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Round 3: Reliability
With so much attention being paid to the more visible changes in Vista -- UAC, Aero, the revised Explorer GUI -- the tweaks Microsoft made under the hood have gotten little press. To be sure, Microsoft did some retrofitting with Vista. Heap management has improved. The power management subsystems have been completely rewritten. I/O tasks can be configured to run at a low priority, and they can even be canceled in certain situations, improving the user experience during background service processing, network timeouts, and so on.
There's no question this is all good stuff. However, from a practical standpoint, the changes are far from earthshaking. In fact, you'd be hard-pressed to point out examples of their impact during day-to-day operation. The lone exception: low-priority I/O, which is helpful during initial OS startup because Vista loads so many more background services than Windows XP. In other words, Microsoft needed something to offset all of that additional startup processing. If Vista boots before you return with your cup of coffee, you have I/O prioritization to thank.
As for overall stability, most customers will agree that -- barring a buggy driver or virus infection -- Windows XP has been rock stable since Service Pack 2 was released nearly four years ago. And with Service Pack 3 arriving any day now (sporting even more robustness and improved performance), the Vista reliability message becomes an even harder sell.
Decision: There is little or no clamor in the Windows XP community for better stability or reliability. Windows XP is a mature, stable OS with a well-known list of weaknesses and corresponding work-arounds. On paper, Vista brings a better foundation, but in practice, it addresses problems that most customers weren't aware even existed, let alone needed fixing.
Round 4: Usability
Vista Aero: Either you love it or you hate it. If you're an Aero hater, you can disable much of the slickness via the Control Panel, but you can't get rid of it entirely. That's because the changes Aero brings are more than superficial. Microsoft, in its infinite wisdom, decided to move things around. Gone is the familiar "up a level" button in Explorer. In its place is a foreign-looking -- and infinitely more powerful -- breadcrumbs feature in the Address Bar. Other options have been uprooted and scattered across myriad task-specific, pseudo-control panels (System Properties, Security Center, Mobility Center, and more).
Veteran XP users will need some time to adjust. Some will require retraining, especially with regard to UAC and its never-ending parade of confirmation dialogs. Likewise with the Search mechanism, which, though pervasive (almost every Explorer window or dialog has a Search field), can quickly lead the user down the rabbit hole of nested results with no clear route back to the beginning. And some new features, such as the Windows Backup Utility, so thoroughly insulate users from the underlying process that they don't know until it's too late that their data wasn't really backed up at all -- something I found out the hard way early on.
Add to this the fact that many of Vista's enhancements can be replicated on XP (such as Windows Desktop Search), and you can't help but wonder: Did the Windows UI really need such a radical overhaul? After all, an entire generation of our newest workers was raised on the Windows 9x Explorer motif which, with a few exceptions, has remained stable for more than a decade. Vista's UI is definitely different. However, the jury's still out on whether it's better.
Decision: Change, for change's sake, is never a good idea. And while you can understand Microsoft's desire to refresh the Windows UI (all those Mac OS X screen shots look so much prettier than XP), Vista's designers seem to have cut off their nose to spite their face. Regardless, the usability "improvements" in Vista are unlikely to make IT's list of compelling reasons to move away from XP anytime soon.
Round 5: Performance
Windows Vista is a bloated pig of an operating system. In fact, compared to Windows XP with Service Pack 2 or 3, Vista requires roughly twice the hardware resources to deliver comparable performance. Even stripped to the bone, with every new UI enhancement turned off and every new background service disabled, Vista is a good 40 percent slower than XP at a variety of business productivity tasks.
The above is no generalization. I've run the tests (repeatedly). I have the hard numbers. (You can see the full range of my results at exo.performance.network, or take in a quick snapshot of Vista/Office 2007 versus XP/Office 2003 results here; see the Test Center Daily for info on the Clarity Studio OfficeBench test script I used for these tests.) Upgrading a user from Windows XP to Vista, without upgrading their hardware, is tantamount to crippling their PC. Think of users with torches lining up outside your datacenter. It's not a pretty picture.
So just wait for the next hardware upgrade cycle and hit them with Vista then, right? Maybe. But consider this: For every CPU cycle wasted bringing Vista's bloated image on par with XP's, you could be providing your users with an actual performance increase across their core applications. If there were some compelling reason to run Vista over XP -- a quantum leap in usability or manageability -- I could see why the investment might be worth it. But upgrading hardware just to maintain the status quo seems silly.
Decision: Would you rather throw new hardware cycles at offsetting Microsoft's code bloat and voracious appetite for CPU bandwidth, or at a tangible, measurable improvement in application throughput and user productivity? Enough said.
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iphone ringtone maker
iPhone Ringtone Maker,As iPhone user, have your ever thought that put a lot of ringtones which are made by yourself on your iPhone? Now, it is possible to do this, 4Media iPhone Ringtone Maker is the right choice as a iPhone Ringtone software!Make iPhone ringtone,Creating iPhone ringtones
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Vista x64 is the best
I couldn't be happier with Vista Ultimate x64 SP1. It boots up faster than XP SP2, and is the fastest OS I have ever used. It runs all my x32 programs, games and speed, stability, security are amazing. I use sleep and haven't needed a reboot in weeks. I run a Q6600, 4gb pc6400 ram, and a en8800gt video card. I have thrown all my XP install CD's in the bin and will never go back to XP, yuck phooey. I have no idea what all the fuss is about with Vista ? All you guys do yourselves a big favour, upgrade to a quad core and 4gb ram install Vista x64 Ultimate SP1 and stop your belly aching !
Biased author yields biased article
It is quite clear that the author does not like Vista and therefore saying the comparison is not biased is garbage. It is also clear that the author has spent little time with Vista given that the only features they can mention are those that everybody knows about. To be clear I ran XP for years and I'm running Vista now. In some cases it is a good choice, in others it isn't. The author tries to say Vista is a bad idea all around.
Let's cover the things the author conveniently skipped over.
1) BitLocker. If your computer gets stolen the information on it is safe even with an OS reformat. Not available without going to a third-party.
2) Parental controls. I have kids who don't need to be playing certain games or viewing certain web sites. XP's implementation was poor at best and didn't allow for limiting programs. Vista allows me to not only configure controls per user (so my wife can browse CNN without getting prompted for a password) but also control what games each can play. Again, not available without going to a third-party. Sure there is GP but what home user's can do that?
3) RunAs. Please, XP's implementation was half-baked. Unless you set the right options in Explorer you couldn't even start up a different Explorer instance. And then there was the whole command line thing. Sure IT departments might have a tool to do it but shouldn't it work out of the box?
4) Window Switching. You have to admit that the Win3.0 way of tabbing through open windows was pretty poor. If you had more than one instance of an app open you couldn't tell which one you were using.
5) Sidebar. While not critical it is really convenient. Sort of like a tray icon but with more information. Since most people have either multiple monitors or 10 billion pixel resolutions the space doesn't matter that much.
6) Reliability Monitor. A great tool for tracking reliability of your machine to try and find patterns in apps or the OS.
7) ETW. Available for a while but not really accessible until now. This gives IT and technical folks a lot more information on things happening inside Windows and apps.
8) Task Scheduler. The latest version gives you a lot more control over how and when things start and how they handle errors. It also works around issues with Windows Defender and startup apps. More importantly it allows you to run admin tools from non-admin accounts without requiring a password.
There are a lot of things I don't like about Vista. Here's just a small list:
1) Slow. Hopefully post-SP1 fixes will resolve this. I have the fastest PC you can buy and it takes forever to start up.
2) Drivers. Poor driver support. This is partially MS'es fault and partly third-party. Still XP and all other OS releases go through the same thing.
3) Services. There are way too many services that run by default. Why exactly do I need a service to support the F1 key? Why do I need a service for communicating with wMP when I don't even have an MP3 player? Why do I need a MCE service when I don't use Media Center? How about the various versions of audio support, performance enhancement and networking components? Too many services => bloat and performance issues.
4) DirectSound. MS removed direct hardward support. While I agree with the idea I think it came too quickly as most games will simply fail because of it. Makes your $300 sound card behave like a $10 one. Fortunately companies like Creative have Alchemy or OpenAL to resolve the issue.
5) Memory. Vista is bloated and it wears out the HDD while running. MS needs to fix this and adding new features isn't it. I think the OS still needs to go through another feature-cut phase to remove features that not everybody needs, or at least expose simplified controls to do it. Something like how W2K3 works would be good.
So is Vista the right choice for everyone? No. For IT groups, maybe. For devs and techies, probably. For home users with kids and newer games, yes. For novices and those who want to play Where is Carmen Sandiego, no.
Way too much bias
When writing articles like this, please don't start with a bias.
You start out saying you're going against the grain when you don't upgrade to vista? Actually it seems to be the other way around. I've heard many people who have NEVER used Vista complaining about it saying they'll never use it.
Think back to Windows 2000, when XP came out couldn't you have said the same thing? It was basically 2000 with a new GUI and a few things changed here and there. Everyone LOVES XP now. It's just the internet wasn't at quite the same stage for everyone to complain ;)
I don't take the article seriously as I could because it's obvious you have a complete bias against Vista, everything good about it you dismiss rather rapidly.
You talk about Vista not being better than XP on some aspects because of some THIRD party software? That is truely not a comparison of operating systems, I'm sure these applications can be ported and there are probably versions of them for Vista also.
I personally think it is more productive once you get used to the initial shock of changing. I like the breadcrumb system, it makes a lot more sense and is much easier than pressing UP, UP, UP..instead it's just clicking one or two times. Also you can still use Backspace to go up a level in vista.
Moving files/renaming them is also a lot quicker in Vista and it seems to do intelligent things more often (eg when you click or press F2 to rename a file it selects it without the extention if you have extensions turned on).
Also the windows desktop search on XP is really horrid compared to on Vista, it works much better on Vista. Searching is an absolute breeze.
I think this article does have some points of merit, it sounds like something I would've written when I very first installed Vista and one of my hardware drivers was preventing Vista to load though! Much too much bias.
Vista Whining
I bought a laptop a year ago. I was FORCED to take it with Vista. I am a developer (and coder). The UI is "purdy" but it's so non-productive I won't even use the machine for development. It's now a dedicated iPod server. I also use it as a cup coaster. In another year I will probably test it's flight capabilities as a frisbee.
12 gb for an OS? OS stands for operating system, not Overlord System. My XP machine will literally run circles around this Vista machine even with the bells and whistles turned off. What's worse, my XP machine has a slower processor core and slower memory. Did anyone at MS actually have to use this thing before they released it?
My advice to anyone that actually uses their computer for productive purposes: stick with XP until Windows 7 SP2. That's probably August 2012, less than 4 months from the end of the world according to the Mayan calendar. :-)
just saying FUD is a weak man's arguement
This article has good points that can be counterpointed if somebody had the desire and intelligence to do so. It doesn't mean they'd be right, but to say it is just FUD implies you didn't even read or understand any of it.
It's obvious the author knows how to look up and try drivers, and has a point on the benchmarking. I admit, there is some FUD re: Vista, but it is based on reality and the numbers.
RE: Pure FUD - What a Useless Comment
Comparing the content of your comment to the content of the article I would have to say yours lacks substance. If you think it's FUD, why don't you back it up with some proof.
To add additional FUD as you call it:
MS has been using tactics to coerce users to use Vista because, as the article states, there is no legitimate reason for most people to upgrade from XP.
MS normally supports their current OS and the previous OS. Why are they sun setting XP and leaving only Vista?
Normally an older generation of software is cheaper than the newer version. Pricewatch.com currently shows windows XP selling for 10-50% more than comparable Vista versions. Perhaps to compel people to buy Vista.
MS Finally released Halo 2 for the PC after two years as an Xbox only game. This was probably done to boost Xbox sales as the original Halo was released for multiple platforms. Originally the game would only play on Vista (are you seeing a trend) but after a hack came out to allow it to be played on XP, the software vendor promised to release an official patch for XP compatibility. There are other MS PC games being released as "Vista" only and I hope they get back-ported so that I can play them.
I am very happy with XP and look forward to the next OS version. I hope MS has learned something from the release of Vista.
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Please remove
Please remove
Please remove
Vista needs improvement
I agree with your article, as I don't find anything absolutely compelling in Vista. I'm running Vista on my year old Sony Vaio laptop, only because Sony has not written XP drivers for it... So, I cannot downgrade to a fresh install of XP (I've tried).
It's not that Vista is really bad, b/c its actually OK. The issue is: it's just not compelling; at least that's how I feel.
I really hope MS get's their Consumer Operating System act together on their next OS and ships a: smaller, faster, more reliable, and more usable OS. Then, I'll be excited to upgrade. Until then, I'll stick with XP on my desktop, and unexcitedly use Vista on Laptop.
I'm looking forward to a couple years from now when MS ships Windows 7. But if it turns out to just be Windows ME 3.0.... then I'm becoming more enamored with Apple OS-X.
-- Jared
-- http://dataland.wordpress.com/2008/03/10/vista-usability-drivers-ii/
Vista 64 vs. XP 64
If you compare Windows 2000 professional with the latest service packs at the time of the XP release to the original version of XP you could of written the same article.
My advise would be,if you have a PC that is more then a 3 years old and you do not have a good video card then Vista is not for you.
If you have a newer machine, especially one with a dual core processor then you should consider moving to Visa.
Vista 64 is the real future. If you compare Vista 64 to XP 64 vista blows it away. I have a PC at home set up as dual boot Win XP Pro 32 and Vista 64 and I have to say I never use my XP install anymore. In fact, performance wise my Vista install is an order of magnitude faster then XP. Vista 64 takes full advantage of my Video card and Dual core processor.
XP is a better choice
As one that has tried Vista and has been bitterly disappointed, I agree with the points made in this article. I don't advise anyone to use Vista unless they have a very compelling reason as well as a lot of money and time to waste.
this article is pure FUD
this article is pure FUD
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