Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate 64-Bit DVD OEM

Comment:
Well, Vista certainly has a sleeker look than XP, but otherwise there's not much difference. Unless you have a DirectX 10 card, there's no convincing reason to switch to Vista for now since it's still buggy (for instance, Windows Media Player will start up for no reason whenever I close or open games - very annoying).

Comment:
Got this so I could get ready for the direct X 10 games, still have to get a direct X 10 video card have found out few current games work properly and sound driver issues with my sound card dont be in a rush if your into gaming I loaded XP back on half the drive and now use Vista for nothing

Comment:
The Ultimate installed without a problem using BootCamp on a 2 GB RAM Macbook. It's extremely fast, probably faster than OSX. I like the gadget sidebar and more secure features of IE 7. Did not have any problems with the Apple drivers. Everything seems to work like a charm. Battery life on Macbook seems to be in the range of 2 to 3 hours depending on use. As I use it more often, I do like it.

Comment:
If you are considering upgrading to Vista just make sure there are WORKING drivers out there for your devices, I had some major issues getting things up and running with stability. Overall it seems like a nice OS, it will be better than XP once it starts to mature. I wish they wouldn't release it unless it has the SP1 fixes because right now it's nowhere close to what XP is in terms of stability IMO. I'd hold off for a little longer until more companies improve drivers and Vista starts to mature.

Comment:
This OS needs work. Well, not the OS exactly, but the drivers people make for it. A lot of them are horrid and barely work. Like nVidia and their 8800 series. I had to go back to XP because of how bad it got. My friend who has a 7950 GX has zero problems with an otherwise exactly the same system.

Comment:
WAIT,WAIT,WAIT,WAIT,WAIT,WAIT,WAIT,WAIT,WAIT,WAIT,WAIT,WAIT,WAIT,WAIT,WAIT,WAIT, for about 6 mounts. Maybe the rest of the world will join Bill's latest O/S.

Comment:
After having used Vista I'm confident that it has no significant disadvantages compares to XP. Whether or not to upgrade is another question, but one that I won't give a recommendation on (this is OEM after all).As for the good, the GUI is much better now that it is 3D accelerated and supports alpha blending, affine transformation, and even arbitrary shading. I expect many applications to make much better use of this as time goes on, but even the default Vista apps are nice.The search in the start menu (and in general) is great - I use it for everything, including avoiding traversing the menu hierarchy. Finally a reason not to revert to classic start menu!Also the IO prefetching stuff is amazing... Vista boots in a few seconds (literally!) with 2GB of RAM. I think it's great that it tries to use all available RAM for caching as it makes everything much speedier, and when you run a game or something it'll get dropped from the cache instantly. There's really no disadvantage - only a much more responsive OS :)Weakness-wise I'm still waiting for a driver for my G15 keyboard... that's not Microsoft's fault, but it's still something to note about the OS. Surprisingly however I have fairly stable drivers for everything else installed and running.I'd highly recommend this (or Business) for new computers. There's really no reason to purchase XP anymore.

Comment:
Smooth, fast installation, has surprisingly good hardware and software compatibility. It is a bit heavy on the ram (uses half of my 2GB).

Comment:
After installing Vista Ultimate, I installed all the drivers I could find from the net. I still have 2 unknown devices in the device manger which I have no idea what it could be. Other then that installation went very smoothly.In the current nvidia beta drivers, SLI isn't supported. Unless i'm blind and I can't find the option to enable it. Another thing... Gaming. FEAR, CS:SOURCE, Guildwars, BF:2 installs and works fine EXCEPT multiplayer for punkbuster enabled servers. Right now Punkbuster kicks you out of the server saying something about the operating system. I guess Punk buster doesn't support the new Vista yet and will have to wait for an update. My recommendation right now: If your not in a rush for a new operating system I'd wait a little bit untill more drivers are released and more software supporting the new OS. If your buying a new PC right now, Go for the Vista OS. 64 bit version if possible for more future proof. If your getting Vista Ultimate Retail ($499.00 Canadian Dollars) It's the only version of Vista that has both 32bit and 64 bit. I saved 1/2 that price and went with this OEM. I don't mind calling the free 1800 number to Microsoft and telling them I have upgraded my PC components. I'm not giving a full 5 stars because of some of the problems I have listed above, but in the future when it's fixed I'm sure this will be a 5 star O/S!!!