64 bit Vista and PzC

[Glenn Saunders]

It seems to me the only people who get Vista are the ones who don't know what they are letting themselves in for. :chin:

Well that is a little strong and a bit taited too:)

But Seriously - I bought my first Laptop with Vista just before the last Tillercon and have since added two more to the house as my kids are of university age.

I waited for Vista not because I had high expectations or anything - nor did I have the need to be on the bleeding edge. It is just I figured when it comes to development, this is where Microsoft will be putting their effort - not XP.

I recall when XP came out I had no real use for it - Windows 98 was fine as far as I was concerned. In fact I thought Windows 3.1 was perfectly fine and a huge step up from DOS. But I figured people would be buying PCs with Vista and thought being able to view issues in Vista might be helpful. Truth is however, I haven seen a single BTL file that did one thing in XP and something else completely different in Vista.

Now it hasn't all been somooth sailing - I initially had a frustating time with the game engine crashing usually when saving or ending the game turn. But when John finally fixed that - AFTER the Tillercon I might add - I haven't had any game related issues. Blackie just got his first Vista box so we've updated the Map editors now so they work OK in Vista - but any Map work I've done in the last year was on my Desktop system running XP.

Now I am not a huge VISTA lover - oh there are things I do like but plenty I don't.

- I find it harder to keep files in sync on several PCs.
- If I UNZIP a file over the network, the unzipped files take on a new date\time stamp
- The file manager has a way of "bouncing around" making it at time tricky to use and find where you want to be in the tree. I thought at first I would get used to it but I still haven't.
- Finally, related to the file manager, it is easy to accidentially drag a folder to a new location and then it is lost.

On the PLUS Side - I confess I like the damn Gadget bar. I have a battery indicator promptlly visable with % and TIME remaining. My Wife and I plan to visit the Battlefields of Crete next May on the anniversary of the German invasion and so I have the TIME and teh Temperation at Iraklion - both are vital because of the nine hour timezone difference. And I have a nifty countdown clock that tells me exactly how long before I PLAN to retire in Days, Hours, Minutes and seconds (but who is counting).

I understand (although I haven't tested this) that Vistas Laptop Power management is first class. My last two PCs are DELL XPS 1330 and on a nine cell battery I get SIX HOURS on Battery life and that is with the screen fairly bright. Now part of this Battery life thing is the LED screen vs the normal LCD. But I love not having to plug in everytime I move around the house.

Outside of that - to me at least Vista is just the current ver of Windows that MS is putting virtually all or most of their devolpment into. In my day job I work with PCs and often other peoples PCs so I don't get to choose which flavour of Windows I use. So honestly I just work on the PC and only need to know what the OS is when I have to go look at something in the PROFILE and XP had \Documents and Settings and VISTA uses \Users.

So I honestly don't understand all the Vista bashing that goes on - maybe I am just lucky but all the VISTA PCs I own or work on with my day job seem to work fine.

Glenn