Vista or XP Pro in new computer

G

guitardemon

Joined
Jun 8, 2005
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So my laptop craped out on me and I'm in the market for a new computer. I have heard people go both ways about windows Vista. What should I get, windows Vista or XP Pro?
 
I'd read recently that Microsoft has announced that in about 3 weeks from now they'll stop supporting XP.

But that information was apparently incorrect.



If I had to buy a computer right now, I'd go with XP.

Pretty much everyone is in agreement that Vista has not lived up to expectations.
Even big Bill said the company could learn "plenty of lessons" from its handling of the OS.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/03/windows_xp_license_extension_take_two/
 
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rifon2 said:
Microsoft has announced that in about 3 weeks from now they'll stop supporting XP.
Click to expand...
They will stop selling retail and OEM versions of Windows XP at the end of the month. Microsoft will still support it for at least five more years.
 
If one wants to go with Vista, more power to you.

For me, if I was going to buy a new laptop at the moment I'd go XP or Mac or Linux with paid support..Vista is bad news.
 
FWIW, I bought two new HP laptops and immediately converted one to XP. The other I left alone, trying to give Vista a chance. After 2 months of Vista-induced pain, it got converted to XP, too. If I had to buy another, I'd go for a Mac, keeping the lappies on XP just to cover all the bases.
 
Windows is fine to play with - but if you want to be real bored with a tool that just plain works - configure your next laptop as a dual boot with both Linux and Windws on it. The version I use is Novell openSUSE 10.3 ( 11's coming out pretty soon now). You start with a windws computer - when you go to install Linux it will look at your hard drive - find that windows is there and then ask you if you want to set up a dual-boot. you say yess and you will have both whatever flavor of windows you are cursed with plus whatever flavor of Linux you have decided you want on it at the same time. When you start the computer - you will be asked to select wether you want Linux or Windows for this session. I like paying for openSUSE since it gets me 90 days of phone tech support included with the purchase price.Basically for e-mail,web surfing and word processing I use Linux - it is disgustingly fast and reliable. YMMV - but I just don't go to my Windows partition if I can avoid it.
 
Jennifer_B said:
They will stop selling retail and OEM versions of Windows XP at the end of the month. Microsoft will still support it for at least five more years.
Click to expand...

That is great news; but not what I had read. Very glad to hear it though.
It's clearly a situation in flux day-to-day for Microsoft; it seems now that MS will actually even be selling XP for some time to come
for certain types of computers - under pressure from customers, manufacturers, and Wall Street investors.
 
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Get a new Mac and use the Bootcamp program or something like Parallels to also run XP on the other half. Some research has shown that Mac's running XP are more capable and faster than the dedicated microsoft computers, and they are much easier to use and more reliable. The harddrive is completely partitioned so you'll barely have to worry about virus's because Mac's are very safe and even if you do get a PC virus, it won't affect your mac side.
 
lazerboy2000 said:
Get a new Mac and use the Bootcamp program or something like Parallels to also run XP on the other half. .
Click to expand...

The boy just bought himself an iMac and did just this. This is a Mac house but he wanted Windows for some games. Bootcamp runs very nicely and a restart can take him from one OS to the other. He can keep his current Mac Games (WoW mostly) and get others as he goes. Wireless etc works seamlessly across the two OSs. Only quirk is keyboard mapping, the Mac keyboard doesn't have a num lock which needs a bit of thought for some games.

FWIW after some research and guided by the local Consumer report we got G-Data, a German security product which seems to work well and has very good interface and documentation (I say this having been put off Norton by friends who struggled with it.)
 
I'd stick with XP.


There is no reason whatsoever to use Vista , Microsoft wants people to think they need to run and buy Vista so they don't lose billions on their abortion of an OS.

My prediction ? Microsoft will support XP as long as a significant number of people use it - or - they will release a much friendlier OS ala XP.

Very few people even like Vista.
 
I don't like mac...but I bought one for my last laptop. Why? In a short word Vista.

I don't know one IT professional who has anything good to say about it (and I know several). Every computer that I have used with Vista on it is a headache and a half.

Go XP or got to something else.

I find it very interesting that the next version of windows is purported to be 2-3 yrs. out.
IMHO I think Vista may have been the beginning of the fall of Miscrosoft. If that is the case XP was the pinnacle. Think fall of Rome kind of decline.
 
One of the things I do to make a living is Network (LAN) wiring. Know jack about computers - just want something that works when I go to use it - thus Linux. But I interact with a lot of IT support people - and I have found the same thing to be true - NO ONE WANTS TO DEAL WITH VISTA. The few machines I have had to deal with that have VISTA on them ( mostly as part of security DVR installations) have done really strange s$#t and no one seems to know the how or why of it. The only arguement for VISTA came down to greater security - this seems to have come at the cost of massivly greater anoyance on the part of end users - this thing is a pig!
 
XP for me. Our company software is not compatible with Vista, and I have a lot of older accessories and peripherals that probably don't have Vista drivers. I've also been reading about the perpetual and ongoing problems with surround sound in Vista.

I am considering 'upgrading' to Vista, but only as a dual-boot alongside XP. I'm mainly interested in exploring the GUI features of Vista Ultimate.
 
I've had Vista since it was released. I was building a new PC and decided that as the new PC was cutting edge, I'd go with Vista. It's now been 16 months and I'm still running Vista. It has its quirks, its done some strange things, its had me cursing at it, and at times its been a real pain in the backside. But now I'm use to it.

Had I known what it would have been like at the beginning, would I have installed it? Probably, I'm a sucker for new things like this.

Guitardemon - if you are going to go with Vista, ensure all your hardware has vista drivers and your software works as well, otherwise you will have to replace. Also, make sure the laptop spec you are looking at is suitable for Vista or there will be a huge performance hit. I would suggest a dual core processor and 2GB of ram.
 
You'll be able to get XP even after this month on certain lines of computers. Microsoft will still make it available to OEMs for low powered computers. Further, many business lines from the big makers (Dell, HP and so on) will have an option to downgrade to XP at purchase to fit in with many businesses that have not moved to Vista.

Skip Vista.

The mac is an option, but not for everyone. Look into it carefully for what everyone in your household wants to do with a computer.

For me, the mac would be a very bad choice, but I'm pretty geeky.
 
Also, unless you buy the "Ultra," "Premium," or "Business" version of Vista, you won't get the much-hyped graphical 'toys' like the Aero desktop.

For me, the mac would be a very bad choice, but I'm pretty geeky.
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Ditto here. The inability to build my own from a full selection of hardware components is a deal-stopper for me.
 
I use Linux. To check it out you can use a Live CD distribution without installing to your hard drive.

I am downstairs in the living room, posting from my 10 year old Compaq fitted with puppy linux 2.15, using my 32" LCD HDTV for a monitor and connecting to the internet through an inexpensive usb wireless adaptor.

My other, more modern, PC (upstairs hard wired to the router) is a Sony Vaio with dual boot to ubuntu linux 8.04 and Windows XP. I hardly boot into Windows except for maintaining the antivirus and antispyware stuff.

Luis
 
I haven't had any problems with Vista Home Premium. It's fast too. In fact, I much prefer it over XP.
Macs are incompatible unless you bootcamp, but I've also found that there newer ones are not drop-dead reliable and aren't really physically durable either.
 
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