XP or Vista Home Premium

I am about to order a vostro and was wondering since Vista has been on the market, what everyone is going with and what you would go with now. I am planning on getting the 8600 (dedicated) and just wondering should I stick with Vista for DX10 or stick with XP that I know will work and there is a rumor that DX10 will work with xp in the next SP release...but like I said that is a rumor...

 

Buy one, dual boot the other.

 

Do you have any programs/external hardware that absolutely need XP? If not, I would choose Vista, just because you'll definitely be able to use DX10, and you won't have to go out and buy Vista later if you decide that you want it.

 

So are you saying purchase with vista and dual boot? How easy/hard is that?

 

Well I did buy Half life anthology that says it needs XP...but I also want to play call of duty united offensive....

 

There are tons of guides on how to install Vista and XP on the same computer. A simple Google search should do the trick.

 

vista

10 characters

 

Say what...

 

Even though XP maybe faster and more compatible for the moment, Vista will eventually dominate.

Since the minimum message length of a post is 10 characters, he cant just post Vista as a reply, so I guess he added some more

 

I would go for vista unless you had software that needed XP.

 

If you're using something that absolutely needs XP and can't run properly on Vista, I'd say go for XP.

But if you can dual-boot Vista and XP, then that works best.

 

Assuming the price of your notebook won't fluctuated depending on which OS you choose, I say suggest Vista. You should be able to find an inexpensive copy of XP without too much hassle, presuming you wish to downgrade your OS at a later date.

 

I'd go with XP if I were to choose again (and had there been a choice when I ordered). I wouldn't advise anyone to choose Vista "just because everyone else is". If you're planning to run Vista-exclusive programs (Halo 2), I'd get it. I wouldn't get it just for DirectX10 - the 8600mGT isn't powerful enough to run DX10 particularly well, and you'll get as good of performance and graphics running at High DX9 settings as Low DX10.

Vista caused me all kinds of compatibility problems on software from 2001-2003 (some of it made by Microsoft), not to mention messing up the administrator password once, and only since I installed Service Pack 1 two weeks ago have there not been problems. However, it seems a minority of customers have experienced such issues.

Vista does make a couple nice interface changes (one-click calendar display from clicking the time on the taskbar, easier to go up a directory level or two in Windows Explorer), but doesn't add any must-have features.

Found a rather interesting article about which platform to choose earlier today. It's a bit old and talks about Windows 3.11 vs. Windows 95, but it's equally applicable to XP vs. Vista.

 

I had the same problem in June . I opted for vista for the following reasons :
1) new OS, likely to become the most advanced and most popular one very soon
2) better security,better looks,even though that means eating a lot more resources
3) support for VISTA is getting better and better,and you can expect Vista to be better than XP in the future
4) there is always compatibility mode for anything, so you can run any game on vista, even though it requires Xp , by running in compatibility mode.

Cheers.

 

Alternative to dual booting - I'd recommend ordering Vista with your Vostro, keep the recovery discs, go Linux/XP until Vista SP1 arrives early next year.

 

Strictly speaking as a gamer Vista is crap. DX10 was all hype and offers very little overy DX9.0c and if anything directX10 cripples the system. I uninstalled Vista from my gaming rig and decided to run Windows XP instead. Games run faster and run with no compatibility issues like some of them do in Vista. You also don't need to buy new hardware to make Vista run as well as games currently run in XP.

I'm so glad I didn't buy a DX10 card when I started reading all the marketing BS and hype. I saw screens of Flight Simulator X running in DX9 and DX10. The DX10 screens looked amazing. I'm glad I held off because I later found out those were artist rendered shots. Thanks MS !

When you go to the FSX forums you quickly find out that DX10 slows down the system even more and doesn't offer anything like we saw in those Flight Sim X DX10 screen shots.

If the OP is looking to play games go XP, no question. If you just want an OS to run the current business apps that looks pretty and you have the new hardware then try Vista.

 

Appollo, did you do a clean install?


The difference with DX10 is that it can rander a virtually unlimited ammount of operations per second, as opposed of 500k on DX9.0C I believe. They're gonna make it better overtime and we'll soon see a difference

 

If you're going to pick just one OS and not dual boot, I would say XP if you're going to use machine in business or other setting where "mission critical" performance is needed. I like many of the new features of Vista, but I just don't quite find it ready for prime time. Dual booting gives you the best of both worlds though.