XP vs Vista

Lord MJ · Post by **Lord MJ** » 2007-12-23 08:54pm

I have access to free copies of both Windows Vista Business and Windows XP Pro through my school.

I was wondering which one I should installed on my new mac. I am well aware that the opinion of Vista is on the low side, but I was wondering if I should bother with an XP install when I have a fully updated Vista. Or should I stick with XP.

Is the file transfer defect in Vista fixed after all the updates?

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2007-12-23 08:58pm

Oh god not this again?

I've encountered no huge inpenetrable hedge of problems with Vista, nor insurmountable driver issues, nor utter lack of game compatibility. It's a bit quirky if you're used to XP and in particular it's 'helpful' network stuff is a pain in the dickhole, but it's extremely usable.

The huge-file problem was fixed 2-3 months ago, thank christ.

Wanderer · Post by **Wanderer** » 2007-12-23 09:09pm

Stark wrote:Oh god not this again?

I've encountered no huge inpenetrable hedge of problems with Vista, nor insurmountable driver issues, nor utter lack of game compatibility. It's a bit quirky if you're used to XP and in particular it's 'helpful' network stuff is a pain in the dickhole, but it's extremely usable.

The huge-file problem was fixed 2-3 months ago, thank christ.

Not for me, I still can't get Medieval 2 to work again. XP, I could find the hidden folder tricking my computer into thinking Med2 is still installed thus blocking me from installing it and remove it. Not so with Vista and defrag sucks balls. As soon as the Geek squad get back to me on switching to Vista, I'm getting it fixed.

Zablorg · Post by **Zablorg** » 2007-12-23 09:16pm

I haven't noticed any problem with it at all, except that it is a tad paranoid

. Also, Age of Empires 2 won't work on it, something to do with DirectDraw or something, maybe it's just me.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2007-12-23 10:51pm

You can turn UAC off it it annoys you (and it does prevent some things working).

I've noticed it's not very consistent, though: many of the workarounds I've had to use with older games apparently aren't necessary for everyone. Indeed, STALKER decided yesterday it'd cut performance in half for no reason and I *still* haven't worked out why.

RThurmont · Post by **RThurmont** » 2007-12-23 10:52pm

As a general comparison, I'd say that Vista looks one heck of a lot better than Windows XP (the GUI is probably the best feature in it, and is probably the best-looking GUI, period, narrowly beating Fedora and OS X), but there are a number of subtle annoyances in terms of configuring it. I have yet to do much gaming on my Vista install, so I can't comment on that aspect.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2007-12-23 11:41pm

I'm meh on that being a downside: compared to things like 3.1->95 and 98->XP it's similar in 'randomly shaking up the UI for little benefit beyond selling retraining'. The network stuff is needlessly split up, obfuscated and automated, which is probably my biggest problem.

What they did to the 'programs menu' is awful, though. Cleaner but much less useful: the emphasis is placed heavily on the search function.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2007-12-24 01:40am

You people and your 20 years of autocomplete!

InnocentBystander · Post by **InnocentBystander** » 2007-12-24 01:50am

The search is great, I'm not a huge fan of working in the shell, but it is very fast to hit the windows button and type the app I'm interested in.

Netko · Post by **Netko** » 2007-12-24 04:33am

For me the biggest improvement is the new (Windows) Explorer and its favorite links section. 95% of the time what I want is in one of the folders linked there (the links being customized to my needs, of course) and it makes it so much simpler to get to those folders. In fact, combined with WHS's daily backups it has led me to commit heresy and not do the standard 2-partition setup (programs, data) when I reinstalled two weeks ago, but rather go with MS's standard setup (the biggest benefit being a more flexible hard drive space usage), with those favorite links customized so that I don't really care where in the directory structure those folders are.

Wanderer · Post by **Wanderer** » 2007-12-24 06:51am

Stark wrote:You can turn UAC off it it annoys you (and it does prevent some things working).

Where is that? I haven't seen it.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2007-12-24 07:54am

MSCONFIG/tools/disable UAC. Simple as that - doesn't do security any favours, but a lot of pre-Vista software has problems with UAC. It's the workaround of last resort (or if you're not an idiot and don't need constant secuirty popups).

RThurmont · Post by **RThurmont** » 2007-12-24 12:15pm

The search is great, I'm not a huge fan of working in the shell, but it is very fast to hit the windows button and type the app I'm interested in.

The Windows NT console is rather lacking in utility, and in Vista, that certainly does not change (although MS PowerShell is interesting). If you ever play with a UNIX shell though, chances are your opinion of it as a form of UI style will improve dramatically (there is a reason why most UNIX aficianados such as myself and Destructionator have at least one terminal emulator running at all times).

On the subject of UAC, IMO its a fairly good idea, and is actually less annoying than the Linux and Mac OS X approach of constantly prompting you for your password when doing something that requires elevation. In my experience, a really substantial chunk of Windows apps fail to work properly when running as a limited user.

Elessar · Post by **Elessar** » 2007-12-24 03:34pm

As often with choices in the PC world, it comes down to your usage patterns. How much of a techie are you? How much experience do you already have with Windows XP? How much free time do you have to (re)learn Microsoft tricks? What do you do with your system? And so forth and so forth...

I finally downgraded my Dell work laptop from Vista after about 7 months of hell. Due wireless drivers taking down the network stack, weird VPN behaviour, random blue screens on hibernate as well as poor virtual memory management (nothing like having 2 gigs of RAM constantly swapping), I just couldn't work on Vista any longer.

If you're on a desktop, many of these issues just disappear. If you haven't invested in power tools for XP, then Vista will save you a lot of hassle. I know many who are happy with Microsoft's latest and greatest.

But personally, I can't recommend Vista to anyone.

Post by **Edi** » 2007-12-24 03:46pm

The experience varies a lot, but generally whenever a user says they have Vista, the fucking morons just made my job twice as difficult at a minimum. It also depends on whether you have enough driver support for your hardware and whether certain Vista problems like the moving/copying files problem decide to manifest.

Personally, I've invested enough into learning XP that I'll be moving to Vista only when I absolutely have to and not one second before.

White Haven · Post by **White Haven** » 2007-12-24 04:02pm

In my own experience both on shop computers and customer systems, Vista is: A resource hog, a shiny UI, an obnoxious 'Are you really really sure?' checker, and a host and a half of compatibility glitches. I'm...really not seeing the upside.

RThurmont · Post by **RThurmont** » 2007-12-24 07:05pm

A lot of people have had mucho problems with Vista, but I haven't had any. It's performed perfectly well for me from a technical standpoint. The problems I see with it are primarily the various changes Microsoft made to the UIs (some good, but many dubious at best, and some, like the new, seemingly GNOME-inspired file dialouges, geniunely awful).

Of course, I've been using Vista Ultimate, and I've been using it on a really awesome desktop. The Vista install on it pwns the XP Pro install on it in terms of performance, primarily due to the XP Pro install being rather rotten after a few years of use (and no, the XP install does not have malware, its more of the annoying, obnoxious, natural Windows rot).

Probably the most compelling reason not to use Vista is the price. For the same $400 dollars that a retail Vista Ultimate license will cost you, you could buy a very reasonable new or used computer and run either the installed OS or Linux. In this thread, price is apparently irrelevant, so it really boils down to personal preference.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2007-12-24 09:05pm

White Haven wrote:In my own experience both on shop computers and customer systems, Vista is: A resource hog, a shiny UI, an obnoxious 'Are you really really sure?' checker, and a host and a half of compatibility glitches. I'm...really not seeing the upside.

So your limited experience shows erroneous and outdated information and people should care? Thanks for your input! We even just mentioned you could turn off UAC!

I repeat: bugger all compatibility problems beyond UAC. My SupCom problem turned out to be a corrupt image, it works fine now.

But hey, stick with 98SE. Do it!

I agree with RThurmond re performance: I've only noticed improvements.

Flagg · Post by **Flagg** » 2007-12-24 11:00pm

Vista is just not something I need to get right now, so I won't for the time being.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2007-12-24 11:32pm

Absolutely: there isn't that much concrete improvement beyond the improved UI. Myself, I'm only using it because I got access to it when I rebuilding my system and decided to give it a go. It's just not the horrible, incompatible, buggy, not-as-good-as-XP monstrosity people who haven't even used it like to think it is.

RThurmont · Post by **RThurmont** » 2007-12-24 11:56pm

I prefer working in Vista to XP primarily due to the fact that XP's user interface is so ugly, but I've only run a fairly limited number of applications on Vista (and I've done very little gaming on it), so as I use it more, my opinion of it might well shift.

Elessar · Post by **Elessar** » 2007-12-25 12:35am

RThurmont wrote:I prefer working in Vista to XP primarily due to the fact that XP's user interface is so ugly, but I've only run a fairly limited number of applications on Vista (and I've done very little gaming on it), so as I use it more, my opinion of it might well shift.

I always use Windows Classic interface, whether 2k, XP, or even Vista. There's little productivity gains to be had from Vista if one is already comfortable in XP, while its laptop incompatibilities are legion. Depending what you develop in though, Vista would be a better choice. Something like .NET would benefit, Python indifferent, and Java would be the worst of both worlds.

RThurmont · Post by **RThurmont** » 2007-12-25 06:05am

I use the Windows Classic interface in XP primarily because I can't stand the default Luna theme. However, I find the Aero theme to be the most tranquil and relaxing of any OS I've used, so for me, its a major feature on Vista (also, the Classic interface style in Vista manages to be fairly dramatically uglier than its counterpart in XP).

All of the programming I've done thus far has been for UNIX like OSes, using Ruby, but I'd imagine if I were a Windows developer, I'd be excited about Vista's .NET capabilities and Visual Studio 2008 et cetera.

Netko · Post by **Netko** » 2007-12-25 06:41am

Elessar wrote:
RThurmont wrote:I prefer working in Vista to XP primarily due to the fact that XP's user interface is so ugly, but I've only run a fairly limited number of applications on Vista (and I've done very little gaming on it), so as I use it more, my opinion of it might well shift.
I always use Windows Classic interface, whether 2k, XP, or even Vista. There's little productivity gains to be had from Vista if one is already comfortable in XP, while its laptop incompatibilities are legion. Depending what you develop in though, Vista would be a better choice. Something like .NET would benefit, Python indifferent, and Java would be the worst of both worlds.

It should be noted that your laptop incompatibilities are legion. While that sucks, I on the other hand have it running on three different laptops, only one of which is "designed" for Vista without any issues (and one is so old it doesn't have built-in wireless). Yay, anecdotal evidence, I know (yours is the same, of course). Still, considering that pretty much all laptops shipping today are running Vista, we'd probably hear a lot more complaining if, as you say, "laptop incompatibilities are legion".

Mange · Post by **Mange** » 2007-12-25 01:52pm

I just don't see the need for Vista. XP has grown into quite a capable OS and that goes above simply looking pretty (especially as Microsoft has a new OS just around the corner).