Vista or XP?

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Jubei
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Vista or XP?

Post by Jubei » Fri Mar 14, 2008 8:47 am

I am now finally building my new system around an Asus P5K-E Wifi and was wondering whether there is any point installing Windows Vista instead of XP at this point.

Thanks for any input!

thejamppa
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Post by thejamppa » Fri Mar 14, 2008 9:16 am

XP is mature, stable and compatible. Something Vista is not yet. Depending if you don't do much gaming or don't plan to go for Tri-Sli or CrossFireX (the extensive gaming ) I really do not see what good Vista has?

64-bit OS' (Vista, 64-bit XP ) can allocate more memory than 32-bit XP/Vista but also suffers lack of drivers and compatibility problems... Besides in two years there will be Windows 7. Just when Microsoft manages to fix their OS making it good and stable, they'll render it obsolete and make another, full of bugs and immature etc.

tehfire
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Post by tehfire » Fri Mar 14, 2008 9:34 am

It doesn't take a whole lot to run Vista, just a decent setup and a good amount of memory. I'm typing this on a Laptop running Vista with 3GB of memory -- works great. I do like the new interface (the layout, not just the eye candy) and the new features. It really is up to you, but I don't see any more bugs in Vista than I did in XP at this point. SP1 does help a lot.

Michael Sandstrom
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Post by Michael Sandstrom » Fri Mar 14, 2008 10:07 am

From my point of view Vista's added functionality is all negative. I refuse to deal with increased hardware requirements and added complexity that provides no benefit. I don't need everything on my system indexed into a search database because I already know where everything is. I have disk indexing disabled in Windows XP for speed.

I've used Vista enough to know that I prefer Windows XP. Several friends who bought new computers with Vista have downgraded to XP.

m^2
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Post by m^2 » Fri Mar 14, 2008 10:19 am

Don't buy Vista unless you know you can live with it. Many people seem to hate it and if you'll find yourself such person, buying Vista is a wast of time and money.

Michael Sandstrom
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Post by Michael Sandstrom » Fri Mar 14, 2008 10:36 am

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1 ... 003,00.asp

Check out this anti-Vista rant by Jim Lynch of Extreme Tech.

derekva
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Post by derekva » Fri Mar 14, 2008 10:59 am

Michael Sandstrom wrote:http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1 ... 003,00.asp

Check out this anti-Vista rant by Jim Lynch of Extreme Tech.
Jim Lynch has a very well-known anti-Microsoft bias. I'd take anything he says with a boulder-sized grain of salt. I've been running Vista (various versions on various hardware) for over a year without any issues:
  • Vista Ultimate on a T7200-based system (Desktop)
    Vista Ultimate on a T2300-based system (HTPC)
    Vista Home Premium on a T2300-based system (Wife's Laptop)
    Vista Enterprise on a T2400-based system (work laptop)
    Vista Enterprise x64 on a Athlon X2 5000-based system (work desktop)
All of these machines are running 2GB (or more in the case of the x64 system) of RAM, which you can buy for less than $40 these days. While the 'eye candy' of Vista is nice, the real benefit is what's under the covers. It is far more stable and secure than XP or even Server 2003. Yes, there have been driver issues, but how much of that onus falls on the hardware manufacturers (I'm looking at you, Creative Labs).

With regards to compatability, Vista has changed how programs can interact with the OS, which has broken some poorly written or implemented programs. This was done to make it harder for Vista to be compromised by programs doing bad / insecure things. Can it be a PITA if it happens to break a program you like? Yes, but I'd rather have to find a new version of an application than have it cause a buffer overflow or stack vulnerability which allows my computer and data to be compromised.

I guess it all comes down to what is important to you. :D

-D

p.s. and for the record, I have no issues with gaming in Vista - either on my current system, or my previous iteration (Opteron 175, 7600GT). Granted, the newer CPU and video card are way faster.

blaster5k
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Post by blaster5k » Fri Mar 14, 2008 12:26 pm

My experience with Vista has been pretty positive. Early on, I had to contend with numerous graphics driver issues, but they've been cleared up for a while now. It wasn't Microsoft's fault anyhow.

Vista has been just as stable as XP in my experience. It really is a better operating system, despite the comments from the Microsoft haters out there.

The only reason I can see NOT to use Vista at this point would be if you have an old system with less than 2GB of memory and no ability to upgrade it. Memory is dirt cheap these days, so Microsoft designed Vista to better take advantage of higher capacities. Performance should be better than XP when you have a lot of memory.

My only gripe with Vista is the activation. I've had a couple times where it failed for no good reason. I had to call Microsoft to get an activation code when I didn't even touch my hardware. Pretty absurd to deal with that nonsense.

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Post by m^2 » Fri Mar 14, 2008 2:46 pm

derekva wrote: It is far more stable and secure than XP or even Server 2003.
I was using Vista during 2 periods for total of c.a. 3 weeks. And I cannot confirm it's stability. I use XP for...much more. And cannot confirm it's instability. At least since SP1 it never crashed on my PC unless I was playing with kernel.
derekva wrote:With regards to compatability, Vista has changed how programs can interact with the OS, which has broken some poorly written or implemented programs. This was done to make it harder for Vista to be compromised by programs doing bad / insecure things. Can it be a PITA if it happens to break a program you like? Yes, but I'd rather have to find a new version of an application than have it cause a buffer overflow or stack vulnerability which allows my computer and data to be compromised.
Do you know what are you talking about? I think you don't. During these 3 weeks I found just 1 thing that can make it more secure - run as user. And found that all vulnerabilities I know in XP still exist there. I'd say that Vista is LESS secure than XP because users trust it more.

And I'm not a MS hater. It's just Vista.

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Post by Plekto » Fri Mar 14, 2008 3:59 pm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Vi ... ice_Pack_1
Mid-march 2008. This will make it halfway stable. Vista is to XP as ME was to 95/98. It's buggy as hell and a total waste of time. SP2 is coming out in a year or more.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_7
Early 2010. Total ground-up re-write. This is where all of Microsoft's efforts are going into, because this is as major of a change as Windows 2000 was from 95.

Microsoft actually planned on releasing it in 2009, but is debugging it and holding onto it for an extra year to not completely tank Vista sales. It's clear that the over one YEAR it took to even do basic fixes for Vista means it's backburnered.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Server_2008
This is the new toy right now. Essentially NT6.0 Clean, slick, fast, and probably what you want to be running once they get SP1 out, which should be in a few months. No, really. MS is getting killed in the server and IT market and so this is essentially Vista that works.

But it's pricey as hell and drivers are going to be tough to come by.

End result? XP Pro for now. Two years, get Windows 2007.
Last edited by Plekto on Sat Mar 15, 2008 11:47 am, edited 1 time in total.

Michael Sandstrom
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Post by Michael Sandstrom » Fri Mar 14, 2008 5:03 pm

Identifying Vista critics as "Microsoft haters" reminds me of efforts to label Iraq war critics as "Bush haters". Both of these types of comments are designed to distract from the real issues.

After trying Vista I gained a greater appreciation for Windows XP which has been completely stable since SP2. Most experienced users of XP do not have to deal with many security problems.

Although I don't hate MS, the company's recent operating systems have been disasters. Vista is largely panned by media technology writers as bloated, slow and buggy. Windows Home Server has been found to corrupt data. Initially MS blamed the corrupt data on a limited set of applications but new info reveals a more fundamental problem which will not be fixed until at least June.

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Post by Sizzle » Sat Mar 15, 2008 4:57 am

Vista 64 Ultimate on my beast Overkill. Works great. Only issues I am having is with the functionality in Asus Xonar drivers. We use it mainly has a HTPC.

Wife's machine Vista x86 Ultimate. She took to it right away. No learning curve. She picked Office 2007 up right away as well. We have her machine working with our 360 as our extender. Aside from turning on the 360 into MCE mode, I did not have to spend anytime teaching her how to use it.

At work I'm running Vista x86 Ultimate on this very TihnkPad R60 I'm typing on right now. No big issues. Exchange tools for 2003 won't load on it. I am running AD tools with some Exchange hacks, but if I have to do any real Exchange work to an account, I just RDP into a server with the Exchange tools loaded.

I think if you are running a machine with a Core 2 or a AM2 X2 or higher you'll be OK, you probably have relatively newer hardware surrounding it. Those of you clinging to that 5 year old scanner, forget it.

Disabling User Account Control right off the bat makes the ease of use of Vista go up quite a bit.

The Gangrel
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Post by The Gangrel » Mon Mar 17, 2008 11:58 am

I haven't used Vista a lot, but enough to know I don't appreciate the awfully annoying UAC and the fact it turns my 3 year old computers into snails. A 3 year old computer is not obsolete.

Go with Linux, a little time and effort and you'll be rewarded with an OS that works for you, rather than vice-versa. People bitch and moan about how hard Linux is, yet these same people will spend days/weeks *silencing* a computer...bizarre. Has anything worth doing ever been particularly easy?.

I'm hopeful the Microsoft monopoly is going to take a fair beating, if not fade away, what with innovation aproaching from all angles and the stench of Vista ever present.

Lythandra
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Post by Lythandra » Mon Mar 17, 2008 1:22 pm

I will be putting XP Pro on my new system. I'm not a vista hater but it just doesn't have anything that I want that XP doesn't already do.

I'd rather stick with a known OS that pretty much all software is stable with now than a newish one that not everything works with yet. Office 2007 works just fine of XP btw.

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Post by Erssa » Mon Mar 17, 2008 1:52 pm

Pick the faster one, XP. SP3 will be released this week at the same time as Vistas SP1.

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Post by FartingBob » Mon Mar 17, 2008 2:46 pm

Does anybody really think that windows 7 will be released anywhere near on schedule? It took them more than 5 years to release vista, and that wasnt as big job as Windows 7 appears to be.

tehfire
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Post by tehfire » Mon Mar 17, 2008 2:55 pm

I didn't really enumerate how I felt the first time I posted, so let me try one more time.

Vista isn't horribly slower than XP. It just uses a lot of normally unused clock cycles to optimize for what it thinks you're gonna want to do in the future. If you're building a new computer, I'd imagine that you're building a semi-decent computer. Even a Core 2 Duo at 2GHz runs Vista fine. Just make sure you have enough memory (2GB minimum)

UAC isn't that annoying once you get used to it, and if you want to you can turn it off. It only takes a few clicks.

Vista has support for everything I need it for (even the x64 version). Obviously I can't speak for everybody but all my games and apps are supported (Steam, Madden NFL 2008, Crysis, and the sort all work).

I'm not saying that Vista should be a mandatory upgrade or anything like that. If you really like XP, stick with it. I'm just saying that Vista isn't nearly as bad as forums make it out to be.

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Post by JoeWPgh » Mon Mar 17, 2008 3:18 pm

Once you learn your way around Vista's annoyances - the security "features" designed to protect your computer from you - Vista's alright. I'm running 64 on this machine, and it's the most stable computer I've ever owned (and thanks to this site, also the quietest :D ). I haven't run into much in the way of driver issues with it either. I had an old cheap $50 scanner that wasn't supported, but that's been it.
Would I upgrade from XP to Vista on a stable XP box? Never in a million years. But new hardware is plenty capable of running Vista, and virtually all new hardware I've encountered (graphics, TV, sound, cards) have worked as well in Vista 64 as any other Windows version I've run - going back to 3.1.

From my experience, Vista isn't as bad as many would have you believe, and XP isn't quite as stable as others would. The 64 driver issues, though obviously a huge problem when they arise, have not surfaced on this box, aside from an old, cheapo scanner.

But my final verdict? It's doesn't really matter. The two are pretty much a wash, unless you're setting up an HTPC. There I'd give the edge to Vista for it's Media Center.

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Post by mbetea » Mon Mar 17, 2008 9:02 pm

I'm still happy with XP, don't really have an opinion about Vista one way or the other. But one thing that did bother me hearing about Vista; having to use a memory stick/thumb drive to increase performance on some machines? To me that doesn't sound all that elegant or professional.

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Post by Plissken » Mon Mar 17, 2008 10:36 pm

I use XP32 at home, XP64 at work, and have a laptop with Vista Home Premium and 2GB.

Vista is bloated, not ready, and in most cases not needed.

The first decision I think is 64-bit vs 32. If you won't need 64-bit in the next 3-5 years (80% of us?) stick with 32. If 64, XP can be a pain and I've heard mixed things about Vista64, so I don't know there.

If 32-bit, go with XP unless one of these is true:
- you really really really want the media functionality of Vista (HTPC)
- you want/need DX10 for gaming
- you don't want to re-install an OS anytime soon, if ever (laptop?)
- you want/need Vista security or search features (newbie)

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Post by Krumb » Tue Mar 18, 2008 1:10 am

mbetea wrote:one thing that did bother me hearing about Vista; having to use a memory stick/thumb drive to increase performance on some machines? To me that doesn't sound all that elegant or professional.
You only get a very slight performance increase and its not needed.

I have been running Vista since it launched and other than a few compatibility issues at the start it runs great. In my opinion you should go with vista if your new build will run it. Vista has been more stable and faster in every way compared to my XP build. It has been over a year now since it was launched and there have been many updates. This isnt exactly a good reason to upgrade but it just looks so much better, i cant bare to look at XP it just so ugly.

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Post by kittle » Tue Mar 18, 2008 12:35 pm

I dont run vista on my PC and havent used it -- so no opinions of my own on how well it works.

But when I got my last PC, I got xp X64 to go on it. despite the naysayers at the time, drivers were not hard to come by -- Creative and Nvidia was all I needed. That was 3 years ago.
Ive since run into a few problems with color matching software for my monitor, and nVidias 'nTune' stuff. but nothing that stopped me from using my PC.

Stability? ... Its great. ZERO crashes/freeze-ups. Its still running the same OS install I got when I bought the thing. I run the thing 24/7, it does Folding at home while im sleeping and at work.
The only blue screen I had was from doing something dumb (you cant play a DVD movie and a 3d game at the same time even with dual monitors).

I highly suspect most peoples issues with XP, and probably Vista are between the keyboard & Chair and not inside the PC itself.

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Post by Erssa » Tue Mar 18, 2008 2:23 pm

I used x64 for a year and it still had plenty of "bugs" when I switched back to 32-bit XP about a year ago. Although it's not fair to call them bugs, when the problems weren't exactly microsofts fault, but rather software companies didn't bother making x64 versions of softwares. For example iTunes didn't have a working x64 version at that time. And some antivirus programs didn't work. I also had some problems with Logitechs SetPoint, even though they officially had a x64 version. And occasionally I would run into some problems with some small utility programs, usually the problem was, that I couldn't install them.

There's pretty much no good reason to use XP x64. 32-bit is just as good, but with better compatibility. If I now had to use x64 version, I'd rather install Vista.

Btw SP1 for Vista was just released.

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Post by ntavlas » Tue Mar 18, 2008 6:20 pm

I have no experience with vista either, but I can say xp has been perfectly stable for me. The only time I saw a blue screen is when I used 3dfx drivers ported from linux.

Also, while vista certainly has more aggressive prefetching and other optimizations (which I can`t comment on), the extra bulk always compromises a system`s performance as all this data has to be read by the disk drive at some point.

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Post by Das_Saunamies » Wed Mar 19, 2008 1:11 am

I hear they're stopping sales of XP soon, so hurry if you want your piece!

I love the Vista interface, but am still using XP on my desktop as I just can't afford any unforeseen hiccups on my main machine. It's wonderful on the laptop, much better with WiFi than XP, which wouldn't roam properly (hung onto one given IP and session).

If it's not an important machine, why not give Vista a go. The interface - once you get past the stupidities like UAC - is fantastic. Win+Tab changes lives. XP for everything else.

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Post by m^2 » Wed Mar 19, 2008 1:50 am

tehfire wrote:Vista isn't horribly slower than XP. It just uses a lot of normally unused clock cycles to optimize for what it thinks you're gonna want to do in the future. If you're building a new computer, I'd imagine that you're building a semi-decent computer. Even a Core 2 Duo at 2GHz runs Vista fine. Just make sure you have enough memory (2GB minimum)
Yep, agree, it may not be slow and I wouldn't be surprised if it was faster with future computers.
It just shouldn't be installed on older ones.

The Gangrel
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Post by The Gangrel » Wed Mar 19, 2008 3:23 am

tehfire wrote:Vista isn't horribly slower than XP. It just uses a lot of normally unused clock cycles to optimize for what it thinks you're gonna want to do in the future. If you're building a new computer, I'd imagine that you're building a semi-decent computer. Even a Core 2 Duo at 2GHz runs Vista fine. Just make sure you have enough memory (2GB minimum)
What a paradox...so, by wasting my time in the present(using unnecessary cpu cycles and ram), vista will try to be faster in the future at what it supposes I might want to do.

Quite an insight into the minds @ microsoft.

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Post by Cerb » Wed Mar 19, 2008 8:39 am

It is far more stable and secure than XP or even Server 2003.
Seriously? Did they get from 99.99999999% to 99.999999999%?

Win2k and XP have been rock solid for years. I can count my BSODs on one hand, and none were random software or driver glitches.
1. Overheating Voodoo2 on AT mobo (RAM chips touched the CPU HS).
2. Chose the wrong NIC driver (I'm never buying another Linksys LAN again--they still do the same thing today!).
3. Accidentally unplugged my main hard drive's power.

That's over 7+ years. Windows has been stable since MS-DOS was let go.

Resources: if you're building a new system, you are going to get either 2GB or 4GB of RAM. Vista is memory hungry, but you'll have it. No big deal. Likewise, whatever you get for video will be good enough, just by virtue of being new.

Note that I'm nt touching compatibility problems, as I think they just excuses to whine and moan. I also think anybody who has performance issues should try to work them out. If an Athlon XP 1800+ w/ 1.5GB RAM can handle Vista just fine, any truly modern PC certainly should!

Vista has some neat stuff, but, IMO, they completely dropped the ball on the interface. They added more layers, many of them modal dialogs, to minor configuration settings, and the cluttered everything they could up.

Vista finally made me switch, and my worst problems are with the hatchet job that is ALSA.

So...my 2c: stick with XP until you need Vista, and then get a Home Premium, Business, or Ultimate upgrade in a couple years; unless there are Vista-only games you really want to play.
What a paradox...so, by wasting my time in the present(using unnecessary cpu cycles and ram), vista will try to be faster in the future at what it supposes I might want to do.

Quite an insight into the minds @ microsoft.
Not a paradox at all. That is why your CPU performs as well as it does, on a much smaller scale (and one with more harm in failed predictions)--predicting what you are likely to need, and preparing it before you use it.

Microsoft isn't the only one who's ever had the idea, either, but it's not always the greatest thing to do. CK's for Linux, FI, got repots of great gains by some, and a doggy box by others. Microsoft probably had years of data gathered and whiteboards full of maths to go through to get it working such that it would offer net benefits all-around.

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Post by Das_Saunamies » Thu Mar 20, 2008 1:08 am

Even mice predict: there was a thread about trying to make straight lines with your mouse on some performance-oriented forum, possibly ESR.

Mice with movement prediction could do straight horizontal and vertical lines, mice with no prediction couldn't. Anyone who's ever tried knows how painful it can be!

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Post by Mats » Thu Mar 20, 2008 7:33 am

I've used both XP and Vista. I like them both, and there are some features that I really like in Vista. The start menu search function is one of my favorite. Instead of looking a file, program or folder in Explorer I just press -Windows- and start typing. For instance, if/when you want to disable UAC (there are many ways to do that) you just start typing acc and then User Accounts shows up in the start menu, then you press enter. Sure it's good to know where you have every single file, but you dont have to, you can find then just as fast anyway if you know the name.

It's not that I don't know where to find it, it's just so much easier. Some prefer the keyboard, and some prefer the mouse. But yeah, I don't use it on programs for every day use.
But in the end I choose XP, just because it's faster. I dunno if it's more stable, but I prefer it for now. It's so much easier to change features or looks than to get better performance.
Install both and see for your self what you prefer on a new machine.

If anyone would like the start search in XP, download Vistart.
derekva wrote:It is far more stable and secure than XP or even Server 2003.
Seriously, you have to give us some proof if you want to make such a claim about 2003. I've never heard something bad about any version of Windows 5.2, and the lack of drivers for XP-64 is just a consequence of it being a little bit ahead of time, just like the Athlon's 64-bit extensions were some years ago.
Erssa wrote:Pick the faster one, XP. SP3 will be released this week at the same time as Vistas SP1.
Link?
_________________________________

People who compared Vista SP1 to Server 2008 have most likely not the same features and services started when they claim huge differences in performance, since:

Vista RTM = 6.0
Vista SP1 = 6.1
Server 2008 = 6.1

In other words, they are basically the same, just with different configurations, just like 2003-64 SP1 and XP-64. Maybe you can't configure them to be identical though.

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