Ten things to consider before taking the Vista plunge

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Which Vista 4 GAMERS/HARDWARE ENTHUSIASTS?

I've been a fan of Microsoft for 22 yrs, years and years before I even owned my own pc, I love their products and want them, even though their prices are a bit breathtaking. Like standalone V Ultimate $550? Are they joking? Then after spending an arm and a leg for these products, Vista, Office 2007 (I'm actually a writer some of the time), and their MOST IMPORTANT PRODUCT: FLIGHT SIMULATOR X DELUXE, after all that money invested, each of those products need to be activated. And then that computer sits there, gathers dust, and is never ever hardware modified ever right? Wrong, I think I've just spent possibly 6 weeks modifying my pc's to run my previous editions of Flight Simulator better, with faster framerates and brighter/sharper picture, and also to improve my internet capability. I barely have a handle on my Word/Office capability, that can be improved and I have to work on that. Any way, I've worked very hard to improve and upgrade my pc's for Flight Simulator previous editions, and general computing efficiency. The improvement in performance has been really great. I didn't realize how miserable my pervious experience had been until I upgraded. Some of these upgrades required several rounds of upgrading to reach an OK level.

So what if I invest in Vista, Office 2007, and FSX? I'll be starting out w/ totally unsatisfactory hardware that will need more upgrading, for example a 2.2 to 3.0 ghz processor etc, which is really not adequate for FSX. Some people try overclocking to get better FSX performance. But what happens when you do this? Vista, Office 07, FSX DLX, all shut down, and have to be reactivated. I've estimated that potentially in a 3 day period I could require as many as 15 total activations, if all goes well, not counting mishaps. If you upgrade the processor or motherboard/processor that's another set of activations, if you overclock up, another 3 activations, downclock another 3.

To me, the activation program at MS is upsetting, that I would pay a ton of money to MS, then be dependent upon them to turn it on, and continue to keep turning it on, and what happens when support is dropped for these products? They have told me that they will continue to activate these programs indefinitely, even after support is dropped, this is what they have told me. However, when I wanted to install a few years ago MS Flight Simulator 98, I couldn't find my Cert of Auth, I called MS and 3 clerks didn't even recognize the product, acted dumb, finally the 4th clerk told me politely, he was sorry but MS FS98 was no longer supported and they could not assist me at all in the slightest. Lucky for me, by pure luck I found that Cert of Auth and was able to install it, at least it won't shut down if I install a new processor (which is needed). Are they really going to continue to indefinitely activate Vista, XP, Office, FSX DLX after support for them is dropped? Or do they plan on forcing us to upgrade in the future due to accelerated or forced obsolesence?

And what about the annoyance of continually activating these products as you try to reach an acceptible level of performance for FSX DLX? If any of you have FSX then you know what I mean, it is graphically heavy, and that's a good thing, I'm not complaining about that at all, I'm just saying that when I get it, my hardware is going to need a lot of modification and upgrading, possibly overclocking then downclocking, and that means a lot of reactivations. Is that considered friendly to Flight Simulator and hardware enthusiasts? They have specifically stated that they do not want to "punish hardware enthusiasts", but what about the annoyance of continuous reactivations? One FSX user had to activate 5 times just in the process of installing it and that's it, another one was experimenting with overclocking and required NINE activations in two weeks until he gave up and put FSX in the drawer until he could replace his computer which I think was 3.0 ghz, with a later faster computer.

So with all these choices of Vista, I was wondering which version of Vista is best for GAMERS and HARDWARE ENTHUSIASTS? I was told my MS that Vista Media Center will only be offered as an OEM product. That nixes that. There is no way at all that I will ever purchase an OEM Vista! W/ OEM Vista, due to the lower price and lower license, you're allowed just a couple of hardware upgrades then you have to purchase a new box 'o Vista. And I LIVE to upgrade hardware! MS recently reconsidered their licensing options for HARDWARE ENTHUSIASTS where with the RETAIL version of Vista that GAMERS and HARDWARE ENTHUSIASTS would be allowed to upgrade their hardware an UNLIMITED number of times, and receive UNLIMITED REACTIVATIONS. If we had not received that, that would have been a deal breaker, period. So is the retail version of Vista called Ultimate the only and best choice for gamers and hardware enthusiasts, or will there be a retail version of Media Center? Or what RETAIL version of Vista is the best version for gamers/hardware enthusiasts?

Posted by: angels355   Posted on: 12/05/06 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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