Did that...bought a Soundblaster Audigy 4 that worked fine in the Vista betas, thinking it was going to suit my needs. Wrong, when Vista went gold it (hardware & software) didn't function properly.....lucky for me, basic drivers for my card were available via Windows update, so at least I am able to listen to 5.1 sound through my Creative Inspire digital processor, if nothing else.

To access full hardware & software functions I need to upgrade to Soundblaster's X-Fi Xtreme Gamer card, which I will do in a few weeks. That's my only gripe (having to spend on another soundcard), but it's not MS or Vista's fault that my current card is older and a bit behind the eight ball in technological terms.

I must admit that I have now had a couple of BSOD's since installing Vista....cause was recently updated video drivers from nVidia malfunctioning or something...however, I've reverted to the 'previous' drivers all is well again.

All in all my Vista experience has been a good one and I'm as happy with it as Robinson Crusoe in a 5 star suite with room & pool service.

i'm using my bose companion speakers thru a usb port. my system doesn't have a soundcard or onboard sound in it these days. i have a 200 dollar soundblaster x-fi sitting on the shelf. i'm really liking these bose companions, tho

The worst thing with Vista was that I often got a blue screen at boot up . Then the computer would prompt me whether I wanted to run windows recovery. It did this at least 5 times in a week. This was on a new computer running an Athlon duo core 5000+ with the latest main board. It was an open box computer that had previously been returned. I do not know if Vista is glitched or if I had a corrupted copy. At any rate I took advantage of the 14 day return policy and took it back to the store. Is it possible that their could be compatability issues with certain main boards? Now I am using my 6 years old computer with a 100 front side bus and am between a rock and a hard place needing a new system but knowing that the new system may not function properly with Vista. I once loaded Explorer 3 times before it would work. The first two times it was not responding.

Has anyone else had failure booting the system?

Been running it for a year and as far as I,m concerned theres no comparison with XP, I normally run 4 or 5 different progs at the same time, some thing I couldn't even think of
doing withe XP. It's a lot more stable.

since i finally decided to get it, to make up my 'own' mind about it......i loved it from day one...and still do.........id never look back even after upgrading........

Personally I hate Vista! Not that I have it...but because I'm subjected to its configurations even though I still have XP...such as where my stardock programs "have" to be now. And as far as Vista being able to run numerous programs at once...yeah....so....I've always been able to do that with my XP...so there!

Honestly though...if Vista works for you...great! But I still like my XP! Works great....runs all the programs I need it to when I need it to.

This has been a public service announcement!

Not sp3?

Anyway vista im sure it will be a great OS in about a year or two still isnt good enough i think, until then i will use XP primarily.

Um... I dual boot between Vista Ultimate SP1 and XP Pro SP3, and I must disagree that XP SP3 is faster. On my rig (AMD Athlon x2 6400 3.4ghz/4gb RAM), I find that Vista runs a good deal faster and is more stable... better than XP for multiple apps to be open/used.

I do agree, however, with the UAC comment. It's a real pain in the arse when it keeps asking for permissions after you've allowed the various apps over and over again... hence it's turned off via TweakVista.



And when Windows 7 is released, the same detractors and nay-sayers as there was with XP, Vista, etc, will come crawling out of the woodwork saying things like: "But it's not as stable as Vista or XP... my advice is to stick with Vista/XP until Windows 8 comes out."

There just ain't pleasing some people! They're not happy unless they're bitching about something... and who better than Microsoft/Windows to pick on.

I have pretty much the same apps in both OSes - to save more frequent booting between them to access programs in need to use - and Vista is faster at bootup/shutdown and running apps in general... mind you, XP is no slouch these days, either, not with this new AMD Athlon x2 4600 3.4ghz CPU I'm running.



I had some a while back, but that was due to a faulty graphics card that had issues with DWM and Aero. XP was fine with it, but Vista kept going to the dreaded BSOD once the desktop loaded. All was resolved with a new graphics card, however, and I've not seen a BSOD since.




I can understand businesses being reluctant to upgrade to a new OS, particularly when it requires upgraded hardware across the board, but for general users who purchase a new PC with Vista pre-installed, I fail to understand why they'd downgrade/pay for a copy of XP and dismiss Vista entirely... in some cases without giving it a decent tryout to give it a fair go. Now that SP1 has resolved various issues and most driver incompatibilities have been fixed, I can see no logical reason to do that.

Sadly, Vista got a lot of bad press and less than encouraging reviews, and according to what I've heard from various people who are reluctant to try Vista, is that they're not prepared to give it a go based on negative comments/remarks they've heard about it. Now if the majority of those comments/remarks were actually qualified, well informed judgements, I could understand their reluctance, but when it's heard from a friend of a friend who knows somebody who has a brother whose wife's fourth cousin said it was no good, according to a friend of his, I have to question their ability to think for themselves.




Me either, I generally tell people of my own, trouble-free Vista experience (been running it since the 1st public beta), but I also advise people considering an upgrade that Vista requires decent/more up-to-date hardware to run it efficiently, that it does not perform well on older, more low powered machines.

Having said that, I wouldn't deter anyone from going with XP if that's what they want (and can still get it), because I still run/use XP for various reasons. For example, I have a USB AVerMedia TV/FM tuner card that's capable of recording from VHS video, and while I find this runs more than well enough in Vista, it does operate more efficiently in XP when multi-tasking ... probably because theres fewer background services and no Aero/DWM.




Yep, me too... I'm rather looking forwards to Windows 7 being released. I'll give it a go despite what the detractors and nay sayers may come out with to rubbish it. I've never allowed others opinions decide what's good/right for me, so I'll sign up for Windows 7 to assess it's worth for myself... just as I did with Vista.

Well i love vista...... i think it works great and i could never go back to XP...  

I can still remember when XP came out, every one was saying the same then "it's crap, none of the software works, ect..."

so it's just the same with Vista, everyone will be using it soon enough.....