XP or Vista??

[mcfstep]

I'm sure this is a topic that has been discussed at great length but I'm still unsure which to go with?

I've tried Vista business edition and I hated it. Fair enough I had a computer which was 6 years old and I've recently upgraded and was considering installing Vista ultimate. It's just I know there are still components that don't have Vista drivers, and I doubt some of the older games which I still play will function on Vista.

I mean yeah it's a pretty operating system but I don't like the fact that it requires so much system resources to run well.

When I get all my upgrades put together I'm still very tempted to put XP x64 but I just wondered if anyone had any advice or perhaps testimony in Vista's defense!

[Blitzen]

If you have a half decent PC then Vista 100%.
There is no need to go backwards in OS's now that Vista has alot of support and all the drivers barring the really really old hardware.

All games run fine and nearly all applications have a vista alternative now.

[0iD]

I have no real probs with Vista, but it does require a decent system with a goodly amount of ram.

As for Ultimate, unless you need BitLocker, it's a waste of money. Get home or business premium.

Otherwise stick with 32bit XP.

[Agent]

All games run fine

He specifically mentions older games though, many of which do not work. Usually because they have a 16-bit based program in there somewhere, like the installer / copy protection / or even the main executable.

mcfstep - Most hardware has Vista drivers now. Its only the older stuff which won't get updates (which is annoying as I love my Sidewinder ). Anything recent will be fine.

I've tried Vista business edition and I hated it

This is probably a better point to focus on as opposed to if other people like Vista, After all you're the one that will be using it . What did you hate about it?, anything in particular?
If it was simply because it was slow, then newer hardware will sort that out. If its because you just didn't like the OS and are stuck with old habits then that's a different matter.

It depends on your position - Are you buying the OS or do you have access to it through something like MSDN?
Thankfully I get to choose a large amount of Microsoft software to use (working in education / MSDN access) so have tried Vista without needing to shell out on an expensive licence. For me, I didn't notice much that would help. With the issues I had, it made more sense for me to stay with XP for the moment.
If you have to buy the OS from retail though, I'd suggest you go with Vista, purely because XP is coming to its end of life and support will be dropped much sooner.

Ideally you need to try both of them and see what works for you.

[mcfstep]

The reason I really didn't like Vista was it just seemed to be graphically sophisticated for the sake of it. If I had the choice between a system that ran efficiently and one that looked pretty I would take the efficient one. For example, just copying files from one location to another irritated me. It takes Vista time to calculate the amount of time remaining and to make the fancy geen bar that has progression pulses longer to transfer a file than if it didn't do it at all.

Obviously my experience is limited to running Vista on an older machine and if I was to use it on my new system I would probably be more pleased. I would hope 4gb of Corsair 6400 ram will offer significant improvement over my previous ebuyer value 2gb of 2700 ram!

As for cost I can get both business and ultimate for free through various channels (which are in fact legal) through educational systems. In all fairness I probably should go for Vista, I imagine Microsoft will release more games in the future which will only work on Vista, such as Halo 2.

[UltraMagnus]

if you want to play a game made over a year ago, dont touch it...

if you have any hardware that stopped being made (including mouses etc) over 3 months ago, dont touch it.

really, i just dont see any reason to go for it, yes it gives you fancy graphical desktop that basically just gets in the way of being productive (i think i may have just sold it to every office worker, hehe) and DX10 is a con as you can get crysis to run at "ultra high" on dx9

[mcfstep]

In case anyone is wondering, I went with Ultimate in the end and I have to say... I'm not that disappointed with it!

It does look nice, and I like media centre as well. I've not tried to play older games yet, the oldest I think is Pro evo 6 which works fine, but I'll try out some really old games and let everyone know!

I am curious though of how fast my system would be if I'd used x64 XP instead, because I know about half my system resources go on just running Vista.

[Ferral]

I've had Blood 2, System Shock 2 Mafia, Discworld Noir, Broken Sword : Sleeping Dragon and Heretic 2 running fine on it just to mention a few. Just patched the games up to their newest builds (granted some of the patches were hard to get hold of especially Blood 2) after installing them and they ran and looked as good as they can for old titles.

Quite pleased with the results seeing as I am running 64 Bit Vista Ultimate.

Only downside I have come across with Vista is games jumping out to the desktop on a few of my games and getting an error saying the graphics driver has stopped responding. Not sure what is causing it but occasionally it can get annoying. Quite a lot of Vista users are still getting this problem so guessing it is driver level from both ATI and NVidia

[Blitzen]

if you want to play a game made over a year ago, dont touch it...

if you have any hardware that stopped being made (including mouses etc) over 3 months ago, dont touch it.

really, i just dont see any reason to go for it, yes it gives you fancy graphical desktop that basically just gets in the way of being productive (i think i may have just sold it to every office worker, hehe) and DX10 is a con as you can get crysis to run at "ultra high" on dx9

I dont know where your first statement came from????
I still play:
RTCW
UT2004
SPlinter Cell

and all run fine and they are all well over a year old.

I alos have no idea where your second statement comes from. I use the MX1000 and its got Vista drivers.

Come on......at least make a case.
Some like Vista.
Some dont.
If you don't then at least give a valid reason why.

The only problem i have had is with DVD Shrink and the inbedded DRM......

[Agent]

The only problem i have had is with DVD Shrink and the inbedded DRM......

Woah, what happens?

[Blitzen]

I tried to 'back-up' a DVD on Sunday and it decoded......it encoded......it burnt to the disk...
THEN!
at the end it usually says 'Back -Up' complete!

It didnt

It said back up failed due to Vista DRM module.

[bobbyzero]

I tried to 'back-up' a DVD on Sunday and it decoded......it encoded......it burnt to the disk...
THEN!
at the end it usually says 'Back -Up' complete!

It didnt

It said back up failed due to Vista DRM module.

I have never ever had that in Vista. I generally back up to iso and then use imgburn to put it on a disc.