Do You Prefer Vista or XP Pro ?

I ask because my relatively new system was ordered with Vista Premium and to be honest while everything is working out great i am not sure that vista is where it should be right now. My system takes a while to start up a while to shut down and it seems a bit slower than it should be.
My question is do u guys suggest i format it and run XP Pro ? What do u guys run ?

Pete
Compal HGL30

 

I've had no problems with Vista so far, it performs great on my system and every piece of external hardware is working. That's just my opinion.

 

i like some of the new stuff in vista, but i've found that a lot of my software needed to be upgraded to the latest version before i could use it.

 

It would be interesting to see a poll on this thread, simply XP vs Vista

my vote would be XP btw, still significantly more stable, and downright faster than Vista.

 

Subjectively, Vista feels much faster for me and certainly boots faster. Programs seem to launch faster. I prefer Vista, even if it still has kinks to be worked out. After using it, XP seems so old and boring.

I have had problems, and continue to experience minor issues, but my vote remains the same.

As an aside, anybody daring enough to use vista this early has to be cautious and do their research about what they are planning on installing to find any foreseeable issues they may encounter.

 

Vista...

relatively minor problems with a few apps, updating them fixed them.

 

I recently switched XP to the classic theme, and suddely it feels like a serious OS. I'll be sticking with it a while.

I have had problems with Vista. Several in fact, related to hardware and drives and software. Plus, it's slower. OTOH, if you aren't having problems, I wouldn't recommend the downgrade. It's got... features and stuff?

 

I've had no problems with xp, and see no reason to switch to vista.

 

XP Pro get's my vote. I want pure speed, not bling bling in an OS... the first thing I did when XP came out was turn off that Nickelodeon cartoon theme and window manager.

 

Personally I'm happy with XP. I don't think I'd consider moving to Vista for a while...but I have my own personal reasons for this decision. In fact...I may never use Vista ever. After all, its successor is coming out in a couple of years.

And if pasta wants a poll...just say so and I'll add one to this thread.

 

^^^just look at chrisyano's post, exactly my same thoughts

 

Oh oh, here it comes: a high-and-mighty discussion of why there is no point in switching and how it is and inferior OS a priori versus "How would you compare your experience with Vista versus your experience with XP"

It's true there are performance issues, and for things like encoding then you are better off w/o it. But for all of my day to day activities it does not feel slower in any way and is over all (if its working for you) a much more enjoyable experience. If you like a simplistic GUI such as what you might find in Linux or a toned down XP interface, so be it, but I dont think it's all that strange that people enjoy a visually appealing GUI, and there IS evidence supporting that Aero doesn't really drain a significant amount of power over XP's 2d environment. If you want to be a true minimalist just do everything you can in a command line environment and let the rest of the world use fancy GUI's in peace. Stop gawking at Vista precisely because it is pretty or 'bling bling'. I dont see why Aero is considered to be such a bad thing.

With all the processing power we have now, and all the more we will gain, in addition to the fact that XP has had years of fine-tuning and all the major bench marking programs were written for XP, I think people are being too harsh regarding Vista's performance.

I respect people's decision not to even give it a chance, you are all very knowledgeable PC users and I say to each their own, but somehow I think it's a bit excessive to mention why you aren't interested at all on every Vista-related thread, especially one asking about preference for one or the other, which to me implies that you have personal experience with both. If you aren't interested, then why is it so important to tell the world so? Just let all of us ignorant people that were dumb enough to even try Vista in the first place (and, oh my god, even like it!) wallow in our pitiful and shameful existence that we have brought upon ourselves by using the new OS. Let people discuss their experience and leave constructive comments on Vista-related threads, rather than taking every thread as an opportunity to bash the OS, especially if you have not used it for real yourself.

Although, I have to admit, it IS hideously overpriced and is not worth trying UNLESS you get it for free or for "free" or for a good discount somehow...

I only tried it because I was formatting anyway, and I had access to a free copy of Business edition from my school.

 

I don't think there have been any Vista-bashing posts in this thread. I think the posts have pretty much answered the original poster's question without doing so. But you do raise a good point...let's try to keep this thread from getting to either a XP/Vista flame war.

If my own personal situation wasn't so entrenched in XP...I might actually give Vista a try. I have a free upgrade copy available from a workstation I recently purchased...so I may give that a shot if I haven't already missed the deadline.

 

I am wondering what the person before chrisyano is talking about? I didn't see anyone bashing Aero directly. Or anyone bashing Vista period...

I like simplistic and functional OS's, and that has nothing to do with "sticking to the console" like you mentioned. I hate it when I open a program and it's theme is built into the application so it clashes with the rest of my desktop. I removed applications like that (Trillian Messenger comes to mind). I like a very clean and universal look mainly because I arrange things on my desktop so everything fits without overlapping when I have things open. XP shipped with this horrible green and blue color scheme that had curvy lines all over that kept things from "snapping together" cleanly (check ALLSNAP if you don't know snapping).

Part of this is because I develop software and it's hard enough to make software look native without all sorts of independent themes getting underfoot.

The other part of the GUI arguement that I have is very simple and directly back at a comment you made. Sure the newer hardware comes out and we all have these uber fast machines of DOOOOM, but with Vista (even XP) there is so much extra stuff I don't use / want / need to get through my day I like it not being there taking away from software that I do want to run. If I could drop to a console everytime I load up a DX9/DX10 game freeing up 500+ mb of ram I would, just so I don't have to already start looking at buying more then 2GB to truly enjoy the game I just bought.

Looking back over the last 15ish years of PC's, I can't honestly say I've seen a speed increase in the user experience (always had atleast one maxed system). What I have seen is more and more junk loaded without my permission. I'm being realistic about this too... on my 20mhz XT compatible system when I opened wordperfect from a dos prompt it was instantly open and ready to go (with my logitech mouseport mouse!), and instantly closed. When I ran a game I wrote in BASIC, in seconds or less the game was up. No 60 seconds of .bik video files while stuff caches in the background... It's been an almost perfect scale over the years, with the exception of the OS getting bigger and more hefty.

- Just something to think about for anyone that has used PC's daily for the last 20 years..

 

I installed Vista - after 20 minutes it gone... So long...

 

Simplistic GUI? There's more than just Gnome 1.2 to Linux any more

 

People aren't bashing vista because it has a fancy GUI, but rather that its main selling point is the fancy GUI, and that there are very few worthwhile improvements under the hood.

 

My main reason for complaints is not becuase vista has really ever crashed on me or anything to that degree. The issues i am am experiencing are software/driver related as well as speed related. For example my wireless/bluetooth are having issues after i get out of standby or hibernation and require a full restart for them to operate ?

Games operate a bit slower than they should ?

My point is , that vista in itself operates fine but the things around it make it undesirable to me.

This threads purpose was for me to get some feedback regarding why people run vista instead of XP and there experiences/ opinions of it.

I ordered Vista with my laptop so the switch to either OS for me isnt a problem, i am just curious ?

Pete

PS sure why not add a poll.

 

OK...poll added. Vote away my fellow Compalites.

 

For me, vista is just as good as xp, if not better. I've not had any stability problems and it's not slow at all.

 

I've thought about running Vista, but like others have said some features are nice but it's mostly whizz bang looks.
The issues with drivers and software hold me back as well, but those are being solved daily.
Might think about it when SP2 comes out, if it come out.. lol. In other words... gonna wait till next year, maybe.

 

XP is a lot better on resources and is compatible with much more software, but i think i've decided to go full time with vista. i was going to dual boot, but i think i'm just going to run XP as a virtual machine instead. it's been a slow process, but i've been able to get all the software that i use running on vista. most things just needed me to download the very latest version.

i really like the built in gadget support and aero is pretty nice. i don't use the 3D flip thing, but i really like the way glass looks.

so really it just comes down to resources. since i'm running 2GB of memory on my main machine, i'm pretty alright. i've yet to even break 60% using all of the programs i normally use so things might work out with it.

 

some of the people i kno have vista and i have tried it out
but i personally like the clean looks of XP rather than vista
but i will have to eventually sswitch on to it though i know its inevitable
but ill rather wait for SP1 till all the problems are acknoledged

 

For odd reasons i like all my software to be the latest even if they are plagued with bugs. Same goes for Vista on my computer.

 

Of the two, I prefer XP. Overall, I still prefer Kubuntu, because it just works, and doesn't have all kinds of gotcha's built in to the system that prevent me from using it however I want. There's no reason except for money that you can't open more than 10 listening ports simultaneously on XP Pro, and Vista is about 10 years late to proper security practices.

 

XP was the only ""crucial"" update made by microsoft to the dating OS's n my opinion

 

well... i see no point in moving from xp to vista 32.... all you get are de aero interface improvements...

moving from xp to vista 64 ... there are a lot of advantages... 64 bit = faster, better memory management and virtually no memory limit, and all the other things that come with 32.

i believe that no matter what they say... vista 64 IS needed... i was getting tired of xp and /3g /usepmtimer and all the other updates to get everything in order, mainly on multi core configurations...

as long as there is driver support for vista 64 i see no need to use vista 32

 

Where exactly is 64 bit blowing away 32bit on speed? In reality it's fractionally slower because the pipes have longer data flows to deal with. Most software will also require more space then previously both in memory and on the HD since the addressing tables are filling 2byte char's into 64bit memory clusters... This was bad on 32, but 64 sheesh.

Also not sure what improved memory management you are refering to. Vista itself has a better memory mapping system, but it's the same one whether you get 32bit or 64bit.

As for the memory limit.. Sure the OS can support much more memory, however, the hardware now has to catch up. 64Bit computing is far from a new concept or implimentation, it's just new on YOUR system The largest DDR chip's in circulation are 2gb each, meaning that with 4 slots you can only get 8GB total. That will run you almost $4K by itself. And don't even try to dream that you won't need it soon, because you can essentially think that a system that is "optimal" with 2gb ram on a 32bit system will require 4gb on a 64bit system to be as equal. Now, take the side of the memory index tables and explode them for all this new mega ram on our current architecture, and your system will actually be slightly slower, yet capable of more..

Anyways... just be careful what you state, there is enough misleading information on the net already

 

If I were to play with Vista...it would probably be the 64-bit version as well. But I am currently tied to a 32-bit CPU so I will actually be more likely to move on to Vista's successor than use Vista itself.

What pyro mentioned is interesting. I remember reading about how the 64-bit computing revolution was going to be big...but this was years back. I think it will be some time before 64-bit becomes mainstream. There are many who have yet to try XP because what they have still works. There are early adopters and the rest of the market. I think the rest of the market will take a while to switch...until they need a new system.

 

Do you mean "There are many who have yet to try 'Vista' because..."

 

I'm happy as a clam with my XP Pro and Vista Business upgrade coupon.

 

I love xp pro, i just wish there was a way to get DX10 on there.

 

Well from what Microsoft is saying, DX10 will never come to XP (assuming that it even comes out before Vista starts shaping up)

 

But there are at least 2 groups of talented programmers working at porting it to xp (and linux).

 

DX10 will come with the GeForce Go 8600 which will be in the new Compal IFL90 that should be shipping by the 2nd week of June.

 

http://www.fallingleafsystems.com/compatibility/

 

Yeah theres that, and the people who make Wine for linux.

 

Do you know if Cedega is going to support DX10?

 

Cedega hasn't really supported anything but WoW for the last 10 months or so.. I'm not sure what you will see from them at this point..

 

WoW? Ouch. All I used to do is play starcraft with it but I haven't tried any gaming lately other than some native games.

 

--Off topic warning--
Speaking of starcraft... starcraft 2 has finally been announced. Anyone else as excited as I am?
On topic...
errr vista blah blah baaaaddd XP gooooooooddd boooaahh

 

Yeah, not that I'm trying to get off topic, but I quit my account when they announced a "gaming party" where you could play the dev's and whatnot of Cedega in BF2142... Very cool!

The catch? The game isn't supported (they recommended you boot to your XP partition for the even), and had been ignored for 8 months even though each month way more then needed votes + sponsor cash had been given to promote the game to the devs... Each month all they had in their news letter was WoW stuff, when burning crusades came out it was even worse..

 

I think this will be my hardest choice when I get my next laptop. I don't really want Vista but I don't really want XP since it won't be supported in a few years. -_- I guess there is always linux. =P
Tim

 

true tim very true
but i guess going with vista when one buys a new laptop seems like the only or mostly the logical thing to do
though there is XP around Vista will eventually take over but hopefully after SP1 it will be way more stabl than at presnt....provided that all the problems and bugs are accounted for....but then again what is windows without bugs and crashes eh?

 

You do know the name "Windows" really came from the desire to throw your computer gear through the window because of the headaches right?

 

The original name for Microsoft was Traf-o-Data company.

 

i'll probably get vista atleast to try it out


...and in regards to the next windows coming out in a couple of years? I believe that is what they said about the original vista/longhorn but it ended up taking another whole 3-5 years to release it

 

This poll has been interesting to watch... I'm not sure if anyone else has really paid attention, but it seems that several votes for either given choice seem to come in small clusters...

 

I wonder what the "Do you prefer [Vista successor] or Vista?" thread/poll will look like...

 

Microsoft extends downgrade rights for Vista Business and Ultimate OEM versions. Meaning you can get your laptop with either of these and legally install XP so you retain the rights to install Vista in the future if you want.

http://download.microsoft.com/downl...9d-4996-b198-7b9d3fe15611/downgrade_chart.doc