I like Vista Ultimate. It is good.

Those two sentences make the entire thread worth it.

I've been using Vista for 2 years now, after 14 years of using MS OSes, and I haven't had any problems except for self-inflicted ones.  I almost did a re-install recently, until I did some digging and realized that it was a supposedly helpful piece of software causing me problems.  Killed said software, and computer is working smoothly again.

All I have to ask, is why did people have to bring up that monstrosity known as WinME?  I've had computers die on me before, but I had never wanted to torch a computer, douse in holy water, stake it through the heart, and then burn it again just to make sure the OS never had problems again... Until WinME.  And even then, it wasn't even my computer, it was my brother's.

So all of you Vista haters out there, give WinME a shot and then you'll truly appreciate Vista, warts and all.  Not saying you have to install it, but you'll know that it could be worse... much, much, MUCH worse.

I use XP and Linux (Ubuntu).

I have tried Vista on a dual core 2GB machine and found it nice looking but useless like a playmate on the paper.

Right now both companies and users are not moving massively to Vista besides the pre-installed base. They simply find no reason for all the hurdles and cost.

Some are switching to Mac some to Linux, most keep XP. I assume that MS will sooner or later try to force a switch (tried it with DirectX 10), but is dangerous as could loose forever a slice of users.

The Mac switches follow the line of easy2use and fashion.

The Linux switches move along the open, free, secure paradigm.

For me Linux is good enough and I like a system that allow me to manage my things and not one that assumes what is good for me without notice. I just miss my games but I still have an XP.

If I will be forced to Vista for games I would probably stop buying and go more to Wii games. I still find enjoyable a good range of old games.

I use XP at home and have the sole Vista machine at work (test subject).  Vista isn't quite the abomination some people say, but I still just don't see the benefits of upgrading.  For work purposes, I don't see any difference in major applications.  Some of my utilities don't work quite right in Vista though.  For gaming, pretty much all game boxes I've seen list 20% more CPU speed and double the RAM requirements for Vista.  For what?  DX10?  Sure, it's a little prettier but that really isn't worth getting 1/2 the framerates.  XP has been stable for me, and I have lots of smaller games and apps that I doubt will work well in Vista.

I'm almost due for a whole new system (pretty much everything could use an upgrade at this point), but I'm thinking of holding off until the new OS due in 2010 is out.  Even MS declared that Vista is a failure at this point, and that doesn't bode well for getting much priority of fixes and updates once the newer OS is out.  Hopefully by then, DX10 will be a little better optimized and worthwhile as well.

I wouldn't worry about MS forcing people to use Vista to game.  They tried that out with Halo 2 and Shadowrun, and both games failed horribly.  Vista's image is damaged beyond repair at this point and people just want nothing to do with it.

been using XP forever, then i moved on to vista64 ultimate about 6 months ago., im glad i did, its alot more stable and better than my XP pro. i cant go back to XP now,. i love vista64 . also no crashes, no BSoDs and other problems since i got it. all the updates it had made it alot better and faster. running on vista SP2 beta btw. .

I have been trying real hard to hate Vista. I got a new rig for Christmas and there are no XP drivers for it. So I am now learning to like Vista. I may as well try to like it, since it is on my PC and my laptop. 

I personally never had a problem with Vista on my new computer. It's been almost a year, and not problems at all. In fact the computer runs much faster and is easier to work with. But this is my opinion and from what I've experienced with Vista.

Hehehe ME...

http://xkcd.com/323/

I have Vista on my computer, no problems so far, although I have only had my computer for about 4 months. The interfaces are annoying at best compared to XP, but at least most of them allow you to hit alt to use 'classic' menus. Sometimes using classic menus is all but required for some tasks.

i beg to differ upon the previous showering of accolades for win vista. IMHO, vista stinks. since ive no more resources to get an upgrade, ill have to stick with WVHP 32 bit. one bright spot, im in a contest and grand prize is win ultamite -free to winner.

woot

Here's more "showering" . I love vista. Don't miss that poo that is xp.  I mean i miss some of the themes, and some apps. *cough ICONX *cough. But as an os. Vista is way better than xp.

I once installed Vista on my old machine (2.8GHz Celeron, 1GB, x1550), and the machine was indeed almost unusable, trying to play The Witcher for example was impossible. Now that i have a beefier system (2.6 GHz C2D, 2GB, 9600GT) Vista and games run perfectly (except Crysis, Warhead on the other hand..). I have xp installed on a second harddrive, but during the 6 or so monthes i have used Vista, i've only booted it three times, and only used it for 10 minutes before started missing Vista's features.

And dx 10? I suppose it's running, but i got a bigger improvement on graphics by switching my CRT monitor to LCD one

I've been using Vista 64 Ultimate for about 3 months.  There's many things I like about Vista but not as many as when I upgraded to XP from 98x. 

The main problems and frustrations I have with Vista is the inability to close processes.  Vista does not like it one bit and I can easily force a BSOD from closing simple processes through the task manager; I realize the BSOD is my own doing.  The only crashes I have are with IE and I expect everyone to express how using Firefox would be better. 

The resource issues with Vista aren't as bad as you'd expect.  It's quite easy to close down the proper processes and maintain full driver support with around 500mb of ram in use.  DX10 is pretty sweet if you've got the resources to run it.  I've seen a few comparisons of the DX10_hack and I don't feel it's anything close to real DX10. 

The greatest annoyance with Vista is the User Access Control which can be turned off.

I'm only using 2x 1gb ddr3 @ 1760mhz 7-7-7-20 1 and I honestly don't see how more RAM would improve my system's performance other then if I wanted to edit large photos, watch a movie, surf porn and play several games at once.  Besides, DDR3 is a little expensive atm...

edit: 

I am enjoying Crysis in DX10 although everything is not entirely maxed out and it averages around 40 fps with lots of action on screen; good enough for me!

e8400 @ 3.9ghz, 1760fsb;  ASUS 9800 GT Ultimate @ 820mhz core; 2x1 DDR3 @ 1760mhz 7-7-7-20 1; ASUS p5e3 premium mo-bo

I have never had a problem with Vista (other than the copy thing before SP1 release) on this pc, it was the fastest install of any operating system yet for me, Intel DX58SOmb INtel i7 processor radeon 4850 graphics card etc, but vista runs absolutely flawlessly on this, maybe i am just lucky (highly doubt it with the last name of Murphy) but i am lucking out with this, i actually used my daughters pc with XP and kinda forgot how to do certain things, i take for granted in vista, oh well wish everyone had as good experience with it as i have,

I hate the start menu because it doesn't let me access certain parts of the OS that I could access in XP. That's by definition a reduction in options - a bad thing.

Visual quality is subjective - I despise the Vista look, especially when you consider the hardware tradeoff you have to make for them.

Dislike the explorer - see first bulletpoint for the why.

Bad, bad, bad example. Making Crysis look the same way, in XP is a few lines of .cfg modification - and it'll take less hardware to run it. It's been benchmarked.

Rewritten badly, seeing as how it takes certifiably more memory just to run it. Futureproof is only a nice concept when the present doesn't suffer for it.

If you have to start a bulletpoint with "Wheter you like it or not" it's probably not a good idea to include that bulletpoint.

vista takes a beefier rig to run it? yeah, it does. wasn't that the excuse people used when complaining about xp when it was released? so what if a person needs to upgrade his/her rig? it needs to be done when upgrading from any os to its successor. big deal! if you have a modern rig, run vista. if you don't, run xp.

personally, i like vista much better than xp. of course, there was a learning curve when i first started using it when it was initially released. there was a learning curve when i first started using xp when it was released, too. if you get a bsod in vista, it's likely a hardware issue and not the os. the only bsod i've gotten since switching to vista64 was due to a bad stick of ram. vista is rock solid. that's something that couldn't be said about xp until sp2 was released.

and what's wrong with vista's start menu? you vista haters don't like not having a cascading menu all over your desktop or what?

Why would I when XP provides better performance and a less intrusive UI? There's a huge number of configurations that could run Vista, but get nothing but reduced performance out of it.

well i keep my fingers crossed for windows 7 looks good of what ive read!

It's amazing how many people don't know how to properly organize a start menu in XP and end up with a screen full of menu. Mine is very compact and easy to use. Moreover, if you don't know what you are looking for it's all there in front of you.

With Vista, you click down into folders, realize what you want is not there, and have to click back again - very annoying.

I put together a custom this past summer and had the missfortune to put Vista on it... Sadly I don't feel like forking over the cash or effort to put XP back on here... Oh well it isn't that bad... Only two BOD's... And other stuff...

*Sigh