Win XP or Vista?

[amitskale]

Guys,

I have a question. I am deciding to buy a licensed copy of an os. But I am confused. Should I go for xp or vista?

I am on a pentium dual core with 1 gb ddr2. But hardware is not a problem. I can upgrade anytime.

I want the answer in the software point of view. If xp is going to be supported for another 3 yrs or so then I will go for it. Does anybody have any idea abt till what time xp is gonna be supported by ms?

Pls advice!

Thanks in advance!

Regards,
Amit.

[Krazy_About_Technology]

Well Friend, Since you are purchasing a licensed copy, i would recommend Windows Vista, as most probably Windows XP support is being discontinued from next year. But do understand that Vista orignal edition has some performance problems that ca be solved by using windows updates and getting the KB931770 hotfix by searching on the net or requesting from Microsoft. Also mid-next year, Vista Service Pack one is coming that will hopefully solve most of the problems, if not all. I am using Windows Vista for a month on my laptop with 1.6 GHZ celeron and 1 Gigs of RAM and am facing no problems. And one more thing, some of the popular legacy programs have issues with Vista including Visual Studio 6 (Which was a pain for me, i have to dual boot between XP and Vista now). If thats all right, Go ahead and buy Vista, on 1 GB Ram it runs good.

[amitskale]

I read somewhere on this forum that even on dual core pcs and 1 gB ram, vista does not run all that well.

But apart from this there is something like extended support policy by microsoft which will enable users to get the support for xp till 2014. Also ms has increased the deadine of xp till june 2008.

Can anybody throw some light on this?

Regards,
Amit.

[shashank4u]

regarding suggestion it really depends on you if you really want the eye candy of vista. I will suggest xp though but things will change once service packs of Vista started coming in..

XP will be supported until April 2014

[SunnyChahal]

i soggest u to go with xp.
although vista runs firn on my pc with 2GB ram and dual core 3.4 ghz.

[amitskale]

I am thinking that I will go for xp. The reasons are:

1. Win xp new deadline is june 2008.
2. OEM and SKUs would be available till Jan 2009.

So its good to assume that support would be there at least for 2 more years.

I also read that extended support till 2014 applies only to home edition and media center edition. Professional edition would be supported for one more year but still i guess i would go for it.

What say guys?

Regards,
Amit Kale.

[Krazy_About_Technology]

I m sorry about a piece of wrong info i gave. Visual Stuio 6 is compatible with Windows Vista. Just installed it. Sorry Guys!

As for amitskale's question, ya go with XP if you feel so. But in a year or two, i think the move to Vista will be important since Microsoft is pushing the .NET 3 technology so hard now. Its just for the time that some softwares are not being released as Vista only. Just like it happend with Xp, when software came with a XP only tag, people upgraded.

I have an acer entry level laptop with 1.66 GHz processor, 1.24 GB of RAM (Originally 256 MB, i added a Kingston 1 GB module before installing, 40 GB Hard drive and Intel 910/915 GMA Graphics. And Vista is running smooth. The problems can be mostly resolved by downloading and installing some updates available from Windows Update or many other websites on Net. Ya, pirates will have a problem (although there are workarounds ).

The area where performance suffers is when you use Aero interface. This is very graphics heavy interface and uses the capabilities of your Graphics Card to render the UI. It doesn't matter how fast processor you have. Unless you have a decent Graphics card, Aero is strongly a No No.

As for my case, my graphics card doesn't supports Aero, so i have the Vista basic interface running as fast as XP.

Make your choice!

[goobimama]

I don't think they will stop XP support so soon. They didn't stop support for win98 for at least 7 years (which I think is the minimum they are obliged to). Go for XP. It works perfectly with everything and is quite widespread. A lot of stuff isn't compatible with Vista at the moment so you might have some issues.

[praka123]

there are alternate operating systems(Linux?) too that works gr8. :cough:

[goobimama]

@praka: You should take care of that cough of yours. If it gets any worse it could kill you...

[amitskale]

Thanks Krazy for ur reply. I was apprehensive abt the performance of vista on my machine and nothing else. I am ok without aero interface but if it runs fast without aero interface then its great for me.

I have 1gb ram and a dual core machine recently bought. I can easily add another gb of ram to get better speed.

So I guess i will go for Win Vista - Business now.

vista Ultimate is too expensive for me and differences between business and ultimate are something that I am not much bothered abt.

Regards,
Amit.