I bought a laptop

[Norton]

Well, I haven't used the Vista so I don't have any idea about the errors and bugs and such. But it's obvious that the flashy interface slows down your computer A LOT!. More than it should anyway!

[UFORocks]

Baiting? Me?

It just bugs me when people complain about system requirements of a new OS. Features demand higher powered machines.
...

Just because vista has higher system requirements doesnt mean it's a better OS, it does however mean that it's a resource hog. Hardware is expensive, why upgrade when you dont need to?

To the others complaining about how all major OEMs have moved back to XP, that is just a blatant lie. Please show me a pre-built machine that comes with XP.
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Dell, Lenovo, Gateway, Acer, pick a site and customize a new PC; XP is an option for all of them.

There are a 6000 machines (servers) in the Data Center where I work, and not one is a Windows Vista machine. IBM just installed 500 pre-built servers for us, not one was Vista loaded, even as a default option.

You've been watching too many Apple commercials. The only major problems Vista had were all driver-related, which MS has no control over. Have you used Vista? Unless you have I don't think you can really comment on any of the things you listed. You're just spreading FUD.

Yes, I've used it and I dont like it, and regardless of the root cause a problem is still a problem. You're right most of the problems that vista HAS (not had) are application compatibility, and/or driver related.

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Bottom line, why move to the bleeding edge when you don't need to? The most economical and hassle-free option is to stick with XP.

And if all you're going to do with your PC is browse the web, check email, and listen to music then get a Linux PC from walmart for $200. Hundreds of $ cheaper than a Vista machine and rock solid.

-Steve

[scotty]

I have one brand new Vista box at the house and my old 1.2 AMD XP box runs circles arund it. Every time I use the Vista box I want throw it out the window. Of course formatting and installing XP would be a wiser choice. Since I use to work in the IT field (an may go back) I feel I should keep Vista because I probably will need to know it.

[RobRR]

Vista is a MESS. My stepdad, against my warnings, got a new laptop with Vista. I spent TWO DAYS trying to configure it onto his network and get everything working properly. First, it wouldnt work with his wireless print server. Period. So I decided to use his desktop as the print server. That wouldnt work either... It took me a few hours just to get the vista machine to be able to see and communicate with his desktop machine... but he still cant use anything as a print server thus far. Its just rediculous, you have to jump through so many hoops just to do anything on Vista.

I cant see myself ever changing over to it, theres just no need for it. My XP runs flawlessly on my lowly 1gb ram and 3.06 processor... Im not building a new $500+ system just so I can run that resource hog of an OS. It would be like taking a side step in reality... sure, I have this new powerful system, 75% more powerful than my old system, but if Vista is going to use 75% more resources, what am I really gaining?

[jackson1]

Dell, Lenovo, Gateway, Acer, pick a site and customize a new PC; XP is an option for all of them.

I mostly agree with you, but trying to build a DELL notebook with WinXP is very difficult and most often impossible here in Denmark. It is just not an option. It is Vista all over the place.

[thetroy]

Well it runs fine for me and I have a relatively slow U7600 processor. I just bought 4 gigs of aftermarket RAM for $100 and it's plenty fast.

[toddstaples]

I just ordered a Gateway Laptop from TigerDirect.com and its vista Loaded.... Review to come

[shobet]

I hope the character recognition software is better than it used to be. A mate used to have one of those early Compaq tablets and trying to chat in IRC channels with it resulted in some pretty funny sentences being interpreted. That might have more to do with my had writing than the software though!

[Freehill]

There are a 6000 machines (servers) in the Data Center where I work, and not one is a Windows Vista machine. IBM just installed 500 pre-built servers for us, not one was Vista loaded, even as a default option.

Why would anyone install Vista on a server?

[thetroy]

I hope the character recognition software is better than it used to be. A mate used to have one of those early Compaq tablets and trying to chat in IRC channels with it resulted in some pretty funny sentences being interpreted. That might have more to do with my had writing than the software though!

Vista's handwriting recognition is much better than XP's from what I understand. My writing is really bad but it usually gets everything right. It also learns your writing over time so in theory it should get better.

I went for the tablet because I'm a math major and typing equations is way too tedious - this way I can still take notes on the computer without falling behind during lecture.

[xenophobe]

Vista looks pretty, but runs like crap. Security, compatabilty, stability, performance, you name it, vista sucks at it.

Every major manufacturer has gone back to XP as a standard because of customer demand, both private and commercial.

Vista was a step neither forward or backwards, it has gone and is going nowhere, and with any luck will die a quick death like 'ME' did.

-Steve

Sorry, by reading what you just posted you've never used Vista and don't have a clue.

Vista is more stable, much more secure... BSOD's are much less common with XP and things that would crash and corrupt an XP installation are much more stable with Vista x64. Vista changed heap access and fragmentation. No more XP like crashes from too many programs allocating too much memory and poor memory management.

Security? You can encrypt a whole drive with Bitlocker, and SP1 will give you the ability to keep the key on a USB pen drive.

Viruses? Traditional Windows viruses don't infect Vista. Things that run in kernel mode need signed drivers and are prevented from installation. That prevents most malware and rootkit software from even installing.

Speed? Vista is slower at gaming and performance benchmarks... however SuperFetch does improve system response times over XP by precaching your most used applications to main memory so they do not have to load. Sure, this means it uses more RAM. However it's RAM that you did not use before, and in case you did need it, Vista would release it if needed.

XP was a step down from Win2K. Vista x64 is a step back up.

Sure, you don't like it, but you're full of shit. I hate to see uninformed people bash something when they have no grasp of reality.

You couldn't pay me enough to go back to crappy XP. Vista Ultimate x64 FTW!

[xenophobe]

Uptime 247 hours. That's more than 10 days. The only reason why it's not longer is because I updated my video drivers. The longest I've gone is a little more than a month without restarting and that was to update drivers too.

Solid as a freaking rock.

Oh, and you'll see my CPU and memory usage. I'm currently running a movie in WMP, running photoshop CS3, Yahoo, Messenger, uTorrent, Steam, three instances of Firefox 2, 2 instances of Internet Explorer 7 and a bunch of other stuff...

[jackson1]

xeno, please make a new Performance tab screenshot of your Vista doing nothing for a couple of minutes. I'd like to see that if possible.

Here's my notebook idling for a couple of minutes in WinXP. The first large spike on the left is launching Task Manager:

[xenophobe]

The first one I posted above is a bit misleading... GPU-Z was a beta program running in the background after I had closed it, and it was using 50% of my CPU cycles...

[jackson1]

If the above is Vista idling, that is pretty good, presuming the grid resolution is the same as mine. Promising Not as steady 0% as XP but surprisingly good.