Pages: [1] 2   Go Down

Author Topic: To Vista or not to Vista  (Read 14891 times)

abrehm

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 38
To Vista or not to Vista
« on: August 28, 2007, 08:35:08 am »

I have run into some recent problems on my main PC at home under Windows XP.  The main problem is that after the computer boots up, I can move the mouse but cannot use it to click on anything.

This got me thinking about finally using that Vista Business upgrade I have laying around.  Of course I would do a fresh install and not just an upgrade, but I was wondering if Vista was worth it yet.  When I first got my copy back in the start of the year there was still quite a bit of skepticism about whether or not a Vista ugrade was worth while.  Now that a half year or so has passed and more Vista support has rolled out is it worth installing Vista?

I plan on doing a clean install in either case, XP or Vista, but I figure I will eventually go the Vista route and was just curious if now is a good enough time.  

Andy
Logged

Raw shooter

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 205
To Vista or not to Vista
« Reply #1 on: August 28, 2007, 02:24:56 pm »

Quote
I have run into some recent problems on my main PC at home under Windows XP.  The main problem is that after the computer boots up, I can move the mouse but cannot use it to click on anything.

This got me thinking about finally using that Vista Business upgrade I have laying around.  Of course I would do a fresh install and not just an upgrade, but I was wondering if Vista was worth it yet.  When I first got my copy back in the start of the year there was still quite a bit of skepticism about whether or not a Vista ugrade was worth while.  Now that a half year or so has passed and more Vista support has rolled out is it worth installing Vista?

I plan on doing a clean install in either case, XP or Vista, but I figure I will eventually go the Vista route and was just curious if now is a good enough time. 

Andy
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=135937\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Yes, definitely do Vista over XP. Just not a regular Vista install right out of the box.  Vista installs rather poorly for the digital photographer (quite frankly, poorly for anyone)

The necessary tuneup for Vista - you must turn off the services that Microsoft added to Vista - then it is far better than XP.  Out of the box, Vista is just not good.  Most users just get annoyed by the extra stuff, especially the User Access Control (UAC), which can easily be turned off in the Control Panel>Users.

Other questionable choices by Microsoft is the Indexing, poor Hibernation performance, and other little used services that start anyway.
After turning off all that (any a few more) I have been surprised how fast and stable Vista really is.
 
The very nice feature, and unexpected, is Superfetch. Superfetch preloads all your 'normally used' programs and just needs the first 5 minutes after boot to do that job - then off you go.  When I start Photoshop CS3, Bridge, or any other everyday program - the startup is just 3 seconds- as opposed to the 10-15 seconds in XP. Very cool and quick.

XP will never be back on my desktop - it was worth the little tuning to get Vista ready for prime time.
Logged

feppe

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2906
  • Oh this shows up in here!
    • Harri Jahkola Photography
To Vista or not to Vista
« Reply #2 on: August 28, 2007, 02:30:53 pm »

Quote
XP will never be back on my desktop - it was worth the little tuning to get Vista ready for prime time.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=136020\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Exactly the reason why I'm never upgrading to Vista. Others want to tinker with computers, others want their computers to do what they want without giving us hard time. If it wasn't for Lightroom and CS3 I'd be using Ubuntu.

But XP is a decent OS which works most of the time. I'd stay with XP unless there's a compelling reason to "up"grade to Vista. There are numerous reports what a POS Vista is, which are easy to find by googling.

Thomas Krüger

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 447
    • http://thomaskrueger.eu
To Vista or not to Vista
« Reply #3 on: August 28, 2007, 03:13:12 pm »

You can disable the features you don't need with vLite, just check if all the drivers you need are available for Vista.
Logged

Tim Gray

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2002
    • http://www.timgrayphotography.com
To Vista or not to Vista
« Reply #4 on: August 28, 2007, 06:10:17 pm »

I recently got a new desktop with Vista 32 Home Premium - and rue the day...   The more I use it the more I hate it - but not enough to try to by a copy of xp and re-image... yet....

More frequent programs not responding.  (way way more frequent)

took a non-distributed fix from MS to get my Wacom tablet working (available only as a couple of weeks ago) - the tablet was unusable from the beginning on Vista - not withstanding the availability of Vista drivers from Wacom.  

Just had a wack of 0x800704c8 errors trying to copy some music from one drive to another.  Apparently the "fix" is to uninstall windows defender - yeah right...

Very strange directory navigation (just try to find the temp video files from a site like Radiant Vista.)
Logged

David White

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 272
    • http://
To Vista or not to Vista
« Reply #5 on: August 28, 2007, 07:46:02 pm »

I don't see that Vista adds anything.  It is still using the same broken registry structure, the filesystem is the same, and it takes more horsepower just to tun the system.  The added bling doesn't interest me at all and the preloading of programs into memory just means that there is less available when running Photoshop.  I'm going to be sticking with XP on my Windows system for at least another year.

I'm hoping that the Mac OS X update coming next month isn't similar.  More bling and less CPU cycles for programs is not a step forward in my humble opinion.
Logged
David White

santhony

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 7
To Vista or not to Vista
« Reply #6 on: August 29, 2007, 01:15:21 pm »

Quote
Exactly the reason why I'm never upgrading to Vista. Others want to tinker with computers, others want their computers to do what they want without giving us hard time. If it wasn't for Lightroom and CS3 I'd be using Ubuntu.

But XP is a decent OS which works most of the time. I'd stay with XP unless there's a compelling reason to "up"grade to Vista. There are numerous reports what a POS Vista is, which are easy to find by googling.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=136022\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

I tried to get XP Pro for my new laptop but couldn't.  I liked XP.  It was much more stable than Windows ME!

So now I have Vista Business.  Like RAW Shooter, I disabled many of the "features" that come pre-set as they eat up RAM.  And I'm still figuring out what startup programs I need and don't need.  It does have some features I like, but nothing mission critical.
Logged

Lisa Nikodym

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1705
    • http://www.stanford.edu/~melkor/lisa_pictures/lisa_pictures.html
To Vista or not to Vista
« Reply #7 on: August 29, 2007, 04:11:43 pm »

Has a solution to the following problem been worked out yet?  (From a thread here a few weeks or months ago...)

"A more serious problem, and this one is a show-stopper in my eyes,
is the authorization bug. As you use Vista, you are occasionally
interrupted by the OS as it confirms you have the admin-level
privileges required or confirms certain actions. As a user-interface
effect, Vista dims the screen slightly while offering the user a
password dialog. Unfortunately, this dimming of the display clobbers
the calibration curves in the graphics card and they are not
replaced. So you startup Vista, your 3rd party utility loads your
display calibration correctly but then 5 minutes into your session
Vista requests some authentication and your calibration is gone... so
you restart Vista, reloading the calibration and start out again....
It will be difficult to have confidence in a system's state of
calibration."

Lisa
Logged
[url=http://www.stanford.edu/~melkor/lis

Mark D Segal

  • Contributor
  • Sr. Member
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 12512
    • http://www.markdsegal.com
To Vista or not to Vista
« Reply #8 on: August 29, 2007, 05:37:35 pm »

Quote
I have run into some recent problems on my main PC at home under Windows XP.  The main problem is that after the computer boots up, I can move the mouse but cannot use it to click on anything.

This got me thinking about finally using that Vista Business upgrade I have laying around.  Of course I would do a fresh install and not just an upgrade, but I was wondering if Vista was worth it yet.  When I first got my copy back in the start of the year there was still quite a bit of skepticism about whether or not a Vista ugrade was worth while.  Now that a half year or so has passed and more Vista support has rolled out is it worth installing Vista?

I plan on doing a clean install in either case, XP or Vista, but I figure I will eventually go the Vista route and was just curious if now is a good enough time. 

Andy
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=135937\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Some people are early adopters of new systems because they know the technology well enough not to be flummoxed by hang-ups. For the rest of us, it is preferable to stick with what we know works for about a year or so until Microsoft has been able to fix the accumulation of issues that were undetected on commercial release. That means getting the periodic hang-up with the installed OX fixed, rather than scrapping the whole thing and invited a host of new problems. I'm using XP Professional with a Kensington Optical Track Mouse and this combination has so far been reliable.

Either Microsoft technical support or the manufacturer of your mouse should be able to help you resolve the problem you are having, but before calling them, unplug the mouse for a minute, plug it back in and see whether it works again. Often these are minor occurances that disconnecting and reconnecting the device can fix. Dell keyboards were once upon a time notorious for not responding and this was the solution.
Logged
Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
Author: "Scanning Workflows with SilverFast 8....."

santhony

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 7
To Vista or not to Vista
« Reply #9 on: August 30, 2007, 01:58:05 am »

Quote
Has a solution to the following problem been worked out yet?  (From a thread here a few weeks or months ago...)

"A more serious problem, and this one is a show-stopper in my eyes,
is the authorization bug. As you use Vista, you are occasionally
interrupted by the OS as it confirms you have the admin-level
privileges required or confirms certain actions. As a user-interface
effect, Vista dims the screen slightly while offering the user a
password dialog. Unfortunately, this dimming of the display clobbers
the calibration curves in the graphics card and they are not
replaced. So you startup Vista, your 3rd party utility loads your
display calibration correctly but then 5 minutes into your session
Vista requests some authentication and your calibration is gone... so
you restart Vista, reloading the calibration and start out again....
It will be difficult to have confidence in a system's state of
calibration."

Lisa
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=136239\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

I have had Vista Business since May.  It never did what is explained above.  Yes, the screen dims for authorization.  But it does not kick out my monitor profile.  Besides, if you are working in PS CS3 (maybe also earlier versions), it picks up your default monitor profile regardless of what your monitor is using outside of PS.
Logged

Misirlou

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 711
    • http://
To Vista or not to Vista
« Reply #10 on: August 30, 2007, 10:15:12 pm »

Quote
Has a solution to the following problem been worked out yet?  (From a thread here a few weeks or months ago...)

"A more serious problem, and this one is a show-stopper in my eyes,
is the authorization bug. As you use Vista, you are occasionally
interrupted by the OS as it confirms you have the admin-level
privileges required or confirms certain actions. As a user-interface
effect, Vista dims the screen slightly while offering the user a
password dialog. Unfortunately, this dimming of the display clobbers
the calibration curves in the graphics card and they are not
replaced. So you startup Vista, your 3rd party utility loads your
display calibration correctly but then 5 minutes into your session
Vista requests some authentication and your calibration is gone... so
you restart Vista, reloading the calibration and start out again....
It will be difficult to have confidence in a system's state of
calibration."

Lisa
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=136239\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

It's been a complete non-issue for me. You can easily turn off the UAC "feature" that causes the dimming to begin with. Also, I'm using the ColorVision monitor profiling tools, and they include a small app that allows you to reload any monitor profile at will, even for either monitor of a two-monitor setup. I'm sure other Vista compatable tools work similarly.
Logged

Goodlistener

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 120
    • http://www.pbase.com/goodlistener
To Vista or not to Vista
« Reply #11 on: September 09, 2007, 11:17:18 am »

This is  likelyy to ignite something, but may I suggest that you go to the Apple company store nearest you and look at a Mac?  All the problems with Windows & Vista simply go away.  Also, the Macs are especially well suited for photography, music and video.
Logged

Misirlou

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 711
    • http://
To Vista or not to Vista
« Reply #12 on: September 10, 2007, 12:19:33 am »

Quote
This is  likelyy to ignite something, but may I suggest that you go to the Apple company store nearest you and look at a Mac?  All the problems with Windows & Vista simply go away.  Also, the Macs are especially well suited for photography, music and video.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=138185\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

I can't believe I'm getting suckered into this, but here goes anyway.

1. Few of us PC users are completely unaware of Macs. There are plenty of us out there that have to run a PC for one reason or another. For example, I need to run ESRI GIS software, and there is simply no Mac equivalent. Sure, you can try the Windows emulation that's now available on the Mac, but years of experience with that sort of thing (on everything from Amigas to Suns) have taught me that it's not a reasonable choice for a very resource hungry application set, especially when you can buy a decent Windows PC for $700 or so, including a monitor that will work well for non-color critical applications.

2. Macs are easier to configure for color, and better at some other things as well. But they're expensive to buy, and expensive to maintain. One of my nieces has a Mac I-book with a DVD drive that failed after about six months. Apple replacement cost for the DVD was $389. See price for an entire PC above. I might add that I've owned four HP laptops, and the only failure I've ever had on any of them was a power supply, which cost me $100. I know that's all anecdotal, but it's my experience.

3. Given that it will never be reasonable for some of us to buy Macs, it makes sense to try and get the PCs to do what we need. If every photographer just gave up on PCs entirely, there would never be any incentive for Microsoft to improve Windows so that PCs would work well for photographers. Competition between Apple and Microsoft can only be a good thing for everybody.

4. The original poster wanted to know if Vista works for photographers. Some have stated their preferences and experiences with assorted versions of Windows. My answer is that Vista is fine, as long as you spend just a few minutes to set it up so that it doesn't inadvertently drop your monitor calibration. It's a very easy thing to do, and it would be a real shame for someone to buy a whole new kind of machine, and spend a stack of money on new software, because they were operating on an outdated or incomplete understanding of the way Vista works.

5. If we really want to get persnickety about trying radical new solutions, we can always start a thread about using Linux and GIMP. Now that GIMP is color aware, and given that you can obtain the O/S, GIMP, and plenty of other applications for free, that might be a solution for some as well. But the question was about Vista, and the answer is that Vista can work.
Logged

Josh-H

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2079
    • Wild Nature Photo Travel
To Vista or not to Vista
« Reply #13 on: September 10, 2007, 12:31:20 am »

To throw my 2 cents into the ring...

I had a Mac Book Pro and sold it.

I bought a dell precision M90 laptop [same price as the mac] - but heaps faster [faster processors, faster graphics card, bigger HD etc] and with better resolution 1920 X 1200 and I run a fully color managed workflow on it with Vista using both a Spyder Pro2 and a greytag macbeth.

Never had a problem with Vista or color managament and have the added bonus of being able to run all the normal windows software without emulation or dual booting.

I run and use DPP Pro and CS3 as my workflow tools. Its fast, reliable and a pleasure to use.

Edit - to directly answer the concern above about Vista clobbering calibration curves when asking for authorisation - I have not ever experienced this problem running Vista Ultimate. I usually run my calibration with the SPyder Pro 2 which loads its profile on boot up [puts it in the start-up menu]. The display dims if Vista asks for authorization - but the profile comes straight back afterward.
« Last Edit: September 10, 2007, 12:33:37 am by JHolko »
Logged
Wild Nature Photo Travel

sniper

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 670
To Vista or not to Vista
« Reply #14 on: September 12, 2007, 09:23:58 am »

Quote
To throw my 2 cents into the ring...

I had a Mac Book Pro and sold it.

I bought a dell precision M90 laptop [same price as the mac] - but heaps faster [faster processors, faster graphics card, bigger HD etc] and with better resolution 1920 X 1200 and I run a fully color managed workflow on it with Vista using both a Spyder Pro2 and a greytag macbeth.

Never had a problem with Vista or color managament and have the added bonus of being able to run all the normal windows software without emulation or dual booting.

I run and use DPP Pro and CS3 as my workflow tools. Its fast, reliable and a pleasure to use.

Edit - to directly answer the concern above about Vista clobbering calibration curves when asking for authorisation - I have not ever experienced this problem running Vista Ultimate. I usually run my calibration with the SPyder Pro 2 which loads its profile on boot up [puts it in the start-up menu]. The display dims if Vista asks for authorization - but the profile comes straight back afterward.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=138323\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

We had it removed from both the office computers and XP put on instead as it just wasn't compatable with a lot of stuff we use, the pc's wouldn't talk to the printers (3 of them) they wouldn't talk to each other, a lot of the software we use isn't compatable with vista, maybe in another year or so when it's got drivers
 sorted out and all the teething troubles over well get it put on.  Wayne
Logged

Josh-H

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2079
    • Wild Nature Photo Travel
To Vista or not to Vista
« Reply #15 on: September 13, 2007, 02:13:22 am »

Quote
We had it removed from both the office computers and XP put on instead as it just wasn't compatable with a lot of stuff we use, the pc's wouldn't talk to the printers (3 of them) they wouldn't talk to each other, a lot of the software we use isn't compatable with vista, maybe in another year or so when it's got drivers
 sorted out and all the teething troubles over well get it put on.  Wayne
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=138872\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

I have heard that complaint from a few others as well. I have found that 99% of the software I have come across and tested will still run fine as long as you run it in XP compatability mode.
« Last Edit: September 13, 2007, 02:13:47 am by JHolko »
Logged
Wild Nature Photo Travel

gkroeger

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 225
To Vista or not to Vista
« Reply #16 on: September 13, 2007, 08:32:30 am »

Quote
Edit - to directly answer the concern above about Vista clobbering calibration curves when asking for authorisation - I have not ever experienced this problem running Vista Ultimate. I usually run my calibration with the SPyder Pro 2 which loads its profile on boot up [puts it in the start-up menu]. The display dims if Vista asks for authorization - but the profile comes straight back afterward.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=138323\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

This and several other posts indicate that Vista's screen handling doesn't change the profile. This is true... BUT

User Account Control and other things like Windows Installer that dim the screen do throw out the LUT calibration in your video card. So while the profile remains intact, it is now invalid since the associated calibration is lost.

Turning off UAC solves most of the issues. If you install software, particularly any MS software, you just need to log off and back on again to rerun the card intialization in your startup folder. Some of these initialization programs can be run directly eliminating the need to log off.

You do have to "monitor" (sorry for the pun) the issue prior to doing any serious photo work.
Logged

Mark D Segal

  • Contributor
  • Sr. Member
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 12512
    • http://www.markdsegal.com
To Vista or not to Vista
« Reply #17 on: September 13, 2007, 09:26:05 am »

This kind of stuff is unacceptable in this day and age. Microsoft created a whole imaging/graphics division headed-up by Tim Grey to improve the digital imaging experience using Windows - undoubtedly an effort to re-balance perceptions that Mac is more graphics-friendly. One would have thought that before releasing Vista it would operate at least as seemlessly as XP for something as basic as respecting display profiles. Where were Tim Grey's people when all this was being developed? What kind of coordination exists within Microsoft to get it right from the get-go?

The only way to teach these companies that they can't get away with this sloppiness is for customers to demand refunds, revert to XP and re-purchase when the major kinks are ironed out, so the risk is put onto the account of the manufacturer, not the customer. There is a need with complex systems like this for customers to be beta-testers to some extent (developers can't anticipate EVERYTHING in advance), but this should not extend to the application's core functionality for applications as important as digital imaging. Personally I'm not affected because I don't install Microsoft software until it has been road-tested for at least a year after release and the major bugs fixed - I don't have the knowledge or patience to deal with experimentation and workarounds in operating systems. I admire and appreciate the early adapters of Microsoft products.
Logged
Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
Author: "Scanning Workflows with SilverFast 8....."

John.Murray

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 886
    • Images by Murray
To Vista or not to Vista
« Reply #18 on: September 13, 2007, 04:02:10 pm »

Whats being discussed as Vista's UAC (user account control) is actually two separate things:  

1) The UAC funstionality thats prompts for administraive credentials
2) Secure Desktop, where the contents are dimmed behind the UAC prompt

The Secure Desktop component is what is nailing the display profile.  It *is* possible to benefit from the security UAC provides by disabling the Secure Desktop component:

Click  Start Menu | Run, then type "secpol.msc".   This will open Local Security Policy (generating a UAC prompt   ).  In the Left Pane, expand Local Policies, then click on Security Options.  In the list in the Right Pane, locate User Account Control: Switch to the Secure Desktop when prompting for elevation (very near the bottom of the list).  Dbl-click this and disable.



Or, for those who enjoy living on the edge:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System]
PromptOnSecureDesktop value=0

This setting is also available via Active Directory Group Policy for managed machines:

http://technet2.microsoft.com/WindowsVista...3.mspx?mfr=true

hope this helps - John
« Last Edit: September 13, 2007, 04:42:28 pm by Joh.Murray »
Logged

Misirlou

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 711
    • http://
To Vista or not to Vista
« Reply #19 on: September 13, 2007, 10:19:34 pm »

Question: Does anyone other than Colorvision allow for on demand profile loading?

I use all the Colorvision tools (including both the horrible old PrintFix and the new one) mostly because I got a really good deal on them. If you believe the reviewers, Colorvision is the bottom of the barrel for calibration manufacturers, yet this supposedly bottom tier company included a handy profile chooser that lets you load your choice whenever you feel like it. I have disabled the Vista features too, but it takes all of two seconds to load a profile anyway. Don't the other companies have similar utilities? Seems like a great workaround until this gets fixed in Vista.
Logged
Pages: [1] 2   Go Up