XP vs VISTA

Hey guys I just bought a new PC which only has XP installed. I was wondering If anyone uses VISTA, I'm thinking of buying it but I have heard from people it's not worth it and XP is better, even a salesperson told me it wasn't worth getting it lol.

If anyone can give me a little advice on this If I should get it or not, It would be most appreciated..

Thanks.

I know there was a section about this before but want to know what people think now, If anyone has changed their minds from XP or VISTA.

I had XP with no Service Packs installed and it worked great. After installing them, it caused all sorts of problems with my graphics card.

Haven't tried Vista so I can't really tell if it's good or not

Coming from someone who worked in the industry and dealt with this issue on an almost daily basis, here's a basic rundown of both:

XP is quite old, first of all. It is riddled with security holes which they were fixing right up until they declared it obsolete and unfit for sale anymore. If you run XP without service pack 3, you do so at your own risk. It's not all that unlike running any version of Windows without an antivirus scanner and a firewall; you leave yourself wide open to any number of attacks.

Second, XP is old. Yes, I already said that, but this point is different. The 64bit version of XP was a total hack at the last minute and is entirely unstable and will corrupt your hard drive 9 out of 10 times (I know from experience). Vista x64, on the other hand, is actually somewhat usable by comparison.

Third, XP is old. Yeah, I know, bear with me there though... older games have serious issues on Vista often times. One example is The Matrix Online, which I used to play a while back. When you play it under Vista, textures become shiny which shouldn't be, and you get some very odd, very annoying, very noticeable graphics corruption when you look at a certain angle from the sun in the sky, and they have no clue why it happens. Last I heard, they were trying to contact Microsoft to figure out what they screwed up in Vista to cause this corruption.

That said, other than MxO I haven't had too many other issues with games under Vista that I haven't been able to work around by giving the game administrator rights or something like that. For example, jk3 requires admin rights to work, whereas jk2 does not. This is because the Program Files directory in Vista is locked up tight and requires admin rights to access. To get around this, they have this so-called "virtual store", which pretends it's the program files directory and uses some fancy new type of shortcut hot-link voodoo magic type thing to fool programs into thinking the "virtual store" is actually the program files directory so they write all their files there. Yes, it's incredibly confusing and complicated. Typical Microsoft.

Now on to Vista. Vista is the result of a project going on at Microsoft that somebody decided was taking too long, so they called a stop on all coding, and shipped what they had. The result was an unfinished and unpolished OS that even the Microsoft executives hate (e-mails were leaked a while back). It's only saving grace is that it is somewhat more secure than XP. I say somewhat because its security measures have been totally hacked at this point and have been rendered all but obsolete. You see, they tried to copy the security system used in Linux and the Mac OS and failed miserably. The security popup is way too naggy (it asks you the same question two or three times, every time before you can proceed) and isn't half as smart as the Linux security system, which will actually remember if you give a certain program rights during any particular session.

Another negative for Vista is certain things are redesigned. They tried to make the advanced system preferences easier to access but, in the process, only made things more difficult to find. If you're used to the way XP has its system prefs set up, you'll have a hell of a time figuring out where they went to in Vista.

On the plus side, Vista has a very nice search built into the start menu. No more digging through the all programs folder to find what you want, just open the start menu and start typing. It's not as fluid nor as fast as the Mac OSX spotlight search, but it gets the job done.

Lastly, Vista is not old (yet). It looks new and shiny. If you care about such things.

So if you're left reading all that and thinking, well that's odd.. they both sorta sound the same, you're right. Vista is, more or less, XP with some extra security built in and given a fresh coat of paint. In true Microsoft style, they stole ideas from the Mac OS and added more crap on top of existing crap on top of existing crap and mucked up the whole inner workings to the point where you're going to have some real fun when things go wrong. If you think troubleshooting under XP was fun, boy are you in for a treat should you try Vista.


I suppose I should mention the new Windows 7 OS that's currently in beta before someone like Oram comes in here screaming how awesome it is. Windows 7 is to Windows Vista as Vista is to XP. They stole from OSX, piled crap on top of crap, and gave it a fresh coat of paint, again. Windows 7 is basically the result of Microsoft realizing that they rushed Vista into use and they shouldn't have. They went back, opened up the Vista code, and added in all the stuff they had planned but didn't get to, and they claimed it was "new and improved". From what I hear, it is definitely an improvement over Vista--more stable, less naggy, etc, but I have yet to hear anybody (whose opinion carries any weight in the tech world) say it's better than XP.

I should also mention that the higher end versions of Windows 7 will have an XP mode, which basically runs Windows XP inside a virtual machine. The end result is, you need a better computer to run this higher end version of Windows 7 so you can run XP inside a virtual machine so you can enjoy running programs that normally wouldn't work in Vista or Windows 7, or would work so horribly that you wished you were still using XP. So the question arises, why not just install XP?

In conclusion: Windows sucks in general. But, if you have to choose the lesser of the evils, at the moment XP is winning. Once Windows 7 comes out, it'll be time to re-evaluate. My guess is, however, that once all the hype dies down, people will start to realize that Windows 7 is basically a "fixed" Vista, and still doesn't quite compete to XP's usability.

that was a great little bit there wonko. I have XP with service pack 3, and I really don't want to change that for now until I get a Mac.

Vista has Awsome bubbly Webpages and that, But it breaks all the time and i ended up wiping out my PC, Because it broke.

XP is Fine, It's hard to play JK2 with it. I kept on losing my connection and having to restart my PC, And it used to freeze up and wouldnt work for another week.

well I have vista for almost a year and a half.....and not one problem I have no idea if I have a service pack or anything, but I have vista and I LOVE It!

Da Llama wrote:XP is Fine, It's hard to play JK2 with it. I kept on losing my connection and having to restart my PC, And it used to freeze up and wouldnt work for another week.

I hear ya'!

Theicecreaman wrote:

Da Llama wrote:XP is Fine, It's hard to play JK2 with it. I kept on losing my connection and having to restart my PC, And it used to freeze up and wouldnt work for another week.

I hear ya'!

Thumbs up? d(^_^)b
Or thumbs down? q(-_-)p

wow *claps* awesome post wonko

moral of the story, screw windows, get a mac

@Wonko, xD, Vista is better than XP for one reason, you can do a system restore(Er what ever its called where you restore it to a earlier time, in XP you can do that too but if your XP can't boot than you can't in vista all you need is the CD)
@Da Llama, I've had vista for 3 years and I have never had any problems with it, XP has defiantly caused more problems.
@Juheti, No! Don't buy a mac! They are way to over priced. Get a cheap computer and run Kalyway, etc on it if you want leopard .
Or you can go the legal way and use linux!

Oram wrote:you can do a system restore

You can do System restore on XP, And disk defragmenter and a cool taskbar. O_o
Vista looks newer and cleaner and Shiny, But they cant work harder on how it looks,
I dont care if mine isnt shiny, I dont care if mine is old, XP is better than vista.
The look cant fix viruses on your PC.
I mean seriously...
Vista is a copy of windows XP only they renewed the look.
My vista broke 5 times in one year, HP vista.
As for this XP froze up 5 years later and its all old.

Mac ftw, can't wait until the price lowers in June!

Juheti wrote:moral of the story, screw windows, get a mac

Amen.

Da Llama wrote:

Oram wrote:you can do a system restore

You can do System restore on XP, And disk defragmenter and a cool taskbar. O_o
Vista looks newer and cleaner and Shiny, But they cant work harder on how it looks,
I dont care if mine isnt shiny, I dont care if mine is old, XP is better than vista.
The look cant fix viruses on your PC.
I mean seriously...
Vista is a copy of windows XP only they renewed the look.
My vista broke 5 times in one year, HP vista.
As for this XP froze up 5 years later and its all old.

You missed what I said.
Please reread it
For exmaple if your XP won't boot for some reason YOU CAN NOT DO A SYSTEM RESTORE, how ever Windows Vista only requires you have the CD to do a system restore. You CAN do a SYSTEM RESTORE on both, however xp requires you have a bootable XP.

Theicecreaman wrote:Mac ftw, can't wait until the price lowers in June!

:O! prices are dropping in june!?

Well my pc is xp and ive used vista but I much prefer the layout on xp. I think they tried to make vista TOO user friendly and kinda screwed it up.

As far as which is better, I would say xp cause i know 2 ppl who have vista and they've had all kinds of problems like the dvd drive stop working etc. :/

blivvy wrote:Well my pc is xp and ive used vista but I much prefer the layout on xp. I think they tried to make vista TOO user friendly and kinda screwed it up.

As far as which is better, I would say xp cause i know 2 ppl who have vista and they've had all kinds of problems like the dvd drive stop working etc. :/

Including me?
I had my Graphics card burned out in half an hour,
Vista looks new but has loads of problems.

nice article dude. oh and... lurk.

Fine speach Wonko you really do know your stuff. I have to agree that I love my Macintosh it's old only a G4 400 but I still haven't had any problems with it now and while I was doing my Graphic Arts course which I finished 7 years ago, so that just goes to show how more superior OSX is than Windows, Microsoft always seems to have alot of mistakes like they just did a half arsed job to get it out quick. However I recommed people to a Mac If you have the money for it , I spent alot to get mine but I needed it for the Graphics engine and programs so I didn't have any choice at the time really,

I didn't hear the prices of Mac's are dropping, with all the systems? Imac's, G5's etc, I predict that If it becomes cheap enough for the average person that they will kick PC's out of the water eventually, only thing is If you are used to PC's format some may have a little hard time learning the OSX system, on the plus side as Wonko said Mac's do have better protection from hackers or viruses , the reason being is that PC's are more common and programming is so much more versitile.

However about Vista (which I'm using now) I bought the Premium upgrade pack and also bough a Pentium 4 3.0ghz new computer (yeah spent alot lately lol, anyone got a spare buck? lol)

What I have found is exactly what people have said to me that theres really not much point in getting it unless you like eye candy, I've also found the system is quite different compared to XP but I'm pretty much used to it now and I have had no problems so far. (touch wood for good luck).

So anyway in the end it's really up to the indivual to decide no computer or OS is perfect.

There are rumors floating around about the Macbooks getting a bit of a price drop come June. Nothing official, of course, as that's now how Apple grooves.

If I remember, correctly, the analysts who said this only were referring to the regular Macbooks, not the pro's.

And as far as virus resistance, it's not simply because PC's are more popular. While it's certainly true that hackers focus more on PC's because of this, the Mac OS is Unix-based. This means that it uses long-standing security policies that are proven to work and they do work well. At the moment, the only kinds of viruses you can get on a Mac are those which you execute yourself. It is simply not possible for any program to do something on a Mac without you first telling it to (knowingly or unknowingly.)

Microsoft tried to create their own security system based on the Unix style security, but failed miserably.

¬_¬


First off, Microsoft basically treats its users like 5 year olds when it comes to Vista. Trying too hard to make it easy screws it up. Unless you start off with a Vista (which probably means you got your first computer) then you are going to have one heck of a time finding crap. It has TONS of trouble with file management and actually running programs themselves. For example, GTK Radiant versions 1.4 and 1.5 (I still strongly advise 1.4) will hardly run on Vista, because of some desktop styling things, and you gotta run it as an administrator. Even messing with JK2 screws Vista up. Ever tried to make a pk3?


Vista isn't really user-friendly...I think XP can kick it's shiny backside anyday in usability. And as Juheti (I think) said, making it shiny doesnt fight viruses. Its not like a virus is going to back off from a broad spectrum of light bouncing off the taskbar. Vista also bugs you about every single thing that the computer wants to do, such as running a program. Heck, downloading something will get you called on by Vista's police force. Plus, XP can ward off everything a lot better if you know what to do.


And, Mac is awesome. It just fails epically on the gaming side of things.


If you can deal with the crap Vista just LOVES to dole out, then fine, use it. But if you are impatient and believe your computer should own, then use XP. As a few others said, its mostly the user's choice. I still think XP is better, though.

XP ftw!
Vista: A shiny laptop that makes you think "Wow! Look how shiny that is!" and pay $500.
XP: A standard computer, With a little problems such as: Losing connection.
MAC: A cool computer, Just not good with games.
When will they make a Good computer?
Games or Graphics card?
Clean or Computer?
Viruses or Vacuum cleaner?
Teddy or Alphabet?
So, XP is probably best, But, It will break in like about 5 years or so.
This XP computer is 10 years old, Didnt play on it for 3 years, Then i fixed it.

Oram wrote:@Da Llama, I've had vista for 3 years and I have never had any problems with it, XP has defiantly caused more problems.

I've had 2 XP's for 7 years, No problem, Until now.
This one = Fixed.
Other one = Problem.
Oram, XP is better than vista... Just face it.
The only thing vista beats on XP, The look.
So, We need a Winmac company, lol.
Or Macdow sounds cooler.

Well I know the games on Mac are vastly low, I payed $100 AUS for the JK2 version on Mac after a year it was released, then bought it on PC for $10 a few years ago. It's a rediculously large price for Mac. However as has been said there are a limited amount of games on the Macs so they charge more because what they do have can be hard to locate.

In my opinion I like Mac's more than PC's but they both have there pros and cons. PC's are infearier If you are doing digital art, Mac's are the nest for that, thats why when I work on something such as a logo or type face I use my Mac and I switch to my PC for other things after.

By the way they are getting more and more Microsoft/IBM programs to be compadible with the use on Mac's now, but I doubt they would be cheap to buy, thats theire plan to suck in the loyal PC users to buy Mac's instead. We'll see alot of this is just speculation though how far they can connect with each other.