The Advantages of Upgrading From Vista To XP

An anonymous reader passes us a blog posting, which may be just a bit tongue-in-cheek, about the pros and cons of upgrading from Vista to XP. "...there is only one conclusion to be made; Microsoft have really outdone themselves in delivering a brand new operating system that really excels in all the areas where Vista was sub-optimal. From my testing, discussions with friends and colleagues, and a review of the material out there on the web there seems to be no doubt whatsoever that that upgrade to XP is well worth the money. Microsoft can really pat themselves on the back for a job well done, delivering an operating system which is much faster and far more reliable than its predecessor. Anyone who thinks there are problems in the Microsoft Windows team need only point to this fantastic release and scoff loudly."

Comments

Just in time for the holidays!

[compumike]

This new Windows XP should make a great gift!

--
Educational microcontroller kits for the digital generation.

Re:Just in time for the holidays!

[ChadAmberg]

The first Windows XP was something that was avoided by most for over a year. Win2k was stable, rock solid, why upgrade for the eye candy?
And now everyone believes XP is the second coming or something. Just hurts your head sometimes...

Re:Just in time for the holidays!

[TubeSteak]

I've heard that from the application developers side, Vista has some useful and expanded functionality over its predecessors. Not to be rude, but what the fuck does that matter if the users don't like Vista?

They may not like it because of the UAC, or because [favorite program] doesn't work, or, or, or, but the end result is that if XP suits the users better, no amount of "useful and expanded functionality" from the developers side is going to make a difference.

Re:Just in time for the holidays!

[TMonks]

Win2k may have been stable, but what about those of us coming from the hell that is 98/ME? For us, XP was the second coming, for no matter what problems it had, they couldn't possibly be worse than what we had to deal with before. Now we are expected to transition from a very stable, mature operating system to one that gives me nightmarish memories of the pre-XP days.

Re:Just in time for the holidays!

[neostorm]

I was thinking this exact same thing. For me, 2k was the best Windows OS that Microsoft had ever made. It allowed me to run old DOS stuff, had the accessibility of Win98, but was still light on it's feet, being free from the bloat that came with XP.
When XP came out I used 2K for years afterwards, up until SP3 or 4, which basically crippled the stability of the OS to XP-level (everything would crash for me after a certain point, even on fresh installs, which didn't occur before).
I ended up switching to XP afterwards, and it really has become the "better" OS when compared to Vista (I still yearn for early-2K).
Now I run a separate hard drive with Vista (because I just can't afford to use it as my primary OS, it's still too crippled in too many ways), but I need >4GB of RAM for my work, and Windows 64-bit is completely unworkable. I have never been such a frustrated Microsoft customer.
All I want them to do is make a simple, light OS that stays the fuck out of my way. They could ditch almost EVERYTHING from Vista but the fact that it runs my applications, and it would be the greatest OS ever, but I don't think they will ever do this.

It's gotten to the point where I have literally considered learning how to be a programmer simply so I could make my own custom linux builds, but I figure if whole communities aren't able to get decent compatibility for Windows apps I'd never be able to in a million years. :1

Aren't we tired?

[hackingbear]

When are we going to feel tired bashing Vista? Until the next Windows release?

Come on... I'm not a fan of MS and I'm posting this with Firefox but I have been running Vista on two machines -- one laptop one desktop -- and two machines on XP. i just don't see anything really bad with Vista. If nothing else, it looks more pleasant. In contrast, one of XP machine is running like snail still after several attempts to clean ups, defrags, and registry cleanings; so i don't even want to boot it up anymore.

Does the extra little candies worth your money? for some here, it is not no matter how good it is. For others, the eye candy worths everything. Isn't that what iPhone is all about?

Next upgrade is even more exciting........

[edwardpickman]

DOS. None of that shell nonsense. Straight forward computing for the masses! Fast, stable and with no eye candy what so ever.

Re:too clever for its own good.

[mincognito]

Really? I thought the writer presented a number of compelling reasons to "upgrade" to XP including:

• No crazy graphic bugs

• It's faster and more responsive

• No system lock on login

• Better multitasking

• File copying and deleting are quicker

• Automatic update is less resource hungry

• Drivers are stable

• Drivers are easy to find

• Drivers are reliable

• Requires less hardware

• Much more reliable generally

• Internet Explorer 7 doesn't crash

• Less need to reboot

• Ctrl-Alt-Del actually works and can prevent a hard-reset

• Games are more responsive, have higher frame rates and are more reliable

• Better multimedia support

• No DRM

Dear MS, Add DX10 to XP and just get it over with.

[Zymergy]

Other than DX10.x in Vista for purposefully DX10.x limited specific games releases (HALO 3, et al), what IS the killer app in Vista?
(Don't flame me man! I am serious, what is the Real "advantage" to Vista for gamers?) What is the performance advantage? Is it designed to fully take advantage of future generations of multiple quad-core processors with 8+GB of RAM and not really current hardware which is not optimized to utilize it?
Not intending to get into a flame war at all, I have used Vista and I just don't get it.. why the bloat? Why so much DRM? Why specifically break Direct3d and EAX and force the rapid development of OpenAL sound cards and drivers, etc.. Why completely eliminate the look and feel of the UI users have mastered since Win9x/2k (or at least leave a Classic Win2k option for the UI) I play my games in XP and I love it. Once WINE, etc.. can match the performance in gaming of native XP, this discussion will then be between XP and XP emulation.

Re:Vist... *out of resources*

[Jeremi]

How can Microsoft need SO much more resources to do essentially the same thing?

My guess is that they had to add in the new shiny features while simultaneously retaining backwards compatibility with every buggy program and half-broken API they've ever released all the way back to Windows 3.1. That sort of requirement can really complicate things, and you end up having to code everything as conservatively as possible and never take any shortcuts for fear of breaking something.

If I was Microsoft, I would design a new OS from the ground up, and commission VMWare or someone to include functionality for running "legacy/XP" programs in a VM. Then Microsoft's legions of good programmers might be free to come out with something good, as opposed to spending all their brain cycles trying not to break old software (and still sometimes failing, I might add)

Jesus, give it up with the DRM already!

[PCM2]

Every time I hear about Vista on Slashdot, somebody has to jump in with the "DRM, DRM, DRM!" I've had Vista installed for months, and I can tell you there is no DRM problem in Vista. The stuff you hear about has something to do with playing HD content from their computer over HDMI -- or something -- and nobody does that. Repeat after me:

• Vista plays MP3s just fine.
• Vista plays AVIs of your favorite shows just fine.
• Vista plays DVDs just fine.
• You can run software to rip DVDs on Vista.
• You can rip CD audio on Vista.
• You can convert your DVD movies to AVIs on Vista.
• If none of that is good enough for you, you can install a couple plug-ins in Vista and play all the Ogg and Matroska files you want.

Seriously, Vista does kinda suck, but when you go around talking about how it sucks for reasons that aren't even true you kinda just sound like a dumbass fanboy.

Re:Jesus, give it up with the DRM already!

[TubeSteak]

Every time I hear about Vista on Slashdot, somebody has to jump in with the "DRM, DRM, DRM!" ... The stuff you hear about has something to do with playing HD content from their computer over HDMI -- or something -- and nobody does that. and nobody does that!?

Really, of all the places to make such a blanket statement, perhaps the only place worse than /. would be in a forum dedicated specifically to people playing HD content from their computer over HDMI.

Slashdot is full of early adopters, with spare computers & a penchant for hacking. It is exactly the kind of thing that someone on /. would do.

Re:Jesus, give it up with the DRM already!

[Fulcrum of Evil]

You have failed to demonstrate an actual harm. What precisely is it that Vista does that you are mad about?

It makes a new laptop feel 5 years old?

Re:Jesus, give it up with the DRM already!

[zarthrag]

No, I run vista on a second partition - I installed it when I thought Crysis was going to be DX10 only. Turns out, if you don't boot it up for a month or so, it comes up in reduced functionality mode, and wants to re-authenticate/authorize itself by calling home. That's totally, completely, and *utterly* unacceptable. I'm not paying MS a monthly fee here - the don't have the right to cripple my shit just because it hasn't been on the internet for a while. Individual applications shouldn't have this power de-facto either. If I pay for something, I should be able to use it - period. So I'm claiming "actual harm" on the GP's behalf. ...There.

Re:Jesus, give it up with the DRM already!

[h4rm0ny]

You have failed to demonstrate an actual harm. What precisely is it that Vista does that you are mad about? "impose that DRM on me" sounds like you don't actually know what you can't do on Vista that you would want to do.

Why do you think it sounds like I don't know what Vista restricts me from doing? I just explained the problem with the DRM, but I can happily go into more detail for you if you wish:

Firstly, we'd better clarify what DRM technologies Vista introduces and the effect they have. There is Protected User Mode Audio (PUMA) which prevents copying of audio that the OS detects as copyrighted. It also limits what devices the audio file can be played from, presumably to prevent high-quality copies being made. PUMA also prevents the audio file being played on a non-approved player. I.e. any audio software must be have a licence from Microsoft which can be revoked. I don't think this is fully implemented yet, but it's billed as one of the new features in Vista so its presumably going to be installed shortly (whether you want it or not).

Next there are the Protected Video Path - Output Protection Management or PVP-OPM and Protected Video Path - User Accessible Bus or PVP-UAB. These two technologies are the video equivalents to the Protected Audio technology. Again, they prevent copying of files that Windows considers copyrighted and prevents their playback on non-approved hardware devices and software. This is already in there and active.

Vista is also the first MS OS to properly implement TPM - chip-based encryption on the motherboard which could have some very negative effects down the line but which I'll save for another post to keep this one to the point.

So what is the demonstrable harm of these technologies in Vista? Well to start with the least subtle problem, it blocks the use of a lot of existing hardware. Many of us have output devices - monitors, projectors - that would be perfectly capable of playing HD formats if Vista didn't refuse to co-poerate with these "uncertified" devices. Some people might not care about Vista forcing you to buy new hardware that the manufacturer has paid the appropriate technology licences for, but for the rest of, we have other demands on our money.

I know someone is going to try and explain to me that Vista doesn't prevent me playing HD content on non-approved hardware so I'll pre-empt that, I hope. It will let you play your own HD content or anything where the producer allows it. That isn't any of the HD movies that are released which is pretty much all the HD content out there. In short - yes, you can play HD content on non-approved devices so long as its nothing that you'd ever care about. ;)

HOWEVER, that's not the really big concern. There are more subtle problems with DRM. The technologies above mean two things that I care about and which most other people here care about. The first concerns the ability to write software for Windows. Vista is so designed that only approved software can access certain content. It will be a poorer software world if only commercial projects paying their tithe to Microsoft can make full use of the operating system and its content.

The second is what this means for other operating systems. DRM is an inherently closed system (unless someone wants to come up with a significantly different take on it than both Apple and Microsoft have so far). Therefore, by encouraging content companies to sell only in DRM format (and DRM is pointless if you don't), they prevent other OS's or devices from any legal means to purchase the same content.

The third is a concern about the future. If I'm expected to spend money on building a collection of audio and video, then I need to know that what I've bought is mine. I need to know that when I move the files to my next computer, or when I want to take them with me on my music player, or when the company that sold them to me isn't there anymore, that I ca

Re:Jesus, give it up with the DRM already!

[cmacb]

That was an excellent summary. As in the past, most Windows users won't know what they have gotten themselves into until it is too late. At least for those willing to be educated, word is getting out. I'm tempted to cut and paste your post an e-mail it to a few non-Slashdotters I know.

At least then, in the future when they come whining I can say "You were warned!"

No, it has problems playing MP3's

[Anonymous Coward]

I play MP3's all the time in the background on Vista. I have a duel-core 2.6Ghz Intel with 4G of memory, and as the screen changes... menus popping up, heavy disk activity, you can hear little glitches in playback. Almost like a 1/10 of a second cut in the song.

It's amazing they managed to struggle with all the processor power and memory when Amigas can play MP3's.

I just don't get it.

Re:Vist... *out of resources*

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

How many years late was Vista? Three? five? In all that time, nobody managed to grab significant market share off Microsoft.

On the contrary. In the business world, Linux as a server has been a significant player for a long time now. In the home world, the latest generation of games consoles now command something like 80% of the market, which removes the one really compelling advantage for many home users that a Windows PC has had over alternatives like Mac and Linux boxes until recently. Even if home users haven't started switching in large numbers yet, they are much more able to if gaming is a major factor for them than they used to be.

Even without all of this, we can see the irony that the biggest competitor to Vista for many users is XP.

In any free market, being several years late and then coming up with the excrement that is Vista would kill your company.

I think Microsoft are already on the way out, they just haven't realised yet. With the momentum they have behind them it will take several years for the life support machine to be turned off, but for all practical purposes the lemon that is Vista marks the end of their time as the uncontested leaders of the modern software world.

It's not clear yet whether the alternatives will come from platform-neutral web services, or from increased take up of alternative platforms like Mac and Linux, or from other technologies like games consoles and more powerful PDA-like devices, or perhaps from some new idea that someone has been developing during the past few years but not yet shown publicly. I suspect the reality will be a balance, and five years from now we will have some genuine diversity (and perhaps a renewed appreciation of the need for compatibility and standards) in the IT market for the first time in years.