Windows Vista, Ultimate Edition with Service Pack 1 (PC) - Software and Utilities (Microsoft)

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Customer Reviews of Windows Vista, Ultimate Edition with Service Pack 1 (PC)

CrashDive
Surrey, UK
11th September 2008

It is what it is
I got Ultimate Upgrade as an offer of £30 when buying a laptop from Amazon.

Let's be clear I would not have paid the full price or anywhere near the full price, so my review is based on a purchase price of £30 only.

I have replaced my Desktop XP operating system with Vista Ultimate as the laptop came with Vista Premium, good enough for me.

The upgrade from XP on the desktop to Ultimate was pretty simple, although you do have to read the instructions as they come up and follow the advice about what drivers are needed to be downloaded (not run) before upgrading, for me this was Linksys Network Adapter and a Canon printer driver, simple enough.

It is an upgrade as I did not have to clean re-install and all my previous programmes and files accumulated over the past 3 years on XP have remained intact once converted to the Ultimate operating system.

It is important to go to Windows Update and make sure your system is up to date before proceeding and to do the same after you have loaded Vista Ultimate, this ensures that you have all the drivers and patches needed.

Very simple process as these things go with no problems.

The Operating System itself is ok but to be honest I will probably not use many of the features and have just future proofed the desktop.

P.S. I upgraded the desktop RAM from 1gb to 4gb before loading Vista Ultimate.

zombiemofo
england
11th September 2008

stay away!!
when i bought my new pc i had a choice of XP or vista, i really really wish i had picked XP.
From day one, i have had trouble with vista, from compatability issues to updates essentially turning my nice new pc into something as useful as a doorstop.
The automatic updates have corrutpted one of the main launch files, despited the updates having been turned off.
And there is NO HELP or advice from microsoft.
They wish to sell a product for over £100, which doesn't work correctly and then charge you yet again to tell you how to fix the problem.
The customer service representatives are a joke.

I think in future i'm going to look elsewhere for an OS.

Overall, stay well away

Mike
Cheshire, UK
9th September 2008

Great on new computers, just be carefull when upgrading though...
I got Vista Home Premium preinstalled on my new computer and I personally think it is the best version of Windows yet, it looks fantastic and works really well too. There are some great security features and everything is so easy to do. I would never go back to an older version of Windows now.

But my Vista was preinstalled on a new computer which is fully designed for Vista in the first place. If you have a really powerful computer (one of the last ones to include XP) then you should be okay installing Vista, however if you have any less than 1 GB of RAM, don't bother. Vista is a fantastic operating system but it needs a Ferrari of a computer to run it.

Mr. M. J. Pryke

7th September 2008

What a waste of time!
I upgraded to vista after having a few problems with XP.

Looking back, I don't know what I was worrying about. VISTA IS RUBBISH!

I have got all the correct requirements for Vista, sometimes actually much better, RAM in this case.

Vista runs really slowly, won't play my music back properly & wont install my printer!

My wife has since bought a laptop with XP on it & boy do i wish i could go back, but it wont let me.

WHAT A WASTE OF MONEY!

dvd_nut

7th September 2008

Nice OS but ultimately pointless
To start I like Vista and am not a Microsoft basher. I use XP professional, but out of curiosity I bought this upgrade pack and put it on a second drive to allow dual booting.

It installed easily, with set up and upgrading going very smoothly. My duo core, 4 gig, 7900 GT SLI machine runs it well, although it is worrying that this spec only scored 5.4 out of 5.9 on the Vista machine scale. 5.0 is Vista capable. Aero looks nice, if not vital for using the PC and actual use of the PC seems smoother than my XP installation.

I am a gamer so I installed Bioshock to see how it ran and looked and this is where Vista seems to become redundant for me. Despite my 7900 GT cards being only 15 months old I now understand they cannot run Direct X 10 with the improved graphics Vista offers and I am in no mind to upgrade them just to run it. Therefore it should look no different then running under XP.

Second, after completing the first level the load screen comes up and then crashes and I am unable to get past this point even after patching. A Google search shows a myriad of threads on this bug since its release, but no solid reason or fix. Bioshock was written for Vista and XP and yet I can complete it in XP without one bug that I can remember but am unable to play more than 20 minutes in Vista. I was aware of general installation and compatability issues, but having encountered one so quickly has made Vista pointless to use as my main daily OS and therefore at all.

My decision is that less than 24 hours after installing Vista I will be going back to my XP installation as I cannot be bothered with the potential problems I will encounter during gaming. Microsoft has realised they got Vista wrong and that a lot of people will not be upgrading and will skip to the next version of Windows released. I for one can now see why.

My recommendation is stick with XP and avoid any potential software problems that Vista may bring your way.