dont think i have sp1, but i like how mine is running, i dont want to change anything like that really... what are the advantages? just security updates and things like that?

We have to remember that the vast majority of users are NOT having any problems. Of course, with an estimated 100 million Vista machines out there, if only of 1% have problems, that's still a million upset customers, regardless the fact there is a 99% success rate.

Security updates are probably the most important - but many of the improvements deal with reliability.

Personally, if you had the stones to put Vista on an XP machine, it seems silly to not put SP1 on. If you bought a Vista machine, and you've had a relatively hassle free experience with it - especially little or no problems with 3rd party HW drivers, then I would expect you to have a successful SP1 upgrade too.

In any event, like users who refuse to upgrade to XPSP2 or to IE7, before long, you will become part of the security problem as that machine will be more vulnerable to compromise, then used against the rest of us.

Of course, back up your critical data first.

Originally Posted by bootneck02

I think this question is on topic, has any one downloaded Vista SP1 yet? I have and had no problems, but on other sites people are reporting problems after downloading with software and driver problems and wondered if any one here had troubles after they downloaded SP1.

I installed it a few days ago, no problems to report so far.

Hi Bear, how on earth are you running Vista on 512 meg of RAM?

Hi Bear, how on earth are you running Vista on 512 meg of RAM?

If looking at Bear's specs, it also says XP Pro SP2 so that may not be the same system. But, according to Microsoft, the Vista Recommended System Requirements for Vista "Basic" is 512Mb. That said, since XP suffers when throttled by only 512Mb, I would hate to see what Vista, even Vista Basic, does. Microsoft is just claiming that it will run with that amount of RAM, it does not claim you will be happy with the performance. But then again, if you have a hefty enough graphics solution, and a properly configured Page File on a quick drive, the performance with only 512Mb may be... adequate - if you don't multi-task with a bunch of RAM hogging programs. Sadly, once you load up the Firewall, anti-virus/anti-spyware and other defenses, there will not be much RAM left, so expect the hard drive to take a beating as the system works the PF.

I wish MS (all software makers actually) will state two system requirements - the current one for bare essential features and performance, and another list for recommended for satisfactory (whatever that is) performance.

I suppose MS would say you could run on 512mb RAM but they would wouldn't they, they are trying to sell it. But if it doesn't operate correctly they have lost another customer who would think about going back to XP and would think twice about buying another MS OS It is a shame that there is no real opposition to MS that way we the customer would have a choice. I must admit I don't have a problem with MS and Vista in fact I am very happy with it, BUT as a customer I would like to be able to chose which OS I would wish to have.

The trouble with the open source OS like Linux is they seem very ( and no offence to any one) rather geeky and need to know about the various editions of Linux, and I have as yet not seen a PC running it. I have been on some of the Linux sites and they seem to be aimed at people with or studying computer science and people who understand software and I am only an older person who wants to know that when I press a button the PC works and does what I want it to. I am really not into the science and software writing. I also need to know that my other software and drivers will work on it, and on the software houses only tell you what edition of MS OS will work on or Apple Mack.

Building is fairly simple as all it is connecting components to a mother board and connecting a few wires and you really cannot mess that up as the connectors will not connect to anything they shouldn't and I must admit I do not really know how a PC works, I rely on D-A-L and others to help me out when I have a problem I cannot solve. Or am I just a bit thick.(don't answer that anyone).

The trouble with the open source OS like Linux is they seem very ( and no offence to any one) rather geeky and need to know about the various editions of Linux, and I have as yet not seen a PC running it.

Well bootneck,I'm as about as far away from geeky as you can get. I;m running Linux on Desktop and laptop although I still run Windows because of certain hardware issues where most software that comes with my periphial hardware doesn't include Linux compatibility. So I agree it can be difficult at times. But to each is own and whatever floats a guys boat. I get bored pretty easy in my own way so playing around with whatever I own seems to be my national pastime.

Originally Posted by rokytnji

I'm as about as far away from geeky as you can get. I;m running Linux

Yeah, right! That was good!

Since it had been a bit since this thread was active I had to back up a bit to get familiar again, and noticed this,

Originally Posted by bootneck

I suppose MS would say you could run on 512mb RAM but they would wouldn't they, they are trying to sell it.

Actually, since, then I have seen a couple Vista systems with only 512Mb and they worked very well for their intended purpose - touchscreen inventory workstations on a closed network. Of course the advantage of a network that is isolated from the Internet is the threats can only come within, and they can be easily controlled on the big horsepower server(s).

Another system was intended for small office duties, Word, email, contact management, limited Internet access. It suffered. But it's printer was shared and it would come to a dead stop until the printer's buffer accepted the job whenever a co-worker threw a print job at it, which happened all day long.

A print server fixed that. But the PC still suffered

The problem was when whoever decided to buy new machines, they went budget on the PCs, but bought nice big 24" widescreen monitors. Nice big 24" widescreen monitors like nice big high resolution signals thrown at them. Budget PCs come with budget graphics solutions with low power graphics processing units (GPUs) integrated into the motherboard architecture, otherwise known as "on-board" graphics. Greatly compounding the matter is that GPUs need RAM too, so system RAM, often up to 128Mb is dedicated (they call it "shared") to graphics. When you start with 512Mb and 128Mb is snatched away, there's little wiggle room left in that 384Mb for Vista.

My typical recommendation at this point is normally to get more RAM now, for the best bang for the money, then when budget allows, a graphics card.

Didn't have RAM right then but did have a $50 EVGA 256Mb PCI card. That made a big difference. It freed up the previously snagged system RAM and now the bigger horsepower GPU had lots of RAM dedicated to it. It still needed more RAM and another 512Mb made it usable for them. But with today's multicore processors and Vista, I recommend 2Gb minimum.

See my specs. 4.0GB of RAM and the 2.5GHz C2D just makes Vista fly... Soon I'm going to get the x64 to take advantage of the whole 4GBs of RAM, since x86 only lets me use up to 3.5 of it.

My system flies witha 2.5GHz Core 2 Duo Penryn CPU and 4GBs of RAM. The rest of the specs are in my signature. Yes, I know I am running XP, that is because I ordered my computer with the XP and Vista Loaded option, so I went back to XP for now, until I get the 64 bit Vista. I would like the extra RAM to be used, even though my usage never goes above 1GB. I though that if it wasn't too expensive (and it wasn't) future proofing is sweet. XP is like a rocket.

By the way, I bought the 2.5GHz over the 2.6 even though I could afford it. Does anyone think I made a bad choice at that? It cost about $300 to upgrade... I decided to go with the most expensive, but "reasonably priced" CPU. I didn't feel like shelling out $300 for 0.1GHz. That's probably half the price of the processor.