Microsoft Vista for FREE

[kayleigh]

Ditto on the late adopter thoughts - and I'm M$ certified

On a diffferent tangent: I wonder how long it will take for someone to hack the OS to remove the DRM protection? Or have an underground prog to remove it from media files, and how long it will take for the prog to go the way of DVDDecrypter.

[stu8080]

Lilyoda found this about Vista DRM: http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php...ight=vista

Like he says, scary stuff!

[daphatty]

Considering that HDCP is being secretly swept under the rug by the major electronics companies (Sony and Microsoft), I anticipate that HDCP will be scaled back in Vista if not removed entirely.

[Torque]

After a few more days of testing, AMD 3000+ 1gb ram and 128mb dx9 compatible card is what I'd recommend as bare minimum if you want a decent system for Vista. Runs the 64bit version pretty good. Speaking of 64bit version, all the nForce drivers installed fine, but 64bit version of IE7 doesn't like plugins like Flash and Java.

As far as for the Intel crowd, we now have the 32bit version installed on a P4 3.4Ghz with 1GB ram and 256mb dx9 card and even the Sempron 2500+ makes it look like a POS in comparison. It's usuable but not near as quick as the AMD systems. I'm guessing dual core is the only way to go with Intel :confused: I was surprised by what I saw.

I haven't had a chance to run any games on any of them, just installed Office, some other crap, and put them on the domain and they seem to work pretty well. Oh, AOL instant messenger doesn't work on 64bit system.

Stu, you thinking of that program "Xfire"? It shows your buddies and what they're playing (if anything), lets you chat and even join the same server your buddy is on. It works really well with BF2.

I'd like to see how my home system does with it, (FX55, 2GB RAM, 6800GT) but I'm too busy playing G.R.A.W.

[McBainUK]

Im on as 'Stu8080', there was a program i had once that used to show all the servers for all online games i had, plus it downloaded patches for me. It would allow me to search for players. can you remember what it was called? What name do you use?

I think its called xfire might try it out one day. Will look up my name tonight when Im playing. Will post it later.

[McBainUK]

Installed vista last night. Looks cool but got 2 devices with no drivers. 1st is the nForce audio on my DFI lanparty mainboard.Found a driver here for that.

I also have a Belkin PCI F75000 wireless card but can't find any drivers for it. Will the XP ones from the CD work?

Mark

[McBainUK]

Im on as 'Stu8080', there was a program i had once that used to show all the servers for all online games i had, plus it downloaded patches for me. It would allow me to search for players. can you remember what it was called? What name do you use?

Im on BF2 as <<IamMcBainUK>> and on xfire as mcbainuk

See you on the Battlefield soldier

[daphatty]

I also have a Belkin PCI F75000 wireless card but can't find any drivers for it. Will the XP ones from the CD work?

Mark

I was able to get my XP drivers to work for the audio device on my work laptop. I'd say give it a shot. I must warn you though, wireless support is really poor in Vista. I've had problems getting the wireless NIC to work on both my home CPU and the lappy. Drivers exist for both wNICs but Vista refuses to connect to my network. The Microsoft user groups have tons of reports about such issues...

[stu8080]

I was quite surprised to see Vista found my wireless card (Belkin PCI Wireless card) recognised without me installing anything. If anything ive found Vista deals with drivers in a far better way than XP.

Most XP drivers have installed fine, and the only one that didnt (10/100 network card) was installed by Windows Update automatically later on.

Has anyone got an XP PC show up in Vistas Network center yet - i have my HTPC on a wired network, but it just wont show up???
(This is the only thing that wont work for now!!!)

[daphatty]

I can't say that I've actually tried to access one directly. I was able to connect Vista to my PVR via Windows Media Connect however. That worked perfectly. WMP 11 is the sex too. The new library interface is LIGHT YEARS better than WMP 10. Maybe some of the music plugin developers can get some "inspiration" from the WMP 11 design?