Yesterday I set up a friends new Dell PC which had Vista. When we came to indstall the AOL V9 software to connect to the Internet. We discovered the following.

Firstly, Vista will not work with a USB broadband modem, you have to upgrade to a router. Secondly the standard AOL V9 won't work either, you have to download a special AOL V9 VR (Vista ready) version from their website. Neither Dell, Microsoft, nor AOL seem to have publicised this. Or if they have I missed it!

Also whilst writing, Vista SP1, codenamed Fiji, is due out in the late summer, and the Vista replacement, codenamed Vienna, is due out mid 2009. Seems like Vista may be a transient thing anyway...

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Yep, if you're computer savvy there's a lot to not like about Vista and where MS and Intel especially would like to take the PC platform in general.

If all you care about is eye candy and questionable added "convenience" features (the question is who's convenience are they talking about?), then I guess it's fine. OTOH, if you care about who actually owns and controls the hardware you bought and increasingly use daily for every aspect of your life and what you can do with it, that's a much less certain question.

Alinator

I was running AOL V9 on Vista RC1 and RC2 without any problem.

In germany 9VR was public and listed as used to.

Now i have an other provider so dunno.

Mike

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With each crime and every kindness we birth our future.

Golden rules for using Vista:

1) don't try on old hardware
2) make sure you have at least a Core 2 DUO (not solo)
3) if you plan to do 3D gaming, plan for the super high end, or pass
4) if you plan on doing video only, 945 or 965 are good enough, no need to spend a lot of $ on a video card.
5) connectivity should be via Ethernet or wireless from last year.
6) on laptop, Centrinos are ok, check your graphics chip compatibility.
7) don't try if you don t have a dual core, otherwise, you ll be waiting! Vista has a lot of back ground task that will freeze a single core.

8) good luck :)

myself, i love vista, on Quad core, it is smooth like silk, I got a 8800 nvidia, it rocks! under supreme commander, in 2500 x 1600 plus a side monitor at 1600x1200 :)

who?

myself, i love vista, on Quad core, it is smooth like silk, I got a 8800 nvidia, it rocks! under supreme commander, in 2500 x 1600 plus a side monitor at 1600x1200 :)

who?

I don't have any problems with Vista either. I find it funny that many of the same things being said for XP are now being said for Vista. "It's only eye candy", "It won't let you run some of your program", "It's too slow". Same doom and gloom scenario that has prevented people from upgrading beyond Windows 2000.

Personally, I have not found Vista to be inhibitive to my daily computing (other than UAC, which I immediately disabled). The only problem I'm having is my Plextor PX-755SA does not work under Vista and Plextor tech support is taking a hands-off approach.

Are some programs not going to work? Sure. It happened with 2000 and with XP before it. It will take some time for vendors to catch up their software to work with Vista (of course, they've had the entire pre-release time to update their code). But 6 months to a year from now, this won't be such a big deal.

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...Personally, I have not found Vista to be inhibitive to my daily computing (other than UAC, which I immediately disabled)...

The bigger question is that of what Microsoft is going to do with all the DRM and "Trusted Computing" and WGA intrusiveness. In very brief summary, Microsoft through Vista can disable part or all of your computer operation for you, and control access to your very own data.

Worse still, Microsoft is in effect insisting that hardware vendors make their hardware operate for Windows Vista only and include hardware dongling such that no other operating system can use that hardware!...

A few of the details are given here:
A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection

This is more than just Windows being restrictive. There are far greater costs for everyone else in having to work through and around those Microsoft restrictions and "certifications"...


(Aside: A snippet about WGA.)

Regards,
Martin

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See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Eh, nothing new there then. AFAICR AOL has never managed to work with any new version of Windoze from '95 onwards. And the few people unlucky enough to get it installed and working never did manage to remove it.
Anyway, why bother to make anything Vista compatible?, it's just adding to the longest suicide note in history.

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IV JUST GOT A NEW LAPTOP WITH VISTA ON IT AND I LIKE IT AS EVERY THING IS RUNNING OK AND TESTED TO WORK WITH IT, BUT I WOULDENT UPDATE THE 3 OTHER COMPUTERS IV GOT TO VISTA DONT WANT TO SPEND LOADS OF TIME TRYING TO GET DRIVERS AND STUFF JUST TO MAKE THE OLDER SOFTWARE AND HARDWARE TO WORK WITH IT. LUCKILY THE BROADBAND IV GOT IS WIRELESS AS WELL SO IT LOGGED ON TO THE NET NO PROBLUMS IT RUNS A TREAT WITH THE CORE 2 DUO THATS IN IT AND 1 GIG OF MEMORY, VIDEO ON BOARD IS 950 AND IV NO PROBS WITH IT AT ALL. WILL HAVE TO WAIT TO SEE WHAT MICROSOFT MANAGE TO UPSET THE APPLE CART LATER IN THE YEAR, THAT WILL SPOIL A GOOD OPERATING CYSTEM.
MR GREENFINGER.
SORRY ABOUT THE CAPS DIDENT SPOT TILL ID COMMITED MYSELF

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The bigger question is that of what Microsoft is going to do with all the DRM and "Trusted Computing" and WGA intrusiveness. In very brief summary, Microsoft through Vista can disable part or all of your computer operation for you, and control access to your very own data.

Worse still, Microsoft is in effect insisting that hardware vendors make their hardware operate for Windows Vista only and include hardware dongling such that no other operating system can use that hardware!...

A few of the details are given here:
A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection

This is more than just Windows being restrictive. There are far greater costs for everyone else in having to work through and around those Microsoft restrictions and "certifications"...


(Aside: A snippet about WGA.)

Regards,
Martin

All sounds good in a doom and gloom scenario, but can you actually see MS getting away with blocking people from their data without a huge uproar? What you mention are all possibilities that have to meet certain criteria before any of it even happens.

It's easy to spread the anti-MS BS with whatever one wants to read into MS's motives, but reality has never been that way. People were complaining about similar things back when Windows 95 was released. Paint all the doomsday scenarios you want, but I just don't see it happening. The bigger question/problem is that tech people are really that paranoid/gullible that they actually think it could/would happen.

MS is still nothing more than a corporation that has to answer to The People. If they pissed off enough of them, they would go out of business real quick.

I'll bet you $20 that I will not encounter a single issue you've raised in my entire usage of Windows Vista.

I'm no MS apologist, and I admit that they've done some pretty stupid things before, but it gets tiresome with all the MS whistle-blowers out there just looking for something to bitch and moan about that the company does. No company is perfect, and given the effort, one could find fault in any company out there, tech based or not.

BTW, thanks for the links, but like any good computer guru, I'm very familiar with Vista and all it's inner workings. If I were truly concerned about any of that gloom and doom, I would have stayed away from computers in general (before going to a Mac or *nix).

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@Boincmaster -works fine with a Speedstream 6520 modem using USB...

I still hate Vista...

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Federal agencies ban Windows Vista:

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-6166868.html?tag=nl.e550

The DOT also bans Vista, Office 2007 and IE 7.

I use SeaMonkey browser (what a name) ((I’d bet more might use it if the browser had another name…marketing can be everything))……it’s just an older version of Netscape….and I’ve used Netscape since before the turn of the century…..or 1995. The newest version of Netscape is sooo bad. SeaMonkey is an old version of Netscape…..its EXACTLY that! Some minor changes…but it’s Netscape!

Golden rules for using Vista:

1) don't try on old hardware
2) make sure you have at least a Core 2 DUO (not solo)
3) if you plan to do 3D gaming, plan for the super high end, or pass
4) if you plan on doing video only, 945 or 965 are good enough, no need to spend a lot of $ on a video card.
5) connectivity should be via Ethernet or wireless from last year.
6) on laptop, Centrinos are ok, check your graphics chip compatibility.
7) don't try if you don t have a dual core, otherwise, you ll be waiting! Vista has a lot of back ground task that will freeze a single core.

8) good luck :)

myself, i love vista, on Quad core, it is smooth like silk, I got a 8800 nvidia, it rocks! under supreme commander, in 2500 x 1600 plus a side monitor at 1600x1200 :)

who?

I think u can run anything with that setup >.>
Im about to get an AMD 54 3700+ which is pretty fast for me, but it isnt anymore :'(

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Im about to get an AMD 54 3700+ which is pretty fast for me, but it isnt anymore :'(

You should get the AMD 64 - it's got ten extra bits of processing power! ;-)

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Im about to get an AMD 54 3700+ which is pretty fast for me, but it isnt anymore :'(

You should get the AMD 64 - it's got ten extra bits of processing power! ;-)

yea i noticed after i posted it. didnt find an edit button. :D

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Golden rules for using Vista:

1) don't try on old hardware
2) make sure you have at least a Core 2 DUO (not solo)
3) if you plan to do 3D gaming, plan for the super high end, or pass
4) if you plan on doing video only, 945 or 965 are good enough, no need to spend a lot of $ on a video card.
5) connectivity should be via Ethernet or wireless from last year.
6) on laptop, Centrinos are ok, check your graphics chip compatibility.
7) don't try if you don t have a dual core, otherwise, you ll be waiting! Vista has a lot of back ground task that will freeze a single core.

8) good luck :)

myself, i love vista, on Quad core, it is smooth like silk, I got a 8800 nvidia, it rocks! under supreme commander, in 2500 x 1600 plus a side monitor at 1600x1200 :)

who?

I wonder if u can make Win95 work w/o crashing with that.

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yea i noticed after i posted it. didnt find an edit button. :D

It's up there at the top line of your post, right after your message ID.

No worries though. Just yanking your chain a little.

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I wonder if u can make Win95 work w/o crashing with that.

It is nice to get sub-100ms "instant" response to key clicks and mouse clicks!

Likely even faster with old DOS...

Very good to have none of this wait-2-minutes-for-bloat-to-load silliness...

Give it a try?


:-b

Happy crunchin',
Martin

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See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Federal agencies ban Windows Vista:

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-6166868.html?tag=nl.e550

The DOT also bans Vista, Office 2007 and IE 7.

I use SeaMonkey browser (what a name) ((I’d bet more might use it if the browser had another name…marketing can be everything))……it’s just an older version of Netscape….and I’ve used Netscape since before the turn of the century…..or 1995. The newest version of Netscape is sooo bad. SeaMonkey is an old version of Netscape…..its EXACTLY that! Some minor changes…but it’s Netscape!

Best version of Netscape (IMHO)... 7.2...
still have (and occasionally run...)7.1; and 4.79, but it won't work on many sites, Yahoo! included. Tried 8.0 when it first came out, but I discovered that it's only a warmed over version of Firefox, so I went straight to FF (1.0.5, since upgraded to 2.0.1)

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Hello, from Albany, CA!...

[snip]

I wonder if u can make Win95 work w/o crashing with that.

another question might be -

can you make anything run Win 95 without crashing? - I never was able to...

I've run... (in order of installation!) DOS, Win 3.0, 3.1, NT4, 95, Me, XP Home, XP Pro... (both versions of XP run concurrently, on different computers...)

You'll notice that there are a few missing, and a quirky install order - I'm primarily a Luddite, and stayed with DOS/Win 3.1 for a LONG time! (until I couldn't find programs for it!) I still have a hard drive with DOS/Win 3.1 on it somewhere in my "used hard drive" stack. (I was still using it until after installing Me, by switching drive cables)

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.

Hello, from Albany, CA!...

You'll notice that there are a few missing, and a quirky install order - I'm primarily a Luddite, and stayed with DOS/Win 3.1 for a LONG time! (until I couldn't find programs for it!) I still have a hard drive with DOS/Win 3.1 on it somewhere in my "used hard drive" stack. (I was still using it until after installing Me, by switching drive cables)

Heh, I love playing around with old software and OSes. I keep old hardware around just so I can get that original "this is what it ran like" feeling (and because I'm collecting my own little museum of sorts).

One of my faster DOS/Win machines is my old 486 (an upgrade chip known as the Am5x86DX 133 using an AMD 486 chip) with 18MB of RAM (maxed out [yes, that's 18MB! Four 30pin 4MB SIMMs and 2MB soldiered onto the motherboard]). I had it running Windows 95 for the longest time, but it runs like a dog on that old chip so I put PC DOS 7 and Windows for Workgroups 3.11 on it. Runs great! Sometimes I like to take out the Am5x86DX 133 chip and run the original Intel 80486SX 25MHz chip that I overclocked to 33MHz.

Ah, good times...

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