Which "version" of Vista, and tweaks for audio?

[Houston Haynes]

I was wondering about the various "flavors" of Windows Vista, and which one would be the most appropriate for music/audio development.

Also, with XP, a series of tweaks (http://www.musicxp.net/)must be performed in order to get the most out of the system. Will that be necessary with Vista?

[Richard Berg]

"Tweak" websites are mostly bunk. The one you linked has less misinformation that most, but it's still likely to waste more of your time than the features you're disabling ever would, especially if/when you take it one step too far and screw up your system. Turn off the indexing service on machines where realtime I/O is critical, and maybe some of the eye candy if you multitask a lot and/or have a slow vidcard, but beyond that I'd trust the Windows performance engineers to do their job.

[Houston Haynes]

Nice to hear from you Richard - another NC person in our midst...

Bear in mind, I'm not asking about the quality of the tweaks... remember that historically, when XP was younger - that PCs were not as strong as they are today. That was then - this is now. There are many recommendations from that site that I don't use -- and I get plenty of performance from my system. It was simply a common point of reference, not a citation of absolute authority.

What I'm asking about is whether Vista's various configurations were for performance-to-task tuning, or more about user experience - and how that might extrapolate to enthusiasts like those that frequent these forums.

[Ian Dorsch]

From what I understand, Vista tracks the way you are using your system and sort of "auto-tweaks" to optimize performance. The word from RC1 users is that Vista can be a little sluggish at first, and then performance improves significantly over a few days as the OS optimizes itself around your usage patterns. Pretty cool, if it works! :)

[janila]

So Vista runs with everything loaded for the first time and automatically shuts things down after deciding which features the user isn't likely to use? I would be more comfortable if Apple announced such a functionality in an OS. :rolleyes: I'd prefer a survey where I would tell the OS which features I'm not going to use and what kind of usage I want to optimize my system for. There's no point in guessing as I already know what I'm going to use the system for. Aero might be nice but most likely it will use too much resources. That leaves me wanting a stripped down 64 bit OS with basic networking abilities. The rest can and should be turned off, including software firewall and every automatic security / update option there is.

So which version of Vista should a professional virtual instrument user get? Is the pricing announced somewhere? How about the actual release date?

[Ian Dorsch]

It's not that Vista runs with everything loaded and then disables services, it's that the OS profiles your system and your usage and intelligently precaches to optimize performance. That process takes a little bit of time. I'm sure as far as turning services on and off you'll have similar functionality to XP.

As far as pricing goes, check this (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/newsroom/view/64549) out. Windows Vista Business is comparable to XP Pro.

[janila]

Do we need the Business version? I've used XP Home and there's nothing I need from XP Pro. I don't want to pay for something I'll disable anyway. Will OEM prices be similar to XP pricing?

Is there some kind of grace period for people buying a 64 bit machine with Windows XP? I've been looking for a Core 2 based machine and I don't want to first pay for XP for the couple of months of use and then pay for Vista.

[seclusion]

What would be nice is a little manual setup function right in the control panel similar to network setup wizzard only for services. Make it real simple, e.g.
#1 Will you be connecting to the internet?
#2 Will you be needing users?
#3 Will you need security center?
#4 Will you be using this system as a Daw?
#5 Will you be watching porn?
#6 Will you be editing video, music, gaming etc.

Whatever, give us a simple setup feature set that has explainations of everything. Maybe even a basic one with 10 or so questions and the option on a more expensive version of Vista that let's completely hone your system for techy's like us who have done some registry tweaks etc to get the most out of our systems. Then again, I guess once we can go down to Futureshop and purchase a Dual-Dualcore system with 100 gigs of ram and 3 separate removable Firewire (3) static stick "drives" that hold 2 terrabytes of data each with no access time for $1000 with a printer. Maybe we won't need a "tweaked" system. Maybe these things would just "work" for everybody!