Members LiveMusic Posted September 28, 2007 Members Share Posted September 28, 2007 My niece needs a new laptop. Internet, email, Word, Publisher. I figure she could get a decent discount on MS Office since she is a schoolteacher? As far as laptop, I told her, (she can't spend much), minimum 1GB ram, any hard drive (prob 80gb) will do, any processor will do. What's the deal with Vista, okay for gen biz use? (Her school system is using new Vista computers.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMS Author MikeRivers Posted September 28, 2007 CMS Author Share Posted September 28, 2007 What's the deal with Vista, okay for gen biz use? (Her school system is using new Vista computers.)Since her school system is using Vista, there's almost certainly someone there who can help her with any problems she encounters with applications that they (the school) use. The mainstream business and consumer applications have been gearing up for Vista for a long time and they're likely to be ready to go. It's the music applications and drivers for audio hardware that don't sell by the millions that are still somewhat behind the power curve. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Dylan Walters Posted September 28, 2007 Members Share Posted September 28, 2007 As long as you have 1GB of RAM or more then Vista is great! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted September 28, 2007 Members Share Posted September 28, 2007 XP forever... Is Windows XP too good for Microsoft's own good? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members philbo Posted September 29, 2007 Members Share Posted September 29, 2007 You know, the market process has done a strange thing. It has made people think that software 'wears out', like motor oil or something. I don't get it.... With XP, MS had finally pounded down the worst of the billions of warts in their spaghetti-code mess of an OS. There are probably no more than 700 or 800 million bugs still left to work on inside XP. So they wrote Vista, to keep their engineers occupied with a new set of billions of warts to hammer on for the next 6 years or so. This is very similar to the automotive business model, where new design is driven by concerns of "what will we sell next year?" rather than concerns of "how do we make the absolute best possible product?". This allows them to maintain a standing army of engineers and marketing wanks to crank out next years model... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members alphajerk Posted September 29, 2007 Members Share Posted September 29, 2007 vista deals with one of the biggest "bugs" of XP. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members franknputer Posted September 30, 2007 Members Share Posted September 30, 2007 vista deals with one of the biggest "bugs" of XP. The fact that you only had to buy it once? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members alphajerk Posted September 30, 2007 Members Share Posted September 30, 2007 The fact that you only had to buy it once? better than apple making you buy it over and over for more i{censored}. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMS Author MikeRivers Posted September 30, 2007 CMS Author Share Posted September 30, 2007 You know, the market process has done a strange thing. It has made people think that software 'wears out', like motor oil or something. I don't get it....As far as the normal consumer goes, it doesn't matter much what OS they have. They buy a new computer every few years, consider everything that was on the old computer to be lost (maybe that's why they're selling so many plug-in disk drives today) and starts fresh. It's the legacy users, and there really aren't very many of them, even if the music users are close to 100% "legacy." The application software manufacturers are pretty small companies. They can't afford to support two operating systems for very long, and the can't afford to not support the latest OS because they'll lose the potential for new (first time) customers. So they're in between the legacy users who want upgrades to the program but don't want to upgrade the OS, the legacy users who are content with what they have but know that in a few years it will be useless when the computer finally dies and needs replacement, the users who have already upgraded the OS and are yelling because they can't use their old software (and often hardware) yet, and Microsoft who does what they can to encourage new purchases. Software doesn't "wear out" but people see new features in competing products and expect that these can just be bolted on to their old program running under their old OS, and that their software vendor can do this forever (and for free). Hardware, however, does wear out, and at some point, the old software won't run on the new hardware. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members philbo Posted October 1, 2007 Members Share Posted October 1, 2007 As far as the normal consumer goes, it doesn't matter much what OS they have. They buy a new computer every few years, consider everything that was on the old computer to be lost (maybe that's why they're selling so many plug-in disk drives today) and starts fresh. It's the legacy users, and there really aren't very many of them, even if the music users are close to 100% "legacy." The application software manufacturers are pretty small companies. They can't afford to support two operating systems for very long, and the can't afford to not support the latest OS because they'll lose the potential for new (first time) customers. So they're in between the legacy users who want upgrades to the program but don't want to upgrade the OS, the legacy users who are content with what they have but know that in a few years it will be useless when the computer finally dies and needs replacement, the users who have already upgraded the OS and are yelling because they can't use their old software (and often hardware) yet, and Microsoft who does what they can to encourage new purchases. Software doesn't "wear out" but people see new features in competing products and expect that these can just be bolted on to their old program running under their old OS, and that their software vendor can do this forever (and for free). Hardware, however, does wear out, and at some point, the old software won't run on the new hardware. Excellent points, Mike. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Agent420 Posted October 1, 2007 Members Share Posted October 1, 2007 Actually, my experience providing laptops to our sales people has demonstrated that a minimum of 2G is needed for a satisfactory Vista experience. This may be even more important on an otherwise 'budget' system with a slower processor. I won't go into all the details of misery, but I will say that I have now downgraded most systems back to XP... for business use, there are simply too many software incompatibilities or problems with existing usb hardware like scanners & printers. Also the new 'security features' of Vista are more a pita than any benefit. For home use on a desktop, it's amazing that it's still so difficult to get decent drivers... try finding a good Vista soundcard. It may look pretty, but there's a reason the big retailers still offer XP as an option on many systems, and MS itself has recently extended XP's service life. Don't even get me started on that whole HD Vista drm debacle... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Dylan Walters Posted October 1, 2007 Members Share Posted October 1, 2007 Keep in mind that Microsoft alone has added a ton of new drivers since the initial Windows Vista release. Vista now supports around 2,000,000 devices right now. I can remember when XP was released and it was damn near impossible to find drivers for the majority of 3rd party audio/midi hardware, let alone a lot of standard equipment. Hell, there are still a handful of apps that don't work on Intel Mac's yet (or well). The support will eventually be there, but you have to evaluate what you have and whether or not it is supported. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members alphajerk Posted October 2, 2007 Members Share Posted October 2, 2007 i didnt buy into XP until 2 years after it was out i dont think, i know it was at LEAST 1... and you had to upgrade your hardware for XP back then. 2GB is the least i would seriously use with Vista. my mobo soundcard works with vista, i know its not great but for personal use its fine. i use 1GB RAM right now on an old P4 3ghz machine running vista. it works for personal use... and as a temporary media center. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members daklander Posted October 3, 2007 Members Share Posted October 3, 2007 My niece needs a new laptop. Internet, email, Word, Publisher. I figure she could get a decent discount on MS Office since she is a schoolteacher?) The Microsoft Office Student and Teacher edition should be under $150.00. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.