Vista Resistance: Why XP Is Still So Strong

yeah, why would you want to run Solaris 10 on a laptop. I guess it would be fun to try to get it to work.....

I was thinking, man, if they included OneNote with Vista.......

 

If your task was designed to run on solaris and you need to test it on your notebook. Actually, for his mentioned task, it is not unreasonable to just buy the notebook that is supported by solaris. Price and other minor inconvenience(no power management etc.) is a non-issue for this case.

 

What are all these useless features that everyone talks about? The only one that is consistently mentioned is Aero. I can think of a couple of decent upgrades Vista has over XP, just off of the top my head, and I have only been using Vista for about 3 weeks.

1. Automatic Defragmentation. May not be the best but at least I don't have to worry about doing it. I know you can get software to do this. But why? When it is built directly into Vista?

2. Wireless networking. I tried for a long time with my XP laptop to set up a wireless network. It was a major pain in the ass. When I brought my new Vaio home, all I did was turn the thing on and it AUTOMATICALLY recognized my desktop and printer that were hooked up to the wireless router. I didn't have to change anything.

3. Parental Controls. Doesn't really matter to me because my kids aren't old enough yet, but I have played around with it and it is nice to have this built into the OS. No need for external software.

Not to mention the fact, that I have yet to have Vista fail to find a driver. Something that I experienced with XP on a regular basis. Both operating systems will search the internet for drivers. The difference is with XP, I had to continually go find the driver myself. I have yet had Vista fail to find a compatible driver.

About the early compatibility issues, It is NOT Microsoft's fault. MS released Vista to manufacturers with plenty of time for them to make a compatible driver. If they failed to do so, how is that MS's fault?

 

Ready/Turbo Flash/Boost = Worthless Vista Feature

 

What is fun is that 90% of the people judge Vista just by what they see, knowing nothing about how it actually works, you can say you don't like it, but saying it's an step backwards it's non sense :S

As for my experience, i tried installing Vista on an old but still powerful laptop, Pentium M 1,6Ghz with 1Gb of RAM, and it ran slow and with lot of problems ... then i bought my actual Dell 1330 with Vista preinstalled, i got amazed how fast and smooth it really was, had no problems with programs or games, so i though, in XP it will run like hell... but when i installed XP i got disappointed, it was just the same, plus battery seemed to last less ... then i installed Vista again on another partition and i'm sticking to it now

All of this with Aero, Sidebar and all the "cool looking" features disabled, since they are far from useful in my opinion.

Just my 2 cents

 

That's the main problem I have with Vista. Everything is 'built in'. That adds overhead. I've had it with bloat and trying to integrate everything the world needs into the OS. I want a small, light, rock solid platform I can extend with the functionality I need and want and NOTHING more. That enhances stability and security. MS has improved leaps and bounds on the stability front... obviously not the security.

I can schedule defrag and make it automatic in XP. Beyond that, there're FAR better defragmenters available and I wouldn't use the one in Vista either.

Putting it mildly; networking in Vista is horrid. Simply horrid. It may have worked well for you, you're about the only one. Look on the net, there're scores of people who are stymied by Vista's black-box approach to networking.

MY main problem with Vista is that one can have a perfectly valid 'net connection that Vista sees only as Local. Vista then will refuse to route off the local subnet. Networking is severely dumbed down in Vista. That's great for Home Basic but Vista Business???? I know more than the OS does about my network topology. I don't need it making decisions for me.

This was built in before. RSACi functionality is part of XP. You simply never used it.

That is the one positive I've heard. Yet, Vista will find Microsoft's drivers, not drivers from the manufacturer. These rarely perform optimally and rarely support all functionality of the device in question. If you want ease of use and don't mind not getting all that you paid for, fine.

They did? You are patently incorrect. RTM was Nov 8th, 2006. They had to push back the release to January '07 as a result. Hardware vendors had under two months with the new OS.

That's painfully little time to test a new OS with the myriad of hardware configurations Dell/Lenovo/etc produce. Even so, Dell had many issues with some configurations and for months it was impossible to order a machine with some features due to Vista incompatibilities. That doesn't happen when hardware vendors have 'plenty of time'.

Even so, Vista breaks more software than any OS Microsoft has previously released. Part of this is due to IE7. Part of this is due to the superfluous security 'improvements' in Vista which is really no more secure than XP... it's just more annoying.

Glad you like the OS; for those of us responsible for more than one computer it's an absolute nonstarter. It may not crash like Windows ME did but in every other way... it's Windows ME 2007.

 

I do know how it actually works. Do you? The networking is a major step backwards. The UAC is a step backwards and is as effective at improving actual security as the TSA. The constraints on drivers and how they work with the OS are a step backwards. Make no mistake; Vista is less functional than XP was. Things that worked in Vista do not work now and in several cases CANNOT be made to work. That's stepping backwards.

 

Calm down

I like Vista ...Get over it!! It works fast, smooth and reliable for me. Stop trying to convince me otherwise.

I still use XP too And I also use Ubuntu(Linux)

All of you Anti Vista people haven't given one REAL reason yet why you thinks Vista sucks. And copying and Pasting technical reasons that are much to do about nothing from a Blog doesn't count.

And what do mean by Sidebar hidden in SVCHOST and Explorer processes. I can easily see the processes in task manager as it's own processes. Please explain that one.

 

Anyone remember the IE4 "upgrade" years ago? It was the first shell replacement to Windows 95 that integrated IE into the OS folders. I remember my system just completely pucking after installing it. It hogged so much resources the system came to a crawl. Windows 98 and ME successfully had the same result, comparing to 95 without IE4.

Vista does the same thing compared to XP. My Via C7M powered Everex laptop crawled with its factory installed Vista, even after every adjustment I could find. My wireless was constantly interupted during downloads (download a MB, wait 2 or 3 seconds, download a MB.... No message - just apparently taking periodic breaks). Install XP and life was good again.

That's why I don't like it. Heck I don't even dislike it. I just don't like how it brings my systems to a crawl. If it didn't do that I'm sure I'd be playing with a copy right now. I have a Pentium M book running W2K, it runs XP great as well. I'm too leary to try Vista on it, though. The hardware may be strong enough, but.....

 

You are arguing it's a step backwards just because you don't like it, UAC is a painful option but it's just another option and can be disabled. Most issues with vista will probably disappear with the one thousand updates microsoft releases every month... Maybe its just me, but i can do in Vista everything i did on XP, only thing that i feel it's not actually improved is the gaming performance, but just give it time...

Also you are comparing a 6 year OS with a barely 1 year one... i'm sure that after 5 years everyone will be using Vista and whinning about the next MS OS

 

It's not just you

I actually have more programs install on my Vista partition than on my XP. And 95% of the programs that I have on my XP partition work just as fine on Vista.

With Gaming, I run FEAR, SWAT 4, GTA SA, and WOW. I notice no difference compared to XP.

 

Beefman:

You seem to be forgetting who operating systems are designed for in the first place. They are not designed for people like most of us on this forum, they are designed for people who don't tweak their systems or operating systems at all. We may know about all the little tweaks and software to make XP/Vista run much better. However, the vast majority of people either don't know or don't care enough to do the tweaks that we do. All the little automatic features are nice for people like this. If you want a nice barebone operating system, use Linux/Ubuntu. If you don't like Vista, than don't use it, and stop bashing it. Just because it doesn't meet your needs, doesn't mean that it doesn't meet the majorities needs.

 

Operating systems are designed for home users? Better call Microsoft and tell 'em they can do away with their Volume Licensing program and the Enterprise editions of their software then. That may have been true back in the Win9x/NT days but not any longer. XP was the culmination of Microsoft's efforts to have a core OS codebase be everything to everyone. XP Home is nothing more than XP Pro with a few features stripped out. Vista, for all it's flavors, is the same core with a bunch of stick-on widgets as one goes up the ladder. Linux, as good as it can be, is still not a viable option for most medium-large business out there; YET. It'll get there... and that's Microsoft's biggest nightmare.

Vista is absolutely unsuitable for anyone beyond the home/small business user. For medium to large IT installations, it's absolutely unworkable. Those people don't call it tweaking. They're concerned with user rights, security policies, data integrity, client uniformity and as much automation as possible. Vista's defragger doesn't count... automation on that scale includes being able to plug a completely blank machine into a jack (ergo NO OS on the hard drive, no partitions, nothing), have it boot off the network and start an automated preconfigured XP installation. Those folks need to push upgrades out to hundreds or thousands of machines at once. Those folks test upgrades with internal applications to ensure they work and only push patches out once they KNOW it's rock solid. Unlike home users, if those apps don't work losses mount very very quickly. Vista's networking is flaky. Vista also breaks some apps. If you're developing in house (or worse, have development outsourced) and upgrading to Vista means a complete ground-up rewrite... that's an awfully expensive proposition.That's a show-stopper.

 

I've yet to experience anything of the sort on Vista. However, it was a different story altogether with XP and Ubuntu.

"XP was the culmination of Microsoft's efforts to have a core OS codebase be everything to everyone."

No, you mean XP SP2 was. Remember XP when it was first released? Now compare that with how Vista is.

 

Even with SP1, Vista still won't be a compelling move beyond XP. XP provided a major leap in functionality beyond Win2K/Win98. It was, ironically enough, a HARDER transition than that from XP to Vista but very valid reasons existed for making the switch as the OS was an improvement.

There's very very little incentive in going to Vista from XP in the corporate environment (which is where MS makes a very substantial share of their revenues). It provides no benefit yet requires hardware upgrades, software rewrites, and intensive testing. Most desktops out there in the corporate/business world would rate a 1 or 2 on the Vista experience scale.

 

Well, yesterday I received a computer with Vista on it to work with. (I had to install a second hard drive so he can install Alldata on it) Man, I felt like an idiot using Vista, I mean seriously, I plug in the hard drive and all it says is 'installing drivers'. I don't get to know anything, the name, don't get to choose the drivers or anything. It some lame attempt to make things easier but it doesn't work. The interface is very nice, but its only exiting to for like 5 mins. The interface doesn't give you a work environment, compared to lets say the classic skin. It feels more like some presentation. The PC has faster processor than mine (compare AMD64 3500+ to Core2Duo E6300) and it felt slower than my computer (and it was also very clean). Its really strange, Windows Vista is starting to be like OSX, you don't get as much control, it does the stuff for you.

 

Wow, nate_ohio you actually made a statement I almost totally agree with!

Here's where people like Beefman and I are really coming from. If I may speak for Beefman. We expect our OS to be geekable, powerful, and have the ability to be relatively easily streamlined. What M$ has been doing, is progressively catering to the lowest common denominator, which I admit is the "common user", but this has been done at the expense of the true power user and the business user. The geekability is being lost from transition to transition, and we are being left out of the picture altogether!

There's no real excuse why M$ cannot maintain power user, business, and geek friendliness, while at the same time catering to the "common user", it's doable, even if they split the product line.

I'm very thankful for Linux, and I plan on learning it better and making the transition to it to the greatest extent possible, hopefully completely, and I will encourage others to do the same.

As you've mentioned, there is Ubuntu, which has become the de facto crossover Linux for the most part, and it's doing very well, and getting better and better with every release. The latest release can install on many systems with little user intervention, and everything just plain works, and works well, even on notebooks, and this is an absolutely free to the user OS, very stable, and offers your choice of desktop interface, and many excellent productivity, multimedia, and content creation software programs to choose from, again, all at no cost to the user.

Now for someone like me, that's not really what I'm looking for in an OS, so I will go with one of the more basic and essential Distros, and my choices here are many. So I will abandon M$ for Linux in my quest to fulfill my geeky inclinations, as well as my more common productivity tasks and entertainment needs.

 

That's pretty much right. It's not even so much about being 'geekable'... at the root, I want smooth and simple workflow. Vista *gets* *in* *the* *way*.

It'd be one thing if I didn't have much experience with the OS, but I've been beta testing it since they were calling it Longhorn. I am an MSDN subscriber. So if MS is testing an OS, I will likely have access to it. I've tried Vista Home Basic, Business and Ultimate. I made myself live with each for at least a week on a machine I use daily.

Vista has come VERY far since Release Candidate 1. But everything revolutionary that was SUPPOSED to be in it got stripped out. Where's WinFS? Where's the all-active-all-the-time interface? Vista was supposed to be a constantly evolving and changing 3D environment. Aero is nice but that it ain't. Another somewhat minor but hugely frustrating removal; IP over Firewire. WHY did MS remove that? Many times I haven't had a crossover cable to hand but HAVE had a 4 pin to 4 pin firewire cable... worked like a champ and MUCH faster than 100Mbps Ethernet.

I stuck to Windows 98 for quite some time and completely skipped WinME (as I suspect many of us did). I only hope MS sees the light and comes out with a truly new and innovative OS that DOES provide a reason to change.

Office 2K7 is a great example of MS changing the paradigm and releasing a groundbreaking product. It's the best office suite I've ever used. As bad as Vista is, Office is that good and much better. That's MS at their best; tearing up the blueprint and starting over. I hope what comes after Vista is that OS.

 

I consider myself fairly neutral and the decision to get XP with the notebook I am getting is based on:

1. Extra memory usage and less battery life with Vista
2. Cost, esp. if you want to get ultimate
3. DRM issues, content degradation etc.
4. I am accustomed to XP and there is barely anything wrong with it (the switch from 98 to XP is different in my case due to the fact I didn't use computers much back then and the step to XP was much bigger than from XP to Vista)
5. What's so good about Vista? I now have a nice theme for my XP and can emulate Vista's looks if I wanted to. But feature-wise, there doesn't seem to be much point in using Vista.

In my opinion, Vista was released too early, and some of the features that would almost nullify the 5th point above were taken out (just realised beefman gave an overview of this last post). Windows "7" might be the new OS that we are waiting for from Microsoft.

 

Huh? I tried Vista on both my desktop and notebook. Manipulating through the OS is terrible, they forced change where change wasn't necessary. Games that ran fine in XP were running like molasses, crashed, or had terrible audio issues.

My battery life is better with XP than Vista. Not sure how Vista can help with battery life. It uses more memory, more GPU and CPU power just for the OS, so should drain it more quickly, not less.

A large number of my utilities aren't Vista friendly either. Not necessarily the fault of Vista, but still an annoyance nevertheless. I'm not spending hundreds of dollars more on updating all of my utilities just so they run in Vista - if a Vista compatible upgrade even exists.

 

You mean like my Pentium 3 500, BX chipset, 256MB RAM, and ATI Rage 3D? It triple boots 98SE, XP (the original release), and XPSP2. Or my Pentium 4 3.4, 2GB DDR RAM, Radeon X1950Pro? Both are rock steady machines, the P4 is usually up for months on end.

 

The true "power users", the ones who have far too much time on their hands can happily waste their time trying to get to grips with Linux and do a simple thing like detect a wireless card. Yes they can get some nice fancy GUI running but the majority of us either can't or won't. Microsoft, as a business, will cater to the most common market - one which isn't the power user - and thats not something we can blame them for. Microsoft also want to make the user experience for the less technically minded better which is what they have done and I certainly don't mind losing "geekability" for added ease of use. I might not be speaking for anyone other than myself but I have enjoyed using Vista a LOT more than using XP or any Linux distrus. Vista works well for what I want to do therefore I stick with it. If it doesn't meet your "geekability" then don't use it - use Linux but certainly don't complain about the vast majority of people (those who won't be posting in places like this) being catered for.

I completely disagree with your assertion that business users wouldn't use Vista. If anything, they want an experience that works; they likely don't care how it works just so long as it does.

My decision on using Vista on my laptop is as follows:

1. I find Vista to be a far more stable environment. I've had far less BSODs on Vista than I ever did with XP. My original installation is still running happily - with XP I was lucky if I got 2 months of use before it crashed horribly.

2. I prefer the working environment. As daft as it sounds, the Aero interface does actually feel rather relaxing when you need to spend a good few hours staring at a computer screen.

3. Everything I want to work, works fantastically.

4. Battery life is just as good as XP on my machine.

 

I shudder to imagine what Vista would do if I tried to put it through what I've put this install of XP through. I've had the same basic install of XP since 2003 on my office machine. I only get BSODs if I'm pushing the edge on overclocking. Otherwise, things are rock solid. My computer doesn't get rebooted for weeks at a time.... no issues. Indeed, I leave it up 24/7 so I can Remote Desktop in from home.

The install started life on a Micron Millenia P4 3.2. Since then it's been through numerous config and entire machine changes and has a registry that looks like a "History of Hardware Through The Ages". It's now on a Q6600/EVGA 680i mobo.

Still stable, no bluescreens whatsoever. I've had to run an XP repair once thanks to a Nokia PC suite install gone wrong but that's about it. It definitely gets a wide variety of activity; during the week it handles huge databases, crunches large Excel spreadsheets and manipulates multi-meg photos. On Saturdays it's everything from WoW private server to MMORPG playing to seeing how much I can squeeze out of 3dmark06 (I used to be in IT and still handle a lot of those issues and get *lots* of lattitude... it's nice havin' a work machine with an 8800GTX in it )

If you're only getting 2 months out of an install, you're doing something very very wrong.

 

Hey Sub-D I like your point #2 lol... it's one of the reasons I'm using Vista.

For the record I think XP Sp2 is much better, I did tests on my Vostro and got 17 min extra battery. Believe it or not, Vista crashes are limited but I've experienced more than in XP. I'm still banking on 64 bit so not everything I want to work works. My favourite OS of all time so far is x64 XP SP2. It was flawless.

 

One thing Vista HAS done right.

Vista sleep mode > XP sleep mode. Bar none.

 

In what way ? I found it to be slower than XP both to sleep/hibernate as well as resume.

While its hybrid mode may be a bit more convenient it also make it even slower to sleep.