Windows Vista vs XP

Hessian

Hessian

Hessian

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As I'm getting a completely new setup, I'm wondering whether to upgrade to Vista, currently I'm using XP Pro and it does everything I want. Just wondering whether Vista is really worth updating to, what extras does it come with that is really needed over XP Pro?
 
Stick with XP. If it's working for you dont touch it, cause you can be sure that if you go Vista it wont work
 
Hard to say:)

On one hand, I find Vista more user-friendly, all my peripherals are supported, as are all my essential programs. I don't play games, but understand there may be some issues with certain games on Vista.

On the other, XP is tried and tested, and if you're happy with it, why change? Yes, the visual bling of Vista is nice, but it's not a sound reason to change your OS....
 
I'm keeping with XP for now, until Vista becomes more standard and offers more. The only reason I changed from 98 to XP was because it was more stable & software was moving into XP direction for support etc.
 
The main thing that has put me off is the lack of drivers for peripherals and all I've heard about Vista is that it's Ultra-RAM intensive, would those that use it agree?
 
Hessian said:
The main thing that has put me off is the lack of drivers for peripherals and all I've heard about Vista is that it's Ultra-RAM intensive, would those that use it agree?
Click to expand...

Its not RAM intensive if you have 2 or more GB ram, it uses RAM properly though, it doesnt leave a single mb unused, it uses as much as you have for cache wich makes windows a lot faster.


But for gaming though, stick with xp, if you want to give it a go, use dualboot.
 
Hessian said:
all I've heard about Vista is that it's Ultra-RAM intensive, would those that use it agree?
Click to expand...

If in doubt, buy a Vista license but use XP until you're ready to upgrade.

And I'd say that Vista is perfectly usable on 1GB of RAM

Burnsy
 
ive been using it for around a week now and overall find it a bit faster to use then xp but it took me a day to get some things working due to drivers not being out or programs not being compatible. once working its much better then xp but be prepared to spend some time getting it working
 
^ What he said, vista does take awhile longer to get usable the same way xp is, main loss of time is disabling stuff like UAC, Windows defender, Security center, and that kind of security rubbish nobody will ever need.
Also drivers are indeed a pain ( Nvidia & creative & logitech to name a few) but it's getting good, nvidia's 162.15's seem to work like a charm now on all games and I think creative and logitech ( g11&g15 64 bit drivers...) will follow soon.

Once it's all set up though it's much nicer to use imo.


But for gaming, I still recommend sticking with xp or at least dualbooting.
 
If you actually want to go to Vista, go for it. I've been using it for a little over a week and have enjoyed it so far, and not really come across and programs or hardware that don't want to work. System performance feels much better now (and that's not just because it's a fresh OS install, my XP installation prior wasn't very old), and gaming performance is still very good.

I'm not really sure if there are any explicit reasons or necessities to switch to Vista right now, but I'm liking the changes and improvements in general usability. It feels very polished.
 
There's no requirement to move to Vista yet unless you need to. There's certainly no harm in doing so if you want, but as with all OS changes, research compatibility and features carefully first.

Compare your current features of XP and choose a version of Vista that has the same, if not more. Also, check your current software and hardware is compatible with Vista. I think Microsoft have a compatibility tool to check?

If possible, I wouldn't jump in the deep end, even if Vista is expected to work perfectly. Try and make it easy for yourself to switch back to XP if Vista doesn't work out. E.g, install Vista on another partition and dual boot into it. Or, Ghost your PC with XP on and keep the image safe. Install Vista and have a play.

Don't activate it straight away, test it thoroughly first. If it's all fine, activate. If not, don't activate it and go back to XP.
 
I've used vista for about 2 months. Ive just decided to go back to XP though. Vista is nice to look at and for general use, but niggly little things put me off, as well as driver issues with my kit.

So for now I'll go back to XP and try vista again after the service pack
 
i upgraded from winXP media centre to Vista 64bit ult about 3 months ago and haven't had any real problems with it.
had one driver that i had to wait a few weeks to come out and a few updates to programs but all is fine and dandy now
 
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