Some time ago I decided I'd had enough of Vista and would go back to XP. After 2 BSODS and explorer crashing when I tried to rename a file, I decided now was the time.

Sounds easy... I disconected 3 of my four drives, partitioned and formatted my O/S drive, and started the XP install procedure. Hmmm, evertime I got to the part where I expected it to say 'Press any key to boot from disk...' it just went straight into setup again. Nothing I did to the drive with either formatting or partitioning would get past this. Clearly, Vista still had it's grubby little paws on this disk.

So, back to basics. Thankfully when I built this pc I kept a floppy drive... Out came my Windows98 boot disk and straight into DOS. From there I used my equally ancient Killdisk. It took an hour and a half for Killdisk to finish, but it took Vista and erased its ass. Vista is no more, it has ceased to be - it is an ex O/S.

XP installed as smooth as ever. So here I am, in an O/S which so far has no drivers or programs installed. I'll get to that later. Meanwhile I can stick two fingers up (in the form of a 'V') to Vista. Hasta la Vista Vista, as they say


Comments (Page 10)
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on Jun 19, 2009

Some how saying I told you so is just not enough...

on Jun 19, 2009

Some how saying I told you so is just not enough...

 

Seeing how all you do is bash microsoft it is pretty lame to say I told you so. You are wrong the other half of the time.

on Jun 19, 2009

Lately I really don't bash anything. No fun in it no more. I used to bash MS but yet I use XP. Many of my arguments were flawed. Bit of a different person these days. I don't have any energy to argue...

Wrong about what?

on Jun 19, 2009

On my hp mediacenter PC Vista ran better than XP, When I upgraded the video card even better.

My notebook with vista 64, I'm loving it and for $1200 it's as good a game machine as many costing over $2500 (4 gig of ram, 1 gig dedicated vid, and HD over 4 gig.

I got the desktop about 1 year before Vista was out.

on Jun 19, 2009

I doubt that vista will go down kicking, XP is great, uses less ram than vista, less bugs. Windows 7 looks great but till SP1 or SP2 come out, XP FTW

on Jun 19, 2009

Fuzzy Logic
I wish someone would give a valid reason why Vista is better than XP.

Looking at my screen now, I see no difference between the two. Well, that isn't strictly true. In XP I have a usable start menu, and Windows Explorer hasn't got any clutter or any mouseover nonsense.

Oh, and games like UT2004 (a favourite of mine) romps along at 2-300 fps instead of the miserly 75-80 Vista can manage.

People just won't admit Vista is a pup.

Vista was supposed to be a new visual experience blah blah. But really, with all these incredible Stardock programs to play with, Vista kinda missed the boat.

 

You know you can easily find every program and file that you need just by clicking start followed by typing what you want to find? How is that not as good or better than XPs start menu? And firefox ftw.

 

After enough crashes I changed from XP to Vista (I was dreading that day btw). Everything has worked better than XP so far, especially first boot where it auto installs ALL my drivers just by plugging in my internet. Most people do not have the machine to handle Vista or they don't know how to use the features that were slightly renamed or moved to different areas compared to XP, so it's "HORRIBLE!". It also helps if you know how to tweak things in Vista as well, like disabling UAC. God that pop up is annoying.

 

The only downside from Vista that I see as someone who does computer services for a living is old software compatibility. A lot of small businesses will have software specifically developed for their shop and that will not be compatible some times. Although that has changed with how long Vista has been out, most things are compatible nowadays. I have used XP and Vista since both have come out and especially after SP1 came out for Vista it has been better by a long shot. One of these days I will have to crack down and try Windows 7 I guess.

 

Derek06
My only problem wih vista is its unnecisary large size. Its like my pc is a cripple. I buy it thinking wow-this is plenty fast and powerful for anything i do on a pc. Only to later find out that vista hogs about half of it to itself.

And the milllion prompts of 'are you SURE youi want to do that?...' are getting a bit irritating...

 

Perfect example of what I just explained. Welcome to technology, upgrade your machine and it wont hog all those resources. Disable UAC and you wont get the pop-ups either.

 

Night Train
Most of the business world skipped upgrading to Vista based on recommendations from their IT professionals. I suppose they could all be wrong.

 

Because it is new(er), same goes for every new OS. They are scared some new problems will arise and they wont know how to fix it. When Windows 7 comes out, you will not see every business jumping into that OS either.

on Jun 19, 2009

When Windows 7 comes out, you will not see every business jumping into that OS either.

I predict that you will.

on Jun 19, 2009

Night Train

When Windows 7 comes out, you will not see every business jumping into that OS either.
I predict that you will.

 

Probably not. Don't get into the psychic business.

on Jun 19, 2009

Don't get into the psychic business.

Ok lets take it logically.

You claim that XP is bad and thats why you upgraded to Vista.

Now your saying (just because you want to argue) that companies will stay with flawed outdated technology and not upgrade to windows 7.

No sense in furthering discussion as if you reread your post, you contradict yourself so you can argue whatever direction you choose to argue.

Most people I know never had a problem with XP yet you did. Sounds like user error to me and your prediction that companies won't upgrade is based on bad information/ knowledge.

on Jun 19, 2009

I myself was a huge XP lover..   and swaped to vista for DX10(some games just demand it for the looks)

Vista uses more memory .. that is true..  but if you know how to strip it down(just like i did with xp)  you can get it to within a reasonable amount(you can push vista into 1gig of ram  Running decently)  XP could do the same on 500 megs ram..  given the differences.. i dont see that as much of an issue..

To those of you running old comps(Fuzzy  yours is a dino btw) my 8800gtx vid card sits in my Media PC.. i use it for DVD's i wont even load SoaSE on it. I have a 4400x2 2.2gig  based  system as well..  had to drop a 4870x2  in it to make SoaSE even playable the way i like it(max res   everything on  and lots and lots of planets 10 factions 200 plus planets)  I consider this 4400x2(clocked up to 2.4 gigs btw) old as hell.. my wife  plays just wow..  and  i wont even give it to her when im done with it.. its 4 years old.. for gameing.. thats a Relic..   tommorow i get a new Phenom2 955..  and the first thing im doing is clocking its bus speed up  to 210 from 200  just for that extra pinch..  and thats from an XP perspective. In all seriousness..  you should not be gamming on anything under  a 2.7gig system.. id consider 2.6gig   bare minimum for an xp system.. 2.7gig for a vista..  its no wonder you have issues with vista  running that old beast

While im on Ram..  XP.. limited to 3gigs of ram..  Vista64  limited to something like 12gigs.. and yes im aware that most games can only access 2-3gigs..  the fact that background tasks can use up the rest. and leave a full 2 gigs to play with..  i love.  XP  i had memory issues primaraly with SoaSE(forgive me if i like 200+ planet maps and max AI players.  XP just wouldn't handel it..  4 gigs ram and a 4870x2..  would slow down to like 10 fps  on big fights..  on vista  worst i get is like 30fps at the same points)

Vista Security..  I cant complain about..  yes its annoying for us decent users who know how to avoid problems.. however the extra features  are excelent for when friends or fam  use the comp and maynot be so pimp at avoiding crap. Added on the fact you can disable the entire set of security systems from vista and make it run everything just like XP..  i cant complain.

Driver problems..  none existant..  i have not found anything in my home that wont run on vista..  even loaded up Warcraft1 on it(admitedly thru a Dosbox app)  hardware.. even my old Soundblaster live  i have in a box.. works on vista. The driver update feature for Vista is a huge improvement.

Startbar,  dont like the vista Startbar.. change it to classic mode.. all the features of XP's bar.. in a 98 looking bar.. and it works.

As for Resorces..  i disabled Areo glass the day i got vista home.. with that running i lost lots of frames..  turned it off.. problem solved.

For those of you looking to grab windows 7..  the speedtests  on it.. have shown.. its almost the same as vista..  very very slight improvement over vista in performance.. and uses compairable ram.. benchmarks are showing less then 5% overall performance gains on a Dual core 2.6 gig Core2 running with 4 gigs of ram and a standard 9500gt..  

even testing the marks on it on my system with a 4870x2..   came in at just over 5%..  thats on a RC.. the betas for it were awsome. Odds are the offical release will be even less of an improvement.

Hands down.. in less then 6 months XP will stop getting updates..  and XP users will have to upgrade or fall prey to more Attacks.  Added on the fact that some DX10 only games will be comming soon.

Lastly..  just as with 98  i had to upgrade to XP  to gain access to all the Harddrive space and dual cores(98 wont run a dualcore rig  native that is)    i am sure that XP  to  will have issues at some point with multicore systems..   it already has issues with the Dualcores in terms of balanceing the load out. 8 Cores are comming out by end of the year.. and both intel and AMD have 16 core's planned for 2010..  how much will XP use ..  Vista was designed around multicore.. xp  had it patched in.     Altho towards that im sure windows 7  will handel it even better

on Jun 19, 2009

I don't think some corperations will upgrade. We have some businesses around here and government agencies still using Windows 2000.

on Jun 19, 2009

We upgraded to Vista Business asap or that is as soon as it was available. Sure we had our ups and downs with things. But thats been over 2 years now and it works rather well. Oh sure there are those in the company that still use XP Pro. But when you have one of those machine die on you and you want to get a new one... it comes Vista Business.

So I do wonder what will be when Win7 finally hits the door. I do hear things... but yet to see anything in writing saying we will be moving on to another system soon as it becomes available. Seems we where targeted by MS with Vista and I do not see where people will move to another just because they say it is better or such and such.

Most business is like money is tight on many ends. So I do not see most spending a ton of cash for new stuff just because it is there. It would have to be worth it for some reason or other. That is what they saw in Vista at the time it hit.

I really see win7 as being geared to the new pc buyer and those that want something they think is just a bit  better than what Vista is. But it is like who knows... MS may take a beating with Win7 and drop research and/or development for Win8. That one goes with another territory though. More along the line of what the Gov. wants to buy and where they will take it too.

The real push right now is the Servers and Virtual systems for security. Thats where big money is looking at things to keep those sneaky people out. That and have their data kept safe secure and most of all... where only they can get it at anytime anywhere. Oh and as fast as it can be gotten too.

Do not get me wrong I like Win7 and I think it has a lot of potentials. But I do not see it in the Business world as yet being a lets do it thing yet. Maybe in a few more years or so. To early to tell whats on peoples mind at the top.

on Jun 19, 2009

Win Xp is going on a decade old. In business where image is everything, running a decade old software won't fly. It doesn't have to make sense when it comes to image.  

 

Besides, in my industry most run Mac so it doesn't matter.  

on Jun 19, 2009

I don't think some corperations will upgrade. We have some businesses around here and government agencies still using Windows 2000.

You're right about that.  Some businesses here (and I'm talking major insurance co's and the like) are still using Win 2000, though not so much gov't any more.  Most Oz gov't dep'ts are running XP these days, though I've had occasion to visits some offices still running 2000, however those are now far and few between. 

Shoot, I've even seen some small businesses still running 98SE, though just for in-house nd not connected to the internet, so no, I don't think businesses will jump on the Win 7 bandwagon too early in the piece... particularly not in these harder economic times when they need to justify every cent spent.  For Microsoft to get businesses (anyone for that matter) to adopt Win 7 early, it needs to consider the economic climate and adjust its pricing on the OS accordingly.  I mean, MS isn't going to go broke it it sells Win 7 for around the $250ish mark to encourage purchases, and in doing so, as opposed to $300 - $400, it could actually result in greater sales, thus profit and wider acceptance of the new OS.

It makes sense, but I'm not holding my breath for MS to do it, though.

on Jun 20, 2009

I read an article that many businesses are switching to a flavor of Linux as well. MS may have a fight on their hands. Apple has gained some ground as well.

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