| | |  | Windows XP | Home » » » » » Microsoft Windows Vista Business Full Version | | | | | | | Description: | | Microsoft Windows Vista Business is designed specifically for small and mid-sized organizations - with advanced backup, new security tools, easier and more comprehensive networking, and dedicated resources to help keep you up and running. | | | Product Details: | | | Package Length:
| 7.5 inches | | Package Width:
| 5.4 inches | | Package Height:
| 1.6 inches | | Package Weight:
| 0.6 pounds | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 26 reviews |
| | | System Requirements: | | | Platform:
| Windows XP / Windows Vista / Windows 2000 | | Media:
| DVD-ROM | | Item Quantity:
| 1 |
| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
Average Customer Review:
 ( 26 customer reviews )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
21 of 22 found the following review helpful:
 Will be better in six monthsFeb 22, 2007
By William R. Swanson
Windows Vista is clearly better than Windows XP in a hundred little ways, from the search boxes to the sidebar. The new and improved Vista features are listed all over the place, so I won't go into the details. I will say, however, that they do make an improvement in everyday computer use.
On the other hand, Vista suffers a thousand little flaws. For one thing, iTunes isn't compatible yet. Then, NVidia doesn't have decent drivers yet. Firefox doesn't work with the Windows Media plugin yet. For some strange reason, whenever I save a file in Microsoft Visual Studio, I get impossible-to-delete temporary files in my working folder. Some piece of incompatible software is creating them. Is it Windows Live OneCare? Visual Studio? Tortoise SVN? Who knows? Oh, and did I mention that Vista crashes whenever it tries to come out of sleep mode? I could list more problems, but you get the picture. Vista is not really stable.
My advice is this: If you are building a new system, go ahead and install Vista. You will have a bumpy road, but it's better than buying XP now and upgrading later. Otherwise, wait about six months for Microsoft and the other software companies to get their act together. You have been warned.
13 of 15 found the following review helpful:
 Dog SlowMay 21, 2007
By M. Hantula
This must be the slowest OS on this planet. All the DRM 'enchancements' and other bloatware that MS decided to put in the kernel has made this the slowest operating system ever built, you need a 20% faster computer to get to the same level with XP.
Then there's the issue of endless 'Are you sure you want to do this' confirmations whatever you try to do. Clicking thru these dialogs gets so annoying you wish to throw your PC out the window. This is definitely the last piece of MS software I'll ever buy.
11 of 13 found the following review helpful:
 Accurate Review from a Masters-Level, 18-Year IT ProfessionalJul 07, 2008
By R. L. Hodges
Do NOT believe all the knee-jerk garbage you're hearing about Vista, as 90% of it is being pulled out of thin air by people who obviously never even tried it. Linux and Apple trolls scour the internet for chances to add negative reviews to an operating system they'v never even tried.
Then there are the XP hypocrites who have been using XP for so long that they fear anything new.
Hypocrytes you say? Yup. This same negative "new Windows sucks" propaganda wave happened when Windows 2000 was released in 1999 (nobody wanted "NT") and again when XP was released in 2002 (incompatibility problems, verybody absolutely HATED that "Made by PlaySkool" interface). Everybody hated each of them until the next version of Windows came along. Then, suddenly, they LOVED the older version and tried to cling to it. Not only pathetic, but now very predictable. Vista is just the latest victim.
I have absolutely no love affair with Microsoft, trust me. But it's time for an actual professional with a masters in programming and operating systems to set a few things straight.
Fact: Windows Vista was in development a whole year before Windows XP was even released. Microsoft had been working feverishly on this OS for 6 years at the time of its release. Little id you know that nearly EVERY Microsoft product that comes out is extensively tested by a public usability testing program that is totally seperate from their beta testing program. Microsoft doesn't let anything out the door until all the usability testers (the general public that come to visit the Microsoft facility in Redmond, Wa) say they like it. Vista was OK'd by both internal and external beta testers in addition to the usability test program, or it never would have been released. I have personally done usability testing at Microsoft 17 times now (I like to get my 2 cents in), and I know how this process works. Microsoft releases software BY CONSENSUS, and Vista is what the people themselves ASKED FOR.
Fact: For its entire life, the virus magnet that is known as Windows XP has been solely responsible for the onslaught of spyware, malware and waves of viruses. Not Mac. Not Linux. Not DOS. Not Unix. It was Windows XP. Prior to XP, Windows would see a problem virus come down the pike once in a while. Then XP came along, and we've been swimming in viruses and Malware ever since. Even loaded with antispy and antivirus software, WinXP STILL gets infested and slows to a blue-screening crawl. As you read this on your XP box, I guarentee that you have spyware on your system. Run a scan and see for yourself. If you're just running Windows Defender, I guarentee you're LOADED with it and don't even know it - get better software immediately.
Fact: Though complaints about Vista's UAC are many, the Internet is not filled with Vista users begging to be saved from viruses and spyware they can't recover from. Those poor souls are pretty much all XP users. The Vista users complaing of any viruses and spyware are the ones who turned UAC off or clicked right past the UAC warning prompts without evn reading them.
Fact: OF COURSE Vista is going to be slightly slower than XP on the same machine - just like Windows XP was slower than Windows 2000, which was much slower than Windows NT4, etc. etc. This is the natural way things are SUPPOSED TO BE AS HARDWARE GETS FASTER AND FASTER. C'mon, what do you honestly expect? New operating systems are about new features, not "running faster" on the same hardware (anybody that knows anything about operating systems knows that new versions are NEVER faster than the previous version, no matter what operating system it is - just take a look at any Linux distro or new version of any Mac OS). It's up to HARDWARE to make things run faster, not the OS. Your system is not fast enough to run Vista? THEN GET FASTER HARDWARE LIKE YOU HAD TO DO FOR XP. Has everyone forgotten that today's hardware is anywhere from 4-10 times faster than than the hardware that was available when XP was first released? And that XP absolutely crawled on our systems when it first came out and that we all complained about it? And that Vista runs at virtually the same speed as XP once booted up - only with tons of new features? And that soon you will need a new OS to even be able to operate the dual quads already on the market and the dual octo-core systems right arounnd the corner? C'mon, people, get a grip and get kick that common sense glad into gear.
Fact: Since SP1 came out, Vista runs GREAT. I can run any Win32 program I want in Vista that I install, and as of SP1. I might even be able to run old 16 bit apps now, haven't tried that yet. Thanks to the freeware release of VDMSound, I am running old DOS games under Vista with full sound. I repeat - DOS games. Some of the few remaining software products currently being described as "Non-Vista compatible" can be made to work under Vista if you do a little reading and tweaking.
Fact: Before SP1 came out for XP, XP ran like crap and had tons of compatibility problems. Everybody hated it, even the way it looks. Bet you forgot that.
Fact: Turn UAC (User Access Control) off if you want Vista to behave like XP and not prompt you for confirmations. It's as easy as un-checking a checkbox in Control Panel (User Accounts). Note: This will drop Vista security down to the same "virus magnet/pants down" level as Windows XP, however, so you decide. The nice part is that you CAN decide.
Fact: Are you a gamer? Then you already know that Direct3D (DirectX) 10 is Vista-only. All you XP gamers can sit in your own DX9 drool if you want to. Meanwhile, we Vista users are walking around in DX10 games that look like movies. You oughtta see Crysis with dual nVidias running SLI.
Fact: Think you don't like Vista? Waiting for Windows 7 to come out in Q1 of 2010 (at the earliest without any of Microsoft's now legendary and predictable postponements)? You might be interested in knowing that Windows 7 is merely a re-packaging of Windows Vista - just like Windows XP was a re-packaging of Windows 2000 because 2000 didn't sell well (see for yourself at the command prompt - type "ver" and take note that Windows 2000 is Windows version 5.0 and Windows XP is version 5.1). Windows Vista is version 6.0. Dig up all the screen shots of Windows 7 you can find on the internet - take note that the title is "Windows 7" but the version number is 6.1. In other words, STILL VISTA. So get used to Vista. Better yet, GET Vista, or you'll eventually be two Windows versions behind when 7 comes out - which won't be until 2010 (at the earliest), and then that version of Vista will be around for 5 years until the next version.
Vista's here to stay, folks. You have a choice of slipping into even more obsolescence with XP (which is just Windows 2000 with lipstick, a 9 year old product) or you can move forward with Vista and Win7.
For me personally, Vista has been spoiling me rotten since SP1 came out. Every time I get up from my Vista machines and sit down on my XP machines, it feels like I'm sitting down on a machine in "Safe Mode". Vista makes XP feel old, limited, cumbersome and inadequate. The search functions of Vista alone remove all need for clicking through layers of start menus, even often allowing me to not have to touch the mouse - this alone makes XP feel like an antique. I wont even get into how cool Desktop Search is, SuperFetch, ReadyBoost, or the other many new features that make Vista MUCH faster than XP in many respects. Read that last sentence again, and then look those things up. You may commence drolling on your poor ol' outdated XP box's keyboard.
BTW: No, I do not work for Microsoft, and I have been a huge Linux fan since 1997 (SUSE Linux, to be exact, version 11 is fantastic). I ignore the fact that Linux always takes much longer for apps to load up (and runs clunkier in general) and that both KDE and Gnome always seems to look/work a lot like the latest version of Windows.
12 of 15 found the following review helpful:
I can't belive it's this bad!!!May 06, 2007
By Will
"Will"
So I have a brand new Dell laptop. Came w/ XP and a free upgrade to Vista Business Edition.
I have just backed up my computer to take it back to XP. Not even the slide show works in Vista, drivers are not as well supported (even with the 32 bit release that makes waste of my 64 bit processor), no up folder toolbar icon, annoying security, IE is still not as good as FireFox, stuff is harder to find, can't connect to external monitors for some reason, and the picture slide show built into XP does not work, camera and GPS driver problems, the list goes on ... They only good thing, the search box they should have put in 5 years ago when Google did it for them (with their desktop plugin)
At this point I wished I bought a Mac ... but I guess I'll go back to XP for now ... I have always been excited about Microsoft products, I was even one of the first adopters of Windows 95 when it came out and everybody had mixed feeling ... but this time, I think Microsoft has SERIOUSLY messed up. This OS is worse than the previous OS ... bad sign for them ... and I've never used a mac much, but I'm sure it's the way to go now. Why didn't I get a mac?... not really sure still, but I develop software (mostly on Windows OS platforms) ... So I thought it would be safer for my development future. Oh well ... XP works pretty well.
11 of 14 found the following review helpful:
Veni, Vidi, Vista - - I Came - I Saw - I wasn't impressedApr 22, 2007
By Joanneva12a
I have had to set up a few new installs of the Vista Business on some servers and I was disappointed with the overall performance.
My biggest gripe is when I tried to remotely log in from another PC and I sat there waiting and waiting only to discover that the Vista default setup is to ask permission to run even the most basic operations and was actually sitting there waiting for someone to click 'YES' to allow the process to run. How irritating! Kinda self defeats the idea of remotely logging in doesn't it?.
Also if you happen to rename the administrator account the change is not registered somewhere in the Remote Connections authorization. So when I *thought* I was remotely logging in under the new admin account name Vista wouldn't let me in and it was only after searching for what seemed an eternity - some hidden place it took me 15 minutes to find, I discovered that the the new admin account name had not been authorized when I did the name change. yikes!
For those who need to run VNC Server on Vista, be aware there are issues - installing and running that you will need to work around as well.
It seems like Microsft drastically changed the menus, overdid the default security features, and installed a new hood ornament. Other than that I don't see what the big deal is.
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