Windows Vista?

[smccarthy945]

Can you load Vista on the MAC natively without using bootcamp if you just throw the CD in the MAC and boot? Can you blow away the OSX partitions and just create a VISTA partition?

[benjorave]

yes, you must start your macbook with alt pressed, so it ask you where you want boot, choose cdrom, where you have VistaDVD, press enter... and now you can create partition with your vista setup!!!
Benjo

[Flight X Pilot9]

You don't have to put Vista copmletely onto your computer. Do like I have, The Vista Transforming Pack, It makes it look the same. http://www.windowsxlive.net/index.php?page_id=15

[DsurioN]

Haha... yes, but that's not the point of this thread. An operating system isn't just about how it looks...

[zarmanto]

Well... while I agree with you in the technical sense, I think what the Pilot is trying to point out is that many people don't see the point in upgrading to Vista at all. The only things it seems to offer are headaches and Aero. I'm absolutely not going to upgrade to Vista anytime soon myself, but when I get a few moments in front of my home computer, I might very well experiment with that "Transforming Pack" just for grins -- assuming that it doesn't get yanked from the site by a decree from Microsoft's lawyers first. ;)

[SiliconAddict]

The only things it seems to offer are headaches and Aero. I'm absolutely not going to upgrade to Vista anytime soon myself, but when I get a few moments in front of my home computer, I might very well experiment with that "Transforming Pack" just for grins -- assuming that it doesn't get yanked from the site by a decree from Microsoft's lawyers first. ;)


I couldn't let this one go. I've seen this comment WAY too many times and have passed by without comment.
The very notion that Vista is all about looks is so blatantly far from the truth that it borders on the ignorant. If this was the case MS could have release Vista a year after they released XP. In point of fact the core of Vista is not based on XP at all but Server 2003 a much MUCH MUCH more robust, secure, and stable version of the NT kernel. MS has removed so much that was tied to the kernel that once the bugs are finally shaken out of Vista that it will be the most stable, solid, reboot resistant version of Windows yet, be it server or desktop class.
The key point is bugs. When Apple released OS 10.0 it was unstable, molasses in subzero weather slow, and compatability sucked butt. Between 10.0-10.4 Apple has done a magnificent job of getting OS X into fighting shape against Windows. What Vista is, is Microsoft's OS X. (In much better shape then 10.0 was IMHO.)
Finally if you take a look at some of MS's white papers on the state of security in Vista you will see that the layers they have put in place are head an shoulders above XP or even Server 2003. They have done a fine job compartmentalizing 1 segment of the OS from another. Add to that a built in firewall that makes XP's look like a joke, because it is, along with limited user rights and you have a much more secure OS.

I won a copy of Vista Business. It is sitting on the desk in front of me. It will not be going anywhere near an optical drive until Microsoft releases service Pack 1, which I fully expect to weight in at 150MB+. What Vista is, is a good solid foundation. Microsoft simply needs to fill in the holes and gapes; and I think they will have a good transition bridge from XP to the future of Windows. For now....Stay away from Vista like the plague. Anyone who is dabbling around with Vista should be doing so on a secondary system or through virtualization. vista isn't fully baked and, again, I don't expect it to be until:
1. SP1 comes out
2. Software developers release patches for Vista.
3. Hardware vendors get their butts in gear.

Most of which is still 6 months to a year out anyways.

[zarmanto]

...is so blatantly far from the truth that it borders on the ignorant...

Whoa... Settle down there, friend. While I will freely admit that I have not had any first hand experience, (and therefore, cannot effectively counter your accusation that I am "ignorant" of the true merits of Vista) I have to say that I am indeed aware that Vista is a ground-up rewrite, and that it is reported to incorporate dozens of new security measures to counter the wave of malicious software which is currently pummeling Windows XP. I'd be absolutely appalled if this were not the case, after so many years in development!

All I really have to offer in the discussion is second hand knowledge: My brother-in-law had Vista on his gaming machine for a brief period, as an MCSE/Select Customer licensee through his office. He couldn't get Vista to recognize either of the two USB wireless cards which we had on hand, so we had to drag an ethernet cable from one corner of the room to the other to get him into the games that night... Vista was promptly wiped from his machine the following morning.

So are there good things to be said about Vista? Probably. Have I heard any? Well... one person from my office gave me a glowing report on his experience. Unfortunately, several others have given me horror stories about the headaches that they've experienced with Vista.

What I don't understand here is that I stated in my original post that I wouldn't be updating to Vista anytime soon. I didn't say never. You stated basically the same thing, only with a few (dozen) more words and a great deal of self-righteous indignation -- seemingly caused by more then just my brief post, but deposited squarely in my lap, none-the-less. So why on earth would you be so offended by someone with whom you actually agree?!?

[6200rpm]

Yes, you can run only vista as i have read on some posts in here. I will try to wipe my osx in the morning and let vista take control of my mbp.


So are there good things to be said about Vista? Probably. Have I heard any? Well...

I was reserved as you are regarding vista, and that was the reason i tried to switch on Mac for my design/presentation laptop. I bought a macbook pro, but being a windows user all my life, i just didn't adapt to osx's SO MUCH closed architecture. Also, many of the free apps i use don't have a mac version. I installed xp first, then vista and now i'm really impressed about vista's capabilities (not the look, but the functionality).

My MBP is a C2D 2.33Ghz, 2Gb Ram, X1600 w/ 256mb and everything on it worked from the moment i installed the drivers and input mapper. Wireless, IR, network, backlight.. works exactly as in osx. And is so much faster than OSX.

Regarding stability, vista have a new way of handling app crashing. There is a service in windows kernel with the ability to detect the crash of an app, save the error log and isolate the app from others, preventing crash of other apps or the OS. So far, i didn't had any problems except when i tried out some IE7 extensions that crashed the browser. But that didn't affect anything else than IE7 (in xp would be a much complicated issue)

Superfetch is really a big step ahead from xp fetching. All my apps are opening very fast! ACDSee 8 Pro will open in 2sec (having a database of 1.4gb of images), in xp i had to wait about 5-6sec to open. Photoshop CS2 is faster in vista, and so is Corel X3.

Vista's disk manager will allow you at any time to repartition the hard drive without having to delete the data. Also, the firewall in vista is really a powerfull tool, you can define advanced rules, control and log almoust everything.

Another very cool thing in vista is the audio mixer. It have a slider for every app you have open, so you can lower the volume for yahoo messenger or windows sounds, without having to lower the foobar's volume (foobar = THE music player)

Security is also improved (and redesigned to eliminate possible take overs), and so is the usability for novice users. Unfortunately i had to re-adapt to vista's interface and "way of doing things". Some of them are OSX-like rather than XP-like.

There are also some bad things in vista (vs XP) one of them is the interface - i really don't like aero. The taskbar, the round start button, all the "3d" elements are just too toyish and makes my GPU coolers run continuously, making my mbp a noisy lap (Not very loud but in xp was dead quiet). Also i don't like the changes in windows explorer, i got used to the copy/paste/delete buttons in xp.

This is what i can tell right now about Vista, but there are alot more good things to consider, and IMO it is the most advanced desktop OS available. For those who didn't tried it yet, Vista and XP are like the cat and the tiger. The SP issue is not really a vista thing, and if you have a good antivirus (like nod32) you really don't need to worry.

I find no reason for going back to xp (or osx), and i reccomend Vista to everyone - novice or advanced user.

HTH and please excuse my english, i'm not a native speaker.

[zarmanto]

Hi 6200rpm,

Actually, the most important technical advantages which Windows Vista has over Windows XP are also advantages which MacOS X has as well. One obvious example is that MacOS X handles application crashing quite effectively, and has done so for seven years now, since it's first release. And if you've been experimenting at all with Bootcamp, then you already know that the MacOS is capable of repartitioning the harddrive without the loss of any data on the Mac volumes -- so I'm not really sure why you felt you had to point out that feature in Vista. And security and usability? You're joking, right?

In any case, you may or may not have already noticed that the post to which you were responding is a bit old... I've actually installed Vista alongside XP and MacOS X on my own iMac at this point. You can read about that experience in this thread (http://forum.onmac.net/showthread.php?t=2620). Additionally, I've commented in other threads about people who want to run exclusively Windows on their new Macintosh; here is a link to one of those threads (http://forum.onmac.net/showthread.php?t=2691).

And just for the record, here is the latest information regarding my own usage of Vista: It's still installed, but I pretty much don't use it. I've experimented with it a few times, and that's about all. On those rare occasions when I do need to use Windows for something, I always favor booting into XP instead of Vista, because Vista really hasn't impress me all that much. But eventually, I'm sure that I'll want to experiment with something-or-other in it again... so there it sits.

[indtram]

Hi !!

i am intrigued by this discussion....

I am just abt to recieve my First Mac Mini and was wondering if Vista Ultimate could be loaded on it "AS THE ONLY OPERATING SYSTEM" ????

Like Format HDD and install Vista ??

If possible I would like to know ???

Thanxxx

[zarmanto]

Hi Indtram,

I suppose my comment immediately prior to your post, pointing to another thread (http://forum.onmac.net/showthread.php?t=2691) in which I answered that question, was not entirely obvious -- probably because it was mentioned almost as a side-note. So to answer your question, the applicable text of that thread is copied below. (Note that the answer is the same, regardless of whether you're attempting to install XP or Vista.)

I am just abt to recieve my First Mac Mini and was wondering if Vista Ultimate could be loaded on it "AS THE ONLY OPERATING SYSTEM" ????

Like Format HDD and install Vista ??

The answer to your question is simple: It's technically feasible, but highly inadvisable. Apple periodically releases firmware updates for the hardware, and they only release those updaters as MacOS install packages. If you eliminate your MacOS partition altogether, and then Apple subsequently releases an uber-critical-can't-live-without-it firmware patch, then the only way to get it installed on your system will be to reinstall MacOS -- which will naturally cost you your Windows installation.

What I would recommend for you is that you use your MacOS install disk to reformat the drive and reinstall MacOS with as few optional components as possible, thus saving most of your disk space for your Windows installation. (I'd say you need to leave at least 1GB of free space on the MacOS partition, as a precaution.) Then use BootCamp to install Windows, and from the Startup Disk control panel, set the Windows partition to be the default boot option. Then, you'll have the MacOS if you should happen to need it for any reason, but you won't have to look at it if you really don't want to.