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Windows Vista and XP Head To Head

Posted by kdawson on from the who's-the-fairest-of-them-all dept.

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.

5 of 364 comments (clear)

  1. It better. by Somatic · · Score: 5, Interesting
    It better be better. That's what upgrades and new releases are for.

    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!
  2. Re:i agree by redi99 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    i assume you're referring to activation tied to hardware changes? a few days ago i popped a tv tuner in, and sure enough 'your hardware has changed, you need to re-activate vista'.. so i clicked activate and it reactivated just fine. i do agree that this business of tying activation to hardware profile is a bit stupid though.

  3. Re:Inquiring Minds Want To Know... by thejynxed · · Score: 4, Interesting

    GUI: Vista loses hands down. A GUI shouldn't take 250+ MB of RAM while just sitting there doing nothing. Not to mention that it is a poor imitation of Gnome/Aqua/KDE. XP's GUI can be customized. Patched Uxtheme.dll, WindowBlinds, etc. using alot less resources.

    Network: XP can use IPv6 as well. Vista just comes with it enabled by default. Not that anyone actually uses IPv6 yet anyhow. Improved network stack? Only if you like being crippled to 10 half-open TCP connections without a way to change it. Good luck with your torrents.

    Gaming/Entertainment: Gotta love that DRM thing. No Hi-Def movies unless you have a compatible DRM compliant monitor. Yee-haw. DX10? If it's that great of a dev package, why did MS drop sound support? Not to mention forcing DX9 apps to run in emulation mode after DX10 is installed. WTF. That's going to go over great with gamers...upgrade to DX10 to play a few of the latest games now and toss all of your old DX9 or earlier games. Wonderful. Not to mention that MS has already stated that gaming is slower by 15%-25% in Vista compared to XP SP2, and that is before you take into account that fugly transparent Fisher-Price GUI.

    Frankly, you'd have better results gaming in Linux Distro Dujour.

    --
    @Mindless Drivel: 100% of Twitter posts ever Tweeted.
  4. Do I want those bells & whistles? by PopeRatzo · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.
  5. Did anyone actually *READ* the comparison? by qazwart · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I read it and it pretty much says "Windows XP offers this feature, Windows Vista offers this feature in a bit better way".

    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 /. crowd.