Should I switch to Vista from XP

saltydog806saltydog806 Bowie MD
edited July 2008 in Science & Tech
I'm running xp 32 bit (I switched back from Vista 32 bit a year ago). Whats the latest word? Stay w/XP or go to Vista 32 bit?

Comments

  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited July 2008
    I don't see any compelling reason to skip ahead to Vista at this time.
  • SnarkasmSnarkasm Madison, WI Icrontian
    edited July 2008
    Go with what you have. I have both, and I love both. A lot of times I prefer Vista, but I think that's just because I don't have Launchy installed. Instant Search is amazing.
  • saltydog806saltydog806 Bowie MD
    edited July 2008
    Snarkasm wrote:
    Go with what you have. I have both, and I love both. A lot of times I prefer Vista, but I think that's just because I don't have Launchy installed. Instant Search is amazing.


    Launchy?
  • SnarkasmSnarkasm Madison, WI Icrontian
    edited July 2008
    www.google.com
  • saltydog806saltydog806 Bowie MD
    edited July 2008
    Snarkasm wrote:
    www.google.com


    LOL Thanks ur right sry.

    Wuff
  • QeldromaQeldroma Arid ZoneAh Member
    edited July 2008
    The good news is that you don't HAVE to change. If you do go Vista, go 32 bit unless you want to permanently burn your bridges with many of your legacy apps or you enjoy tinkering lots to make things work.

    You go to Vista because you WANT DX10. You WANT Aero. You want all those essentially superfluous things that XP doesn't do natively. And, yes, you will still burn bridges on some applications with Vista32- but I've had decent sucess in getting more recent popular apps going.

    Personally- I stayed with XP. I have way too many personal and work applications that won't run in any Vista version and I just don't have the time to hassle with it.

    It's not a question of whether you should right now- but whether you want to.
  • SnarkasmSnarkasm Madison, WI Icrontian
    edited July 2008
    Wait, what? What applications are normal users running that can't run under Vista x64? Mine all work fantastically...
  • QeldromaQeldroma Arid ZoneAh Member
    edited July 2008
    I have Nero 7, Vegas Movie Studio 7 to name a couple. There has been no amount of work that could get these running or running correctly. There are many applications I've spent good money on that simply won't install- despite compatibility mode. That was enough for me.

    As a further complication, F@H SMP runs a couple of minutes and BSODs on me. Surprisingly I can't OC past 3.0GHz in Vista(?). And yes, I know how to install a BIOS and Vista compatible chipset drivers, etc.

    I don't have the time to figure it out and I don't have any of these issues with XP at 3.2GHz.

    Oh- it's a Q9450 on a GA-EP35C board
  • SnarkasmSnarkasm Madison, WI Icrontian
    edited July 2008
    No experience with the other two, but the FAH problem shouldn't be happening. Like I said, though, whatever you've got and want. They're both generally fine.
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited July 2008
    I stuck with Vista for over a year, tried to tough it out, even through SP1, and I ended up switching back to XP. All my bluescreen issues, my Steam crashing, TF2 performance issues, weird hard drive problems, etc. all went away when I went back to XP.

    The #1 dealbreaker was the inexplicable problem of, every 15-20 minutes or so, insane hard drive activity for 3-5 minute stretches. It wasn't indexing, it wasn't security related, I had no AV. I spent weeks trying to track it down. It made playing TF2 almost unbearable because out of the blue, the game would slow to a crawl for 3-5 minutes at a time while the hard drive activity went through the roof.

    I had a very negative vista experience, caused by a variety of annoyances, issues, crashes, and incompatibilities. When I switched back to XP, everything on my relatively modern PC worked great. Everything's back to normal now.
  • SnarkasmSnarkasm Madison, WI Icrontian
    edited July 2008
    A lot of what you read shows personal experiences of fewer bluescreens or crashes in Vista than there ever were in XP, but it's usually all based on the hardware. Only time I've gotten a bluescreen (and this is ever, across two machines that had Vista since about 4 months after release) was when I tried to install my relatively new and still excellent Audigy 2 that Creative REFUSES to create drivers for, the bastards.

    The biggest hurdle to Vista right now, imo, is hardware adoption. It's certainly not for the old or underpowered, I suppose. (Not saying yours is either, Brian, just a generality.) But when companies refuse to put out drivers for a certain OS, it makes it pretty hard to use that machine for sure.
  • QeldromaQeldroma Arid ZoneAh Member
    edited July 2008
    Snarkasm wrote:
    .... But when companies refuse to put out drivers for a certain OS, it makes it pretty hard to use that machine for sure.

    It's called "Ka-Ching!". If you spent $100 for MrBS 8 software package and a new OS comes out- WHY make solid patches for 8? I think at some point it's not cost effective. Make MrBS 9, sell it for another $100 and simply say we can't support 8 for Vista.

    But that's hit and miss with an on-going product, Snark. The sure "I'm skrewd" situations are those applications that are discontinued or the company is no more & there is no support. They work just fine in XP, but Vista refuses to install them or they will install but not work properly. Heck, in one case, I was delighted with how an app version worked in Windows 3.1, but liked a lot less or even hated later versions. It runs flawlessly in XP, but Vista won't do it. You have to do without or find a new vendor with a similar app- which you may like even less. Honestly, I don't know if you've lived long enough to appreciate this.

    I could go on with what's going on professionally, but that would be hijacking this thread for Vista bashing. And, in all honestly, I LIKE some of the things in Vista. I just don't like them well enough.

    A VM is a possibility for me in Vista- but I'd really like to go 64 bit if I do go Vista.

    At any rate- I hope this discourse helps with your decision, salty.

    EDIT ADDED: prime- could it have been the background defragger that Vista has?
  • stoopidstoopid Albany, NY New
    edited July 2008
    I've had 2 issues with Vista (32 bit), fresh SP1 install:

    1) Windows Media player doesn't always work.

    2) My printer will sometimes get 80% through a page, sometime only 10%, before feeding the rest of the paper then subsequently feeding more sheets through for fun. Updated drivers, same issue. Fun!


    Regarding #1, prior to my recent reinstall of Vista (had it running for almost a year) Media Player, which can't be repaired or reinstalled because it's now part of the OS, would crash whenever trying to play media while my smartphone was connected. Purged playlists, tried just about everything on google, and gave up. Now with the fresh Vista install I'm having new Media Player issues with random fatal app errors, and I haven't even installed any codecs yet! lol

    Aside form the occassional Dx10 game I play, I really don't have a compelling reason to be using Vista, as is probably the case for 90% of the end users out there.
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