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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.
While I'm sure you're being facetious, you do realize that IE7 is available for XP and has the anti-phishing feature, right? If you still want to stick with IE6 (or have to, like if you're running Win2k), you can get the same anti-phishing protection from the Windows Live Toolbar. It's all the same technology, backed by the same store of anti-phishing data.
I was at a Microsoft Vista technical review where they explained this as being an anti-buffer overflow attack; since the locations of the specific items within an assigned memory space are randomized, the chances of targeting a buffer overflow to a specific chunk of the program's assigned memory is drastically reduced.
Wiki has it here, as Address Space Layout Radomization.
"It is possible to commit no errors and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life." -Peak Performance
In my opinion, the most useful enhancements made to vista are "under the hood".
* Much improved group policy support (Including MUCH better 802.1x and Wireless provisioning)
* Improved networking support (Locations), Firewall settings based on location (XP had Domain/Not Domain, Vista has Domain/Home/Public)
* UAC/Virtual Folders allow even businesses without IT support staff to run as non-admin
* I18N. It sucked in XP. It sucked HARD in XP MUI. It works fine, and they have done a lot of work on it in Vista
* Local Shadow Copies. I love it. Had them on servers since 2003 was out, always missed it locally
* The search interface/new start menu. A good gradual improvement, no revolution
* The new system control, a good gradual improvement
I've been using Vista on my Desktop machine (3Ghz PIV, 2048MB, some DirectX 9 Nvidia Card) at work since early Betas (We're a microsoft partner), and switched i switched my laptop (P-M 1.7Ghz, 1024MB, some DirectX 8 ATI Card) to RTM as soon as it hit MSDN.
It works okay on my laptop, albeit a bit slower. This was expected, and will probably buy a new laptop soon anyway (as the machine is already 2 years old).
I can't say im impressed with vista. There are several, very good enhancements. They would've been impressing 2 years ago. Now? Not so much. Vista is a good step in the right direction, especially for companies and enterprises (I18N!). For home consumers? Not so much. The forced obsolecence with DirectX 10, meh. Most people will switch their OS at home when they buy a new machine. Hardcore gamers will earlier because of DX10.