Windows XP vs Vista

This is something that most windows users have a solid opinion on, mostly “Windows Vista Sucks”. Personally I have no real issues with it, a few startup tweaks to remove the normal “crapware” (non-essential startup portions of applications, and stuff like nero home…er NO) and it’s running the same as it was when i first installed it. Now I’ve been looking forward to SP1 for vista, however it seems MS are putting it off till next year, ironing out issues perhaps. Windows XP SP3 is also due out next year, but doesn’t really seem to change much.

Now I have to admit I like Vista (more than I thought I would), but it is bloated, and my CPU usage at times does confuse the hell out of me, often random cpu spikes, and the whole 800mb of ram gone once Vista is loaded. That didn’t really happen on XP, I had slowdowns and spikes, but that was on a 3Ghz P4, on Vista this is happening whilst multi-tasking, on a core2duo 2Ghz (with 4mb cache), a processor much better than my P4. These slowdowns can’t really be isolated to anything either, usually bringing up task manager kicks the system into quieting down, but this shouldn’t happen. I happen to know that on a AMD Athlon X2 6000+ Vista suffers even more, slowdowns and 100% usage for no reason. On XP you always knew the reason, it was some dodgy app or trying to do too much, on Vista it’s nothing… even bringing up all processes doesn’t shed any light on it.

Would I switch back to XP? I don’t know, I’d love to know how it would run on my laptop, but I wouldn’t want to have to mess around with getting them both booting to give a nice comparison. However for a rough idea of the performance differences check here.

Why keep Vista? Well unfortunately I can’t see Microsoft back porting any handy features (like DX10, maybe not handy but key for gamers) and they are investing most of their efforts building on Vista. It is easier to use, more secure, more stable (fewer BSOD) and a little more annoying, but once XP support is 100% dropped you just know that an exploit will emerge and cause havoc, so people will upgrade eventually (or wait it out for the next one… which is due what? 2009 probably). A note to those buying a new pc. Most now ship with Vista as default, now bear in mind that Vista IS slower than XP, but you may be more comfortable using it, and it certainly makes some things easier, like finding stuff. Many people switch back to XP after using Vista for a few weeks.

I certainly hope that Vista SP1 sorts out lots of issues, and gets the general responsiveness up, and also maybe get rid of the random 100% CPU usage freeze-ups.

If you want to share your view on Vista or XP, Why you prefer one to the other, etc, then comment on here. I’d love to see what good reasons there are for Vista (You don’t see many on the internet, heh)