Am I a hypocrite for doing this?

There are a lot of times when I hear people (usually friends or family) bashing Vista about how horrible it is. They talk about how it's slow, bloated, a huge resource hog, annoying and unsupported by many programs. However opinions are usually based on what they hear, and pretty much most of the time they haven't even used it themselves yet!

I try to explain to them that it's been a long time since Vista's been released, and pretty much all the problems were already addressed in Vista SP1. The whole 'resource hog' bit is just Vista utilizing the RAM. The slowness and bloatedness usually comes from stuff that OEMs install, and that UAC is just a security feature and can be turned off if you don't like it.

Somewhat decent argument, but then they ask, "So, you're using Vista then?"

My reply, "Umm. Nope. I'm using XP Professional instead."

They ask why, and then I tell them why I chose to use XP instead.

- Aero makes my GPU do more work. My GPU makes my computer hot! I don't like turning it off because I think the non-Aero scheme looks horrible.
- Since I play games in Windowed mode, Aero causes a performance drop. I could turn it off just for gaming, but it's so troublesome to keep turning it on and off.
- My favourite game, TF2, runs significantly slower under Vista than XP. It's not just because of Aero.
- Can't seem to overclock as well under Vista as compared to XP. ATITool doesn't work under Vista either. (doesn't matter that much now though cause I don't overclock lately)
- Had problems with Sleep under Vista
- Poorer battery life as compared to XP

After that they are like, "Hah. So Vista still does have it's problems."

And, I'm basically left speechless. So, am I a hypocrite? I'm trying to tell people that there's nothing really wrong with Vista, yet I still prefer to use XP because of some problems under Vista.

 

If they don't play games, overclocks, etc etc then it's not a problem. Plus, some people reported better performance under Vista when gaming. So it goes both ways actually.

 

If you don't like the non-Aero theme just use a different theme...
Vista should have better battery life than XP.

Certain games seem to have 'issues'... some run better.

 

In the end, peep's make up their own minds on their preference of Vista or XP...This will continually be a *long going discussion* amongst everyone.

Both Vista and XP are not perfect..and have their own issues.
I have a good friend, he uses XP. I use Vista, and (well XP on my netbook)..and our discussions have been somewhat like that.

So, no..your not a hypocrite...your just stating your own views.




Cin

 

No, you're a hypocrite for using Windows XP when you own a Macbrook Pro

 

In my experience Vista is better than XP, a lot more stable and pretty and secure etc... I dont feel like games are slower on vista than xp and from benchmarks I have seen a while back already, the difference is negligible, like 0.1 frame.
Yes Vista does use more resources because it is fetching and caching all the time to make things faster for the user but it dumps that memory for a game if you load it.
Just turn off Aero if it is making that much of a demand on your gpu thats why there is the option...also running a game in window drops performance by 20-30% on XP as well as Vista
I cant comment about overclocking because I have never done because I am a wimp...
Basically, I recommend that you dont knock it till you tried it. I dont think this is a battle worth fighting for you because basically it comes down to personal preference.

I dont think youre a hyprocrite but being a hippy is way more fun

Most people I know who knock vista are the ones with very little experience with it or those who dont have it... I can understand that IT Professionals arent keen to learn a whole new config and all the things they need to know to fix the thing but thats also called progress...

That sleep problem is probably related to the (Nvidia) GPU driver rather than Vista, my sleep works perfectly but Im using ATI. Just gotta find the right driver for sleep to work right

 

Well, I'm really just pissed off with people bashing Vista when they have no clue how it is like. If they tried Vista and didn't like it, then yea, I'd be fine with that. I mean after all, that's what I did. =/

Yea, but there aren't any other non-aero 'official' themes. I tried customizing it before but we all know that Microsoft makes it hard for us. I tried downloading something that would allow me to change my theme, but it turns out that it didn't work with SP1.

Bought it mainly for the hardware and the exterior build. It was worth it since other similar PC laptops were all around the same price. Laptops in Singapore are overpriced. (T61p and Asus G1S cost way more than the MBP)

Tried it. I had at least 5 installations of Vista because I couldn't connect to my school's WiFi under XP and I kept swapping between the two OSs. Ended up using Vista for 4 months, then during my holidays I wiped the partition and installed XP. Never looked back at it.

 

No your not a hypocrite each is has it's own problems and each one has it's own purpose some games run better on so because that's what they were optimized for. Vista does have the sleep issue I get it ..... Xp was out for 10 years it's really stable but vista does report better scores.... It is just picking which one has the least problems with what you will be doing

 

You could just say because your laptop didn't come with Vista?

 

Another vista vs xp thread

 

Who cares? its america. you can have whatever opinion you want. baseless or otherwise. although, its a lot more fun to listen to people who know what the H they are talking about. and yeah, if you tried it and it didnt work out for you you can def advice people of that. i tell em theres good and bad like any os, but they need to do a couple tweaks, try it for a month, and if they hate it, THEN revert. thats my standard line.

Seriously. Kill sidebar, use rainlender. Kill win defender, use anything but. get TweakUAC and use silent mode. it leaves uac on, but gets it out of your way for doing routine tasks. do those three things and vista will FLY and run WELL.

As for gaming, dude i used to have a single core amd machine with a 128mb gpu and it ran battlefield 2 and other games like wow, incredibly well.

Bottom line, slim vista a little bit, tweak it how you like it, and give it four weeks. most will really like it. the few that dont, can attempt to revert. good luck though, most new machines have issues with drivers and arent made for XP so you may have a battle on your hands, maybe not though.


ev

 

To answer your question- yes what you are saying is somewhat hypocritical, but you do have reasons to backup your choice.

I've been using XP for almost 4 years, 98SE before that. I have XP on my computer at work and on my 5 year old Dell laptop. I had faith in Vista and was anxious to try it, and had very little hands on experience with it. I bought a new Dell Latitude E6500 a couple of months ago with Vista Business on it. I so far have no problems with Vista, I'm a little more comfortable w/ XP because I already know where to find everything in XP, in Vista I have to hunt a little. I just built a new desktop computer at home and would have gone with Vista but I discovered that I owned a spare copy of XP so I went with it just to save a little money.
I'm not a Vista expert but I thought the big advantages to Vista were with things that you don't see on the surface.