Vista / XP - which one you choose?

[Boyboy]

Is time to annual computer clean up...
Using xp sp2 now... but thinking should I upgrade to Vista?
p.s. My computer has enough power to use Vista, just worry software and hardware compatibility

[hightech]

Stick with XP and install SP3 when it is released (not the Beta 2 version)

[willy]

How about both (dual boot) ?

[rogeryen]

if you have doubts then just stay with xp.
I now have vista on both my laptop and desktop, they work pretty fine.

[Amuse]

Vista on my new system. I like it

[bargain4me]

Vista is still a work in progress, but getting better. If you have a decent newer PC, might as well take the plunge. I fine it's only hard finding drivers for older hardware.

[snplow]

Hmm, Vista can be nice with certain tweaks if you get beyond the Home Basic Version. The Alt-Tab now features a preview of each window, and with a reg edit, you can get the windows to be a little bit bigger. Also, if you have any Logitech input device (mouse/keyboard) with Setpoint installed, you can get it to kinda mimic OS X's Expose (I have Setpoint map the middle scroll wheel button to Alt+Shift+Tab which brings up the Alt Tab menu with the larger preview thumbnails and it will stay there [without you holding down the keys] until you click the window you want or click outside the menu).

That being said, there are some driver issues. My internet was extremely slow after a Windows Update (took me forever to find out that its better to roll back the drivers) and my sound does not come out properly on my SB Live! Value until I had to do some funky stuff (tell the comp I have a 7.1 surround system and disable all the speakers except for the L and R...)

[board123]

All of my machines run Vista SP1 with no problems. I'm one of those Vista guys.

[phucyall]

If you have to ask (meaning you are not a hopeless Vista fanboy) then stick to XP. The eye candy in Vista is not worth the terrible problems associated with it.

You know there are problems with OS when Microsoft officially pulls SP1 from automatic updates because it just breaks the OS even more then it already is.

Microsoft pushed out a sub par product that was about a year short of complete development (if it was finished, it would still be sub par, just less buggy). Now they rushed out SP1 and instead of improving the functionality of an unfinished product they just tried to patch up holes.

[Zertz]

Vista works perfectly if you have atleast 2GB of RAM and a decent CPU.

[board123]

You know there are problems with OS when Microsoft officially pulls SP1 from automatic updates because it just breaks the OS even more then it already is.
It was one of the SP1 prerequisite installers causing problems, not SP1 itself. The official release for SP1 was in March, and still is. People who are running SP1 right now got it through other means.

[AcidBomber]

Personally I enjoy Vista better, for the looks and user-friendly features. :razz:

[skuric]

My laptop came with Vista, and I had no problems with it BUT I could not justify the ~700MB idle usage. So I switched to XP... I don't game on this laptop or need any special apps so the only real difference for me was that I have more RAM now, which is great.

When MS stops supporting XP I'm switching to Linux once and for all. Even though Vista runs fine on my hardware, I admire developers who go for the less bloated, community-driven and lightweight route. I think Einstein's quote applies here:

"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction."

[gordholio]

Vista works perfectly if you have atleast 2GB of RAM and a decent CPU.

The thing is that you shouldn't need to have 2 GB of memory to run an operating system to do basic things. I had Vista Home Premium installed (legitimate disc) and even with 4 GB of memory it was not that fast. I eventually bought a legitimate copy of XP and it does run faster and I like it better. I do keep my theme - Royale, but I turn off some of the special effects like fading windows and other stuff that slows things down.
I have also disabled the unnecessary services in XP to speed things up.
One of the things besides the speed issue with Vista that I didn't like, was not being able to change the taskbar to a colour other than black (without downloading another theme that totally changed everything).
I found the black very depressing. I like the nice blue in XP much better.

[board123]

One of the things besides the speed issue with Vista that I didn't like, was not being able to change the taskbar to a colour other than black (without downloading another theme that totally changed everything).
I found the black very depressing. I like the nice blue in XP much better.
First time I've heard this. I personally think XP looks like ass (both Luna and Royale) compared to Aero. When I used to use XP, I had a Windowblinds theme that looked somewhat like Aero. That was way before Vista even came out, by the way.

I guess it's hard to please everyone.

[movieman]

I'd say upgrading from XP to Vista is like upgrading from Windows 98 to Windows ME...

[ASharp]

I'm on the side of Vista as well. Been using it for quite a while now (almost a year I guess?) and I couldn't be happier. Honestly, I think either operating system is good but if you're going to choose one, might as well make it Vista. Crappy reasoning, I know.

[Lone_Prodigy]

I bought a laptop with Vista, and while it was nice and pretty to look at, after a couple months it was starting to grate on me. For example, most of the program shortcuts I pin to the Start Menu don't work. Sometimes, Firefox won't start, requiring a reboot. There are other things as well, but in the end I just decided to go back to XP. I do sometimes miss the ability to Alt-Tab to Desktop though.

The problems with Vista seem to vary from PC to PC. I know one guy who has Vista and Office 2007: Word 2007 literally takes 5 minutes to boot up and crashes often.

[gordholio]

First time I've heard this. I personally think XP looks like ass (both Luna and Royale) compared to Aero. When I used to use XP, I had a Windowblinds theme that looked somewhat like Aero. That was way before Vista even came out, by the way.

I guess it's hard to please everyone.

Actually, if you search the internet you'll find that many people have been wondering how to change the colour of the Vista taskbar from black to a different colour. Quite a few people don't like it.
I don't want to install something like Windowblinds to do it though and change everything.
Anyways, I went back to XP for more important reasons than just the black taskbar. Speed was the biggest issue; even with lots of memory, Vista seemed sluggish compared to XP.

[skuric]

I bought a laptop with Vista, and while it was nice and pretty to look at, after a couple months it was starting to grate on me. For example, most of the program shortcuts I pin to the Start Menu don't work. Sometimes, Firefox won't start, requiring a reboot. There are other things as well, but in the end I just decided to go back to XP. I do sometimes miss the ability to Alt-Tab to Desktop though.

The problems with Vista seem to vary from PC to PC. I know one guy who has Vista and Office 2007: Word 2007 literally takes 5 minutes to boot up and crashes often.

To go to the desktop quickly, you can just hit Windows + D. I do it all the time even though it's not as good as Linux's "Show Desktop" button on the bottom left of the screen, which just requires a click.

[board123]

Sometimes, Firefox won't start, requiring a reboot.
That's a known issue where Firefox "closes," but doesn't actually close. You go in task manager and kill the firefox.exe process. Then everything is good.

Unless your problem is a different one, this is not a Vista problem as it happens on XP as well.


To go to the desktop quickly, you can just hit Windows + D. I do it all the time even though it's not as good as Linux's "Show Desktop" button on the bottom left of the screen, which just requires a click.
Windows has that feature too. It's in Quick Launch. This feature has been there since Windows 98, I believe.

[blahs]

dual boot is the way to go.

If you're a big downloader and transfer/unrar a lot of stuff on your computer then use XP. Vista transfers files incredibly slow for some reason. Many times it couldn't even estimate a finish time for it.

[Zertz]

The thing is that you shouldn't need to have 2 GB of memory to run an operating system to do basic things.

Same could be said about XP when it launched. You shouldn't need to have 512MB/1GB of memory when you can run Windows 98/2000 with 256MB. I like to call this "evolution". You know, 1GB now is cheaper than 512MB when XP launched.

Other arguments are somewhat justified, but I just can't stand the memory argument. Windows 95 must be MUCH better, you only need 32MB of RAM! What about MSDOS 6.22? It probably runs with less than 4MB! Those 2 OS are clearly the best.




Windows has that feature too. It's in Quick Launch. This feature has been there since Windows 98, I believe.

I'm pretty sure it's in Windows 95!

[board123]

Same could be said about XP when it launched. You shouldn't need to have 512MB/1GB of memory when you can run Windows 98/2000 with 256MB. I like to call this "evolution". You know, 1GB now is cheaper than 512MB when XP launched.

Other arguments are somewhat justified, but I just can't stand the memory argument. Windows 95 must be MUCH better, you only need 32MB of RAM! What about MSDOS 6.22? It probably runs with less than 4MB! Those 2 OS are clearly the best!
XP is actually supposed to run with just 128 MB, but you don't see anyone doing that because it's slow as molasses. People run it with a minimum of 1 GB these days. That's 8x as much as the "recommended" amount. 2 GB makes it 16x the recommended amount. To top it all off, XP is supposed to work with a 300 MHz processor.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/upgrading/sysreqs.mspx

1 GB is recommended for Vista, while most people run will 2 GB and a few people will run 4 GB. That's only 2x and 4x the recommended amount, respectively. Any system that's slightly above the recommended specs will run Vista smoothly. You can't say that about XP.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/editions/systemrequirements.mspx

In a sense, XP was even more ahead of its time, memory wise, than Vista is right now. Yet when XP came out, people hopped on the bandwagon and made like bandits. Now that something new has come along, they refuse to jump off the XP bandwagon and will do everything in their power to keep Vista from being adopted.

[ShadowVlican]

i choose XP because i've been using it for years and it works great

i'll likely switch over to vista when games force me onto it

[Goonish]

Just recently switched a new computer I got over the Christmas break to XP from Vista. I am extremely happy with the transformation. I had all sorts of basic operating issues that were just unacceptable at all. I will probably never go back to Vista.

To give you an idea of what XP can run on... I had XP on a P2 266mHz computer with 320mb of ram for about 2 years and she ran like a champ. Good enough for an internet and downloading machine. The machine originally came with Windows 98 when I got it back in... 1998... I had some issues with 98 and eventually upgraded to Windows 2000. Windows 2000 was the greatest operating system to ever run on my P2 machine so it took me quite awhile to upgrade to XP.

I did have a short experiment with Windows ME on that computer as well. Right after a fresh install, it blue screened on me. After about two days of usage and about a dozen more blue screens, I formatted the thing and went back 98.

[neptunestar]

i have had both xp and vista systems. personally i prefer xp. while vista has numerious improvements and features to it, most of these are visually appealing bells and whistles that take up a lot of system resources. xp however has be iterated several times and with the arrival of sp3 should make it to be more reliable and safer operating system than vista. also i persoanlly like the xp's look of it and its simplicity over vista's appearance.

if you are into games and playing any of the direct x 10 games and a card to run it at high resoulution then that would probably the only reason i would recommend vista else stay with xp.

[klam]

This doesn't sound that optimistic for Vista! I was planning to upgrade my system soon and was wondering the same thing XP or Vista.

[RLP06]

I love vista, its so pretty (not being sarcastic)

[pitz]

The Vista updates this past week have improved stability dramatically on my laptop. Crashes of the Vista Aero desktop are almost gone.

In the past 6 months, Vista has sure come a long ways. My laptop is actually usable as a business tool now -- not just a glorified toy that I wanted to throw out the window.

[St00pid]

Fu.ck vista, unless you're into the whole dropping of FPS in games.

[izzyzz]

XP will be faster than Vista under ANY circumstances.

If all you're doing is Internet browsing, email and word processing, you should be fine with Vista. If you're playing games or doing any type of development work, stay awa from it.

Personally, I had nothing but headaches with Vista (I am a web developer) and it was gone from my PC in a week.

[theguyz]

XP for business as most specialized software doesn't support Vista yet ( year afterwards :( )

Vista for students or people who word process, internet.

XP for gamers

[rogeryen]

One thing on Vista that bothers me a lot is that I can never get the icon for "Send to Desktop" shortcuts to change(WC3 pigon loader to the TFT icon), but the shortcuts created by the installers are fine. Anyone know how to fix that?

[Menace]

But but..

http://blog.wired.com/monkeybites/2008/02/vista-sp1-may-r.html

The first Service Pack release for Windows Vista is just around the corner and by all accounts it brings a number of improvements, however, you may need to upgrade some your third-party software before it will run smoothly.

Microsoft has released a list of application with known problems in Vista SP1. Luckily, for the most part, there are updates available for most of the applications which address the issues and should have you back up and running in no time.

The most prominent of the apps the won’t work under Vista SP1 are security application suites like those from Trend Micro and Zone Alarm, but other popular apps, like the New York Times Reader, are also on the list.

Keep in mind that Microsoft admits the list isn’t comprehensive and there may be problems with other apps as well. The company recommends restarting Vista if you experience problems. If that doesn’t work, your best bet is to see if the vender has released a new version.

If you want some idea of the web’s negativity toward Vista, have a look at the coverage of this list of applications — nearly everything you read finds some way to spin this against Vista. But an OS upgrade breaking third party apps is hardly unique to Vista, OS X and Linux often suffer the same problems.

If you do plan to upgrade to Vista SP1 when it’s released, consider it a good time to upgrade your third party apps as well, which should make the process as seamless as possible.





The Vista updates this past week have improved stability dramatically on my laptop. Crashes of the Vista Aero desktop are almost gone.

[optimum]

Vista on my main system. Xp on the EEE

[Lone_Prodigy]

To go to the desktop quickly, you can just hit Windows + D. I do it all the time even though it's not as good as Linux's "Show Desktop" button on the bottom left of the screen, which just requires a click.

Wow I never knew that. Thanks. I do have the "Show Desktop" icon on the Quick Launch bar as well. :)


That's a known issue where Firefox "closes," but doesn't actually close. You go in task manager and kill the firefox.exe process. Then everything is good.

Unless your problem is a different one, this is not a Vista problem as it happens on XP as well.

It happens when I start up the computer and login. I try to kill the process and it doesn't work either.

[Amourek]

The question is does Vista offer any compelling reason to be chosen over XP? No.

[hamdude_1234]

if vista is supposed to be better now after sp1... then why do i get blue screen of death????? last time it happend all i was doing was disabling the 3 out of 4 monitors i have to play a game.. when i went to restart... blue screen...

wtf??? i think my machine is possessed.....

[HughG]

I actually think Vista is pretty good.
I have a Q6700 cpu with 2 gb of ram.

Its smooth.

[billccwu]

Personally, the network speed on Vista is what killed it for me...it isn't even comparable to XP. And for some reason, the sidebar would consume CPU at ~10% constantly, horrible on the battery life for notebooks.

[TurboVolvo]

I've gone to Vista a few months ago and haven't looked back ever since.

Then again, I'm just an average home user, I don't have any special software or hardware. Also unlike others, I haven't noticed any drastic performance loss in gaming.

[chinmoku_tak]

I think we are gonna have the same conversation with windows 7 comes out

[Ojam]

Standard Criticism of Vista:


Critics have claimed that the default Windows (Vista) user interface (Aero) adds visual clutter and wastes screen space while offering no new functionality and running more slowly. Supporters of the new interface praise its task-oriented nature and the automatic grouping of related windows on the taskbar, and automatic hiding of unused system tray icons, to reduce clutter, and point out that the higher nominal system requirements of Windows (Vista) allow it to easily handle the increased processing demand. By changing the start menu and turning off theming it is possible to return to the Windows Classic interface.

Vista Criticism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Windows_XP#User_interface_and_perform ance)

[Justin]

I've been running Vista since August. I've had no problems worth complaining about. I would not go back to XP.

[Smoked]

Standard Criticism of Vista:



Vista Criticism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Windows_XP#User_interface_and_perform ance)


hm... if you have a dual-core with +1GB memory it should be fine.

[gordholio]

If Microsoft just did 2 things to Vista, I would probably go back to it.

1. Allow the user to change the colour scheme (on the taskbar). I don't like having to use black.
2. Make it less bloated - speed it up drastically.

Other than those major things, it seemed to work fine.
My friend bought a computer with Vista Home Premium on it and 1 GB of memory and it is painfully slow just to do very basic tasks.

[gordholio]

If Microsoft just did 2 things to Vista, I would probably go back to it.

1. Allow the user to change the colour scheme (on the taskbar). I don't like having to use black.
2. Make it less bloated - speed it up drastically.

Other than those major things, it seemed to work fine.
My friend bought a computer with Vista Home Premium on it and 1 GB of memory and it is painfully slow just to do very basic tasks.

[Ojam]

:arrowu:

Right click on desktop :arrow: Personalize :arrow: Windows Colour and appearance.

[stormy13]

If Microsoft just did 2 things to Vista, I would probably go back to it.

1. Allow the user to change the colour scheme (on the taskbar). I don't like having to use black.


:arrowu:

Right click on desktop :arrow: Personalize :arrow: Windows Colour and appearance.

But that would be too easy. Or you can go one step further and just like in XP use a uxtheme patch,

http://www.winmatrix.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=11742 - pre SP1

http://www.winmatrix.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=11742 - SP1

and use any Vista theme you want. I use a theme where the task bar and the title bar stay transparent, unlike the default Aero where they go black (or whatever color you have selected) when a window is maximized.



My friend bought a computer with Vista Home Premium on it and 1 GB of memory and it is painfully slow just to do very basic tasks.

Tell him to uninstall (or at least stop most of it from running in msconfig) most of the pre-loaded crap on it.

[gordholio]

:arrowu:

Right click on desktop :arrow: Personalize :arrow: Windows Colour and appearance.

Thanks, but that doesn't change the taskbar from black, just the windows when they're not maximized. I've looked all over the web and nobody can do it unless they change to a 3rd party theme and I don't want to do that because it changes other parts of Vista that I don't want changed.
Anyways, the speed would have to be improved quite a bit as well.

[gordholio]

But that would be too easy. Or you can go one step further and just like in XP use a uxtheme patch,

http://www.winmatrix.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=11742 - pre SP1

http://www.winmatrix.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=11742 - SP1

and use any Vista theme you want. I use a theme where the task bar and the title bar stay transparent, unlike the default Aero where they go black (or whatever color you have selected) when a window is maximized.



Tell him to uninstall (or at least stop most of it from running in msconfig) most of the pre-loaded crap on it.

It's okay, he's going to get XP Pro. But thanks. I would have to do it, since he doesn't know much about computers.
I disabled a lot of startup programs and services when I had Vista and still found it sluggish. I do this with XP and it's fast.
I will probably go to Vista or whatever the new Windows OS is called after that (hopefully it's much leaner) in a few years.

[chinmoku_tak]

It's okay, he's going to get XP Pro. But thanks. I would have to do it, since he doesn't know much about computers.
I disabled a lot of startup programs and services when I had Vista and still found it sluggish. I do this with XP and it's fast.
I will probably go to Vista or whatever the new Windows OS is called after that (hopefully it's much leaner) in a few years.

I don't get it, why not spend less money today to get more memoy and run vista?? why would you spend more money to have xp??? We are gonna have the same conversation when win7 comes out, and people are gonna say "stick with vista!!"

[Gevaltech]

Wanted to resurrect this thread due to my new (refurb) HP that I just got. I had been frustrated with the ever slowing pace of my 3 yr old Dell and found that to upgrade the RAM and hard drive would cost as much as this "new" HP AMD Dual Core 5000+ with 3Gb ram and 500gb HD.

But, although I enjoy the look of Vista -- the cool display of windows etc., I'm finding that internet is really slow, especially switching between tabs in IE7. I'm also having many problems downloading small doc attachments from gmail.

For all the power under the hood, I'm disappointed that the speed of this is almost as bad as my old Dell on XP. Are there any fixes for this or should I try to change over to XP or should I just return the whole damn machine?

Suggestions anyone????

[gordholio]

I don't get it, why not spend less money today to get more memoy and run vista?? why would you spend more money to have xp??? We are gonna have the same conversation when win7 comes out, and people are gonna say "stick with vista!!"

I just installed more memory, but his computer will only take 2 GB. Even with 2 GB of memory, Vista is still slower than XP. Supposedly, XP will be supported until 2014 from what I've read. I will disable some useless services and turn off network folders - that might speed things up a bit.
He doesn't use his computer that much, so I agree that buying XP would be a waste. I'm trying to sway him to just stick with Vista.

[Rocky03]

Vista is fine if you have the hardware to go with it. Since it's your anual cleanup; give it a try.

[blainehamilton]

Just dumped the Vista Home Premium on my Toshiba laptop and went back to XP Pro. (upgraded from the stock XP Home)

Vista will run fine, comparable to XP on high end hardware, but is still noticeably slower. The eye candy is nice, but not worth the delays for me.

Here's what I have noted immediately after the fallback:

Internet is bloody fast with XP, in IE and Firefox. Vista seems to lag between pages.

File transfers, saving, copies, are quick in XP, Vista seems to take forever to move files to/from external USB devices, like flash cards, usb sticks, and especially USB hard drives. Making a copy of a large file takes significantly longer on Vista.

XP is familiar. I love the XP start menu, Especially the functionality of the All Programs popup. The integrated All Programs in the Vista start menu and having to scroll to find your program just sucks ass.

Vista is pretty with the Aero interface, but XP is just as nice, in a simpler way. Kind of like comparing a supermodel with the girl next door. Both can be hot, but the supermodel is all painted up, and is higher maintenance. :)

My drivers for my current devices actually work in XP. I have a 3 year old top of the line HP Wireless All In One. The software works in Vista, but crashes after a hibernate/resume. No problems in XP.

After a 4GB ram upgrade, and no noticeable improvement in Vista thanks to the 3GB memory limitation, I realize XP is the way to go for now.

Just for reference my system is:

T2500
4GB ram (up from 1GB)
250GB 5400rpm (up from 120GB)
7600 GeforceGo

My wife's system, which I used for a couple of hours and decided to roll back to XP, since it was so much more fluid:

T2300
2GB ram (up from 512MB)
100GB 5400rpm
Intel GMA950


Go back to or stay with XP. You'll be happier. Not to say Vista isn't good. XP is still better.

[Kurtz7834]

Vista is much slower than XP on anything but a hugely fast rig, and offers really no benefits over XP other than arguably security. It has a host of problems that XP does not.

If you can choose, stick with XP.

[CodecX81]

How to convert windows 2003 into a workstation (http://win2k3.msfn.org/)

Pros:
- Works more efficiently than XP, uses less memory by default
- Capable of going beyond the 2-3gb memory limit
- Drivers are mostly XP, unless there is a specific 2003 driver.
- Gaming/HTPC Performance is on par with XP
- Almost everything written for XP will install successfully

Cons:
some "workstation-specific" applications won't work, such as .. Norton Home Antivirus etc..
older programs might have to be run in compatibility mode (or just turn DEP off)
poorly coded progams (shareware, etc) might have limited functionality.

I've been running this setup for a few months now..I'm thinking of building my new PC with 2003 as my OS.

There's a program out there called TweakNT 1.21, which allows you to 'fake out' the OS, making you able to trick it into temporarily thinking its XP Home.. From there you can install stuff like SLi or Crossfire support--which is disabled in the Windows Server OS's) or as an alternative to getting a particular program to install.

Its a little bothersome but its also challenging if you are into that sorta stuff. :)

If you want the benefits of a 64bit OS but not willing to take the performance sacrifice of Vista64 and are willing to work a little extra harder for it.. This might be for YOU.

[akbar_k]

WinXP is a real upgrade from Win98. It has a better network stack, better USB support, and is more stable.

Windows Vista is not an upgrade. It offers nearly nothing but the new-car-smell and is buggy and requires too much hardware to run.

Vista's high memory requirements are ridiculous because it only supports up to 3.5 GB of usable memory, even if you can stick in 4 GB and make it boot. There is no where to go grow, in 2 years you still will not be able to put in 8 GB.

The real next OS will have to be 64bit. What we have today with Vista is a system that is already maxxed out with the current generation of hardware. It's obsolete at the starting gate.

[akbar_k]

How to convert windows 2003 into a workstation (http://win2k3.msfn.org/)

Pros:
- Works more efficiently than XP, uses less memory by default
- Capable of going beyond the 2-3gb memory limit
- Drivers are mostly XP, unless there is a specific 2003 driver.
- Gaming/HTPC Performance is on par with XP
- Almost everything written for XP will install successfully

Cons:
some "workstation-specific" applications won't work, such as .. Norton Home Antivirus etc..
older programs might have to be run in compatibility mode (or just turn DEP off)
poorly coded progams (shareware, etc) might have limited functionality.

I've been running this setup for a few months now..I'm thinking of building my new PC with 2003 as my OS.

There's a program out there called TweakNT 1.21, which allows you to 'fake out' the OS, making you able to trick it into temporarily thinking its XP Home.. From there you can install stuff like SLi or Crossfire support--which is disabled in the Windows Server OS's) or as an alternative to getting a particular program to install.

Its a little bothersome but its also challenging if you are into that sorta stuff. :)

If you want the benefits of a 64bit OS but not willing to take the performance sacrifice of Vista64 and are willing to work a little extra harder for it.. This might be for YOU.

Great post; very interesting. Are there any benefits to using this over WinXP 64? Thanks.

[CodecX81]

Great post; very interesting. Are there any benefits to using this over WinXP 64? Thanks.

WinXP-64 is an unsupported piece of crap that has way more limitations.. :)

Think of it this way.

Windows XP = most hardware made after '99 will have an XP driver associated with it. Thats a lot of hardware & most compatible.

2003 has a medium-to-high compatibility with most XP drivers. I got my Turtle Beach Santa Cruz soundcard installed on my 'server' as a 2ndary card, just so I can have movies playing without hearing MSN bleeps. The driver was last updated in 2004. It did work with Vista32, but... I don't want a 32bit OS..


The only programs that have caused me problems are:

Partition Magic -- not intended to be used with server software
WinTax--a crappily coded freeware program that helps me calculate payroll data.

Everything else I either found a server version for, or it worked the same as it did in XP. Including games.

One of my favorite games "Mount&Blade (http://www.taleworlds.com/)" beautifully in 2003...It has problems with Vista.

I even saw a 2-3fps increase in Oblivion & Bioshock. My system is aging, so it doesn't play these games very well.. I know that 2-3fps isn't MUCH but, its something! :)

XP64..(edit..All 64bit OS's) have a completely different playing field.. Most regular programs still work, but drivers have to be written differently for it, and any software that talks directly to the OS... such as antivirus, burning software, defragging software.. etc. all need to be written specifically for 64bit as well.

You end up doing a lot of hunting to find everything you need.. and even then, you end up with something that doesn't feel like its completely optimized...or you are able to find everything you need.. and then finally go look for something simple.. like a driver for your printer, only to discover that its either non-existent, or still in Beta form..

Believe me.. I've spent a month working with Vista and Vista64. I'll migrate over to it once I see the need. Until then, I'll stay in the "XP" platform as long as it works for me. :)

[blainehamilton]

Believe me.. I've spent a month working with Vista and Vista64. I'll migrate over to it once I see the need. Until then, I'll stay in the "XP" platform as long as it works for me.


Yup. There was a reason people were running Win98 right up until mid/late 2002. It worked.

[board123]

Win98 was a piece of crap even compared to XP RTM.

[AirBosh]

Win98 was a piece of crap even compared to XP RTM.

I concur. I should add Windows ME was worst then 98...

[satcom]

If you have a fast CPU (Core 2 Duo or X2) and more than 2gb of ram I'd definitely get Vista.

[loudsubz]

I gave up on both and went with Linux. Running PCLinuxOS right now and couldn't be happier. A little intimidating at first to setup things beyond the GUI, but once you get around that its great.

[blainehamilton]

Back up and running on XP Pro on my laptop. All the toys, apps, AV software and such.

It is so fast compared to Vista. Like night and day. Go back to XP, you won't regret it...

[gordholio]

If you have a fast CPU (Core 2 Duo or X2) and more than 2gb of ram I'd definitely get Vista.

Why? If XP is working fine, where's the need to change?