Vista or XP

Kemik

Kemik

Kemik

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Hello all,

I'm about to reformat my computer and don't want to do it again for another 6 months. Would you advise Vista or XP?

I know there are still some driver problems with Vista but will they be quickly sorted and are the extra features worth it? Don't think of the price btw, as my University is part of the MSDN where we get a free license of either OS with Office.

No bashing, pro-linux/apple please. I'd love to use Ubuntu as my primary OS but I enjoy gaming on my computer.

Thanks.
 
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Vista will clean install in 20-25mins. Try it - if it doesn't work well enough (can't find all the drivers), then put XP on. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised though - unless you have some obscure hardware.
 
the-void said:
Dual boot.

Install XP first, and then Vista on the 2nd partition.
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Seconded. Vista is very plesent to use for day-to-day stuff, but for gaming I'd be very hesitant to recommend it for the time being. It's slowly getting better - give it a few months.
 
I've had no driver or software compatibility issues with Vista so far.

It's a much nicer OS to use day to day than XP as well.
 
I think I must be one of the few who have seen just how much they have hated Vista from day 1

I have to say that it is quite simply the most ridiculously overhyped pile of utter CowPoo that I have ever had the misfortune to waste money on.

Dotn get me wrong, its bought and paid for now, so I do expect the thing to improve, but if it only improves a little, I will be a very dissappointed man.

As it stands, if there is no change in say a year, then I will be pulling out of the Windows scene for good... Only thing keeping me with Windows today is that I have a few games that I have not yet been able to run under Linux ,and its only a few mind you!

--

Problems with Vista?

Ok, the hardware runs kind of fine... The Joypad dont play at all, but under XP its ok.

I have a couple of games that clearly state that they are Vista compatible and they are utter drivel... NONE of the VISTA compatible games actually work under Vista funnily enough.

MP3 playback is poor, DVD Playback is non existent and required me to download a Codec pack, FileSharing, even though perfectly legal ( debateable ) is crippled, and apart from the obvious things like being asked to verify everything I clock on with yet another dialog box that opens up only to then open up another dialog box to confirm that the confirmation I gave was indeed the right thing to do, and was I sure I wanted to confirm it, and should I have clicked on Canel instead, cos after all, this is computer stuff you know... SOD OFF!!!

Vista is taking far too much away from my idea of having a PC... If MS dont want me to do something then they are having a relly good go at stopping me with Vista.... Its no longer my PC... I am now an MS puppet.

Stuff that.
 
FatRakoon said:
MP3 playback is poor, DVD Playback is non existent and required me to download a Codec pack.
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I don't get this. MP3 Playback is (by default) Windows Media Player. Same as XP. How is it poor?

DVD playback is really non existant in XP without a 3rd party DVD codec (PowerDVD, nVidia PureVideo etc). In Vista, however, an MPEG2 codec is built in to the Home Premium/Ultimate versions and will play DVDs out the box. It's like you got it the wrong way round!

FileSharing, even though perfectly legal ( debateable ) is crippled
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And I just plain don't understand what you mean here.
 
Methinks FatRakoon hasn't actually tried it and is just reciting the generic media bashing :p

I've played DVDs, played MP3s and used Azureus BitTorrent. Faultless in every regard. In fact I'm really loving the new HiFi sound subsystem - been relistening to Michael Jackson today and it was simply fantastic :D I guess some of the credit should goto the ALC888 codec though...


Check it out...
hifistackdd5.gif
 
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Just can find any drivers and thats that, did install it thought OK looks cool but no printer driver no scanner,no modem,no Camera drivers and so on.
So I went back to XP and all is well. Just hope the drivers will start to appear.
 
csmager said:
I don't get this. MP3 Playback is (by default) Windows Media Player. Same as XP. How is it poor?
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I have found that the overall quality, coupled with seemingly how much CPU% is being taken up when playing Music back and its noticeable that under Vista, MP3 playback is suffering in many ways.

csmager said:
DVD playback is really non existant in XP without a 3rd party DVD codec (PowerDVD, nVidia PureVideo etc). In Vista, however, an MPEG2 codec is built in to the Home Premium/Ultimate versions and will play DVDs out the box. It's like you got it the wrong way round!
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Vista Business does not play back DVDs. All I had was a black screen no matter whether I used PowerDVD or even VLC... I dont think Ultimate has this problem, or Premuim, come to think of it, but Business certainly does not like DVDs without a codec pack.


csmager said:
And I just plain don't understand what you mean here.
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I have seen many people having good results with Vista, again, not me.... Not many many others either. Vista has a lot of code that attempts to disable P2P programs or at least disable or limit the data speed.

I myself have not been able to use UTORRENT at anything over a few K - Best I managed was about 60K

The very same .torrent files under XP are getting me a fairly flawless 350K+





NathanE said:
Methinks FatRakoon hasn't actually tried it and is just reciting the generic media bashing :p
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Fine. Your wrong, but I can see why you would think that.

I have not had a single moment where I thought ... "I like this"... Not once.

Well, ok, maybe cos it does look nice... It looks really nice, but I feel that the looks are really just some kind of ploy to distract the populous from the truth of it being a serious pile of poopoo.

NathanE said:
I've played DVDs, played MP3s and used Azureus BitTorrent. Faultless in every regard. In fact I'm really loving the new HiFi sound subsystem - been relistening to Michael Jackson today and it was simply fantastic :D I guess some of the credit should goto the ALC888 codec though...
Click to expand...

Im happy that you find Audio playback better than on XP. I myself found it the opposite. Of course, different Hardware = Different Results of course.... My cards are all Creatives of various flavours and I have not tried any others.

I would like to ask, if you have tried a game out, that says that it plays just fine under Vista... NONE that I have, play well at all... NONE!

And I only have Vista for DX10 and the new games that are about to start hitting, btu from my experience so far... Im not the most chuftest of bunnies I can tell you!
 
well i've tried it, and i will upgrade once everything becomes compatible with it, but at the moment there is no chance of me ditching xp. i am sick of messages telling me that this software has know compatibility problems.

in answer to your question op, i would say xp. but it really depends on what software you want to run.
 
i have to agree, creative's drivers do suck in vista. i had to use x-fi drivers even though i only have an audigy2 card. the audigy2 drivers were unusable for me - the sound was flat as a pancake. but extracting the x-fi drivers did the trick for me. loads of people on the creative forums have also done this as a workaround. :p

torrents were fine for me so i don't know what your problem was there? :)
 
as i keep telling people, every pc system is different.. 1 system maybe well run it perfectly without problems and another system may not... u just gonna try it yourself... when software or drivers doesn't work on a OS that isn't the OS fault...

people forget it was like going from windows 95 to 98 or 98 to xp some software and drivers didn't work ... i remember people was doing the same thing as now...
 
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people forget it was like going from windows 95 to 98 or 98 to xp some software and drivers didn't work ... i remember people was doing the same thing as now...
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yes you're right it was the same thing then as now, but don't assume people have forgotten.

what is being discussed here is the state and usability of vista as it is now. i don't think many people on this forum would deny that in the future vista will be exactly where xp is at the moment, but at the moment, vista is getting on a lot of peoples....... breasts. :D
 
FatRakoon said:
I have found that the overall quality, coupled with seemingly how much CPU% is being taken up when playing Music back and its noticeable that under Vista, MP3 playback is suffering in many ways.
Click to expand...
Yeh I found this as well when I first changed from XP to Vista. After a while I had forgotten about the difference in XP and was blaming my speakers, but when I installed the new Creative drivers a few weeks ago it made it sound much much clearer. Having said this, I have just been looking in the Creative control panel thing to see tone controls, which were by default not on flat :(
 
NathanE said:
Methinks FatRakoon hasn't actually tried it and is just reciting the generic media bashing :p

I've played DVDs, played MP3s and used Azureus BitTorrent. Faultless in every regard. In fact I'm really loving the new HiFi sound subsystem - been relistening to Michael Jackson today and it was simply fantastic :D I guess some of the credit should goto the ALC888 codec though...


Check it out...
hifistackdd5.gif
Click to expand...
Why does it list in KHz in one window, and Hz in another. Sloppy UI work there :p
 
Kemik said:
No bashing, pro-linux/apple please. I'd love to use Ubuntu as my primary OS but I enjoy gaming on my computer.

Thanks.
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The OP said no bashing. And I guess that includes bashing the opinions of people who don't like Vista as well as those doing the Vista bashing.

Kemik, as you are able to pick Vista up for free because of your student license then you can make your own mind up about Vista without any financial risk if you do not like it. If you find vista becomes unbearable you can always delete that partition. Likewise if you find you cannot go back to XP, just delete the XP partition. So go ahead and dual boot.

Looking forward to seeing if your a "Vista lover" or a "Vista hater". Best to wait a few months before you admit which one you are - there are a lot of high emotions flying around. If you thought football fans were passionate, you ain't seen nothing yet. :eek:
 
Caged said:
Why does it list in KHz in one window, and Hz in another. Sloppy UI work there :p
Click to expand...


I see what you are saying, but at least they are still showing the same value.

------------

Ok, I have setup a PC ready to go on Vista... I will do what I can, and as far as I can, but I am NOT going to activate it... Just in case I cant use it on the PC that I do eventually want to use it on.
 
I just threw Vista back onto a PC to have a play...

System used is:-

MSI Neo4-f
Winchester 3500
4x512MB OCZ 3200
nVIDIA 7300
OnBoard Audio
Hitachi 80GB SATA

First thing is first, and that is to get some apps off my FileServer...

The Netwok PC can see the Vista box, and the vista box can see the Network, and they can go in and out of the folders etc...

As soon as I try to copy files over, with the Vista box the Vista Explorer hangs. I try clocing it and a windows comes up offering to try to find a solution... I try that and it just goes off into an endless loop???? Finding no such solution at all.

I try from an XP or 2K PC, and I need to log in as a certain user... Fine, I have not set permissions yet, so I go to the Vista PC and share the folder and I go through the pricess, but does it do anything? Not too sure because the XP PCs still get asked for user names for logging in, etc even though according to the shared settings, there it is... The Drive D: is shared and allows full control for everyone?

End result is that after trying to get some files copied over from an XP PC to the Vista PC... After 2 hours, Im accepting that its going to be a CD burn instead.

What does Vista give me that XP cannot ?

DirectX 10?

Ok, anything important?
 
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