To upgrade from XP or not, that is the question

[Guest]

I am considering upgrading from XP Pro to Vista. I have a 3ghz P4 with 1gig
of memory. The upgrade advisor says I'm good to go.

Question: My reason for the upgrade woud not be the eye-candy, but rather
performance issues I am having with XP. I'm willing to put up with a few
bugs here and there. Question:

1) Is Vista speedy-enough to consider the upgrade an improvement over XP Pro
SP2,
2) If so, is it stable enough (within reason) to use on my primary machine
(I realize that MS has a disclaimer warning that it IS beta software).
3) Do the majority of programs from XP seem to run on Vista?
4) Is UPGRADE versus clean install a viable choice?
5) I use a pocket pc with WM5.0; any benefit/problems?

Thanks!

Paul

 

[Max]

1) No--in most cases (depends on the mucked up state of XP to which you
might compare it)
2) No.
3) No/Yes--'most' programs, yes--utilities, no.
4) Not a good choice (at this time) for stability
5) /Yes--it won't work at all. At the moment. At least not how you may be
used to with ActiveSync (ActiveSync will not install on the current Vista
release, and may not in the future).

 

[Guest]

I go along with Max. Not on your main machine unless you have a spare
partition with at least 20GB, then you could install it in dual-boot mode and
spend some spare time getting accustomed to it. Whatever you do, don't rely

 

[David R. Longnecker]

1. While I have noticed several performance gains in Vista over XP, a lot
of that could be perception as well. You're 1GB of memory is cutting it
a bit close with Vista, but it shouldn't be a problem. Turning off Aero
and the other "eye candy" as you mention would help with this (though I see
very little performance difference between Aero and regular "classic").

2. No. This is still Beta software. Do I believe it's stable and do I accomplish
productive tasks on it? Yes. Would I set this up for my parents, friends,
family as their primary machine? Heck no.

3. IMHO, Yes. So far, only HP Printer software seems thrown out to the dogs...
it doesn't like the UAC and cannot 'run as an administrator'. I haven't
found a better way around that than hacking around that and the old XP drivers.
Not pretty and hopefully something that will be fixed by RTM (by HP probably).

4. Mileage may vary. I'm a 'clean install' kinda guy, though I've heard
that it works quite well.

5. Can't answer that one, I use a Zire 71.

My 0.02$ is if you're looking for stability that you can bet your profession,
university, or even the kitchen recipes on, then I'd wait for RTM. If you're
interested in testing and making Vista a quality piece of software, then
back up your files, load it up, and give it a shot.

-dl