it' been exactly 25 hours since I first time logged in Vista RC1. The purpose of this article is to let people that want to try Vista what to expect.
First of all you need to know what system I'm using for Vista RC1. I have 7 weeks old Dell XPS M2010 with Intel Centrino Duo 2.0 GHz, 1024 MB, 512 MB ATI Radeon X1800, 80 GB HD 5400 RPM with a 'Designed for Windows XP, Windows Vista Capable' label. So I wanted to see if it's really capable of running Vista.
Clean install took me abuot 25 minutes which quite fast compared to 45 minutes for Windows XP. After logging in for the first time I immediately checked in Device Manager if all the devices are installed correctly. Everything seemed to work fine only I had similar problem as Paul Thurott with his Lenovo notebook. Vista thought my output for sound was SPDIF so no sound was comming out of my 8 integrated speakers and an integrated subwoofer. So installing the Audio drivers solved the problem.
In device manager in Unkown devices (Other Devices) I had 3 icons for Base System device and I had no idea what that could be. First I tried installing the drivers for my built-in 13 in 2 media card reader and was happy when I noticed the 3 Base System icons dissappear.
The other icon that was in Unknown Devices (Other Devices) was my integrated Dell/Logitech webcam so I installed the drivers for. I could only install them in compatibilty mode and when tested with Skype the webcam works good. So I again I was happy.
Now I had only one 'Other Device' to solve left. So my guess was that was Bluetooth to which my keayboard and mouse are connected to but they worked good anyway. But as a perfectionist as I am I wanted to have clean Device Manager and I installed bluetooth drivers as well. I had problems with installig them even in compatibility mode with lots of dialogs coming up that this driver is not supported by this version of windows but in my good faith that everything will be fine I was clicking install, install, install... Just at the end of installation I got a blue screen... aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa... Anyway I restarted the computer and my bluetooth keayboard and mouse suddely stopped responding. So luckily my friend has USB keayboard and mouse so I used them to login into windows. When I checked in Device Manager I noticed that I achieved the goal the unkown device was recognized as a bluetooth module. yes! but my bluetooth keyboard and mouse didn't want to work. So I did a system restore to an earlier time and boot up the computer in Windows XP where I succesfully connected to bluetooth keyboard and mouse and when I boot up in Vista they were again woring. So now I just ignore that bluetooth module is not recognized. But I did notice that my keyboard an mouse don't go to sleep mode.
So the installing of hardware was finished. So I started with software.
- First was Dell Remote Control Center which installed correctly
- Next was Dell QuickSet that installed only in compatibility mode but not all the options worked when I tried it
- Intellisonic Speech Enhamcement didn't want to install
- Adobe CS2 works great I have a feeling even a bit faster then in XP
- Skype works fine
- Corel X3 installed fine but when I wanted to run it a dialog window appeared saying that I need to run it from an account with administrator account - which my account is
- Canon PhotoStitch didn't want to install
- CuteFTP woks fine
- Flaxh 8 works fine
- FileZilla works fine
- iTunes work fine
- When I opened QuickTime I got a message that because of an application Vista switchid to Basic Theme. When I closed QuickTime Vista immediately switched back to Aero Theme
- Office 2007 Beta 2 works fine
- The only antivirus for Vista RC1 is trendmicro beta for vista so I installed it works good but it expires at the end of October 2006
- WinRar worsk fine
These were the applications that I tried so far. The overall feeling of using Vista is smooth. It seems to me that applications run a bit faster then in XP. Also I was surprised when I noticed that after booting up Vista took 550 MB of memory which is 80 MB less then XP. I noticed that the stability and performance improved a lot since Beta 2 that I stopped using after 2 days. So I was working all day in Vista RC1 without needing to boot in XP as all my main applications run perfectly in Vista RC1. Mainly I was using Photoshop CS2 and GoLive CS2 for webdesign and Excel and Word for document proccessing and I'm very satisfied with Vista so far and I am making it my primary OS.
So if you want to try Vista out do not be afraid to because RC1 is a very stable and fast OS and most common applications and driver work fine. I did learn one lesson with my bluetooth driver. Whatever works fine in Vista RC1 do not update drivers as it may mess things up. So keep that in mind when using Vista.
That's my experience after runnig Vista all day and I have to admit I am positively surprised.
Keep up the good work Microsoft