I don't understand the pp who put XP on their Vista Laptops...

1) Gaming Performance

First of all, if you have an XPS (m1530, m1330, etc) or any GeForce 8000+ series graphics card and install Windows XP, you are basically throwing away graphics performance AND quality. How is that, you ask? Well, the GeForce 8000+ series gpus are made for DirectX 10, and Vista is the only windows OS that supports DirectX 10. So why downgrade to the old DirectX 9 by installing Windows XP when you have an opportunity for directx 10? (for those that don't know, Directx enables special graphics and speed enhancements that only get better with each successive version of Directx)

reference: http://arstechnica.com/journals/microsoft.ars/2007/2/14/7060

2) Your hardware was made for Vista, not XP

I keep reading how people put XP on their computers because they "don't like Vista", but then complain that they have a bunch of yellow exclamation points in the Device Manager because they are having a hard time finding drivers for their laptop parts. Simply put, your hardware is designed for Vista, and even if you do find drivers for it that actually work for XP, you will throw away a lot of features and speed optimizations that were only exclusive with Vista. So why go through the trouble of searching for outdated drivers for XP when you can get up-to-date drivers straight from Dell...

3) ReadyBoost, Superfetch...

All these things are built-in with Vista to offer speed improvements. They do not come with XP.

ReadyBoost: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReadyBoost

Superfetch: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/features/details/superfetch.mspx

4) If you keep getting BSOD's with Vista, make sure you aren't running 150 processes in the background and please update your drivers and everything will be OK!!


Thank you for your time.

 

DX10 support is somewhat moot on anything using an 8400m or 8600m anyway, because you're going to get better speeds by running your games in DX9 mode. The additional graphical flash is unrealistic on such GPU's. I'm not saying you can't do it, but your game is going to run much better (and still look very nice) in DX9 mode.

ReadyBoost and Superfetch, these are interesting because it depends what you use your laptop for. There's no doubting that they both aid general operating system speeds. In my case, I use Debian Linux 95% of the time, and only boot into Vista to play a game. So for my usage, Superfetch and Readyboost are not desired. I recognise I am the exception, and not the rule, but there's always the opinion that 'if you disable Superfetch, you're disabling Vista's main memory management feature' without consideration for that that person might actually be doing with their laptop.

 

1) Gaming. Up until recently, drivers were not up to par under Vista and that contributed to the slow down. Additionally, DX10 games are not yet optimized...so they won't perform as well as DX9. Just because 10 is bigger than 9 doesn't mean Vista is the bomb.

2) The hardware runs on the x86-64 platform, so its made for Vista and XP. Considering that most parts do a specific thing or two, you don't give out on features. Tell me, other than DX10->DX9, what other parts do you lose functionality with? I can't think of any.

3) ReadyBoost is a joke for modern PCs...read about it. SuperFetch is nice, I've give you that, but its more a gimick to cover for Vista's inefficiencies IMHO. I can turn it off and never notice the difference.

4) It is the same way with XP and Vista.

 

1)Almost every game I played runs faster in Xp than Vista.
2)There is nothing as such,hardware is made for vista.It's marketing ploys.May be there are some things which the drivers claim to do,but how much difference does it make?
3)Almost every one knows both of them are useless.
4)Sometime we have to run 150 processes.And BSOD's are caused by immature drivers for vista.

Thanks you too.

 

Generally, if you can't find drivers it is because you don't know where you are looking.

Chipset/SATA --> Intel, nVidia, AMD drivers on their websites.
WiFi --> Intel, Broadcom
GPUs --> Intel, ATI, nVidia, LaptopVideo2Go, Omega

 

i second everything above

 

I like XP more because I'm just more accustomed to it

 

It's inevitable that the majority of us will use Vista in the future, just like XP. Why not get accustomed to Vista now?

 

Get accustomed to Vista when it's half as mature as XP.. Why waste efforts Beta testing for M$?

XP runs with a memory footprint of less than 350 MB, with all drivers/services loaded and running. A similar Vista install, tweaked as well as I can, still uses over 800MB of RAM. Which is more efficient? And XP pretty much does everything Vista does,only better, at least as far as 32 bit versions are considered. Of course, if x64 is what you are comparing, and must stick to windows, Vista is your only option.

 

When Vista first came out, people were freaked cause of its specs. Though if you think about it, back then only DX9 gfx cards were out with the exception of the really really high end 8800GTX. However, now is different, hardware is being updated, software is being updated, Vista really isn't so bad now compared to back then as long as you have current gen hardware. Sure there are parts of XP that really excel over Vista, but assessing both operating systems overall, Vista is better. Sure there are some useless features like Readyboost or Turbomemory, but theres a lot more good in Vista than that.

 

Sure..That's why Windows 7 is coming so soon, cause Vista rocks!

 

LOL ROFL LMAO !! Best thing i ever read here at Notebook Review

 

Its not coming "so soon" just because they are working on it, doesnt mean its coming out within this year. XP hasn't even been phased out yet. Microsoft will always be making new OS. What were you expecting? With your mindset, they never wouldve even made Vista since XP is so popular. Think.

 

i know, i crack myself up

 

I still encounter major performance issues accessing files on network shares despite applying every recommendation / fix that Micro$oft has issued. Yes, I've turned off differential compression, variable tcp receive window, indexing, previews/thumbnails, etc... nothing has worked. When I open a file on a NAS from my XP machine, access is near-instantaneous. With Vista, I have to wait 10+ seconds per file access. Copy and paste speeds are fine in Vista, but accessing any file accross the network is really something else.

I guess Vista is fine for stand-alone users, but for network applications, especially on a corporate WAN, Vista does run into major performance issues. There's a reason why so many companies and organizations, including the Olympics, still reject vista, and not because it doesn't look pretty enough.

 

Lets not forget XP at its early stages with it having loads of problems too. Then SP1 came out and things started easing up. XP is already matured as an OS and many of its kinks are fixed. Vista on the other hand is also steadily maturing, though its not at its best yet.

 

Agreed... Vista is still going through its growing pains. Once Micro$oft definitively hammers out all the extra bloat-ware and network performance issues, Vista will be a fine OS. That's why I haven't removed Vista from my XPS M1730 -- it's the only way to use DX10 at this time.

 

Are you sure? Read this. http://www.techmixer.com/download-directx-10-for-windows-xp/

 

Exactly. Why use a pre alpha(okay, now it's officially beta ) OS, when a fully functional, no issues OS(Read XP) is available?

 

I remember the days when XP was out and my friend kept saying how Windows 98 is the best operating system ever... Yeah right. He was going on about how he might get a Macbook and how much Vista stunk... but after he shelled out 4,000 bucks in parts for his custom gaming computer, he loaded Vista on it. When I saw it, he just said "don't ask...". lol

 

All I know is this. Vista is kind of "neat". But using the same config, same exact driver versions for alot of the hardware. I would lost 2-300 3dmark's (whatever it is just 3dmark), but would also lose 10-15FPS on almost all my games (running in DX9). I don't even own a DX10 game. Why? Name one GOOD DX10 game (No Crysis is not good, it is just pretty). Or name a game that is GOOD that makes a huge difference from playing it in DX10 or DX9.

 

Time will show the differences. Hardware is still improving, programmers still use DX9 more because they know that it will be a while before everyone catches on with DX10 and gets DX10 gfx cards. Who knows.. maybe Starcraft 2 will take advantage of it or Red Alert 3, though I don't think it'll happen.

 

Link isn't allowed to open at my work station... anyway, last time I checked, all the 3rd party DX10 ports to XP were barely functional at best. Has the situation improved?

 

Not really. Manufacturers are trying to make their hardware Vista compliant. Remember, Microsoft wants to promote Vista and stop supporting XP. Naturally if they encourage companies to make hardware that is more compatible with XP with DX10... it'd go against their primary objective.

 

After receiving my Vista laptop, I spent the first day making it dual boot XP expecting to hate vista. 3 Months on I barely use XP.

I think my switch to Vista is mainly down to the memory management changes giving more stability when running 2 clients of my favourite mmo.

 

I was one of the many people initially horrified by the resource usage of Vista. But after giving it a spin on my M1530 (which has resources to spare), I've found that with a few tweaks, Vista is very, very pleasing. The only thing that has me using XP at all right now are some program incompatibilities, which is still a serious problem for many...

 

I ran into this issue while using my favorite MP3 conversion software, but XP SP2 compatibility mode under Vista fixed the problem in my case.

 

I used Vista for 7 months, and I got tired of wasting time just to get applications to work, and keep my resources available. It's kind of like a snowball effect that keeps repeating, and you have to take time to clean it up. I switched to XP and have been happy since. It's a personal preference:

eye candy- vista
reliability- xp

 

I dont understand how you cant get vista under 800m memory usage, as my usage WITH firefox is 640 atm.

 

First off general performance xp>vista. When I'm doing a lot of multitasking and I use vista business it goes a lot slower then when in XP. Granted Vista is pretty and all, but that does not make up for stuttering performance here and there with vista when I can have solid performance with XP. As for gaming FPS does not really change, if anything XP may squeeze out a few extra. Graphics are the same as dx10 games are just coming out, and the one I play shows zero difference in dx10 mode when compared to dx9 mode (AoC). But one feature that works much better in XP vs vista is alt tabbing while in game. When I alt tab an old game like WoW and it takes time to actually minimize the game compared to XP thats just annoying.

So you ask why do I "waste my hardware" going to XP? Well work performance is very noticeably improved, and game performance is the same (minus alt tabbing). So why would I keep an OS thats buggy, as well has encounter hardware issues all the time when I have a perfectly stable OS with zero issues. I wont get into the software reasons why I don't use vista cough symantec corp edition cough. This all on my dell vostro a very capable machine and with fresh install with tweaks/optimizations for both XP and Vista

You do know that xp lasted from 2002-2007 and vista will last from 2007-2009 as they are already looking to replace it. Learn your vista, I already have learned it and dropped it before it was even released.

 

xp was long over due a upgrade. xp was supposed to be updated. and comparing xp to vista is like comparing a baby to an adult. u see my point. try using the edition of xp when it first came out then talk crap.

 

I think it's all a matter of preference. If you enjoy the pretty Aero interface, and use the enhanced power management features that Vista offers over XP, then use Vista. After using SP1 for a while, it does seem quite promising.

However, if you just want raw speed out of everything, XP would be the way to go, especially an installation with components ripped out (games, MSN explorer, unncessary services, search assistants, etc crap) using nLite. It's also been around for 7 (?) years now, and it's had it's share of service packs and fixes making it more stable than Vista. XP SP3 also recently came out, so it's not like MS doesn't care about it at all, even though the service pack is just one pile of hotfixes!

Upgrading to Vista for DX10 alone doesn't seem to justify much, since there's no games that actually take full advantage of it yet. The hardware (GeForce 8000 series) is the first generation - no hardware gets it right first time!

Personally I use XP for gaming, then switch over to Mac OS X for productivity/work etc stuff.

 

I meant to create an xp partition but vista ultimate's surprisingly usable, so just haven't got round to it. Still curious to see how xp would perform on this hardware, so maybe I'll get round to it one of these days...

 

That's really just trendy rhetoric. We're not beta testing Vista any more than we did XP or 2000 or 98 etc.

Let's not gloss over the part where some of that "used" memory is readily available to any progam you start that needs it. It's just pre-cached for programs you typically run, which will benefit from it when they start.

Seriously, aren't we above MS-bashing for the sake of MS-bashing? Some people prefer XP. That's fine. Some prefer Vista. That's fine, too. Neither owns the other as the obvious choice. Maybe I just don't encounter some of the problems others mention, because I run Vista 64-bit. Funny thing is, mine is the version that caught the most flak early on. It works great for me. /shrug

 

I'll either be buying a notebook with XP on it or getting rid of Vista the second I receive my notebook and replacing it with XP.
Why? Well I dont like the look and feel of Vista, have used it on a desktop and I feel its cumbersome and seems to be made for people who dont know much about computers. I find the interface very amatuerish.

Two, because I cant get the best or at least better versions of Vista unless I spend hundreds of dollars whereas I have several copies of XP Pro right here to use.

And three because from all accounts, Vista will only hog RAM and speed is my main concern on my laptop.

 

My only problem with this thread is the reasoning the poster had for not formatting for XP.

1) Most Laptops arent even good enough to use DX10 even though they have a graphics card that supports it, the cards still just aren't powerful enough.

2) You have got to be kidding me with this reason. Are you one of those people that actually believes that Built for Vista sticker on the laptop. Your hardware is built for any OS that you want to use. Do you think when Dell sells a Latitude and they offer both Vista and XP that they have 2 different laptops, one for XP and one for Vista. Simple answer, No. This one really annoys me.

3) Woopdy Doo, most laptops support 4 gigs on the motherboard, so just buy memory and update and you have much faster memory that isnt taking a usb or sd slot.

4) You can get BSODs with any windows OS if you are running 150 processes.

In the end it is all preferences, but please get some better reasons before your start trashing the reformat.

 

Ahhh... a smart one here! I agree with you 100%
Vista is the future and XP is fading away.....................

 

exactly. so thats why people are sticking with xp until vista is mature enough? doh?

all 4 of the OP's points are basically invalid..

1. gaming performance - pick one DX10 game out there that outperforms the DX9 version.. there are none. just beause it's newer doesn't mean it performs better. please stop trying to mislead people
2. your hard ware was made for vista, not xp - hardware isn't "made" for an operating system. can you name one piece of hardware on our laptops that dont have a xp driver? nope, didn't think so
3. readyboost, superfetch - we wouldn't need this if vista didn't perform so poorly from the many unnecessary background processes that XP doesn't have
4. BSOD's in vista - they are not caused by running 150+ processes. wheres your logic? premature drivers and incompatible software cause BSODs.

please think twice before you try to intentionally mislead people

 

vista has an annoying bug with displaying thumbnails when it comes to media folders containing a lot of files. if one file is corrupted it takes 10+ hours for the damn thing to load. mean while in XP even if the file is corrupted everything else displays fine.

 

Isn't that what I have been saying? If it's a 64 bit windows OS you need, Vista does the job, and does it well. But as for 32 bit, there's nothing to recommend Vista over XP, apart from some eye candy. I have been using Vista x64 as the windows OS since SP1 came out, without any problems, on my laptop. However, on my desktop, I still prefer to run XP 32 bit...

 

Like you, I use Vista on my XPS notebook and love it, and I still use XP on my "older" desktop and like that fine too.
But I still say the future is VISTA and I'm gonna get use to using it...

 

I've been playing around with both XP and Vista since I bought my notebook a year ago, bouncing back and forth. Before SP1, Vista felt pretty slow, but after the update I think I'm ready to say goodbye to XP.

 

1-4) all reasons already explained.

5) program compatibility: i have both xp and vista as dual boot. amazing how vista doesnt let a lot of programs work good. I'm not talking about the usual common and mainstream programs, they are already patched and working , but a bunch of small and not so small programs i use, they don't work /crash/etc.
this only reason alone is enough to keep me away from vista.

and the only reason i have Vista, is because at the time when i bought the laptop there was no other choice.

 

I might also mention that more and more of Microsoft's programming tools are being designed with Vista functionality in mind, not XP. The .Net Framework 3.5 is a perfect example. Applications based on the 3.5 framework do work in XP, but XP compatibility is second priority to Vista.

Change is inevitable.

 

I'll agree that anyone who wants to make use of 64-bit or 4GB+ should install Vista 64-bit with no worries.

I've been running Vista 64-bit since launch, and there's quite a fair amount of FUD on the internet regarding compatibility and performance issues with the 64-bit version specifically. This normally comes from people who have not really used it, and base their opinion on XP64 - this is not unreasonable. But the negative stigma that XP64 has developed has slowed the adoption of Vista 64-bit. Rest assured that Vista 64-bit is no XP64, the driver support is on-par with 32-bit Vista, and the performance with 32-bit applications is transparent. 64-bit Vista will become the defacto carnation of Vista as people move towards 4GB RAM.

If I did not want 64-bit, I'd likely still be running XP32. That said, I did reinstall XP32 a few months back expecting a huge jump in performance, and was disappointed to find it performed about the same. It seems that while Vista has high requirements, once you pass that requirement 'threshhold', the difference begins to level. I actually reinstalled Vista 64-bit after a month.

I generally don't like Windows, it must be said. My 64-bit Debian Linux idles at 4MB RAM usage and 0% CPU, and is reflected in the general performance of the operating system, as well as the games.

 

Another thread about this?
XP is like a tractor, utilitarian,gets the job done,and sucks at looks.
Vista is more like a smaller tractor,eats up more gas,but gets the job done also,almost as fast as XP and looks awesome doing it.
Having used XP since last year ,Vista now is a breeze of fresh air.
With SP1 it's awesome, although I HAVE LOST some fps along the way in games

 

I am sure you know this, but it is very easy to make XP look exactlly like Vista

Oh here is another reason, even tho it does not really apply to us here. But I manage a Audio Visual rental company. We purchased 10 Vostros, I fought to have them built with XP. But alas the owners wanted Vista because it is the "Future". Well, I just got a request for proposal to rent 10 laptops for 3 weeks. I.E. It would pay off these laptops, and make a profit.
#1 requirement? Must have XP installed, as Vista does not work with this clients software.

Again most of us are "home" users, or use our laptops for personal business. But still, as long as Vista has been out, XP should not be a "requirement" anymore.

 

SAP Business One client doesn´t work on Vista.
That´s enough reason for me.

 

Wow, that puts SAP at the shareware level.

 

I didnt have nearly as many issues with xp when it came out as vista, and yes I know what your saying comparing babies to adults. But still he/she asked why people convert back to XP and I told him/her why. Is that not what this thread is all about? XP > vista in all categories except visual apperance, and Im sorry Ill take the plain look of XP for everything else it gives me over vista.

/agree

Ill hop on vista when it "matures", or if the replacement is better (depends on beta and rc testing). Currently vista is looking like the new ME, I have said that since beta and Ill continue to say it. Yes I know it needs time, but come on 2 years of beta + over a year after release and SP1 solves nothing and has actually created some issues. Like stated above Ill wait a little longer.

But thats obvious that MS has been in the process of forcing xp into extinction. I fully understand this as thats the way to force people onto a newer platform and then make money. I have no problem upgrading at all, but I'm just disappointed that after all this time and the large bankroll that MS has that we are being pushed/forced onto a platform that still has a beta feel and quality about it. When MS gets vista together it will be a nice OS, hopefully thats what windows 7 will be.

But ultimately I find it hard to put stock into an OS that had its replacement announced before its release.