So I take half a week off from blogging, and the first discussion I see coming back is somebody reviewing XP and loving it over Vista.
Let’s look at his conclusions (remember, for effect, he pretends XP came out after Vista):
To be honest there is only one conclusion to be made; Microsoft has really outdone themselves in delivering a brand new operating system that really excels in all the areas where Vista was sub-optimal. From my testing, discussions with friends and colleagues, and a review of the material out there on the web there seems to be no doubt whatsoever that that upgrade to XP is well worth the money. Microsoft can really pat themselves on the back for a job well done, delivering an operating system which is much faster and far more reliable than its predecessor. Anyone who thinks there are problems in the Microsoft Windows team need only point to this fantastic release and scoff loudly.
Basically, this guy has issues with drivers (he says drivers are spars, even though Vista has more drivers than XP), finds the system sluggish and buggy. Obviously, his complaints about Vista pretty much echo exactly what people said about XP just a few years ago…
But seriously, this guy gets a 2.94 on his reliability index. That’s bad. However, if you look at his screenshot, not a single of his errors are “Windows Errors” - they are all “Application Failures.”
My own index shows 8.46 for reliability and I had two “Windows Errors” - though I know they were hardware related (overclocked just a little bit too much for playing Crysis…). I built this system myself, with components to match Vista. Haven’t seen a bluescreen or a complete lock-up since. I couldn’t imagine going back to XP at this point.
To me, it sounds like the review was done by somebody who upgraded a machine that wasn’t meant to run Vista in the first place. A list of hardware components is conspicuously absent from the ‘review.’
An underpowered machine is going to run XP faster than Vista, no doubt about it. A well designed machine is going to give you the same performance, plus all the benefits of Vista (security, stability, speed, eye-candy, etc.).
I ran Vista business 32 bit for six+ months on a 1.8 GHz single-core AMD, an off-the-shelf Compaq notebook, 1GB of RAM, small, slow HDD. Even with Aero, it was manageable — and I ran SQL Server Express, Visual Studio 2005 Pro, various browsers, IM clients, etc. etc. etc. I did end up turning Aero and other effects off, but I spent over a month with them on with no major complaints.
I recently bought a new notebook, a 2.0 GHz Core 2 Duo, 2GB of RAM, nVidia 8600M with 256MB. Put Business 64 bit on it. The baseline is over 2.0 points higher, according to Windows. The improvements were noticeable in some places, but honestly, nothing drastic. Sure, it became easier to run multiple instances of the Visual Studio IDE. Sure, code builds faster. Yes, I can play games now that I couldn’t before … but the overall experience isn’t drastically different.
Over the weekend, I upgraded to 4GB of RAM. Again, SLIGHT improvements … large folders of photos display as icons much more smoothly … certain games play more smoothly … but still, nothing drastic.
I have certain 64-bit issues … but few if any Vista-only, or Vista-specific, issues. Yes, I eagerly await SP1, but I’ve been working and playing in Vista since March, with no showstopping issues. (Though I sure would like to be able to join the Vista 64 notebook to my 2003 domain … )
I can only say that we have had XP systems for our production desktops, video editing, WP, you name it, that were rock solid. We now have few Macs, even better. Parallels XP used less and less.
We had to have Lenovo laptops delivered with Vista, and, it was a terrible experience for us. In every way. And. we support ourselves as XP power users.
In all areas of just feel, usability, uptime, reliability, compatibility, Vista was a negative negative experience. All the notebooks have been cleaned off and reconfigured with XP or Linux, as a test.
We have approximately 1000 desktops and 750 laptops at our facility. The majority of these are HP, the remainder are IBM/Lenovo.
We carefully evaluated the possibility of downgrading our XP desktops to Vista, and after a pilot rollout of 75 units, we came to the conclusion that it was not worth the downgrade.
In corresponding with four colleagues in both larger and smaller organizations, two have opted to activate their downgrade program. The other two chose to remain with XP.
I find it telling that one of my two colleagues that chose to downgrade his firms computers to Vista is now no longer with that firm.