Posted on 11/27/2007 1:54:17 PM PST by Zakeet
Windows XP trounced Windows Vista in all tests, regardless of the versions used or the amount of memory running on the computer, says Devil Mountain Software.
In the latest Mac versus PC ad, that put-upon Windows guy quietly concedes he's "downgrading" from Vista to XP. He may have good reason: new tests show that the older XP runs common productivity tasks significantly faster than Microsoft's newest operating system.
Researchers at Devil Mountain Software, a Florida-based developer of performance management tools, have posted data from their most recent Windows performance tests -- and Vista, even after it's been upgraded to the new Service Pack 1 beta package, is shown to be a laggard.
"The hoped for performance fixes [from Vista SP1] that Microsoft has been hinting at never materialized," said Devil Mountain researchers, in a blog post summarizing their results.
The researchers compared patched and unpatched versions of Vista and XP running Microsoft Office on a dual-core Dell notebook. The results revealed the time taken to complete Office productivity tasks such as the creation of a compound document and presentation materials.
Devil Mountain researchers ran a mix of tests comparing existing versions of the operating systems -- the original Vista and XP SP2 -- and versions that had been patched with the latest updates -- Vista SP1 beta and XP SP3 beta. Tests were also run on machines with 1 Gbyte and 2 Gbytes of memory.
Windows XP trounced Windows Vista in all tests -- regardless of the versions used or the amount of memory running on the computer. In fact, XP proved to be roughly twice as fast as Vista in most of the tests.
(Excerpt) Read more at informationweek.com ...
I've built five new machines in the past year, and set each of them up to run on DOS, Win 98SE, and XP pro. as triple boot options. 98 is still the best as far as ease of use and speed. XP is just there for the rare program that isn't available in a Win 98 version.
Wow, what a great idea, pay more to keep using the same OS!
Any opinions about my comment #133?
What they did is stop attempting to patch security leaks. It wasn't possible to fix all of them anyway. They still offer all the previous patches. If you want real security, you'll use a LINUX firewall ahead of your Windows network.
That wasn't a problem for me, because I switched to AutoCAD '97 when I got my Pentium Pro computer running Win NT 4. Anything else that I couldn't run on my Windows NT box I kept on my older 486-66 mother board upgraded to a Cyrix 586-133 with 32 to 64 MB of RAM.
Why would it be necessary to run Windows 2000 from a FAT32 partition? Windows 2000 can read and write to FAT32 partitions unlike Windows NT 4. Windows 2000 coexists better with other versions of Windows on a multiboot system than NT. Only NT4 SP6a is compatible with systems that also boot XP. But installing or reinstalling NT4 from scratch from the original disks can be quite difficult, because it isn't possible to install it with all the service packs applied. It is necessary to install the original obsolete version and then install the service pack. With Windows 2000 and above, it is possible to apply the service packs and rollups to a an image file of the original installation disk and make an installation CD with all the latest updates.
That’s an insult to WinME. It can be tweaked stable, unlike Vista.
I just got XP for my son to replace Vista Home Basic. It couldn’t get out of its own way!
I use a router with a built in firewall.
Yes you can use their existing patches, but it's not as easy to do as with Windows 2000. Service Pack 1 of Win98 included IE 4. If you made a clean install of Win98, you'd have to install the original with IE 3; reboot several times; install SP1 with IE 4; reboot; install IE 6 SP2; reboot. With Windows 2000 you can update the original installation disk to apply all the service packs. I did a clean reinstall on a dual P3 Dell with Windows 2000, and it took much less time than having to install all the updates separately.
Stay with XP. Period.
For the same reason that there are few viruses attacking Macs. There aren't enough of virus writers to waste time on.
They have done exactly the opposite, extending free XP security patches to 2014. The cannot renege on that timetable without seriously annoying a hell of a lot of customers, including me.
Go download either HP's Universal PostScript Driver, or Adobe's version for your wife's All-In-One printer:
Adobe PostScript printer drivers for Windows
HP Universal Print Driver Series for Windows
I'd try the HP version first. Just get the XP version and install it on Vista. Ignore any little warning dialogs about compatibility in Vista, but make sure that Vista's User Account Control (UAC) is disabled.
Here's how to disable UAC in Vista:
How can I disable the User Account Control (UAC) feature on my Windows Vista computer?
If the drivers don't work, try the HP Universal PCL drivers. PCL sucks, but it works with every HP printer, it being their little half-assed version of PostScript.
You may not have 100% function with all features of your wife's AIO printer. Next time, buy a Canon or a Brother.
Either of those cards you listed will handle Eve without issue. If you don’t use vector programs, get the 8400m gt.
I had a relative (now deceased) who sent me an early version of Ubuntu. I was skeptical and never did anything with it. Then, last Spring, I put it on an old Dell tower I have. I liked it, but went back to Windows because I was more familiar with it and had things I wanted to do on that machine.
Then, last week, I decided to play again. I had the second partition on my 1 1/2 year old laptop (the one where the install files were written). Having everything backed up, I deleted those files, changed the partition over to a Linux partition, and installed Ubuntu 7.04. The laptop being my main PC, I’ve been able to give Ubuntu a run of it and really like what I see. Simple, loads fast, plenty of basic apps and many more for the asking. As mentioned, the only REAL issue thus far has been with Quicken. There’s nothing comparable in open source.
The partition is only 7.4Gb so I’ll have to get a partition manager if I want to expand Ubuntu. But I’ll give it a month or so and see if my good feelings hold true.
But if they do, I’ll cut way back on the MS apps in XP, shorten that partition way down, and expand Ubuntu and make it my main bootable OS. I’m already using it for all my online work. Like now :)
I have a 1 disk version of Ubuntu I installed. The only real issue was the partition portion was hard to get through. After a few tries, however, I got through it and am pretty happy.
I’ve toyed with the idea of buying a new laptop next year although my existing one is only 1 /2 years old. It’s a Celeron processor and I want something I have more confidence in. My intention? If/when I buy it’ll come with Vista. But as soon as I get the box home I’ll replace Vista with Ubuntu. That’s why I decided to test Ubuntu now. So far, my prediction stands.
Thanks for your reply, bcsco. I was skeptical too, but after reading this and previous threads on FR about Vista and Linux, and having had some Vista “experiences” myself — I will follow your lead and test Linus/Ubuntu.
Thanks! I’ll look into that tomorrow. One thing; I haven’t gotten into the ‘Sudo’ thing yet. all I’ve done is work with what’s graphically present. So, this will be a reason to also look into that.
Got forced up to XP earlier this year at work. But at home I run Kubuntu 7.04 (haven't upgraded to the latest yet).
I also run some Windows apps in Wine.
I just heard about Wine on this thread. I’ll look into it tomorrow. As I replied to that post, My Ubuntu experience is less than a week old and I’ve not even gotten into the ‘Sudo’ thing yet. Wine will give me a reason to jump into those waters, also.
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