Windows Vista vs Windows XP

[Red Dog]

I have been running Windows XP pro. for about 5 years now. I am building a
new system and I am considering Windows Vista for a operating system. Are
there advantages to Vista over XP? What is the best version of Vista? Any
advise would be appreciated. Thanx

 

[Carey Frisch [MVP]]

Windows Vista was designed for the latest hardware
and would be the best choice for your new computer.
Either Vista Home Premium or Ultimate would be the
preferred versions of Vista for your new computer.

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows Shell/User

---------------------------------------------------------------

:

I have been running Windows XP pro. for about 5 years now. I am building a
new system and I am considering Windows Vista for a operating system. Are
there advantages to Vista over XP? What is the best version of Vista? Any
advise would be appreciated. Thanx

 

[On the Bridge! \(An MVP upgrade\)]

this is the best advice: get a 4 core with 4 gigs and get vista ultimate
with downgrade rights to xp (you will be entitled to an XP pro disk along
with the vista one)

that way you have best of both worlds, in case you think vista stinks.. you
can downgrade to xp without paying anything extra.

you can also do this with vista business.. but this depends on where you buy
your pc from, so ask before you buy.

 

[Bob Campbell]

this is the best advice: get a 4 core with 4 gigs and get vista ultimate

If you go this route then be sure you get 64 bit Vista. 32 bit won't be
able to use all 4 gigs of RAM, along with other 32 bit limitations. Yes,
all of your old 32 bit apps will work fine.

 

[On the Bridge! \(An MVP upgrade\)]

what you say about the ram is true..

but here is my thoughts about this

get 4 gigs of ram even though only the 3 will be visible from a 32 bit OS.
You do this because in the future 64 bit will be mainstream. However
using 64 bit now is not advised since many hardware drivers do not come in
64 bit and even simple programs like adobe flash dont come out in 64 bit.

in any case whatever Vista you get, you are entitled to the 64 bit version
for free or at a minimal cost of the shiping and handling cost of MS to send
you the media.
If you get ulimate retail both disks are in the box.

(stupid box by the way) lol

 

[Canuck57]

I have been running Windows XP pro. for about 5 years now. I am building a
new system and I am considering Windows Vista for a operating system. Are
there advantages to Vista over XP? What is the best version of Vista?
Any
advise would be appreciated. Thanx

Vista does not seem to offer too many purely technical advantages that I can
see except perhaps for you can get a 64 bit version. Unlike XP Pro x64, you
can actually buy Vista 64 bit boxed. Given the OS base footprint of memory,
and you are building, 4GB minimum and leave the extra memory slots open for
4GB more.

The next part of Vista I like is with Mail (Outlook Express is now mail).
Other than a quirk in the keyboard mapping that pops up once and awhile, it
seems to have some kind of spam filtering capabilities. Also nice now that
spell check is part of Mail.

After that it is visual. I do like the glass-aero interface, lots of show,
looks nice.

Being a Premium 64 bit user of Vista, I have not had any issues I can
attribute to being 64 bit. This is good.

Now for the ugly. It is noticeably slower than XP, slower to copy files in
and out on the network, slower to copy large files disk to disk. Just plain
slower and is very much noticeable. It isn`t the hardware either, the newer
Vista machine is 4 processors, each much faster than the XP ones. Drives on
Vista are SATA 150, on XP they are ATA 133. By rights, Vista should be
faster but is plain slow.

There are bugs. After viewing emails newsgroups, some keys on the lower
right of the keyboard don`t display correctly, the question mark is hosed,
quotes go wrong and I have to quit-restart mail to get it to work. Little
bugs like this abound.

Premium should be called Basic. It is missing stuff like the policy editor.
So if you wanted to do something like mount a SMB share from Samba, your
into hurt. I understand Ultimate has this, but I already thought I bought
an OS...

Me, if I had a legal copy of XP Pro 64 bit I would wipe Vista right off this
system right now. I have 8GB, so 64 bit has it`s merits for me. But am not
happy I can`t by XP Pro x64. (Might be able to lift a copy, but no my
style).

Dual boot is a PITA, if it can be done at all with OEM disks. But I haven`t
found a way. But suspect if you buy a full version of the disks you might
be able too. But I have yet to explore a bios feature my system has where I
can select disks. Perhaps this weekend if long overdue SP1 does good.

My other two MS-Windows systems that I have - one is XP MCE and the other XP
Pro. These will remain my main PCs until Vista is fixed. XP MCE and XP Pro
are both more stable, less bugs and run more effectively on the hardware -
period.

If you are loading Vista for a preview look you will not be disappointed.
But ready for production in business it is not. And it certainly isn`t for
everybody.

 

[idaspud]

I have been running Windows XP pro. for about 5 years now. I am building a
new system and I am considering Windows Vista for a operating system. Are
there advantages to Vista over XP? What is the best version of Vista? Any
advise would be appreciated. Thanx

If you wanna get the OH?, (Used to be WOW!), then get Vista Premium, Or
Ultimate. I have Ultimate, (Full ver), and like it. Have not had any big
problems with it. I clean installed and dual boot with XP, but rarely
boot to XP anymore I run it on a 3.0gb HT Intel, 320gb HD and started
with 1gb mem, which was ok, but upgraded to 2gb mem and it does well
with that. I have the crappy 915 chip set, so had to add a vid card to
get the "WOW".

Cheers

 

[Bob Campbell]

what you say about the ram is true..

but here is my thoughts about this

get 4 gigs of ram even though only the 3 will be visible from a 32 bit OS.
You do this because in the future 64 bit will be mainstream. However
using 64 bit now is not advised since many hardware drivers do not come in
64 bit and even simple programs like adobe flash dont come out in 64 bit.

64 bit driver support is vastly improved from a year ago. Even my 10 year
old HP LaserJet 4+ has a 64 bit driver. Lack of 64 bit Adobe Flash is not
an issue because 32 bit IE runs fine (and Firefox and others), along with
all existing 32 bit plugins. Besides, I normally disable Flash anyways - I
don't need animated ads on every friggin web page I go to. I only enable
it when absolutely necessary.

The future is here. Get 64 bit Vista now. Unless you have some ancient
parallel port scanner or something that has no driver (and likely has no 32
bit Vista driver either), then 64 bit is the way to go on Core 2 Duo and
Quad based systems. This Core 2 Quad system I have can take 8 GB RAM!
How am I going to use that with 32 bit Vista (or 32 bit anything for that
matter)?

 

[On the Bridge! \(An MVP upgrade\)]

some people play games.. how is your experience with 64 bit vista and games?

 

[PotsOn]

I have been running Windows XP pro. for about 5 years now. I am building
a
new system and I am considering Windows Vista for a operating system. Are
there advantages to Vista over XP? What is the best version of Vista?
Any
advise would be appreciated. Thanx

Vista "Ultimate" w/SP4 when it becomes available. Might be called Windows 7
by then however.

Cheers.

--
What does Bill Gates use?
http://tinyurl.com/2zxhdl

Proprietary Software: a 20th Century software business model.

Microsoft Is Watching YOU: http://tinyurl.com/2ptclh

 

[Bob Campbell]

If you are loading Vista for a preview look you will not be disappointed.
But ready for production in business it is not. And it certainly isn`t
for everybody.

Neither was XP in 2002. OS transitions take time. Everyone seems to
forget this because the 98/2000 to XP transition was so long ago. Everyone
forgets how XP was called "bloated, slow, nothing but 2000 with an ugly new
theme, slow, no drivers available, unbearably slow on my 4 year old computer
that ran 98 REALLY FAST, needs an absurd amount of hardware like a P4 2 GHz
with 512 megs RAM" etc., etc.

Now - 6 years later! - XP is The Greatest OS Ever and Vista is "bloated,
slow, nothing but XP with an ugly new theme, slow, no drivers available,
unbearably slow on my 4 year old computer that ran XP REALLY FAST, needs an
absurd amount of hardware like a Core 2 Quad 2.4 GHz with 2 GB RAM" etc.,
etc.

Hell, the EXACT SAME CRAP was said about Windows 95 - it needed a Pentium
100 and 8 megs RAM to be fast when everyone was running 386/486s with 2
megs! OMG!

It's called progress, folks. Lather, rinse, repeat. In another 18 months
this will all be forgotten.

 

[Frank]

Vista "Ultimate" w/SP4 when it becomes available. Might be called Windows 7
by then however.

Cheers.

Hey you crazy old man, give it up ok? They're looking for you at that
nut house you escaped from.
Go back, you need help you raving moron lunatic idiot...LOL!
Frank

 

[Bob Campbell]

some people play games.. how is your experience with 64 bit vista and
games?

Most games are for kids. I don't play too many games on my computer. I
have played the included Chess Titans. It works fine. Plus my own
Gomoku program that I wrote (in RealBASIC on Mac OS X). It works fine also.

 

[Admin]

Go w/ a dual core and Vista and your set!

Post Originated From www.VistaForums.com
Visit http://www.VistaForums.com For Windows Vista Support!

 

[On the Bridge! \(An MVP upgrade\)]

i dont play games either.. but thats why im asking..

 

[DanS]

64 bit driver support is vastly improved from a year ago. Even my 10
year old HP LaserJet 4+ has a 64 bit driver. Lack of 64 bit Adobe
Flash is not an issue because 32 bit IE runs fine (and Firefox and
others), along with all existing 32 bit plugins. Besides, I normally
disable Flash anyways - I don't need animated ads on every friggin web
page I go to. I only enable it when absolutely necessary.

Ads ? What ads ? I don't see any ads. Oh wait......

It's because I use Firefox with the AdBlockPlus extension.

AdBlockPlus works so well, there was actually someone here complaining
about it because their ads never get clicked.

And in their opinion, using AdBlockPlus to block ads on web pages was
'stealing'. LOL.

 

[Canuck57]

Neither was XP in 2002. OS transitions take time. Everyone seems to
forget this because the 98/2000 to XP transition was so long ago.
Everyone forgets how XP was called "bloated, slow, nothing but 2000 with
an ugly new theme, slow, no drivers available, unbearably slow on my 4
year old computer that ran 98 REALLY FAST, needs an absurd amount of
hardware like a P4 2 GHz with 512 megs RAM" etc., etc.

Me, didn't experience problems with XP to the same extent as Vista has
today. Transition was smooth. I waited a year then jumped in.

Now - 6 years later! - XP is The Greatest OS Ever and Vista is "bloated,
slow, nothing but XP with an ugly new theme, slow, no drivers available,
unbearably slow on my 4 year old computer that ran XP REALLY FAST, needs
an absurd amount of hardware like a Core 2 Quad 2.4 GHz with 2 GB RAM"
etc., etc.

LOL - some truth to it. But not all truth.

I have almost always, as this time bought much more faster hardware with ach
OS and this is the first time it is slower.

For example. Going from PIII 600Mhz 512K Windows 2000 Pro to a Centrino
1.73GHz 2GB XP Pro I saw an increase in speed.

Before that, going from Win 98 PII 200Mhz to a PIII 600Mhz Windows 2000 Pro
was faster.

Going from AMD X2 3800 3GB XP MCE to a Q6600 8GB I see a 20-30% hit. This
is a step backwards. I didn't by a single celeron did I? (Just checked,
Q6600, 4 procs) Heck, my Centrino 1.7GHz seems as fast in a network copy.

Vista is a performace hit so far. (Network copy and file copy specifically).
Hopefully SP1 fixes that.

 

[On the Bridge! \(An MVP upgrade\)]

It is stealing in some way if the site is ad-supported.
People who make sites offer get income from ads so they can pay for the
hosting and other expenses.

The same objection has come from television networks when technologies came
out that could edit out the commercials from a TV program.
this is not new..

 

[Bob Campbell]

Me, didn't experience problems with XP to the same extent as Vista has
today. Transition was smooth. I waited a year then jumped in.

Of course. Most people didn't have any problems either. I certainly
didn't. It's just the perpetual whiners who like to complain about
anything new.

Going from AMD X2 3800 3GB XP MCE to a Q6600 8GB I see a 20-30% hit. This
is a step backwards. I didn't by a single celeron did I? (Just checked,
Q6600, 4 procs) Heck, my Centrino 1.7GHz seems as fast in a network copy.

I went from a P4 3 GHz with 2 gigs RAM running XP to this Core 2 Quad with 4
gigs RAM running Vista 64 Ultimate. No comparison - Vista is miles ahead
of XP. And no, it wasn't a "6 year old install of XP so of course it was
slow". It was less than 18 months old because I bought new drives and
reinstalled.

Vista is a performace hit so far. (Network copy and file copy
specifically). Hopefully SP1 fixes that.

Vista is fine here. SP1 does speed up file copies - I've been running SP1
for a couple of weeks now. Post SP1 you will see more businesses starting
to move to Vista - just like with XP post SP1.

 

[ray]

I have been running Windows XP pro. for about 5 years now. I am
building a new system and I am considering Windows Vista for a operating
system. Are there advantages to Vista over XP? What is the best
version of Vista? Any advise would be appreciated. Thanx

I would suggest you spend some time browsing this news group. There are
few real advantages to vista and there seems to be a rather high
liklihood of significant problems. Several consultants, system builders
and sellers I know are advising clients against the purchase of vista
until more issues are settled - SP1 does not seem to be doing that much
good.