Poll: XP vs Vista (2008)

[Which OS do you prefer?]

Which OS do you prefer?

XP Home

 14 (13.1%)

XP Pro 32 bit

 47 (43.9%)

XP Pro 64 bit

 6 (5.6%)

Vista 32 bit

 24 (22.4%)

Vista 64 bit

 11 (10.3%)

Other (Linux 32 or 64)

 5 (4.7%)

Total Members Voted: 105

[Black Viper]

Discuss the "why's" you have chosen a particular bit depth structure and OS generation below.
1) More memory availability
2) More Stable
3) Better Driver availability
4)

No flaming others for their opinion, but constructive complements and criticism is welcome.

[golfhou]

XP Pro 64 bit. Expanded RAM support is the only reason I am using 64 instead of 32 bit.

[Spawn]

Vista 64-bit.

It’s a sound piece of software, and the best OS I have ever used…and I have used them all to some extent except for a Mac’s.

I really don’t understand the frustrations some are having with Vista. I have had no issues to speak of, and all this stuff I have been reading on the net about XP being faster than Vista is just a flat out lie in my experience, and I don’t understand how it could be just my copy of Vista that is performing better.  I am at work and don’t have a lot of time to answer in more detail.

Vista is solid.  Period.

Spawn

[Warthog]

Been a tester with Vista, and just didnt like it cause:

1. Had to upgrade off my Norton
2. Nero didnt work
3. TV card didn't work correctly
4. Compatability issues with some games

Im gonna try it again on a laptop I got for my daughter, but I think it will work great for her as she doesn't deal with the legacy apps I was.

[tonster]

For right now, with all of the older games I play, I like XP 32.  My brother has XP 64 and some games just don't work on it.  I'm certain Vista has the same issues on some games.

By the time I upgrade, I'll be looking into newer games with more DX10 eye candy.  I'll want Vista 64 for sho'.
Tony

[richnrockville]

Discuss the "why's" you have chosen a particular bit depth structure and OS generation below.
1) More memory availability
2) More Stable
3) Better Driver availabililty
4)

No flaming others for their opinion, but constructive complements and criticism is welcome.

I have been using Vista Ultimate since about February 2007 and once I got over the security prompts
I feel that it works the way I want it. I use Vista Business on 2 other computers and they work fine.

All this is predicated on having a high power computer configuration, ie 2gig ram Centrino dual, 256Meg video
and 2 160gig sata drives on my portable.

I had to update Nero, ws-ftp and several other programs but that happened when I updated OS's before.

YMMV
Rich

[Rain]

I'm using Vista 32 bit and I like it just fine for the games I play. Then again my machine has enough RAM to handle the games.

The tweaks provided on this site helped me just like they did on my old comp with XP.

[Myrm]

Vista 64-bit.

I cannot sum up my thoughts on Vista any better than Spawn, so I'll ditto his comments. 

[Spawn]

Vista just works.

Any small quip that I ran into was either fixed with a simple download, or registry tweak.  I love Vista.  I think it is by far Microsoft’s best OS.  I run the 64-bit version of Ultimate, and I have to say that using Vista has been a very positive experience for me, and I think many problems, not all, lie directly with the user more than anything.  Check your hardware and software before you upgrade, so you're not surprised when something doesn't work afterwards.  If you fail to assess the situation before you upgrade, and Vista doesn't work with something, then that is clearly your fault.

I have still heard of people saying they have had issues after the upgrade, and that they made sure their hardware was up to par.  However, they fail to say that "up to par" is the bare minimum required by Microsoft.  That's just crazy.  Microsoft never puts the appropriate minimum specs on any OS in my opinion, and if you upgrade meeting only the minimum, then I suspect you will most certainly run into problems at some point or another.  That is clearly Microsoft's fault, but it certainly isn't Vista's.

I have still heard of individuals stating that Vista is screwing something up, and yet when the situation is described in detail, I am unable to duplicate it.  That makes me wonder quite often how it is that my particular copy of Vista escaped these dreaded faults.  I guess I must be real lucky.     Every piece of software I have installed that said it was either designed to work with Vista, or specifically for Vista has done so without issue.  Again, I guess I must be real lucky.

Real issues with the OS (as with all others before it) are not to be used as an end all escape goat for user incompetence.  Yes, there are some small issues, but they are minor in my experience, and the “major” issues I have come across have ended up being user error.  That’s my experience, and so that is what I am speaking from.  No offense to anyone meant.

Vista just works.

[Vulcan]

I am running Vista Ultimate on an Intel Quad Core with 4 GB of Ram.....So far Vista has been very stable but it uses about twice the Ram as XP Pro did and it is noticeable slower. I wish that Vista had some of the features that Microsoft had planned on adding but dropped prior to the release.

[Spawn]

I am running Vista Ultimate on an Intel Quad Core with 4 GB of Ram.....So far Vista has been very stable but it uses about twice the Ram as XP Pro did and it is noticeable slower. I wish that Vista had some of the features that Microsoft had planned on adding but dropped prior to the release.

It uses more RAM because it is a more robust OS, but as far as % of RAM that you have in your system being used, I have found my percentage the same as it was in XP...around 33%.

And how exactly is it noticeable slower?  Are you speaking in terms of how Vista is shipped or installed originally?  Yeah, it's slower because it has more features turned on than XP does by default that suck resources.  If you turn those off, Vista is the same if not faster than XP.  These things that need to be turned off are not things that are needed for the OS to run...things that Microsoft could have left out, such as the Welcome Center, all of the stuff you might turn off in XP like shadows under menus etc, system restore, and switching power options to high performance.

If you tweak Vista as most people have XP tweaked  (I can't imagine that anyone leaves XP as in after a install), then Vista is most certainly not more noticeable slower.  It may be if you are running hardware that isn't up to par with Vista specs, but again, that isn't Vista's fault and it isn't a fair comparison with XP.

Best Regards,

Spawn

[Vulcan]

I am running Vista with all the updates. I have turned off a few features like -
-System Restore
-Indexing
-User account control
I have also used msconfig to trim the number of startup apps down to the bare minimum.

Vista is slower than XP on the same hardware (and to be fair the hardware is modern (Quad Core, 10K Rpm hard drives, 4 GB PC8500 Ram)). I do a lot of video processing as well as Grep Expression and Vista is slower at these tasks than the same machine with XP. This is based on "seat of the pants" as well as timed tests.This is my real world experience....yours may be different.

[RdyBear]

 Although my opinion will hopefully change once Vista matures (SP1 in 2008!)  I think Win XP Pro 32 is the best for everything I needed between work, school and gaming.

I'm using Vista Home Premium right now because at the time I bought this Dell machine, Vista was all they would ship.
The one thing I liked BEST about XP Pro was how you could strip it down to the bare essentials and really understand what the various services and module did.  Then bring them back up if you needed them.

And since I am posting this here, WHO do we have to Thank for the in depth knowledge of XP processes....
    (The Black Viper, of course)

Right now, I am trying to sort out all the QT/itunes7.5 uninstall/reinstall mess. Had 2 useless iPod for a while, until I figured out the Winamp would load them.  Also perturbed about all the unwanted services that adobe, real, sun and apple keep installing.   Win Defender catches a lot of them, but XP utilities like StartUp Monitor so worked
 

[Just Rachel]

It's taking me a while to get used to Vista.  It's not so different (non-geek opinion).  I've got my desktop down to about 48 processes running, but my laptop I can't get lower than 70.  That frustrates me.  If Dell would have had an XP in the model I wanted, I would have jumped on it in a heartbeat!!! That's my desktop.  The laptop is the Walmart Black Friday special.  I bought it because I'm cheap and so was the laptop!!! 

Vista seems slower to me, although it's hard to compare a 2gb (Vista) to a 600+mb (XP HE).

[shanaya]

Vista 32 bit.

I have it on 2 desktops and one laptop, and I like it alot! It automatically installed drivers for a printer I have on an XP Pro machine.