Topic: Which is Best XP or Vista

[Tony]

I only ask as I known my son wishes the Medion Laptop he bought a couple of years ago with Vista installed on it, had XP on instead. Plus I noted a campaign group group was set up to try and save XP . OK I realise Vista hogs resources, but with bigger HHD's and plentyful cheap memory about is it really a resource issue argument....comments please.

by the way the link directing peeps to the Vista discussion /help thread does not work in Simons locked redirect thread.

[Simon]

The Vista Help & Discussion board was merged with the Windows & General Software board when we had the reshuffle, Tony, as it was felt that once Vista has been established, a separate board wasn't really merited.

I wouldn't like to say which is best, but certainly on an older machine, or one with lowish resources, Vista would run like it was wading through treacle.  There are also still some software and driver compatibility issues with Vista, but that's because some of the software companies haven't caught up yet.  Personally, I like XP, because it's tried and trusted, but I do know quite a few people who prefer Vista.

[Sandra]

Vista is the future, you just need a little time to get used to it.
For someone who had never used a PC then Vista would be the best OS for them to start off with. People who are used to PCs dont want to have to learn about the extra features that Vista has to offer, as they are happy with XP in the same way that people were loathe to move to XP from 98.
PCs arent meant to stay the same, they are meant to evolve 

[sam]

Vista is the future, you just need a little time to get used to it. For someone who had never used a PC then Vista would be the best OS for them to start off with.

As always, I'd argue with those statements :-D ... see the future here...   

[GillE]

I'd have happily switched to Linux if only Vista wasn't such a pain to remove and decent video editing software was available.  The security on Vista and all the programmes which run in the background are inconvenient and I've found my video editing software (which worked fine on XP) has a tendency to seize up on Vista.  My vote would be for XP.

[Clive]

XP is going to be supported for a long time yet Tony. 

[Simon]

I think XP will still be supported until Windows 7 is here, won't it?  A lot of people compare Vista to ME, and a lot of people skipped that one too, and jumped straight from Win98SE to XP.  Myself included.

[Tony]

XP is going to be supported for a long time yet Tony. 

Yes Clive, MS are still supporting W2K through to 2010, it appears MS offers 10 year support on their OS's[5 years mainstream then 5 years extended]

Microsoft W2K Support

Microsoft XP Support Cycle

[daveeb]

XP or vista ? Doing a lot of video conversions /  burning i'm reliant on 3 programs winavi, autogk and nero. I've struggled for several months to get vista classic to play ball with these programs. Compatability mode works one minute then not the next. I've tried various codec packs with very limited success. The wireless connection is also very flakey.  All these things work flawlessley with my 2 pc's running XP.  in short I hope windows 7 ditches everything remotely related to vista as in my opinion it's a pile of poo. 

[Simon]

Have to admit, I've also had problems with wireless connectivity on my Vista laptop.  Once connected, it's rock solid, but it sometimes takes a restart to get it working initially.

[daveeb]

I've found that when i boot the laptop up, usually there are no networks detected due to a problem with loading the wireless driver. 90% of the time if i disable the wireless card then re-enable it things are ok. The other 10% of the time the channel number will have mysteriously changed and needs changing back or nothing works and i have to reboot. Annoying and hardly an improvement on the previous reliable OS.   

i'm tempted to get another pc now while they're still available with XP.

[Sandra]

No problems with WinAvi or Nero on mine Dave, havent tried Auto Gk. You need a later version of Nero but I think I have had later versions of 7 and definately all version 8 working fine.

[Camstop]

Vista has been by far the most reliable for me. The only problems i've had have been that i had to look for a patch to get my Canon MP830 printer (which i love  ) to work and it taking a bit of time for google sketch up to release a stable version which i used with my work on occasion.

I had terrible trouble with XP but i think that was down to installing unbranded Ram (never again  ) so it's unfair to criticise the OS really 

Better than all that for me is the fact that my old XP PC sounded like a whirlybird    and this (Vista Dell) PC is almost silent 

[daveeb]

No problems with WinAvi or Nero on mine Dave, havent tried Auto Gk. You need a later version of Nero but I think I have had later versions of 7 and definately all version 8 working fine.

Sandra my winavi version (7.7) has multiple problems.  Depending on the version of the klcodec pack i install winavi either creates gigantic files (1-2 GB from <30 MB files), or says task completed when it hasn't done anything. I cannot get the preview pane to work under any circumstances despite turning off aero etc. 
I may have to seek out some vista friendly programs that do the same tasks.