XP Pro or Vista Business

They are both priced around $50 more when you buy x61s. I am getting 2gig ram but still concerned that it won't be fast enough for Vista - can't stand slow starts. I have never used Vista either.

For those who have Vista, and if you could do it over, would you get the XP pro with X61s? Also is basic good enough for simple users - web surfing, watching video etc?

THanks

 

I think if you get Vista Business you are also licensed to downgrade to XP Pro if you dont want it.

 

Correct - but you have to pay additional $50.

 

How much RAM is enough to run Vista/Office 2007 smoothly?

 

You can always have more RAM but I heard you will likely need 2gig ram.

 

Vista Home Basic lacks Media center/DVD player or maker(not available in Business), Aero UI & full featured remore desktop as well as the ability to join a domain(not available in Home Premium). If you dont mind with the default basic Windows theme then there shouldnt be any issues with Vista HB for the uses you list.

Slow starts is a problem with Vista no matter what version you choose, its better to use Hibernate/sleep rather than completely shutting down the system. Other than the slow startup, Vista should be quite fast or equal XP in some cases when it comes to normal usage and 2GB is fine for Vista.

 

Thank you all for the response - decided to spend extra $50 to to stay with XP pro. I guess I just don't have the time to fool around with a new operating system right now.

 

I think it all depends whether or not you have the patience. Vista Business is 64-bit where XP Pro isn't (this might be a deal breaker/maker if you want more than 3gb of ram). Vista Business will take up more resources and may be less stable, but if you are willing to be patient with it and give it a year or two (or three or four), it will eventually pay off.

 

Hey. After 3 weeks and 3 clean installs of Vista Business on a T61p, I went back to XP pro this weekend. Reliable, fast and no issues.

Like all of us wanted the newest. But a brand new Notebook, BSOD, several needed clean installs,lockups, networking nightmare and the damm thing clocks like I was running a 3 year old system. I'll wait till SP1 comes out and give a try then.

 

with 2gb it should run very good

 

I vote for XP Pro. You'll have more resources leftover to do other things. It has also been proven to be stable. Vista is still too new and has yet proven itself to be used as the main OS.

 

you always can downgrade to XP.

don't waste $50.

 

how come you guys all have problems with vista? I've never had any problems...

 

Personally I dual boot my super fast HP8510w with XP and Vista.

My original intent was to use Vista most of the time and XP when something wouldn't work in Vista.

As it turned out, XP is the primary and I fool around with Vista when the mood strikes me.

For someone surfing the net and doing basic m$ office type tasks Vista's just fine even if it is slower than XP (20-30% slower on the benchmarks I've run.)
Where Vista falls on it's face is running software that's not the latest greatest thing on the shelf.

If you have programs that are doing just fine for you, that you don't have the overwhelming desire to upgrade you may be confronted with Vista incompatibility.
I've got a half dozen programs I use every day which would either have to be upgraded or done without (in the case where there is no Vista version yet.)

Bottom line, Vista's cool, it's the future, it's bleeding edge, if you can stay within the latest crop of applications written for Vista it's nice.
XP's solid and is mature today. If you have a wider variety of apps you need to run and would rather get your work done than fight with a missbehaving operating system XP is your best answer.


I don't really have 'problems' with Vista. Most of the time it does what it's designed to do.
I find that XP does it just as well, it's usually faster and doesn't suffer from incompatible programs & drivers.

 

I don't have your X61s but nonetheless, if I had to do it all over again, I'd still choose Vista for my laptop.

Most of the older programs I might need run on my desktop which has XP Pro, so I'm not at a loss in that regard.