Thinking of upgrading from XP to Vista...

Nik · 02-13-2008, 08:47 PM

First of all, which version do I buy?

I mainly use my pc for Internet browsing, media (Music, Videos, DVDs), Instant messaging. Nothing to big a deal. The occasional go on Photoshop too.

Second, if Im upgrading, does it cost less than if I just went out and bought a copy of Vista? I heard its only around £60 to upgrade.

Thanks if anyone can help

**jimmy_Bish** · 02-13-2008, 09:15 PM

Ok.

1. What features are you after in Vista that aren't in XP? The pretty stuff, or is there something else? XP is quite capable of doing everything you use your PC for.

2. Upgrading is cheaper. But if you ever need to wipe your PC and reinstall Windows, you will have to install Windows XP first, and then Vista. So don't lose those XP disks!

3. For a home user, Home Premium is pretty much the only option. Home Basic is horribly crippled and you will end up with a far worse version of Windows than your current XP version. Do NOT buy Basic! If you can't afford Premium then don't upgrade at all.

4. What are your PC specs? Vista takes up a little more than XP in the way of resources and HDD space. 20GB is minumum, 40GB is recommended. I would highly recommend 60GB or more if you plan on installing anything onto your Windows drive like Office, Photoshop and apps like that.

Wendigo · 02-13-2008, 09:22 PM

Don't get Vista at all, end of.

g00dfellaty · 02-13-2008, 09:25 PM

xp runs fine, vista really only offers more security features....and I always go by the old saying "if it aint broke don't fix it". so if xp works for you...why upgrade?

NYG · 02-13-2008, 09:26 PM

XP > Vista

**jimmy_Bish** · 02-13-2008, 09:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wendigo

Don't get Vista at all, end of.

Well that's a well thought-out response! Thanks for that knowledgable insight!

I'm using Vista at home. Games run fine, everything works as intended, and UAC does an excellent job of stopping my 4 year old son visiting unwanted sites on his child-locked account.
So it suits me perfectly. What are your reasons NOT to get it?

Wendigo · 02-13-2008, 09:36 PM

Well for a start its a system hog, especially memory.

It offers no advantage over XP apart from 1) It looks good and 2) It has DX10 support.

It is proven you don't get as many FPS in games when you are using Vista over XP.

There is also not enough driver support for it yet, considering i have 4 Gaming PC's, 2 have Vista 32bit and 64bit and the other 2 have XP Home and Pro, this is my opinion from experience and is not biased, because i actually use it.

I do not think its better than XP, i think its a poor successor to XP and tbh Microsoft seem to agree with me considering Windows 7 is already in production for a 2009 release date, pretty quick wouldn't you agree?

**jimmy_Bish** · 02-13-2008, 09:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wendigo

Well for a start its a system hog, especially memory.

It uses memory differently to XP. The memory is used to cache all open applications and free up when a game is launched. My 2GB of Ram is more than enough to run everything. In fact, besides some Linux kernels, it's the first OS to use RAM as it's fully intended to be used.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wendigo

It offers no advantage over XP apart from 1) It looks good and 2) It has DX10 support.

Plus UAC. See my previous post. Families benefit greatly from it with the added parental controls.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wendigo

It is proven you don't get as many FPS in games when you are using Vista over XP.

Every game I have, including Crysis and COD4 run perfectly. I gain 5 frames a second in Lost Planet if I run it on my XP partition, taking it from an average of 60fps to 65fps. Wooooooo! The console version runs at 30fps!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wendigo

There is also not enough driver support for it yet, considering i have 4 Gaming PC's, 2 have Vista 32bit and 64bit and the other 2 have XP Home and Pro, this is my opinion and is not biased, because i actually use it.

That was an issue mid-last year. But I haven't had a driver issue in 6 months in various PCs I work on.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wendigo

I do not think its better than XP, i think its a poor successor to XP and tbh Microsoft seem to agree with me considering Windows 7 is already in production for a 2009 release date, pretty quick wouldn't you agree?

Vista was supposed to come out 3 years after XP, which was released 2 years after 2000, which was released 3 years after 98.
7 is due to come out 3 years after Vista, as MS are aiming to get back into their original OS lifecycle. XP was never supposed to be the main OS for so long.

All your arguments are identical to the same comments people made about XP when it was released. Everyone said it was a resource hog, sluggish, and nothing compared to Windows 2000.
Hell, if you want even more FPS out of your games, then drop back to Windows 2000 SP4 and see the difference for yourself!

Bunnytard · 02-13-2008, 09:48 PM

I say get vista. I have vista and I'm happy with. But there is some annoying errorss in it.

Wendigo · 02-13-2008, 09:54 PM

I don't need more FPS out of my games.

I find Vista a bit meh, i do like it, the way it looks that is, and DX10 is a nice feature to have.

But at the end of the day, if Vista was released 3 years after XP it would have been great, they had near enough 6 years to work on it and it failed.

Early Vista i.e when i got it the day it came out, sucked balls to high heaven and for me it still doesn't offer enough driver support, it offers enough to get by, but not enough to give us a broader range of options and especially me being primarily a gamer, i need those plenty and often, its been out for a year now.

People may have been saying the same things about XP but XP was a massive leap from 2000 and ME, Vista is not a big leap from XP and considering we waited 6 years for the fucking thing i feel a little pissed.