XPP vs. Vista

Hey all,

I'm having a hard time deciding between running XPP or Vista on my future purchase of the Sony Z-Series. I preferably would run XPP on the laptop, but don't know where to find the XP downgrade drivers needed to smoothly run XPP after the downgrade.

I was wondering, would it better if I bought a fresh copy of XPP and did a clean install after having erased Vista?

 

If you don't mind me asking, do you have any reasons as to why you don't want Vista?

 

I would just get Vista Business and opt for Sony's fresh start option. That blasts away all of the crapware that's responsible for many "Vista" issues that new computer owners experience. Sony's service also has made a significant difference in their laptop system performance as well: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=501


Vista's come a long way esp. with service pack 1.

 

If you're trying to find drivers and/or installation instructions for XP, the Sony forum is the correct place, and you already have a thread there, so no need for this thread.

If you're trying to discuss XP vs. Vista, which is better... that issue has been beaten to death here a thousand billion times by now. Just read a few of these threads:
http://www.notebookreview.com/searc...F;GIMP:0000FF;FORID:11&hl=en&btnAction=SEARCH

 

Mainly because of other people's complaints of the OS, mainly instability and speed issues.

I was thinking of getting a Z with a 2.53 GHz processor, 4 GB RAM and 2x64GB SSD. Vista Business will run smoothly with this configuration?

 

Absolutely, Vista runs well with half of that amount of RAM-In fact, the 32-bit version of Vista that Sony and many other vendors install by default, only can access 3 GB.

 

Any updates/patches/drivers I should immediately download and install to improve Vista performance?

 

Your system will already come with Service Pack 1 preinstalled. This update includes all of the previous security updates, and also improves system performance in some areas like copy speeds over a network for instance.

Of course, as soon as you get your PC, you should run Windows Update to get any updates released since SP1 shipped. You may want to check the Sony site for any updated drivers as well.

At first, Vista may seem a little "hesitant" for lack of a better term, but a lot happens during those first few weeks of using a Vista system. Vista tries to learn what programs you use most often and when you use them. Vista will then preload them so they start quickly. Also, it will index selected areas of your hard disk so you can find the files there more quickly.

After those first few weeks, Vista should become a bit more responsive.

 

You should follow Les's guide after a clean install immediately.

 

Give Vista a chance for a month or so. Only then would I recommend downgrading to XP.

I just hate having to hunt for drivers.

If you can't get a clean install before Sony ships it to you, you might just do a fresh Vista install once you get the computer. A clean Vista is a happy Vista.

 

Where is this guide? It's for after a clean install of XPP?

 

Les' guide is for Vista installations (clean or not),

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=166532

A clean install of XPP doesn't really need any tweaking.

 

Don't listen to the people who "hate Vista." They've probably never used it or think the worst part of Vista is the UAC. If you have atleast 2GB of RAM, get Vista and leave XP behind.

 

personally, i will never use vista for anything ever, ever ever ever ever ever.

I am an XP user at heart until windows 7 comes out. so i say go with XP, but then again, if you like tons of security warnings and an cool looking UI, then go ahead with vista.

 

Unfortunately, I've tried. And it really sux (compatibility wise), now I'm dual booting xp and vista. There are really sometimes that you need a certain program (for engineering purposes), which doesn't function in vista at all. No quickfix, no support, no nothing at all. And the damn thicked firewall, that really pissed me off. I switched off every available option there is, but somehow, there's still something blocking/filtering my connection.

Other than that, if you're not running anything "special", go vista, and never ever SHUTDOWN! It takes damn long to boot it up, maybe faster with fast boot but still, best is leave it to hibernate.

P/S: If you really need XP, try ebayin those OEM XP (for any manufacturer). Works as well, at least in europe. The only problem you might have is finding the correct drivers.

 

Finding the correct drivers after a clean install of XP? I thought a clean install of XP requires little to no tweaking? What I was planning to do was erasing Vista and getting a copy of XP SP3 from ebay and installing.

 

Yea, on a desktop, no on a laptop. Basically you'll still need to find the drivers for the chipset of your notebook, then the gpu driver, and so on.. etc. I'm not too sure about where to get them for Sony SZ(you can try the official sony site), but I did this on a HP dv6000. Basically, without the suitable driver, your laptop will not be 100% functional. (Likewise, WLAN not working, fingerprint reader not working..)

Edit: Reread that you'll be getting the Sony Z, which is very new. The deal here is to find the suitable universal driver for it, if you know it's a nvidia chipset, you can just go to nvidia site to download that driver. Same wise for the gpu. The problem will be identifying which is what. Not trying to scare you, but if you are experience with software stuff (since you can do an install of xp from scratch), i believe you have the capability to find all the drivers (hint: you can find the driver's names in vista, i think). GL HF!

 

Makes sense. Apparently Sony is going to ship XP downgrade discs with Vista Business. If these downgrade discs come with all the necessary drivers, my problems would be completely gone.

 

I don't know about you, but Vista is pretty snappy for my laptop. Have you try to run your engineering software under compatible mode? Sometimes, it isn't an OS fault, but it is rather poor programming software.

I shutdown my machine several times a day. The boot time is very comparable to XP.

 

I've tried every possible fix. And i'm not nub to vista either. Well I din do any of those accelerate vista thingi. That's y it's slow, but I'm just too lazy to do it again. I just can't tolerate any more of those fixing vista hours.

 

Vista boots up in less than 30 seconds on my laptop. You can disable every annoying security pop-up, prompt, etc. It's also very fast on new (well-equipped) machines. XP is the past

And most people on here will probably not run into problems concerning engineering software.

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=282481
Here's a 2nd fella, problem with vista with engineering software.

I would actually say most ppl here doesn't use engineering software. Programs that won't work under vista. ProE Wildfire 3 (yea, there's newer but i dun hav money for it), SuperPro Designer, and some chemical processing program (1 of my friend has it).

I'm not here to mock vista, I actually like vista interface but because of these problems, i was forced to get xp at an extra cost. Which is usually what the consumer doesn't want to. Glad that everything worked for you.

And yea, the vista is running under an AMD Turion x2 1.9ghz and nvidia 8400m gs with 2gb of ram. An average computer for nowadays, i would say. Still I would advise anyone who'll be using engineering software to try the program on a vista notebook before buying your own vista notebook.

 

Vista runs good with more the 2GB of RAMS

And after Service Pack 1, i would say that Vista is very stable.

Why you wanna downgrade to XP????????????

New laptops with new tecknology, will probably give you a harder time if you downgrade than if you use vista. Some laptops come with both Vista or XP option, i have seen some Toshibas, this would be good if you have the original disk of XP and drivers specifically for the machine, but if the machine only comes with Vista i really would not recommend a downgrade.

 

The Sony Z that I want is apparently shipping an XP downgrade disc if I were to choose Vista Business.

Is it simple to disable all the annoying prompts or popups? Is it all illustrated in the 'Vista Tweaking' thread?

 

Yep, very easy. Just stick with Vista if your machine can deal. And if you're not using engineering applications

 

How do I eliminate these annoying prompts/pop ups? Or by 'Yep' you meant that all I need to do is read the 'Vista Tweaking' thread...

 

Just read the guide dude, it's all there

 

Except in rare circumstances, don't listen to the people who make blanket statements saying not to listen to people. If someone really dislikes Vista and has actually used it for a few weeks, chances are they've got a much better reason for disliking it than UAC. And 2 GB is RAM doesn't magically fix everything with Vista, unfortunately. Though it would be pretty cool for Kingston, Patriot, et. al. if it did.

I could list the reasons I dislike Vista again, but those'll show up in a search. It came down to a trifecta of serious, unsolvable problems, including (though not necessarily most seriously) the age-old compatibility problem.

If you don't already know you'll want XP for sure, Vista Business is a good way to go - if Vista works well for you you can keep it, but otherwise you can bail out. And I doubt drivers will be a problem if Sony is shipping an XP Pro recovery CD with the laptop.

 

XP Pro recovery CD = XP Pro downgrade CD from Vista?

 

Well, if you are talking about the software incompatibility, it isn't a new problem with MS introduces new OS. It is not all entirely OS fault. Much software has poor written programming in development stage. Some software work only on administrative privilege not on user privilege, this is just a small example when programmer doesn’t follow good programming habit.

It is an evolution as the hardware becomes more powerful, so does the OS. Vista introduces a lot of features that XP doesn’t have. Don’t we use to cry about XP needs 256 MB of RAM to work well, and everyone is crying for Windows 2000?

 

I'm not sure how many popups you expect to see. It's not [UAC] like [UAC] it [UAC] keeps [UAC] doing [UAC] it [UAC] n[UAC]on[UAC]sto[UAC]p.

No, it's not like that. UAC kicks in when it needs to, and it's not all the time. Unless all you do all day is click on things in Control Panel, you'll rarely run into it beyond apps that try to do things they should not be doing (more due to bad coding practice than anything malicious).

 

Sorry, what is UAC?

 

you can turn that off in user settings in the control panel, now i've never had a pop up and if been using my laptop for some time and i love vista. i'd say use it for a month or so then go back to xp if you don't like it. don't listen to the people who are greatly against it or for it because there opinions are going to be extremely bias

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_Account_Control

If your level of Vista knowledge is this limited, you REALLY should try it. There's obviously a lot of misinformation fueling your perception. You don't even know what the things are that you are concerned about. People have really overexaggerated a lot of Vista's differences and made them sound worse than they are.

 

Thank you, well said.

 

BTW, I would leave UAC on especially if your not a very tech savvy user. It could help save your computer from really nasty malware and such. I leave it on for my sister's new laptop just for that purpose. Now she can't install that retarded flash games from really sketchy sites....

 

25 seconds is SUCH a long time to wait for complete start up...

 

My vista business takes 1minute, it kills me.

 

Regarding the boot time for Vista, if you run the OS on modern hardware, I don't see how it can take like 1 minute to boot. I run Vista with no tweak, and it doesn't take me that long to boot the OS.

 

Qft. On my laptop, like I said earlier, Vista boots up in less than 30 seconds. I'm gonna time it later

 

Mine takes just a few seconds. It was one of those things the first time I booted that was like "wow, that was quick".

On my Sager 5793 laptop (C2D 2.5, 4GB RAM), I last timed it at 11 seconds to POST, 21 seconds to get from there to a login screen, and after putting my password, 5 seconds to a clickable desktop.

My Macbook Pro, which is a C2D 2.4ghz, takes slightly longer to boot.