Microsoft Windows Vista Business 64-bit for System Builders Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Although I love the UI, it did slow down my routine as I adapted to the new layout and menus and such. This was expected (somewhat) and was not the root of the problem, though.
The reason for the 3 star rating is the fact that all my 32 bit apps that I was looking forward to getting a perfoemance boost from due to the 64 bit processor I am running, ultimately were absolutely sluggish when it came to menu navigation and usability within the apps themselves.
Menu navigation was sluggish and showed unusual latency while navigating within Photoshop, After Effects, Premiere, Dreamweaver, Flash, Illustrator, etc. Windows itself was snappy, but interpolation of the 32-bit apps in the 64-bit OS was absolutely sluggish. Rendering times in After Effects, and compression times in Sorenson Squeeze, seemed fast enough, but hard to compare, as I was coming from a single core P4.
Also very much worth mentioning...aside from the occasional unsupported driver (which I expected)...after typing in my password and logging in OK, the touch of any key on the keyboard would immediately lock up the system. (It took me hours to narrow this glitch down to the Event Log Service!). Finally disabled the Event Log service and viola', keystrokes allowed. (odd, but worth mentioning).
My son also experienced Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) several times while playing both Stalker and Oblivion.
Also noteworthy for those with an interest in specific platform related info, I am running the OS on a ASUS Formula Maximus mobo, an Intel 2.4 Ghz Quad Core CPU, 4 Gigs of Corsair Dominator DDR2 RAM, and an EVGA Nvidia 8800 GTS w/640 MB DDR3 on board.
Suffice it to say, after paying full price for Vista and installing apps all week, I turned right around and overnighted XP Pro (32-bit version) on week 2, reformatted everything and am happily using XP Pro with no worries or glitches of any kind. ALL apps are BLAZING FAST, both navigationally and in their rendering perfomance. (Games have not BSOD'd since going back to XP either).
If you rely on your Workstation for a living, or expect high-end, production-class workstation performance, stick with XP for the next couple of years until Vista has been battle tested and proven, and apps have had a chance to port over to 64-bit.
(Anybody want to buy an original copy of Vista...cheap? Only used once!)
;~D


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