Why Vista?

[liquidguru]

first of all i would like to say i am in no way criticizing vista...if this question has been asked before, i apologize..

my question is this...

if i went out and bought a new 'vista' compatible pc, fast core 2 duo processor, 2GB Ram etc etc, would my applications runs faster on XP or Vista...if Vista, as an OS, uses more RAM and, i suppose, CPU, would i not be better off sticking with XP?

could some one explain why i would be better off with Vista? i'm not that interested in the GUI..i use windowblinds to make my pc look however i want it to. will programs like the Adobe suite be upgraded to run faster on Vista? i've heard alot about how nice it looks (and it does), how i can search my files better etc, but will it make me more productive?...i do alot of video editing so i want programs like Adobe Premier to run efficiently and with the maximum available RAM

i want to upgrade when Vista come out, but i got to thinking that maybe if i make the investment in new hardware, that i may be better off if i stick with XP?

i would appreciate any comments.

thank you

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[bonestonne]

being vista compatible and running faster with vista are two very different things.

windows vista right now is just a bunch of beta OS's that are being released to those who want to test it or whatever. by all means i would suggest not using it until its final, although i do use it now myself. to me, at least for the summer, its something that i can play around with. XP is much more stable and customizable right now, and it supports what you buy. if you buy a printer, you can install it on XP. with vista, its not that easy.

all the new computers that say they're Vista Compatible are really just the same thing computers have always been. i have a 5 year old HP 7915 desktop computer, 1.1GHz processor, 512MB of RAM. it runs vista just great. i can play my music, rip music, use trillian, firefox, microsoft word...everything that i could need. even the slave drive. its no use going out buying new to do something extra, its not always nessecary. i was reading other topics around here, saying that people would throw out old slow computers, and the problem might just be that they were never defragmented. yea, its a big problem with people. you don't need a dual processor computer, you don't even really need much of a processor. you just need to stay neat and organized.

but back to what you were saying, yes, you'd be much better off just sticking with XP, because you could utilize a much larger portion of the processors and RAM. Vista will just eat it up, XP is much more frugal with it.

Operating System of choice these days is either Mac OS X or Windows XP. thats why they make cross platform drives and computers.

linux is a whole other story.

[No6]

Today's applications were written for XP. As you pointed out, Vista has increased demands for resources so in my mind, and although it will run those applications, it won't do a better job than XP does.

Tomorrow's applications are another thing. Written for Vista, they will undoubtedly have demands that XP cannot meet.

Since I am not going to spend a couple of thousand of dollars upgrading my apps to Vista any time soon, I plan to use XP for my main OS for another couple of years or until I aquire software that demands Vista. Vista will be a plaything like Linux is to me now, just the means to learn and experiment.

Your mileage may vary.

[liquidguru]

thanks for the replies...

so, until software is upgraded to take advantage of what Vista has to offer, i'm better off with XP? and will these Vista-ready applications be faster as, as far as i can see, Vista will always consume more resources, so how will Vista be better, expect in terms of appearence? i admit i do not know alot about what Vista will do better...

[LLXX]

Why Vista? Because many users just want the newest OS from Micro$oft.

[nitroshift]

Some people just like to be fashionable... Latest OS, latest versions of apps, etc... I think it's just a matter of personality. As I said in other posts, I'll just stick to XP until Vista will have had most of its holes plugged and that's not going to be anywhere in the near future.

[Biohead]

The main thing about Vista is the security. It's been significantly improved over XP (I'm not saying it's invinvcible by a long shot though). Also, the introduction of new networks stacks, which even on my home network I can tell the difference.

About the hardware though. You have to think at what computers could do when XP was released in 2001. They certainly weren't capable of what they are now. You may actually notice Vista will handle dual-core and quad-core CPUs better than XP.

So once momentum gets going with Vista, it will be ultimately quicker than XP on an equivelant setup.

[fizban2]

but back to what you were saying, yes, you'd be much better off just sticking with XP, because you could utilize a much larger portion of the processors and RAM. Vista will just eat it up, XP is much more frugal with it.

i agree that Vista uses a larger portion on RAM at any given time... bu has one looked at how often it has to page out to the pagefile? heres a test i would like some people to try with me, i will test my PC at home, and at work with vista and XP both, checking through a day of normal work and normal activities (office apps, dev apps etc) running system monitor to check how often that Vista needs to write out to page. Just because vista uses alot of RAM does not mean that it doesn't use it efficently. i know i would prefer that my apps and programs are runnig in RAM vs having to go out to the pagefile all the time. i will write up an experiment i would like people to try who have the ability to test both Vista and XP based on some requirements that i will define lets do some testing

[prx984]

maybe what you might consider doing is waiting until vista has been released and see what kind of hardware is available then?

either that or just stick with xp like everyone else said. i really like xp and i think i will be using it until its no longer supported. its the only os i can use properly on my desktop right now, so im going to have to stick with it. 2000 pro works, but it doesnt handle my hardware as well and plus, i like the look of XP anyway.

in the end, its really entirely up to you with what you do. just dont do something youll regret

[Albuquerque]

[snip] as far as i can see, Vista will always consume more resources, so how will Vista be better, expect in terms of appearence?

Windows 95 used far more resources than Windows for Workgroups 3.11... Why did anyone upgrade?

Windows 2000 used far more resources than Windows 98SE... Why did anyone upgrade?

Windows XP / MCE used a bit more resources than Windows 2000... Why did anyone upgrade?

Notice a trend?

We don't use Windows 3.11 anymore because we wanted our new hardware to "plug and play", we wanted support for bigger drives, we wanted a 32-bit operating system and not a 32-bit tack-on (Win32 for Win3.0 anyone?) We wanted better memory management, etc. Did we get all of that with Windows 95? Fundamentally, yes we did. Did it actually solve all our problems? Not really. Did we still end up using more CPU, more memory, and buying more hardware to support it all? Yup.

We don't use Win9x anymore because we wanted better plug-n-play support, true USB functionality, a more stable kernel, support for even bigger drives, better security features, and oh yes better resource management. Did we get all of that with Win2000? Fundamentally, yes we did. Did it actually solve all our problems? Not really. Did we still end up using more CPU, more memory, and buying more hardware to support it all? Yup.

We're moving away from 2000/XP because we need true 64-bit support and not some slapped-on extended version. We want even better security, we want our plug-n-play features to be really stinking easy, we want self-healing operating systems, we want better performance out of the hardware we're buying, we want a more stable kernel, and we want extensibility for future improvements to the OS. Are we getting all of that with Vista? Fundamentally, yes we are. Is it going to solve all our problems... Duh, of course not. Are we still gonna end up using more CPU, more memory, and buying more hardware to support it all? Yup.

We'll move away from Vista and do something else by the beginning of the next decade. And you know what? It will need more CPU, it will need more memory, and probably will need some newer hardware to make it all work. That's life.

[RyanVM]

The only reason I'm interested in Vista is DX10

[bonestonne]

i will write up an experiment i would like people to try who have the ability to test both Vista and XP based on some requirements that i will define

i'll definately try that, although in almost all situations i can see windows XP just being able to handle the workload. Vista will be more secure and user friendly.

If you've got vista running, open up the control panel. thats user friendly. its completely laid out, there are more options than XP has, which means you can 'do more'. although that is true in some ways, windows XP is a very stable operating system. Home Edition users lag the most, because its just XP, plain and simple. Professional users get the most out of it, its built to perform. Vista is build to look good, be as user friendly as possible, and still perform just as good.

you can take a computer and to whatever you want it, as long as its compatible. Vista is still in beta, so im sure in time to come it will get much better. if 5520 has many fixes, i have no reason to doubt that the public final release will be just as good as XP, with even more capabilities.

[goreckm]

honestly, the best thing for you to do would be to try out installing windows vista onto your system for a few days and seeing how it works for you. wait for RC1 as it is coming out soon, and it will give you a general idea of how windows vista will perform on your computer.

i personally found that installing windows vista wasn't a big deal, until i went back to xp, which made a bigger impact on me. it's kind of like when xp came out and everyone was using 98; a lot of people were, ooo, a nice looking version of 98 that takes up more resources. but try using windows 98 after you've used xp for a long time, and you'll feel all dirty. (at least i do).

vista won't improve the performance on the same hardware, and will probably decrease your productivity while you are learning it, but if you manage to adapt, it may increase ur productivity in the long run. for example, i've been finding the breadcrumb bar of windows explorer to be absolutely indispensible in vista, and curse that xp doesn't have that option, the same goes for the search on the start menu.

[Pete_]

I looked the screenshots and upgrades than comes with Vista, personally i think all the 3d-thing, Rolex-clock in the right hand menu, RDS-news feeds, etc. are only tiny tiny enhancements, is there really anything usefull updates? Wouldn't want to give 15gb for Vista, only for these and some new games like Mahjongg

Edited August 23, 2006 by Pete_

[Albuquerque]

I looked the screenshots and upgrades than comes with Vista, personally i think all the 3d-thing, Rolex-clock in the right hand menu, RDS-news feeds, etc. are only tiny tiny enhancements, is there really anything usefull updates? Wouldn't want to give 15gb for Vista, only for these and some new games like Mahjongg

Maybe you should do more reading and less looking at the pictures?

It isn't even based on the same kernel anymore. WDDM (D3D10) is enough to write a book on; the new way it handles audio streams could be similarly long. The entirely new network stack and kernel level interface with TOE/RSS/RDMA functions take up about 100 pages in their whitepaper form and is incredibly different than what we have now. Native support for IA32/IA64/x86-64 architectures versus some tacked-on BS with XP is also incredibly different. Even the entirely new driver interface is WORLDS better in terms of performance, stability and functionality than the NT5.x kernel.

To someone who just looks at the screenshots, you might somehow say "well, you can do that with XP." The reality is, no you can't. You can't have sub-0.5ms response times from any audio streams let alone ones processed in full 32-bit floating point format. You can't virtualize video ram and send "multithreaded" apps to GPU functional resources. You can't use TCPOE technology nor receive side scaling on your network interface, the list can go on for miles. What is all that crap I just spewed and why is any of that important? Maybe you should go read a bit

I've mentioned it before on this forum elsewhere, and I'm going to reiterate it here. Vista will be the single biggest leap into new OS technology that Microsoft has ever undertaken. And yeah, it's going to soak up more resources because of the new features.

A Kia Rio can haul you back and forth to work daily without issue.

A BMW 745iL can haul you back and forth to work daily without issue.

Why might someone buy a BMW over a Kia?

Why might someone buy Vista over XP?