Is Vista Really That Bad?

Who has it, and is it really bad? I need to get a laptop for college soon, and don't know what to do. I want a Dell, but if I go with Dell, the only way to get XP would be to buy the more expensive version of Vista.

So for those with Vista, and those tech-geeks, what do you recommend I do?

I don't want to shell the extra money (like almost 200 dollars I think) for the better Vista version just so I can downgrade if it isn't necessary, but nor do I want a crappy Vista with no way out.

And what brands offer XP pre-installed on good laptops, not just old lines. Or even if they give you the option to downgrade easily without shelling out tons extra?

 

hmm Both OS (Vista / XP ) is good ... its more of a personal preference than others and i am using Vista for more than a Year .... I am fully satisfied with it ... it never let me down ... So go ahead and try before making any decision bro

 

I'm pretty happy with Vista... I like it better than XP.

I'm somewhat bewildered by the whole Vista-bashing phenomenon.

I mean, I can find things to complain about too, but... I consider it a good step up from XP, overall.

 

Meh, Vista isn't that bad.

In all realities, it's come a long way. I'm on 64-bit, and it's far superior to its 32-bit sibling. Haven't had any blue screens in any Vista I've used, and in my month of using 64-bit, I haven't had any errors. It's quite stable now. You're quite safe in getting it.

And you'll be lucky to find a system with XP pre-installed. Microsoft ended that for OEMs on June 30th, so unless you can find a remaining ThinkPad, HP Business, or a similar system, you're out of luck.

The only other option would be purchasing an XP disk from Newegg and doing a fresh install on your new system, however, make sure that Dell, or whichever company you go with, provides XP drivers for your system before doing said fresh install.

 

If you plan on getting a new laptop with a dual core processor, at least 2GB of RAM, and either a dedicated GPU or Integrated Graphics Intel X3100, Intel X4500, or ATI HD3200 go with Vista.

If you plan on getting an old laptop, or a laptop that does not meet these specifications, get XP for an optimum experience.

I have been using Vista for over a year now. I couldn't go back to XP at this point because I am much more comfortable with Vista, which has given me virtually no issues whatsoever. The key to Vista is going beyond the minimum hardware requirements.

Vista is nowhere near as bad as its reputation. It may have been early on, especially because the inital hardware drivers were terrible, but with SP1 smoothing out the OS issues and Nvidia & ATI making astounding progress in video drivers, as far as I am concerned XP and Vista have reached performance parity. Vista wins on features, hands down.

 

I have a Toshiba L30-10X, 1G RAM, 1,8 GHz Celeron CPU. It came with Vista Home basic. Looking good, but to slow. I switched to XP.

 

The problem people seem to have with Vista, is that vista is more demanding and requires a higher level of ram to run smoothly, but the ram is required to make the system look pretty, rather then increase your productivity and performance.

Take a windows xp system with 2gb ram, then compare with a vista system with 2gb, and ask yourself do you want vista to use extra ram just so your eyes can light up at how sexy your desktop theme looks?

Essentially vista is a good OS, and reliable, and as ram is so cheap, it isn't that much of a big deal to buy extra ram, just comes down to what your preference is, and will you be using any demanding software, or ram intensive software?

And also make sure any software you rely on, is compatible with Vista.

10 reasons you should upgrade to Vista (and 10 reasons you shouldn't) : http://www.neosoft-tools.com/articles/10-reasons-upgrade-to-vista.htm

 

If you're budget is at least $600 or so, this shouldn't be much of a problem.

There are also some other integrated GPUs that handle Aero fine. I don't even know where you'd find one old enough to not run Aero. But even if I didn't have a good enough GPU, I'd rather run Vista without Aero than run XP. The improved volume control alone is worth the upgrade IMO. Also the new security features. And having search integrated into Explorer and start menu.

Oh that's true, I did have some stability problems before SP1. But those days are long gone now.

 

I was planning on getting the T7250 2MB cache/2.0GHz/800Mhz FSB processor with 3GB RAM and an 128 MB NVidia graphics card. Would this run well, and do well for light gaming?

Also, on Dell's customization page for the XPS M1530 (and all other of their laptops I've seen for that matter), they mention neither 32-bit nor 64-bit...???

 

Ahh and also I just read that iTunes doesn't work well on Vista? iTunes will be a biiiig thing I do, I download stuff nearly constantly. That's not good if it won't work properly!

 

I've been using iTunes since Vista Release Candidate 1, and I haven't had any problems with it, nor with it interacting with my iPod, iPhone EDGE, or my iPhone 3G.

 

It will be a 32 bit system, but from what I've read on these boards, you can upgrade to 64. Your Vista license gives you the rights to both 32 bit and 64 bit. You'll need to search these and/or other boards to find out how to upgrade to 64 bit, if you feel it's necessary.

I've been on Vista Home for two months, and really couldn't be happier. With my older laptop and XP, it would usually require rebooting, simply because the system would eventually bog down, or a program would lock my entire computer up.

With Vista, other then installations which require a reboot or updates which might require a reboot, I can go weeks at a time and NEVER need to reboot.

My laptop will occasionally have problems with a few programs, mainly Team Fortress (my son plays it on my laptop almost every day), but it happens perhaps once a week, at most. It also only requires that I launch Task Manager and force TF to quit, I then relaunch it and it runs fine. I do NOT have to reboot, as after quitting TF and then relauching it, there is no noticable slowdown or degradation of my system. This was NOT the case with XP, which, as I mentioned, I'd have to occasionally reboot simply because I could see and feel the entire operating system bogging down.

I wouldn't go back to XP, personally. Keep in mind, I have 4gb of ram.

Good luck!

 

Vista isn't that bad. I've never had a significant issue with it, certainly no blue screens.

 

It depends on what machines you are installing on. My impression until now has been good (except for that 6 hours ++ clean reinstalling time )

 

I'm somewhat bewildered by the whole 'NBR members think they are the majority of OS users phenomenon'. Just because NBR loves Vista does not make it a good OS. Had it been a feasable OS, the majority would use it. It is a rubbish OS making people shell out more money. The gains do not justify the infrastructure changes.

 

From what I have seen so far, the people who are serious about computers and actually want a machine based on performance, productivity & ram usage, are the smart ones and stick with XP.

The people who always want the latest & "greatest" have moved to Vista and learned to love it, but cause they aren't that demanding, don't realise how little improvement (if any) vista has over XP, apart from the standard theme.

 

you're absolutely right. i installed the tweaked version of Vista Ultimate only on all of my home entertainment PCs (they're all fast and stable). But for work, i use XP.

 

I love Vista, and I would never even consider going back to XP.

Before I actually tried Vista on my own laptop, I had read so much hate chit-chat about it that the Vista started looking really crappy, so I also bashed it on various forums, lulz.
Then I read few good things about it, saw that most of my co-wokers use it and everyone says it's actually quite good, better than the XP so they say!

So after installing Vista Ultimate, I can say it's faster, has more options in various things, looks nice and has some really good extra features. (Like DreamScene and ReadyBoost).

So yeah, go with the Vista.

 

It's probably faster because you bought a new computer which was much much higher spec'd than your previous XP machine. Vista won't run faster on the same machine that was previously running XP.

P.S You can't compare a fresh install of Vista against an old install of XP because Windows is notorious for getting "clogged" up as people put it. Compare two clean installs on identical hardware.

Vista looks nicer but thats about it unless you want to play a "Vista Only" game. It will be a long long time until new software releases stop supporting XP.

EDIT: When I get a newer computer (oh so very soon!) it will obviously come with Vista and I don't see myself bothering to downgrade, but i'm in no rush to upgrade just so that I can use Vista. The most annoying thing is the fact you can't change a setting without it asking for confirmation lol.

Vista is partially the reason for the huge spike in the amount of RAM people buy these days. Most people don't even need it, and that includes for running Vista. Another huge factor is the price though, and having that extra Ram can't hurt lol.

 

networking in vista kills networking in xp.and another thing i noticed is install times on vista are also significantly faster........might not mean much to the average user, but it certainly makes a hell of a difference when you just installed about 50 programs straight.

 

Do you mean installing applications such as Office, Photoshop, Visual Studio etc? Did you by any chance change to Vista at the same time as changing your machine for one with a much better processor etc?

Also I fail to see how networking in Vista is better than in XP?? They are both just as simple to setup for networking in a home network, and not many companies are going to be running Vista machines anyway, not many significant ones anyway. I wonder if all the Microsoft PC's are running Vista by now.

I'm not saying your wrong about the networking, I just don't see how it is any better, i'm always open to hear the reasons though, I might learn something new about Vista...

 

actually i have a q6600 in this computer (with xp) and my laptop with a dual core 2ghz a T7200 i believe......which happens to be the same clock speed with less cores........installs significantly faster with a slower HDD as well.

as for the networking maybe not for your average home network. but i wouldn't call 5 desktops three laptops a printer and a fax machine average. but thats what i have, and it was a nightmare in xp.

 

Hmm we have 2 laptops and 3 desktops w/ 2 printers (Six people in the family who need computers for work and studies etc) in our house and they all run XP for now, I don't think its difficult to setup but i'm comparing to Windows 98 which really was a nightmare to setup imo.

For vista i've only setup simple file sharing between 3 laptops over a wireless network, this isn't in my own house, as I say I don't have vista installed on any of my own machines. When I get a chance to setup a larger network I might find Vista easier. To be fair I don't see why they wouldn't streamline the process.

When I buy a new laptop i'll keep Vista. But I am looking forward to Windows 7 because it will be very much like Vista but I bet theres no big hike in system requirements.

At the moment I think it is fine to run either XP or Vista, but if you are buying a new laptop/pc and it is fast enough just stick with Vista. I wouldn't bother to downgrade. My prediction is also that any PC that can run Vista now will run the next version of Windows just as well or maybe even better. As I say though XP won't lose support from third party software developers for a loooong time. It depends how long the new versions of the .NET framework get released for XP, and how significant they are.

Microsoft will probably not support it in the next version of Office though, and maybe even the next version of Visual Studio for those of us that are programmers. You can't really blame them for not pushing the new version of their OS. They obviously want more people to use it.

To answer the original question if you have a good enough PC and it comes with Vista just keep it.

 

That can easily be disabled.

 

basskiddanny, it is similar when you ask people why they have a mac, and they say "its better for graphics" and you say to them "in what way" and they respond, "it just is, OK" !

 

did you deliberately repost that? becasue i clearly replied to the first one.....applications ranging from open office to adobe acrobat reader to CoD4 to M2 total war to FSX............and on a inferior computer with vista it installs much faster than on a superior computer with xp.........did you want me to say it slow for you as well.

as for the networking......i guess if you know what you are doing its fairly easy on xp.....but its much more user friendly on vista.......thats all......

 

What do you class as much faster, and give proof to your claims.

 

about 20% faster and on CoD4 that was about 5 minutes.

and how do you propose i prove it????????

i really don't care if you use xp. it makes no difference to me.............but when some one is buying a new computer, they may as well get vista because even if it only has a couple of advantages, it costs pretty much the same price.

 

Jeff, I want you to get two computers, one vista, one xp, side by side, fresh install, and film you installing software, and then upload to youtube. otherwise we can't take your claims serious.

 

Lol sorry Jeff, nope it was a mistake. I went back and edited it right after posting lol. I wasn't being an ass (As you can see if you read back ).

Networking in Windows is generally quite haphazard until you have done it a few times. I see what you are saying about the networking now if you mean for example:

The first time you setup a network in Vista is easier than the first time you setup a network in XP...I'm pretty sure that sums up what you mean about it being easier in Vista.

 

I do also fully agree with this above, in what was supposed to be the response (as opposed to the repost)

 

@johno

ok...............cool bananas check it tomorrow it will be straight up..................

 

This mind sound silly but another reason which I just thought of for getting Vista....Boredom...I mean how long has XP been out for, people get bored after like 8 years of staring at the same thing.

I seem to have come across as a Vista basher, but i'm really not. I'm looking forward to using Vista on a newer and up to date laptop when I upgrade this month because I spend so much damn time on PC's lol. Maybe sub conciously i'm jealous because my laptop is a piece of Junk haha.

 

haha thats cool. easy mistake

will i don't do networking every day.........i am much more proficient with the hardware side of things rather than networking or software. so if the can make it easier i'm happy........i never tried networking in 98 thankfully.

 

Jeff, I was just pulling your leg, don't want you to go to that trouble! My brother has a vista laptop, which i set-up for him, which is an inferior laptop to my dell vostro which runs XP, so I will test it out, installing Open Office & Photoshop.

 

You're lucky then, I even had problems just getting two PC's to share an internet connection on a few occasions (Not because I suck at networking lol)

 

hahahaha i was joking too......i would go to no such effort

 

I must disagree on this one...

On my old machine with xp (see spec below), i spend average 3 hours to finish a clean install + upgrade to SP2 from SP1. Plus all those annoying buggers like drivers, msn, words, etc.

1st time reinstall:
On the new HP with vista (AMD 1.9ghz x2, 8400Mgs), spent freaking 6 hours to finish installing the crap. 1.30H for Vista itself, another 1H for SP1, and 2H for those damn drivers! And some 30 minutes for the restarts.

But I can't really blame vista for it, rather it might be the fault of HP since everything, including the installation disc, came preinstalled in the HDD. I had to do a lot to grab those things out. It took like 2H for those things.. including the hindrance to find an upgrade disc.

I think I might do better on the 2nd try but I doubt it'll be any better than on XP.

 

ive just got vista ultimate and so far i think its great. i only have one problem and one thing i dont like:

problem: having trouble deleting windows.old folder
thing i dont like: i would have prefered the oldway of looking up programs, hwere it spreads them out.

but other then that i like it. and the best part my TV tuner works with XP the software needed for it was crap and wouldnt pick up anything with windows media centre it works great and picks up all the chanels that it should, shame you have to download the TV guide info though. but other than that im loving it.

 

Acer are just as bad (but probably expect it more from a budget company like Acer). They have a hidden partition of about 3GB where they keep the data to do a clean install. 3GB of space isn't much but it should be on a Disc and not taking up HDD space that the customer has paid for.

Another thing is that it gives you two partitions (visible ones) for Windows, they are C: and D AcerData). That's fine apart from the fact they split the partition 50/50 and they are FAT32, so you have the added task of converting from FAT32 to NTFS, which can be dodgy and if it goes wrong you have to start all over again.

Best thing is to buy your own copy of the Operating system and you can do a true clean installation lol.

What's the process for moving Vista from one PC to another? Do you just need to ring up and activate it and tell them it's been taken off the old PC?

 

I am glad you like it. Unfortunately, those gizmos do not help in a bank.

 

For businesses XP is the OS of choice for sure, but that is how it usually goes. They won't upgrade to Vista for many years. Where I work now they do not plan to upgrade past XP for atleast 5 years or so.

Some PC's are still running Windows 2000. They do the job well.

 

I use vista ult. X64 myself, and with my current specs. it runs damn fast lol. Vista is a cool os n all, but I have to agree with some of the 'for XP' people, when they say that xp has better performance. If you game or need extreme performance, then xp is what you need. My personal preference:
Vista X64 SP1 >> XP X86 SP3 >> Vista X86 SP1.
TBH i wudnt even bother with a 32 bit OS anymore (as long as ur cpu supports 64 bit). Vista x64 goes some way into bridging the performance gap between xp 32bit and vista 32bit.
check out my benchmarks:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=3604252
the results show that xp sp3 x86 overall is, 10% faster than vista x86, and c.5% faster than vista x64
If you have anything other than a c2d or x2 or quad go for xp sp3. If you have a c2d or x2 or quad then go for vista x64 IMO.....

 

Vista lists it's "recommended" processor as:

1 GHz 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor

Yet so many people say "Don't even think of running Vista without a Dual Core Processor". But isn't it just RAM that it needs lots of? I'm pretty sure it doesn't demand tons of processing power unless you have all the bells and whistles installed?

I personally wouldn't stick Vista on a laptop such as mine, but there are some without dual core cpu's that would run it fine.

I haven't installed SP3 for XP yet because I never did get a clear answer on the thing going around about it messing up PC's with AMD CPU's

 

"recommended" speces are really low...your looking at running maybe Vista basic at those settings. If you want the eye-candy, and the normal look and feel of Vista, a dual core CPU and at least 2 gigs of RAM are necessary period. No way around it. It doesn't matter anyway, as a lot of programs nowadays are need more CPU power.

Also, keep in mind businesses never upgrade till a few years later, if ever. That has nothing to do with Vista itself, that's just how businesses work. No one wants to be responsible for when they break their network by installing new software/a new OS.

 

Yeah it would be a bad idea for a business to go with Vista so soon. Unfortunately some smaller companies will be persuaded into it when they don't really need it.

As I say I wouldn't run it with less than those specs you just said.

 

No. I upgraded my XP Pro to Vista Ultimate. Still with my good'ol Vostro.

Vista is faster. Alot.

So? Vista can play all XP games and programs too, so again +1 for Vista.

You can do four clicks and extra-confirmation is disabled.

 

I am running Vista 64bit on the 6860 and 32bit on the Vaio and would not go back to XP unless absolutely necessary. The stability and speed increase alone warrant my decision. Once you get rid of all the startup bloatware, disable search indexing and run a defrag, Vista runs smooth as butter. A lot of people don't realize it, but Vista takes a couple days to learn your computing habits and tweaking the system to conform. Also a decent system is definitely a plus. When I say decent I don't mean you have to run it on a $4000 setup, my low-end Vaio runs it just fine. Most of the haters are bandwagon haters and have either never tried Vista, or are trying to run it full of bloatware and only 1gb RAM.

 

It's sometimes not even that. It's often just a budgetary thing. Upgrading 3000 workstations isn't small change. Companies just don't do things like that for no reason.

As far as the hardware requirments for Vista, they're actually much more reasonable (relatively speaking) than what was required for XP at its release. It wasn't uncommon for new Windows XP PC's to ship with 256 MB RAM in 2001/2002. Talk about a pig stuck in heavy mud.

In any event, I find the whole debate about which runs faster to be quite a hoot. Who in the world WOULDN'T expect a 7 year old OS to run faster than a modern release?

 

Good point... I forgot about that. In fact, as I remember it, 256 mb was the way most XP machines were sold initially... you pretty much had to be looking for a machine with 512 mb if you wanted that, or upgrade it yourself.