A Review on Vista 32-Bit Home Edition

[Vampyrate]

since we are in full on nerd fight mode (finger #4 to all of those that know the binary hand shirt on think geek)

i have DDR2 in my laptop and it is 512mb and just upgraded to vista. There is no need that the best ram on the market (as far as clock speed and whatnot) should be bogging down unless there is a problem with the actual OS itself. I have the 32-bit vista home edition so its not like im trying to get the best of the best, its just a free upgrade. just vista running alone on my laptop is using 335mb of my precious ram! its not like its an old machine, i just bought it december 27th, but then again it is a compaq (i didnt really buy it my parents got it for me since they think that i need to wardrive more or something).

oh and i have it running pretty much stripped down and on classic view and its bogging down. god forbid i want to listen to itunes and hop on firefox. and another thing! firefox jumps for no reason since i upgraded vista... damn this nerd in me!

[Munky]

I'm running Vista ultimate right now, 512mb of ram, and according to my rainmeter it's constantly using right around 411. Not as good as I would like, but better than I've heard.

[Vampyrate]

see what i mean? it looks pretty and the shadowing and little effects are cool when things are loading (just watch the light cast on the cursor when its thinking), its just draining. i did the whole analyze thing built in and the RAM was rated at 2.9 everything else was 5s across the board!

not to mention im working on a hack to disable the UAC without having the computer freak out on you for disabling some security feature that was retarded to begin with.

if it werent for the fact that im lazy, i would do something about it and not be at work bored out of my mind until 7:30 tonight.

oh, and Thunderbird FTW! screw Microsoft Mail!

[Munky]

You don't need a hack for that, it's in the Local Security policy.

[ArunSenior04]

LOL 512MB is low for any pc XP and up.

[Vampyrate]

512 should be enough to run an OS smoothly, thats all im complaining about. im not going to do any gaming with this laptop, just a lot of wardriving. my gaming laptop i dont use unless going to lan parties, that gets updated every 3months and will stay XP Pro until Halo 2 comes out.

my desktop is the same as my gaming laptop

[Munky]

Same here,but it's a bit harder to go wardriving in this area..not very many places to piggyback signals. :(

[Vampyrate]

well, here in Wise, VA there is not much to connect to, but when you do find something, its never pasword protected (idiots).

back home in Leesburg, you can sneeze and hit 9 routers

[SWortham]

Vista needs more RAM to run well. Well, it needs a lot to run well actually... there's no doubt about that. But heck, I wouldn't want to use less than 1GB of RAM even in XP.

[Munky]

Yeah, Vista is demanding as hell. I only do basic stuff on this laptop, like browsing forums and photoshop stuff.

I keep all music/movies/games on my black box and my PC at home.

[Vampyrate]

i have all my music with me wherever i go... i even hacked the comps at work to remote access my music through streaming it

[rckozma]

Everyone I have talked to about Vista all say 1gb minimum, preferably 2gb of memory. It is definately a memory hog.

[Ugzz]

i have 2gb of ram and use Aero and the sidebar, i also have firefox launch on boot. With JUST that. and NOTHING else running Vista eats ALMOST 1gb of ram ALL THE TIME. The reason my usage is so high is i have all the advanced Windows Defender and Antivirus and etc running all the time. even at defaults it eats up a ton of mem, but if you crank it up its worse..

you can shut off alota that stuff if you want to take the risk, you can also turn off windows indexing which kills the system a good bit. All you need is admin rights and just take as much crap outa the msconfig setting as possible as a start. Then move on to the services panel and turn off things that arent needed. of course doing this is about as dangerous as registry editing so i would check out:
http://www.tweakvista.com/

for some nice pointers on where to go/what to do..

[Munky]

Msconfig and services consoles aren't nearly as dangerous as registry editing, I do that on every PC I use.

The only thing I recommend is, if you don't know what you're doing, don't touch it.

[Ugzz]

i agree, but some poeple are afraid of em, thats all im sayin..

if you kill the wrong service you might lost some functionality you were looking for, you could always turn it back on heh.

as for msconfig windows will boot with everything off, so you cant realy kill anything. but alota people use that boot crap daily.. its not smart, but **** happens heh

so yeah, i agree.. i just didnt want my post to sound so simple as to tell everyone to go and shut all their services off :D, thats all

[Vampyrate]

well, i havent hacked a pc since i was 11 (long story that involves police) but i know what im doing when it comes to registry editing and whatnot, i just need to look into when i get home

[Munky]

well, i havent hacked a pc since i was 11 (long story that involves police) but i know what im doing when it comes to registry editing and whatnot, i just need to look into when i get home

Dude, I knew I recognized you!

It's the kid from Hackers!! :abovelol: :phone:

[Vampyrate]

SHHHH! no one must know that i was Lord Nikon!

[Ugzz]

heres my memory/cpu usage screenshot. you can see that just running the os and firefox literally eats up 1gb.. ok so i just opened outlook before i took that screen, but i was at like 1020mb anywayz!

also note the cpu, vista does that with all the constant scanning of the drives etc. it eats between 0-4% of cpu on one or both processors at all times.. it does drop to 0 often, but it only stays at 0 for a fingersnap at a time. -and my sidebar is loaded with 2 pages of crap too, im sure that doesnt help, and aero has on every effect possible heh -but the system runs good and is responsive, so i dont care

[Vampyrate]

now i just need to find ram to put into a compaq presario 6105NR laptop then... god i hat compaq i would much rather have a falcon

anyway, i didnt pay for it

[cclngthr]

I wonder how it would work with the 64 bit version?

[Ugzz]

now i just need to find ram to put into a compaq presario 6105NR laptop then... god i hat compaq i would much rather have a falcon

anyway, i didnt pay for it


the 6105NR (According to hp) has 512 installed in 2 seperate sticks. Thos means (most likely) the memory should be paired. Or that compaq got 256mb sticks cheaper hehe.. either way you only have 2 slots and will have to get either a pair of 512s or a pair of 1gb sticks

even though this link is for the 6105ea, the memory is still ddr2 5300 (same as the nr) so the link is still accurate for ya.

here are you memory choices:
http://www.crucial.com/store/listparts.aspx?model=Presario+V6105EA

why go crucial? because some manufacturers eg. apple/hp/compaq occasionally require special memory even though they do not advertise it. and the generic ram wont be recognized by the board. So crucial.com will guarantee functionality. I use them for work purchases all the time...

looks like a max upgrade to 2gb will run you about $140. i say for guaranteed compatibility ram, thats not so shabby..

I wonder how it would work with the 64 bit version?

it works just fine but is way more finicky then the 32 bit. wont play well with un-signed drivers, less stability and honeslty i see very little performance gain with just about anything.. ive only really run it with office 2k7 and adobe suite stuff though. then i put 32bit back on that machine :P -it also didnt want to install on of my mice due to unsigned drivers, that just pissed me off :P

[Vampyrate]

oh crap, that reminds me that i have to reload office! ****! i have to find that cd because im pretty sure i have a paper due sometime this week

[Ugzz]

^ like the updates sig :D:D

if you dont find that disc i could send you a copy if you pay the postage hehe
i have copies of office xp, 2k3, and 2k7 sitting literally 5 feet from me :)

[Vampyrate]

i was running beta 12 for the longest and now that doesnt work... i think i had 2k3 running, but i always like to try new programs