Microsoft Admits Vista Failure

[Wolfie]

Im, also one of the users having had Vista installed (along with office 2007) and ended up throwing everything of and reinstalling XP.

The machine: AMD Athlon64 3800+, socket 939 PCIe mainboard, 256mb Geforce 6600 (PCIe). 2gb dual ram.

Basically I had 3 serious gripes:

1) Speed. Vista ran definitely slower, including most applications. FlightsimX (only "game" I ever play) became close to being unusable. although I have a pretty basic graphics card, It ran good on winXP, but on vista I lost 40% framerate when using the same detail settings in flightsim...

2)Bloody pop-ups always asking wetter I really was sure I wanted to do something...I know it's a security feature, and with some research you can reduce the frequency of them, but still...

3)Simply too different. Too many things were in different places. It didn't feel like an upgrade, but like switching OS altogether. I had to resort to Vista forums quite often to find solutions for things which would have took me 1 second flat on XP...Office 2007, pfff, whats wrong with menu's? Any company switching to office 2007 will see a pretty hefty drop in efficiency. First time ever you need to re-train your staff after an upgrade of office!

So in short, the changes are so drastic that it will indeed persuade people to try something different altogether like MacOS or Linux. Why not if the learning curve is not that much higher compared to the Vista/office 2007 upgrade?

There's some very nice Linux distro's, If only now the hardware manufacturers would open up their drivers some more to the open source community...

Were talking about Vista, right? You must have a different Vista to the one i've got then.

I find Vista runs faster on my base unit than WinXP (same spec, i didn't upgrade any hardware) Its more stable with less crashes/lockups/freezes, my only gripe was the initial installation, i had to go get a load of drivers before i upgraded and pretty much had to install each and every driver after Vista was installed.

I really like Vista, but i can see peoples argument that its just a new 'skin' on top of WinXP as it doesnt feel much different. Once you've learnt your way around the menus (which, quite frankly isnt difficult unless your a 'Somchai rice farmer') its a breeze to use. All my networking/wireless/internet pretty much set its self up without me having to do much, the 'annoying popups' that everyone bitches about are not a problem, i get maybe one or two a day and i find it reassuring that i'm being asked if i want to change some configuration of my PC. My PC isnt even meaty, a simple 2.6ghz with 2gb ram and a decent 256mg gfx card.

I really dont see what the problem is, but i guess everyone loves to hate Microsoft so this kind of editorial/slagging off was to be expected.

I personally dont know anyone whos un-installed Vista and gone back to another OS.

[Insight]

Great article, thanks!

You must be joking? Whether you favour Vista/Microsoft or not, that article is absolutely abysmal. Full of self-importance and groundless statements. My bets are on Microsoft still being around in another 4 years, about the same time this hack decides to write another article predicting Microsoft's imminent death.

That said, several comments on this thread have reinforced the decision not to go near Vista for a while. Our clients will not be touching it for a while, so there's no real need for Vista-specific software development. XP will do just nicely for now

[cali]

I got a new machine and have been running Vista ultimate & Office 07. My sys gets a vista rating of 5.3. 1GB sticks of fast RAM (PC2-6400) are just $50 US so I got 4GB. Vista is very stable and responsive on this machine. I like the things they have done with it compared to XP. I can do things like pop in a DVD or VCD and it plays where XP had to manually download cumbersome 3rd party stuff for that. The improvements all appear minor compared to XP to me so I don't see why they make vista seem such a big deal and took them so many years to make it. But each area has some nice enhancements; IE7, media player, backup, etc. My nits are:

-vista broke compatibility with virtually every game I own. They either crash during play or do not load.

-vista eats 100GB of hard disk space just for its own use. I have a giant drive so do not miss the space yet, but 100GB?!

-It was unbearable to get prompted with "are you sure" everytime I tried to do anything especially since my answer was always "yes dummy do it" but fortunately this canbe fixed by turning off user access control or I might have gone back to XP.

-no drivers for my ADSL modem and ZyXel says it will never, ever make drivers for it. In fact, I couldn't find a single USB to ADSL modem for sale that advertised Vista compatibility so I bought a driverless router box and my modem is collecting dust.

-Office 07 dropped frontpage and that costs a fortune if bought alone. Fine if you don't use it, but I like frontpage.

I am neither a vista fan boy or a vista hater. Overall I think it is worthwhile.

[calibanjr.]

This [earlier article] was written on 28th December 2003. He's just an anti-MS fanboy that parrots the same line year after year. If MS did go to the wall he'd be out of a job.

Did Charlie perhaps at some time in the past apply for a job with Microsoft and got rejected?

As for me, I shall follow the advice given to me by a friend many years ago: before considering to buy a new version of Windows or Microsoft Office, wait until the second service pack has been released. It’s not a very scientific approach, but good enough for my needs.

--

Maestro

Behaving according to one's own/and trusted others' experience? Sounds scientific enough to me! That's what I'm doing, and pretty much everyone I know is doing! Cheers! Vista in 2009 (or whenever), serenity now!

[t.s]

Great article, thanks!

Quote from Charlie: "Microsoft has lost its ability to twist arms, and now it is going to die."

In this day and age, Microsoft is the Emperor Without Clothes. Its only hope is that Linux continues to be too hard to use for end users, but Linux is ever getting better and at some point will have equality. Especially because Windows is not getting better, as Vista demonstrates.

Large corporations could migrate to Linux right now and save a lot of money over time - once the installation processes are automated enough, and there are enough admins to run them, Linux+OpenOffice is going to have a big cost advantage over Windows+Office - while being just as good or better in most respects. From experience I think Linux is a lot easier for IT administration than Windows when you know what you are doing.

As for Vista, well of course it sucks, and I am not in the least surprised Dell is now offering XP again - if I were to buy a new laptop that would be a pretty good reason to buy a Dell. I have all the faith in the world that Vista will eventually be just as good as Win XP but right now, yeah, it's a joke.

Yes, quite so...

The article should read "Microsoft have admitted that Microsoft have failed to sell stuff for the sake of it". I run 2K and see no reason to change. It is solid as a rock and, with common sense, will continue to be so, without MS updates. This is their ultimate problem - why change?

i am surprised they managed to get you off nt.

[Kyosuken]

OMFG FUD has never been so high under our hot sun ... First the guy (from Inquierer the most accurate source for IT on Intarweb of course... NOT) is babling sh*t and every anti MS and Mac/linux/whatever zealot are jumping on the bandwagon... pathetic But how so predictable....

For those speaking about NT like they know it all... Xp is based on NT (from the W2K for like 98% of its code... or dare i say 100% actually only "ideas" and "concepts" were taken from the ME branch (the real admited failure from Microsoft) and theses ideas were : System Restore for the most part, Skin capabilities (there wasn't skin capabilities per se under ME, but the start of what became shellstyles), and true plug and play... Yep cause Windows 2K is lacking seriously behind in that department, even if it were great at the time.

Vista is based on NT too, but not from the client (aka XP) base code but from the server (server 2K3 Sp1 precisely) because it was the most stable an "secure" code at the time (most secure doesn't mean 100% but it was indeed much better than XP anyway). The difference is that a lot of code that was running at kernel level is now run in user mode (means, it's not anymore 100% system driven but it's user driven : the user does sh*t with Vista his session will crash or may crash, but not the whole system). Because of that a lot of improvements were made to how drivers should behave and they completely rewrite the way the drivers should "speak" with the system core. There is a f*cking long list of what has been improved over Windows XP google is your best friend (and wikipedia has a very accurate and detail chart about that).

So to finish, if Vista is such a failure, why is it yet the most successful OS (in terms of adoptions and sells of the MS's OSes) since Windows 95 ?

People are stupidly bashing Vista like they did with XP when this later came out, mostly the biggest problem with Vista right now is "drivers" too many shaggy drivers support from the biggest hardware manufacterer is a PIA, but for the rest : stability, enhancements, speed etc really it's much more decent thant what XP was in 2001 !

Edited April 25, 2007 by Kyosuken

[Firefoxx]

I really got to say, this is what makes me *not* read the news and listen to the media. It's a bunch of rubbish. Look at the title: Microsoft admits Vista failure. Microsoft did no such thing. This should have been enough to make people stop reading the bull that's printed. When the prices of LCDs TVs lower, is it a failure? When the stores sell anything other than LCDs, is the LCD a failure?

The gall of this sad man is enormous. It is really really frightening that some people have actually ingested all of his drivel and *believed* it. He's an example of a journalist who will write any lie, just as long as it's sensational and sells. Ethics, schmethics.

[gharknes]

Why change and buy something that has more DRM in it, what a stitch up, however I think people are beginning to suss this DRM out. Could be their achilles heal.

I will never use anything that is riddled with DRM , including Windows Media Player 11.

By the way DRM (if you didn't already know) is the toy that Microsoft and others collude in to restrict the market in music and more, so that they can control it and make huge wads of dosh from their monopoly.

As Bill Gates himself said you are better off ripping your MP3s from non protected sources, pretty obvious.

I agree 100% with this, DRM has no place in my computers OS, up to me what I want to play and view on my PC, I will never have Vista on my PC unless something changes.

[Kyosuken]

You guys speaking about DRM actually tried Vista before speaking out of your *ss ? Because it's like "because" there is "DRM" in vista you can't use anything non-DRM, this is the biggest moronic thing i have ever heard... Does it ring any bells that in XP there is DRM too ? Stop spreading the FUD once again, because you have Vista it won't prevent you from listening ripping or get whatever pirated media (or legally acquired non-DRM stuff for that matter) like your 10 000 Pr0n, Mp3 etc files lying somewhere in your dirty secret download foler.

Ms Bashers of course will say that MS is the biggest Evil there, when they actually have little choice, and try to be somewhat fair in that department, nobody noticed the "fair" DRM from apple that allow you to play your fresh music or whatever media to be played on Ipod only, where as WMA audio can be played on loads of Digital Music Players. Ah yeah you can listen to vanilla yet non-DRMed files on Ipod, well big scoop for you it's the same shit for MS....

[Kyosuken]

I got a new machine and have been running Vista ultimate & Office 07. My sys gets a vista rating of 5.3. 1GB sticks of fast RAM (PC2-6400) are just $50 US so I got 4GB. Vista is very stable and responsive on this machine. I like the things they have done with it compared to XP. I can do things like pop in a DVD or VCD and it plays where XP had to manually download cumbersome 3rd party stuff for that. The improvements all appear minor compared to XP to me so I don't see why they make vista seem such a big deal and took them so many years to make it. But each area has some nice enhancements; IE7, media player, backup, etc. My nits are:

-vista broke compatibility with virtually every game I own. They either crash during play or do not load.

Interesting, load of reports usually states the opposite, i still do have an old RC lying on my computer and "Windows compatible games" are working like 90% of them... Unless you are speaking of old 3.1 dosish games there is something wrong there (i suspect 3d/graphic drivers actually).

-vista eats 100GB of hard disk space just for its own use. I have a giant drive so do not miss the space yet, but 100GB?!

Now yeah, definetly a problem, Vista eats for itself up to 16gb, in worse case scenario, obviously there is something fishy taking a little more space than required in your Vista system folder, you may need to inspect what's going on.

-It was unbearable to get prompted with "are you sure" everytime I tried to do anything especially since my answer was always "yes dummy do it" but fortunately this canbe fixed by turning off user access control or I might have gone back to XP.

Linux/Mac Os X is doing this for years, for once that MS is following the trend people are yet not happy with it, gotta learn to keep with it anyway. Don't get me wrong, the implementation of MS "Protect user from his stupid basic non tech savy behaviour" is a little too "in the way" but it's not that a problem with a "well" setup computer, if you (i mean you in a general sense) have to deal with UAC too many times a day while using your computer then there is a problem with the setup, because UAC is a pain only if you play a lot with system componants.

-no drivers for my ADSL modem and ZyXel says it will never, ever make drivers for it. In fact, I couldn't find a single USB to ADSL modem for sale that advertised Vista compatibility so I bought a driverless router box and my modem is collecting dust.

That's the reason 7 years ago i dumped the whole "modem" thing if it wasn't Ethernet based (the true "Network" standard). And anyway a router is most likely more safer than a direct connection through modem.

-Office 07 dropped frontpage and that costs a fortune if bought alone. Fine if you don't use it, but I like frontpage.

Irrevelant as... it has nothing to do with Vista, plus you could use Frontpage from Office 2003 under Vista, or yet just move completely to the standard ridden Expression that was designed to replace that old POS of Frontpage

I am neither a vista fan boy or a vista hater. Overall I think it is worthwhile.

[Rice_King]

-vista eats 100GB of hard disk space just for its own use. I have a giant drive so do not miss the space yet, but 100GB?!

By default, Vista's System Restore is allocated a minimum of 15% of disk volume for restore points. Here are two articles (same method) to reduce the size allocated to System Restore.

How to reduce disk space used by Windows Vista system restore.

Decrease Storage Space Allocated To System Restore.

[nikster]

I really got to say, this is what makes me *not* read the news and listen to the media. It's a bunch of rubbish. Look at the title: Microsoft admits Vista failure. Microsoft did no such thing. This should have been enough to make people stop reading the bull that's printed. When the prices of LCDs TVs lower, is it a failure? When the stores sell anything other than LCDs, is the LCD a failure

Ah, I have to jump to the Inquirer's defense here - the title is classic inquirer, which, like theRegister, tries to have boulevard headlines for IT a'la "The Sun" or other boulevard newspapers have in England. Some like it, some don't but don't take them at face value. I find them entertaining.

As for the contents - I happen to agree with him even though it's obvious that eroding a monopoly and $40Bn in cash is going to take a very, very long time. And much can happen in that time.

For what it's worth, Forbes' Brian Caulfield kinda agrees too:

http://www.forbes.com/2007/04/25/vista-mic...artner=yahootix

You might say the guy is just joining in the bashing, but you can't deny the obvious truth in his end statement: "Vista will dominate the desktop, of course. But the desktop has always been the place from which Microsoft can get a grip on the rest of the computing world. The question: If that strength has turned into a soft spot, then what?"

[palm]

I really got to say, this is what makes me *not* read the news and listen to the media. It's a bunch of rubbish. Look at the title: Microsoft admits Vista failure. Microsoft did no such thing. This should have been enough to make people stop reading the bull that's printed. When the prices of LCDs TVs lower, is it a failure? When the stores sell anything other than LCDs, is the LCD a failure?

The gall of this sad man is enormous. It is really really frightening that some people have actually ingested all of his drivel and *believed* it. He's an example of a journalist who will write any lie, just as long as it's sensational and sells. Ethics, schmethics.

and Microsoft's profits are WAY UP this quarter:

"Microsoft Corp., the world's biggest software maker, said third-quarter earnings rose 65 percent on sales of its new Windows and Office programs. The shares advanced after the company said revenue may top analysts' estimates next fiscal year. Net income climbed to $4.93 billion, or 50 cents a share, from $2.98 billion, or 29 cents, a year ago, beating the 46-cent average projection of 20 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. Sales increased 32 percent to $14.4 billion, the company said today. " Bloomberg April 26.

[spacebass]

And no wonder!

http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html

[cdnvic]

And no wonder!

http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html

Um.... old news, and it's been rebutted quite well too.

http://www.twit.tv/ww11

[Firefoxx]

OK, then if this article is indeed accurate, then using the same logic I could write an article that says:

World admits planes are a failure! People also using boats and cars!

Humans admit oxygen a failure! Nitrogen is reported to be an alternative!

Toyota admits its cars are a failure! People are also driving Mitsubishis, Volvos, and BMWs! The horror!

You admit your life is a failure! The whole word doesn't love you! Incredible!

Are people's brains so mushed up these days that a journalist can get away with outright lies like this? I wonder where this guy got his education, I'd certainly avoid the place. Of course, he certainly got his way... in just this forum, he's generated quite a stir. I can understand that the site is known for these kinds of articles, but what if the clueless and uninitiated read it and think of it as a professional and ethical article?

Edited April 27, 2007 by Firefoxx

[cdnvic]

The inquirer is just a well presented rant blog. I'd hesitate to call it journalism.

[britmaveric]

George or anyone who uses Vista - how well does the RAM Boost Feature work???

[cdnvic]

George or anyone who uses Vista - how well does the RAM Boost Feature work???

It's not as fast as motherboard RAM, but it does perform faster than your swap file. I wouldn't depend on it for gaming but its great when you are editing a lot of images or video.

[TopDogger]

Its just been on CNN that their profits are up 65% and the stocks gone thru the roof, some failure

[cali]

Congrats on beating estimates due to Vista demand, but seriously a single digit gain (+4%), yawn. Microsoft stock price is about the same as it was 10 years ago.

[Richard-BKK]

Windows Vista fast? I run Windows 2000 Professional with the latest Intel Core2 Duo hardware and 2 GB memory. That is fast, and the games who not work with Vista or run slow in WinXP work..better fly over the screen with Windows 2000.

[pumper]

apparently some Enron lawyers ended up at the Micro Vole:

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

The firm also changed its accounting method so that every time it ships a Vista licence, the revenue accrues in that quarter rather than over a period of time as it did with Windows XP.

So even though on the face of things, Microsoft has indeed done well, the jury remains out on how Vista is selling until we see evidence from a further two or three quarters.

>>>>>

Micro Vole does not want investors to get the true picture.

also:

ATI/AMD said it hadn't had the upgrade boost it expected from the introduction of Vista.

DRAM manufacturers and CPU manufacturers alike haven't reported surges in sales - so whatever the sales Microsoft reported last night, if we had a clear idea of the Vista SKUs, everyone would have had a far better idea of how well its products are going.

[PMK]

Similar situation here. I got a new Toshiba Satellite with Vista. I can't find wireless network drivers for 2K or XP so am stuck with it. I detest it. Working over a network is miserable. Right click on file over the network and two minutes later the context menu comes up. Task Manager never loads when I need it - just hangs. BTW, it has 2 GB RAM.

Now I do 90% of my work on it in an XP virtual machine. I use Winpatrol or the teatimer function of Spybot Search and Destroy for security on all my computers, host - or virtual, which lets me approve or deny any registry changes. That basically takes care of 99% of security issues. I don't think I am missing out on anything by not using Vista - just the opposite, in fact.

Peter

Bought a new laptop with Vista. Vista sucks so bad it finally pushed me over the edge and I went out and bought a Macbook. Gorgeous!

Anybody wanting a nearly-new Vaio at a discounted price, pm me!

[sjaak327]

Nice thread, some people here are either misinformed or haven't got a clue.

First of all people who claim that Vista is an XP service pack 3 or something along those lines, the Vista code has largely been re-written, so it is by no means XP sp3. Did these people notice that the GUI has some extensive changes as well.

DRM, it is in one word ridiculous to not upgrade to Vista because of DRM. Surely it is already inside XP and it's media player, also DRM IS breakable. With the right tools it is a kid's job actually. The only problem might be that on WMP11 the current hack doens't work yet (only a matter of time of course). I just used WMP10 and got rid of DRM on protected movies in no time, these are then playable without any limits on Vista (or any other system for that matter). And of course all your MP3's and other material that wasn't drm protected will play in vista without problems. Ripping a DVD inside vista is still possible, providing you use dvd encryptor or DVD fab.

Regarding speed, I use Vista ultimate on a Dell optiplex GX260 (yes that's a machine from 2002 !) Added 1GB of memory to bring it to 1,5 GB, added a dirt cheap (30 euro) Geforce FX5200 so it could display aero, and Vista runs like a dream on this machine. I use it to run Media Center, and up until now I just love it in terms of usablilty and speed. Oh and regarding space usage, Vista ultimate installed without any other programs, a good 10,5 GB including all the patches (17 up until today). Not a major deal.

UAC IS a pain in the ass, but of course it only is when you install the machine, on normal every day usage I hardly ever see the UAC prompt. And the added security is a bonus.

All in all I use vista on my main desktop and on above media center, and I just love it. Aero is a nice graphical addition to the windows experience, the added security measures (not ony UAC, but for instance a protected kernel as another example) and surprisingly the speed make it superiour over XP.

Oh and regarding the article in the OP, LOL Windows ME II, that guy doens't know what he is talking about.

[Thanh-BKK]

Hello

Anti-Microsoft bashing par excellence. I too don't like them too much but their operating systems are EXCELLENT. I have been using XP for well over five years and haven't seen a "Blue Screen" in all that time. Got Vista because my computer died on me (hardware failure! REALLY not Microsoft's fault!) and one would not buy a Ferrari and keep the engine of his old Toyota, yes?

And now i am actually dual-booting Vista Ultimate and XP Professional, they both are on the same physical hard drive, each on a seperate partition of the exact same size.

Since they are both on the same machine they run on identical hardware. I have also installed bit-by-bit the same programs, applications, codecs, games etc on both OS installations, right down to the little proggie that monitors RAM usage, HDD and CPU temperatures and displays those in the task bar.

Both OS are set to a fixed-size paging file of 4 GB, which is twice the size of the installed 2 GB RAM.

I have also applied identical tricks to speed up the boot process as well as the shutdown process (they involve identical registry hacks, since "under the hood" the two OS are largely identical, more so than the vastly different user interface would allow to guess).

My observations:

Boot from "Power On" to "CPU idle status" - Vista: 2 min 28 sec. XP: 2 min 55 sec.

Shutdown from "idle system" to "Power OFF" - Vista: 18 seconds. XP: 35 seconds.

Shutdown from "In Action" to "Power OFF" (having to kill a number of running apps) - Vista: 25 seconds. XP: 48 seconds.

Load time Firefox with home page - Vista: >1 second. XP: 3 seconds

Load time Internet Explorer 7.0 with home page - Vista: 5 Seconds. XP: 5 seconds (identical).

Load time MS Word (Office XP SP 3) - Vista: 3-4 seconds. XP: 8-10 seconds (!)

Opening same .pdf file in Adobe Acrobat Professional 8.1 - Vista: 8 seconds. XP: 5 seconds.

Opening same photo in Windows default app (Vista Photo Gallery/XP Picture and Fax viewer) - Vista: instant. XP: 2-3 seconds.

Playing an mp3 from HDD, using Musicmatch Jukebox 10.0 (claimed "not Vista compatible"!!) - Vista: 12 seconds. XP: 15 seconds (!!)

Opening DivX-coded .avi video in WMP 11 - Vista: 20 seconds. XP: 15 seconds.

RAM usage idle system (after full boot) - Vista: 650 MB. XP: 410 MB.

CPU usage playing DivX-coded .avi in WMP 11 - Vista: 36% XP: 85% (!!!)

CPU usage playing mp3 in Musicmatch Jukebox 10.0 ("not Vista compatible"!) - Vista: 60%. XP: 52%.

Re-Coding 90 minutes DivX coded video into mpg, using Easy-X - Vista: 1 hr 20 min. XP: 45 min.

Re-Coding same video, using Canopus ProCoder - Vista: impossible - App will hang. XP: 35 min.

Re-Coding 25 min wmv clip into mpg, using Canopus ProCoder - Vista: 8 min. XP: 24 min (!!)

Full virus scan, using Avast! free (Home) edition (120+500 GB HDD's) - Vista: 35 min. XP: 55 min. (!!)

Defragmenting system partition, using native application: Vista - ETERNAL, not completed (!!). XP: 12 min.

Conclusion: On identical hardware, despite the added optical effects (i run both OS with all the "bells and whistles" turned on) Vista does pretty much everything faster. What it still lacks is better support for certain video codecs (specially DivX who seem to sleep over the whole "Vista" issue) and maybe game compatibility - i have no games so can't test those.

I love Vista and only keep XP around for DivX coding.

Best regards

Thanh

[Carmine6]

Hello

Anti-Microsoft bashing par excellence. I too don't like them too much but their operating systems are EXCELLENT. I have been using XP for well over five years and haven't seen a "Blue Screen" in all that time. Got Vista because my computer died on me (hardware failure! REALLY not Microsoft's fault!) and one would not buy a Ferrari and keep the engine of his old Toyota, yes?

And now i am actually dual-booting Vista Ultimate and XP Professional, they both are on the same physical hard drive, each on a seperate partition of the exact same size.

Since they are both on the same machine they run on identical hardware. I have also installed bit-by-bit the same programs, applications, codecs, games etc on both OS installations, right down to the little proggie that monitors RAM usage, HDD and CPU temperatures and displays those in the task bar.

Both OS are set to a fixed-size paging file of 4 GB, which is twice the size of the installed 2 GB RAM.

I have also applied identical tricks to speed up the boot process as well as the shutdown process (they involve identical registry hacks, since "under the hood" the two OS are largely identical, more so than the vastly different user interface would allow to guess).

My observations:

Boot from "Power On" to "CPU idle status" - Vista: 2 min 28 sec. XP: 2 min 55 sec.

Shutdown from "idle system" to "Power OFF" - Vista: 18 seconds. XP: 35 seconds.

Shutdown from "In Action" to "Power OFF" (having to kill a number of running apps) - Vista: 25 seconds. XP: 48 seconds.

Load time Firefox with home page - Vista: >1 second. XP: 3 seconds

Load time Internet Explorer 7.0 with home page - Vista: 5 Seconds. XP: 5 seconds (identical).

Load time MS Word (Office XP SP 3) - Vista: 3-4 seconds. XP: 8-10 seconds (!)

Opening same .pdf file in Adobe Acrobat Professional 8.1 - Vista: 8 seconds. XP: 5 seconds.

Opening same photo in Windows default app (Vista Photo Gallery/XP Picture and Fax viewer) - Vista: instant. XP: 2-3 seconds.

Playing an mp3 from HDD, using Musicmatch Jukebox 10.0 (claimed "not Vista compatible"!!) - Vista: 12 seconds. XP: 15 seconds (!!)

Opening DivX-coded .avi video in WMP 11 - Vista: 20 seconds. XP: 15 seconds.

RAM usage idle system (after full boot) - Vista: 650 MB. XP: 410 MB.

CPU usage playing DivX-coded .avi in WMP 11 - Vista: 36% XP: 85% (!!!)

CPU usage playing mp3 in Musicmatch Jukebox 10.0 ("not Vista compatible"!) - Vista: 60%. XP: 52%.

Re-Coding 90 minutes DivX coded video into mpg, using Easy-X - Vista: 1 hr 20 min. XP: 45 min.

Re-Coding same video, using Canopus ProCoder - Vista: impossible - App will hang. XP: 35 min.

Re-Coding 25 min wmv clip into mpg, using Canopus ProCoder - Vista: 8 min. XP: 24 min (!!)

Full virus scan, using Avast! free (Home) edition (120+500 GB HDD's) - Vista: 35 min. XP: 55 min. (!!)

Defragmenting system partition, using native application: Vista - ETERNAL, not completed (!!). XP: 12 min.

Conclusion: On identical hardware, despite the added optical effects (i run both OS with all the "bells and whistles" turned on) Vista does pretty much everything faster. What it still lacks is better support for certain video codecs (specially DivX who seem to sleep over the whole "Vista" issue) and maybe game compatibility - i have no games so can't test those.

I love Vista and only keep XP around for DivX coding.

Best regards

Thanh

What are your machine's specs? I need to keep XP for legacy reasons, but hadn't really considered dual booting.

[Crushdepth]

It is Tradition to beat the hel_l out of Microsoft for everything they do but I've got some news for you: Vista is good. It is the most stable OS I have ever had. And yes, I use Linux too. So, while I enjoy bashing M$ as much as anyone, there's just no denying that Vista a good product.

Get over it.

[Plus]

I just bought a notebook for a friend. One of her conditions was to install pirated XP over Vista.

Another sale for Microsoft.

..........

It's not very difficult to sell more than ever - the market is so much bigger now.

[Thanh-BKK]

Hello

@ Carmine6:

My machine specs (by the way i built this rig myself):

Mainboard: ASUS K8N-4 SE, Sound + LAN (Gigabit) on-board

CPU: AMD Sempron 2800+ (1,600 overclocked, running at 2,000) 64-Bit

Cooling: ARCTIC "Freezer Pro 64"

RAM: Kingston DDR-1/400 1GB x2 = 2 GB total RAM

VGA: ASUS ATI x300, 128 MB, PCI-Express (using ATI "Catalyst" reference driver on both OS)

HDD 1: IDE Master ch.1, 120 GB "Maxtor", partitions 2x 60 GB for Vista and XP

HDD 2: IDE Slave ch.1, 500 GB "Western Digital", partitions 4x 125 GB for data, equal access thru both OS

ODD 1: Master IDE ch.2 "ASUS" DVD 16x

ODD 2: Slave IDE ch.2 "LiteOn" DVD Re/Writer

1x Floppy drive 3.5"

1x internal (in second floppy bay) 4-in-1 memory card reader device "Apacer"

PCI - USB 2.0 card

PCI internal dialup-modem 56k

External devices:

Keyboard: "Laser"

Mouse: Logitech optical, 6 years old and still best mouse i ever used (have identical at work, my own too)

Monitor: Acer 19" LCD

Router: D-Link DSL-G 604T wireless modem-router, TRUE high-speed 512/256

Printer: Lexmark "cheapo" USB

Scanner: HP all-in-one where the printer doesn't work, the scanner still works very perfect! USB

USB-IrDA dongle

USB-Bluetooth Dongle "Billionton", using Microsoft generic drivers in both OS, works excellent

USB-Data cable for Nokia cell phones (DKU-2)

USB-data cable for Samsung CDMA cell phone

USB-Data cable for Sony-Ericsson cell phone

UPS: Leonics 800 VA

Sound thru Sony home stereo system

21" Sony Television hooked up as second display, as the computer also is the home entertainment center, it plays all the DVD's and other videos and also plays all the music as it sounds better than the home stereo's integrated CD player.

Best regards.....

Thanh