Microsoft may keep XP alive after all

[Jmac]

Originally Posted by AkG

Hate to tell you vinister but PC gamers are a SMALL portion of the OS marketplace. MS thought that they could shove the DRM crapware down our throats by making DX10 "Vista Only". Unfortuntaly, they forgot to realize that for the cost of Vista Ultimate a gamer could go by a Wii....which most gamers did (excluding hardcore bleeding edgers). What is sinking VISTA is not home users not switching its the fact that Big Business is taking a pass on it. THAT is where the $$$ is and no Big Business accountant will sign off on dual (or quads) w/ 4GB of RAM so that the proles can have the same experience as they did with their Single Core Celrons w/512MB ram. There is a very good reason Vista unofficial tag line is "Windows XP: Turtle Edition" ;)

Quad (or Dual) w/ 4 GB of RAM on Vista is WAY faster than a Celeron w/ 512 MB using XP ... More like high-end single-core Athlon w/ 2 GB under XP ... Of course, not including CPU or RAM intensive apps like games, high-res photo/video editing, etc.

[enaberif]

Originally Posted by Jmac

Quad (or Dual) w/ 4 GB of RAM on Vista is WAY faster than a Celeron w/ 512 MB using XP ... More like high-end single-core Athlon w/ 2 GB under XP ... Of course, not including CPU or RAM intensive apps like games, high-res photo/video editing, etc.

Celeron what?

XP can run perfectly fine with 512mb of memory as long as your doing very basic things.

Comparing Vista with 4gb of memory and a quad to a celeron with 512mb is like comparing a 1976 vw beetle to a 2008 chevy corvette.

[AkG]

Celly's w/ 512mb....thats what a LOT of business run on, meaning total system wide upgrade required for the "privilege" of using VISTA.

[Jmac]

Originally Posted by AkG

Celly's w/ 512mb....thats what a LOT of business run on, meaning total system wide upgrade required for the "privilege" of using VISTA.

While I'm sure it's true that many business and enterprises run many machines with those specs, it doesn't mean Celly + 0.5 GB + XP >= Quad + 4 GB + Vista performance wise ...

My latest gaming rig (3.45 GHz C2D + 4 GB RAM + Vista) certainly outperforms my old XP gaming rig (2 GHz Athlon X2 + 2 GB RAM + XP) in even basic tasks ...

[vinister]

That's because Vista has intelligent features like superfetch. When you give it 4gb of ram, it actually uses it, instead of just sitting there 'free' like in XP. Vista learns your favorite programs, and pre-loads them so they open nice and instantly when you want them.

Vista uses its resources more intelligently, with the tradeoff being it needs more resources to begin with.

I agree Vista is probably not the best choice for business users because of system requirements, but, that's not what this forum is about. For us enthusiasts with high-spec systems, Vista is where it's at.

[enaberif]

Originally Posted by vinister

That's because Vista has intelligent features like superfetch. When you give it 4gb of ram, it actually uses it, instead of just sitting there 'free' like in XP. Vista learns your favorite programs, and pre-loads them so they open nice and instantly when you want them.

Vista uses its resources more intelligently, with the tradeoff being it needs more resources to begin with.

I agree Vista is probably not the best choice for business users because of system requirements, but, that's not what this forum is about. For us enthusiasts with high-spec systems, Vista is where it's at.

A OS should not need to cache stuff that far in advance just to speed things up. A OS should have no issues opening programs on demand especially with people running 4gb of memory.

[tyreman]

The XP Vista debate will go on and on till its nauseating.
changes little.
MS probably will let it go a bit...great PR.
If they don't the sun comes up tomorrow.

BTW I wouldn't run XP on 512 mb memory.
Just not enough.
Unless you idle at the desktop and I don't even game.

[Mars]

Originally Posted by enaberif

A OS should not need to cache stuff that far in advance just to speed things up. A OS should have no issues opening programs on demand especially with people running 4gb of memory.

It doesn't need to, but there is no reason not to. If memory isn't being used, it's being wasted. XP is far behind modern operating systems (Vista, any modern Linux distro) in this regard.

[sircuster]

Not a good time for Business to be upgrading and retraining employee's.

With small business......... if it ain't broke, don't fix, upgrade or replace.

The Laptop Sales are high and they don't require Vista or DX10 yet unless is bought for playing games, and very few are.

[DarKStar]

I use both XP and VISTA. XP as my primary OS, to do my work + gaming (DX9 gaming). I use ONLY VISTA (on a seperate partition) to play DX10 games, which run great on my system. I find DX9 games to run a bit sluggish on VIsta compared to XP, even with all recent drivers, some DX9 games are piss poor in VISTA, dunno if it's a driver issue or the game is not optimized. Also, most games now still use DX9 - it will be quite a while before developers opt for DX10 exclusive, they know people's feelings about VISTA.

It would be wise in terms of business for MS to stop selling XP and focus on VISTA, to move people to VISTA and their new WIndows 7 - but it is my understanding that they want to phase out XP, BUT keep SUPPORTING it until 2012/2014 ? in terms of updates, but I highly doubt they will go back on their decision to SELL the OS unless it's through buying OEM / low-end PCs like the Eee PC.

I still remember the transition from Windows 98/Me to XP when it came out and was new and everyone said how much XP sucked major you know what and that game sucked, etc.......Now people love XP - Well VISTA will be the same, people will have no choice but to move on. Thank God I have my XP, and a backup of my disc just in case (shh !) but I am thankful to M$ at least that they wil keep on providing updates to XP.