What it is: The replacement for Windows XP, from Microsoft.
What it costs: $500. Be prepared, this one will leave your checkbook's loved ones grieving...
How long have you owned/used it: 3 months, playing various titles from King of the Road to Source-based games off steam to Starcraft. Even dos-based programs work.
Pros:
Cons:
Conclusion: Hey, Redmon, make it able to overwrite it's predecessor. Otherwise, this thing runs like a charm on my crapbox, which features a single-core 2.4GHZ AMD, 1GB DDR and an X600 video card. Hardly high end, but it plays games better and more stably than XP did. If you can borrow a copy of a disc, install it to try it. If you like it, THEN pay for the liscense and activate it. If you don't, go back to XP. Some systems it seems to lag on, others it doesn't. Microsoft won't refund if you don't like your software. I reccomend trying it, since it works so nicely on my low-end system. I support this product, not it's maker, just the product, because it works so well on my lowend system.
What it costs: $500. Be prepared, this one will leave your checkbook's loved ones grieving...
How long have you owned/used it: 3 months, playing various titles from King of the Road to Source-based games off steam to Starcraft. Even dos-based programs work.
Pros:
- Works flawlessly once configured
- Can be known to increase FPS on some low-end video cards
- DX10 support
- Includes an activation timer reset if Redmon decides to want to bill you for another liscense, even tho you bought one. Works three times.
- Mine crashes less than XP did, only one sofar and that was due to processor cache chips being...ripped off?
- Handles app crashes better. Garry's mod, which would crash the whole computer 99% of the time on XP, now only crashes to desktop 99%.
- When UAC is off, it doesn't try to constantly protect you from your own luck, thereby conditioning you to hit "allow" every time you see that message.
Cons:
- Upon first boot, runs like crap
- Windows Aero tends to lag out on low-end systems. Thankfully, it's disableable easily
- UAC is about as annoying as that damn paperclip! Also able to be turned off
- If you go back to XP, you might as well reformat. This ornry sumbit "takes possession" of your files and XP can no longer read them.
- Takes up alot of space
- Has a few unneeded apps that need to be shot in the head, which cause lag on systems with less than a gig of RAM
- Won't run most XP drivers. Thankfully, it tells you this before the driver installs itself and completely destroys the system
- If it detects insufficient HD space to install, instead of wiping XP, it wipes the whole drive.
- Ummm...the price is a megacon. Half a grand for an OS? Best try before you buy with this one...
- nVidia drivers and Vista don't get along very well, for some reason...
- If UAC is on, ittl train you to hit allow. Can let malware on thise way, by overprotecting you. Home versions are even worse about this.
Conclusion: Hey, Redmon, make it able to overwrite it's predecessor. Otherwise, this thing runs like a charm on my crapbox, which features a single-core 2.4GHZ AMD, 1GB DDR and an X600 video card. Hardly high end, but it plays games better and more stably than XP did. If you can borrow a copy of a disc, install it to try it. If you like it, THEN pay for the liscense and activate it. If you don't, go back to XP. Some systems it seems to lag on, others it doesn't. Microsoft won't refund if you don't like your software. I reccomend trying it, since it works so nicely on my low-end system. I support this product, not it's maker, just the product, because it works so well on my lowend system.
HL2 should run fine as long as you don't go crazy on anti-aliasing and resolution.
