Windows Vista 64 Bit, User experiences

[Todd_LLTTV]

I don't think it's worth an upgrade unless your hardware is brand new. There is a performance hit when compared to XP. If you were big into gaming, I'd say that DirectX 10 might be an excuse to go with Vista, but otherwise Windows XP does most everything at present.

Vista is only faster if the hardware is bleeding edge and that is probably more due to the hardware than the operating system.

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[tkend12]

Is it worth updating from XP to Vista? I don't see a need for it as I don't play games on my laptop, but what other benefits would I see from an upgrade? Do programs load faster and stuff like that?

[Todd_LLTTV]

I built a 64 bit Vista box at the beginning of April '08. It is based around an inexpensive MSI combo motherboard and the Intel Q6600 Quad Core processor.

After the first few weeks, I found only a couple of things to gripe about and it has been a stable system otherwise.

Issue: Some programs will suspend Team Speak if I switch windows. For example, the press to talk button fails to work if I switch to certain other windows. I can be talking away but nobody hears me and the green light does not come on. Bringing the Team Speak window back into focus resolves the problem...very annoying. I'm not sure if this is a 32bit/64bit issue or just a bug. I'm using Vista SP1.

Issue: Audacity drag and drop doesn't work the same as with Windows XP. Failure to drag and drop audio tracks to Audacity removes the ability to mix multiple tracks. For some unknown reason, holding down the control key during a drag will allow it to drop normally onto Audacity. How fortunate that a google search yielded a work around for the drag and drop problem under Vista. If this is a setting that can be changed, I have not found it.

Aside from compatibility problems with very old games (which I expected), there are no other major problems yet with my Vista 64 installation. I will update this thread as required...