Why go back to XP?

I'm curious, why so many want to go back to XP? We have four computers in the house all running Vista with no issues. I even put it on my old HP
zv6005us and it runs better than ever.

 

Because the new hardware such as Core 2 Duo processors that come with pre-loaded Vista machines now days run much faster when using XP with decreased startup times as well as shutdown. Some software is still incompatible with Vista.

 

yep, most of all it´s the missing speed in vista.
but beneath some other "features" like User Annoying Check and more hidden controls, this OS has actually not very much new to offer.

and the transparent windows,and an customizable sidebar.....hmm, well thats more some kind of gimmick.

if you really need to work with your laptop / computer then vista is giving you a hell of a lot problems from networking trouble to software incompatibility. besides that it´s a ram hog, it smokes your resources.

 

Most of the people I know that went back to XP are just not willing to put in the effort to learn a new OS, even though the differences are quite minor. I find Vista is way faster than XP as long as the system is not too old (and has the necessary 2GB of RAM. I stopped using XP once Vista RC1 came out, as I found it to be more stable than XP.

"besides that it´s a ram hog, it smokes your resources."

Actually, Vista is just better at utilizing system resources, while it may use more RAM, what is the point of having 2GB of RAM if the system won't use more than 700MB?

 

I don't hate Vista so much as see absolutely no reason to get it. For me XP is faster, uses less resources (kind of goes along with the faster bit), I know it quite well, all of my programs run fine, great stability (no crashes on either of laptops I've owned thus far going on at around 5 years), and I can customize it however I want. So when I had the choice between getting Vista or XP on my 8510p I chose XP. Additionally, and perhaps one of my major reasons is that a new version of windows is right around the corner. I figure by the time everything is worked out and it's running as fast as XP, the new version of windows will be ready. This is contingent on MS actually sticking with their shorter development times for windows (I think it was every three years). I don't see it as going back to XP so much as sticking with what works.

 

well, i do a lot of rendering and photoshop work. since i´m an architect i need to do some scripted processes that need a helluva computation power. i´m very often above the 2 GB for an application. What i need is a fast, but resourceful Os. Neither of that is vista compared to XP.

when i look at my system resources right now, i have 39 processes running and 339mb ram used by all processes. how about vista ?

 

On my old zv6005us with 2GB of RAM I only show 22% of my RAM being used by the processes that are running. When I upgraded this computer to Vista, it seemed faster to me. I was fine with XP, but I bought both of my boys desk tops that came with Vista, so it just seemed easier to deal with one operating system, rather than two.

 

The only legit reason I have heard is the lack of drivers and software that is not compatible with Vista. Unfortunately as you can see from some of the above posts - people complain that it is a resource hog, if task manager did not exist these guys would never know...The other funny reason is that some complain that they no longer get 10,000 bunghoolio marks in their favorite benchmark program.

Current hardware and at least 2gb of ram and all should be well with Vista

 

on my laptop, Vista takes 45 seconds to boot up with lots of tweaking but xp takes just 25 seconds out of the box with a fresh install

 

20 seconds...you must be on a tight schedule....

At first I found Vista to be slow and annoying. I upgraded the ram and after a week or so it is very fast an efficient. There is some tweeking that need to be done, but over all and do prefer it over XP.

The program incompatibility, though few, is rather annoying. I refuse to buy another "Norton System Works" again!!!

 

graphics speed sucks under vista, i have usb tv tuner and cannot watch tv using vista, the picture freeze on and off every 5 sec, this no matter if on battery or ac adapter.
with xp loaded, the tv tuner play just like a real tv, if not better.

 

If you are stubborn, and refuse to be pushed around by M$ on their schedule.

Me, I just keep whatever OS came with my machine. If it works, I'm not going to spend a day or two to "fix" a problem that is partially or mostly psychological, and risk causing even more problems for myself. If I have a real problem with the OS I'd install dual boot.

 

My games run 10 fps higher on xp

 

Vista is running great for us.
We had Slingbox running on XP and we could never run it at full speed without it crashing. Updated Drivers and Video card per Sling media on our XPSP2 desktop. And it still kept crashing.
But now we can run it on Vista ultimate X64 on our PRE-N WIFI Lan without a problem to our Dragon.
Very cool stuff this video place shifting over WIFI.


http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=2885018

 

46 processes, 51% (981mb) and at the moment, am only running Firefox, and normal security apps with 2GB RAM: Comodo, antispyware programs and ThreatFire. I have cleaned out the bloat, and used BlackViper's Vista Service Configuratin guide.

Luckily, this machine is only used to surf the Net, and to try out new programs as a guinea pig prior to installation on a better machine. For these purposes (LOL), I like Vista so far.

 

Vista automatically "uses" about half your RAM. For what, I don't know. If it's just wasteful bloat, that's stupid. If it's to cache programs, why not use 100%?

 

I'm an engineering student and I'm finding that Vista laptop with 50% of the power that a XP workstation posseses runs much faster. I do many 3d models and complex calculations on Vista. I mean the software wasn't even meant for Vista but it runs better than it does on a 4-core xp.

 

Damn you're lucky/good...I tried tweaking my Vista but it normally takes up to 2m to boot. What exactly did you change?

I normally just hibernate now. Coming out of hibernate on my Vista install is about 30sec, but shutting down can take up to 2m...but I just get up and walk away

 

Yes, I "hibernate" as well and it takes about 20 -30 seconds. I only reboot when I add a program or some thing.

 

It's interesting to note that I can run Bioshock on full settings on XP while I can only run bioshock on medium/lower res settings with both under DX9 mode.

 

My hp laptop boots in less then 1 min. (with user selection On).
Right now, with messenger,ie-explorer and all other standard processes running (47 processes in all), i have 36% of 2gb rams used.

I'm currently running on Vista 32-bit and I love it!
I've clean installed this laptop in 15-20 minutes, and since vista installs 98% of my drivers, i'm more then happy!
God, I remember in the past that with windows xp it took me like 30-45 minutes to install without including having to find most of the drivers my self.

 

Running Vista here and boots in 1 minute, hibernates in 20 secs, wakes up in 5 secs, using 31% of 1.9 gb RAM . I did not tweaked it, except for minor things, all services as vista defaults. BUT using Microsoft (Windows Update) drivers for all my hardware, and I think THIS is what really heps my laptop (Presario V3417LA), because HP drivers worked very bad with my unit. My processor is a mere Sempron @ 1.8 MHz. Running Vista 32 bits

 

lol.

yes, thats what i saw when i first opened and installed the vista business that came with my laptop. besides all the bloatware that came with preconfigured laptop ( 82 processes after first install), the cpu does work a lot even when you do nothing.

it not that much fun to work on a machine that is physically capable of doing the work flawlessly, but the OS eats up your CPU Time and Ram, so you will have to work with performance lags.

so i decided to downgrade to XP. Cleaned out all the processes that are not necessary. and now i´m having 39 -40 processes in idle, around 340 MB ram used by the system and the processor is free to do the actual work it should do.

hmm, well if you don´t work with your notebook you probably will never feel the difference between not having 340 MB compared to not having 1 GB of ram.
If you do some complex computations like rendering a big scene you will immediatly be confronted with a crash, because of low memory. You don´t even need a taskmanager for that, your applications / Os will tell you what´s wrong.

If you of course only use a notebook to surf the net or to read some pdf you will never experience what´s bad about your OS, except maybe not getting some drivers for it.

does not make much sense to spent a lot of money to just run an OS. would be *nice* if you could run some decent programs on it too, wouldn´t it ?

 

schoko, perhaps you have a point. My laptop is used daily for Autocad 2006 and MS Office with no problems whatsoever.

P.S. Buy more ram