Windows XP vs Vista

Hey, I am planning to order an Sager Np2096. I am planning to use this laptop for moderate gaming, movies and some school work. So wat are some advantages and disadvantages of windows vista and xp??? Which operating systems would you guys recommend?? Windows XP or Vista.

 

Vista is very locked-down and stable... if you go Vista, go with the 64-bit since it has best performance and has 3+ GB RAM support.

XP is fully compatible for 99% of today's games and apps. It performs extremely well since its less "bloaty." And Service Pack 3 helped to give it a bit more performance.

 

Just get Vista. XP is old.

 

if u get vista make sure to get vista business or vista ultimate. Has all you'll ever need for whatever situation. Home and Home Premium are missing little details, like networking stuff, etc... you might not know you need.

 

I have Vista 64 bit at work and XP 32 bit at home. I'd say XP is still more stable and somewhat faster, although Vista is improving.

 

I've been using xp x64, and would have liked to continue using it for my 570tu with 4 gigs of ram. But there are not drivers for xp x64, so I'm going to have to try vista....sigh, I was hoping on waiting for windows 7 before upgrading.

 

End-of-life security support for XP (all flavors) will last longer than all flavors of _Vista other than the business edition(s).

 

Tell you what.
Xp works with everything, is faster and better for gaming.
Vista is more reliable, more stable, and looks prettier.

I have both, and everyone knows that I would choose XP over Vista anyday.

 

I have both, I choose XP SP3.

I need the compatibility and speed, I hate Vista's UAC, driver signing, admin privileges BS... even for basic programs

 

Not too mention many programs having issues with Vista.
For example, on my dell, the light fx have problems on vista, while on XP they work 100% !

 

XP all the way, you guys can have your crappy bloated Big Brother operating system.
XP32 bit runs fine here and I have no problems with newer games and programs that Vista users always have.
I also just got XP64 installed and it runs nicely too. I have adequate drivers for everything except my external mouse.

 

not XP all the way.

Real gamers go with VISTA 64 bit... Direct X 10 is beautiful enjoy your game and stop worrying about 1-5 FPS and a few hundred 3dmarks. Push your big gfx card as far as it can go I say, and you can only do that with vista.

plus VISTA is very stable now and supporting everything with SP1 and its the future.
+ a 3 minute google search will usually solve any support issues u do run into (which I have only had one compatibility issue that was easily corrected)
if you get XP your gimping yourself the full benefit of the big GFX cards as far as im concerned... your going to see basically the same perf. in game as XP users + better graphics...

 

Of course it goes almost without saying that taste in OSes is very, very subjective; unfortunately, from my perspective, since Win7 will be built on _Vista, I'm afraid that for me, the future is linux, once the extended support on my XP licenses runs out in 2014 (2 years after extended support runs out for all _Vista flavors other than the business edition(s)).

 

Games like UT3 still work better in XP as far as speed and compatibility goes.
Also I prefer an operation system that I have more control over than Microsoft or the movie industry.
All the lockdown crap they put in vista pretty much makes it spyware essentially.

 

All games work better in XP, as far as I have tested.
All of them show quite significant gains.
I've played Crysis all high on XP whereas on Vista I had 6-8fps less which is all it takes to render it unplayable.

 

2096 is too fast for either OS.
to me, the biggest plus of vista is that i can use task manager when the games frozen, rather than reboot the whole computer.

 

I just recently played Crysis in XP 64 bit at 1280x800 at all settings on high with a playable framerate and I seriously doubt you could do that with Vista and get a playable framerate.

 

@Bill F, with XP x86 i was able to play crysis at 1680x1050 with average 30-35fps. all high, 2xAA.

 

Wierd I play Crysis on high with very playable FPS...

 

They extended the XP support, I am willing to bet they will extend Vista support as well.

 

I play it at 1680x1050 on high and everything and get excellent frame rates.. Very playable smooth... Of course I have the 8800MGTX and you have a 8700 so maybe thats the dif?

 

The 8700M GT isn't exactly the fastest card around. (2 is acceptable though)
Thats why I"m looking at getting dual 9800M GTs or 9800M GTX cards later this year.
My framerates in this game are a lot higher with newer drivers and the patch compared to when I first played it.
I just ran it recently for the first time in months and it runs a lot better than I remember it. Those 17x series drivers are really nice.

Either way its been proven that at the same settings crysis runs faster in XP than in Vista.

 

Thing is, I'm looking forward to mostly VERY HIGH settings on Crysis on my future 9262... (9450, 4gb ddr3,9800GT SLI, 128 SSD)

 

Still on that kick, eh?

 

Look at this thread! Seriously! What is wrong with all of you? Everyone knows real gamers use Windows ME.

 

LOL at the people bragging about playing Crysis on XP on high. That's like the folks back in the day bragging about their framerates playing Red Baron 3D on Direct Draw instead of Glide.

Crysis on XP vs Vista is apples to oranges. There is no "high" on XP, DX10 is the high.

My opinion is that the folks that like XP are those who generally dislike change, and stick with what they know. Those who prefer change for change sake will go Vista. Personally I have found Vista to be:

1) More stable.
2) Prettier
3) Easier to work with
4) Better compatibility (Unless you slipstream, XP isn't fully compatible with the Esata ports coming out on these new laptops)
5) Better for gaming (less crashes, better use of memory, etc.)

XP is fine, and you'll be happy with it, but then again Windows 98 and 2000 were fine for years too. Make the change, you'll be happier in the long run.

 

excuse me?

 

How good would Vista be if I suddenly get a craving playing, say, Tycoon Transport Deluxe; a game that is almost 10 years old?

 

I would hold out for one of the processors I read about a couple of years ago made from rat brains. Biological OS.

 

I am sorry that you discount the idea of people having evaluated both products. Have you spoken to many senior IT people? For my personal experience (sorry, no link) by your logic about 80% of them would seem to 'dislike change'. Curious.

Do you really think DX10 is that great a revolution? Is it a quantum leap? I think we're on a laptop forum, so most people at best have a 9800GT, and they may, like me, have made a compromise decision that the higher frame rates (sometimes +40%) of DX9 (ie XP) are better overall for gaming than the much lower frame rates coupled with slightly nicer shading on DX10 (ie Vista).

And here are 5 reasons why someone might want to take a different view:

1) XP does not have HDCP built into it, so you either like that (if you're anti the whole Big Brother idea, and don't think your O/S should police you as a point of principle), or you'll see it as an disadvantage (if all your hardware is recent, and TC(MS) approved, Vista will actually allow you to watch 1080).
2) Backwards compatibility - incredibly, this is still not 100% (put kindly) with Vista, even after SP1. Google the blogs if you have some time. The 'fault' for this (apparently it's important to establish that) lies with MS/developers (delete as appropriate). Chances are you will have to say goodbye to some of your apps (or at least spend some of your life searching for patches etc). Or you can just stick with XP and not have that as an issue.
3) Remote driver revocation - this is a possibility with Vista (not exercised yet, I believe) and something that I personally am just not comfortable with as a concept. I want MS to notify me and tell me why I (not they) should remove something from my computer and leave the decision up to me.
4) DRM flags - Vista accepts instructions from broadcasters preventing you – its user - from recording things. I tend to see that as a conflict of interests - my O/S should be looking out for my interests, not those of Universal studios, period. On the other hand, you may like that as a bold move to safeguard our content in the future by preventing widespread piracy today.
5) Slow file transfer rates, resource hogging.

As to esata on XP - it will work on XP but you'll have to work hard to use the hotplug feature because of AHCI issues (but even if what you said were true, esata is way too fast for most of todays HDDs - so nice feature, pity you can't yet make anything close to full use of it)

But if you like the look and feel of Vista, you get some XP down with a nice theme from crystalxp.net!

 

Between the two I would go with XP and I like change simply for the sake of change. in addition to XP, I began using OSX and Linux just because they are different than Windows, fun to work in, learning new systems is interesting, and because:

1. Both are at least as stable as Vista
2. Both are "prettier" IMO, than Vista by far
3. Well, OSX is easier to work with LOL
4. Your points are probably valid here, BUT XP, OSX and Linux are compatible enough for my purposes here.
5. Gaming?? I don't game. I don't have the slightest idea if you're correct on this or not. Your point.

 

I'll use xp just because I have it on my current laptop so I dont have to pay for an upgrade. My friend has old laptops that have xp that dont work so he will prob take this one and use it then.

 

I have XP SP3 on my desktop so I'm getting Vista on the notebook.

My solution is to have both. If you have one pc or notebook, you can dual boot. That way you can still play the older XP games, and you can also enjoy DX10 on Vista.

 

No they don't. OS/2 Warp 4 and Windows for workgroups dual boot! My solitaire ROCKS!

 

LOL

Welcome aboard, stuff. I think you've found a site where you'll fit in perfectly. Wackos abound here at NBR. And I'm happy to read that you enjoy a wild night of solitaire.

 

i think that you should go for XP if you're currently playing games that are already out and compatable with xp.. xp's alot fast, imo. and the support, from what i heard, is up till 2014 (aka patches, etc). if you think that you want something lasting, and always having the need to download new updates, then get vista..

i couldn't decide which one should go into my 9262, and also asked around for opinions, and i ended up with vistax64 mainly because of the 'show' and not the speed.. if u're camping at home all day gaming, xp would be great!

and regarding BlackPanther's suggestion, i think that's kinda smart, since i'm running one lappy on XP, one on vista x64, and my desktop on vista too.. so shouldn't be any problem to me..

 

I baught Vista ultimate with my 9260 (a year ago) and it ended up giving me so many problems i just switched to Xp, and got a nice Vista theme...Its hard going back to the old Xp theme after experiencing Aero.

My Vista discs are waiting patiently for their time to shine... Its just not at the moment.

 

I've met some on both ends. However, IT people by default are notorious for disliking change. Most enterprise level stuff is still running Windows 2000, or perhaps just switching to XP. Very few large businesses are going to switch to an OS until it's been out a good long while.

In short... yes. Was my 9600GT to HD4850 a "quantum leap"? No, but I did notice the difference, and it is significant enough to want it all things being equal, and with XP compared to Vista, they pretty much are these days.

Recent benchmarks are putting XP and Vista in more or less a dead heat. Vista can be as slim as XP with a few services disabled as well. In the days of 4gb of ram being around $60, Vista 64 is becomming more and more the default OS among gamers.

Honestly I don't know anything about the DRM stuff. I don't have an HTPC. Hasn't caused an issue for me yet though.

In almost two years of running Vista now... I have had two: count 'em, two apps not work. CoreTemp (which can be hacked fairly easily) and the software for my Sony e-reader (which is entirelly Sony's fault, they still include the old drivers on it, which causes Vista to think you're installing the wrong product.)

Fair enough. I would have a problem with that.

I'm largely ok with basic DRM. Definitely something to keep an eye on though.

Slow transfers were fixed in SP1.

Resource hogging is another term for:

1) Inability of the user to turn off unneeded services

and

2) Overall better ability to utalize ram than XP. Vista knows to allocate more data to the ram when more ram is available. If we were comparing % used per $ spent on Ram at release, Vista is probably 4-8 times as efficient as XP. In the days when 4gb of ram is under $100 (even for laptop ram) I would hope that Vista would use some of it.

Without slipstreaming (which granted isn't that difficult) it's pretty much impossible.

Just because HDD's are far away from ESATA 2.0's limit, doesn't mean they didn't pass up USB 2.0's limit a long time ago. Most mainstream hard drives are over 2X beyond USB 2.0 in real world use, and the new SSD's such as the OCZ Core are about 4X over the limit. Users will notice a huge difference switching from USB 2.0 to ESATA.

Neat, but Vista comes with.

 

People say stuff like this, but it baffles me. In my family we have about 7 computers, 4 running Vista, 2 running XP, and one running OS 10.4 (some of them duelboot linux as well.) Of the OS's, Vista is overall the most clean running. Occationally safari crashes on the mac, and the internet connection drops out on XP (probably a driver issue, but still.)

I am a computer tech, and installing, troubleshooting, and overall dealing with Vista is just so much easier than XP. Mostly because of old crappy driver issues (i.e., raid and/or AHCI), but still, in a tale of which OS's cause me the most headache fixing crap, XP takes the cake. Granted, XP properly set up is smooth and stable too, but not any more so than Vista, and you're always caught dealing with its inability to recognize newer hardware properly, such as AHCI.

Forgive me for being skeptical, but almost every day peolpe bring their computer in *****ing about Vista, and so far, out of dozens of complaints, not a single one has turned out to actually be a vista problem. They have all been various mixes of user error and general instability caused by incorrect drivers or crapware installed by the OEM's. A clean install and proper drivers has fixed everything, and this is probably 1-2 computers a day for a year.

 

Even at the expense of FPS? Let's stick to notebooks, so assume someone has 8800M (desktop GPUs with nitrogen not allowed!)

Not sure if it was clear, but I meant DX9 vs DX10, not XP vs Vista. Sure you can tweak Vista down, and if you don't use DX10 in Vista, you'll get (surprise) ... the same results as on XP. However almost all the DX9 vs DX10 benchmarks I have seen (Anand, Tom's, Ars, etc) seem to read something like "DX10 visuals are hard to notice, but the frame hits are very noticeable". People obviously also said that in the transition to DX9, so perhaps all we need to do is wait for efficient DX10 apps.

As to the resource hog - agreed, a lot can be turned off. I'm not a programmer but for what it's worth, I don't feel MS for their part put much effort into streamlining Vista. Having evaluated it on a T9300, it seemed like a very high price for DX10, a fancy GUI and hotplugging. Was very happy to get my blistering XP back!

 

http://www.transporttycoon.net/where

Apparently that's all that is required.

 

You do NOT bring OS/2 into this. OS/2 is beautiful and innocent.



Virtualization is the worst possible thing that could have ever happened to me. My C: drive is a virtual machine junkyard.

 

Hacks do not count Nirvana.