This program should help optimize your Windows Vista settings. I used the TweakXP Pro version of it back in my XP days and I thought there were some notable improvements, I'm going to try it out now.
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I have no clue why everyone thinks Vista doesn't work properly. I got it and am completely satisfied. It works fine and looks great.
Posts: 1287 | Registered: Apr 2006
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I'm having problems using Vista, but it's more related to HP's complete inability to write drivers for their printers more than the way Vista works.
I've never resorted to using tweak programs, how are they? Good? Bad? Gah, will my OS every work again after that last click?
Posts: 1368 | Registered: Sep 2002
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Vista works just fine. It even looks awesome on paper, and it really does nearly all the things Microsoft says it does. It's just SLOW. I'm dual booting XP and Vista on my laptop, and I get practically twice the performance and battery life with XP. The battery life is the biggest deal for me, really. I have a 9-cell battery that lasts 6-7 hours on XP with moderately heavy use. On Vista, I'm lucky to get 4.
Elmer, for the average user Vista is usually more than adequate, especially if you have enough memory. The problem (besides driver issues - and for many this is the main problem) is the significant performance hit when compared to what you could do with XP.
Posts: 1945 | Registered: Jul 2005
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Why would anyone who has XP downgrade to Vista? Honestly, I don't understand it. What does Vista give you that XP doesn't already have, except lots of headaches?
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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Well, for what drivers are available, Vista does make their installation less of a hassle. And gaming will eventually be better (potentially). File locating and organizing are potentially more efficient (for who exactly I'm not sure).
But yeah. You know I'm grasping at straws here. The memory hogging, UAC, all that crap they did to network and file sharing, and the fact that Vista offers nothing significant that can't be done on XP is enough to make me wonder what they spent the past frickin decade working on.
Posts: 1945 | Registered: Jul 2005
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You turn off all the bells and whistles and it's quite tolerable.
Within 10 minutes of having Vista, I turned off all the security warnings and the "Aero" interface. Been good ever since.
Posts: 3486 | Registered: Sep 2002
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Blayne Bradley
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Halo 2 and eventually Halo 3 is the only reason I ever need.
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At some point, presumably, Microsoft will use its monopoly position to force games companies to only make Vista-compatible games. At that point, I'll switch. Not before. And even then, unless Paradox decides to make Vicky 2 Vista only, well, I may just decide to manage with indie games. In fact, if Paradox did such a thing, my faith in them would take rather a large hit.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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Blayne Bradley
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I could imagine them making a 21st century era game and/or space age era game being Vista only that I could live with. Hearts of Iron 3 I'm still looking forward to Supreme Commaderesque apsects that would be Vista worth it. (dynamic zoom)
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quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: Hearts of Iron 3 I'm still looking forward to Supreme Commaderesque apsects that would be Vista worth it. (dynamic zoom)
I'm of the opinion that supreme commander's zoom ought to be copied by every game that uses that sort of top down perspective. It's one of those little things that is so intuitive that you wonder why it took so long to come around.
As far as vista goes, I suppose I'll have to get it the next time I get a new computer. At the moment, I tend to use Ubuntu for pretty much everything besides games and some programming (I really like C#). So I'm eventually going to be forced to get vista eventually. Until then, though, I really have no intention to upgrade.
Posts: 2437 | Registered: Apr 2005
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Since the combined cost of a DX10-compatible card and any of the versions of Vista that are worth beans is equal to, if not well in excess of, the price of an X-Box 360... Plus I find the shoehorning tactics MS is using to attempt to force conversion on its users contemptible, and significant and real technical issues remain with Vista, I think I'm going to try to wait for the OS that *follows* Vista and see if those whacky Redmond kids can't get it right.
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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Blayne Bradley
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I can get a legit key and disk for free, that and a billion other right reasons the switch was easy for enough for me.
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I'm actually curious about that, BTW. In general, the cost of handing out home licenses of Vista would be pretty prohibitive for a school; I wonder if they misunderstood Microsoft's licensing agreement.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Does MS have bulk educational licenses available?
Also, it's possible that the school isn't handing them out to everyone, but only to people in certain majors/departments.
Posts: 4313 | Registered: Sep 2004
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Blayne Bradley
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Anyone in the Computer Science department can get borrow a Win Vista dvd with a key that goes to that one student, officially its only Vista Business but I found out that its reasonably easy to get the cd to install Vista Ultimate instead turns out the dvd has all the versions on it, unfortunately i am too lazy to reinstall Vista Ultimate so I am stuck with Business which to me is decent has all the little doo dads I need.
Also the fact that within a year all of our computers at my college are going to be running Vista either way kinda makes it important that students can get access to Vista for home use, since the next compiler programs and what not my teachers said are vista only as part of the licsence agreement.
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Blayne Bradley
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Besides actually I am of the opinion that ALL students should get free whatever copies of whatever to help ones education along an if theyre in compsci free laptops.
Much better productive use of the governments surplus.
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: I'm actually curious about that, BTW. In general, the cost of handing out home licenses of Vista would be pretty prohibitive for a school; I wonder if they misunderstood Microsoft's licensing agreement.
Microsoft tends to hand out a lot of free software to computer science and computer engineering students. I forget the name of the program, but they had it at my school too. I haven't looked recently, but they did have XP professional a few years back. There were a number of different programs available, although the only one I ended up using was visual studio.
quote: Besides actually I am of the opinion that ALL students should get free whatever copies of whatever to help ones education along an if theyre in compsci free laptops.
What programs do you really need for cs that can't be covered by free software?
Posts: 2437 | Registered: Apr 2005
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: I'm actually curious about that, BTW. In general, the cost of handing out home licenses of Vista would be pretty prohibitive for a school; I wonder if they misunderstood Microsoft's licensing agreement.
For ricee's program the name of it is MSDN-AA link
I can say firsthand that we have free access to that at our school, although last I checked we only had Windows XP rather than Vista but that could have changed in the last year or so.
Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
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My university also offers a free version of Vista for home/student use. I would assume that they do it legally.
Posts: 14 | Registered: Aug 2007
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I can get a free Windows operating system plus the Microsoft Office suite from my university. They pay for it, of course. When I got mine, it was XP--I have no idea if they give out Vista or not now. If I leave the school, I'm supposed to uninstall the programs and get rid of them. If I graduate from the university, however, the programs are legally mine forever.
And this applies for all students--no matter what their major. Faculty and staff can get the programs for something like $7 each.
Posts: 2880 | Registered: Jun 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: I can get a legit key and disk for free, that and a billion other right reasons the switch was easy for enough for me.
Fair enough; you like Vista, knock yourself out.
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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Blayne Bradley
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quote:Originally posted by ricree101:
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: [qb] [QUOTE] Besides actually I am of the opinion that ALL students should get free whatever copies of whatever to help ones education along an if theyre in compsci free laptops.
What programs do you really need for cs that can't be covered by free software?
Microsoft Visual Studios 2005, Microsoft Office 2007 are 2 I can think of, Macromedia flash is something i'ld like but isnt covered so I have to acquire it for home use through other means. Get XP for free, and can get multiple xp keys from one of my teachers the list goes on.
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quote:Microsoft Visual Studios 2005, Microsoft Office 2007 are 2 I can think of
I could possibly see a need for VS2005 (although it's not something any program I know of would use), but why would you need Office?
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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Blayne Bradley
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Because how else am I gonna have Acess, Excel, Word, etc all in one place.
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Why would you possibly need Access, Excel, and Word for a CS program? Do you actually get assignments that these are necessary for?
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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VB Scripting in Excel and Access? Papers in Word? Makes sense to me, even if I think VB is a waste of time for a CS major to be bothering with.
Posts: 4753 | Registered: May 2002
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But he goes to a college in Quebec. I bet they're making computers with baguettes or something.
Posts: 4753 | Registered: May 2002
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Blayne Bradley
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VB is done through ms visual studios, we use Access for databasing, and excel for some programming but mostly for papers and stuff.
Also most of office can be used for my other classes. You know hard to write an essay without word.
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Amazing. My CS department is pretty poor, and we still don't use Microsoft software, especially for programming. I find it shocking that your school doesn't even have a server with GCC. Does MS fund your department or what? I can understand VB being in an IT program, but it barely deserves to be an elective in a CS program.
Also, I'd expect CS types to learn how to use LaTeX to write their papers, and OO.o if they need it.
Posts: 145 | Registered: Apr 2007
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