Should I future-proof with Vista or stick with tried'n'true XP on my new Vostro? Would much appreciate help...

I know, I know, ANOTHER Vista/XP debate. But I've reviewed the pro's and con's and would really appreciate the help because I still can't decide.

The laptop:
Dell Vostro 1400
C2D 2.0 T7250
2GB RAM
128MB Nvidia 8400

Tomorrow is the last day before it ships to me with Windows Vista Basic, and I'm fretting over whether or not I should call and have this switched to XP. Dell offers them both for the same base price.

I'd like to future proof my laptop, and that makes me think I should accept Vista now, slower or not. I assume that Dell has to support XP on the 1400 now that it is offering it as a config, so I figure downgrading to XP is an option, but am I throwing away a copy a Vista because it doesn't come with a disc? Will it really run slow enough on that system to make me care anyway?

But on the other hand, I love the speed and stability I'm getting with 2GB RAM running XP Pro on my current laptop (inspiron 9300), and I don't want to have to deal with a bunch of Vista "issues". (I've never used Vista, but it doesn't seem very popular.)

If Microsoft is going to be supporting XP for years to come and programmers are still going to write new programs for XP, I don't see a reason to upgrade when I know I like XP. Having to buy a new copy of XP if Vista doesn't work out would REALLY suck.

As far as I know, I'm not really running crucial programs that need XP, so program-compatibility probably isn't an issue for me. Mostly just everyday internet, music, email, and the rare non-hardcore-system-req game that sparks my interest.

It would really suck to need to buy Vista full price in the future.

So: What is the wiser choice?

THANKS,
derek

 

Personally, I would go for Vista. With the specification that you have on your Vostro, Vista won't be sluggish and should respond nice and quickly. If you don't have any major reason to require XP, future proof yourself with Vista.

 

Sadly there is no right or wrong answer here, Pretty much from what I've gathered Vista is not as bad as some say, if it is run on a computer with enough speed (2 GB of RAM). The way I figure if you need all your resources (CPU, RAM, GPU, etc.) and need to use them to the max XP is going to be better. While if your not going to be using them to the max Vista will be fine. In short -

Vista = Eye candy
XP = Performance

PS: Please do not double post.

 

A couple things to keep in mind:
You say that Vista doesn't seem very "popular". If you're basing this opinion on comments you read here on NBR, remember that this is a message board and people come here when they have problems and need solutions. You don't get many topics saying "my notebook is running fine again today", the boards are used to discuss issues people have. For this reason, you'll see a lot of problems with Vista.
So keep in mind that Vista isn't all bad. I know a few people who bought new computers that came with Vista. Those people really don't know much about computers (they just use it for school work, internet and instant messaging) and they have no problems with Vista. There are also a nice few people around here who love Vista.

As time goes by, the initial problems and issues with Vista will be fixed through patches, and drivers for various things will be updated to work (well) with Vista. So things are only getting better.

Have you used Vista before? If you haven't, it would probably be a good idea to try it out at a friend's house (or something like that) to see if you like it. The notebook your buying has nice specs for Vista, so it shouldn't have any problems running smoothly.

With that being said, the decision is all yours. I really don't think you'd have much of an issue with Vista for what you'll use it for (internet, music, email, and few games). Note that I've only tried Vista on other people's computers, my own computer runs XP and I don't plan to get Vista until I buy a new notebook in a few years.

 

At first, I hated Vista. But then I found out it was Roxio burning application that comes with DELL which was being a retard. Since I got rid of that, there have been NO problems in anything, be it my favorite softwares, games, surfing, drivers, updates, none. I'm loving it. I'm glad I still stuck to Vista after 10 or so installs in a week. It is the way to go. It uses XP's performance, and adds it's own, and then the eye candy.

So, my advice - Go for Windows Vista.

 

with 4gb of ram, Vista is a rocket. Overall XP is just a better performer, it's up to you to determine if you need that extra bit of performance - the older your system, the more performance you will see on XP. The more powerful your system, the more it comes down to preference.

 

My opinion is to look at the long term...

If you buy it with XP now, depending on how long you plan to own the laptop, you will probably end up spending the money to go to Vista later. That means you'll end up paying twice!

Reason being is simple... Once the issues with Vista are ironed out and more programs start to take advantage of the new vista features you'll be compelled to make the move.

It is that reason alone that I'd buy the latest version of the operating system that is available when I currently am buying a machine...

If you find out you really absolutely can't stand Vista at this stage you can nab a cheap OEM copy of XP...

 

Like it or not, Vista is not going away. Better to learn it now and get used to it.

 

I like the Vista experience, and I guess if I did some tweaking I would get it lean and mean. I had to install XP however, as a few of my graphics apps I use in my job have not been rated for vista yet and some errors pop up as a result. I will want to have a dual boot senario once I get the caddies for my second hard drive.

 

i have vista on 3 machines, 2 since Feb 1st, and the third since the end of summer. It really is fine.

 

I'd vote for Vista. I`m using the 64 bit version and everything works superbly

 

I don't know about that. The problem is the new SP coming up for Vista does virtually nothing for performance. SP3 for XP is going to give it another 10 percent boost. Vista should be catching up with XP in regards to performance but the pathetic truth is after SP3 for XP Vista is even worse then it was a year ago at launch. The real problems with vista are not for home users as much as businesses. The real weaknesses for Vista are its networking abilities.. its just too slow. I just read that around 30 percent of all businesses say they will never migrate to vista.

So if you are worried that software companies will stop supporting XP.. don't. The biggest mistake MS made was making Vista too hardware hungry. Many businesses will not migrate to this OS because of the enormous costs in hardware upgrades which gives them less performance then what their XP structure has right now. IMHO, MS needs to do a complete rewrite and lean this beast out or have a really slow migration to their OS. Many companies will hold off as long as they can before they would go to Vista. Others, would probably switch away from windows altogether before they would let MS force them on vista. MS needs to rewrite another OS or face the possibility of losing more market share.

Orev, I respect your judgment and understand your knowledge of vista is good. But I differ with you in that I don't think Vista will be with us as long as you might think. MS says that Vienna will be out in 09. For MS sakes, it better not be like Vista requiring massive amounts of hardware upgrades and software compatibility issues or businesses might start moving away from MS. I know the college I am going to dumped vista as well.. there were just too many issues. I personally just don't see the benefits of vista for what you give up in performance/boot times etc.. and hard drive space. The eye candy is already old and I like my modified zune theme allot more on my XP box.

The other nice thing about configuring with XP is you can order it with just 1 gig of ram instead of 2 and the XP machine is still going to be faster then vista with twice the memory. The last tests I read showed that the extra gig in vista does not boost it much anyway. Vista is just slower there no way you can get XP's performance no matter how many services you turn off. Its a truly bloated OS if I ever saw one. What happened to the lean and mean days of coding? I do not buy into the argument that all this bloat is required to introduce better functionality. To me, it lazy coding and nothing else. Its harder to make lean/fast code then bloated code. I remember when MS used to make lean code.. what happened to that company? Maybe if enough people keep ordering new systems with XP then MS might get the message.. but I doubt it since it does not appear they have been listening for a long time now.

Regardless of what homes users think of vista.. its the business customers that matter most to MS. MS is pissing off their business customers and thats really bad for MS's future. If vienna distances itself even more then vista did with XP it could mean really bad things for MS.

 

We had this same debate between Windows 2000 Pro and XP when XP came out. I still install Windows 2000 Pro on older PC's of 600Mhz or less, and XP on newer ones at work. (Yes we have a lot of old PC's including some Windows 98 machines. They get the job done.) XP had a lot of the same issues back then. Instead of running on 128 MB, it needed at least 256 MB. It had a lot of issues until SP2, and now look at it. Windows 2000 Pro also had a lot of issues until SP2 was released that allowed a speed increase. Sp3 and Sp4 was just minor fixes. Vista will probably need SP2 before it will hum along according to history.

By the way, I ordered my Dell D820 with Vista Business, but went back to XP Pro after two weeks. I am waiting for SP1 at least before I reconsider.

 

+1 for vista. It's here to stay and it's more secure than XP

 

If you're going into a profession, check to see if they want you to have Vista or XP. I know most medical schools suggest you get XP and state that it will be good for the time you're there. If it's strictly your choice, I like XP more which is why I had it installed on my new laptop. This is due in part to the med school situation and there's nothing that attracts me to Vista. I see no reason to switch OSs. I also need a stable OS now that can run the programs I need now, rather than wait and be in trouble in the mean time. Another thing to keep in mind is that Vista is being replaced fairly soon anyway. I think I remember something about MS turning out new versions of Windows roughly every 3 years. I could be wrong on that. So think about how much time has already passed and how long it takes to get a SP out. From what I've heard, SP1 for Vista isn't it's saving grace.

 

Shoot for the moon, like Sub-D said. LOL

 

Performance it never a way that a system is judged. XP performed worse than 2000, and 2000 worse than 98 (speed-wise). There is no precedent or reason to think that Vista should be faster than XP... the same has never been true for past OS upgrades. Vista has more services and does more things, and by nature will be slower. Hardware will always be getting better and faster, so it won't matter in a year or two.

Business customers *always* take a wait and see approach (and they always say they will "never" do something, like when Apple said they would never have a video ipod or an iphone). They really mean "never until we do it".

 

Spoken like a person either shot by the "hate Vista" crowd or hasn't been in the tech industry for very long...

The same old story was sung with XP was released in 2001... Businesses didn't want it because it required 512MB of RAM to be "smooth" when 2000 was smooth on 256. Then there was all the "bloat" with stuff like Windows Movie Maker and etc... What happened? A lot of large businesses skipped XP and still use 2000. Those same businesses are going to make the eventual move to Vista when they start replacing all that outdated hardware...

Also, where do you get the idea that XP will see a larger speed increase over Vista when thrown more memory? Vista has the best memory management of any MS OS ever released. You will not see any serious speed increase on XP itself beyond 1GB of RAM....

There is always this yelling when an OS is released that it requires too much and doesn't offer enough and then everyone moves to it and yells that that same OS is the best thing ever released when the replacement comes along...

Seriously, MS doesn't loose market share if people are upset with Vista and buy their new computers with XP on them. If anything they make more money and they know it. That's why they've made this the first Windows transition where they are allowing that practice to continue (usually they stop selling the old one once the new one is released). MS knows the transition to Vista is going to come, always does, and by allowing customers to continue to buy an OS as dated as XP they stand to sell you Windows twice for the same machine. They don't loose marketshare and they potentially increase revenues.

Buying XP on a new computer today is just a bad idea...

 

Windows ME flopped because it was launched at the same time as Windows 2000, and 2000 was vastly superior. MS is promising another Windows version in a few years, but there's nothing that's going to be such a huge change as ME->2000 was.

 

I have had nothing but problems with Vista, I am considering switching to XP. I thought it would be nice to have Direct X10 for games. My VPN for work doesn't work on vista, telnet is missing. Even though I am an administrator, every time I try to get a program working I have right click and run as administrator. Or change the firewall settings, and the file attributes.
I guess it would be ok for someone who just wanted to surf the net and play video games. But I think vista is a step backwards.

 

I read through this thread quickly. The one thing I did not see is anyone mentioning that Derek stated he's getting Vista Basic.

If you're going Vista, Basic is not the best choice, in my opinion. It seems to be a crippled version (no Aero interface etc). I'd say, if you can, go with Premium.

I've been using Ultimate (that was a waste of money too..lol) and have had no problems. It's been a great OS for me...

 

If you use telnet a lot, take a loot at cygwin. It's a unix-like environment for windows that does have telnet, as well as a lot of other unix tools as well.

 

I recently also asked myself the same question.

My business laptop came with Vista Business and 2GB of RAM. Unfortunately, Vista Business felt significantly slower than our desktop with XP. Fortunately, with Vista Business or Ultimate, you can get a couple of discs free (from the laptop manufacturer) to legally and easily downgrade to XP Pro, which I did.

Vista has some nice features and I think you have to give it that. However, it was too slow for my tastes and I didn't have the confidence in it as I do for XP.

The way I figure it, by the time support for XP will stop and I will be ready to buy a new computer, either a new, better OS will appear, or Vista will be significantly improved. I'm not worried about being future-proof with XP, given the amount of non-support of businesses for Vista.


If I were you, I'd also upgrade to Home Premium if I wanted to stick with Vista.

Good Luck!

 

Depending on a person's needs, experience and willingness to fiddle, there are arguments that can be made for or against using either operating system. But, with all due respect, that statement is simply ridiculous and unfair.

 

go for vista.........

 

isn't it true that vista's higher demands on graphics will increase GPU demand and subsequently increase heat and fan noise? this is my primary reason for being hesitant to get vista

 

I gave up years ago on fighting operating-system rear guard actions. Life is too short. Unless you have a specific reason not to run Vista (or more generally speaking whatever the established O/S of the day happens to be) then go with the flow. That said, there are certainly valid reasons that someone might prefer XP at this juncture...

1) If you have any important application software that either doesn't work at all with Vista or requires heroic measures to make it work, then it may be easier to do the XP thing instead.

2) If your hardware is marginal w.r.t. performance specs then you won't be pushing it as hard with XP. Your setup sounds like it will be perfectly Vista-capable.

3) If you routinely use several different computers and all of them are XP and will remain so for some time, it may make sense to keep the new one the same as the old and put off the Vista learning curve (such as it is). But I think application software has much more of a learning curve than an O/S, not to pooh-pooh the fact that you'll spend a few hours learning to do things the Vista way.

4) If you are the sort of person who customizes the look and feel of your computer environment to a obsessive degree, you may not have time to spend umpteen hours wrangling a Vista system into your idealized image. For those people it may save a bunch of time to just get XP and duplicate the environment they've been using there.

All that said, I'd get the Vista. I'm almost positive that Dell will put you off for a week or two if you try and slip in the downgrade at this point. Or at least they did when I needed to replace my lightning-destroyed XP desktop system a few months back. I ended up just going ahead and accepting a Vista Home Basic system (not a Dell though) and it's fine by me.

 

Wow, well I certainly got more feedback than I was expecting, thanks guys. This has really influenced my decision.

Ok, so I've decided I have no real reason not to try Vista since my computer should be able to handle it well (from what you all have said). I called up Dell, and in fact it DOES come with a Vista disc, so if I decide I'd like to downgrade I won't lose the copy of Vista. In fact I upgraded to Vista Home Premium, so I get the full Vista experience, and yeah, it is going to delay the system's arrival for up to two more weeks. However, the guys I spoke to managed to get my shipping free - and I live in Alaska. Always call in, apparently. So calling to upgrade actually saved me about $60 total.

I basically just realized I don't have a reason not to try it on this new laptop. I'm a power user on my other laptop - digital multitrack audio - and I'd probably never switch that to Vista because I don't want to screw with it, as its running great with XP Pro.

I'm trying to get my girlfriend a new computer, and she wants Vista because it looks prettier. Fair enough. Figure I should start learning to troubleshoot it now............. lol

 

I'm surprised to see myself saying this but the Premium version of Vista that's on my new notebook really is prettier. In the end, that doesn't really matter much but what the heck I've got to admit it's true.

Six months ago I'd have bet you a dollar I'd always despise Vista. Now I sound like a fanboy. Come on in, the Kool-Aid's fine!

 

My inclination is to go for XP for now and upgrade to Vista in about a year. I have a question about this though.

If I get a new laptop with XP, will it be a lot work installing Vista on that same laptop in a year's time insofar as the drivers being different? Or is it a relatively simply process to install a fresh OS on a laptop?

 

I j ust got home premium, was going to install xp, but once I worked out all the kinks Vista runs GREAT and idle or under normal stress (internet etc) only takes up about 500-600 MB of ram, so if you read through and follow the instructions, vista doesn't have to be this behemoth, ram eating monster, in fact, my vista runs amazingly.

 

i like vista also. I'm a desktop guy, you couldn't drag me away from my high-end dell- movie processing, gaming, you name it. this was my first laptop and it came w/ V. premium. It isn't a dell, but it had many more features for the price. I'm a tech and a nut. love to change OS's and see how they run. Well needless to say, I'm running V. Ultimate on my laptop , V. Ultimate 64bit on my desktop. Love them both. Ultimate has the file backup feature and complete restore feature. Of course there are all sorts of good backup programs like Genie and of course there's Norton Ghost 12- a great hard drive imaging/file backup program for those who don't use Ultimate.

 

The work for installing is making sure you have your data backed up, the drivers you need, and the install disks for the other programs you have. I'm not sure what the state is right now if you can buy Vista then downgrade, or get XP only then but an upgrade. One method might be cheaper than the other.

 

I disagree - I'd say unless the upgrade is free, go with Home Basic. Media Center really isn't any better than Media Player (I've yet to use it other than twice early on just to see how it works), and Aero isn't much different than Vista Basic's interface. In fact, I was running Vista Basic for a month and a half without even realizing it until a few days ago because an incompatible program had switched it back (now it's back in Home Basic again because I ran the same program, and I didn't realize it until I read this thread). Both Aero and Home Basic interfaces have their advantages (see-through vs. clearer text), but I wouldn't pay $40 for Aero when Home Basic does a great job.

And yeah, Ultimate hasn't been worth it. All the "extras" have been mysteriously missing for quite some time...

I'm still very much in the XP camp thanks to lots of Vista trouble (six months ago I was willing to give it the benefit of the doubt, not anymore), but remarkably I haven't had to reinstall Vista since mid-October. DX10 isn't a good reason to get Vista, either, unless you have an 8800 desktop video card.

 

I called and upgraded to premium for $29 more. I was under the impression from everything that I've read that Premium is clearly superior to Basic if you can spare the cost. I have an Xbox 360 and it said Basic would not support the X360 functions. However, I didn't realize that Aero made the text any less readable... I got a non-glossy/truelife WXGA screen, hope it looks ok on it.

 

i have both now installed. if i had to choose one i'll go with xp.

if you want the job done: xp is the way to go