Supercue

iTrader: (1)

There seems to be a lot of contention over which OS is better and more stable.

Obviously the future like it or not is Vista but at the moment how many of you are truly happy with Bills latest offering or would even consider upgrading to Vista?


Before anyone mentions Macs are not included there's a valid reason for that

Will be interesting to see how the votes shape up and why

Markus

For me, it's XP (running on an Intel based Mac of course ). I'm not a big user of windows, but I have run both Vista Ultimate and XP, and I just prefer XP.
Maybe it's because Vista is a new OS and things are in different places, and there is just a learning curve I need to deal with, but it just didn't gel with me. For example, it took me a while to find out where the properties for my network card were so I could reconfigure the tcp/ip settings. It just didn't seem logical for some reason. I never had a problem in 95, 98 or XP (or even Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X)

I know people are adverse to change, and that could be one of the reasons people are downgrading machines that come with Vista to XP, however I know a few people who have tried it, and I mean given it a couple of months of heavy use, and they cannot get on with it for various reasons and have dropped back to XP.

DJ Dunk

iTrader: (5)

The majority of votes will probably be for XP mainly because scaremongering has put many off of upgrading, especially novice users.

Vista all the way for me. Personally I think its a great OS, especially for those new to computers, plus it has the stability and reliabaility for more advanced use.

Don't beleive the hype.

bob269

Isn't there a vista service pack due out anytime now, this will probably address stability, so it's a tricky one to asses.

I tried vista 64 in its early days and the main problem was 3rd party drivers, MS are partly to blame for vista's problems but so are the driver vendors, they seem more content on supporting xp which is getting on for 5+ yrs old instead of making more of an effort in supporting vista

People are also afraid of change, they see vista as totally different and not as friendly as xp, where as its the otherway around once you learn the new layouts features etc.

If you're in to gaming get vista as it supports dx10, if you prefer the layout of xp you can always tell vista to revert to xp style layouts.

EddScott

Vista SP1 is out either now or very shortly.

I'm about to do a mini upgrade so might go down the Vista route but thats only to get DX10 for gaming. Although I could probably use XP for at least another 12 months.

DJ Dunk

iTrader: (5)

Installed SP1 from Windows Update yesterday. Took about an hour all told.

john banks

An HOUR to do a service pack? Is that good or is it full of more bloatware?

I just put XP SP2 onto a new build the other day and it was nothing like an hour.

I moved around a few music folders recently and was utterly astonished how slow it was compared with XP - on the same SATA drive on a system designed for Vista.

Kieran_Burns

iTrader: (1)

XP SP3 is imminent. Meant to improve the speed of XP as well.

The ONLY reason for me to upgrade to Vista would be to see some DX10 goodies, but that's it

messiah

Currently using XP but with the vista brickopack - don't think my laptop will run vista but I like the look of it so this is the next best thing...

DJ Dunk

iTrader: (5)

Thats including download time which was about half of that. I haven't had any speed issues with Vista or any issues at all come to think of it, so couldn't say if the SP is good or not.

Yes Vista takes up a fair amount of disk space compared to XP, but personally I think its relative to its superiority.

I still use dull XP on my work machines and on VMWare test environments purely because the application we write is not certified for use on Vista yet. XP for work, Vista for play.

TonyBurns

iTrader: (3)

Using both xp and vista on my pc (loaded on 2 different hard drives) my Vista came with SP1 on the main disc so I had no problems loading it with 4gb of ram in there.
The only problem I encountered (apart from it told me i needed some new video drivers) was with BT broadband, which took 6 hours to load (over the 1 ish hr it took to load Vista) but its nicer than XP tbh, but id definately only load it on a new drive/formatted rather than load over XP as an upgrade.

Tony

PS the reason BT broadband took so long was that i needed the new drivers and the main software which I had was manufactured before 2007, try finding the upgraded version on BT's website, a bit impossible and I told them that in no uncertain terms

Sonic'

Vista SP1 takes about an hour and 3 reboots if you download the full 1.2 Gb version

IIRC Microsoft wanted an absolute fortune for the developer stuff for Vista so a lot of manufacturers refused to pay, so therefore no drivers for older or lots of hardware

64 bit is so much worse in that respect as it *has* to have signed drivers, unless you boot into unsigned driver mode (which I have to do for my USB to serial adapter for telnet etc)

XP was launched in October 2001 so its getting very old for an OS but still nothing wrong with it

Like I have said before Vista is great if you have never used a PC in your life, and I think because MS have changed stuff so much die hard PC'ers dont like it because they have to learn a lot again from scratch

Shark Man

I have the defintive answer: Today I was reminded of what XP was like back in 2001.....

Last week bought some new hard drives, and today I set them up as boot drives on a RADI0. Whilst I still have annoyances with jerky panning on HD video via my gfx card in Vista i though twhy not try a dual boot to see what its like in XP.

So Dual boot XP vs Vista 64.

Stick on my old copy of XP, after installing it....NOTHING WORKS!

No USB, No Network, No Audio, GFX on basic VGA, No remote control, No Bluetooth...Useless!

Put on Vista 64 (as before)...everything works straight off, with exception of the remote control, which just needed me to download the software via the net...Which I could access as both the USB and the Ethernet worked...unlike XP.

To get everthing on XP to work, I had to dig out all the driver disks, install them, and do countless restarts just so I could get basic use and 'net access so it could download SP2 (and SP3) which would get everything else to work and make it stable...during which explorer crashed 3 times. And the system would have been open to mass-infection had it not been sat behind a firewalled router,

In that respect, Vista ain't that bad at all. (for the lazy bunch who can't be arsed to keep their driver disks handy ).

Also noted that after installing both OSs, the XP partition was heavily fragmented, whilst the Vista partition was fine. Odd!

Chelsie-Bun

I got this new computer with vista already on it...nothing is working for me
MSN
Windows Media as good cos its 11
Printer / folder shareing

So not sure if I like it

Chel xxx

_Meridian_

iTrader: (1)

Shark Man


Out of interest, tell us how much memory is being used by each just after boot has finished.


M

P1Fanatic

Thats ok for the lazy person but at least with XP you know which driver version you are installing and not letting Vista decide. Yes you can obviously update but for me that negates your argument. Also you can create an OS Image to save time - obviously only helpful for reinstalls and not new ones.

I was running dual boot but tbh I found nothing good about Vista other than aesthetics and it definetly takes a hit on game performance which I spend most of my time on.

And that incessant hard drive utilising with the memory system (superfetch or whatever its called) drove me up the wall with my raptor - admittedly this is a quieter in my new case but tbh since building a new PC I havent bothered installing Vista. When I get around to it I will install on 2nd machine just to play around and for my girlfriend to use to avoid cutting into my CoD4 time

Simon

jpor

iTrader: (1)

You mean like this one:

https://www.scoobynet.com/computer-r...vista-why.html

pimmo2000

iTrader: (6)

Vista is much better IMO.. everything is faster, including installation.

The only thing that doesn't work so far is CDclone imagine thingy ! Everything else is spot on !

DJ Dunk

iTrader: (5)

Whats your point?

Shark Man

It shouldn't be doing that. Unless its ran out of RAM. 2gig should be enough to shut it up most of the time....4gig to be certain

First two weeks of a Vista install is a pretty noisy affair - especially with indexing turned on. Then it settles down and shuts up. Issues are when it auto-defrags, now that is annoying on a big noisy hard drive. Can be disabled though.

Supercue

iTrader: (1)

Interesting read and the votes do bear out that the majority are still in favour of XP.
Personally as someone who goes out to a lot of callouts I have to admit that XP SP1 loads are a pain but SP2 is pretty painless in most cases.
I've found that every time I'm called out to a Vista issue its been a real ballache in sucking time to put something right especially wireless even with upto date drivers.
Aesthetically pleasing Vista maybe but there's still a lot of ground to make up to be as easy as XP. Granted the reloads on Vista are quicker and easier as mentioned previously. SP1 at 1.2Gb shows just how much needed to be adressed and apparently there's more to come lol.
Like P1Fanatic I'm running two computers with a copy of each but at the moment XP still has the edge for me

Tazz Kill Er

typoMicrosoft rushed out the release of Vista, so in effect it became a OS that is being improved whilst in a live environment. That is not good, this is the reason that Vista SP1 is so large, it not only contains fixes for bugs etc but has considerable performance improvements for the OS which is pig slow in reality.
BTW The English only download of Vista service pack is 450MB i believe the full language pack is 1.2GB. I have back to back comparisons of both OS's in real use and although Vista looks pretty in reality its just a visual gimmick to stop Mac and Linux users carping on about how crap windows is.
As time goes on Vista will indeed be the defacto OS on X86 pc's and we will all forget the issues etc but at present for me the vote is for XP, roll on XP SP3.

GaryK

I got a new lappy this week from dell so had the choice. I opted for vista which looks awesome but thats about it! As said above if your're a novice then great but its been majorly frustrating. I disabled UAC as I got hacked off with having to confirm every bloody install I was doing (although now it keeps warning me that UAC is off) then I installed SQL 2005 and couldnt create any databases, turns out that by default the admin user doesnt have the permissions set so you have to run a surface configurator (WTF??), I then need to support some legacy apps so installed Delphi7, that kept throwing an obscure error because the users group didnt have modify rights to the directories need to create projects. I will perserve with it but can see myself going back to xp with sp2 at some point. I think its the prettiest OS I have ever seen (and yes I do run os x as well).

Gary

Matt578

I used Xp Right from when it was released untill 2 Months ago when i built my new system, Now i use Vista Ultimate 64bit Edition, its far more stable and once you get used to where a few things have moved to its a lot better than Xp IMHO, I would only use it if you have 2Gb or ram or more though

Sonic'

And Microsoft have brought forward Vista's replacement from 2010 to 2009 now

Matt578

That not due to the fact that vista bad, just that they are money grabbing T**ts

James Neill

iTrader: (1)

I upgraded the Vista x64 a couple of months back. Have to say that it works a treat. Running SP1 too.

bioforger

iTrader: (1)

Windows 7 looks to be very similar to Vista in GUI appearance. So apart from the money grabbing techniques now employed by MS to warrant it and a few additional pieces of functionality it's not going to be alot different.

Jerome

I have only used Vista a few times, but have found it an excercise in frustration, mostly down to having to re-learn so much.

I will only move to Vista when either I have to, or after SP2 has been released.

I especially dislike the fact you can't uninstall it and have to totally wipe the system to go back to XP.

Shark Man

Just go dual boot instead:

If its NTFS, you should be able to shrink a disk partition, and create a new one to stick XP on.

How to dual boot Vista and XP (with Vista installed first) -- the step-by-step guide


I have done this, but actually don't use the XP partition now - after finding my jumpy video issues wasn't Vista afterall - seems its either hardware, codec or refresh/interlace/frame rate timings (oh joy - what now? new gfx card?)