I would not take Vista unless a gun was being held against my head!

I will not be buying Vista. I have used Windows since the days of 3.11 for workgroups, and all I can say, of all the versions I have used, 3.11, 95, 98, nt4.0 workstation, nt5.0(2000), the best decent versions of windows I have ever come across were nt4.0 and 5.0. 5.1 XP, is not really much of an improvement, and I only now just started using XP when I got my notebook 5 months ago. Then I somewhat tearfully wiped away windows 2000, and my desktop no longer was a multiboot 2kpro/Slackware box, but just a Slackware box, it was all for the best. I have heard the obscene requirements of Vista, and a friend of mine acquired his own copy of Vista ultimate, and tried it out on his VMWare software. All I have to say is, why the hell does Vista need to reboot 3-5 times before it's installation is complete? The hell is that all about? Anyways, I plan to use XP until it's support is dropped, which is in 2011 I believe, which is probably a lot less time I have spent with such an os, because I have been using 2000pro since late 1999. "Time to move on to greener pastures," so to speak.

From now on it is Linux, though someday I really want to try FreeBSD and Solaris. I wouldn't mind using MacOS, but I sure as hell ain't paying Apple all that money. Apple needs to get their act together if they really want to compete, and as much as I hate Microsoft, Apple has worse vendor lock in. At least with Windows you can run it on ANY x86 hw, not with MacOS, which is just bs. I am not paying extra money just for a box that says apple on it, when its really just another x86 system with specs I could really build myself with much less money.

It really depends what you use it for. Most games today are released for WinXP only. Drivers for some hardware won't work in 2k either. As far as I remember, Win2K does not support anti-aliasing, so using it with my LCD monitor would look really crappy. MS is slowly dropping support for it as well. IE7 is not going to be available for Win2k (if you ever need that though... which I highly doubt ).

It is a good OS. I am not trying to say otherwise. But there are advantages (or not) depending what you use it for...

option 4 "if I have money " why not I heard vista is powerful and will stand alone
IS it true>?

I don't play anymore. And I have a lame graphic card (radeon something, can't remember). Games are not my priority. But for those who play games, its probably ONE argument: games. Microsoft is to blame if they are not capable of backward compatibility for more than 5 years.
I never came accross this
Didn't know. The windows I have runs on a 15'' screen. Far enough for what I do (did a few years ago)
IE7, you mean MIE7? (see the difference). Well, firefox is ok, respect standards, and has a more reactive security team. The integrating of IE in the OS is very funny. Remove the browser and you break the OS. muahaha..
I remember when microsoft was saying: XP integrates security features blablabla. Then service pack1, then service pack2. SP2 integrates enhhhanced security features. Few days after it was cracked and as usual it takes them a long time to fix security breaches with bad information to the customer (really scares me this lack of info). Some things were patched without even microsoft mentionning anything (like apple does also). XPs firewall is (was? no clue I don't use it) a half firewall. A decent security engineer wouldn't have done this. Outgoing connections are as important as incoming connections.
XP needs a powerfull machine for nothing really more. It can't, by default search in files (I use cygwin for searching, better than editing the registry..)
XP is not better than 2000 to my mind. The features that microsoft integrated in XP that they could integrate in 2000 doesn't make it a better OS. 2000 is a good OS, it does its job.
Microsoft is not supporting anymore 2000, so I have a "good" firewall (does its job without too much cpu usage) and a good ghost image.

I wonder if Vista would run on my 700Mhz,256Meg and radeon. hum...
Linux runs amazingly well on it.
I will probably try vista on another computer to inform myself but will definetly not buy it for a try

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...21217782777472

"Dear Aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all"

By the way, my friends who use windows only to play games still use windows98 and it IS fast.

There was a short interview on BBC News last night with Bill Gates about the release of Vista. The interviewer, Huw Edwards, adopted a nauseating deferential tone as if he was speaking to God. He referred to BG as a "great innovator". He asked if BG was worried about the rise in popularity of MS's rival operating systems - no, not GNU/Linux, BSD, Apple, etc - such as Google and MySpace. Somebody at the BBC needs to do a lot more research.

Talk about being in the minority! Apparently I'm the ONLY person here that'll be buying Vista. I was even contemplating going to CompUSA this morning to buy an upgrade for an XP Home laptop. No point in buying an XP Pro upgrade now, anyway, IMHO.

Resistance is futile, your computers will be assimilated.

The Borg Meet Bill Gates: http://www.gksoft.com/a/fun/borg-gates.html

I understand you tried to show me why you don't need WinXP nx5000 (and perhaps to prove me wrong), but as I told you, it depends what you do with it. Would I enjoy playing FEAR in a 15' CRT monitor? Or would I enjoy surfing the web with my 21' LCD monitor without anti-aliased fonts? Hardly.

There were some technical issues that prevented MS to add anti-aliasing to Win2K. Maybe, just maybe ATI or Nvidia would have drivers to fix that, but I don't know.

You lost it. It has nothing to do with backward compatibility. Old games run fine in WinXP (most of them). It is the new games that won't run in old operating systems. It cost a lot of money to make a game to work in several different operating systems. I believe that market share of peoples who play high end games in win2k or bellow is so low that it is not worthy the effort.

Again... it depends. Some games won't run on Win98 anymore. In fact, most of them won't. I have two games on my desk right now. Neverwinter Nights 2 and Rush for Berlin. Neverwinter Nights 2 is XP only, while Rush for Berlin is 2K and higher. Now, if your friend is also playing older games, there is no need for him to upgrade (although, I found anything bellow Win2k to be a living hell)

Now you lost me. I don't know the difference and would like if you could clarify it for me... ^_^.

Where did you get that from? Here are the official system requirements for Windows XP

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/p...n/sysreqs.mspx

If you run WinXP using the classic look (which you should, because the new look is really ugly), it runs pretty much the same way as Win2k does. I mean it. I had WinXP and 2k running in a P2 400 MHZ and the difference in speed was none.

Again, it all depends. Win2k has its use and so does XP. I don't think you are wrong using your win2k in a 15' CRT, but you can't say that I'm wrong for using XP and playing games (where some would not run on any other OS) in my 21' LCD...

I won't be buying it either boxed or preinstalled. If I need new hardware I either buy without an OS installed or just buy the parts and build it myself.

Who told you guys win2k couldnt do anti-aliasing? I've used it and it definitely did that

It really does not have anti-aliasing. It has a feature very similar to it where you can smooth-edge "some" fonts, but it is very primitive, when compared to Clear Type, which was included(first) on WinXP:

http://www.microsoft.com/typography/...ClearType.mspx

Take a look here as well:

http://www.microsoft.com/typography/ClearTypeInfo.mspx

"Microsoft's finest achievement with Windows XP may have nothing to do with flashy features. The new operating system uses Microsoft's ClearType font-rendering technology, which makes text viewed on liquid-crystal displays (LCD) unbelievably sharp."

"ClearType in Windows

Windows XP was Microsoft's first operating system release to include system wide ClearType support. Use our updated ClearType Web interface or downloadable PowerToy Tuner to activate ClearType and tune your ClearType settings"

Again, you can right-click on a Win2k desktop, choose "Properties >> Effects" and mark the checkbox "Smooth Edge of screen fonts". On my LCD monitor, I see no difference at all. Looks just crappy as it gets. You may, however, get better results by using an auxiliar program. Perhaps nvidia or ATI provides the tools for anti-aliasing (I'm just guessing, since Nvidia enables even multiple desktops), but inbuild Clear type / true anti-aliasing in win2k does not exist...

OK, OK... for all of you saying that Microsoft has ripped off MacOS X and Linux to create the new Windows Vista Desktop, think again:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=TaIUkwPybtM

Really cool video

Hmm... OK. I've never had an LC Display, just CRTs so I cannot comment on these. But I would rather not state that everything that can't do "ClearType" also can't antialias.
I mean, what does your Linux Desktop look like (concerning fonts)??? I tend to guess KDE doesn't have that ClearType-feature

Nuh-uh. Option 4 is "no - I have an upgrade coupon". "If I have money" must be option 5.

Great video. I'm convinced.