Testers See Windows XP Passing Vista

[Omaha Steve]

http://apnews.excite.com/article/20071130/D8T7L86G0.html

Nov 29, 7:04 PM (ET)

By JESSICA MINTZ

SEATTLE (AP) - Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) (MSFT)'s Windows XP operating system is about to get faster and Windows Vista isn't, according to a report that caused a stir online this week as industry watchers speculated that a zippier XP could keep customers from upgrading to Vista.

Microsoft, however, said it's too early to evaluate the two service packs it plans to release next year.

Early versions are already in the hands of testers like Devil Mountain Software Inc., which helps big financial services companies track trading-floor computer performance.

Wellington, Fla.-based Devil Mountain Software ran several versions of XP and Vista through a test simulating common desktop computing tasks. It found the original Vista performed 50 percent to 100 percent slower than the prevalent XP Service Pack 2, or SP2.

Vista SP1, due out in the first quarter of 2008, barely improved the operating system's performance.

But XP SP3, scheduled for the first half of 2008, did improve on XP's earlier performance, running 10 percent faster than SP2.

FULL story at link.

[Gloria]

1. I'm pretty happy with my Vista/Media Center setup...right now I"ve

got Ramsay's Kitchen on along with several open websites and all are humming along beautifully!
It's really nice not having to crane my neck over my shoulder to catch a glimpse of the TV....

[CRF450]

5. I like Vista too. Hasent given me any trouble

It runs so much faster on my new computer than my old one with XP which is going 4 years now.

A 10,000rpm hard drive makes a world of difference, it only takes about 15 seconds for Vista to boot up!:D

[JPettus]

32. Though, to be fair

XP would also run considerably faster on the same hardware you are running Vista.

[CRF450]

37. I'm aware of that, hell most games run faster too

But for a high end computer it doesn't really matter cause games will still run silky smooth with the graphics maxed out except for Crysis. That game is just too demanding for current hardware to max it out, plus their programming because the game doesn't make use of SLI and fully utilize multi core cpu's:mad: I hope they will fix that in a patch release.

[Deja Q]

56. DirectX 10 ROCKS.

Okay, I've not tried Crysis yet, but probably won't.

Flight Sim X runs smoothly enough, all settings max, at 1366x768...

Weird Crysis wouldn't take advantage of SLI or multi-core... but I do know, depending on which two cards are SLI'd together, you'll have CPU bottleneck.

[CRF450]

59. cpu bottleneck on Crysis??

Dunno about that. CPU's that are out now are plenty fast for FPS games, its just current vid cards (and the lack of SLI use) cant max out Crysis with smooth frame rates. Its understandable for FSX, it relies so heavily on cpu power that a more powerful vid card would hardly make a difference.

[baldguy]

2. I learned the hard way a long time ago

Never buy the first release of ANYTHING from Microsoft.

[snooper2]

50. Never buy the first release of anything.....

cars, razors, the next release is always better with fewer bugs :)

[Rex]

3. Doesn't matter, they will release another half baked, piece of shit

in about 3 years. It won't work right, won't function initially. It will require tons of upgrades and no one will like it for atleast one year.

[msongs]

4. xp is fine, never once had a crash except after I put in new memory wrong...doh nt

[Occulus]

28. Sure you haven't

How far do you push your PC?

Do you find you have a need to overclock?

[-..__...]

6. Speed, schmeed...

I'm still running Windows 98 SE, on an 8 year old homebuilt machine (and have had very few problems with it other than some hardware dieing from overuse and lifespan). The most recent upgrade I made was to a Samsung flat panel monitor... and that's only because I've already gone through 3 CRT's :smoke:

The only disadvantage that I can see is that I can't play any ÜberCool video games (which I've never had any interest anyways).

It's not that I can't afford something faster or more W00T factor!

I just don't see any need to try and keep pace with the newest and latest technology.

[nonconformist]

35. Another disadvantage is 98 is no longer supported

Hasn't been for years. Those security concerns, coupled with the fact that new software was incompatible (even things like Google Earth) pushed me to finally upgrade my older computer (8 years old) from 98SE to XP a couple of years ago. I did have to also upgrade the memory, so not all older computers will be able to run XP efficiently. I have a newer computer now, also running on XP, but the older one is still used (mostly by my kids) and it works fine.... although my new one blows it away.

[Greyhound]

7. The one and only reason to even think about the possibility of "upgrading" to vista,

is if you absolutely have to play a game that requires directX 10. Otherwise you're just begging for expensive trouble.

It seems like all I do all day anymore is tell end users how much it will cost them make their formerly fast systems creep along with that kluge-nest. Every new M$ OS is a nightmare for the first year, but Vista is the worst, and I've sen them all.

[sjdnb]

8. Just switched to using Ubuntu Gutsy (99.9% of the time)

a little while ago and I love it. I am using it on a 1.5mhz 1gb Dell and it is pretty darn fast compared to XP. I have other machines (including one with Vista), but this has now become my favorite.

I still have to use Windows for my old version of Paint Shop Pro (GIMP doesn't save to a global buffer which stinks for sharing between apps, Krita is SLOW, and none of the other options I've tried are efficient enough to switch to) and I'll probably use still SnagIt under Windows to grab the images I need to use for technical documentation. But, even under Windows PSP, as I knew it, is no longer supported/upgraded as Corel has re-invented it as a primarily photo enhancing/processing tool and, once I find something to replace them both, I'll be doing a fresh install and putting the old Windows XP on a machine I use for testing purposes only.

But, there were also pleasant surprises on Ubuntu besides the speed - there is a ton of Open Source software that is either just as, or more, stable/user friendly/etc. as much of what I was using in Windows, but it's free. The community and developer support has been fantastic and the web development/administration tools are outstanding. I still have a lot to learn, but so far, there is nothing Windows could do that Linux/Ubuntu doesn't do just as well, if not better.

[IDemo]

14. You've cloned my machine, it sounds like

Almost - I'm running a dual boot XP / Linum Mint (Ubuntu/Gutsy based distro) on a 1.7Ghz home built box. The Mint update tool keeps all of the packages current, and Synaptic makes finding and installing more a snap.

I also have PSP 4.2 (about 10 years old). Gimp still looks a bit intimidating..

[Occulus]

29. I have a very serious beef with ubuntu

And I would love to get this solved, but thus far, it seems to be impossible.

I need a custom xorg.conf modeline for a Samsung HL-S5087W DLP TV at 1280x720 or 1920x1080 resolution, and I need a solution that eliminates video overscan. Thus far, this little quest has proven to be impossible, but then, other linux distros are just as woeful as the latest Ubuntu in their HD display support. Since that display is my primary monitor, you can understand why I want to get X to display on that screen.

I *think* it is currently impossible. I've been searching for a custom modeline for months, ever since I got this TV, and I've found nothing that solves my problem- only many, many dead ends. I'm about to resort to using Powerstrip and taking my chances, since the thing is still under warranty. I need a legit solution, though, to feel safe.

I've used Ubuntu in the past, as well as Debian, Fedora, and slack. I like to keep a live CD handy of Knoppix or PHLAK, just in case, but the main reason linux isn't my primary OS is gaming. If someone found a way to get DX9 to work in Wine, I'd dump Micro$oft and everything associated with it in a skinny second.

[JPettus]

33. Check out WINE,

A Windows emulator, to run PSP. You can also look into a pay product called Crossover Standard, which is also a Windows emulator, or if you have plenty of RAM and a decent processor you can install VMWare, run Windows as a virtual machine and run your Windows apps like PSP that way on your Linux box.

[Deja Q]

57. It's not always friendly with Windows apps...

I gave up on it two years ago, so I'd recommend doing the free trial and hoping for the best.

[rAVES]

9. Did you know XP has a horrible BSOD issue?

ok Ive been using it 4 years and I didnt either...

[Selatius]

10. Don't ask me. I still run Win2k service pack 4.

I'll upgrade when the amount of product support for Win2k really starts dropping off.

[ToeBot]

46. Probably the best OS Microsoft will ever release. eom

[nadinbrzezinski]

11. Color me surprised

I will be upgrading to LEOPARD in January or February... for my box

And I do hope SP 1 at least solves some of the major issues we have with the Vista box, which has been relegated to Gaming these days by hubby.

I rarely touch it any longer

Though I should go get a copy of XP just in case we decide to do the rational thing and DOWNGRADE it... and if I finally decide to put on Windows on the Mac, to run my couple apps that I run on the Vista machine, I don't want vista on this machine

[MadHound]

12. It's all Windows crap, thanks, but I think I'll stick with my Mac n/t

[wtmusic]

43. Already have enough frustration in your life?

I thought I was the only one.

[Ezlivin]

13. I'm sticking with my Sinclair ZX81

After upgrading to the max 64KB memory, it screams. And the cassette deck is super for storing those BASIC programs.

Oh, yeah, baby.

[OnyxCollie]

20. Hee hee! I knew a guy who wrote programs for the Sinclair.

My parents wanted me to have one. I wanted a TRS-80. I got an Atari 400. I used to play Defender and a really cool game called Seamus. (On cassette. It only took about 10 minutes to load.)

[JCMach1]

23. I noticed you chose to add the 16k upgrade to the internal 4k

I had one of those!

[JPettus]

34. I remember them vaguely as well

I started with the TRS-80 Color Computer.

[JCMach1]

47. After my Sinclair, I got an Atari 400 computer...

Thought 8 bit was the shit!

[Cobalt-60]

27. I've got one

I'm holding it in deep reserve.
just in case.

[DS1]

15. Here's why you shouldn't buy crap boxes from BestBuy or Target

I run Vista Ultimate at work, and XP Pro at home.

Work pc = athlon 4200 dual core, 2 gig ram, 250 gig hd, onboard nvidia 6100 graphics, onboard sound, onboard lan, ata HD with 2MB cache - bought at BestBuy- not my choice
home pc = athlon64 1800, 2 gig ram, many drives, nvidia 6800gt graphics, soundblaster card, sata2 drives with 8 or 16mb cache - built at home - obviously my choice

Vista Ultimate (work) loads and starts apps much faster than XP, due to its caching of RAM, that's why it takes so much RAM up. People complain about it doing so, but RAM isn't disk space, so as long as it's used efficiently, it doesn't really matter until you start using apps that require a lot of RAM. Vista gives up that RAM while those apps are running, and sends the less used RAM to a paging file.

At work, I was forced to buy a shit Gateway machine, with shit parts in it, with a shit power supply (180 watts) coupled with a fast processor. The hard drive has a 2 meg cache, which is freaking terrible. It's also using a geForce 6100 onboard graphics chip which eats up memory. So, while it starts up much faster, and starts the first few apps much faster, once I really get going: for example 2 instances of MySQL admin, 3 instances of MySQL query browser, Photoshop CS2, Dreamweaver 8, Winamp, Filezilla, Flash 8, Thunderbird, Firefox with about 16 tabs open... yeah, the drive is what is slowing it down.

It slows it down to about the same speed of my home pc --- which is running on XP with a processor running half the speed. But my home pc has better components.

I have good disk drives, faster RAM, a capable power supply, a PCI-X video card, soundblaster card, and when I have the same environment when I work at home, with a similar number of apps running, it's about the same. So, when I open the equivalent number of apps on my home machine to do my contract work, my system is faster. It's not the processor that counts so much these days, it's what the processor is waiting for.

All of these components cost me less than a new machine with similar specs, and because I planned ahead, I can now drop in a new processor with 2 cores which both run faster, and easily double the speed of my home computer. Now I'm not saying everyone is a system builder, but please, don't buy that store crap. It's total junk.

[CRF450]

16. I agree! I also build my own pc's

I just built my latest setup with Vista Ultimate 64bit.

C2D Q6600 cpu overclocked at 3.0ghz
3gigs DDR2 800 memory
150gig 10,000rpm Westernd Digital Raptor DH
500gig WD HD used for storage
8800GT video card
Thermaltake 700w psu
Acer 22" monitor

With the 10,000rpm HD, Vista just flat out screams! Now I need to go buy Crysis.

[DS1]

17. You have an 8800GT?!?

Where did you get it? more !!!

[nadinbrzezinski]

19. We had the vista machine built with premium components

including 8800 Vid Cards and SATA drives

The problems with Vista are OS related, and not being able to play well with others (dreamwaver)

Oh and yes, it is running ultimate 64 bit...

What can I say? I am still under impressed with the OS

[Occulus]

30. Nadin, this is OT, but I have to ask you,

professionally speaking, do you think Blender has potential?

What's your opinion on that software?

[God23]

55. I'm running two 8800 GTS's, Vista Premium and Adobe CS3

(Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Contribute, Acrobat, Flash, Fireworks and Illustrator and have had no problems with anything. I use SLI with some DX10 games and dual monitors with graphics or web design. But I am running 32 bit because I heard there were several programmes out there that wouldn't play nice at 64 bit.

[CRF450]

21. I managed to get an order on one from newegg.com

Sometime before I ordered the rest of the components I needed. Its the EVGA 8800GT SSC, basically overclocked from EVGA, core clock raised from the stock 600mhz to 700mhz, and memory clock from 1800mhz to 2000mhz. It was the most expensive 8800GT, I decided to jump on the deal, cause being overclocked, I think it performs almost exactly like the GTX (which cost $200+ more) except in higher resolutions. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130302

The cooling fan on it sucks, it gets really really hot when playing the crysis demo. I'm thinking about getting this one http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835106112 It looks like it might take up another slot though :(

These things are a bitch to find, and if you look on ebay right now, you'll see the same card I got now going for $400. Its gonna be that way till probably January.

[DS1]

22. yeah, I'm running an EVGA 6800GT right now

and to make a long story short, while I was upgrading a component, I knocked a capacitor off it, and while that event threw me into a panic, the only effect it did was make it run faster. Who knows, maybe I overclocked it by adding more voltage, either way, I'm just happy it's still running. evga for the win! this video card also survived a house fire, which knocked out one of my hard drives and melted my monitor.

bed time now!

[CRF450]

24. I had an EVGA 6800gt!

But it died earlier this year. So I replaced it with an x1950gt, which was alot better. I think I'll keep the old computer for a little while longer.

I like to kick my friends asses on FEAR over LAN connection.

[CRF450]

52. Just letting ya know

Newegg has a few of them available now! http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010380048+106791921+1067932704&Configurator=&Subcategory=48&description=&Ntk=&srchInDesc=

[trotsky]

40. A 180W power supply????

Are you freaking kidding me? I thought those went the way of the dinosaurs back with Pentium Pro systems! Wow.

[DS1]

41. Yep

I made the guy at BestBuy open the case because I didn't believe him. I still had to buy the thing anyway.

Talk about cheap components, I'm surprised the damn thing doesn't power itself down now and then.

[iamthebandfanman]

18. they wont release the service packs

any time soon.

why would they want to make something faster than their flagship? lol

its the ole intel scenerio... do we go ahead and release early p4s at low clock speeds even tho p3s out perform them or do we wait....
they choose to put the p4 out and people kept buying p3s.....

p.s.

leave it to microsoft to release a buggy new OS as soon as they get the kinks outa the old one.
its like, tahduh ur OS works right... now buy this new one that doesnt! hooray!
hehe

[HCE SuiGeneris]

25. Microbloat. n/t

[JeanGrey]

26. I've got Vista and like it a lot.

[mwb970]

38. It's been OK for me too.

I had to get a new (HP) computer when my old one died in September. The new one came with Vista and I was worried after hearing horror stories about it. But, it's been fine. It's very slick and has lots and lots of little micro-features that make your life easier.

It does ask you to "allow" things a lot, but I figure it's just doing its job.

By the way, NOD32 is the best anti-virus software out there and it gets along well with Vista. I'm so glad the guy at the Micro Center turned me on to it!

[JeanGrey]

42. What is that software? Is it free?

I only run free anti-virus software. I've got Norton, not the best, but Earthlink gave it to me free along with reducing my bill by half when I threatened to go to Bellsouth. So far Vista has run smoothly, and strongly. I also had to get a new system, and I've got a dual core 6600 with three megs of memory.

I also lucked out on a 22 inch monitor!!! Circuit City had a Samsung 22 inch on clearance a while back for $179.00 bucks. It's fantastic.

[mwb970]

44. NOD32 is $44.99 at Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/ESET-NOD32-2-7-Antivirus-System/dp/B000XUCN2A/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=software&qid=1196438008&sr=8-2

Here are some reviews of the package, most of them very favorable:
http://www.sofotex.com/reviews/r13835.html

The online consensus seems to be that it is the best on viruses and acceptable on "malware," but has an overly technical interface and thus is better suited for techies. I am using it pretty much in default mode but I did notice some rather geeky aspects in its operation and options.

The (excellent) salesman I bought the computer from was very down on the Norton package pre-installed on the (HP 6130) machine. He said not to install Norton or run it or copy it or do anything but delete it, which required a special procedure he printed out for me. Then he said to get NOD32 and use it instead and, for me, I think he was right!

[TahitiNut]

48. Does it work on Win98SE?

:evilgrin:

[mwb970]

51. Sometimes, apparently.

http://www.windowsbbs.com/showthread.php?t=60663

http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=150273

Here's the writeup on the manufacturer's website:
http://www.eset.com/products/win9x.php

[CRF450]

49. I hate free anti-virus/spyware softwares

You only get about a month of free use, and then you have to buy the whole program.

[KharmaTrain]

31. I Skip Every Other Generation...

I began with DOS 2.11...Windows -2 years...and then to Windows 2.11 then to Windows95 and XP...I learned that it takes MS at least 2 years to figure out the bugs in the OS as well as the developers having the drivers available. I just got a new machine last week and had XP loaded in it (the tech didn't even have to ask)...i'm bypassing Vista and we'll see what Gates comes up with in a couple more years. In the meantime, I'm very happy XP.

[maine_raptor]

36. I'll pass on Vista, thank you very much.

I'm in the process of getting a fourth PC for my gaming LAN. The last PC I acquired (the 3rd) had Vista on it. That came out real fast. I upgraded the hardware (new cpu, graphics card, more ram, etc) then un-installed Vista, and installed XP Home SP2. No problems on that one.

I'll keep Vista out of my life and make it easier.

[trotsky]

39. Um, what?

It found the original Vista performed 50 percent to 100 percent slower than the prevalent XP Service Pack 2, or SP2.

Wouldn't a machine have to be OFF to perform "100 percent slower"?

Certainly something can be 100% faster - that would be twice as fast. But 100% slower? That makes no sense.

[Orsino]

45. Well, faster at what it can accomplish, anyway.

Vista does some things that XP can't even attempt, and with a few more years of patches, perhaps Vista will outperform XP generally.

[LSK]

53. I hate Vista

Dot net 2003 is not supported.

My cut/paste buttons are missing.

I see no reason for its existence.

[DainBramaged]

54. I love XP (Sung to "I love NY)

And Microsoft can bite my wrinkled old ass if they think I'm a springing for Shitsta anytime this decade.


My shop has 64 desktops running XP SP2 thank you. And it's been smooth sailing for 3 years.

[Renew Deal]

61. And hopefully 3 more good years to come.

Microsoft will support XP until 2014. That means you have at least 3 years before you have to explore migrating off of it.

[dysfunctional press]

58. once my xp machine conks out, i'm switching to one that runs leopard.

[Renew Deal]

60. I wonder if Microsoft will intentionally slow down XP in SP3 because of this report.

:tinfoilhat:

XP is a great OS. Especially if you do some basic locking down (anti-virus and anti-spyware, bonus points for limited rights).

[noamnety]

62. Vista is making me want to blow my brains out.

If I had a Vista gun, suicide wouldn't be a concern. The mood would pass long before I could get the gun loaded.