windows xp or windows vista?

lot's of people seems to be on the xp side. But if i may ask, is going to vista a good decision? Since, microsoft is currently not supporting xp anymore right? would it be a wise decision to be pro-vista nowadays?

 

Vista is good. Considering that SP2 is coming out, it should get even better in terms of performance and reliability.

And if you have a memory config of 4GB or more, Vista x64 will be better imho.

If you like XP, you can always pick up an OEM copy of it for a couple of 50 bucks, and dual boot.

 

yes. do you think the intel turbo memory cache module is of a significant help in the overall performance of the OS?

 

With all due respect, Microsoft will be supporting XP (at least where it counts - security) until 2014; other than _Vista business, Microsoft will only be supporting _Vista until 2012.

Other than that, _Vista and XP are generally equally capable, although _Vista does have some improvements under the hood, so the best route to go is the cheapest - in other words, if you get _Vista pre-installed on the system you're going to buy, there's no point in spending more money to get XP.

In addition, depending on what system you get, you may have some trouble finding all of the drivers you need/want for XP, but should not have that much trouble with _Vista.

Lastly, if you go with _Vista, there's a possibility that you'd get a free or low-cost upgrade route to the next iteration - Win7 - but if you went with XP, you'd have to pay full freight to step up to Win7.

All in all, if you get _Vista as part of the package, the best route is to simply stick with that.

EDIT: In the interests of full disclosure, I run XP on my systems at home, 2 with Pro, 1 with Media Center , but that's basically because all of them are at least 3 years old, or older.

 

well said! thanks shyster1!

 

Vista! :d

 

Ok I'm curious, whats with the "_Vista"?

 

He don't want to create a link and advertise for THE MAN.

 

There Vista and .Vista or _Vista (with the blue link)

 

'Cause I get really tired of having my text turned into bright, bolded text with a link attached to it - it messes up my aesthetics - if I'd wanted it that way, I would have put the coding in myself. I suppose a "." would be less noticeable than a "_" but that's what I started with, so that's what I use (except, for some reason, with the word W-i-n-d-o-w-s, which I usually write as ".Windows" - go figure ).

 

I received my 5793 last week with 64 bit vista. So far the two of the most important programs to me (norton ghost 2003 and office 2003) won't install. I am furious, especially about office. The only other issue I have is I haven't figured out is how the vista equilavent of windows explorer works but that is probably just me. Vista uses alot of memory. If I could do it again, I would get my machine installed with xp.

 

_Vista doesn't use a lot of memory, instead, what it does is make your existing memory more useful - what's the point of having RAM if all it does is sit around and never get used to hold anything?

The reason it looks like _Vista is using a lot more memory than is actually needed to run the OS itself is the superfetch functionality on _Vista, which preloads data and code that you're likely to be needing soon based on your past usage habits, and does so much more aggressively than XP's prefetch functionality does.

 

.Vista still has backward compatibility issues, I disagree about it being harder to get XP drivers than .Vista ones - check with your manufacturer. Not to mention old games, google search the forums for legions still looking for patches 2 years on (or resigned to the loss).

.Vista has DRM which is a) ineffective in stopping piracy b) irritating to the honest user c) ethically disgusting (something I paid for with my cash is policing me and blocking me in favor of a commercial third party's interest). XP with AnyDVD will get you 1080 without .Vista's kind permission. Witness .Vista accepting 'do not record' commands from the broadcasters.

.XP is faster like for like, ie don't buy the 'my .Vista only uses 640KB of RAM!' because if you chop the same, XP will always beat it. It's also more controllable.

So what does .Vista give you? Maybe a safer kernel (any hackers on the forum care to chip in?). DX10, which laptop GPU's can't get much from yet. AHCI that lets you hotswap esata (without XP's boring 'remove device' routine). Oh, and above all, that coooool interface which makes the user look so 'cutting edge' .

 

I have had both installed and although Windows XP is still good I decided to go for Vista because as a .NET developer I am currenlty focusing on WPF development for applications that should run on Vista and yes I could use virtualization software but then again there are so far no compatibility issues with my notebook.

Don't expect too much performance improvements with Service Pack 2 for Windows Vista. It is basically a collection of updates that are already available through Windows Update.

As I can see there is no real reason to stick to Windows XP but then again there are no real reasons to update to Vista either.

 

Hello,

Several programs do not work on Vista including PQmagic and Norton antivirus. Though, I was able to install Office 2003 on my pc with Vista 64 bit.

 

http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/search/?sort=PN&alpha=WINDOWS+vista

http://www.microsoft.com/About/Legal/policy/online_disclaimer.mspx

I really wish he would stop spamming that jibberish like it's carved on a stone tablet. Because it's not.

 

@s.subzero

what did you want to say?

 

One thing I have noticed is that XP uses the GPU far less and thus will keep your pc cooler overall. Because of this the fans won't kick in as much.

Maybe you can get the same if you turn off the eye candy in Vista, haven't tried that.

Then again I've allready seen some programs that require Vista and won't run under XP... and it will only get 'worse' in the future.

I think I'll first try a nice clean optimized XP setup and maybe later a Vista and do some temp monitoring.

 

Umm..., unless you specify what the OS is using RAM for, merely going for an OS that appears to be "using" less RAM is not a good way of comparing different OSes. _Vista vs. XP is a perfect example of this - _Vista does use a bit more RAM for its own internal purposes than XP does, but it ends up looking like it's using significantly more because of the more aggressive prefetching functionality MS built into _Vista with superfetch, as compared to the old prefetch in XP.

Basically, superfetch will much more aggressively fill up otherwise idle RAM with data and code its algorithms have shown you are most likely to be using sooner rather than later, algorithms that change based on your actual usage habits.

The obvious benefit being, if you have fairly determinable patterns of usage (e.g., you always open a browser right after start-up, check the game scores from the night before, then start up your email, read that, and then fire up a word processor and a spreadsheet), that things will start faster for you, and you'll spend less time waiting for the app you just clicked on to fully load and start executing.

The downside being, if you don't have well-behaved usage patterns and the system has a lot of RAM (e.g., 3-4GB), hard drive thrashing.

The upshot of all this is that, because superfetch is a system service that runs under the system user account, a quickie glance at the task manager will give you the impression that _Vista is using an ungodly amount of RAM for its own internal purposes, when it's really just putting that RAM you paid good money for to work for you.

However, the bottom line is, what else should an OS be doing with idle RAM - just letting it sit there and rust?

 

Who have DRM files anyway?

 

Vista's "end of life" is subject to change.

 

I wouldn't bet more than a penny or two on that proposition. As a theoretical statement, yes, it's true; as a statement of fact, well....

 

XP sucks because VISTA rox

 

how did you get office 2003 to work on 64 bit vista?