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Windows Vista Ultimate

Manufacturer: Microsoft Corp. Part number: 66R-00012

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CNET Editor rating:
3.5 stars Very good
Average user rating: 2.0 stars out of 482 reviews

More product information:: Editors' review; User reviews; Specifications; Manufacturer info

Bottom Line:: Windows Vista is essentially warmed-over Windows XP. If you're currently happy with Windows XP SP2, we see no compelling reason to upgrade. On the other hand, if you need a new computer right now, Windows Vista is stable enough for everyday use.
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CNET editors' review

Windows Vista Ultimate

price range: $110.00 - $408.84

Reviewed by: Robert Vamosi
Reviewed on: 01/23/2007
Released on: 01/30/2007

The good: Windows Vista Ultimate does improve some features within Windows XP; fewer system crashes than Windows XP; Windows Vista offers better built-in support options.

The bad: Windows Vista Ultimate does not put Search on the desktop (it's buried within applications, within the Start Menu); optimized only for the Microsoft Windows ecosystem (for example, RSS feeds from Internet Explorer 7 get preferential treatment); there's simply too much and not all of it is implemented properly; no new software yet written exclusively for Windows Vista; and there are too many editions of Windows Vista.

The bottom line: Windows Vista is essentially warmed-over Windows XP. If you're currently happy with Windows XP SP2, we see no compelling reason to upgrade. On the other hand, if you need a new computer right now, Windows Vista is stable enough for everyday use.

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Compare editions

For a side-by-side comparison chart of Windows Vista editions, click below.

Windows Vista is Microsoft's first new operating system in more than five years and the successor to Windows XP. However, it is not worth rushing out to purchase. If you desperately need to buy a new PC (if your old one died or you've been waiting and waiting for Vista to be released), then by all means do so; there's nothing wrong with Windows Vista. But there's no one compelling feature within Windows Vista that cries out to switch over, neither the enhanced graphic capabilities (Aero) nor the improved system performance features (truthfully, our Windows XP doesn't crash). As for security, Microsoft's biggest improvements in Windows Vista are within the Enterprise or 64-bit editions, editions most home users will not be running. Windows Vista is not the Apple Mac OS X 10.4 killer one hoped for (or feared). Nor are there specific big-name software packages written exclusively for Windows Vista--most software available today is compatible with both Windows XP and Windows Vista. But the extensive tie-ins to Microsoft.com and Live.com, and the many, many interdependences upon Internet Explorer 7 left us desperately wanting more (and often best-of-breed) alternatives. Hard core Microsofties who live and breathe within the MSN, Live.com, and Microsoft desktop software ecosystem will rejoice with the release of Windows Vista, but for the rest of us who are product agnostic, who use Firefox, Google Desktop, ZoneAlarm, GMail, and Corel WordPerfect, Windows XP SP2 will suffice nicely until some killer program necessitates that we all upgrade to Windows Vista.

There are six major editions of Windows Vista; we're reviewing four. We chose not to review Windows Vista Enterprise (available only to volume license customers) and Windows Vista Starter (available only outside the United States). Windows Vista Ultimate includes everything, and this is the edition getting the most promotion from Microsoft. It is not the edition most people will find packaged on their shiny new PCs or will end up with after an upgrade of existing hardware. See our feature comparison chart to know which edition is right for your specific needs, and check the following individual reviews for more details:

Windows Vista Business
Windows Vista Home Premium
Windows Vista Home Basic

Setup and installation
The Windows Vista DVD disc includes a Windows Imaging (WIM) format of the code, so whether you buy the Home Basic edition or the Ultimate edition, the code remains the same; only the product key unlocks your specific set of features. This means users who opt for the lesser editions can always upgrade (assuming they have the proper hardware) by downloading some additional code and securing a new product key online. However, all features--even if you paid for them--are dependent on specific hardware configurations being present; if you don't have the proper graphics hardware, for example, you'll simply never see the Aero graphic effects on that old Dell computer in your basement.

Hardware requirements for Windows Vista should not be taken lightly. In a controversial move to garner positive reviews, Microsoft sent hundreds of bloggers (not including CNET) free copies of Windows Vista Ultimate; Microsoft did not send boxed copies, rather the software giant sent top-of-the-line Acer Ferrari laptops with the operating system preinstalled. So even Microsoft seems to admit that the best performance is only available on top-of-the-line machines manufactured within the last year or so.

That said, many people will still want to upgrade their current Windows XP SP2. This will keep all your current data and applications, importing them directly into the new operating system. Most people will find either Windows Vista Home Basic or Windows Vista Home Premium to be their best choice. While Windows Vista does make a backup of your previous operating system before installing, it is always recommended that you backup your current Windows XP system yourself, just in case.

Rather than upgrade, we recommend you perform a clean installation. With a clean installation, you keep all your current on the Windows XP drive and install only the data and applications you want to run on Windows Vista. A clean install can be accomplished by buying a new PC with Windows Vista already installed, partitioning an existing Windows XP machine to dual-boot into Windows Vista, or adding a new hard drive to an existing Windows XP machine.

Our clean installations took anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour, depending on the hardware in the system. It's pretty much an automated process, with the installer first copying the WIM image onto the new hard drive or partition then expanding that image. Once again, we experienced an uncomfortably long plateau at "Expanding: 27 percent"; as with previous builds, we waited between two and five minutes before the expansion continued. About halfway through, the installer reboots and continues the installation in Windows Vista.

During the installation, Windows Vista will load the drivers included within the installation image, but it will also download additional drivers from a much larger database at Microsoft. This assumes, however, that one has an always-on Internet connection; dial-up users may find that upon completion of the installation process some drivers are missing.

Once fully installed, Windows Vista first asks for your country or region, then time and currency, and, finally, the desired keyboard layout. Next, you'll choose a username, a user icon, and a password. Then select your desktop wallpaper and security settings: Automatic, Install Important Updates Only, or Ask Me Later. After reviewing the computer's time and date settings, there's one more message: "Please wait while Windows checks your computer's performance." Here, Microsoft grades your computer on a five-point scale, with the overall rating based on your system's lowest score (in our case, that was for the video card).

Windows Vista includes new musical tones written by veteran musician Robert Fripp. Compared to the familiar start-up tones of Windows XP, Windows Vista's are lighter, almost spritely. The sounds for User Account Control and Log Off are also perkier than those found in similar security warnings within Windows XP.

New on the Windows Vista desktop is a Welcome Center which contains links to frequently asked questions such as, "How do you configure your printer?" and "How do you connect to your Internet service?" There is also room for some sales opportunities, either with manufacturer specials or online offers from Microsoft, such as the Windows Live OneCare service. Frankly, we think it is better for you to look beyond the Windows ecosystem for e-mail, Internet browsers, and security applications.

After closing the Welcome Center, you'll notice to the far right there is a shaded sidebar populated with three example Gadgets ("widgets" to everyone else), tiny desktop applets that display content, such as RSS feeds. In one Gadget, a slide show of images from the sample photo library display; in the next, the current time; finally, there's a Gadget for subscribed RSS feeds. We downloaded and installed Firefox 2, made Firefox our default browser, and quickly set up a few RSS feed subscriptions. Guess what? The Windows Vista Gadget was unresponsive to our efforts, displaying only the default MSN feeds from Microsoft. Microsoft says the default RSS Gadget feeds off a common store of RSS feeds within Windows Vista, and firefox hasn't yet adopted the API for that store. You have to use Internet Explorer 7 or choose a Firefox-friendly Gadget instead. By clicking the + symbol atop the sidebar, you'll see a panel of available Gadgets, with a link out to the Web to find even more. The Gadgets are not fixed to the sidebar; they can be dragged across the desktop. And even the sidebar itself can be disabled to allow for a full desktop view. An icon located within the taskbar will restore the sidebar at any time.

The familiar Start menu features some cosmetic changes for Windows Vista. Aside from the distinctive rounded icon, the Start menu now includes a built-in Search function. We would have preferred to have access to Search directly from the desktop rather than digging down a level or two. The All Programs list now displays as an expandable/collapsible directory tree, something Windows should have offered years ago. The new Start menu is divided in half, with access to documents, pictures, music, games, recent items, My Computer, network, Control Panel, default programs, and Help along the right-hand side.

Also new within Start is an Instant Off button. This button caches all your open files and processes, allowing you to turn off your laptop or desktop quickly without all the "cleaning up files" messages you see in previous versions. We like the feature, but on our Acer Travelmate 8200, Instant Off and closing the lid to hibernate sometimes produced limbo states where the laptop simply wouldn't wake up again, forcing us to reboot.

In Windows Vista, files become unmoored from the traditional directory tree structure--kind of. The more ambitious plan of including a whole new file system was scrapped early on; instead, Windows Vista relies on metatags, which are keywords linked to files to make them searchable. With metatags, you can create virtual file folders based on a variety of search terms. Say you're doing a report on mountains, any file that is keyword-enabled to include "mountains" will be grouped into a virtual folder without physically dragging that file to a new location. The downside is that older files (say you upgraded your system from Windows XP or imported data from an earlier version of Windows) will have to be retroactively metataged in order to be searched. Also different is the file path displayed within Windows Explorer. Gone are the backslashes, replaced with arrows that offer drop-down menus of alternative folders. We liked this efficient feature.

Finally, there's a compatibility wizard buried deep within Windows Vista. Most Windows XP applications we loaded performed just fine. Operating under the hood, Windows Vista convinces native Windows XP applications that they're running on Windows XP. Should you need to run an older application, say from Windows 95, the compatibility wizard allows you to tweak the display resolution and emulate Windows 95 for that program. For example, we were able to run a Windows 95-optimized game demo on our Windows Vista test system.

Features
There are too many individual features within Windows Vista Ultimate Edition to call out--seriously. However, our gut feeling is that most of the significant bells and whistles are designed for the Enterprise-level customers, not the home user. Having a large number of features should not be confused with actually providing significant value to all users across the board. We would have preferred fewer features executed extremely well rather than an uneven mix of this and that, a one-size-fits-all operating system. And we disagree with Microsoft's seemingly arbitrary division of features within individual editions.

Common to all editions of Windows Vista are ad hoc backup and recovery, instant Search, Internet Explorer 7 browser, Windows Media Player 11, Windows Mail e-mail client, Windows Calendar, Windows Photo Gallery, performance tuning and self-diagnostics, Internet protocol IPv6 and IPv4 support, Windows ReadyDrive, a maximum of 4GB RAM support on 32-bit editions (up to 128GB RAM on some 64-bit editions), Windows Sync Center for mobile devices, Windows Mobility Center for presentations on the road, User Account Control security protection, Windows Security Center, Windows Defender antispyware, Windows Firewall, Windows Meeting Space for ad hoc wireless meetings, Remote Desktop for working from home, XPS document support for PDF-like files, improved peer-to-peer networking, improved VPN support, and improved power management. Included within certain editions (and thus also included within the Ultimate edition) are Windows Media Center, Windows Tablet PC, Windows Movie Maker, Windows DVD Maker, Parental Controls, Windows SideShow for remote gadgets, domain join for Windows Small Business Server, Group Policy support, Client-side file caching, Roaming User Profiles for remote server access, Windows Fax and Scan, Windows ShadowCopy to create file backups, Windows Rights Management Services to protect documents, Windows BitLocker hard drive encryption, integrated smart card management, and various Windows Ultimate Extras to be named later. Despite many feature changes within Windows Vista, Microsoft has held onto its original marketing promise of providing users with Clear, Confident, and Connected solutions.

For Clear, Microsoft cites its new Aero graphics. Aero is part of the Windows Presentation Foundation, a subgroup of the .Net Foundation Framework, an underlying foundation for developers to build new applications. One applet is the New York Times Times Reader, the first of many products written exclusively for Windows Vista but hardly a compelling reason by itself to upgrade. Though video playback and, yes, even the tiny icons on Windows Vista are now crisp and colorful with Aero, unless you watch YouTube videos all day, you won't really need Aero, nor will you miss the tiny preview windows enabled on your desktop display. Also new is Microsoft's Adobe PDF-like file format called XPS (Extensible Page System); however, any Windows XP SP2 machine can view XPS-created pages with downloads of the .Net 3 Framework Foundation and the Internet Explorer 7 browser.

For Confident, Microsoft touts new security enhancements within Windows Vista. You shouldn't encounter User Account Control (UAC) except when changing system configurations or installing new software, and even then, wouldn't you--in this age of downloadable spyware--prefer to know when an executable file is about to run? While UAC notifies you of pending system changes, it doesn't always require a password. Microsoft's more controversial method to lock down the system kernel, PatchGuard, is only available in the 64-bit editions of Windows Vista; most home users will not run these editions. Another celebrated security feature works only within Windows Mail, which most people are unlikely to use. And finally, the jury is still out on whether Internet Explorer 7 is more secure than, say, Firefox 2. Windows Vista also includes a built-in but limited two-way firewall and free Windows Defender antispyware, which ranked poor in competitive testing done by Download.com.

For Connected, Microsoft points to the new peer-to-peer possibilities, some of which are the result of its acquisition of Groove several years ago. From within Windows Explorer (which displays different toolbar options for exploring documents, photos, or music) you can move any file into a Public Folder and then mark the file or folder for sharing on a network. Within the Business and Ultimate editions you can further mark individual files for remote access.

Performance
Upon installation, Windows Vista rates each system's overall hardware performance, with the final score reflecting your system's lowest individual score. This is handy. For example, if you suspect that everything's running a little slow, you might find that your hard drive is returning the lowest score. Windows Vista will then recommend a faster hard drive or a drive with larger compatibility. Mostly, though, the video card will be the sore spot for most users. There's also an event log viewer to show, for example, after a specific software install your system performance started to degrade, and that uninstalling the software may restore your overall performance.

Under the hood, Microsoft has moved device drivers for DVD burners and printers out of the system kernel; Microsoft says that a majority of system crashes can be traced to improperly installed third-party device drivers. Thus Windows Vista hopes to vanquish the dreaded Blue Screen of Death common to earlier releases of Windows. Indeed, after testing several early builds, we found Windows Vista to be remarkably stable and robust.

Support
Along with the performance monitors, Microsoft has improved the Help section considerably. There is a static FAQ, but it also links to Microsoft online and allows outreach to other users for help, either via a forum or direct PC-to-PC help. Of these, we really like a feature available on some, not all, FAQs that allows you to automate the solution by executing a script. This method doesn't teach you how to do it in the future, but it will accomplish the task at hand. For example, if you choose to update a device driver, Windows Vista will darken the desktop; highlight and open the Start menu, the Control Panel, and the Device Manager; then pause to ask you what device you want to update. It's like having a technician at your desktop, walking you though the process. There's an increasing reliance on user-generated support forums, which leads us to believe that Microsoft is shying away from its own live technical support. At press time, Microsoft's final support policy was unavailable.

Conclusion
Perhaps we're spoiled, but after more than five years of development, there's a definite "Is that all?" feeling about Windows Vista. Like cramming an info-dump into a book report the night before it's due, there certainly are a lot of individual features within the operating system, but the real value lies in their execution--how the user experiences (or doesn't experience) these--and like the info-dump, we came away shaking our heads, disappointed. Compared with Mac OS X 10.4, Windows Vista feels clunky and not very intuitive, almost as though it's still based on DOS (or at least the internal logic that made up DOS). Despite the addition of a system-wide, built-in Search, and various efforts to break away from staidly old directory trees, you still need to drill down one level to even access Search. And there are far too many dependencies on Microsoft products; this is not a very objective operating system, as preference is always given to Microsoft products (of which there are many), from MSN Search to RSS feeds only from Internet Explorer. But is Windows Vista a bad operating system? No. It's just a disappointment for PC users who hoped that Microsoft would deliver something truly exciting to finally leapfrog ahead of Apple. They failed. But stick around; this is just Windows Vista 1.0. Windows Vista Service Pack 1 is due out sometime before the end of the year. Windows Vista SP1 promises to fix what's known to be wrong within Windows Vista and should offer a few concrete reasons to switch.

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Average user rating: 2.0 stars out of 482 reviews
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6 stars

Not Ready For Prime-Time

by Silver-Surfer57 on January 25, 2007

Pros: Nice visual improvements. Reminds me a lot of a Mac.

Cons: Many programs won't work. Amazing lack of drivers.

Summary: I have the business version of Vista and have been running it for about a month now. I did a clean install just to make sure there were no remnants ...

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Summary: I have the business version of Vista and have been running it for about a month now. I did a clean install just to make sure there were no remnants of XP. Installation was very smooth and took about 40 minutes.

First the good: I really like Aero and the other visual changes. The desktop is much sharper and I assume that's because it takes advantage of my video card's capabilities (I have a GeForce 6800GT). I received a 3.2 rating on my AMD Athlon 2400+ system with 1GB RAM, so that's not too bad. Even though there's more running it seems to be smoother. The sidebar is pretty nice and unobtrusive. Vista will keep a list of any problems it encounters and will search for solutions on the web. Nice touch.

Unfortunately, at this time, I think the bad outweighs the good. Several programs that I have installed no longer work on Vista. Nero is one of them and that makes creating CD's/DVD's much more difficult. Vista does have burning software, but it's so basic that it's practically worthless. The "new" Windows Explorer is nice, but it seems a direct copy of the Mac.

The worst problem is drivers. It took me hours to get the right combination of drivers to get my scanner working again. I'm pretty upset that my HP 5150 printer software no longer works. The driver works fine, but the software that allows me to clean the inkjets fails so now I have horrible looking printouts. You'd think with all the time Vista has been in development that this wouldn't be an issue. My Logitech mouse driver doesn't install and, believe it or not, it didn't even install the software for my Microsoft keyboard. I had to search Microsoft to find it.

Another weirdness is the Games component. At first I was pretty impressed that it scanned my system and not only put in the games I had installed (which, btw, do work fine so far), but changed the icon to match the game box and had the manufacturer info on it. The weird thing is that it only seemed to do that the very first time I scanned. I've installed 2 new games since and can't get them to show up like the others.

Overall, I do like the OS, but I don't think it's ready for the general public yet. Like XP before it, I think it would be worth waiting until all the kinks are worked out of it. I'm very very surprised that, given all the testing, Vista is just as bad off as XP was when it was first released. I've been a loyal MS user for years, so it's not easy for me to admit that they missed the mark this time.

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37 out of 40 users found this user opinion helpful.
1 stars

Vista, best thing since ME!

by bb2012 on January 24, 2007

Pros: None that come to mind.

Cons: Lets say there is a lot.

Summary: Vista has an 11GB install size, compared to 2GB with XP it should be 5 times better or more secure right? Wrong. Vista is really the worst thing since ME. ...

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Summary: Vista has an 11GB install size, compared to 2GB with XP it should be 5 times better or more secure right? Wrong. Vista is really the worst thing since ME. I don't know about you, but I like to try out new software every once and a while. When I tried to do just that, Vista's new brain child - UAC(User Access Control) pops up everytime and asks me whether or not I want to continue. I tried to find the fastest way to disable it. It took me an hour of searching Google and MSDN where they hid the answer very well, to try to find out how to disable this annoyance. Once I found out how and disabled it, half of the software I tryed to install did not work. Then once I had all my software intalled and was ready to give Vista a fair evaluation, I found myself saying wow this looks exactly like XP with a Vista Theme on it. After a closer examination I found exactly that, Windows XP Core, Vista Theme. 11GB of fluff. Windows Update took away a need for ever having a new OS but as all companies do, MS needs more money and we need our toys, and so Vista was born.

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32 out of 46 users found this user opinion helpful.
1 stars

Vista is a joke

by mrpiddly1 on January 14, 2007

Pros: new look,

Cons: tries to be OSX which it fails at

Summary: Windows vista is like some Frankenstein creation between OSX and windows XP. As expected the results are not good. While the new look is much better that the blue windows ...

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Summary: Windows vista is like some Frankenstein creation between OSX and windows XP. As expected the results are not good. While the new look is much better that the blue windows of XP, it is still very ugly compared to OSX. The effects is nice, but for people with old or crap computers, dont expect much. Instillation was horrid and took me most of a day just to install it and put my files onto it. It crashed a few times in instillation too. Once it was installed, the trouble began. It had some problems with my external hard drive and internet connection so, it froze when I opened up that drive. I fixed that by spending a hour clicking in endless control windows until I found a little box to un-check.

As I said earlier, Vista is much like OSX, but dont get your hopes up, looks aren't all that matter. The window flip thing is nice, but very unpractical and I prefer tha layout of OSX's Expose. The widget like things in Vista are a huge rip of of OSX. I found them difficult and not worth the time. Plus, they are always on the screen so they are very annoying. You have to close all other windows to see them. There is also a very small selection of widgets(hopefully this will change) IT would also be nice to have an easy widget creator much like in leopard but Microsoft isn't know for easy. The preview function is nice but soemtimes comes up randomly. As for windows live search, ripoff of spot light, that did not work for me and told me that there was a system error when I searched.

Text to speach is a complete failure and possibly the worst feature of vista. The whole operating system is very none friendly to people with hearing or seeing problems (i do not have them, just my speculation) Also, the photo viewer is nice but is slow as hell even on my fast computer. It also doesn't like half my photos because they are in the wrong format. Other features have their highs and lows but I left vista very disappointed. They took 5 years to create a ripoff of OSX, and they didnt create a good ripoff, they created another OS that is impossible to use and that only a hacker can fix.

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70 out of 147 users found this user opinion helpful.
3 stars

That's it?!

by justinpowell on January 25, 2007

Pros: More like a Mac.

Cons: It's not a Mac; hardware requirements too high; too expensive

Summary: I use both Windows XP and Mac OS X and have extensive experience on both platforms. Windows XP was a worthy upgrade to Windows 98/ME that offered a more ...

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Summary: I use both Windows XP and Mac OS X and have extensive experience on both platforms. Windows XP was a worthy upgrade to Windows 98/ME that offered a more stable, modern computing environment and more features. Nonetheless, in my experience Mac OS X has been a more advanced, stable, secure, and easy-to-use OS.

Windows Vista does not offer a compelling upgrade from Windows XP and the hardware requirements are too high for such a 'ho-hum' upgrade. The retail price is also way too expensive for what you get. The full (and only) version of Mac OS X is $129 whereas the crippled Vista Home Basic is $199. The full Vista Ultimate is a whopping $399, almost $300 more than Mac OS X!

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21 out of 26 users found this user opinion helpful.
1 stars

Stay away from Vista!!!

by reng2005 on January 24, 2007

Pros: Tries to mimic Mac OS X

Cons: Expensive; buggy; resource hog; Product Activation is a pain; DRM; poor imitation of Mac OS X

Summary: Vista tries to mimic Mac OS X with features like search (Mac's Spotlight) and Sidebar (Mac's Dashboard). Even Aero Glass is a feeble attempt to outdo OS X'...

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Summary: Vista tries to mimic Mac OS X with features like search (Mac's Spotlight) and Sidebar (Mac's Dashboard). Even Aero Glass is a feeble attempt to outdo OS X's GUI interface. But OS X is slicker.

Product Activation is a pain in the ass. Vista's DRM limits you to what you can do with your software and media content.

Windows is expensive. Linux is free or available for a low, low price.

Mac OS X has much better built-in apps such as iLife. Linux has tons of great and free apps built-in! What does Vista offer you?

Vista is "Version 1.0" which means lots of bugs and application compatibility problems.

Vista's much-vaunted security is a joke. Hackers have already found security holes in Vista!

Vista is little more than a glorified Service Pack for XP. If you have Win XP, just stick with it. It's much safer.

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25 out of 41 users found this user opinion helpful.
6 stars

5 yrs later, still no need to upgrade

by bigpetis on January 24, 2007

Pros: Flashy Aero graphics (if you have the RAM to spare), DirectX 10, cool black toolbar, more security (sarcastic YAY)

Cons: Gadgets? why not call them "Rip off of Apple programs" Oh look a search bar in the Start Menu, oh wait Apple beat them to that too,

Summary: I think it is ironic that Bill Gates along with many more computer engineers spend 5 years on this OS and not even CNET tells you that you need to ...

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Summary: I think it is ironic that Bill Gates along with many more computer engineers spend 5 years on this OS and not even CNET tells you that you need to upgrade. I mean, what has Microsoft been doing for all that time. If I had 5 years to make a product and on top of that a year to see what your competition has done, I would make one spectacular product! Also they have already started work on their first service pack for Vista. Wait a tick, your telling me that you haven't even released the product to the public and you already need to make a service pack for it. Sounds like they are rushing out the OS a little to soon.

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17 out of 21 users found this user opinion helpful.
7 stars

Solid product, but definitely wait until programs are updated

by dotmike on January 25, 2007

Pros: New features, more like Mac than Windows has ever been

Cons: Many 3rd party program incompatibilities

Summary: Vista is a solid upgrade with a lot of 21st century features. Recommend waiting a while though, as compatibility with existing programs will take time to sort out.

Many of

...

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Summary: Vista is a solid upgrade with a lot of 21st century features. Recommend waiting a while though, as compatibility with existing programs will take time to sort out.

Many of my everyday programs have glitches here and there, from icons not drawing properly, to serial numbers being rejected, to just failing to launch.

I can't do without these for long so I'm pestering the creators to update them, but it will take time.

For personal productivity, I've got to stick with XP for now.

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12 out of 13 users found this user opinion helpful.
2 stars

Not worth the money

by Yuki Taga on January 24, 2007

Pros: Few I can think of

Cons: Application incompatibilities; cost; confusion

Summary: I think this is the sucker's release. MS has promised (its stockholders, to mention one group) that it will *never* go 5 years between major OS releases again.

I

...

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Summary: I think this is the sucker's release. MS has promised (its stockholders, to mention one group) that it will *never* go 5 years between major OS releases again.

I believe them. They will roll out something in probably 2 years, 3 tops. I'll wait for that. I'm certainly not going to pay them this year, and then pay them again that soon.

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12 out of 17 users found this user opinion helpful.
7 stars

Runs well with 2GB memory.

by jancawa55 on January 24, 2007

Pros: Loads much faster than XP.

Cons: Games are a problem, installing and working.

Summary: I got my first BSOD today (in several years)when I tried to run a Quicktime movie. Vista does not play well with others. I-tunes is cantankerous and Quicktime killed ...

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Summary: I got my first BSOD today (in several years)when I tried to run a Quicktime movie. Vista does not play well with others. I-tunes is cantankerous and Quicktime killed it dead. I had to load DX9 to get games to work, even though Vista comes with DX10. WMP11 won't show a DVD but they play Ok in Media Center.

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13 out of 20 users found this user opinion helpful.
4 stars

Not good enough to $$$

by Sleepy_Knight on January 25, 2007

Pros: Nice interface, better security, better stability.

Cons: Not good enough to upgrade, no real features!

Summary: Vista ain't bad, certainly better than XP, but simply, doesn't worth the money, there is no worth-upgrading features. My advice, stick to XP, until their forthcoming release (the ...

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Summary: Vista ain't bad, certainly better than XP, but simply, doesn't worth the money, there is no worth-upgrading features. My advice, stick to XP, until their forthcoming release (the OS after Vista! It won't be far).

My advice to people who really wants Vista now and who are scared, I say don't worry it will work just fine, there MUST be minor problems here and there but it should be solved by the release of SP1.

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Specifications

Manufacturer: Microsoft Corp.
Part number: 66R-00012
Description: The most complete edition of Windows Vista - with the power, security, and mobility features that you need for work, and all of the entertainment features that you want for fun. When you want to have it all, including the ability to shift smoothly between the worlds of play and productivity, there's Windows Vista Ultimate. You'll never have to worry about having the most advanced capabilities - they're all here. This edition of Windows Vista offers an advanced, business-focused infrastructure, mobile productivity, and a premium home digital entertainment experience, all in a single offering. Specifically, Windows Vista Ultimate offers all of the features found in Windows Vista Home Premium, including Windows Media Center, Windows Movie Maker with high-definition support, and Windows DVD Maker. It also offers all of the features found in Windows Vista Business, including business networking, centralized management tools, and advanced system backup features. And Windows Vista Ultimate has all of the new security and data protection features that help take Windows Vista to a whole new level of dependability. In addition, Windows Vista Ultimate includes support for all of the new mobility features in Windows Vista, including Windows Tablet and Touch Technology, Windows SideShow, Windows Mobility Center, and other new, advanced mobility features. If you want a single PC that fulfills all of your work, travel, and entertainment needs, or if you simply want to be confident that you have the very best, Windows Vista Ultimate is the no-compromise edition for you.

General
Operating System Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate
Language(s) English
License pricing Standard
Localization English
Operating System
License Type Complete package
License Qty 1 PC
License Pricing Standard
Media DVD-ROM
Package Type Retail

System Requirements
Min Processor Type Intel x86 - 1 GHz
Min RAM Size 1 GB
Min Hard Drive Space 40 GB
Peripheral / Interface Devices DVD-ROM, Sound card, 128 MB video memory, Internet connection, DirectX 9.0 compatible graphics card

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