Windows Vista vs. XP

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I've heard horror stories about Vista - are they true? Is it a reincarnation of Windows Millenium Edition?!?!?

I've had XP for 4 or 5 years now, and I've never had any problems with it. I'm getting close to new pc time (4 years since the last one, with a few personal modifications), and I'm wondering if I should buy a full version of Win XP to load onto a new pc.

Any thoughts?!?

 

Right now you would be a betatester for MS if installing Vista, but buying XP now? I don't know...

 

I mean getting a disk to load it onto a new pc...All the new pcs on sale today have Vista installed. I haven't heard many good things about it. I did a similar thing with my last pc. It had Windows ME on it, but I bought the XP upgrade and was happy ever after.

I'm thinking about getting a full version of XP, and loading it onto any new pc I buy instead of Vista, or replacing Vista with XP until I feel better about the new O/S.

 

Do that, what I meant in my previous post was that running Vista now would surely get you into some kind of troubles. I'd wait with Vista and by XP.

 

Yes IF the servicepack hits the screens, then Vista should be good to go. Remember the extra memory

 

Was just about to come and start this topic.

Just bought a laptop and it came, naturally, with Vista pre-installed (I could have payed extra to have XP, but I figured that would be rather stupid).

So, I don't suppose anyone knows anything on the following points I've heard?

1. Vista will rape your laptop's battery and sucks your processing power into a black hole.
2. Vista has a trusted computing thingy in place which has DRM applications.
3. XP is a horrible, horrible thing to install.

If I didn't want some capacity to play games, I think I'd just go with Linux. Sounds a whole lot less ... lame.

 

3.) XP is a piece of proverbial urine to install, I did it on 2 machines at the weekend without many issues.
Problems encountered:
I had to re-format the hard drives via another machine before installing, as XP won't update from 2000 server edition
On one machine, (and a previous one as well), XP didn't have the drivers for the RJ45 socket, sound, or video cards so I had to download and install these seperately (via another internet connected machine)

I haven't heard anything good about Vista.

 

As Taluntain said, for new installs I would go with Vista. I got to use it for the first time recently and it seemed quite nice.

 

Well, from what I heard, read and experienced, I'd say the horror stories of vista don't hold that much ground... unless you consider the 64 bit version. Basically, yes, there is some kind of drm "feature" for hardware drivers. But it's only activated on the 64 bit version. Hence the reason you might encounter the advise to install the 32 bit version, even on 64 bit supporting machines. Even the manufacturers like Dell tend to preload 32 bit version.

Alot of complaints I've seen against vista come from people that have no experience with access control and that are used to constantly be logged in as administrator with all rights. This is no longer that case, and that is a good thing. I agree the "user access control" (UAC) is not as well done as in Linux since vista tends to forget a little too quick that you are doing administrative tasks and so asks your premission for every little individual task.

Also, alot of bugs on malfunctioning software (mostly heard of games) comes from bad practice of the programmers. They assume that just anybody has the right to mess with the files in the program files directory, which was the case on older windows. This is bad and shouldn't be necessary. Programs shouldn't modify anything there outside of an install, uninstall or update. All the rest like configuration and savegames should be in your profile, not the program directory. On top of protecting your software from being corrupted, it also permits to have configuration setting and save games per user of the computer, instead of everybody having to share the same settings.

Basically my advice is the same as Tal. If you have to buy a new windows, go with Vista. It's not that bad. But if you intend to upgrade from xp, then stay with xp.

Well, maybe. I don't know how it compares to xp on this point. However, I've seen comparisons between vista and linux and mostly linux won on most points, except on the battery lifetime. Just remember that if battery lifetime is important for you, you should go into the power settings and make sure they are put on power saving as much as possible.

That's why dualbooting exists. Just install both linux and vista and boot into the one you need at the moment. I know that if you investigate linux, alot of sites will tell you that you can use virtual machines with windows running in it to solve your windows dependancy and hence you won't have to dual boot. This however doesn't work as soon as your software needs 3D acceleration of your vid card. There is still no virtual machine software out there that allows 3D acceleration. So just dual boot, unless you're lucky and your games run smooth on wine.

 

Vista would be great if it didn't use so much ram... You can still disable some functions to avoid that but it will look rather plain. Apart from that I have no complaints whatsoever (compatibility can be a pain but most of the time stubborness can overcome such things) and I've been using Vista 32 for some months now.

 

I recently got a new laptop with Vista, and I must say I was rather annoyed by it. I suppose SP 1 might fix things, but being prompted by the system on the execution of almost every program was a major pain. Aside from that, the machine isn't very good, but even then I was expecting something a little faster at times. So yes, when SP1 comes I might reconsider, but right now I'm not amused. BTW, I had the Home Basic version; I've heard that others - from Home Professional - are better.

This is why I tried going back to XP - it's much less of a hog and it's the devil I know. However, this posed another problem as there don't seem to be any drivers for the video card (integrated Intel 945) so now I'm caught between a rock and a hard place, so to say. If I can fix that, I'll stay on XP for a while; if not it's back to Vista city. I wonder how much spyware have MS packed into it this time...

 

This will only happen in one of two cases: (1) The program is an installer. In this case, it is just something that will bother you once (per installed program) since usually you're not repetitively installing the same stuff, unless it's broken. It is just an annoyance during the initial period where you install alot of stuff. Afterwards, this shouldn't bother you anymore since most everything should be installed.
(2) For some reason your program "needs" admin rights. I know of no program that for its execution requests admin rights. However I've seen some would-be techies on alot of forums suggest to execute certain programs as admin because otherwise they cannot access the required resources. Mostly this is very bad advice and an illustration of my point about the complaints coming from people with no rights management knowledge. Instead of giving the program admin rights (which causes it to ask your permission every time you execute it), just go to the folders/files it cannot access otherwise and give yourself "full control" permission over them. This will allow the program to execute normally without needing admin rights.

The problem with vista is more when you are using it for development or other (probably professional) activities that require alot of admin actions on a very regular basis, in which case the uac's goldfish memory is a real pain in the lower back regions of your body. Hence my point of linux having this implemented much better.

The ram I agree on. I still find it unacceptable that oems like dell sell Home Premium (what you seem to call Home Professional...) on a laptop with only 1gb of ram and a graphics card that shares its memory with the ram. This reduces your ram to significantly less than 1gb, which is not at all good when running vista, at least not if you actually want to run other programs under vista... Oh well, that's always been my biggest issue with prefab comps, even before vista.

 

Windows XP is the de facto standard of the market with a reason: it offers the best usability, compatibility, and efficiency for people who like to play games and do office work. It has clearly smaller hardware requirments, which means that that saved processing power can be used better elsewhere. XP also has the best software selection: not all programs work automatically on Vista.

Those matters aside, personally I just hate the stricter "anti-piracy" measures. You can re-install it only a limited times and if your Internets get disconnected, don't expect to get any work done with your legally purchased validity-checks-mandatory OS. Which makes your PC a crapper.

So I'll be sticking to XP for as long as possible and even after that I would seriously consider (Ubuntu?) Linux before Vista.

 

I tried Vista for a few days at work, we had a client who no longer had access to certain parts of his site with Vista.

So I obtained Vista from another machine and installed it on mine, which was a huge pain in the ass and cost me a few hours because I noticed that it wanted to overwrite the existing XP installation with no option of installing it somewhere else.
So I had to unplug the XP HDD and then install Vista, and then replug the XP HDD and use grub as a bootloader because the Vista bootloader would not recognise the XP installation.

As soon as I got it running, it would complain about having an illegal version and that I need to call some phone number within 30 days, else the entire Vista copy would become unusable. I quickly tested the site in Vista, found it to be working correctly, and let the copy die. Good riddance.

 

I recently purchased a new PC from Dell (with help from Kitrax). I had them install XP Pro.

From everything I've read I gather Vista hasn't gone over well. I'm waiting until SP1 or even II comes out. Wait, NO, I'm waiting until Kitrax tells me it is safe to install Vista.

My machine is theoretically Vista ready but I'm not. When I do get Vista it will probably be one of the more advanced versions and not basic.

 

as I said earlier, buying Vista now makes you a free betatester for the grand coorp. MS. Yet you get no thanks AFAIK from Bill.

 

I've been using Vista for a few months now, and I haven't had any trouble with it, despite using the feared 64-bit version. It was one of the nicest installations of an OS that I've ever had to do, and getting drivers for my hardware hasn't been an issue; all of the manufacturer's websites have had Vista compatible drivers since at least June (when I started using it). I've had no problems running games on it, even less than I had on XP, with the exception of a couple of really 16-bit old games (no Dune 2000 for me ).