Is WinXP to become the last embraced version of Windows?

[biosboy4]

Why does everybody think MS should make Windows lighter with each release? Every O/S including Linux gets bigger every time. Ubuntu and Suse are absolute pigs, but I never hear anybody complaining about that. To get modern features, you get modern bloat. There's no way around it.

Edit:
For grammar

Are you kidding me? Are you seriously comparing Vista to Ubuntu? I haven't used Suse in a long time so I can't comment on that one but, I know for a fact I've comfortable run Hardy Heron on a 1.2 Ghz Celly w/ 384MB of RAM... try that with Vista... it'll make you want to kill yourself.

So you're saying it takes a Crysis machine to run Vista? :^/

You can't comfortably run Vista with anything less than 1GB of RAM (and if you want my opinion it's 2gig) .... enough said.

 

[Ninety-9 SE-L]

So I have 3 computers running less than 1GB ram, and 1 running 2GB (its max). The computers are mostly P4s, cept for one Celeron. All running XP great. Nuff said.

Vista is known for draining laptop batteries and consuming more electricity on desktops. Vista works by running your computer near its full capacity 100% of the time and then freeing up resources when needed. It caches commonly used programs into the memory to make them open faster, this gives the user the illusion that Vista is still fast, but unfortunately, the other 99% of the time you're using the program, it is indeed slower.

There is nothing special about Vista. Outside of Visual effects and UAC, give me one reason Vista in its 5 years of development is superior to XP. I've already used StyleXP to copy the Vista look, There are other very small programs that will also copy what Vista did visually. That must be very flattering for Microsoft.

The only reason we sit at our computers day after day are the programs we run, not the OS. The OS is not the foreground of my computer experience. Firefox, Dreamweaver, Premier, Solidworks, Outlook, Thunderbird, Vuse, Acrobat, Trillian. Those are all my foreground, this is where my Demand is.

Gamers would agree as well, The OS isn't all that important when you're running a game in full screen. The OS should just be keeping the system stable and secure and making sure all my drivers work. What should people expect out of an OS? A simple interface with a straightforward layout, it should fully support any device or piece of software I want to run, and if you're in IT, it should be fully customizable, with plenty of policies and network control.

2K and XP were some of the best OSs that MS brought to the table. It combined the friendliness of 95/98 with the power and stability of of NT and it said that everyone should have a single OS that does it all (With the exception of Home Edition). XP and 2K talk with eachother and work in harmony. Vista and XP. I may as well pair my XP machine with a Mac. Vista also took away the power by splitting the OS into 5 or 6 completely different versions.

 

[johnz]

Are you kidding me? Are you seriously comparing Vista to Ubuntu? I haven't used Suse in a long time so I can't comment on that one but, I know for a fact I've comfortable run Hardy Heron on a 1.2 Ghz Celly w/ 384MB of RAM... try that with Vista... it'll make you want to kill yourself.



You can't comfortably run Vista with anything less than 1GB of RAM (and if you want my opinion it's 2gig) .... enough said.

I ran Vista on a 2.3ghz(If memory serves)Celly mobile with 512mb of ram. It ran acceptably until the cpu overheated(about 2 minutes after boot). Stock Ubuntu runs better, but I imagine they'd be much closer if you enabled all the graphical niceties in Ubuntu. In any case Ubuntu gets heavier with every release, and it won't be getting any lighter(barring custom distros emphasizing lightness).

Vista runs fine on my machine with 1gb of ram. It runs better with more ram, but that's one of it's advantages. It'll use all the ram you give it, and give a nice speed boost. As near as I can tell, XP and Ubuntu just let extra ram sit there doing nothing.

Edit:
For correct cpu speed

 

[benbaked]

Vista is known for draining laptop batteries and consuming more electricity on desktops. Vista works by running your computer near its full capacity 100% of the time and then freeing up resources when needed. It caches commonly used programs into the memory to make them open faster, this gives the user the illusion that Vista is still fast, but unfortunately, the other 99% of the time you're using the program, it is indeed slower.

I'm sorry but I do not believe this, according to CPU usage meters my system running Vista sits between 0-20% cpu usage while idle at the desktop. Usually it's around 0-1%. Perhaps this behavior is an issue of RAM, I agree with what a previous poster has stated in this thread or another in that Vista should be ran with at least 2 Gigs of RAM. With the price of RAM these days there's no reason not to.

 

[Neuromancer]

So, really, all the incompatibilities, inconveniences, bulk, and confusion, is just bad publicity?

On a side note, I found this very entertaining. 3 network printers in the building, all have up-to-date drivers, as per windowsupdate.com. All the computers in the building communicate fine, including the NT4.0 machine. A guest comes in with a Vista laptop and goes onto our network. He wants to print, I set him up. Vista pops up a message "The drivers on the HOST computer are out of date. Please upgrade the printer drivers and try again."

I find it humorous that Vista passively passes the blame onto the XP machine when in reality, the problem is with Vista.

Actually that is how it has worked for a while. The host of the printer also hosts the drivers for the guests. So if the drivers are old and do not support Vista then yes it is XPs fault

(EDIT: Actually one can easily say it is not XP's fault either. Just the IT guys).


This is the same complaining we heard 7 years ago.

OMG XP is just 2k with a pretty gui! Why doesnt it work with all my old hardware? They messed netweorking all up!1 etc etc

Vista is not Me. Me was win98 with some new features and NTFS support. IT failed not because it was bad, but because it had to contend with 2k which was a revolutionary step forward in windows.

 

[Albyno]

i jsut got a T2310 laptop with 2gb ram and it would not run Vista at all.. Brand new and i nearly Thru it out the window and went back to my 600mhz celly running XP. but instead i decided to UPGRADE the laptop tooooo wait for it......XP! and now it runs like a dream... i have also istalled Ubuntu on the same machine as dual boot and it also runs like a dream... and to top it off this was only the Vista home basic version. i hate to think what the better versions would run like.

Vista is a flop everyone knows it inc MS. it will join the ranks of ME in the next few years, unless driver issues disapear almost instantly or the price of 8bg ram drops to 150.

Also if MS didnt think vista was a flop why do the majority of laptops (and some desktops i guess) come with a downgrade key to XP? i dont remember XP having one to 2k or even 98.....

 

[Sorin]

There is nothing special about Vista. Outside of Visual effects and UAC, give me one reason Vista in its 5 years of development is superior to XP.

Werd. That's what I've felt ever since it was released. There were at least three major features that were supposed to be a part of Vista that were supposed to make it the greatest thing since sliced bread, but they were all removed, one by one. Things that would have made it maybe worthwhile. I forget what the other two features were, but I know one big thing was supposed to be WinFS. With those things removed, those five years were basically a waste of time.

The only reason we sit at our computers day after day are the programs we run, not the OS. The OS is not the foreground of my computer experience. Firefox, Dreamweaver, Premier, Solidworks, Outlook, Thunderbird, Vuse, Acrobat, Trillian. Those are all my foreground, this is where my Demand is.

Gamers would agree as well, The OS isn't all that important when you're running a game in full screen. The OS should just be keeping the system stable and secure and making sure all my drivers work. What should people expect out of an OS? A simple interface with a straightforward layout, it should fully support any device or piece of software I want to run, and if you're in IT, it should be fully customizable, with plenty of policies and network control.

Exactly. You are my hero. The programs are the focus of everyday computer use. The OS just needs to sit in the background, making sure all the hardware and software is working nicely. It's also supposed to manage resources, not use all the resources itself and occasionally be nice enough to let all the other programs have a little bit too. I installed Vista recently and it's taking 20GBs of space and 700MB of RAM during usage. Holy S#!t. I want my files and applications to be using the bulk of my resources, not my OS. It just needs to be the man behind the curtain, managing the resources.

With 2k and XP using +/- 100MB, my programs, games and files are free to run wild and party. But with Vista taking so much room and power, they're tied up on a leash on the porch. If you've ever seen Spirited Away and remember the scene where Chihiro is in the elevator with the radish spirit and she's all squished because he takes up so much room - it's like that.

 

[johnz]

i jsut got a T2310 laptop with 2gb ram and it would not run Vista at all.. Brand new and i nearly Thru it out the window and went back to my 600mhz celly running XP. but instead i decided to UPGRADE the laptop tooooo wait for it......XP! and now it runs like a dream... i have also istalled Ubuntu on the same machine as dual boot and it also runs like a dream... and to top it off this was only the Vista home basic version. i hate to think what the better versions would run like.

I have a Pentium Dual Core with 2gb ram, and it runs Vista HP great. Something was configured wrong in your machine. It wasn't Vista's fault.

 

[Shiggity]

Werd. That's what I've felt ever since it was released. There were at least three major features that were supposed to be a part of Vista that were supposed to make it the greatest thing since sliced bread, but they were all removed, one by one. Things that would have made it maybe worthwhile. I forget what the other two features were, but I know one big thing was supposed to be WinFS. With those things removed, those five years were basically a waste of time.



Exactly. You are my hero. The programs are the focus of everyday computer use. The OS just needs to sit in the background, making sure all the hardware and software is working nicely. It's also supposed to manage resources, not use all the resources itself and occasionally be nice enough to let all the other programs have a little bit too. I installed Vista recently and it's taking 20GBs of space and 700MB of RAM during usage. Holy S#!t. I want my files and applications to be using the bulk of my resources, not my OS. It just needs to be the man behind the curtain, managing the resources.

With 2k and XP using +/- 100MB, my programs, games and files are free to run wild and party. But with Vista taking so much room and power, they're tied up on a leash on the porch. If you've ever seen Spirited Away and remember the scene where Chihiro is in the elevator with the radish spirit and she's all squished because he takes up so much room - it's like that.

Win! But seriously, I agree 100%.

Microsoft is quickly losing ground to the open source revolution, their OS domination won't last forever.

I also don't know what their plan is for the ultra-portable market (mini laptops and such). Vista on those machines is a travesty and that is the fastest growing PC segment.

 

[Psykoikonov]

I'll throw in my 2 cents. I like my OS snappy. I installed Vista, tweaked it up best I could disabled the unessecary bloat, made it look like 98 and well was pretty happy with it. Then it gave me a few issues so I decided to go back to my dual boot back to XP. My install of XP is very light and very tweaked and there is no comparison. I cannot make Vista anywhere near as snappy as XP no way no how. I use it for the background, snappy and stable thats what I like, eye candy blah, if I want eye candy there's plenty of games out there that put aero to shame.

edit: I suppose with a couple raided ssd's and 8GB of ram Vista would be better but still Xp would be better yet imo.

 

[Albyno]

Nothing was configured wrong. Vista is simply a resourse hog. If u cant see that and want to defend vista to its death fine, im not going to change ur opinion and noone else is.

I have a Pentium Dual Core with 2gb ram, and it runs Vista HP great. Something was configured wrong in your machine. It wasn't Vista's fault.

 

[David]

Vista was a dog on my laptop when I had 1GB RAM. I upgraded to 2GB and tried my copy again. Much much much smoother. Not as responsive and smooth as XP, but not wrist-slashingly bad.

 

[AngryArtichoke]

I just don't like how everything is buried 6 freaking layers deep in vista. Huge pain in the *** to switch to IMO.

 

[Sorin]

I just don't like how everything is buried 6 freaking layers deep in vista. Huge pain in the *** to switch to IMO.

Yes. It's really annoying.

 

[johnz]

Nothing was configured wrong. Vista is simply a resourse hog. If u cant see that and want to defend vista to its death fine, im not going to change ur opinion and noone else is.

BS... If it wouldn't run at all, then something was F'd up with your setup. I use Vista, XP, 2kpro, Ubuntu, and Xandros regularly on a variety of hardware ranging from an EeePC up to the rig in my sig. I'm pretty well tuned in to what different O/Ss will do on different hardware. It doesn't take a huge machine to run Vista. My laptop's probably damned near the same as yours, and it runs Vista great.

 

[Albyno]

ok sorry for your missunderstanding of not working at all. for me not working is when an OS runs slower then a game! vista ran enough for me to DL all the driver si needed to flash my BIOS and then install XP on it.

And as i said before im not going to change ur opinion and ur not going to change mine so we will have to agree to disagree. but there is no denying that vista is a resourse hog, i mean come on what OS actualy has a video card requirment!

 

[johnz]

but there is no denying that vista is a resourse hog, i mean come on what OS actualy has a video card requirment!

The gfx card requirement is for aero transparency. It's a good thing for a desktop since it offloads the rendering to the gfx card instead of the cpu. It could be argued that it's a detriment on a laptop since having the gfx card working reduces battery life, but I'm almost always plugged in on my laptop.

 

[David]

The gfx card requirement is for aero transparency. It's a good thing for a desktop since it offloads the rendering to the gfx card instead of the cpu. It could be argued that it's a detriment on a laptop since having the gfx card working reduces battery life, but I'm almost always plugged in on my laptop.

... and I'm sure Aero can be disabled to save battery life.

 

[funnyperson1]

ok sorry for your missunderstanding of not working at all. for me not working is when an OS runs slower then a game! vista ran enough for me to DL all the driver si needed to flash my BIOS and then install XP on it.

And as i said before im not going to change ur opinion and ur not going to change mine so we will have to agree to disagree. but there is no denying that vista is a resourse hog, i mean come on what OS actualy has a video card requirment!

Every OS with GPU accelerated graphics has video card requirements if you want the maximum level of effects and performance. Neither Linux with Compiz, or OSX are without their graphical requirements.

That said, Vista is still bloated compared to those two OSs, and realistically the only tangible benefits it offers over XP is security (assuming the user doesn't turn off UAC).

Vista does look pretty, but the Aero effects don't add anything to productivity. With Compiz and Quartz Extreme (OSX's compositing engine), there are effects like expose that actually improve productivity. Flip3D does nothing that alt tab doesn't.

 

[QuietIce]

I went to Vista Ultimate just so I didn't have to mess around too much with DVR and streaming on an HTPC. We'll see how that works out in the end - it'll be a couple of months before I'm ready to take that on. For compatibility I stuck to 32-bit.

Meantime I'll OC and start crunching on it ...