I will admit that I skimmed over a large part of your post.

But here are a few answers from my point of view. I'm sure you'll get more.


"NetFodder" <NetFodder@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:05F75074-D4D9-454D-A7F4-536E76E7D7FE@microsoft.com...[color=blue]
> First let me say, I have yet to hear anything good from people who have
> used
> it. Which makes me really warry about upgrading.[/color]


Other than getting drivers set up, I've pretty much had zero problems. I
think it's a terrific OS. It operates faster than Windows XP Professional
x64, which was on the same machine. (Still is: I can boot into it if I want
or need to.)

[color=blue]
>
> What I'm confused about is the 4 versions (5 if you include enterprise
> which
> honestly sounds like it's suppose to be bigger and better tha Ultimate but
> it's actually a step down from what I read).[/color]

Yes, I think that was a stupid marketing decision on MS's part. Only adds to
confusion and customer disappointment. I hope that real soon they start
cutting down the available editions.
I would say you can't go wrong with Ultimate 64-bit, assuming you have a
64-bit processor.

[color=blue]
>
> Ultimate, basically all the stops pulled so you have all the functionality
> it was designed for but didn’t have to cut out in order to create the
> lesser
> versions. Unfortunately this means by default EVERY single function is
> turned
> on and running. And even though they aren’t doing any good running because
> they haven’t been configured they are all running and killing any machine
> out
> there. Possibly needing a system housing 2 dual core procs and 4 gigs of
> ram
> minimum and still taking 30 seconds just to launch notepad.[/color]

Wrong, at least in my experience. I have an AMD Athlon 64 X2 dual core 3800+
processor. It's about a year old, so it's moderately "old" in terms of
technology. I have 2 gigs of ram and a geforce 6600 video card with 256MB of
video ram. All of this on an ASUS8-NE motherboard. And I can honestly say
Vista Ultimate 64-bit runs without a hiccup.
I have no speed concerns at all. I'm sure it can run faster or snappier, but
this thing certainly is not slogging along, straining all the time.
[color=blue]
> And yes, I don’t even think you’ll still truly understand. “The release of
> IE7 was worse that the Holocaust”.[/color]

OK, that's way way way over the top. IE7 didn't kill 6 million people.

[color=blue]
> have a conversation with me for 30 minutes and not walk away with the
> sudden
> urge to storm Dave Massy’s office with torches and pitch forks. End Rant!
> By
> the way, can you run IE 6.5 on Vista?[/color]

IE 7 is installed with vista. I don't know if you can then roll it back to
6.5.

My advice, if you can afford it, is to get Ultimate 64-bit (again, assuming
you have a 64-bit processor). An OEM version at New Egg costs $200. If you
buy Ultimate, you know you won't be missing anything. I'm sure there are
processes you can turn off if they bother you.