OS for new build: XP or Vista?

jbw · Post by **jbw** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 1:27 pm

In the next month or so, I'll be building a new PC for general use, playing audio and DVDs, and remoting into work (no 3D gaming).

I have no problems with XP Pro and would be content to use it forever. At some point, though, Vista will be the norm. But is it worth buying now?

leju · Post by **leju** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 5:00 pm

It depends on what hardware you are considering and if there are any driver issues with what you buy.

I just built a new machine for the same purpose as you are looking at (no games). I got 4gb ram and a 7600gs (passive) and a core duo @ 3ghz.

Since I got fairly decent power, I decided to run vista 64bit home premium and can't say that I regret it. I did some checking first and found that all my hardware has 64bit vista support (yes even my remote control) and that all the software I wanted to use supports it as well.

The only real main advantage I see is that the GUI is a lot cleaner and nicer and is significantly more responsive and smoother than XPs old GDI crap.

Oh and if you decide on Vista, just like XP, you'll need to go through all the services and turn off all the crap you don't need and the scheduled services like windows defender and the crap defrag tool it has.

psiu · Post by **psiu** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 5:48 pm

Well, I haven't but a friend of mine just told me today he's strongly considering going back to XP. He has had to contend with interface changes (which may or may not be better, but different usually means annoying at first), driver compatibility with some of his older stuff, and has experienced file system corruption already. He had it hang while doing a game install and while he could get task manager up, it wouldn't let him do anything (like kill gameinstallprocess.exe).

He just put it on his new machine C2D E6600, 8800 GTS, I think a Foxconn board, Intel chipset on it, Seagate 320 GB drive etc. He does IT for a county health department so he knows his business. Vista just seems to be having growing pains at the moment, and sure, in a couple years it will be good and ready. But XP is mature and has pretty heavy pentration--think about how long you kept seeing Win98 computers out there, you will be seeing XP for a long time.

Have you given Linux any consideration? I just jumped back into the Linux world this weekend with Ubuntu, and it's much improved over the last time I tried (must've been Mandrake 9 or 10, 2-3 years ago). Definitely something I would maybe recommend to a computer-savvy person, though I don't think I would want to suggest it to my mom or wife or anything like that

jbw · Post by **jbw** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 8:21 pm

Originally I had spec'ed this computer to be a P4-D with an Abit Fatal1ty, then decided to go for the C2 since I'm told it runs much cooler for not that much more $.

However, now, I'm leaning more toward just getting the fastest athlon x2 and using an this Asus mobo that has on-board DVI and an HDMI daughterboard for home theater output. Will probably be 2GB of ram; on-board ATI video from the motherboard. I don't think there will be any Vista-related problems with devices.

As for linux, yeah I've run linux before, but I'm pretty heavily invested in windows apps and I need to run MS office to edit files for work.

I suppose that eventually, Vista will come into its own and if I buy another XP license, I'll wish I had installed Vista from the start. (I remember my own reluctance to upgrade to XP from 2K Pro; it will probably be the same hindsight in two or three years, right?)

qviri · Post by **qviri** » Tue Apr 24, 2007 8:49 pm

jbw wrote:(I remember my own reluctance to upgrade to XP from 2K Pro; it will probably be the same hindsight in two or three years, right?)

If you knew what you know now, would you choose the first XP release, without any service patches, over 2000 Pro?

Willy Higinbotham · Post by **Willy Higinbotham** » Wed Apr 25, 2007 2:48 am

No Vista for me until MS releases the SP1 for it.

I have purchased another retail XP Pro recently and I will run it on the my next PC.

jbw · Post by **jbw** » Wed Apr 25, 2007 6:37 am

qviri wrote:If you knew what you know now, would you choose the first XP release, without any service patches, over 2000 Pro?

Actually I did just that, on a whim. I was writing a script to clean out a directory tree and I accidentally ran it on my entire "Documents and Settings" folder on my 2K system. There was no way to salvage that install, so I just took the plunge and installed XP. To tell you the truth, I never had any problems with it.

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Wed Apr 25, 2007 8:06 am

I'd go with XP sp2, or look at some variety of Linux. There's a reason that MS Vista is starting to be called "Windows ME 2".

Maelwys · Post by **Maelwys** » Wed Apr 25, 2007 9:46 am

Ralf Hutter wrote:I'd go with XP sp2, or look at some variety of Linux. There's a reason that MS Vista is starting to be called "Windows ME 2".

Wholeheartedly seconded!

jbw · Post by **jbw** » Wed Apr 25, 2007 12:17 pm

Ralf Hutter wrote:I'd go with XP sp2, or look at some variety of Linux. There's a reason that MS Vista is starting to be called "Windows ME 2".

As I wrote above, I need some flavor of Windows. However, just the initials "ME" are enough to scare me off. Man was that the worst OS ever? Wow I can't even tell you how many problems I had with ME. (Good thing I didn't ever pay for it...

)

peteamer · Post by **peteamer** » Wed Apr 25, 2007 1:19 pm

Maelwys wrote:Wholeheartedly seconded!

I'll second that seconded.....

vanhelmont · Post by **vanhelmont** » Wed Apr 25, 2007 9:18 pm

"I need to run MS office to edit files for work."

Have you tried open office? We use it even on our windows machines, and I haven't come across MS office files it won't edit.

You may have other issues requiring windows. Much as I hate to, it looks like I will have to contribute to Bill Gates and set up my planned computer for dual boot, since I have to run a proprietary program that's windows only for my work. It doesn't officially run on vista yet.

Michael Sandstrom · Post by **Michael Sandstrom** » Wed Apr 25, 2007 10:04 pm

The negatives of Vista are substantial. 1) Massive software bloat. When I installed RC1 it consumed 11GB. 2) Hugh resource hog. The OS needs almost 1 GB of memory just to load. 3) DRM infection at the kernel level. 4) Incompatibilities galore both hardware and software.

New Zealand professor Peter Gutmann, a renowned security expert, wrote a devastating cost analysis of Vista's content protection features.

http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/p ... _cost.html

magicconch · Post by **magicconch** » Thu Apr 26, 2007 7:20 am

I have to agree Vista is not as good as XP from my experience. Personally though I would still get it, and not the OEM version, b/c the oem version has hard limits on how much you can change parts of the computer before it is considered a new computer. Eventually msft will stop supporting XP, and I don't think market demand will dictate when they phase it out. From how they are talking with OEMs it sounds like they are committed to pushing the PC markets towards Vista whether they want it or not. It is pretty likely they will add 'free' features and security updates to their software that only work on Vista with notes on their website that read something akin to 'We are considering adding XP support for Microsoft C__p, although we do not have that at the present time'

If I didn't play games though, I would dual boot Vista and Linux, and use linux primarily. there isn't too much software that msft puts out that there isn't a free alternative on linux, no one needs microsoft service, openoffice handles msft documents well, and the os is better and easier to manage imo once you get the hang of it

jbw · Post by **jbw** » Thu Apr 26, 2007 8:28 am

vanhelmont wrote:Have you tried open office? We use it even on our windows machines, and I haven't come across MS office files it won't edit.

These are 200-300 page legal documents with TOC, index, cross-references, the whole nine.

And if it's a prospectus, then it's being printed, so the format has to be maintained perfectly from computer to computer.

I have to use Word. Just the way it is.

Post by **Rusty075** » Thu Apr 26, 2007 8:40 am

If you are planning on using it as an htpc then i would definitely go Vista, without question. The Media Center portion is much better under Vista than under XP. But if that's not a goal then if you had an extra XP license laying around I would just use that, but if you have to buy a new OS now there's no way I would buy XP over Vista today. You could spend $100 now on an XP license, and then another $100 in a year or two for a Vista copy, or just buy a Vista now and be done with your OS purchasing for the next 5 years. There's a lot of FUD out there about how terrible Vista is, but the vast majority is either ignorance ("Vista needs a gig of ram to run") or the usual "anything MS does is evil" crap.

I've installed Vista on about half a dozen machines now, and there's been very, very few issues. These machines range from relatively high-end dual-core 3D boxes, down to a lowly 1450Mhz Geode box with 512megs of ram.

floffe · Post by **floffe** » Thu Apr 26, 2007 12:26 pm

Well, if Word is the only thing keeping you on Windows, Crossover Office runs MS Office on linux, for $40 for a single user license. It should be flawless, as long as you stay away from Clippy (according to their website)

legendarith · Post by **legendarith** » Mon Apr 30, 2007 1:06 pm

If you have a Directx 10 video card, go for vista. If not, then get XP SP2.

jbw · Post by **jbw** » Tue May 01, 2007 12:22 pm

legendarith wrote:If you have a Directx 10 video card, go for vista. If not, then get XP SP2.

I'm thinking of running an AMD X2 processor on the ASUS M2A-VM HDMI motherboard which has ATI Radeon Xpress 1250 onboard. I think that the xpress 1250 supports directx 9 but not directx 10.

Is it conceivable that a bios update will someday allow the 1250 to support dx10? (or, in other words, if I just go with XP now, will I need to buy a discrete video card to run vista later?)

qviri · Post by **qviri** » Tue May 01, 2007 1:17 pm

Vista Aero does not need a DirectX 10 card to run.

The new games (which are yet to come) that will use DirectX 10 will need a card like that, though.

Post by **Rusty075** » Tue May 01, 2007 3:07 pm

Just to clarify qviri's statement:

You do not need DX10 hardware to run Vista. The DX10 capable vga cards out there probably represent something like 0.0001% of all the computers in the world.

DX10 will be useful for high-end games starting late this year, and continuing on into the future. Eventually it will get to the point where you will have to have DX10 hardware to play new games, but for the next few years most games that are DX10 capable will also be playable on DX9 hardware, albeit without some of the eye candy.

And no, you won't be able to BIOS update from a DX9 card to a DX10...the changes are at the hardware level. But by the time DX10 becomes mandatory for playing games you will likely have upgraded anyway.

OS for new build: XP or Vista?

It's April, 2007 and they're the same price. Which OS should I buy?

OS for new build: XP or Vista?

My experience.

Open Office can edit MS office files

Re: Open Office can edit MS office files