Off topic: new pC - XP or Vista

[LRoberts]

Hi

I'm about to order my new dual core laptop. Do I go for no operating system (saves me about £60 or $120) and reinstall XP and XP office. Or do I buy Vista?

Is Vista stable yet???


(I don't want linux as I use chessbase)

[Marek Soszynski]

In my biased opinion, with my limited experience...

I run several ChessBase products on 32-bit Vista Home Premium with no more problems than on 32-bit XP Pro. Vista is stable, pretty, with several enhancements over XP, but intrusive - you will probably want to disengage its security features.

If you are familiar and reasonably happy with XP, then stick with that in order to save yourself some money. You're bound to find that a piece of software or hardware that worked on XP doesn't work on Vista. In my own case, changing to Vista meant having to buy a new scanner.

Having said all that, be aware that before too long you will probably want a 64-bit OS.

[LRoberts]

Doubt I'll need a 64 bit system for at least 5 years (mass majority of home pc users have 32 bit and can't see software companies stopping developing 32 bit software for some time)

My concern with sticking to XP is that the Windows Updates might end quite soon leaving my PC exposed to any new vulnerabilities found?

[F. Bluemers]

Vista seems ok ecxept, there might be problems with it using wlan accessing shares on other computers(xp but maybe vista too).
You can see the share and its contents but copying/opening a file won't work.Forget about what all the fora say,fumbling around with permissions will _not_ help.
no such problems using lan instead of wlan.

Best
Fonzy

[AdminX]

Vista seems ok ecxept, there might be problems with it using wlan accessing shares on other computers(xp but maybe vista too).
You can see the share and its contents but copying/opening a file won't work.Forget about what all the fora say,fumbling around with permissions will _not_ help.
no such problems using lan instead of wlan.

Best
Fonzy

I have a laptop that uses Vista, wlan works fine here as I am able to copy/ access files from network shares. Maybe it is a firewall problem? Also check UPnP. Under XP firewalls can cause some problems, but nothing that you should not be able to fix/ work around.

[F. Bluemers]

I have a laptop that uses Vista, wlan works fine here as I am able to copy/ access files from network shares. Maybe it is a firewall problem? Also check UPnP. Under XP firewalls can cause some problems, but nothing that you should not be able to fix/ work around.

unfortunatly firewall and upnp are not the problem.
I've pinned it down to the combination of laptop+wlan,laptop+lan is ok.
my vista desktop (lan) hasn't this problem either.

Best wishes for 2008 to all.
Fonzy

[Nid Hogge]

Disable UAC in Vista and you should be fine. But don't touch Vista with less than 2Gb of RAM. The thing is a memory hog. Keep in mind that Vista still has some driver issues with specific hardware as well. There's also a big problem when copying big files across HDD's.. Should be fixed(with numerous other issues) with SP1 due soon.

[M ANSARI]

If you plan to use an anti virus program, Vista will only be a slight cosmetic improvement. I thin XP alone is very vulnerable to silly trojans or for allowing programs to run in the background without your knowledge and thus a good anti virus program is mandatory even if you do updates regularly... Vista let's you decide if you want to allow a program to run in the background so would be much safer if you don't plan to run an anti virus.

In the end I think you will find that they both work the same. It took me a few seconds to remember which OS was running on the laptop I am typing this post on for example (Vista). If you plan to use it heavily for chess, then definetely Win XP_64 would be better than both. I have been able to run every single one of my 32bit software programs on XP_64 with absolutely no problems.