Should I downgrade from Vista to XP?

[El Moose Monstero]

Something I've been wondering about for a while - is it worth the hassle of doing? I know people have said that things generally run faster on XP, but speed has not noticeably been a problem (although start up is a little slow, but that's probably not related).

I've not had any major problems, but my graphics tablet isn't happy and my Nvidia graphics card has never seemed completely happy on vista either, I seem to run into network trouble more often (although again, that could be coincidence), the user account control is winding me up a bit and blocking various things (but I don't know what happens if I turn it off - how safe I still am etc). An additional thing relates to vista's region coding on DVD drives, but I won't mention that for legality.

But these are really all minor things which are inconvenient, but not enough to really justify downgrading. Are there are any other reasons why I should downgrade and is it something I can just do and it'll leave the file structure intact, or will I have to clear everything off, reformat and start again?

[JLTucker]

An additional thing relates to vista's region coding on DVD drives, but I won't mention that for legality.

There is region coding with XP as well.

[El Moose Monstero]

An additional thing relates to vista's region coding on DVD drives, but I won't mention that for legality.

There is region coding with XP as well.

True, but hypothetically speaking, if someone could find the right presumably illegal firmware for their DVD drive, can't they make your DVD drive multi-region, which they can't do on vista because it has an extra layer of protection? I read an article on it a while back, I think.

But without discussing things of dubious legality, is there any major benefit to downgrading?

[Zac Naloen]

I'd say no benefit at all.

Vista is far more stable and quicker for me than XP ever was even using the 64bit version with it's attached problems.

with regards to watching international dvd's Anydvd is your tool of choice.

[General Zod]

Is your version of Vista an upgrade from XP or a clean installation? The first time I had Vista on my laptop it was noticeably slow and clunky, but I suspect it was because it was upgraded. Now that I've reinstalled it and have all the up to date drivers and updates as a clean installation, everything runs much more smoothly, even more so than it did on XP.

[Mobius]

Switched back last april on my 18months old Thinkpad; never gonna go back to XP.

If all the soft you use works fine on vista, no reason to listen to the FUD and go back to XP.

[El Moose Monstero]

Is your version of Vista an upgrade from XP or a clean installation? The first time I had Vista on my laptop it was noticeably slow and clunky, but I suspect it was because it was upgraded. Now that I've reinstalled it and have all the up to date drivers and updates as a clean installation, everything runs much more smoothly, even more so than it did on XP.

No, it's a clean installation. I guess if noone has any good reasons to go back, then the minor niggles I've got can probably sit tight. I've not seen that nvdlkrmm-whatever driver problem for a while, although I think I still get the odd one or two on certain games.

Can I just switch user-account control off or is there a good reason to keep it running, assuming I'm not stupid enough to install something without knowing what it is?

I just wanted to be sure that going back wasn't a better option, beyond Vista looking nice, as a non-knowledgeable user, I've not seen a great deal of improvement (although I'm sure there are many that people more knowledgeable can reel off) and more than a few niggles.

[General Zod]

Can I just switch user-account control off or is there a good reason to keep it running, assuming I'm not stupid enough to install something without knowing what it is?

I don't remember how, but you can shut it off. I let it keep running because I like knowing if something tries installing itself without me doing anything obvious, though.

[Braedley]

For me, it's the little things that keep me from moving to Vista. Menus and settings screens that have changed enough from XP to make them practically unusable to me, and UAC, which I turned off within the first half hour of using Vista on a virtual machine. Another problem I had was that my aunt's new laptop wouldn't recognize my flash drive after I had removed it incorrectly the previous time on the same machine. This isn't saying much, because despite having a gorgeous 17 inch screen and full keyboard (with numberpad), I hate using the computer as it is. However, given enough time (probably months at this point), I could get used to how to do things in Vista, and may even be willing to turn UAC back on. But since I'm only using XP for gaming as it is, I highly doubt I'll turn my free license for Vista into a full install before Windows 7 comes out.

[Ryushikaze]

Is there any way in Vista to move from the browser based menus to an open in new windows based menus when looking through your file system? Or make the network options easier to access and augment? Because that's what really bugs me about Vista on this new laptop.

[Pu-239]

Eh, it's not as bad as people say it is, but it's still fucking bloated in terms of HDD usage which is of concern on a laptop. As for region coding, use mplayer or something.

[General Zod]

Eh, it's not as bad as people say it is, but it's still fucking bloated in terms of HDD usage which is of concern on a laptop. As for region coding, use mplayer or something.

It's not that big an issue for a laptop even. Especially for anyone that bothers doing things like backing up their big files to external hdds, or gets a newer model laptop with at least a 120-200gb hdd.

[Ryushikaze]

Is there any way in Vista to move from the browser based menus to an open in new windows based menus when looking through your file system?

Yes. Pop open my computer and click on the organize button on the top left. Go down to folder and search options, and there is an open each folder in its own window box in there. You might want to look at the other tab too and see if any of the checkboxes under advanced interest you.

Thank you.

Or make the network options easier to access and augment?

What specifically are you looking to do?

Specifically, I want to be able to open up a list of available broadcasting networks (without using the 'radar' application), as well as a list of all networks I have in memory.

Also, I'd like to be able to get rid of the back/ forward/ search and the 'organize' tabs. I understand their usefulness, I just don't want them on every single frikkin' window.

[Braedley]

While we're here, does anyone know how to open up the entire set of workgroups on a LAN in Vista? I never could find that, let alone most of the other computers in a given workgroup.