So the time has come for me to finally move on from win2k which has served me oh so well over the years. Unfortunately its coming to a point where Im running into things that I cant run without a new OS such as netflix watch instantly and new games on the horizon. So my question is should I go with XP or go ahead and jump on the Vista train. I honestly dont know a ton about either other than the fact Ive heard lots of complaints about Vista since release which is typical of any windows product. Has vista been patched up enough to be worthwhile or should I just go with XP which I know at this point is pretty damn stable.

12/11/2008 6:00:17 PM

First, what are the specs on your rig you will be using? Very important to make the decision.

12/11/2008 6:01:48 PM

Mainboard : Asus A8N-SLI DELUXE
Chipset : nVidia nForce4
Processor : AMD Athlon 64 3800+ @ 2400 MHz
Physical Memory : 4096 MB (4 x 1024 DDR-SDRAM )
Video Card : Nvidia Corp GeForce 6800 XT

That should cover the basics, it would be nice to get full use of the RAM seeing as win2k wont pickup more than 2.5 gigs of it

12/11/2008 6:06:38 PM

vista x64 with user access control off is a champ

i don't know why so many people complained about vista - when i switched a couple of months ago i had no problems

12/11/2008 6:16:48 PM

^the problem was consumers using 32-bit vista, 64-bit vista has always been better, it's like vista was made for 64-bit or something.

if you want to go to 64-bit, go vista, else go XP

[Edited on December 11, 2008 at 6:25 PM. Reason : .]

12/11/2008 6:24:25 PM

true - i use like 2.5-3GB on vista just idling lol

12/11/2008 6:25:41 PM

2.45Gb used, with Word, Acrobat, AIM, and FF open - along with like 2 other things in the tray. Of course, I've got 8gb in this computer. Black Friday sales are awesome.

[Edited on December 11, 2008 at 6:30 PM. Reason : Vista x64]

12/11/2008 6:30:10 PM

Well seems like my hardware should support the 64 bit version of vista just from running around on google. I suppose I should just pickup the ultimate edition which has both the 32 and 64 bit included. How is the verification working these days, for instance if I build a 2nd system can I throw it on there as well or am I fucked. Also should I have a problem with just getting the upgrade version if I am using a non legit version of 2k or am I gonna have to get the whole shebang?

[Edited on December 11, 2008 at 6:39 PM. Reason : .]

12/11/2008 6:39:23 PM

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9074558&source=rss_news50

although don't quote me on this as i'm not sure the loophole still exists or not.

12/11/2008 6:47:09 PM

Now I dont have much experience with the new 64 bit stuff, Ive heard others complaining about software not working because it isnt supported by a 64 bit system. Is this just BS or is that really an issue, you would think any 32 bit software shouldnt have an issue working under a 64 bit system but again I dont know. Man I feel stupid asking this shit I used to be on top of all this stuff but now that I dont have time to fuck with it all the time Ive lost touch.

12/11/2008 6:55:22 PM

most stuff that doesn't run in 64-bit i virtualize, the hardest thing about 64-bit is finding the drivers for older hardware

but vista will install some 32-bit applications it just installs it into a separate c:/program files (x86) folder

http://searchwindowsserver.techtarget.com/tip/0,289483,sid68_gci1218185,00.html

[Edited on December 11, 2008 at 6:59 PM. Reason : .]

12/11/2008 6:56:46 PM

true thats why Ive thought about just picking up XP but Id hate to pick that up and in a few years shit starts coming out that will only work on vista or whatever new shit is out haha, now that Im actually willing to pay for an OS i want it to last. I suppose I could get the ultimate version of vista and just install the 32 bit for now until there is more 64 bit support or something as well.

12/11/2008 6:59:24 PM

yea, but the 32-bit is junk, it runs slower than Windows ME.

if i were you, you should just think about getting XP via alternative means, then pay for Windows 7 when it comes out.

i mean unless you want to pay for a 7 year old OS, or paying for an OS with a replacement <12 months away.

[Edited on December 11, 2008 at 7:04 PM. Reason : .]

12/11/2008 7:02:21 PM

Yeah I hear there is at least one version out there that doesnt require all that verification shit, I should maybe look into that as well lol

12/11/2008 7:05:02 PM

or you could do what i do and go to a bunch of Microsoft conferences, Microsoft betas, and Microsoft interviews, then you'll end up with 4-5 free copies of Vista

12/11/2008 7:07:21 PM

lol

12/11/2008 7:08:39 PM

hell if i'm ever paying for it

12/11/2008 7:13:42 PM

I may just swing by tigerdirect and pickup a copy, Ive used so many MS products over the years free of charge, now that I actually make money I dont mind sending some back. Is it worth picking up the media center version or pro or should I just stick with the home version.

$90 for home
$120 for Media Center
$290 for Pro wtf? fuck that shit

[Edited on December 11, 2008 at 7:36 PM. Reason : .]

12/11/2008 7:35:43 PM

I never thought I would like Vista based on all the crap you hear people say about it. One day, I said fuck it and decided to install it (MS sent me a free copy of Vista Ultimate 64). I'll agree that until I installed the Service Pack, it was kinda slow and sluggish, but after that it became an incredible operating system.

It's extremely fast, rock solid, and fixes a lot of the quirks that XP had that used to drive my crazy (hanging Explorer windows, etc).

I think Vista has gotten a bad rap in the same way that XP did. When XP first came out, people said it sucked and that they would never leave Win2k or Win98. Now they claim it's one of the best OS's out there. I hope the same will happen with Vista.

I'm not a genius about this, but doesn't Vista handle memory usage in a different way than XP does? If you have a lot of memory, why do you care how much it's using? That's why you have a lot of memory.

12/11/2008 7:38:28 PM

ya lol i don't really care how much it uses - it's just a monster to think about compared to older OSes

i worry when i run it on my laptop because it only has 4gb but it also idles lower than 2.5 so it's ok

12/11/2008 7:46:37 PM

get vista ultimate for 65 bones or download the dell bios hax enabled version.

http://www.microsoft.com/student/discounts/theultimatesteal-us/default.aspx


You can also get server 2008 standard x64 (key works for 32 and 64, find the x64 media elsewhere) for free through MS dreamspark

https://www.dreamspark.com/Products/product.aspx?productid=16

12/11/2008 7:49:43 PM

only 4 gigs? lol, i only have 2 gigs in my pc and ive never seen it slow down any

to compare, people claim OSX is great on memory. I can't vouch for that, but I know that in my Powerbook with 1 gig of memory, about 800 to 850 MB is constantly in use, and rarely anymore. I guess the OS just keeps it in reserve and frees it up to programs that need it. who knows.

12/11/2008 7:50:18 PM

7

12/11/2008 9:11:36 PM

DossXP?

or

DossVista?

12/11/2008 11:00:53 PM

^^^ My mac mini ran like dogshit before I upgraded to 4gb.

Vista needs 2gb. 64bit is a complete waste still, unless you have specific application needs for it, or you want to increase the girth of your ePenis.

4gb is PLENTY for Vista, 32bit or otherwise. I can't think of a single scenario where a home user could even possibly use more than 4gb, unless, again, you want to increase the girth of your ePenis.

XP is retarded to run on a brand new machine, especially one you build yourself.

12/11/2008 11:08:40 PM

HA! you have got to be joking right? 2GB on 32-bit Vista, are you freakin' KIDDING? it's like 20% slower than XP, now if you have 4GB and 64-bit, it's probably 20% faster than XP, i've been on all 3 and can attest to the fact there is a MAJOR difference between the three, granted my percentages are made up, but it's to exaggerate my point there's a huge difference.

the ONLY way you can run 2GB on 32-bit Vista and it be acceptable is if you don't run ANY visual effects, NO aero, NO sidebar, that's about the only way it would perform halfway decent, and ESPECIALLY don't try to game on 32-bit Vista with only 2GB of memory, you'll be the LAST gamer to spawn... i guarantee it.

[Edited on December 11, 2008 at 11:22 PM. Reason : ,]

12/11/2008 11:21:44 PM

Quite simply not true.

My machine at work is a 3ghz P4D with 2gb. It runs fine for basic use. Aero is on full, sidebar is on, all visual effects are on. The only disabled feature is indexing, which IS a monstrous memory hog because of all the corpnet stuff I have to run.

If you aren't running photoshop, CAD, or any similar production environment applications, 2gb of memory is plenty. It's not "night and day" for the average user.

---------

If you are a gamer, Vista will continue to shit on you with 200000 gigs of ram. I'm really looking forward to Win7 for gamers to get back their perf

I agree with you though, if you are any sort of invested PC gamer, 4gb is a no brainer.

[Edited on December 11, 2008 at 11:30 PM. Reason : .]

12/11/2008 11:28:47 PM

ok, well to be honest gaming is where i see the night/day difference, but it still keeps me from moving to Vista for my home PC, although I do use Vista on my laptop, and I'm wondering why. i use vista 64-bit at work for application requirements, and i can tell a huge difference between our 2gb machines and our 8gb machines, but again it may be application based

[Edited on December 11, 2008 at 11:38 PM. Reason : .]

12/11/2008 11:35:18 PM

^Much better security and stability out of the box, that's why

And I completely feel your pain on gaming. It's definitely a huge knock (still) against Vista, for the "enthusiast" gamer. There's a big perf hit, with very little to show for it.

For Vista64, yeah if you have any native 64bit app, especially production applications, the more memory and cpu's you can throw at it the better.

12/11/2008 11:42:16 PM

Quote :

"it's like vista was made for 64-bit or something."

that's because it was

the 32-bit kernel was produced after microsoft realized a lot of people didn't have the hardware to run a 64-bit OS

12/11/2008 11:51:32 PM

Prospero, yeah, your evidence is anecdotal at best

I could counter your experience with Vista with mine, which is the complete and utter opposite.

I've run Vista in about 5 different configs, on multiple different machines, and not once have I had any of the issues (aside from UAC) that other people complain about.

I use Vista x32 on my personal laptop right now, and it runs brilliantly. I have an older desktop that I run XP on, and it is streamlined to run at the top, and it still can't beat my lappy for performance.

[Edited on December 12, 2008 at 7:33 AM. Reason : blerg]

12/12/2008 7:33:19 AM

If you go with vista x32, i will second the fact that you need 4gb of ram to ba happy with the speed of vista. BUT you will lose 1gb or ram because of the 32bit OS environment, just like your win2k install. Plus the more hardware you have the less available ram you will have left over. So you might as well get vista x64 with 4gb of ram and be done with it.

In my experience with vista x32 or x64, the more memory you throw at vista the more it will use but the better it will run. I am sure there are diminishing returns on this....you know like over 8gb or something.

12/12/2008 8:44:35 AM

will win7 even come in 32-bit? i hope not...there's simply no reason for it...is there?

meh, with DDR2 memory being dirt cheap (and i mean filthy dirty cheap), there's no reason NOT to throw in 4gb, even in a 32-bit machine, simply because

12/12/2008 8:47:57 AM

^^it may be anecdotal but it's close to public consumer opinion.

take this example. i bought a laptop last black friday, it was a Pentium T2310 with Vista 32-bit preinstalled and 1GB of memory, IT RUNS LIKE SHIT, and this is an OEM install no less. boot up time takes about 3-4 minutes before i can do anything, exhausting my battery life, same with shutdown, starting up applications, TAKES FOREVER. i recently went on a trip where i was actually embarassed to have Vista on my laptop just trying to play a DVD took 3 TIMES AS LONG as my friends Dell laptop with XP he brought along. within 1min.30s we were watching the dvd.

i upgraded it to 2GB and it's decent, but still runs a LOT slower than XP (I had XP on it for about 6 months before having to RMA it and got it back with Vista on it again)

[Edited on December 12, 2008 at 10:38 AM. Reason : ,]

12/12/2008 10:36:40 AM

^Still really anecdotal evidence.

Boot times are mostly hard drive and driver dependent. Dumping more memory on a system will not significantly change the boot time.

I'd wager that if you did a blank Vista install, and didn't install all the garbageware utilities that are on every laptop known to man, you would see a massive decrease in boot time.

Example: Lenovo X61T (4gb DDR2). A vanilla Vista install + just drivers = ~45 second boot. Lenovo supplied Vista image + updated drivers = 2:30 boot.

Last I checked, neither Vista or XP plays DVD's. Windows media player does, and 3rd party apps do, but again, blaming it on the OS itself is not necessarily correct.

Quote :

"If you go with vista x32, i will second the fact that you need 4gb of ram to ba happy with the speed of vista. BUT you will lose 1gb or ram because of the 32bit OS environment, just like your win2k install. Plus the more hardware you have the less available ram you will have left over. So you might as well get vista x64 with 4gb of ram and be done with it."

You get 3.5gb on 32bit. Your entire post is full of completely wrong information and baseless suggestions.

12/12/2008 5:57:23 PM

last time i checked, WMP 11 had no problem playing a DVD when i had XP on my laptop, same exact freakin' hardware, same exact freakin' WMP.

i'm doing a clean install sometime next week, and i'll get back to you on some more factual info. i'll install vista 32-bit sp1, get stats, then format and install XP sp3, get stats all on the same machine, same set of drivers, no additional software

I do not doubt OEM installs are boggy as hell, but alas you understand what every consumer who buys OEM hardware goes through. there's a reason why people had a bad first impression, probably only 5% of the people out there know how to format

[Edited on December 12, 2008 at 6:06 PM. Reason : .]

12/12/2008 6:02:28 PM

^Yep, and from our end of things, we are keenly aware of the issue.

I know for Win7, we've partnered with ALL of the big-box OEMs from day1 to prevent this kind of crap from happening (particularly the "Vista Capable" debacle, but also the tendancy for vendors to make their own versions of built in functionality)

12/12/2008 6:36:07 PM

Even if I do buy OEM because i get a good deal
I reformat that m'fn drive day 1.

12/12/2008 6:52:07 PM

fwiw, i do as well.

last year i got it on bf, took it home and put XP on it once i found all the drivers. i had to RMA it and they put Vista back on it because they "don't support XP" on my laptop. i got it back a couple days before a conference and haven't had time to format it again.

12/12/2008 8:37:46 PM

Quote :

"And I completely feel your pain on gaming. It's definitely a huge knock (still) against Vista, for the "enthusiast" gamer. There's a big perf hit, with very little to show for it."

What do you mean? The "enthusiast gamer" right now has no choice but to move to vista w/ DX10. The improvements are big now. FarCry 2 has a 20% increase in performance on DX10 w/vista over XP. That's pretty big.

12/13/2008 1:23:34 AM

Just for the record, Prospero, since I haven't told you this ...

My laptop, which I installed (clean) XP-SP3 onto, and made sure WMP11 was installed, would not play a DVD, and honestly I haven't spent the time to try to make it work.

I installed VLC, which works perfectly, and never looked back. I'm guessing somewhere in Vista they included the ability to play DVDs? Not sure WTF is up with that. My Vista box had no issues whatsoever with playing the DVD.

(Note, the DVD was anything from a normal encrypted DVD to a normal non-encrypted DVD, I tried both)

OK ... that all said, to anyone wondering what OS to use ...

If you are using a lower-end computer ... Windows XP SP3 is entirely your cup of tea.

If using a mid to higher-end computer ... Windows Vista will be fine.

I still would rather that Microsoft never released Vista, it's going to cause me more headaches, it still reminds me of WindowsME *shudder* The nightmares.

[Edited on December 13, 2008 at 1:33 AM. Reason : .]

12/13/2008 1:30:12 AM

I think its pretty silly to compare ME to Vista.

ME was fundamentally flawed. They added all kinds of shits and giggle on top to make it feel like what XP would be when it came out.

Vista is fundamentally awesome. They just forgot to tell the hardware vendors about it, and then the hardware vendors fucked them.

Seriously, now that vendors are writing proper drivers, and OEM's have stopped putting garbage hardware in their machines, Vista runs pretty much universally great on any new computer. The security model (annoying or not) is light years ahead of any previous MS product, and with the new driver model, it's light years more reliable as well.

12/13/2008 6:03:10 AM