Widows XP or Vista

BritBrat

If it were me I would buy one with VISTA for the licence but when I got it home I would put XP on it untill VISTA SP1 is out.

You may find with VISTA that some of the hardware you have at the moment will not work as there may be no drivers for it and in some cases never will be.

superscaper

BritBrat wrote: »

You may find with VISTA that some of the hardware you have at the moment will not work as there may be no drivers for it and in some cases never will be.

I found that happened even with upgrading from 98 to XP. Completely the hardware manufacturers' fault either for not giving a toss or being too lazy. If I'd waited until they brought out drivers for all my hardware I'd still be running 98 today.

melainab

Hi all

I did the nationwide launch for Vista and am a staff and consumer trainer. As far as an SP1 goes we have been advised that there will not be one. The service packs were only released for XP as the platform was not as stable as it should have been when it was launched. I have been running vista now since before the launch and have yet to see a blue screen!! In my humble opinion it is a better platform now than XP ever was. I hammer my pc's and so does my son and the only problems I have found are compatibilty issues which are down to the software and hardware manufacturers. As you have so rightly said they cannot be bothered to update the drivers, most of them have had the coding for two and a half years now!! If they cant write a patch in that time they need to get someone other than a gerbil working on it

When I first went to check out the software I was dubious as xp had been a nightmare at launch (it was not beta tested enough) but vista was beta'd for two years and any bugs have been well and truly squashed imo. Any little glitches will be fixed by a hotfix not a service pack and these will all be minor.

So there you go! I know there will be some die hards out there, I was accosted by loads on the roadshows and launch events!! Some people are going on the trouble experienced when xp was launched and lets face it some people just like to moan

j1mgg

is it true that a new os will be launched in 2 years time anyway?

As for everyday user friendly i do find vista appeasing, but as for a tech i have heard it is not the best.

melainab

Just as a quick aside if you want to know if the software hardware you are running will work on vista go to the microsoft website and run the windows updater program. It will tell you A) if you need a patch and if there is one available.

If you have children the Parental controls make it worth having. they mean that you are completely in control of what your kids do on the pc and for how long. Also vista has built in Firewall that actually works and Spyware and malware detection which again is good enough to stand alone. Microsoft did develop Av software but was not allowed to include it as it would have put Symantec and mcafee out of business!!!

melainab

As far as I am aware there are no plans to launch another it would take longer than two years anyway. Plus with Vista other software manufacturers now have the capabilty for 64 bit architecture, it will take a while for this to be utilised to it potential so no point in a new OS.

Most techies would rather use DOS! But most normal people dont want to learn binary coding hehe. In terms of regular users it is the best out there bar none.

BillScarab

I'd be very surprised if there were no service packs for Vista. According to a lot of press reports the first one will be in the second half of this year and the current codename for it is 'fiji'.

superscaper

melainab wrote: »

As far as I am aware there are no plans to launch another it would take longer than two years anyway. Plus with Vista other software manufacturers now have the capabilty for 64 bit architecture, it will take a while for this to be utilised to it potential so no point in a new OS.

Most techies would rather use DOS! But most normal people dont want to learn binary coding hehe. In terms of regular users it is the best out there bar none.

I remember seeing statements by MS about the next OS and that service pack 1 for Vista will be released in the second half of this year, likely october to december.

superscaper

Found one source for SP1 for Vista http://www.darkreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=115546&WT.svl=cmpnews1_1

superscaper

Windows "Vienna" the replacement to Vista is expected 2009: http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/02/09/HNvistafollowup_1.html