I'm done with Vista

[Amaris]

Ditto.

I like Vista.

I've only had a few crashes since Vista (I switched to Vista in Feb 2008).

XP crashed on me several times per week.

Win 98 crashed on me several times per day.

Vista is relatively stable, and so far seems more secure.

What were you doing to your computer that it continuously crashed to begin with?
I use XP Pro and got crashes rarely (in extreme cases if the hardware like my overclocked CPU overheated when pushed too much which would reset the computer or an extremely resource hungry application like 3d studio Max hanging up due to it's own bugs unrelated to the OS) and no BSOD's.

Seriously, I have to wonder what people do to their computers, and if they heard of basic maintenance for cleaning up the registry, garbage and defragmentation that will keep the computer in shape (not to mention decent anti-virus/anti-spyware software like Nod32 and Spybot) and of course not installing all sorts of things from the internet and reacting to every 'your computer may be infested with spyware' ads.

I had XP Pro installed on my computer for over 4 years before deciding it was time to reinstall (because one of the rare games I played messed up the codecs section upon installing and system restore did not work).
Up until then it was working fine with occasional quirks (nothing serious) ... most of which were not related to the OS and it was (still is) stable.

I'm sure the problem was the registry, I did run registry repair programs, but I am not an expert enough to understand exactly how to fix registry problems.

From my point of view though, a decent OS should pro-actively fix registry issues without the user having to worry about it.

I can understand that feeling. However, because of all the third party programs Microsoft allows, maintaining an accurate and self repairing registry becomes extremely difficult. It's why even with registry cleaners out there, getting into the Windows registry is always a hunt and peck situation. You don't dare go too fast, lest you bring the whole thing down with one ill made keystroke.

J.

 

[Chindogu]

I love(d) Meedio, by far the best but now obsolete. You can still download it though. Also a new open source version is available called Meedios.

Both are here:

http://www.meedios.com/

They wouldn't run on Vista, so I can use them now I'm on XP again. Woot.

http://www.team-mediaportal.com/ also has potential, but I've not dug around in it too extensively.

Excellent. I'll give this a shot. Thanks!