Vista versus XP?

[kamui]

carlton, whats with those 32 vs. 64 bit version of vista/win7? any notebook can run either??? advantages/disadvantages?

 

Disadvantages of 64 bit versions is that some programs are not running on it - this was my experience with 64 bit Vista.

 

[WorldFun]

ok I now understand only certain later/recent CPU/processors run 64bit (x64), but that includes mine (intel core 2) & my vista premium x32 shows my notebook as x64 capable.

 

however I guess it all comes down to whether my majority/essiential hw/sw is supported by x64 (app/drivers) & so far the network adaptors doesn't seem to be strangely as they're brand new whike older brother printer is supported...

 

so with 'only' 4GB DDR3 RAM I guess I hold the gun a bit at least until win7 (x64) has proven itself & gotten 'all' the drivers, apps etc ready

 

cheers!

[unit731]

Yesterday was the first time I've had a serious go with it and so far I'm very impressed!

What do other users think?

 

Windows 7 hits retail shortly. If getting a new machine then wait.

 

If you have XP then keep it. Simple enough.

 

Vista will go down in history similiar to ME.

 

[shygye]

Most offer a free upgrade to W7 for Vista Home Premium and higher, for computers bought after July 22.

[Flashermac]

Probably get a copy for 100 baht soon enough.

 

[rookie]

It may be best for the OP to get his computer with Vista (which does suck!), then upgrade to Win-7 as soon as it's available.

More current computers (laptop and desktop) come with SATA hard drives...and XP does not support SATA. Nor does MS provide any easy way to incorporate the needed SATA drivers into XP.

The latter can be done, but it's not an easy task!.

Bootleg versions of 'Black XP' will work with SATA HD's, but most versions have some areas of XP that don't work properly. I know, as I'm using 'Black XP' on my new dual core system, which is SATA based and I'm awaiting a copy of Win7-Ultimate.

[carlton68]

Hi,

 

sorry it took me so long to reply.

Main reason for me using 64bit is that it does support more RAM than the 3GB or 3.5GB limit I had with WinXP 32bit. Currently I run Win7 Pro 64bit with 4GB RAM. I disabled the pagefile. That way of course RAM is used more. Currently the system uses between 1.3 and 2.2GB RAM depending on what I do and how many applications are open at the same time. So yes, no need to upgrade to 8GB for me, and no actual need to run a 64bit OS. It also has a few downsides which will cause some users to favour the 32bit versions.

Quite a good description can be found here

 

 

rookie,

 

SATA is not equal SATA. You will know so why do you not tell about it.

 

SATA is for one the connector the drives (hard drives and optical drives) use to connect to the mainboard. SATA (or Serial ATA) does have advantages the old IDE (or PATA Parallel ATA) doesn't have.

The three important additional features of SATA:

a) Very slim cables which helps assembling the parts into the computer and it does not prevent airflow within the case like the old ribbon cables (ok, there are slim airflow cables available for IDE but usually not included). Plus only one device per cable so no fiddling with small jumpers to set the drives to Master and Slave (and no need to learn how to do so).

Hot plug. Unless it's the system drive you may connect or disconnect the drive while your computer is on. Many computers now feature an eSATA port (external SATA) and external drives with eSATA are available as well. It's much faster than USB and very handy to copy lot's of data.

c) NCQ (Native Command Queuing). The SATA drives are able to change the order of the requests to the drive so the drive is able to fulfil the requests faster.

 

And then SATA is used to name the protocol that the mainboard uses to communicate with the drives.

rookie is right, WinXP does not support SATA and the new features Hot plug and NCQ unless it has the right drivers. That is not saying WinXP can't make use of SATA drives. Of course it can. One may install the needed drivers during setup (i admit, one needs to know what to do). The other option is to enter the mainboards BIOS and change the SATA controllers behaviour. Sata controllers can be set to act like an IDE controller so no additional drivers are needed to access the drives. Unfortunately two features, hot plug and NCQ, aren't available then but that's irrelevant for most anyway. The hard disks are still faster than real IDE drives.

And, of course everyone who bought a computer with WinXP (or Vista or Win7) pre installed didn't have to figure SATA. It's set up and works.

 

My advice for people currently about to buy a new computer with Microsoft OS pre installed: if you can wait do so until you get it with Win7. Now buying Vista and later (in about a month) upgrading to Win7 will at least give you some work to do, and in a few cases some real headache.

 

 

 

Btw, out of interest. Anyone out there using a cracked, tricked, pimped version of Windows Vista (preferably 64bit) that came 'free of charge', does all updates and doesn't get detected as 'not genuine'. No, I don't want to do so, just out of interest if there was ever a successful way to do so.

[shygye]

... but you can go into the BIOS and have the SATA treated as a IDE (ATA).

[WorldFun]

umm actually this 'horrible vista' has been growing on me lately (32bit premium version) although it's clearly a bit 'bloated' & appears slower than xp...

 

however it's yet to crash unlike my other new similar laptop (acer intel core 2 as well) running very stable with multiple apps e.g. 10-20 tabs in firefox which quickly slowed xp down & made it unstable, but with vista its rock solid & app switching swift & efficient too.

 

furthermore 'standby' or even 'empty battery' modes can be recovered 100% & fairly quick thus no time wasted as can continue immediately from where left off & no work wasted ever which happened all the time with xp or at least browser would crash etc etc!

 

so I guess I cant wait to try out win7 (64bit I rteckon I'll go for this time) which apparently has all the stability/efficiency/enhancements of vista plus a major speed upgrade & less bloated right?

 

no chance I'm even trying to go the linux/ubuntu/suse route again (never had so many crashes, unsupported issues, apps etc albeit yeah when it worked ran smooth surely)...

 

BTW got the 'free' upgrade to win 7, but in reality it's a 20usd shipping fee to pay (why dont they offer DL?), so maybe easier just buy a copy for a couple hundred baht?

 

[shygye]

The "free" upgrade is for Vista 32 bit to Win 7 32 bit. You have to pay full price to get 64 bit Win 7.

 

I am running Kubuntu 64 bit on my new Lenovo G530. No crashes (1 week burn in so far), just pure performance for my apps. I downloaded VirualBox and have run XP as a virtual machine.

 

I run Xubuntu on my old Dell Inspiron 5000. Rock solid.

 

Now you can install Ubuntu with Wubi and not affect your Windows disk partitions. Just my experience, use the OS that suits your needs.