I'll grab this as soon as it's out of beta if it'll do something about the incessant crap-outs, shutdowns etc that my laptop suffers.

Go over here and download this from here, It's called "Advanced Windows Care" http://majorgeeks.com/Ad..._v2_Personal_d4991.html

Don't touch the Ver.3 version yet it's still super buggy but do download Version 2.90 it's cool.

Also go here and get this "registry Cleaner" It's called AML Registry Cleaner it's on MajorGeeks as well.

http://majorgeeks.com/AM...stry_Cleaner_d5996.html (Always,always create a Registry Backup first though.

Run those two utilities they should correct most of your issues you are experiencing and tweak your system as well. I have been running Windows Vista Service Pack 2 for like Better than Two months now I get the stuff Pre Beta for the Public.

I'm running Windows7 Pre Beta (Really an Alpha build 6801 but very stable so far). On a dual boot system. (Setup was easy) Vista/Windows7.

The public beta may show up late this month but supposedly in January 2009 where the public get to play with it officially.

Vista Service Pack 2 won't address your issues. They sound like system maintenance issues. Or hardware related. Oh and I guess you can call me a Microsoft fan boy 'cause they let me play with the new stuff "first" sometimes.

I wish MS WOULD release a Beta 3 of IE8 NOW!

Beta 2 is as buggy as hell. I was nearly going to roll back to IE7, but decided to install Opera 9.62, which gives me a way around the IE 8 Beta 2 bugs, of which there are many.

Not being a huge fan of Firefox, Opera is quite good. Querky, but good.

Pasting an address into the address bar locks up IE 8 Beta 2. Extremely annoying as I copy and past links on a regular basis.

thats crap for *alpha* standards, let alone *beta*

Pasting an address into the address bar locks up IE 8 Beta 2. Extremely annoying as I copy and past links on a regular basis.

I haven't had that problem. Mine occassionally crashes at tomshardware.com and without compatibility mode enabled that site is really slow in IE8 for me. Backwards from every other site with or without compatibility problems with IE8.

"We will release one more public update of IE8 in the first quarter of 2009, and then follow that up with the final release," Hatchamovitch wrote. "Our next public release of IE (typically called a 'release candidate') indicates the end of the beta period."

"Beta 3 of IE8 would likely be released first, within Q1 2009."

I'm sorry?

Hatchamovitch has quite clearly said there that there is no Beta 3 planned.

/pedant

Well Vista SP2 might ship on time but hell will freeze over before Windows 7 gets released on time.

Don't see why not. Even for MS releasing a skin on top of Vista should be fairly easy. I see nothing in Windows 7 that is complex or terribly time consuming.

"I see nothing in Windows 7 that is complex or terribly time consuming"

Says the guy that has all the details of Windows 7, has designed an OS and is an expert developer for large scale application...oh wait you're not that guy, never mind....

I can see what he means... Vista was the first OS from MS to actually 'lock-down' the kernel and not allow low level calls to it. From what I understand, MS has gone furthur by building on top of this.

A lot of the rewrites that are in Windows 7 made it into SP2, and I was running the alpha, early beta, or whatever have you, and the system was running even more responsive. In short, I liked what I saw.

..of course anyone is more than welcome in correcting me if I am wrong or mistaken. :)

I think you may be proved wrong,as this 3 month early release,ok beta, shows that MS sees that the development of W7 must be well in hand, and is forwarding the SP 2 release early than it thought.

I'll be the first to admit that they screwed up Vista so badly by launching it in the condition they did, they deserve all of the negative press it's gotten. But...

If you think Win7 is just a skin, you haven't been paying attention.

I almost wish they'd simply not even released Vista as this seems to be having a huge affect on how people are reacting to Win7.

If it *were* just a skin on Vista, the reviewers, testers, and users of the Alpha wouldn't be heralding it as "All that Vista *should* have been.", would they? They'd be doing exactly what you are doing and wondering why they didn't just partner with Stardock to make a new theme...

See my post below for one reason why Win7 will likely be a *much* better OS upon release (hell, even prior to, from the looks of things) than Vista is even now.

It was a laugh, though.

Don't tell me 7 isn't just a skin. the touted features are multitouch and a redesigned taskbar! Those are primary design features! You are telling me those things aren't "possible" as add-ons to Vista?

How about it's replacement for VPN's! Wow! My users have so much trouble with VPN's and working remotely! Wait, no they don't! It's been working fine for a DECADE NOW!

Oh yeah, and there's the whole part about how 7 is a minor release! ( http://news.cnet.com/830...3-56.html?tag=mncol;txt )

Unlike MSDN subscribers, product tech reviewers, journalists, I actually USE the products Microsoft previews and touts. I use them in environments where a small/mid-sized business would stress it and put it through actual living pounding. Who drives my opinion of products? My clients, end-users, and customers. They dive in and give me feedback, and I hear mostly bad for Vista, let's stay with XP, and some "let's go apple/iphone." but yeah, anecdotal.

I don't care about 7 until the bits are golden.

I used to care about beta OS's and RC's, until Vista. Vista PERMANENTLY will keep me away from betatesting Microsoft products. Vista's RC1 and 2 *were complete jokes.*
Vista gold was a complete joke. The product could not consistently suspend or hibernate. The product accused me of piracy after numerous activations! When the product itself had already validated! The product was dog slow on modern hardware!

So yeah I do think 7 is a skin and quite minor. There will be no product that will exclude Vista for 7 for 5+ years! I've seen the previews posted online, but I sure as hell ain't touching it until other people see final code. Because Microsoft lost their chance with Vista. they released crap code with Vista pre SP1, so why should I put forth energy testing code which will inevitably be crap?

Mind you Server products from them have NOT been crap, they have been quality, so obviously Microsoft cares about one realm of their business. it just isn't consumerland.

I see. You're changing the definition. How can anyone have a rational discussion with someone who makes up the meanings as they go along?

Skin: A new look.

Please inform the rest of us how any of the features _you_ mentioned above fit that description.

Had I realized that you were still stuck in "I hate Vista, take that Microsoft!" mode and not open to reason, I wouldn't have bothered. But we're here. I'll try.

The claims you make regarding vista being crap code, and it's crap betas are spot on, but are a result of a vastly flawed development process. Applying those same views to Windows 7 would only be a legitimate deal if they were using that same development process. They aren't. Will it be better? From what I have read and seen, it can't possibly be worse. Will it be a completely new OS? Of course not. It's based on the same platform as Vista. Obviously, they will be closely related.

That said, the majority of Vista's problems are due to the development process, which forced bad code into the main branch and ended up creating the monstrosity that is Vista (crap code, untested, resulting in crap betas and a complete epic failure at launch). This isn't happening in Windows 7. The bits are tested prior to entering the main branch. No crap code in the main branch.

Kind of makes saying Win 7 will be another Vista kind of hard to swallow, don't you think?

Look, I know you're pissed. You have a right to be. Anyone who had to use Vista should be. But to carry that over to something else as you are doing when the issues that caused Vista to be such crap have been changed just doesn't make any logical sense.

How could you possibly think 7 is just a different skin? You are actually claiming that Microsoft isn't going to change any files? You can choose to claim that they won't change much, but sheesh, don't claim that it's essentially only a different option in the Themes panel.

Windows Vista = Hulk (2003)
Windows 7 = The Incredible Hulk (2008)

In other words, it will more than likely be what Vista should have been, and will probably be a matter of Microsoft pretending Vista never happened (the way Marvel Enterprises viewed the original Hulk movie) after Windows 7 is ready for mass consumption. :)

We can only hope. I guess I'm just a glass-half-full kinda guy, though.

And yes, Vista needs to disappear. As soon as Win7 comes out, Microsoft needs to have Jimmy take Vista out back for a talk...

"As always, the final release date is based on quality"

I find this quote particularly amusing given Vista's***ory.

Have you even used Vista? So many are quick to bash on it, but those who have used it, know yes it requires a beefier computer, but then again my parents both have old P4 2.53Ghz with 1 and 2 GB or ram, while one has a old 5900u 512and the other a 5800 with 256mb ram. Both are running vista and handle it plus games just fine, now playing games like crysis or higher end games as of the past year or so is a different story. I have been running vista x64 since launch date, and they since about a month later. Since I play games a lot of have a lot beefier system and it handles vista x64 with no problem, no crashing excluding IPv6 (which is crashing in xp also). I have also yet to find any application that doesnt play well, or any device I have since launch that doesnt have driver support.

Stop forming your opinion on others, get the demo, or it from a friend, play with it for 15-30 days see if its as bad as you have read. Most of you (excluding windows osx bashers) will find it just damn fine.

I've used the OS on a variety of platforms, ranging form laptops (Vista Capable my butt) to Intel and AMD based dual core desktops. It's clunky, inconsistent, buggy, unstable and slow. One of my work machines is unfortunately Vista64 Enterprise as is one of my laptops.

My OS of choice for speed, stability, memory handling, compatibility and did I mention stability - perhaps I should mention stability - is XP64, regardless of hardware platform.

Period.

I don't giver a crap about SP2 - I'm waiting for Windows 7.

I don't giver a crap about SP2 - I'm waiting for Windows 7.

why did you read this article then ??

DAMN TROLL !!

laughing. my. f*cking. ass. off.

I've used Vista since February 2007, and yes it was as bad as people said. I had continual performance, stability, driver issues. It wasn't until SP1 that it got to the level I deemed "acceptable." It was as bad as people said it was, it was.

I do not doubt the competence of mjm01010101 and roj whatsoever with regards to installing and operating Windows Vista, and their ability to effectively judge the performance and overall stability and reliability of Windows Vista. I will admit that I've had to resist the urge to respond just as you have to those who choose to express negative opinions of the OS.

Personally, I have had no problems with Ultimate x64 since I installed it shortly after release... long before SP1 was available. Stability, reliability, performance... all met or exceeded my expectations, all the while running on "ancient" hardware (Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe, Athlon 64 X2 3800+, 2GB DDR400, SATA 1.5Gb, etc). Dual-core does indeed help tremendously, as I found out when I reinstalled my HTPC with Home Premium, which only has a single-core Athlon 64 3500+. The rest of the specs are fairly similar, but I can definitely notice a performance difference.

That said, I honestly cannot account for the wildly varying performance testimonies from others with hardware much more up-to-date than my own. First impressions are hard to forget though, and if someone has made up their mind that it's not for them, that's usually that. :)

well said lol

Clunky, on slow machines yes, fast not so at all.
inconsistent, how is this even related to an OS, what consistency do you expect? Should it be like every other os's previous release?
buggy, the worst bug to plague vista was memory and video card support, which was fixed long ago before sp1, nvidia cards were good after 3 months of release, much better then when XP released at 1yr.
unstable, how so, was this at launch or to date? There isnt many issues after SP1 that are causing a lot of problems.

So you said its all those things, but you use Vista64 enterprise on a laptop as you said was not vista capable, which means it can run, not it can run it better then anything in the world. You also said your other is a work station(machine). I assume these don't even have a have way decent vid card, in either of them.

Which leads me to say yes you have an opinion, but have you used it on any system that is actually decent and not a work computer that is bare bones. I am guessing no, and if it was buggy, unstable, your work would never have put it out on all your work computers, so you shot yourself in the foot on that one. As Vista's kernal has proven more stable then XPs.

"I don't giver a crap about SP2 - I'm waiting for Windows 7."

You, sir, are a fanboi. Windows 7 sucks and I'm waiting for Windows 8.

Thank you, Das mod, for setting the tone. :)

Sad yet true.

That said, they've completely reworked their development processes since the fiasco of the Vista launch.

Instead of writing the code for a specific feature, putting it in the winmain branch, and then testing it (which is what caused a majority of the issues in Vista...which was released prior to much of the code being tested/fixed), they are now writing the code, testing it, and fixing it _prior_ to putting it in the winmain dev branch.

Effectively, this means the only code in the main dev branch is already tested, fixed, and ready. It's why Win7 is getting such rave reviews, even as an Alpha.

How depressing it must be to have an Alpha release more stable and functional than your current production OS.

Hopefully they have carried over this to the development of Vista SP2 and we'll see marked improvement in Vista, and if we're really lucky, perhaps some decent functionality improvements.

It should be noted that I do, in fact, use Vista. Regardless of it's initial plagued launch and the nagging issues that remain, it is still far superior to XP in terms of remote management and security, and where I work, those are the requirements.