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Windows Vista and XP Head To Head
thefickler sends in an article comparing Windows Vista and Windows XP in the areas of security, home entertainment, GUI, parental controls, and networking. The author clearly believes that Vista wins across these categories.
I guess it's time for a new PC. I don't know that I can live without IE 7's new 'anti-phishing' filter.
The author clearly believes that Vista wins across these categories.
So this article was planted by Microsoft then? Or is that what the submittor want us to believe?
Of course, why the new system requirements are so ridiculously higher than XP is something I'm still waiting on a good answer for. I'm sticking with XP until I'm absolutely forced to upgrade in 5 years or so because nothing has XP support anymore. I mean, give me a break. There is no earthly reason an OS should bloat so massively in versions that are only a few years apart. It's an OS, not Doom 3.
My script don't crash! She crashes, you crashed her!
I wish to see a comparison for the benefit of millions of users who do not want to (or who cannot afford to) upgrade to new hardware. This comparison would involve installing Vista and XP on a hardware configuration that is the minimum configuration recommended for XP (yes, XP). To enhance the comparison, we should include RedHat Linux.
I think you hit the nail on the head. Just wanted to mention that since I don't currently have any mod points.
i've been using vista for about 3 weeks now. under heavy usage (i.e. running a bunch of apps, nntp downloading, unzipping some archives etc..) xp does seem speedier, but other than that, vista rocks. it's stable, great to look at, and easy to use. using ribbons in the address bar so that any folder along your path can be browsed is very handy. they've addressed little nagging issues , for example hitting f2 to rename a file highlights the filename but not the extension. the administrator account is turned off by default, defender runs automatically, defrags are set up on a weekly schedule by default, and the searching is blazing on indexed drives. games seem to run well, and all my devices were installed automatically during installation. the resource monitor is excellent, and running services are listed in the task manager along with processes and apps. i've managed to muck it up a few times installing software, but in all cases i was installing versions meant for xp, not vista, and each time booting the last known good config has gotten me right back. they've done a great job with this o/s.
From the article:
Huh? What is this, and why would it make any difference whatsoever in preventing exploits?
keep in mind, at the end of installation, vista runs a performance benchmark against the hardware, and adjusts appearance settings accordingly... one can always turn off the aero interface. it's a brand new o/s, so it's not surprising that it requires fairly current hardware to run well. i mean even your average amd system nowadays runs a 3500+ 64 with a gig of ram and a graphics card more than adequate for vista's directx desktop. back when xp was released everyone was saying the same thing about it's requirements.
Okay, besides the fact this looks like some dude skimming marketing spiel, let's hit the high points:
...?!
Marketing Promise: Increased Security
Some Dude's Findings: VISTA: Vista has a similar but improved firewall to Windows XP SP2, but anyone who is serious about their security will still replace it with a third party firewall or Internet security suite.
Marketing Promise: Anti-phishing feature
Some Dude's Findings: Both score 'pretty terrible'
Marketing Promise: File system security
Some Dude's Findings: However pressing the 'ok' button lets you do whatever you want anyway, and experienced users will just be annoyed. What did I do? I turned it off completely and am not bothered by it anymore.
-That's increased security!
Marketing Promise: Easy
Some Dude's Findings: anyone, even without massive computing experience, can easily set up a wired or wireless network.
Utter security failure. Plenty of work fixing broken windows. Forced upgrade with new hardware sales. It's a win-win all around!
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
You screwed up your OS installing software and you consider that acceptable? Kernel extensions/drivers, okay, but applications should never mess up your OS to the point that you need to "boot to the last known good config". This is the whole point of an OS. Of course maybe you wrote ironically and I just missed it.
Thanks Microsoft... When I want to change my IP address, burn a DVD, or open Mozilla, I want a wizard to make sure I'm doing everything correctly.
I don't care if my OS has 3D icons or fancy clear windows... I want it to be out of the way, and just RUN THE PROGRAMS I WANT! That's the whole point of the OS. Not to take up 4 gig of hard drive space because Grandma wants to print pictures of her grandchildren. Stop hogging all my system RAM and let me choose my preferred programs to look at pictures, play MP3s, and watch videos- none of which come with your OS.
While that sounds positively delightful, does Mr Iemma really know what he is getting himself in for? To start with, the NSW Government has now decided it is going to be an Internet Service Provider to compete with publicly run companies.
I was following that until that very last paragraph... did I stray into another article?
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
Because it looks like it... that or else there was no article to begin with. Reguardless, its kind of annoying not being able to read the article. Not to mention I dont know what kind of system these comparisions were made on. How would a Min XP install compare to a Min Vista install? I needs to know now! I have to have windows. Linux isn't a option. Linux hates me. I install Linux, GRUB wont load it without me editing the paths each time, and it decided to try shove itself into my XP NTFS partition last time. IT HAS IT IN FOR ME.
Numerous mis-spelling and grammatical errors. Why should I trust them to assess an OS correctly?
Call me old fashioned, but I like a dump to be as memorable as it is devastating - Bender
How can an unbiased technical reviewer embrace Vista's
shiny, new networking features, ie, before all the new
bugs start to get exploited.
We don't need more hype here...
Is there an upgrade path from Windows 3.1 for Workgroups? I'll have to vacuum up the 7 layers
of dust, grime and skin particles to access my floopy drives in order to load it but I'll have one
of my minions swap them out. He is an illegal alien so we don't have to pay him any overtime.
This guy wrote a special program for in DOS that I just can't live without and when
we tried to load Windows 95 it wouldn't run so we have been crossing our fingers ever since.
I'm hoping Vista will bring us new horizons!!!1
Erm... Yes, it is.
An operating system is supposed to provide the low-level core of functionality necessary to run (and if necessary co-ordinate) other programs. Such functionality can be and has been written to run on systems with 1/1000th the processing power of today's multicore monsters.
Of course, today the term "operating system" refers, at least in common usage, to some sort of bundle that includes a kernel, various support libraries for networking, GUI, and other such stuff, some sort of shell, a whole bunch of tools of varying degrees of usefulness, and a whole bunch of mostly half-baked and sub-standard applications. (This description applies, to my knowledge, to pretty much every major desktop "OS" currently available, from Windows to Linux distros via MacOS and various other UNIX platforms.)
My current PC is now about four years old, but was a pretty high spec at that time. On this system, I can happily run full-blown applications for everything from editing high-res photos to playing games that do real-time 3D graphics pretty reasonably. Given this information, there is absolutely no reason whatsoever that any operating system should not run very comfortably using a tiny fraction of my system's resources, no matter how many bells and whistles it has.
Now, according to Microsoft, my system just about meets the minimum standards to run the low-end versions of Vista, and isn't qualified to run the high-end versions for several reasons. I can only conclude from this that either Vista's code is poorly written and/or poorly organised, or that those higher-end versions of Vista are trying to do yet more things that are not really part of an operating system, and are probably better done by specialist standalone applications anyway. Either way, Vista is suffering from some serious bloat, and bloat means bugs, security flaws, performance problems and all the rest.
So yes, even if it's a brand new OS, it's still of concern that it requires such impressive hardware specs to run well. In fact, it's a pretty damning indictment of the product, and doesn't so much imply as outright prove that it's going in the wrong direction.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
For goodness sakes it better be. Even Microsoft better be able to make something better if they have 6 YEARS to work on it. Shesh
What an ugly review. This guy seems all caught up in the "oooh, look its shiny" Vista, but what, no screen shots? Seriously?
Where's Vista versus e.g. OS X 10.4 or 10.5?
you had me at #!
So you've heard all the hype about Windows Vista, but wonder what it means for you. Here's the definitive guide on how Microsoft's Windows Vista stacks up against XP:
SECURITY FEATURES
XP: In the original Windows XP, and with the first service pack or SP1, both versions still in use today, Windows XP has a built-in firewall that gave relatively good protection against hackers breaking into your computer.
The 2nd service pack, or SP2, improved the firewall to protect you from people trying to get it, and bad programs trying to get access out to the Internet, but it is still considered relatively basic compared with commercial offerings. Anyone serious about security should replace it with a good third party firewall or Internet security suite. All versions of Windows XP are also able to be set to download Windows updates automatically.
VISTA: Vista has a similar but improved firewall to Windows XP SP2, but anyone who is serious about their security will still replace it with a third party firewall or Internet security suite. Internet Explorer 7 has an 'anti-phishing' filter, but is known to slow down your surfing experience a little as sites you visit are checked by Microsoft's servers for phishing attack dangers.
However IE7 and Firefox 2.0 have both been rated as only having partial success in detecting phishing sites, and as such have both earned a rating of 'pretty terrible' for anti-phishing prowess by us at Free Access (Tech.Blroge).
A new 'user account control' system tries to protect you from yourself, so you don't accidentally make changes to important system settings without being warned first. However pressing the 'ok' button lets you do whatever you want anyway, and experienced users will just be annoyed. What did I do? I turned it off completely and am not bothered by it anymore. You'll probably do the same, too.
Windows also has a new 'randomization' layer, which slightly changes the memory configuration of every Vista machine to make it harder for co-ordinated attacks to affect scores of machines at the same time.
Vista also has made protections to the 'kernel' or core of the operating system, with a protective measure known as 'PatchGuard', but this only extends to the 64-bit version of Vista, a version which most of us won't be using for at least a couple of years. Most consumers will be using the 32-bit version of Vista which does not have 'PatchGuard' built-in.
HOME ENTERTAINMENT
XP: Windows XP has always been able to play mp3 and video files, CDs, DVDs (with third party software), streaming media files and other forms of digital media with relative ease over the years.
An updated version of Windows XP, known as the Media Center Edition upgraded the digital media experience of Windows, giving it a dedicated interface to watch, record and pause live TV, play photos, videos and music, listen to FM and online radio stations and more.
VISTA: Finally, the Media Center capabilities comes built-into most versions of Windows Vista aside from the basic, entry level version. It has also been enhanced over the previous version, although reviewers claim it has not received as much of an improvement as the rest of Windows has over previous versions.
Vista also plays most other forms of digital media through it's own Windows Media Player software, with a whole host of competing media players available to download, many free of charge, from the Internet.
GRAPHICAL USER INTERFACE
XP: Ridiculed as being the 'Fischer Price' version of the Windows 2000 interface, Windows XP was still a fresh update upon its release 5 years ago. Today, however, will still perfectly functional, it is starting to look a little long in the tooth, with Apple's Mac OS X offering Vista like graphics for several years already.
VISTA: Very cool looking 3D icons, transparent 'glass' windows and other lovely eye candy such as the 'Flip 3D' way of flipping through open windows. This new graphics system is called 'Aero'. However this will re
I'll take the karma hit for this I'm sure...but...MS has consistently improved on their operating systems. I'm not saying they are the best available, just that they have consistently improved. From my experience every new OS they have released has been an improvement over the previous (ME excepted). Just because they aren't Apple or a Linux flavor doesn't mean they are worthless. Keep in mind they are the major OS in use both for home and business and that they are TRYING to improve. If for nothing else, they should be applauded for their efforts.
I reserve the right to think for myself. Others' opinions are optional. Puppy on lap = typos...not illiteracy.
And I personally still say the same thing about XP's requirements. And ESPECIALLY about Vista's. Note that "minimum" requirements mean, in my experience, that sure, you could run it, but could you possibly want to? Sure, any computer less than about four years old probably CAN run Vista (though it may require a memory upgrade - many computers still only came with 256 until maybe a year or two ago). But would you want to? I personally have run Windows 2000 on relatively ancient machines - 400 or so MHz processors, I think 64M of RAM, and so on - and I think they're still running, somehow - but don't wish to repeat the experience. However they could run, was the primary point. Why can't Vista come even close to that? It's not the interface - it can still fall back to classic mode or whatever it is they call it now. There is no excuse for that requiring any more than a simple VGA-capable graphics card, either. Remember "Safe Mode"? Why can't it cut back so that all it's really running is a simple firewall (though without all the frivolous services, that shouldn't be necessary if the few that are system-critical are written properly) and whatever the user has started, let's say Internet Explorer and an old version of Word (again, requirements)? My parents own a computer that has been running Windows 98, with Office 97, for nearly 9 years now. It could use an upgrade to Win2k, certainly, but why not something with some obvious security features that earlier versions of Windows irresponsibly neglected, like the default non-privileged user in Vista?
I don't want to make this thread even more off-topic, but I think that Microsoft should consider how Linux handles this (though it's probably too late to implement it): abstract everything. Got a computer that can't handle the newest version of, say, KDE or Gnome? Fine, try XFCE. Or Fluxbox, or... Same underlying code to draw stuff. With AIGLX and nVidia's AIGLX-type extensions, even Compiz and Beryl (think Aero Glass with more toys) don't need separate code. Can't handle Aero Glass? Fine, try Aero. Can't handle Aero? Try Classic mode. Miracle that your computer still runs at all? Disable some eye candy in Classic. And frankly, if the GUI in its most stripped-down form can't run on the same spec hardware that runs Windows 98 perfectly, maybe the code needs to be cleaned up. I'm not a software engineer, I just yell at bad ones. Look, the OS I run can run a box that acts as a home router on hardware that costs literally $20 US. Vista can't even be bought for that much money. And the hardware it requires (at a minimum) runs probably $80 used. Why bother even including ICS anymore?
There's an old saying that says pretty much whatever you want it to.
>> highlights the filename but not the extension
Another feature stolen from the Mac. Of course a lot of people have never used Macs (pity on them), so they'll never know that a ton of other things that Microsoft has "innovated" in Vista existed (sometimes for decades!) on the Mac.
>> searching is blazing on indexed drives
Compared to what? I find Vista built in search to be utterly lacking compared to, say, Copernic (PC) or Spotlight (on the Mac). I mean, they can't even rip off Spotlight properly. If you're going to offer "search as you type" thing, you better implement it in a way that makes it responsive. The one in Vista chokes immediately after you start typing. And then you sit there and wait for results.
While I agree with anyone who says the "article" is pretty redundant and more or less a comparison between XP's and Vista's feature listings, I feel the need to respond to someone's comment on the article (shown below the article). I quote:
The only feature that is of any appeal to me in Vista is DX10. I wish it was ported to XP. I do not look forward to "upgrading" to Vista at all. It is the most disappointed Windows release since WinME.
While DX10 is a large (and necessary) step forward, I simply cannot understand anybody calling Vista a worthless upgrade or "disappointing" in the likes of WinMe. Alright, WinFS didn't make it - big deal. Anybody comparing Vista's upgrade over XP to Me's upgrade to 98 is simply an idiot.
Vista features upgrades - although minor in some aspects, upgrades nevertheless - to pretty much every aspect of Windows. From security to GUI to functionality to included applications, so much has been improved, reworked and even overhauled that anybody dismissing it as "disappointing" - hell, anything short of major - is more than likely someone who, in the "real" world, really can't wait for Vista, will buy it within a few days of its release and simply wants to act like he's "better than" anyone who looks forward to tons of improvements over XP.
Give it a rest. You can say it sucks, but you can't say it isn't at the least quite an improvement over what we've got.
I have software that will not run in Vista. The software manufacturer nor Microsoft can give me any information as to if and/or when there will be any resolution or changes to make it compatible. It is not custom software, it is over the counter, out of the box stuff. I've beta tested Vista up to the current RC and the software still doesn't work. Vista didn't recognize my Labtek webcam, had to install XP drivers for it. Had 14 other reported software issues that are/were never resolved. I'll just stick with XP for a few more years and see how it goes. I'm not going to throw away all my stuff that works with XP just to "upgrade" to Vista and have to buy all new stuff. My box is fairly new as it is. It's a 2.6ghz Intel board with '1gig RAM' '128mg NVIDIA' DVD burner, WiFi, lots of other crap. I have three other computers networked in my house all about the same config so a Vista future is not so bright for me right now.
An OS shouldn't need a gig to run the os.
Oh please. No one cares about security, or media conversion. Show me some benchmarks that have frames per second with 16x Anti-Aliasing on Microsoft Flight Simulator X with DirectX 10 on a new Geforce 8800. That's all that really matters.
Vista works fine on that config .. about the same as XP. Some things are a bit faster, some a bit slower, overall it's about the same.
;)
This must be the shortest review I've ever written
--I thought I was wrong once, but I was mistaken.
"Dear Mom... delete that."
Sorry, couldn't resist.
Find environmentally and socially responsible products on http://buy-right.net
You know, even though most of what you've said is completely true, it's not in any way going to stop everybody migrating to Vista the first opportunity they get, even if that means buying completely new hardware in order to do so.
Everybody did it with all previous versions of Microsoft's operating systems (with the possible exception of WinME), and I can't think why they won't just as quickly bend over and grease up for the salesmen with regard to Vista.
Give it a rest, ditch the transparent and childish denial. History and precedent have spoken: it simply doesn't matter if Vista completely and utterly sucks, everybody is still going to try and get it ASAP.
All you people claiming that nobody will "bother" with Vista when you know the opposite is true, and that you will probably be near the front of the line one night outside yout local PC store.
Is it just me, or did he conveniently forget to mention anything about any form of DRM in there?
This is my signature. There are many like it but this one is mine.
Insightful? If you're going to test Vista on a hardware configuration that doesn't meet its system requirements, why not test it on an iPod? The results would be equally useful. Don't forget the obligatory install of RedHat Linux on the iPod too (you know: "to enhance the comparison").
Even if Vista is better than XP, is it $751 better (Australian dollars, Vista Ultimate edition, US$595)? *That's* the real question. OK, to be generous, Vista Home Premium which is $455 (US$360). Then factor in the costs of upgrading your hardware, time lost reconfiguring things etc. etc.
Prices here: http://www.apcstart.com/node/4035
waste of effort (tagging beta)
You have just received the Amish virus. Since we have no electricity or computers, you are on the honor system.
What's with all these Vista news? I guess even Slashdot has become a marketing outlet for Da Man. Who gets to choose these stories?
Half a gig of RAM as a minimum requirement? Well, that counts out any laptops *I* have from six years ago...
- Frans.
OSX shipping with enterprise-grade industry standard iptables firewall for well over 5 years
and
User-based Security w/o defaulting to Admin user: OS X and Linux win by almost a decade
In the words of toadlife:
You shouldn't confuse iptables with ipfw.
Five years is almost a decade?
If your gonna be a fanboy when you post, at least get your facts straight please.
Why on earth did two worthless blog posts from TechBlorge get to the front page of Slashdot? There was this one, and then the " Corporate America Not Ready For Vista" article, both today. Slow News day?
I've tried running Vista (with the Classic interface) on a P4 with 512MB of RAM. It runs like absolute crap. XP is at LEAST twice as fast.
LOAD "SIG",8,1
A new 'user account control' system tries to protect you from yourself, so you don't accidentally make changes to important system settings without being warned first. However pressing the 'ok' button lets you do whatever you want anyway, and experienced users will just be annoyed. What did I do? I turned it off completely and am not bothered by it anymore. You'll probably do the same, too.
Hint: Dude, you have not clue what User Account Control is really good for.
so, how can anybody do what you ask? DX10 support won't arrive until they release a patch in the future.
Seriously, what about the speed? Resources used, maybe?
The article makes no mention of Microsoft's egregious use of DRM throughout Vista. It was hardly the "definitive" article it professes to be.
Oh.My.God - I wish people could truely see Micro$oft for what they really are...it's so evil.
http://nathanlindsell.blogspot.com/
Product is better than its 5 year old predecessor. News at 11.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
I don't expect anyone other than MS fanbois to run out and buy Vista upgrades because it won't be needed. XP works just fine for most (I'd say 99.99%) people. Also keep in mind that since Vista will most likely require hardware upgrades (RAM at least,) that significantly increases the cost.
Vista will roll out via new hardware and corporate upgrades. I wouldn't expect many corps to start upgrading for at LEAST another year (sp1 or 2 out). A huge number are still on 2000. Considering how well it works, I wouldn't expect them to stop using it until 2000 is in the final EOL stage - a few more years yet.
Frankly, this whole "constantly checking for a license server" BS will turn a lot of corps off.
Well, I've installed Vista Enterprise RTM on two systems so far:
1) Compaq Presario 2815 (a.k.a EVO 800) notebook: 4-1/2 years old. Pentium Mobile 1.5GHz, 512MB RAM, 12 GB HDD. Slow, but generally works. No WDDM graphics, of course, but all the hardware was recognised. Even an old Symbol wireless card I tried.
2) HP TC4200 Tablet PC, just over a year old. Pentium-M 1.8GHz, Centrino, 1GB RAM, 80GB HDD. Speed is good, except for graphics: Intel says they are not going to develop a 915GM driver for Vista WDDM because of hardware limitations. Strictly "business graphics", which are OK. No Bluetooth hardware driver supplied or can be found. Audio is not all there: the "soft jacks" are not recognised, so plugging in headphones does not cut out the speaker!
These inflated specs are for new PCs, as has been pointed out: Microsoft work with the PC makers to set the specs, with a view to boosting sales. Tell us something we don't know..!
(this is not a
What's amazing to me is that I've read many articles about Vista in the past weeks and I still haven't figured out if I want any of the "bells and whistles" it offers.
I'm gonna lay out that kind of dough for translucent screens? I don't give a fig about translucent screens.
The bottom line for me is that head to head on a given bit of hardware, it sounds like Vista performs WORSE than XP overall.
For the first time in memory, I won't be upgrading my OS for a good long while. I know the University I work for won't be upgrading either.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I tried Vista RTM on two machines... 1st machine has 76 registered crashes in support center. Most of those are Windows explorer, media center, and even a few BSODs. I had all Vista drivers installed. Interestingly enough, it actually crashed while I copied files onto another machine - NO OS should crash copying files! Also, if you cut and paste a large amount of folders, it wont delete the original folders. 2nd machine has over 700 crashes and several BSODs caused by DivX. There was no chipset driver available for Vista... but give me a break! 700 is quite extreme. Until Vista is more stable, or until up and coming software is more stable on it, I'm avoiding Vista like the plague.
You might get more than 5 years if you really don't want to upgrade. Maybe lots more. I've had pretty good luck getting stuff to run on Windows 95 although I sometimes need to install a Windows 98 DLL. Many programs that don't include Windows 95 in their support list actually work (and some that do don't -- but then, some programs that claim to run on XP don't either). Anyway, if you are determined to stick with XP, you may well have time to raise a puppy and maybe even to bury your beloved pet after it dies of old age before you are actually forced to upgrade.
Why do I stick with an antique OS? Well, it does what I need. And it runs on $20 hardware. It is noticably faster than its successors even though it is running on far more modest hardware. And I'm simply not smart enough to fix XP when it doesn't work quite the way I want it to -- which is way too often.
I expect that it comes down to communications security. If Vista is significantly safer to run on the Internet than XP, then people and companies will upgrade. If it is merely more complex and aggravating, then why bother?
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
Listed reasons as to why Vista sucks: That cool 'Areo Glass' GUI is totally ugly. You have a nice blue clear edges around the border of IE 7 when in a windowed size. When you fullscreen it, the boarder turns black. You can change the color transparency for the borders but not for the start menu bar so the colors match up nicely? Areo glass disables itself from time to time for whatever reason (usually Java). I have no need for the 3D alt-tab window mode. I run like 2 or three things at any point in time so it's really not that hard to figure out what I'm looking for. When typing in Firefox sometimes my mouse pointer rests on the taskbar on an application selection. That pops up the preview window which then in turn blocks you from typing in text boxes that are near it. Nice one MS! Be more annoying! You have an IE 7 back button on the top left corner during the setup installation and a regular 'next' grey rectangle box in the lower right corner. Note: Next & Previous buttons were always grouped together so why the fuck are they so far apart now? Then there's these huge ass popups with multiple lines of description information for coping/moving/deleting files and they all look the same forcing you to really read what option you're looking for. How the hell is that easy? Copying/moving files is laggy at best and unresponsive at times. There are these crazy disk thrashing background services running from time to time that I have not figured out the cause of since I do have all indexing or system maintenance disable. There's no TweakUI out yet for Vista so I have these beautiful icons with these huge ass shortcut icons on top of them that I so dearly would love to get rid of. Why is this never part of the OS? Clicking on a folder in list view and selecting that folder pane to scroll through those files should be easy, right? Nope when you do highlight that area and start scrolling one wheel click it'll move one column over and then back again by itself for no reason at all. The new Start Menu is stupidly restrictive. When digging through multiple folders for applications, you lose space for the application name with each subfolder so that Microsoft Internet Explorer becomes Microsoft In.... which loses the whole point of what a start menu should do. The games menu is nice that it downloads the box art & categorizes automatically the games it finds on your system. It could be improved greatly if one could edit the game into a category of our own choice, create subfolders for groups of games, find games from Valve's Steam, allow old games like Doom 1 & 2 to be searched for properly, change the icon of the game because the box art is only good at large & extra large settings and the small icons look like crap, and if it downloads the box art why not suitable smaller icons as well? The default option when shutting the system down is to shut it down to a low power mode instead of completely off. When I go to work, I don't want my PC left on. At all. Period. It just wastes electricity to save a few seconds of boot time? Whoop-de-do. Power saving the hard drives causes them to 'click' repeatedly after it turns on and off after a week or so of use. I've never seen a Maxtor hard drive work properly with this feature on. It always screws things up for me. So it stays disabled and I never have a problem with my drives failing. Plus one should wait a year or so for PowerDVD, Steam, iTunes, Nero, Roxio, NOD32, uTorrent, Filezilla... ect to fully support Vista. That, in addition, to not being an early adopter to play with constant 'not beta but still it's really a beta' drivers for Nvida, ATI, Creative.. ect. Nvidia's settings panel looks like crap. Can't they invest some time in some nice looking icons? BitTorrent apps like uTorrent & BitComet regularly crash because of MS's new network stack protocol they wrote from scratch. Internet services like AOL's movie download service will only work in IE 6.0 with Windows XP. Halo 2 for Vista at $60? No thanks. I like playing my old games and will wait til
A good point. XP wants a P300 with 128mb of RAM. But it supports P233 with 64mb. When XP came out, I had XP running on the best junker in the junkpile -- P200 with 48mb and it actually was usable for web browsing and the occasional job that required something that wouldn't run on Windows 98.
My guess is that you might be able to measure Vista (and Linux) performance on minimal XP hardware with a sundial. But P800 with 512mb seems like overkill just to read Slashdot or compute 2006 Income Tax.
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
In my case I knew Windows was going to BSOD at me until I reinstalled the OS.
Thats when I plunged into Linux.
Someone set us up the bomb, so shine we are!
As long as it's standard hardware, you should be able to get your Bluetooth adapter identified by adding the hardware ID for it to Windows's bth.inf, or by simply trying to load another driver via Device Manager. My HP Compaq nc6400 (Core Duo)'s module is a Broadcom module, although it was identified by Vista. Did you check Windows Update for a driver?
Windows includes rudimentary HD Audio drivers that work (poorly) with most HD Audio devices; you'll want drivers from the audio chipset manufacturer (ADI, Realtek, etc.). You can use the XP drivers from HP, if you need to; chances are, they'll work better.
Just to nitpick a bit, win98 had the graphics system in the kernel, and that's a *bad* thing. Other than that, I agree with you.
I read it and it pretty much says "Windows XP offers this feature, Windows Vista offers this feature in a bit better way".
/. crowd.
Security
=====
Windows XP offers basic firewall. Commercial software is better.
Windows Vista an improved firewall. Commercial software is still better. IE 7 offers a phishing filter which slows down browsing and is only partially successful in catching phishing attacks. New user control access is annoying, so author (and probably you will turn in off).
Home Entertainment
=============
Windows XP has basic capabilities, and Windows Media Center upgrade expanded those.
Windows Vista has improved media center included in most versions of Vista. An improved version over XP's Windows Media Center (it should be because XP's version is now 2 years old), but not by much.
Graphical Interface
============
Windows XP looks like crap -- especially compared to Mac OS X which has been offering features that Windows Vista will now finally offer.
Windows Vista looks very nice, but many computers won't be able to run it in its full glory. System wide desktop search is nice, but XP actually had similar feature that few people knew about. And, finally, a "sidebar" which will allow you to run widgets*.
(*Ask any Mac OS X user how often they actually use "widgets" provided by Dashboard, and you'll see how useful that feature actually is. It also ends up being one of Apple's bigger security headaches, and probably will be a big security headache in Vista too)
Parental Controls
===========
Windows XP had no parental controls. Vista has excellent parental controls. (Now all the parent needs is for their kid to help set it up for them.)
Networking
=======
Windows XP network's automatic setup sucks. Vista's automatic network setup wizard actually works.
No where did it claim that Apple stole anything from Vista. No where did it give Vista such glowing reviews that it makes people want to immediately upgrade from XP to Vista. The two biggest areas: Protecting you from porn, and a wizard that can help you setup a network if you're a n00b means nothing to the
Lower your shields and you will be added to our collective. Just give it up.....people want "security" and "easy to use" because they don't want to LEARN an OS, they just want to turn it on and use it. When they make a flavor of Linux as dumbed down as Windows, that is compatible with the windows software, then people will switch. Most of us on here are the "IT" department for family and friends....You know how it is, they don't have a clue how the computer works, they just complain when it doesn't. There are a lot of things I LIKE about Linux, the PRICE being one :) But, it isn't at this point compatible
with the bulk of the software I use. With the price points that
have been listed for Vista, I think some will give Linux a look.
They're comparing a 1972 Pinto with a 1993 Escort.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Ok, the Vole has been astroturfing slashdot for a long time now. You guys are supposed to be trained and experienced.
Now look at your post. It's not supposed to be obvious that you're sitting in on marketing's talking point meetings. You're not supposed to just truncate the pitch into a posting and submit your link for credit. It has to look like an honest person made the judgement for himself, or the messaging works in reverse.
Please try again, and next time for goodness sake at least misspell something.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
XP is half a decade old. For a fair comparison, try the Vista Ultimate Edition DVD and Ubuntu Edgy Eft CD.
With a screwdriver on the LCD. The coincidence is astounding. His improvements are going to cost me $500 also.
The similarities do end, though. He's only three. His fumbling attempts are charming. There's some hope his skills will improve.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
An article says that a new version of a product has better features than it's predecessor! AMAZING!
I do consulting around the Denter Tech Center for major Fortune 1000 corporations and there are so many that are still on Windows 2000, NT4, Windows 98!! and what have you. Very Few have XP employed anywhere except for secretarial functions. The work horses are not XP and they won't be going to Vista either.
The reason is simple - some of their legacy and custom apps don't run on XP. Some of their PDF web forms don't function properly with IE7. The problems and the costs associated with addressing this are not in balance with the return on investment to do so.
Looking at what the systems are being used for, a Windows 3.1 box would probably be sufficient. Many are used for data input, call center operations, manufacturig, program management (MS Project, Accell, etc.) and such. There is absolutely nothing to be gained by upgrading the software and, with vista, the hardware too. If it works, don't fix it.
IT dollars are short and can be better spent on expanding the infrastructure, network, Sun servers, mainframes, etc. The PCs are on every desk but the multi-media is disabled. games are removed, many Windows fluff is gone. These boxes, for the most part, can't even access the Internet as they are blocked by company policy. The intranet is usable but doesn't require anything fancy. Even corporate reporting using Business Objects and Crystal Reports are only used by a select few in senior management.
"Where is the need?" is what we're always talking about. There is nothing in XP or Vista that is necessary for the offices to function. There is nothing that will make them more efficient or cost effective. When you are talking thousands of PCs to upgrade and software re-writes and testing, the justification isn't there to make the switch.
Banjo - The more I know about Windoze, the more I love *nix
Is anybody else worried about the effect that Aero might have on laptop battery life? When I buy a laptop, the two things I look for (other than form factor) are a decent videocard and good battery life. Nearly all of these videocards have had some firmware option to underclock such and such when they're not working very hard; i.e. when I am not playing a game. What's going to happen with Aero?
How about comparing Performance. I have an app that can be GUI intensive, and there was a noticable performance difference from Windows 2000 to Windows XP on FASTER hardware.
That really depends on how you define average doesn't. Your average gamer has a 3500+ 64. Your average grandparent has a PIII with 256MB. Your average housewife might have a P4 2.4 with 512MB. I agree with the original point. The benchmark of Vista was with the really high end hardware. Not high end compared to new hardware but high end compared to what most people run. To run Vista and get the features, people will have some serious upgrading to do or they will have to replace their computer. Even then, they cannot get the basic model. They will have to up for a higher end model.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Are you kidding? I have a 4 year old laptop with 40GB hard drive. You know, it is kinda difficult to dedicate 15GB to an operating system only on a 40GB hard disk.
Are you this retentive on the week days too?
And that might be significant if you weren't part of a tiny minority.
First, understand rule 1: If it's not visible, then the user won't even know they have it.
Rule 2: If it's not a toolbar, the user won't be able to operate it.
Now, mostly those rules are facetious... but they both hold a grain of truth. Users look at the toolbar at the top when they want to do things. Most don't click menus. Most don't realize that buttons in the status bar can be clickable. The only active part of the screen as far as they're concerned are the buttons in the toolbar.
And most users really don't know the software they have on their computer unless their computer tells them, very visibly, over and over. I'd say the percentage of adult users that can use an application that's not in the toolbar, without assistance or training, is under 20%. There are a LOT of clueless adult Internet users out there, they're the majority now, and they're a HUGE market.
That's why software makers do Toolbars, they want that market.
Raven
"I will trust Google to 'do no evil' until the founders no longer run it." Hello Alphabet.
But without sudo, how will I get sandwichs?
http://www.xkcd.com/c149.html
I upgraded my mother-in-law's 64MB RAM computer to XP and everything ran (dog slow of course) ok. This included Office 2000 applications. She soon upgraded to 256MB and is happily using that machine right now. [IIRC the cpu speed was about 700mHz]
The oldest machine at our house (of half a dozen) has 320MB of RAM, ancient sub-20GB drives and runs XP Pro acceptably for over 3 years now.
I come here for the love
Soooo, what was your point again? At least Gnome devs aren't fucking everyone's brain with the word "innovation". This is not to say there isn't any - there is. But one must be careful using the word. :-)
I would have no problem believing that each consecutive release of a given OS should require slightly higher requirements, if it weren't for Apple's OS X. In the past five years, each consecutive release of OS X (10.0-10.4, and supposedly even 10.5, though I haven't tried it myself yet) has run faster, with better graphics and more features, than the previous version. So why exactly can't Microsoft do the same with Windows? Every release of Windows has been dog-slow compared to the previous version on the same hardware. I don't know how it works in the Linux world, but Apple has proven that OS upgrades shouldn't require a new computer as well.
Warning: Contents May Be Flammable. Keep Out Of Reach Of Children.
First of all, I don't think that integrating everything and a kitchen sink in OS is good. Windows should be modular so third-party developers could create all necessary additions.
Someone needs to create a Vista Lite script thingy modelled after the 98 Lite one so that it strips out unneeded crap -- call it Vista Load Leveller.
It snoops your PII hardware and recommends "Press (C)ripple Vista to 98SE level?". Half gig of RAM machines get the "Too (L)azy to install RAM?" prompt. Those with more than a gig of RAM, 3+mHz CPU and 512MB graphics card get a "Click OK to donate an arbitrary amount of your net worth to a third world country"...with only an OK button that is counting down from 5.
I come here for the love
"The author clearly believes that Vista wins across these categories." Wow, a sock puppet article.
Shouldnt we all be going 64bit about yesterday?
I hit ram limits all the time as a 3d animator... I want to go 64bit windows but no manufacturer seems to give a fuck about 64bit drivers.
AND many apps are still 32bit. Adobe.. where's your 64bit photoshop you dolphin cunts.
The minimum for Windows XP is 233Mhz with 64MB of ram. I don't think XP would be even usuable on such a system, especially with SP2 installed. But it will install. I seriously doubt Vista would - though you might be able to convince it to if you loaded that computer up with 256MB of ram or more.
I did install Windows Vista on a P4 1.5Ghz with 1GB of ram, 7200RPM disk, and a GeForce 2 graphics card, which would be a high end 2001 machine. While it wasn't too terribly stable (I could get it to lock hard without too much trouble - Windows XPSP2, SUSE Linux, and Ubuntu are solid on this same computer), the speed at which it ran was perfectly acceptable, though noticably slower than XP.
Paragraphs! Man, use a couple more paragraphs and sentences and I am sure that at least more than 1 person will read your post.
"I wish to see a comparison for the benefit of millions of users who do not want to (or who cannot afford to) upgrade to new hardware. This comparison would involve installing Vista and XP on a hardware configuration that is the minimum configuration recommended for XP (yes, XP). To enhance the comparison, we should include RedHat Linux."
would love to see this comparison also, especially as according to Red hat you are below the minimum recommended hardware for fedora to run if you use minimum XP specs. of course I think you were trying to make linux sound good so perhaps you better choose a less bloated distribution.
It just goes to show, Vista isn't ready for the desktop.
Actually, around here, yes, we do complain about physical keys. I go to a small tech school, where trust is key (no pun intended, originally). Facilities and Maintenance, in their immense stupidity, tried to force autolocking doors on us, and we complained - many of us do, in fact, keep our doors unlocked most of the time.
But that's a side-issue - the main point is that DRM quite frequently stops not only illegal uses of media, but also legal uses - and it certainly allows for companies to dictate what legal uses are, in ways that I really don't think they should be allowed to.
Want to become the shoutcast user? Open a terminal (or Konsole in KDE), enter and give the root password. Now type and you're the shoutcast user. Restarting apache is just as easy. Open a terminal, become root, then type (on RedHat-flavored machines; other distros have similar commands). Apache gets restarted, and you go back to doing whatever you were doing before. If you need to use a graphical application to manage Shoutcast, just run the program from the command prompt. If it complains about permissions, you need to make sure you're in the same group as the shoutcast user and have equivalent permissions. Otherwise the application's display should pop up on your desktop.
With X-Windows, you can also run application on another machine but have the display on your workstation. I run Azureus this way. Because it's a bit of a memory hog, I run it on my file/print/mail server and export the display to my workstation.
In some cases you can maintain multiple GUI sessions each logged in as a different user. On my Fedora/KDE box, there's a "switch user" menu command that lets me start another complete graphical session as another user. It does not work reliably on all systems; it depends on the particular hardware you have. (It works on my Dell desktop with an NVidia card, but not on my daughter's generic Intel laptop). With this feature, I can assign complete desktops to Ctrl-Alt-Fn keys and switch among them at will. Obviously having a lot of physical memory helps with this.
And, I agree with the other commentator who said there are often perfectly respectible reasons to run a root shell. When I'm mucking around in things like sendmail, SpamAssassin, or other complex applications with lots of textual configuration files, I run as root. I've got enough experience to know how to avoid deleting anything important, and I've got backups.