Keep Vista or Switch to XP?

Hi all,

so I just bought a laptop to go study abroad, and here are the specs:
Acer Aspire 5100 3010, AMD Turion 64 MK-36 2.0GHz, 802.11b/g Wireless, 1GB DDR2, 160GB HDD, Dual Layer DVD RW, 15.4" WXGA, Windows Vista Home Premium

Everything I've read online hasn't been all too positive of Vista. I've built my desktops from the ground up for the last 7 years or so, so I know a fair amount about that aspect, and everything I read says they've taken away user control and made it run really slow.

I'm wondering if I should switch my Vista OS to XP before I go abroad because i know that with this setup it would def run a lot quicker. But it is really worth the switch and risk, or can I get a dramatic difference of power out of Vista by cleaning things up?

My other worry about XP is that there will be no drivers for my laptop. Can I just go to Acer's website and confirm if this is true or not? As much I don't want to be picky, even just having my webcam not work if I switched XP would be a bummer since I wanted to post videos about the experience on youtube. Yeah, I know I could always buy a compatible external, but less I have to carry, the better.

Thoughts, suggestions? Thanks a ton!

 

My friend built a desktop and installed Vista without ever having XP on it and it runs great. Plays high intensity games without lag and the computer isnt slow at all. The real problem with vista comes when you install it on a computer that previously had XP, or thats what ive heard atleast. If its been pre installed without any other OS ever on there it should be fine but a lot of people have had different results with how it runs. But with the new patch for it a lot of things should be cleared up. Try it for a while, and if it works here its not going to be any worse once you go on your trip. But if you try it and find that everything is a lot worse, than yeah go for XP. But remember that when XP first came out there were a lot of problems with it also that were fixed. My experience with Vista so far has been great truthfully lol....

 

I guess just from everything i've read it just runs really slow and has a ton of pointless stuff on it while giving the user less options to make it run faster

 

that was all u ever read? did not bother with the "positive" reads?

based on what u read, right? not necessarily ur own experiences?

i m sure that there are "reads" regarding these issues as well, u must have coming across them already

so, in a nutshell, having webcam to work was ur main concern? what this then to have to do with either XP or vista?

cheers ...

 

Keep it, upgrade the RAM to 2 GB when you can. Y go to an OS that is ancient and absolute and will get no support from MS or updates after SP3?

 

lol
every laptop you buy is going to have pointless stuff on it.... Unless you barebones it yourself and that takes some more research. But truthfully if you put an extra 1 or 2 gigs of ram in there you shouldnt see any problems running vista. And the ram isnt all that expensive and its really easy to put in.
Lots of programs can help your computer run faster a few I was impressed with are Ccleaner/Piriform cleaner. Speed Up My PC 3 and Registry Booster 2... SUMP3 and RG2 you have to pay for but its easy to get the registration codes off the internet so you dont have to. And just going through the uninstall menu and uninstalling all the useless stuff you dont need and are never going to use also helps. I totally just spaced on the RUN command to get into the startup programs... But theres a command to get into there to select all the programs you want to start when your computer starts and disselect all the programs you dont need to start. Also, turning off the sidebar usually makes vista run faster. Also go to Blackviper.com and check out all the services that run in the background that are safe to disable..... Lots of stuff you can do

 

The biggest issue for me has been a persistent "local only" network issue when connecting to wi-fi networks. I have spent dozens of hours trying to resolve it and it IS a Vista problem. It is an absolute deal-killer for me at this time.

 

Vista - perhaps a few specific tasks aside - doesn't run any slower on my laptop (specs in my signature) than Windows 2000 SP4 did on my slightly more powerful desktop PC. And that's with all the fancy interface "fluff" turned on, versus the stripped down look of Win 2000.

If anything I'm inclined to say Vista often tends to feel slightly more "responsive" (changing focus between several heavy applications and redrawing their windows and stuff like that) than 2000 - probably down to the better memory management.

You've only got 1 GB RAM in the system you list though - I imagine that could easily result in a horrible experience compared to a likely entirely smooth one with 2 GB.
You don't mention anything about the graphics card either - obviously how powerful that is will determine whether it's feasible to run Vista with the Aero Glass interface, or if that's also likely to be a nightmare.

A reasonably fast modern CPU (dual core preferably), 2 GB RAM and a mid range graphics card and I don't really think Vista should feel any "slower" in general behaviour than XP or 2000.
Which isn't to say there can't be other annoying issues of course - I tend to get a blue screen of death on average once a week. Hardly a disaster, but still enough to make me swear loudly every time, considering I hadn't had one in around six years on Win 2000.

 

So I have a job to go to sadly but I'll be back in 7 hours to read and reply more. Here are a few answers...

Yes, I did read the positive reviews, but when there are as many negative reviews for an OS that has been in the works for as long as Vista was, you think it would have been more streamlined...especially with Macs doing as well as they have been. But if nobody liked it, I know that nobody would use it, and currently many people seem to be using it.

No, I have no personal experience with Vista. None. So yes, I'm going entirely by what I've read, and usually that is reliable, but sometimes not. That's the reason why I'm here trying to learn more from you guys since I'm sure you have experience with Vista.

I didn't even really think that switching to XP from Vista was a viable option, and even if it did, wasn't sure if the backup disks would still work to get me back to Vista if I found XP didn't run as smooth. So no, I haven't found or looked for a ton of "reads" yet on that subject. I'm planning on looking for them tonight when i get home.

No, the webcam is not my main priority. It's a give and take. I would love for my webcam to work if I switched to XP. If it doesn't, is it worth an entire OS? I don't know. Regardless of how much I will say I actually use it, I don't know how much I really will. It's up in the air. But it would be nice to have everything work with XP.



...did you even help answer any of my real questions?

 

The only bottleneck for your system (in regards to Vista performance), is the RAM. I would suggest that you upgrade to at least 2 GB of RAM, and make sure that you clean the computer of bloatware (something abundant on Acer computers), then you will notice a boost in performance.

I think by "absolute" you meant obsolete. Its not, and wont be at least until Windows 7. It will get extended support, and by the time SP3 is available, it will be amazingly stable. Corporations will be using it for a long time, due to it's stability and compatibility. Also, many power users use XP Professional x64 Edition, a relatively new version of XP which offers the best performance of all the Windows operating systems...basically it's not going anywhere soon.

 

I personally like XP... But me being a teenager I want a more.... lets say modern look and feel to things. Vista seems to me kind of a knock off of the MAC OS and I hate macs with a passion, but mostly just because they want to do everything for you and i just find them difficult to use. But I do like how they are layed out and with Vista being sort of similar its a nice change from the regular XP look... But im just talking about looks here lol