Quote: "But do old games (made with DBC) run on Vista witout problems ?"
I have both xp and vista and use them both so I'll wrap this up for ya and give you an overview of the differances
GAMES :
anything program that uses DOS will not run because it requires something that is no longer on the system. Older win98/xp games and programs will run almost flawlessly if the dll above is placed in the system folder ( c:\windows\system32 )
DBC :
anything compiled on dbc before the now current version (which is 1.4 in the included editor ) will require the dll above to be placed in the directory of the program or in the system directory to run
security :
UAC -
Once the sytem is up , UAC loads. User Account Control acts like an internal firewall that prevents any/all programs from launching locally (on the hard drive ) without your permission. NOthing executes locally without the users direct permission including windows programs. So any would be trojan would have a hard time executing. there is a handy turn off switch for those not needing this amount of security.
its new -
even with uac off , only a couple of keylogger programs will even execute on vista , others throw a nice exception of non support for the operating system or wont even execute.
large hd & memory support :
viata supports ultra large hard-drives, as well as an unheard amount of actual physical memory. It also has greater capabilities when it comes to graphics.
speed :
if you buy one and its slow as a turtle you can do 2 things that will give you a good experiance. first, UPdate your hard disk controller as many of them were shipped with bad hd-controller drivers (this is the part where you actually use windows update )
secondly , completely remove norton AV and symatic products as its nothing but a resource hog and eats away at the mememory and processor. once these 2 things are taken care of then speed wont be a problem. If you dont need the security , turn off the UAC , its a pain in the butt when installing /updating your software. If anyone has any further questions concerning vista be sure and post and I'll be glad to help.
compression of files :
this is a pitfall of using vista - its very slow when it comes to compressing and decomprssing zipped files. I recomend unzipping any needed files on an xp before transfering them to vista its fast and convienant.
anti-virus software :
although vista comes with both norton anti-virus, and defender, niether one are really adequate.
defender - its my opinion that its basically useless. you can take a couple files with some known viruses and malware and it wont even detect them.
norton - using norton isnt a good option. as I said above , its a resource hog (and a big one at that). Secondly , its been my experiance when servicing pc's that by the time that norton cathes a virus its usually already entrenched in the system and has already done such serious damage that the machine requires a complete wipe. the only recomendation I can give on this product is to completely remove it as its only purposes seems to be to tell you how many files are infrected.
avg
inspite of the makers saying that it is vista compatible, if configured to do on-close scanning avg tends to lock down programs. although I do recomend using it when connected to internet because when its configured to do onclose scanning will usually quash any would be bug before it can execute. if you can find an alternate anti-virus program that works well with vista then please let me know.
accessibility :
vista was made for the average user - not a power user.
in comparison to xp , it can be very hard to mess things up on a system level , and just as difficult to fix things the way you want. On the surface , its easy to operate, but getting under the hodd to change things can be quite annoying for the power user who wants to tweak the system. A good example of this would be internet explorer 7 in comparison to IE 6. IE 6 is completely customizable, but you may have difficulties doing the same thing with IE7 as its made for the average user, and not a power user.
hope this helps all you guys. , if you have any speciffic questions you can email me or post on the board here.
