Windows XP Significantly Outperforms Vista, Tests Show

Information Week ^ | November 26, 2007 | Paul McDougall

[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.

[Iron Munro]

XP is bad enough.

If Vista is even more clunky and slower than XP it must be a horror.

[roamer_1]

Don’t get me wrong, I’m speaking of the generic consumer.

NP. I get it. :D

[Tailback]

Anyone out there still running the old 98?

I've got an old box running 98 so I can play older DOS based games I refuse to give up playing. My regular PC is a dual core AMD with 2 gigs running XP and it freaking screams.

[VeniVidiVici]

Thanks, I’ll stick with Apple’s rockin OS Leopard. Spaces just rocks.

Did they fix the hairy Leopard bug that munches data yet?

[Wuli]

“I’ve always liked XP and have used it since it first came out. I have had almost no problems with it at all, which is just one of the many reasons why I will NOT upgrade to Vista until I absolutely have no choice.”

I love all these comments, because they are confirmation of my own situation, which to MS would be more disconcerting; which is, on my best PC at home I am running Win98, with tons of XP applications, super stable and zero performance issues.

Only recently have its days been numbered because I can no longer find solid anti-virus app upgrades that do not demand at least XP. So far, no hits, maybe the evil geniuses no longer write evil code to infect Win98.

[Coronal]

“Yet” being the operative word.

[Paleo Conservative]

Well, 32 bit processors can’t *directly* access more than 4GB ;)! There are ways around that limitation (bankswitching/page swapping for example...oldest trick in the book).

Why bother when 64 bit hardware will be dirt cheap. Bank switching comes with serious performance penalties. Win32 blew away 16 bit Windows in performance. Good luck finding Windows CE to install on PC's. Microsoft will make sure consumers won't be able to get hold of it.

[joebuck]

But wait, wait, once Vista only DirectX 10 games come out the grpahics will make it all worth it. What? They just came out? X10 no big deal? Where’s that XP disk.

[Lockbox]

Just got a Mac for my mother in law, she's 91 and it will be her 1st computer. Wanted an easy laptop for her. I used Mac about 20 years ago for some graphic programs. Now I'm tried of Windows issues. The new Mac is a test drive for the rest of the family.

Opened Mac's box, started right up, filled out details for the new software, laptop found my WiFi (not Apple) automatically and was surfing the net in about five minutes. No installs, configure, adjustments, reading manual, update driver, etc. Just start and run.

I think Apples are going to increase market share, the Apple store at the Mall was packed!

[wildbill]

Microsoft knows how to defeat sluggish sales of their new OS.

They will simply cut off any technical support and patches for XP a little sooner than usual.

[fred4prez]

Actually, MS will support XP until 2014, so hopefully they’ll release a better version of Windows in the meantime.

[mkjessup]

Windows 2000 Professional is superior to both XP and Vista IMHO, and my next ‘upgrade’ (if necessary) will be to Linux.

[PapaBear3625]

Isn’t it part of the EULA that you will not publish any results of benchmarking tests?

I may accept the EULA. That doesn't stop me from letting you borrow my PC and running whatever tests you want and publishing same

[roamer_1]

I can no longer find solid anti-virus app upgrades that do not demand at least XP

AVG, NOD32, F-Protect (for a little while longer), BitDefender (I think), Avira (AntiVir)

PS, you are right that most of the new stuff is designed for NT... 98 is somewhat protected by it's legacy status.

[Flashman_at_the_charge]

Moving to Leopard has some problems as well.
http://www.macintouch.com/leopard/compat.html

[fred4prez]

Plug-n-play and usb support on Win2000 is flaky, at best, in my experience.

[K-oneTexas]

Agreed. Have heard from friends and business clients ... they say the same. I also have the same information of Office 2007 and individual Word/Excel/PP/etc 2007 ... a pain. All like Office 2003 better.

Bill Gates and Microsoft have made some more disgruntled customers, maybe enemies, with the foisting of their continual bata product and make folks take what they believe they want and not what the customer wants.

I think for Microsoft the motto is: "The customer is always WRONG" or "Customer have no brain" much like Democrats thinking of voters.

[Mr. Mojo]

I would betcha MS is NOT gonna back off of Vista... They never do...

Undoubtedly not. ...but hopefully they can speed it up with some upgrades.

[editor-surveyor]

Actually Millenium Edition is just Windows 98 with the most useful feature removed: the ability to run DOS protected mode.

[el_tigre]

I installed Ubuntu on a 6 year old pentium 4 box a couple of months ago. It runs great, easy to install, and only needs software companies to start writing apps for Linux to make it a big success. If you’re satisfied with Firefox and open office, then you’ll be more than happy with it as is.