Vista vs XP Pro ?

[Flailer]

I use Vista on two systems for NWN and NWN2 and it runs great.

[de_slider]

Win 2k Pro here. All tweaked out for my needs, and it only uses 256 megs of ram. Go figure.

Ever Google "Vista problems". I spent a couple of days reading after typing that into my search engine. Will never use Vista.

[Malik]

Vista works fine for me, at first i encountered problems but they were all pretty minor.

[-Saviour Sev-]

XP is defiantly faster for running games, but if I remember correctly you will never get xp to take advantage of more than 3GB ram.

Well I am getting a new laptop very soon and still dont know if I should pay abit more to get 4Gb RAM or just stick with 3Gb. Can someone explain this to me in more detail as I am not very good with computers.
Does this mean if I get Vista I can use the 4Gb but if i was to get XP pro I couldn't?

[LinuxPup]

I believe so, yes. Vista has a lot of technological advantages over XP... Vista SP1 is coming out sometime this winter/early spring, which should iron out a lot of problems it currently has. Even with XP SP4 coming out, I think Vista is going to be better.

[Sparky]

Unless you're using XP 64x or Vista 64x, the most RAM your OS will be able to use is around 3.4 Gig. The rest rest will end up going unused.

I'm using Vista 64x, and aside from a little work in getting it going, haven't had any problems. The programs been out for a year, so there's a lot of driver support, especially if you use name brand products.

[Amoenotep]

64x business edition here....pretty stable. i've been working with it for about a year so i've got it tweaked to the way i like it. the only problems are hunting down special drivers for special projects..but even there sometimes you can force stuff to run.

[-Saviour Sev-]

Well I am buying my laptop through dell and it doesn't seem like you can actually buy it with 64 bit only 32. So looks like I just may aswell save abit of money and just get 3Gb of Ram, or maybe spend that money on a faster processor instead.

[DeputyDog]

If you have 3 gigs it wil be plenty for 32 bit. If you buy the 4 gigs then goto newegg.com and get a oem dvd of vista ultimate 64 for 190 bucks and install that.

You may run into some issues with older software running on a 64 bit os.

[JesterOI]

Win 2k Pro here. All tweaked out for my needs, and it only uses 256 megs of ram. Go figure.

I can get my XP down to less than that and still be fully functional.
Only 165MB, there's a couple other things I could mess with, but there isn't much point

It's all in the Services.

Hit the WindowsKey+R to bring up the Run window.
Type in services.msc and hit enter.

Google a XP or Vista services guide to let you know what you can disable or set to manual.


MSConfig.exe is another good one for cleaning up your system startup.

[Sparky]

A warning if you plan on going OEM with Vista. You can only choose 32 or 64 bit (with retail, you can buy 32x, then pay postage to have MS send you the 64x version, or you can order Ultimate for $260 online and it ships with both versions), and installing a new motherboard counts as having a new computer, so you'll have to call up Microsoft and lie a bit to get your OS re-authenticated.

My Vista gobbles up lots of memory, and I don't mind, because its preloading the programs I spend all my time using.

[JesterOI]

I was bored. Got my XP trimmed down to 149MB
And, still fully functional!

[Amoenotep]

64 vista will run things 64 XP won't...the vista edition actually works as intended...the XP version will just make you very angry