Which is better:Windows XP or Windows Vista?

[Palamon]

I prefer windows XP. It's better for me. It's easier to use, and it is less complicated.

 

[jmc489]

Vista. It's not perfect, but after having used both, I think it's the better of the two.

 

[Camisado]

I still have XP on my PC and it's what I support at work...I've actually never touched Vista. o.o

I'm probably going to do like work and just change straight to Windows 7 if I have to upgrade. My PC is still running quite happily as it is.

 

[beauty. proletariat]

A while ago, I would have said Vista...

But no. Only improvements in vista is security and unless youre a dimwit, you will know how to work firewalls and antivirus suites.

XP may not have the security Vista has, but its got everything else (except for the system requirements) as XP is much more customisable, as said by apple.SHAMPOO, "eight year old operating system"; its known to work, whereas Vista has only been around for three years or so, and its still getting negative reviews due to its resource hogging.

Additionally, you cannot call Windows 7 a Vista SP3 as if this was so, many system files would be the same and they could be used cross-SP (i.e. to a SP1, Vista), but they will not be supported;

XP may be better in terms of overall, but its really old and I dont see why you'd use XP, especially as a 64-bit operating system as it has too much problems.


32-bit; go for XP

64-bit; go for Vista

 

[s0nido]

I was close to choosing XP, because of a number of issues I've had with Vista, but then I looked at Windows Aero and I was like: "What am I thinking?" and chose Vista. People say it's a RAM-eater and all, but when you have plenty of RAM to spare, you shouldn't have a problem with it. Same goes for your CPU. A really fast CPU with a big cache should do the job for Vista, as well as a compatible graphics card.

I can't wait for Windows 7, though. Dell's giving it to us for free :D

 

[Bianca Paragon]

negative reviews due to its resource hogging.

No results found for "Resource Hogging"
Did you mean "Effectively putting to use the resources available to allow greater features to be prevalent in the OS"?

 

[beauty. proletariat]

Nope! I'm talking about resource hogging and also more memory leaks compared to XP

 

[Bianca Paragon]

Nope! I'm talking about resource hogging and also more memory leaks compared to XP

Memory leaks are an Application problem; not an OS problem. An OS inherently allocates memory based on what the application requests. If the application doesn't cleanly mark it's memory as "free" when it's closed; you get a memory leak. Vista as an OS has no such "built in memory leaks"; I run Vista on my media machine for weeks at a time and it gets no slower over time since last reboot ~ therefore there's no memory leak.

As to "resource hogging"; you do realize that when an application requests resources that would otherwise be used by a Vista background service; that service is suspended; right? That's why Aero disables when you load a directX game.

Personally speaking; if you have a machine with a grunty GPU and a good amount of RAM; why SHOULDN'T an OS use it for day to day use? Mac OSX does. Nobody complains about it being "bloated".

 

[beauty. proletariat]

Memory leaks are an Application problem; not an OS problem. An OS inherently allocates memory based on what the application requests. If the application doesn't cleanly mark it's memory as "free" when it's closed; you get a memory leak. Vista as an OS has no such "built in memory leaks"; I run Vista on my media machine for weeks at a time and it gets no slower over time since last reboot ~ therefore there's no memory leak.

As to "resource hogging"; you do realize that when an application requests resources that would otherwise be used by a Vista background service; that service is suspended; right? That's why Aero disables when you load a directX game.

Personally speaking; if you have a machine with a grunty GPU and a good amount of RAM; why SHOULDN'T an OS use it for day to day use? Mac OSX does. Nobody complains about it being "bloated".

Well I have experienced vista being slower after use for a long time. Applications could not be causing such memory leaks unless WLM + Photoshop + Firefox somehow causes leaks.

Also; thats the thing... Vista runs all these programs in the background, yeah, but thats just file indexing :| Also, completely turning off Indexing makes vista search heaps slow compared to xp.

If you owned a supercomputer and you had the chance to control Weather Satellites and there were two models to choose from;
An older model that works great, has been around for 8 years, requires less resources on your computer to use and has a simple to-the-point GUI
A newer model that also works well, but is more costly and requires more resources but its filled to the brim with eyecandy

 

[Bianca Paragon]

Well I have experienced vista being slower after use for a long time. Applications could not be causing such memory leaks unless WLM + Photoshop + Firefox somehow causes leaks.

Photoshop doesn't release the memory for the files it has opened until you close the entire program and not just the individual files. This is prevalent in the OSX version too; but worse ~ it takes up GPU memory :(

Also; thats the thing... Vista runs all these programs in the background, yeah, but thats just file indexing :| Also, completely turning off Indexing makes vista search heaps slow compared to xp.

Indexing is the backbone of any proper desktop search. XP doesn't even *have* a proper search; just a simple match-string-in-filename. To compare it to Spotlight or Windows Vista Search is ridiculous.

If you owned a supercomputer and you had the chance to control Weather Satellites and there were two models to choose from;
An older model that works great, has been around for 8 years, requires less resources on your computer to use and has a simple to-the-point GUI
A newer model that also works well, but is more costly and requires more resources but its filled to the brim with eyecandy

It's not about the eyecandy. It's about the functionality. If the latter model offers me more functionality; makes my life easier; is updated to be compatible with more recent companion technologies and still manages to be snappy and responsive when I sit down to use it? Pretty obvious choice.

 

[Archer]

Look, I've always been a Vista-hater in the past, but I think Cloud has a point. If you have the resources to run Vista, you might as well. With higher-end specs, you're not really going to notice the difference from a performance perspective, although it's clear to anyone that XP is really dated. Look, XP is still fine if it's already installed and working, or if you have an older machine, but Vista is at the point where the bugs are ironed all out.

 

[beauty. proletariat]

Indexing is the backbone of any proper desktop search. XP doesn't even *have* a proper search; just a simple match-string-in-filename. To compare it to Spotlight or Windows Vista Search is ridiculous.(1)

It's not about the eyecandy. It's about the functionality. If the latter model offers me more functionality; makes my life easier; is updated to be compatible with more recent companion technologies and still manages to be snappy and responsive when I sit down to use it? Pretty obvious choice.(2)

(1) XP does have indexing though lol. Its slower, but it doesnt affect your computer's overall performance and leaves free space in the background.

(2) Vista has lower driver compatibility. I know, its not that bad anymore, but XP has a much better driver compatibility and I can be sure that even 7 will have problems with certain drivers after its release. On my laptop theres problems with Vista / Windows 7 with all drivers (theres two drivers that aren't supported whatsoever) Though technologically; Vista x64 is better. 32-bit wise, I'm with XP though :/

 

[Bianca Paragon]

(1) XP does have indexing though lol. Its slower, but it doesnt affect your computer's overall performance and leaves free space in the background.

(2) Vista has lower driver compatibility. I know, its not that bad anymore, but XP has a much better driver compatibility and I can be sure that even 7 will have problems with certain drivers after its release. On my laptop theres problems with Vista / Windows 7 with all drivers (theres two drivers that aren't supported whatsoever) Though technologically; Vista x64 is better. 32-bit wise, I'm with XP though :/

It's hardly fair to even call what XP does "indexing". It would take XP months to index a 1TB drive full of documents, pictures and songs and often things that were IN THE INDEX wouldn't be found by the search. So your "lol" is really better aimed at the notion of "XP Search".

And as for drivers; I install Vista on ANY of my machines and the important drivers are INCLUDED OUT OF THE BOX including SATA/AHCI and Network. And the Network is where the magic is; by basically supporting every network chipset *I* have in my possession out of the box; it means it can use Windows Update to locate drivers for anything it doesn't already support. Starting from scratch; with retail discs are most recent SP level; of XP and Vista? On the same recent hardware? I'll have the Vista machine up and running in 1/2 the time due to the reduced need to hunt out drivers.

 

[Sajuuk]

Why would you use an 8 year old operating system; when not just one - but TWO! releases have brought to the table far more in terms of features, technology and reliability.

1) Some games are not compatible with Win7, as are certain drivers. Besides, many people like it. :)

2) Some places can't use Win7 probably because they are on a domain.

3) All old games from the XP era will never work on Win7.

That's why. :D

On Topic: I use WinXP, since I run very old games on my comp. My granny has Vista, hates it, nothing ever works. We got the laptop and whenever the WiFi was turned on, the comp crashed.

We eventually reinstalled Vista, but never liked it anymore.

 

[beauty. proletariat]

Oh god what have I done =.=

Vista isnt horrible; its just inferior to XP overall with same hardware.

Dont u use a drivers pack for XP?

And Bundled software hardly counts anymore as you have alternative software for pretty much everything

Evidence: Review + Comparison using i7

 

[Bianca Paragon]

Oh god what have I done =.=

Vista isnt horrible; its just inferior to XP overall with same hardware.

Dont u use a drivers pack for XP?

And Bundled software hardly counts anymore as you have alternative software for pretty much everything

Having to slipstream in a THIRD PARTY CREATED driver-pack just to have the same functionality as retail Windows Vista pretty much proves my point that XP is depreciated crap that should only be used if you have a PC significantly below the recommended requirements for Vista ~ and even *then* you ought to be using 2003.

1) Some games are not compatible with Win7, as are certain drivers. Besides, many people like it. :)

2) Some places can't use Win7 probably because they are on a domain.

3) All old games from the XP era will never work on Win7.

That's why. :D

On Topic: I use WinXP, since I run very old games on my comp. My granny has Vista, hates it, nothing ever works. We got the laptop and whenever the WiFi was turned on, the comp crashed.

We eventually reinstalled Vista, but never liked it anymore.

1) Any Win32 games title that works under Windows XP will work under Windows Vista/7
2) A Domain - even one running Windows NT4 as it's PDC - can still be configured to allow newer versions of Windows as clients.
3) wut? "all XP games won't work on Windows 7"? wut?

 

[Azelf118]

I am no windows user but from what I know, XP is much better! Vista has yucky error reports and compatibilaty errors so you can't install stuff. Also, it is bigger and slower. If you want windows, get XP!

 

[Vednix]

I'd say XP, because vista has had a lot of bugs that they're still working out, and it costs a fortune. XP is way better.

 

[linkinpark187]

You know, in my own personal opinion, the best OS right now is 7. I've got it running on my desktop with no problems, and thinking of switching my laptop over sometime soon. I just need time to back up my stuff and then just do it. Before I used 7, I would have said XP on older systems and Vista on new, but now that I've been using the Beta/RC of 7, I love it. I've had it up and running with no issues on old hardware, too (hardware that's probably six years old).

 

[ArmchairRomeo]

I prefer Vista. I've been using it almost since launch, and I've had very few problems. Of course, I use Windows 7 and Ubuntu 9.04 on my desktop PC now (mostly Ubuntu), but Vista's still just fine.

XP, I always think the simpler the better. Though, I use Ubuntu heaps more now, in fact, I RARELY use XP. Windows 7 however, looks really good, I got it free with my PC User magazine, so I might as well try it out.

Hmm. The simpler the better? DOS? :P

XP.. clean, light resource usage, and ALL THE DRIVERS WORK PROPERLY (mostly)

Win7 MAY change this but since I can't do an in-place upgrade to 7, it may be a long while.

I haven't had a driver problem with Vista/Win7 (they use the same drivers) in a LONG time.