyman

It can be a client, it just can't be the server or whatever. It can't connect to other computers but it can be connected to. That probably doesn't help your work situation, however.

Nvidia also has 32-bit and 64-bit drivers for Vista available (at least for the mainstream graphics card lineup).

Daedalus

Spindrift wrote:

LaCabra wrote:

Any decent display drivers out for it for Nvidia and ATI yet?

ATI has 32- and 64-bit drivers available already. They're labeled as beta, but I've been using the 32-bit driver for almost a week now and I haven't had any problems.

For the compatibility issues list: Xfire in-game support has been hit or miss. The only way I've been able to get anything to work is to run the game from Xfire's "Launch" menu, but that doesn't work for every game I've tried.

I tried the ATi driver and it wouldn't give me my panel's native resolution of 1280x800. It just had 1024x768.

I went back to XP. Have they fixed it yet?

Rydark

I've ordered a new system along with a OEM 64bit version of Ultimate edition.

Every piece of hardware I've got has a 64bit Vista driver support, so I'm golden from the initial outlook so far.

I will update when I get my system next week or 2 weeks from now on.