I'm still an XP user, what am I missing out on?

The title pretty much says it all. I consider myself to be a die hard XP fan. I never really considered upgrading to Vista, let alone windows 7, I was never too interested in OS X or even Linux. As a long time XP user, am I missing out on anything at all? I mean, I feel as if I have everything I would need. Saying that though is like saying your Razr phone has everything you "need", until you see an iPhone.

 

Yes, you are missing a lot of things. In Vista and particularly in Linux.

 

What are you missing out on? Windows Photo something which is actually pretty good at auto fixing photo's and stuff, and windows fax and scan which is liquid awesome.

Oh, and MUCH better security.

Anyone who tells you that you are missing out on more than that is a liar. A dirty bare faced liar!

 

You do get much more in Vista.

Vista is more stable than XP - fewer BSOD, also if a driver fails it can restart in Vista - say a graphics driver.

Better resource managment in Vista - Vista actually makes good use of RAM you don't actively need.

Aero takes load of the CPU - its calculated by the GPU.

On modern machines better performace.

Vista has good 64Bit support if you wanted 64Bit.

Improved compatebility mode in Vista.

In Business and Ultimate - complete PC Backup.

No "windows rot" assome call it in Vista compared to XP - or if, very, very, very slowly.

Less dependancy on the registry in Vista compared to XP - but its still important.

 

As you stated above "I feel as if I have everything I would need". So keep using XP on your current rig. It's serving you well and meeting your expectations.

With that said, when you buy or build a new rig, get Vista or W7 which has improvements and better hardware compatibility. I'm sure Vista or W7 will serve you well and meet your expectations.

 

The best thing that I like about Vista, is the stability of the OS, less Windows errors or this program has caused an illegal activity error. very few if not never BSOD. better visual effects, better GUI.

PS: This is coming from an XP LOVER who *just recently* switched to Vista 64 bit mainly to utilize the full amount of RAM I have (4 GB) and im never going back

 

Never isn't true for Vista - but it is much rarer.

And to the OP - yes, MaXimus was an XP lover - he has seen the light and switched

But the above advice is good too - on your current laptop stay with what you have, Vista needs a new system, and WIn7, while it will run on an older one is better off with a new one too.

 

Yes my brother. Feel the power of 64bit

 

XP is still good, though as others have said Vista brings better stability and above all, much better security. Driver support is much better now as well, even in 64-bit environments.

 

Jeeze, you guys almost had me instantly sold! I think I might try vista 64 bit seeing that I'm going to be upgrading my ram to having two 2gig ram soon. I love XP, but I guess it's always worth trying something new.

 

What's your hardware?

What we don't want is you istalling Vista on old hardware and then not liking it...

2GB or RAM is the minimum for Vista 32Bit to run well... I fear your laptop may be too weak

 

True, that is very critical.

 

It also depends on what you want out of an OS - what are the main things you do on XP right now, and what things would you like to be able to do, but either cannot do, or can only do so slowly or with so much difficulty that it's not worth the effort?

I've been running XP for 6 years on an old VAIO and just switched over to _Vista 64-bit because I had to buy a new notebook (I got tired of feeding hard drives to the VAIO, which just started to seriously eat up it's fifth hard drive ).

The strength of your hardware is a .crucial matter, as rob41 points out - the new laptop runs a [email protected] and has 6GB of RAM, the VAIO had a 1.3GHz centrino (first Celerons I think, or maybe Pentium M) and 768MB of RAM - _Vista flies on the new system, but would have been slower than molasses on the VAIO.

So far I'm quite happy with the switch over, although I don't know if it's specifically related to the differences in _Vista, or just the fact that I've finally got hardware that isn't the functional equivalent of a Model T. However, it is a fact that _Vista has better security than XP, has better self-optimization than XP, and is more insulated from BSODs than XP. Also, you'll see a lot of hooing and hawing over UAC in _Vista; quite frankly, I think most of that is overblown - UAC has been quite unobtrusive for me and has only come up a few times, was useful when it did come up, and is not any more bothersome than the security controls in linux variants, for example, that require you to run certain things as "sudo."

 

If you are going to go out and purchase an operating system, I would say wait for half a year, as Windows 7, which has marked improvements over Vista, will be released Q4 of 2009 (October to Novemberish). After all, XP is serving you quite well right now.

 

Things I prefer about Vista over XP:
- Taskbar thumbnails make it easier for me to find which browser window I'm looking for
- Modern, indexed desktop search integrated into start menu and Explorer
- Improved volume control/mixer
- Nicer-looking out of the box
- Improved security
- Default sounds are nice and not annoying like XP's
- More power management options, and most people report better battery life in Vista than in XP
- Large, scalable icons in Explorer and on desktop
- You can use your computer while defrag is working quietly in the background
- The built-in speech recognition is pretty cool
- 64-bit Vista is more widely supported than 64-bit XP
- Edit file metadata in Explorer (e.g. the artist tag on an mp3 file or the author tag on an image)
- System Restore is more robust in Vista than in XP

...but also a few downsides to Vista (IMO):
- Some of the Explorer UI changes are not so great
- Control panel is big and confusing... until you learn to use its search feature
- Takes longer to boot up
- Uses more disk space
- Needs a decent amount of RAM (at least 2 gb) to run well

 

This pretty much covers it...

 

That's a good point, although if the OP wants to get a new OS a little sooner, he should pay attention to when Microsoft opens up the automatic upgrade period for people who buy _Vista - if he buys once the window opens, he'll get _Vista and be able to upgrade to Win7 when it's released.

 

Yes, I think I may wait till windows 7 is all good. Question: why the underscore before vista?

 

To stop the automated highlighting/tagging/ad-spamming that the NBR servers do on posts. They flag terms like Vista, HP, Sony, Apple, and the like; by adding the underscore, the tagging software no longer recognizes the term. A less visible way is to add a white-coloured period before the term, like so: .Dell which looks like this in vB code: [COLOR="White"].[/COLOR]Dell. That causes the tagger to not recognize the term Dell (which should be tagged/highlighted in bright blue). However, that's cumbersome to type, and I started out using the underscore, so I generally just stick with the underscore out of habit/laziness.

EDIT: The tagging doesn't happen all the time to every instance of these terms - I see that only "HP" and "Apple" were flagged when I submitted this post.

 

Ha! Tricky!

 

The one thing that I'd say is missing is improved security due to various reasons.

 

vista is more stable? that's very arguable. what's your base to evaluate that? at my company, with about 5k desktops we tried vista and found xp must more stable.
resource management? well if it consumes MUCH more resources it's better to manage it better. xp consumes a lot less resources.
Aero is a very heavily feature and consumes a lot more resources
on modern or older machines xp will always perform better, it consumes less resources.
Vista has a 64bits support as good as windows xp 64bits
the improved compatibility it's not so compatible. there are loads of programs that can't run on vista and run perfectly on xp
pc backup can be achieved with many programs.
last 2 I agree with you.

 

Here we go.

 

Hey, we should all use Windows CE! It uses even less resources than XP does!
No, wait... we can use lynx to surf the web! There's no need to calculate anything on anything!

Did you get the point? The solution that's the best for special purposes can be completely inappropriate for others. And in most cases, the new featues that Vista introduces make it a better choice for most people. (Althogh I'd suggest to wait for Windows 7 now)

Sure, XP will perform better on older machines. But Vista runs as good on modern machines, if not better.


I'd be interested in details regarding your statement that Aero consumes a lot more resources than GDI. Any details are appreciated.


Christoph

 

calm down fanboy. there are no new important features in vista that you can't have in xp. did you get the point?

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-148278.html?tag=nl
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1040_22-152028.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=zdnn
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1040_22-152028.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/xp-vs-vista,1531.html
http://www.spec.org/gwpg/publish/vista_paper.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Aero#Requirements

 

Having used both, I'd say Vista doesn't seem much more stable than XP, resource management may be better designed, but it requires more hardware resources. It may perform better on modern machines. Aero is pretty overrated, as you can theme XP to kingdom come, and Vista makes that just so much more difficult. I have noticed Vista decrease in performance over time, so I don't think it is exempt from "Windows rot".

A few benefits I've noticed are in such things as system notifications, external device support, Windows updates, and so forth. Anyways... overall, I myself will probably be upgrading my desktop to an updated version of Windows at some point, but since I don't honestly see much increase in functionality, since I could get XP Pro for $50, it certainly wasn't worth it. If I can get a student discount of some sort in college though...

BTW, check out Linux if you have any spare time.

 

What about UAC?

I'm sorry if my direct way made you feel attacked. It's wasn't meant to be this way.

So what Aero does is it takes load off the CPU and uses the GPU instead when it wouldn't be used otherwise. If your computer meets the requirements, then what's so wrong about that? Sure, battery life is a factor, but then again it's not hard to turn off aero if you critically need that extra time...

Edit: And again: I am not claiming that Vista is perfect (no operating system is).

 

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAHAHAHAHA!!!!!



Wow! Thanks for the laugh.

 

You are missing the WOW.

 

The WOW (only genuine in bold, capital letters) had been cut out of Vista for they didn't have enough time left to finish it. They first continued development, but they eventually canceled it completely.

Wait a minute... I'm not sure if that was the wow that I was talking about...

 

Wow, thanks for the links.

Vista beta?
Articles from 07?

Nice, really nice!

 

ROFL nice find Rob, I didn't even open those links

 

I believe the free upgrade to Windows 7 is only for Vista-equipped computers, not for the standalone Vista operating system that you can buy. The point of the free upgrade is a marketing tool that OEMs requested to prevent sales of Vista-equipped laptops from plummetting in the months leading up to the hyped Windows 7 release.

 

Vista Release date RTM: November 8, 2006;
Vol. Lic.: November 30, 2006;
Retail: January 30, 2007

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1040_22-152028.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=zdnn May 4, 2007 11:00:00 AM
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1040_22-152028.html May 4, 2007 11:00:00 AM
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/xp-vs-vista,1531.html 9:29 AM - 01/29/2007
http://www.spec.org/gwpg/publish/vista_paper.html Tue May 29 18:00:11 EDT 2007

 

True enough. Nonetheless, given the economics, and depending on the age of the OP's hardware, it might make more sense. I can tell you that from personal experience (my recently-deceased VAIO was 6 y.o. and would have literally barfed up bits of itself if I'd ever tried to install _Vista on it).

 

My question is, *why* do you consider yourself a diehard XP fan?

This is important - if you are absolutely inflexible with your computing habits, you will most likely not grow to like Vista. It changes the dynamic between the user and the computer. For instance, Vista is optimized to be more keyboard-intensive, from searching, to launching programs from the Start menu. Need Paint? Hit the Windows key, type in pai, and hit Enter. Need the onscreen keyboard? Hit the Windows key, type osk, and hit Enter. Need Firefox? Type fir, hit Enter. It is much, much faster, but only if you're willing to do things differently than in XP.

You can now mute one specific program. This is useful if you never want to hear flash ads in your browser.

Internet Explorer gains Protected Mode, making it significantly harder for Malware to leak out, even into Userland.

It uses RAM more effectively, by fetching frequently used data and storing it in volatile memory when you start the computer. That said, depending on how much RAM you have, and how fast your hard drive is, you may experience a significant amount of disk activity when you cold-start the computer. Once the OS is done reading things into RAM, the disk activity will cease.

 

Lol, I love that description you used!

 

Vistas new driver structure has less places where a faulty driver can bluescreen your os. place where you can see this the best: gpu drivers.

still, if you have a now-8-year-developed xp environment and still haven't got it perfectly stable on your machines, then you've made something wrong. but vista is more stable in reality. that means, on all sort of crazy hw configurations worldwide.

doesn't mean it can't fail. it just has much less targets where a fail means a bluescreen. that is a big gain, and it's thus an objective fact, that vista should be more stable.

at it's start, drivers where a lot less mature than xp drivers, which made it in reality less stable. but this eventually started to balance out, and vista overtook xp now since quite a while in stability.

haven't really read the rest, as this was the only obvious thing that i wanted to comment on.

 

Vista 64 <3

I love it!

 

Sure, Vista was bad right after it was released! So....

 

You mean the "Vista - WOW I can't believe this took 5 years!"

 

Lolz, you gotta a pretty good point there coming from a vista user on launch day. I also think that win 7 should have been vista sp3, but the name vista is just bad for ms so I understand that.

 

XP lived for so long because Vista's Kernel code was totally re-written, that is why it took so long to release Vista. Which explains teh many new technologies/security it brings. Keep living in the past.

 

But I can believe. XP should have been ditched long back.

 

Short answer- if you are happy with XP then there is no urgency to update. If you think you are missing something or you want to see what the latest looks like then why not load 7 and try it? (I've been thinking about trying it myself if I ever get around to it and figure out a way to get it.)

I've used DOS 2 through DOS 7, before that I used Unix. I used Win 3.1 a little but didn't have much need for it. I did want to be able to multitask character-based apps so I used DesQView a little. I went to Win95 then Win98SE. I thought Win98SE was the first version of Windows that was fully functional for most of what I wanted it for. I got along with it well but there were a few areas where XP improved on it, and I've been using XP on all of my computers for awhile now, although I have a new laptop w/ Vista Business. I could probably be happy w/ XP for a long time, but ultimately my desire for the newest and greatest will win out and I'll upgrade my desktop. For the most part I think XP is very usable for the average person and leaves less room for improvement by future OS releases.

 

Oh, that's simple! You can get the Windows 7 Release Candidate (build 7100) and a key for it directly from Microsoft!

 

Couple of other points... UAC offers no advantage to me, but would be useful (I think) to the average user. And 64-bit support in Vista is better than in XP.

 

If you're happy with XP, stick with it. Vista has some pretty bells and whistles, and is more stable with better security. But I still question the whole security thing. In all my years of using computers I have never been compromised, and used freeware antivirus all the way.

But if you buy a new PC, it would be fine to go with Vista, just get used to doing things differently. Otherwise I wouldn't spend the money to upgrade to Vista for your existing PC.

 

Don't question the security thing. While it's true that most don't have security issues I've seen so much compromised xp pc's over the years it's not funny (but I do put a smile behind that phrase ).

Haven't seen any Vista pc compromised do far.

XP got better over the years, espencially starting with SP2 it got quite good. but it's still attackable from all sides. Vista isn't, at least with UAC on, attackable by itself. Doesn't make it 100% save, though. And espencially, doesn't make your user data save at all. That's where the Virescanner comes in.

And jup, most of those compromised xp systems HAD some virescanner on it. And most never alerted.

Btw, htwingnut, do you have a virescanner on the Home Server? I'm considering it for my new server (hdd's should be here today, at least I hope), but I'm unsure so far.

and to pixelot. you know UAC would have advantages even for you. Don't deny it. badboy davepermen will stab you in the face, else

 

Regarding UAC: I recently wrote a post about UAC that should "explain about anything to anyone" (not my words). So if you think that it's better to turn UAC off because you're a power-user, I hope you will read it: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=4910504#post4910504