# Downgrade from Vista to XP



## Nick (Apr 23, 2002)

FYI:

Fed up with Vista? Here are step-by-step instructions for
downgrading back to the warm familiarity of Windows XP.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,2287685,00.asp?kc=PCRSS03129TX1K0000625


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## Michael D'Angelo (Oct 21, 2006)

What problems have you had with Vista? I have upgraded all of my PC's to Vista and love it. I would never go back to XP.


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## Nick (Apr 23, 2002)

No problems with Vista, Mike. I'm still using XP. 

I saw the article in PCMag and thought it might be of interest to some folks.


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## CoriBright (May 30, 2002)

There's really no such thing as a downgrade... it's a format and clean install.


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## deltafowler (Aug 28, 2007)

The article does a fairly decent job of explaining the process.
One thing I would add is that you'll want to catalog your devices and download XP drivers for them before you begin the process.
Depending upon who made the original PC, drivers can anywhere from easy to impossible to find.
Dell lists XP drivers for all of their PC's on their support site.
They make it very easy to get them.

HP/Compaq do not. if the model shipped with Vista, they do not list the XP drivers.
The drivers are still there, but you have to find them by searching for the device and locating another model with the same hardware that originally shipped with XP.
It's a cumbersome and time-consuming process.

There are images "out there" for Dell and HP/Compaq OEM CD's.
With one of these CD's you can install XP versions to those brands without ever being prompted for a code, and they will pass all WGA tests.


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## Steve Mehs (Mar 21, 2002)

What's next people going back to DVDs and SDTVs? This is 2008 people, XP is old and outdated, Fred Flinstone used XP back in the stoneage.


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## CoriBright (May 30, 2002)

There are still folks running 98se out there.... but certainly not in this household as the O/S of choice. I have a few ancient games that won't run on Vista, and even one application, but if I really wanted to use them, I'd put Virtual PC on and run that rather than lose my Vista.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

Steve Mehs said:


> What's next people going back to DVDs and SDTVs? This is 2008 people, XP is old and outdated, Fred Flinstone used XP back in the stoneage.


Some folks have reasonably new hardware that doesn't have readily available Vista drivers.

Also, on a related note... my sister recently installed Vista on a brand new system... and now 3 days later her Internet Explorer does not work at all. We're still trying to figure out how to get that to work, meanwhile she uses Firefox just fine.


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## Steve Mehs (Mar 21, 2002)

What hardware? All the internal components (DVD Burner, Video Card, Audio Card) on my 4 1/2 year old computer have no problem with Vista. My 2 year old printer has no problem with Vista either. In the past year and a half Vista has been out there have been a lot of new drivers and software put out that support Vista. And besides it's hardly Microsofts fault if some fly by night hardware manufacture hasn't written drivers for Vista.

Why would your sister install Vista on a brand new computer, why not just order it with Vista? I have installed Windows 2000 and yes even XP where there was a problem afterward, a reinstall usually solved that.


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## brownram (Jan 18, 2007)

Steve Mehs said:


> What's next people going back to DVDs and SDTVs? This is 2008 people, XP is old and outdated, Fred Flinstone used XP back in the stoneage.


if vista is so great why is microsoft extending support for xp and will be releasing a replacment operating system i.e windows 7 in 2009


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## Steve Mehs (Mar 21, 2002)

Why is Microsoft extending support for XP, who knows, dumb move. Windows 7 in 2009, yeah whatever. I have PC World issues from 2003 talking about how Longhorn (Vista) was going to be released the following year. We all know how that didn't happen. I don't see Windows 7 being final until late 2010, or early 2011. If Windows 95 was so great why did they release Windows 98, if Windows 2000 was so great why did they release Windows XP, if XP was so great why did they release Vista.


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## davring (Jan 13, 2007)

There are countless businesses that run with XP and the inventory management programming does not run on Vista yet. It will be some time before all of the support to these business owners are up on Vista as well. One of our major vendors has no immediate plans to update yet so we are stuck too. As for the private sector, the same people who don't like Vista want to keep their Tivo's too


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

Steve Mehs said:


> What hardware?


Any number of things older than about 3-4 years ago, including printers & scanners as an example. I happen to own a printer, for instance, that does not seem to have a Vista driver available... though I'm not running Vista yet myself I began looking into it in case I follow through and build myself a new computer.



Steve Mehs said:


> In the past year and a half Vista has been out there have been a lot of new drivers and software put out that support Vista. And besides it's hardly Microsofts fault if some fly by night hardware manufacture hasn't written drivers for Vista.


It doesn't matter who is at fault if the driver doesn't exist. If someone has perfectly good hardware that they can't get to run in a new operating system, there's no reason to upgrade to that operating system.



Steve Mehs said:


> Why would your sister install Vista on a brand new computer, why not just order it with Vista? I have installed Windows 2000 and yes even XP where there was a problem afterward, a reinstall usually solved that.


Firstly, she built her own computer so there was no preloaded operating system. Secondly, even when I have bought pre-built systems with preloaded software I have sometimes chosen to install clean in order to rid myself of some of the fluff that sometimes comes pre-installed that I don't need. Thirdly, she didn't really want to run Vista in the first place... had planned to install XP on it, but had too many problems getting the SATA drivers to work properly and just decided to go Vista and live with any incompatibilities that might turn up.

And in her particular case... the more we dig into it, the more it appears we have encountered a problem seen and talked about on Microsoft's forums whereby some combination of Microsoft auto-updates can render IE impotent. Now it is a matter of figuring out which Microsoft update broke IE so she can revert to that state. Seems a lot of people have had problems with IE suddenly not working after applying automatic updates to Vista.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

davring said:


> There are countless businesses that run with XP and the inventory management programming does not run on Vista yet. It will be some time before all of the support to these business owners are up on Vista as well. One of our major vendors has no immediate plans to update yet so we are stuck too. As for the private sector, the same people who don't like Vista want to keep their Tivo's too


Same thing happened when XP first came out too... I know my printer (HP printer) never get a proper XP driver. For some reason HP just half-wrote a printer driver and decided that was good enough, even though many of the printer's features were no longer available in XP that were there in 2000... In cases like that, I completely understand why folks would stay with what is working.

Truth be known, I was running Windows 2000 until about a month ago myself because it did everything I wanted and ran smoothly. I finally made the "jump" to XP only after needing to install some new software that only supported XP and Vista. Consider that XP came out back in 2002 or so (give or take) and realize that only in the last year have we seen software come out that no longer supports Windows 2000, and it's a clear indicator of how these sorts of things lag the operating system releases.

With many popular applications just now dropping support for older Windows 2000 systems... figure on XP support for a while... so no need to jump to Vista unless and until it does something you really need and can't get elsewhere.

In my case, I had to add more RAM to make XP run almost as smoothly as my 2000 ran on the same system. I'm pretty sure I can't go to Vista on my hardware unless I pretty much upgrade everything... but that's a known thing going into it and I'd plan on using both computers while slowly migrating to the new Vista system as time goes by.


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## Steve Mehs (Mar 21, 2002)

HDMe said:


> Any number of things older than about 3-4 years ago, including printers & scanners as an example. I happen to own a printer, for instance, that does not seem to have a Vista driver available... though I'm not running Vista yet myself I began looking into it in case I follow through and build myself a new computer.
> 
> It doesn't matter who is at fault if the driver doesn't exist. If someone has perfectly good hardware that they can't get to run in a new operating system, there's no reason to upgrade to that operating system.
> 
> ...


The answer is simple, then buy new hardware! My two year old HP Wireless G Printer has no problem with Vista, never used the HP provided drivers, just the drivers preloaded in Vista. If the printer didn't work, I'd just go out and buy another one that supports it. When my new computer arrives sometime next week, I have no idea if my printer will work with Vista 64bit, if it doesn't, I'll just buy a new one. Printers, Scanners and such are commodity items and I would NEVER hinder my computing experience because of one.


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## HIPAR (May 15, 2005)

I'd bet that if I put a VISTA 'skin' on Windows 2000 most of you wouldn't even realize what OS is really running.

--- CHAS


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## deltafowler (Aug 28, 2007)

HIPAR said:


> I'd bet that if I put a VISTA 'skin' on Windows 2000 most of you wouldn't even realize what OS is really running.
> 
> --- CHAS


A quick look at the performance monitor would be all I'd need.
If it's suckin' down 600 MB RAM sitting still - It's Vista :lol:


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## Tom Robertson (Nov 15, 2005)

Steve Mehs said:


> The answer is simple, then buy new hardware! My two year old HP Wireless G Printer has no problem with Vista, never used the HP provided drivers, just the drivers preloaded in Vista. If the printer didn't work, I'd just go out and buy another one that supports it. When my new computer arrives sometime next week, I have no idea if my printer will work with Vista 64bit, if it doesn't, I'll just buy a new one. Printers, Scanners and such are commodity items and I would NEVER hinder my computing experience because of one.


Really nice, compassionate responses--for the hardware makers and Microsoft. 

I'd hate to add to the electronic waste just because my 6 year old printer isn't supported by this one release of software. I'd hate to force Vista on my two year old computers that weren't "designed for Vista". I'm happy with XP on my two computers that run XP and happy with win2k on the 4 computers that still run that. Those computers all do what I want, serve the people who use them, why upgrade?

Cheers,
Tom


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

Steve Mehs said:


> The answer is simple, then buy new hardware! My two year old HP Wireless G Printer has no problem with Vista, never used the HP provided drivers, just the drivers preloaded in Vista. If the printer didn't work, I'd just go out and buy another one that supports it. When my new computer arrives sometime next week, I have no idea if my printer will work with Vista 64bit, if it doesn't, I'll just buy a new one. Printers, Scanners and such are commodity items and I would NEVER hinder my computing experience because of one.


Sorry, but the answer is not that simple for most people. Why throw away perfectly good/working components just because the newest operating system doesn't run them? What happens when your next DVR (from Dish or DirecTV) doesn't attach to your existing external drives? "Just buy new ones" is the mantra then too?

Or how about if your radio doesn't work... buy a new car to replace the radio?

But seriously... I wouldn't say yet that Vista offers such a dramatic "computing experience" advantage over XP or even Windows 2000 that it would be worth chucking and re-buying every piece of hardware to replace incompatible things. If you want to, that's fine... but there are lots of folks using perfectly good stuff several years old that works just fine.

I know companies move forward eventually, and I understand why they drop support... I especially understand Microsoft moving forward and wanting to support mostly their "latest and greatest"... I just don't feel the same motivation. I don't buy a new car every year because it is new and better than mine... instead I use my old car until repair costs are more than the value of the car... then I buy new. My driving experience is proportional to the money I had to spend to get it... so spending less makes me feel better than spending more just to stay where I already was. Same for computing. I'm not running CAD or massive number crunching or starting the next PIXAR out of my office room... so the need to move to the latest and greatest isn't as great as wanting the best price and the most re-usability for my "old" components as possible.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

Tom Robertson said:


> Really nice, compassionate responses--for the hardware makers and Microsoft.
> 
> I'd hate to add to the electronic waste just because my 6 year old printer isn't supported by this one release of software. I'd hate to force Vista on my two year old computers that weren't "designed for Vista". I'm happy with XP on my two computers that run XP and happy with win2k on the 4 computers that still run that. Those computers all do what I want, serve the people who use them, why upgrade?


Exactly!

My sister had to replace a broken computer, so she had little choice but to go the direction she went. I might upgrade by choice, in which case I can be more picky about what I do since I'll still have a happy working computer.

I know the hardware folks would love for Microsoft to release a new system every couple of years that required new hardware purchases!


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## HIPAR (May 15, 2005)

When I evaluated a VISTA Release Candidate (RC1), I came upon a VISTA 'experience' bench mark applet. I ran it to find I was achieving about 2 on a scale of 10. At that point I realized I wasn't 'experiencing' VISTA and gave up on any plans to upgrade using my current perfectly good hardware.

Did that bench marker make it to the final release? I'd be curious what you all are seeing.

--- CHAS


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## phat78boy (Sep 12, 2007)

I completely understand people wanting to stay on XP because of hardware problems. What I don't understand is those same people saying Vista "sucks" because it won't run their outdated or underpowered machines. The same goes for people trying to run software from the 90's. Software that hasn't been updated in a couple years means it time to find a replacement.

Vista is by far a better product then XP and if you have the hardware to run it, I would suggest it. Vista gives users much more interaction, thus puts a greater use on your hardware. If you disabled Aero, UAC, Sidebar, etc....it would run with the same hardware constraints as XP. The arguement its a resource hog is no better with Vista then it is with XP if it was running similiar software. 

Extending support for XP is a good call for MS IMHO. As we've already covered here, many companies and users have older hardware and software that just doesn't work well with Vista. On the same token, the sale of XP should be stopped and no new machines should be sold with it.


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## HIPAR (May 15, 2005)

Maybe it's old fashioned thinking, but shouldn't the applications determine the hardware requirements? I once bought a powerhouse computer to run a mathematically intense finite analysis program. We justified that hardware with a quantifiable increase in productivity; problems that took a day to run being solved in a few hours.

Now it seems Microsoft is driving the hardware requirements with ever increasing requirements for it's OP systems. If you're a serious gamer VISTA is no problem because you'll have the hardware available. For the rest of us, where are the mainstream 'killer apps' that require VISTA class computing horsepower? Do I need that hardware to get get suitable performance for Web surfing, eMail and simple word processing?

If I were remotely managing 1000 computers on a corporate network or doing ActiveX intensive enterprise programming maybe I'd get excited about new Microsoft OS's that allow me to do these things easier. Otherwise, for the rest of us, just 'pretty up' Windows 2000, hype it as the greatest, sell it for an affordable price and all will be happy.

 

--- CHAS


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## Steve Mehs (Mar 21, 2002)

> I'd hate to add to the electronic waste just because my 6 year old printer isn't supported by this one release of software.


I'd hate to use any 6 year old piece of electronics, period. And at the same time I'd hate to be held back because of an ancient printer that is nothing but a burden.


> hate to force Vista on my two year old computers that weren't "designed for Vista".


If my Compaq that was ordered on 12/4/03 can run Vista perfectly, computers that came out 6 months before Vista was released should be able to do fine.


> Those computers all do what I want, serve the people who use them, why upgrade?


VCRs, dial up internet and floppy drives all work fine for what they do too.



> What happens when your next DVR (from Dish or DirecTV) doesn't attach to your existing external drives? "Just buy new ones" is the mantra then too?


Nice analogy, but I don't have the pizza pans, when the next Cisco DVR comes out, I'll just take my 8300HDC to the cable office, exchange it for free and reattached the SATA external hard drive.



> Or how about if your radio doesn't work... buy a new car to replace the radio?


Everytime a new XM and Sirius plug and play receiver come out I do upgrade. I CANT STAND old satellite radio technology. And likewise with the iPod. I bought the Fifth generation iPod as soon as it came out in 2005, it's now 2008, it's old and outdated, so I bought the sixth generation last month.

All I can say is I am shocked, some of you guys foam at the mouth over the latest doodad from you satellite provider, but not over something greater. Upgrading your DBS equipment to get DirecTV 924 HD channels required an upgrade as well. New dish, new receivers, multiswitches, those BBC things, all that hardware that was brand new just a few years ago is now obsolete and has to be upgraded.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

Steve Mehs said:


> I'd hate to use any 6 year old piece of electronics, period.


All I can really say here is WOW!

They've got you suckered in big time... all they have to do is release something new and say "buy this new thing and throw away your old thing" and it sounds like you are ready to jump.

I am a whipper-snapper by many comparisons, but I'm still old-school when it comes to getting all the use out of something before throwing it away. I throw stuff away when it truly becomes useless... but while it works keep on trucking.

This sounds like a weird kind of prejudiced against any old product... which, when you think about it, is very strange. Stuff you are buying today and professing to love and think it is the greatest thing, has a limited shelf life before you will be ready to throw it in the trash and declare it garbage too.

I'm all for the latest technology when it benefits... but upgrading for upgrading sake? I'm not into that. The last time I bought a computer was back in 2003 when I got a Pentium 4 @ 2GHz. That system is still going strong today and only now am I seeing that my daily use might require the next great system. I just can't justify upgrading my computer every 2-3 years needlessly.

IF I was running a business where performance matters, I'd sing a different tune perhaps... then again, lots of companies run old stuff because they have it tweaked and it is reliable. Wholesale replacement of stuff can cause all sorts of problems. Imagine if your phone company, cable company, power company, etc. felt as you did and whoesale replaced ALL of their "old" computers every few years just because it was old.



Steve Mehs said:


> VCRs, dial up internet and floppy drives all work fine for what they do too.


Since you mention internet... My current computer has 100Mbit ethernet on it. The system I am looking at buying has 1Gbit ethernet. I have 6Mbit DSL. It will be a LONG time before I max out 100Mbit ethernet with my DSL connection, much less the 1Gbit... so this qualifies as a needless upgrade in some cases.

IF I'm running the latest games or doing CAD or mathematical computations, then I need the latest hardware... IF I'm browsing the internet and doing my taxes and bookkeeping then I could still be using a Windows 98 computer from the 1990s and really not see any performance degradation.

It just isn't true to have a blanket "throw out all old stuff and buy new stuff" kind of mantra for all things.


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## phat78boy (Sep 12, 2007)

HIPAR said:


> Maybe it's old fashioned thinking, but shouldn't the applications determine the hardware requirements? I once bought a powerhouse computer to run a mathematically intense finite analysis program. We justified that hardware with a quantifiable increase in productivity; problems that took a day to run being solved in a few hours.
> 
> Now it seems Microsoft is driving the hardware requirements with ever increasing requirements for it's OP systems. If you're a serious gamer VISTA is no problem because you'll have the hardware available. For the rest of us, where are the mainstream 'killer apps' that require VISTA class computing horsepower? Do I need that hardware to get get suitable performance for Web surfing, eMail and simple word processing?
> 
> ...


You hit the nail on the head. MS did give everyone want they wanted, but people get upset because what they want doesn't work on their old hardware. As I've mentioned before, if you strip out all the goodies in Vista....you basically have a newer version of XP. Vista will run just as good, if not better then, XP on older hardware. In fact, MS gave those people a specific version which is Vista basic.


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## BobaBird (Mar 31, 2002)

Seems there's a viable market for downgrading. A local custom builder recently replaced their second sign.


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## crashHD (Mar 1, 2008)

The only thing I have seen vista do well is make XP look lean and mean.


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## Tom Robertson (Nov 15, 2005)

Steve Mehs said:


> I'd hate to use any 6 year old piece of electronics, period. And at the same time I'd hate to be held back because of an ancient printer that is nothing but a burden.


I've got too many TVs to replace them every 6 years. 


Steve Mehs said:


> If my Compaq that was ordered on 12/4/03 can run Vista perfectly, computers that came out 6 months before Vista was released should be able to do fine.


Careful, that PC is almost 6... 
If overspends on the most powerful computer at the time, yes it can run the next OS from Microsoft--maybe. I tend not to overspend. I'd be cheaper to buy a MAC for a 1/3rd the price.


Steve Mehs said:


> All I can say is I am shocked, some of you guys foam at the mouth over the latest doodad from you satellite provider, but not over something greater. Upgrading your DBS equipment to get DirecTV 924 HD channels required an upgrade as well. New dish, new receivers, multiswitches, those BBC things, all that hardware that was brand new just a few years ago is now obsolete and has to be upgraded.


When PC technology was actually changing with seriously usable new features, I suspect that many of us were drooling over and acquiring them rapidly. Now that the upgrades are just more of the same we've already got today, why bother?

Whereas DVR technology is right were PCs were in the '80s. Changing rapidly, evolving, and exciting.

That said, I don't know what you're thinking. My dish, my DVRs, my BBCs are not the least bit obsolete. Sure, there are new dishes coming but I don't need them and they won't get me more features.

So... I guess it's nice to be able to cycle equipment every 2 or 3 years, yet it's also nice to have so much that it's hard to cycle that often. 

Cheers,
Tom


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## phat78boy (Sep 12, 2007)

crashHD said:


> The only thing I have seen vista do well is make XP look lean and mean.


No offense, but you must not have much experience with it. I've yet to see anyone actually show me something that Vista does poorly. In fact, most users that get it with a new PC, and don't try to install legacy software, love it.

The only test I've seen done that shows XP runs better is the file copy test. My issues with that test are numerous, but I'll list my top 2. First, drivers for a OS that is several years old are obviously better written and fine tuned. Second, this goes back to the first in a way, using different hardware resulted in different times. Intel SATA boards, by far the most common, were also the slowest on Vista and the fastest on XP. Different boards gave different times.


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## Mark Holtz (Mar 23, 2002)

Steve Mehs said:


> What's next people going back to DVDs and SDTVs? This is 2008 people, XP is old and outdated, Fred Flinstone used XP back in the stoneage.


Try telling that to General Motors. They have openly stated that they are skipping Vista and staying with XP. Also, many of the other companies are forgoing Vista in favor of XP. Why? The hardware requirements are much too stiff for what the average worker needs. Many of the companies I deal with in tech support are using XP, not Vista.

A year ago, I received a new secondary box at work that had Vista on it, but was downgraded to XP. It was (and still is) slated to be upgraded to Vista. So, right now, even though my secondary box is better than my main box, I still use it mainly for the.... time clock.


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## phat78boy (Sep 12, 2007)

Mark Holtz said:


> Try telling that to General Motors. They have [urhttp://www.dailytech.com/Companies+Adopt+Just+Say+No+Policy+On+Vista+Wait+For+Windows+7/article11778.htm]openly stated that they are skipping Vista and staying with XP[/url]. Also, many of the other companies are forgoing Vista in favor of XP. Why? The hardware requirements are much too stiff for what the average worker needs. Many of the companies I deal with in tech support are using XP, not Vista.
> 
> A year ago, I received a new secondary box at work that had Vista on it, but was downgraded to XP. It was (and still is) slated to be upgraded to Vista. So, right now, even though my secondary box is better than my main box, I still use it mainly for the.... time clock.


I don't think you can gauge what fortune 500 companies do as to how good a product is. I've done work for quite a few fortune 500 companies and they are almost always slow to upgrade. Heck just last year I worked on several upgrade projects which rolled out XP because they were still on Windows 2000.


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## Mark Holtz (Mar 23, 2002)

Steve Mehs said:


> I'd hate to use any 6 year old piece of electronics, period. And at the same time I'd hate to be held back because of an ancient printer that is nothing but a burden.


Then, I hate to see your opinion about my 15 year old printer. It may be slow at 8 PPM B&W, does not do color. does 600x600 dpi, and just needs $40 rollers every 2-3 years. The toner cartridge is $90 per pop. I had originally bought it because I thought about doing Desktop Publishing and design.

I did add a 10Mbps network card, and a PostScript SIMM, so I have a bit of a fallback.

Funny thing... even Vista still has drivers for this printer.

It is a


Spoiler



HP Laserjet 4, purchased in August, 1993


. Ironically, because many other brands emulated this printer's language, drivers are still being written.


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## Mark Holtz (Mar 23, 2002)

Coders Tell Why They're Avoiding Vista


> According to data released this spring by migration software vendor AppDNA Ltd., about a fifth of enterprise applications running on XP break when moved straight to Vista, mostly due to pre-XP-era code still lingering in the app. That increases to nearly half for apps migrated from 32-bit XP straight to 64-bit Vista.
> 
> Another reason is that Microsoft, in an attempt to catch up to the Mac, emphasized consumer-y aesthetic features with Vista, with WPF, Aero and the DirectX 10 3-D graphics rendering engine all aimed at making Vista or its apps more pleasing to the eye.


Yeah, glitz is all nice, but, in the end, I still need to get my work done.


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## phat78boy (Sep 12, 2007)

Mark Holtz said:


> Then, I hate to see your opinion about my 15 year old printer. It may be slow at 8 PPM B&W, does not do color. does 600x600 dpi, and just needs $40 rollers every 2-3 years. The toner cartridge is $90 per pop. I had originally bought it because I thought about doing Desktop Publishing and design.
> 
> I did add a 10Mbps network card, and a PostScript SIMM, so I have a bit of a fallback.
> 
> ...


Just about every OS has a print driver for that particular printer. It is and has been the base driver for every Laserjet model in that class since its release. If you don't care about duplexing and fancy add-ons, that driver will print to just about every Laserjet model from HP regardless if its in that same class of printer or not.


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## phat78boy (Sep 12, 2007)

Mark Holtz said:


> Coders Tell Why They're Avoiding VistaYeah, glitz is all nice, but, in the end, I still need to get my work done.


I work great with my dual monitors both running Dreamscene backgrounds and several tickers on my sidebar. In fact I'd say my machine runs as good or better then any XP machine I've ever worked on.


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## crashHD (Mar 1, 2008)

phat78boy said:


> No offense, but you must not have much experience with it. I've yet to see anyone actually show me something that Vista does poorly. .


I don't have much experience with it. The only reason there's a PC in my network that has it, is because that's what my wife's laptop came with.

It's a dell, with a dual core intel, ~1.73GHz, 1 GB ram, and I don't know the hard drive specs off the top of my head. Things it does poorly:

1) Cold boots in 3-4 minutes (very poor. XP on a 650MHz PIII, with 128MB RAM & 40GB 5400rpm hd beats this by 1-2 minutes).
2) Boots from "hibernation" in 60 seconds. (no standard for comparison, as all my other machines either run 24/7, or are cold-booted when needed...still consider this incredibly poor).
3) Cannot use USB media. The OS crashes when a usb thumbdrive, or my 250 GB WD Passport drive are connected. I've tried multiple thumbdrives, every usb port, and putting a powered usb hub between the device and the pc.

A new OS version should do something the old one doesn't, or it should do something better. If it wasn't for fast user switching, and remote desktop functionality, I would still be using Windows 2000, and not XP.



Mark Holtz said:


> HP Laserjet 4, purchased in August, 1993. Ironically, because many other brands emulated this printer's language, drivers are still being written.


Those laserjet 4's are battletanks. They'll run forever.


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## deltafowler (Aug 28, 2007)

crashHD nailed it.
It's one thing to upgrade all of your hardware, install Vista, and see a performance increase. But that's simply not what happens.

I can boot XP on half the cpu and RAM of a machine running Vista and still be surfing the net while Vista's still grinding away at starting up.
And once Vista is started up, what do you have that's any better than XP?
Nothing.
Some relocated folders and applications, an inane security system that asks the same users who run limewire and open e-mails from unknown sources if they would like to cancel or allow.

I have UPGRADED a number of new PC's from Vista to XP for my customers, and they have all been ecstatic with the results.


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## phat78boy (Sep 12, 2007)

crashHD said:


> I don't have much experience with it. The only reason there's a PC in my network that has it, is because that's what my wife's laptop came with.
> 
> It's a dell, with a dual core intel, ~1.73GHz, 1 GB ram, and I don't know the hard drive specs off the top of my head. Things it does poorly:
> 
> ...


1) Cold booting takes longer as it is loading more drivers. Turn more stuff off, boot time is faster.
2)Hibernation takes longer, again for the same reason as 1. How can you want more services/items running but expect them to load faster? That has nothing to do with software, that is hardware.
3)I use several types of USB drives and hubs and have had zero problems. I also have used these devices on several different computers and hardware platforms. I would tend to think that the problem you refer to has something to do with your specific setup. Such as a type of software you are using on your USB drives or a bad driver for you USB controller

Vista does many things XP can't do, for instance the family controls and monitoring are greatly enhanced. The sidebar displays realtime information using a much smaller memory footprint then if you had seperate applications for each data stream. Smart search built into the start menu. Integrated windows update for more reliable patching. The list goes on and on and is rather extensive if you actually found out what it was, rather then listening to the hype


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## phat78boy (Sep 12, 2007)

deltafowler said:


> crashHD nailed it.
> It's one thing to upgrade all of your hardware, install Vista, and see a performance increase. But that's simply not what happens.
> 
> I can boot XP on half the cpu and RAM of a machine running Vista and still be surfing the net while Vista's still grinding away at starting up.
> ...


Once again, install Vista basic and turn off UAC. You basicaly have a new version of XP. There are several things built in to Vista that aren't on XP. Most of the goodies are in Home premium or Ultimate, but if you just want an XP machine, Vista basic is the way to go.


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## crashHD (Mar 1, 2008)

phat78boy said:


> 1) Cold booting takes longer as it is loading more drivers. Turn more stuff off, boot time is faster.


Everyting that can be turned off, is. 


phat78boy said:


> 2)Hibernation takes longer, again for the same reason as 1. How can you want more services/items running but expect them to load faster? That has nothing to do with software, that is hardware.


 Nobody said anything about more service/items to run. The complaint here is running the same amount of things, but slower. This is not a hardware issue. The real proof will come when Vista is removed and XP is installed on the same hardware.



phat78boy said:


> 3)I use several types of USB drives and hubs and have had zero problems.


That's great. I'm happy for you. The fact it works for you isn't making it any easier for me to back up the files on that computer. As it stands right now, I have to boot to a linux live CD to copy files from the hard drive to a usb connected removable drive.



phat78boy said:


> The list goes on and on and is rather extensive if you actually found out what it was, rather then listening to the hype


I've read the list. I've ignored the hype. I've tried it for myself, and formed my own opinion. The list of new features contains nothing useful to me. Now I have two choices. I can listen to the "hype" and keep the OS that does not work correctly for me, or I can wipe it and install one that does.



phat78boy said:


> but if you just want an XP machine, Vista basic is the way to go.


 That makes little sense..."If one just wants one thing, something else is the way to go?"


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## deltafowler (Aug 28, 2007)

Crash,
I've got an easy fix for your wife's laptop.
PM me if interested.


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## phat78boy (Sep 12, 2007)

> Everyting that can be turned off, is.
> Nobody said anything about more service/items to run. The complaint here is running the same amount of things, but slower. This is not a hardware issue. The real proof will come when Vista is removed and XP is installed on the same hardware.


So UAC, Sidebar, Aero and the enhanced indexing are turned off? The things I'm talking about are built into Vista and a little hard to turn off if you don't know what your looking for. On XP these items are not there. So two machines built from scratch with both OS's are not exactly fair. When you boot XP start your firewall, then start a realtime background, then start several real time streams and you have what Vista's doing. After you start all that on XP, your boot time will probably be the same as Vista's.



> That's great. I'm happy for you. The fact it works for you isn't making it any easier for me to back up the files on that computer. As it stands right now, I have to boot to a linux live CD to copy files from the hard drive to a usb connected removable drive.


I'm pointing out the fact that you are the only person I have heard that could not get any USB items to work. That seems more like an exception, not the norm. So why fault MS for something that seems to be a specific instance. For example U3 USB drives are known not to work on Vista, so why blame Vista if it was never meant to work with it?



> I've read the list. I've ignored the hype. I've tried it for myself, and formed my own opinion. The list of new features contains nothing useful to me. Now I have two choices. I can listen to the "hype" and keep the OS that does not work correctly for me, or I can wipe it and install one that does.


I don't see any problem with keeping a perfectly good OS. The thing I don't agree with is people saying that XP is a better OS then Vista. It just simply isn't true. XP is more mature and thus has a broader scope of support. In 3 years this will likely change....pretty much the same course of Windows 98 to Windows XP



> That makes little sense..."If one just wants one thing, something else is the way to go?"


Vista basic is the same exact thing as XP home is right now. Going to Vista home premium is the comparison a lot of people make and that is whats not fair. Vista home premium is the equivlant of XP Media Center edition.


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## crashHD (Mar 1, 2008)

UAC, sidebar, and aero are off. Enhanced indexing is something I missed. I've already invested between 2 and 3 times as much time troubleshooting this particular unit than it would have taken to backup/wipe/install new OS and all applications, had I started out to do that from the beginning. It's time to fold this hand.

Maybe there is something wrong with this particular installation. That is a possibility I cannot disprove. I'm sure the damn bundled dell applications that come preinstalled are partially to blame for the slow os. I disabled/uninstalled as much of it as I could find, but it did little to help,, and I probably didn't get all of it.



phat78boy said:


> The thing I don't agree with is people saying that XP is a better OS then Vista.


I think the problem here is that "better" is a subjective term... too generic...too undefined. "Better" needs to be more objective, more specifically defined. Better...at what? For the things I do with a PC, XP is better. It does it faster, with fewer errors. If any of it's new features were useful to me, perhaps I would be more forgiving of Vista's flaws. One thing I do have to admit, gun to my head, forced to choose one, I'd take Vista over a mac.



phat78boy said:


> Vista basic is the same exact thing as XP home is right now. Going to Vista home premium is the comparison a lot of people make and that is whats not fair. Vista home premium is the equivlant of XP Media Center edition.


FWIW, all my experiences have been with Vista basic in contrast to XP Pro.


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## phat78boy (Sep 12, 2007)

I will agree that better is relative to ones particular installation. On an older or underpowered machine, better might be an XP installation. I know not everyone will have the best installation experience with Vista, I just don't see why the then say Vista is junk. 

People should be more subjective and realize that just because Vista doesn't perform well on their older hardware, it does perfomr quite well on new hardware with drivers for Vista.


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## Lincoln6Echo (Jul 11, 2007)

davring said:


> There are countless businesses that run with XP and the inventory management programming does not run on Vista yet. It will be some time before all of the support to these business owners are up on Vista as well. One of our major vendors has no immediate plans to update yet so we are stuck too. As for the private sector, the same people who don't like Vista want to keep their Tivo's too


What's a TiVO? When we have the ViP series? ('Cause it's better than TiVO. :grin: )


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## Lincoln6Echo (Jul 11, 2007)

BobaBird said:


> Seems there's a viable market for downgrading. A local custom builder recently replaced their second sign.


You know this whole XP vs Vista debate reminds me when a local computer shop did everything they could to convince me to remain with Win98-se when XP was new. I wanted XP, but they wouldn't give it to me on a machine they built for me, because they claimed that it was real sensitive when it came to having the correct drivers.

Sound familiar?

(Turns out that I had a bad motherboard. 'Cause it seemed that no matter what they did to it, the damn thing wouldn't work properly. One thing being the battery back-up that kept the CMOS settings during power-down.)

Anyway, I guess that within another year or so, when Vista has even more time to mature, the XP vs Vista debate will be somewhat moot.


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## CJTE (Sep 18, 2007)

Michael D'Angelo;1603565 said:


> What problems have you had with Vista? I have upgraded all of my PC's to Vista and love it. I would never go back to XP.


I want about a dime of what you're smoking!


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## Cholly (Mar 22, 2004)

I haven't loaded my new HP Media Center computer with applications as yet, so can't judge OS speed. My experience for the first few days of operation of Vista Home Premium has been pretty much positive, although I'm not particularly fond of some of the view defaults.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

HDMe said:


> OK, I'll bite...
> 
> What 64-bit applications are you running?
> 
> ...





steve mehs said:


> Why do I have to use any now? It's for the future. Currently only 64 bit apps I use are Internet Explorer and iTunes, but in time that will grow. See unlike a lot of people here, I think about the future and what it holds, and I'll be ready to embrace that. I won't be stuck with some outdated junk from the turn of the century and wallowing in my sorrows about how my printer or scanner from 1922 doesn't work with the latest OS.


I borrowed this from the shutdown thread, since the other thread was shut down because of a link to a petition I didn't want this particular point to be lost...

The point I was making, Steve, was... if you aren't using 64-bit apps now and you aren't using quad core apps now... then much of your upgrade is completely unneccesary and gains you nothing over that "old" computer you complain about running XP just fine. In fact, at the pace of adoption of 64-bit apps and quad core (even dual core for that matter) apps... it is entirely possible that it will not be until Microsoft's "next" operating system after Vista OR at least well after SP2 comes in a few years before there will be an actual need for Vista.

So... given all the upgrades required to run Vista now... it is also entirely likely that many of your brand new components will be again outdated and need upgrade to run the next Microsoft operating system in a few years... which could render this whole Vista argument moot!

So... it comes full circle, back to why upgrade everything just to run Vista and basically the same apps I can run now in XP and at no significant performance upgrade for many things... when I'll have to do it all again in a few years for the next system. IF there were actually apps that I use NOW for Vista and for 64-bit Vista and for dual or quad core... then it's worth the upgrade. But you basically proved my point that there is no real immediate gain for the average consumer who would upgrade to Vista over XP right now.


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## morphy (Jun 5, 2007)

In a lot of situations, going from Vista -> XP is an upgrade. 

That said, the future of home computing involves DRM'd media, so develop a plan to make Vista happy for you.

Or just enjoy watching SD for a while longer.


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## apexmi (Jul 8, 2006)

Tom Robertson said:


> Really nice, compassionate responses--for the hardware makers and Microsoft.
> 
> I'd hate to add to the electronic waste just because my 6 year old printer isn't supported by this one release of software. I'd hate to force Vista on my two year old computers that weren't "designed for Vista". I'm happy with XP on my two computers that run XP and happy with win2k on the 4 computers that still run that. Those computers all do what I want, serve the people who use them, why upgrade?
> 
> ...


I personally am of the opinion if you are buying a new system go vista, but there is no reason whatsoever to upgrade an exisiting machine to Vista I have been using it for about a full year now and would not downgrade.


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## crashHD (Mar 1, 2008)

I am hopeful that vista will turn out the same way 2000 and XP did...2000 was much better after service pack 2, and XP was substantially improved in both service packs 1 and 2 (I have not tried SP3 yet).


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## phat78boy (Sep 12, 2007)

HDMe said:


> I borrowed this from the shutdown thread, since the other thread was shut down because of a link to a petition I didn't want this particular point to be lost...
> 
> The point I was making, Steve, was... if you aren't using 64-bit apps now and you aren't using quad core apps now... then much of your upgrade is completely unneccesary and gains you nothing over that "old" computer you complain about running XP just fine. In fact, at the pace of adoption of 64-bit apps and quad core (even dual core for that matter) apps... it is entirely possible that it will not be until Microsoft's "next" operating system after Vista OR at least well after SP2 comes in a few years before there will be an actual need for Vista.
> 
> ...


There are many software packages that can utilize dual and quad core CPU's and also do so in 64-bit. Many people are married to their outdated software because its familiar. If your software isn't updated frequently, I would say look for something to replace it.

Off the top of my head, anyone who edits home pictures or video can greatly benefit from a quad core 64-bit system with more then 4GB of RAM. Heck, any application used on a daily basis that could use more then 4GB of RAM would benefit. Anyone that does DVD encoding or burning could benefit. Anyone who runs reports on large databases or has tasks that query/search large databases could benefit. I could go on, but I think the point is made.


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## TheGreatLogan (May 25, 2008)

brownram said:


> if vista is so great why is microsoft extending support for xp and will be releasing a replacment operating system i.e windows 7 in 2009


legally microsoft has to do this support, and it will keep for long time after that also, it will do the same for vista when it leaves, according to a pc magazine i read, the extended support for xp ends in 2014.


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## Richard King (Mar 25, 2002)

> If your software isn't updated frequently, I would say look for something to replace it.


Why? If it still is working properly for you why replace it? I still use Lotus 1-2-3 once in a while and never have a problem with it. Why should I replace it? The version that I use hasn't been updated since 1996.


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

Steve Mehs said:


> What's next people going back to DVDs and SDTVs?


People aren't "going back". A majority don't see Vista as an improvement so they stick with what works.

Last month, 73% of the machines on the Internet were running Windows XP.

Microsoft's solution to the problem of getting people to embrace Vista is to do away with OEM installs of XP Home by the end of June 2008.


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

TheGreatLogan said:


> legally microsoft has to do this support, and it will keep for long time after that also, it will do the same for vista when it leaves, according to a pc magazine i read, the extended support for xp ends in 2014.


Other than FUD, what does the end of Microsoft support of one of their products really mean?

How many of you have ever contacted Microsoft for support?

For all of the market share that they have, their product support is pretty poor. Yeah, I know, they're leaving open a market for consultants and geek kids to make some extra scratch...


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## Steve Mehs (Mar 21, 2002)

HDMe said:


> I borrowed this from the shutdown thread, since the other thread was shut down because of a link to a petition I didn't want this particular point to be lost...
> 
> The point I was making, Steve, was... if you aren't using 64-bit apps now and you aren't using quad core apps now... then much of your upgrade is completely unneccesary and gains you nothing over that "old" computer you complain about running XP just fine. In fact, at the pace of adoption of 64-bit apps and quad core (even dual core for that matter) apps... it is entirely possible that it will not be until Microsoft's "next" operating system after Vista OR at least well after SP2 comes in a few years before there will be an actual need for Vista.
> 
> ...


I have no idea what point your even trying to make, if your even trying to make one. The main reason Vista benefits me is by being the latest and greatest, but there are some others. I've found MS Office 2007 programs, especially when working with graphics, run much better in Vista, initial start up and shut down are much faster with Vista, IE7 is quicker to respond and while I never really use it I do have have Adobe Photoshop CS3 and would like to play around with some photo editing from my Sony 12.1 MP camera.

I could careless if there's anything on the market that can take advantage of what I have now, I plan on using this system for the next 5 years, by then there will be more programs available in 64 bit and optimized for multi cores.


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## phat78boy (Sep 12, 2007)

Richard King said:


> Why? If it still is working properly for you why replace it? I still use Lotus 1-2-3 once in a while and never have a problem with it. Why should I replace it? The version that I use hasn't been updated since 1996.


Just because something works fine, doesn't mean it is working efficiently. There are probably a hundred updates in the newest version of Excel, or any current spreadsheet software, that could help you be more productive. It could be anything from better formulas to more text support to graphing...things you probably don't even consider using because your version doesn't have them.

Working just fine is all well, but working faster and being more productive is much better IMHO.


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## deltafowler (Aug 28, 2007)

Steve Mehs said:


> IE7 is quicker to respond


This is because Microsoft has decided to pre-load the program into RAM at system start-up, using the Superfetch feature/impairment.
It's an old trick for MS.
I'm surprised someone with a 12 megapixel camera didn't already know this.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

phat78boy said:


> There are many software packages that can utilize dual and quad core CPU's and also do so in 64-bit. Many people are married to their outdated software because its familiar. If your software isn't updated frequently, I would say look for something to replace it.


Sure, there are some apps that are 64-bit and some that use the multi-core... which is why I asked what apps he is running... and all he came up with was Internet Explorer.

There are absolutely some killer apps out there that will use the capabilities of the latest and greatest hardware... and if you are going to run those than absolutely upgrade and run them.

But for the rest of the folks, Vista will be a major resource hog and will require more hardware than actually needed. Folks who are just Web browsing and tinkering around and even some gaming really could do fine with XP for a while longer and on a more affordable hardware platform to boot... so those folks really don't need to upgrade just for upgrading sake.

I never said there wasn't a place for Vista and killer hardware... I was merely refuting the "I don't use anything old" and "why would anyone want to run XP anymore" statements that seemed overly sweeping in scope.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

Steve Mehs said:


> I could careless if there's anything on the market that can take advantage of what I have now, I plan on using this system for the next 5 years, by then there will be more programs available in 64 bit and optimized for multi cores.


Now you are really confusing me. I seem to remember your initial point was that you wouldn't use anything old... and yet now you are talking about keeping this system for 5 years... by which time it will then be old and presumably you will want to throw it away... so I'm not sure which side of the fence you are on today.

Anyway... my main point is to refute the absolute need to upgrade everything and throw XP out with the bathwater. I've seen nothing in this thread from the "go Vista" team that suggests it offers most consumers a better experience and performance than XP. Sure it can be better if you do the right things and run the right software and hardware... but for most folks, their "old" XP will run circles around what they actually need right now.

In many respects it would be like requiring people to purchase a Porsche or Lambourghini to drive 5 miles to and from work every day, instead of allowing them to keep using their current perfectly fine Toyota.


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## phat78boy (Sep 12, 2007)

HDMe said:


> Sure, there are some apps that are 64-bit and some that use the multi-core... which is why I asked what apps he is running... and all he came up with was Internet Explorer.
> 
> There are absolutely some killer apps out there that will use the capabilities of the latest and greatest hardware... and if you are going to run those than absolutely upgrade and run them.
> 
> ...


Understand that, but I think many people who don't consider themselves power users could still actually benefit. Burning and authoring DVD's is one of those. You can literally cut a 45-60 minute encode time for a DVD to about 10 minutes with a new quad core CPU.

Yes, some people don't care how long things take as long as it comes out correct..... I'm just not one of them. When we start talking about cutting in half the time I do things on a regular basis, it more then justifies the cost IMHO.


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## Richard King (Mar 25, 2002)

phat78boy said:


> Just because something works fine, doesn't mean it is working efficiently. There are probably a hundred updates in the newest version of Excel, or any current spreadsheet software, that could help you be more productive. It could be anything from better formulas to more text support to graphing...things you probably don't even consider using because your version doesn't have them.
> 
> Working just fine is all well, but working faster and being more productive is much better IMHO.


How can a word processor (Lotus WordPro) that I use once in a while (sometimes I play Rockford and print business cards), a spread sheet (Lotus 1-2-3) that I use once a month to calculate sales taxes I have to pay, and a few other integrated applications that I don't use be "inefficient"? Spending money on a new computer with the latest and greatest Vista operating system simply because I want to come on various Internet forums and brag about the fancy computer I just got, but don't need, would be a total waste of $$$ that I would rather spend elsewhere.

I use some fairly complicated audio programs (just for pleasure and curioustiy at the moment) once in a while. The vast majority of reports on the various forums about these programs say to stick with XP, that Vista doesn't work well, if at all for these programs. Why would I "upgrade" to something that won't work with EVERYTHING that I use?

I did the upgrade thing a while back. I bought a new machine with Windows XP-64. My printers didn't work, half my software didn't work, NOTHING worked with it. I ended up *upgrading *to Windows XP Pro (32 bit) and all was then well with the world. I have no desire to go through that process again. :nono:


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## deltafowler (Aug 28, 2007)

I just bought my son a new laptop.
It ships with Vista Home Premium.
He want the best performance he can get, so here' the plan.
We will load up everything he wants onto the factory installation of Vista and then grab an image of the drive.
He will use Vista for a couple of weeks to evaluate its performance and stability.

If he want to install XP, we'll blow away Vista and give that a go for another couple of weeks.

We'll image that one as well, so the option will always be there for him.

I may see if he's intersted in running some benchmarks as well.


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## phat78boy (Sep 12, 2007)

Richard King said:


> How can a word processor (Lotus WordPro) that I use once in a while (sometimes I play Rockford and print business cards), a spread sheet (Lotus 1-2-3) that I use once a month to calculate sales taxes I have to pay, and a few other integrated applications that I don't use be "inefficient"? Spending money on a new computer with the latest and greatest Vista operating system simply because I want to come on various Internet forums and brag about the fancy computer I just got, but don't need, would be a total waste of $$$ that I would rather spend elsewhere.
> 
> I use some fairly complicated audio programs (just for pleasure and curioustiy at the moment) once in a while. The vast majority of reports on the various forums about these programs say to stick with XP, that Vista doesn't work well, if at all for these programs. Why would I "upgrade" to something that won't work with EVERYTHING that I use?
> 
> I did the upgrade thing a while back. I bought a new machine with Windows XP-64. My printers didn't work, half my software didn't work, NOTHING worked with it. I ended up *upgrading *to Windows XP Pro (32 bit) and all was then well with the world. I have no desire to go through that process again. :nono:


Nothing recently released is usually straight forward or easy. Usually, the payoff comes in the form of more efficient ways of doing things or faster processing times. For me, Vista gave me a working 64-bit version of windows that can actually handle multiple cores and more then 4GB of memory. I do a lot video and picture editing and the improved speed is night and day.

As for office automation software, the improvements in Office 2003 were well worth the cost to just about everyone I've spoken to. While your current solution may work for you, I'm pretty sure you could probably do more with the current generation of software.

IMHO, anything over a few years old should be evaluated as advances in technology, both hardware and software, usually will pay for themselves in productivity. If I can significantly reduce time spent on routine tasks, its well worth the money to me.


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## Cholly (Mar 22, 2004)

I have to agree a bit with Richard on one item at least. I have a copy of WordPro 95 that I used for many years, even doing s store newsletter with it. Old though it may be, it was/is lean, quick and powerful, and very easy to use. I haven't tried installing it on my new Vista Premium system as yet.

I just activated Office 07 Home & Student trial version that came with my new computer. From first glance, Word looks improved from the prior versions that I have. I may wind up purchasing the full version once the 60 day trial is over.

I haven't made a decision as yet on CD/DVD burning/authoring software. I have Nero 7 Ultra on my small form factor computer and had it on my other desktop that bit the dust. I've seen negative omments on both Nero 8 and Roxio Easy Media Creator 10, so am still undecided.

For Photo work, I have several programs loaded (all Vista compatible): Photoshop Elements 6 with Photoshop Essentials 2, Nikon PictureProject, Kokak EasyShare Photo version 6.4, to name a few. Each has its strengths and weaknesses. For example, the other day I scanned a few washed out 3 by 5 pictures with my HP 3210 all-in-one printer and processed them with EasyShare, adjusting brightness and color balance. I was able to make some quite acceptable 5 by 7 prints for my daughter in-law very quickly. Score one for Kodak.


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## Steve Mehs (Mar 21, 2002)

deltafowler said:


> This is because Microsoft has decided to pre-load the program into RAM at system start-up, using the Superfetch feature/impairment.
> It's an old trick for MS.
> I'm surprised someone with a 12 megapixel camera didn't already know this.


What does my digital camera have to do with knowing the interworking of IE? And yes, I know MS does that, just didn't think about it in regard to IE. Like back in the days of WIN98, when you'd launch an Office app, exit, and check your system resources and they were not as high as they were before you opened Office as the program was in memory for quicker launch the next time you opened it. 


> Now you are really confusing me. I seem to remember your initial point was that you wouldn't use anything old... and yet now you are talking about keeping this system for 5 years... by which time it will then be old and presumably you will want to throw it away... so I'm not sure which side of the fence you are on today.


No, I didn't say anything about not using anything old period, I said I wouldn't use anything old that was a burden on something new. Like I wouldn't shy away from a new OS just because an old printer or scanner doesn't work with it. The OS is how you interface with your PC, I could care less if I have the best video card or whatever, I just what something that will guarantee that I'm ready for whatever the future brings. Like I said my 4 1/2 year old Compaq runs Vista like a champ. My favorite OS of all time is Windows 2000 Professional. No frills, just a rock solid operating system that was built to be a workhorse, but there's no sense in living in the past.



> Anyway... my main point is to refute the absolute need to upgrade everything and throw XP out with the bathwater. I've seen nothing in this thread from the "go Vista" team that suggests it offers most consumers a better experience and performance than XP. Sure it can be better if you do the right things and run the right software and hardware... but for most folks, their "old" XP will run circles around what they actually need right now


I've used every version of Windows since 3.1, the upgrade from Windows 3.1 to Windows 95 was huge and that was about it. Windows 2000 didn't offer much over NT 4, XP didn't offer much over 2000, ME didn't offer much over 98SE. Other then gaming (which can be said for taking Vista over XP), XP doesn't offer much over 2000.



> I just activated Office *97* Home & Student trial version that came with my new computer. From first glance, Word looks improved from the prior versions that I have. I may wind up purchasing the full version once the 60 day trial is over.


Office 97, with a brand new computer? '97 doesn't require activation, just enter all 1's for the serial # and it will work. Or did you mean Office 07.  I hated it first, but the new Office UI is awesome after getting used to it. In the next version of Office, Project and Visio get the ribbon.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

Steve Mehs said:


> I've used every version of Windows since 3.1, the upgrade from Windows 3.1 to Windows 95 was huge and that was about it. Windows 2000 didn't offer much over NT 4, XP didn't offer much over 2000, ME didn't offer much over 98SE. Other then gaming (which can be said for taking Vista over XP), XP doesn't offer much over 2000.


My first Windows was also 3.1... then "for Workgroups 3.11" which was a little more stable. Odd how much they actually fixed from 3.1 to 3.11 really in terms of stability back then.

I never ran NT at home... but had ran NT 3.1 and 4.0 at work back in the day. I liked 4.0 since it shared a similar look/feel to Win95 which I really liked back then. Win98 was a smooth upgrade and added a few bells/whistles too.

I will disagree with you on ME... it offered one thing over 98SE... Enhanced crashing and rebooting!  I tried ME on a machine because ME offered built-in NIC sharing features and I was setting up a home-network back then on 10-Base-T and it was a nice way to do it without having to configure a router... Unfortunately, ME was not very stable and I had to give that prospect up... but it did force me to upgrade everything to Ethernet 10/100 so that was a good thing.

I ran Win98SE for a long time... even after running Win2000 Pro at work, before I finally jumped at home and was glad I did. I stuck with that until a couple of months ago because it was familiar and very stable on my machines. I had to finally go to XP across the board because of some new software versions that frankly had better features under XP, and I plan on being with XP for a while.

That said, IF I do build a new machine (been pricing parts out) then I may go ahead and go with Vista on that one since I know it will handle it and any incompatible stuff I can just keep running on my "old" computer for now.

Memory serving me correctly a lot of people hated XP until after SP1 came out... Most of the Vista problems I remember hearing about were during beta phase with early testers... but still, I figure maybe SP1 is a more stable offering than the initial release so I could go to it on a new system if I splurge and invest in one.


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## deltafowler (Aug 28, 2007)

Steve Mehs said:


> What does my digital camera have to do with knowing the interworking of IE?


I was wondering what your camera had to do with anything, but you dragged it into the conversation, not me.


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## Steve Mehs (Mar 21, 2002)

Learn to read why don't ya!

"I do have have Adobe Photoshop CS3 and would like to play around with some photo editing from my Sony 12.1 MP camera" Was in response to taking advantage of higher end processors. Obviously doing work with images with that much detail and resolution can take advantage of faster multi core CPUs. 'K is it all clear now?


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## deltafowler (Aug 28, 2007)

Yup, sorry. You're right. It IS 12.1, not 12.

My point was/is that you appear to be quite superficial regarding having the biggest, baddest, fastest of all gear, and that's OK.. to a point.
But everyone can get their fill of too much of anything.

Vista is the software equivalent of The Emperor's New Clothes.
Transparent to those who can see such things without being told what they're supposed to see.

I have yet to see one single worthy feature that it has over a properly configured XP installation.

It's more like re-arranging the furniture in your den.
It's the same furniture. Only now you have to get used to where it all is again.


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## leww37334 (Sep 19, 2005)

I set up a dual boot system with XP and Vista, the same ap's run anywhere from 5 -10 percent slower with Vista. I have an MDP-130 card installed in the machine, the only way it will run under Vista is if I turn UAC off. But, the interface sure is pretty.


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## phat78boy (Sep 12, 2007)

deltafowler said:


> Yup, sorry. You're right. It IS 12.1, not 12.
> 
> My point was/is that you appear to be quite superficial regarding having the biggest, baddest, fastest of all gear, and that's OK.. to a point.
> But everyone can get their fill of too much of anything.
> ...


No offense, but if you can't see that Vista has finally properly implented a 64-bit version of windows, then you are clearly overlooking the obvious. While you may not have use for many new features in Vista, there are plenty there. They are, admitedly, more for power users and corporate IT professionals though. A purely email and web home user would probably not get much benefit from the upgrade.


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## phat78boy (Sep 12, 2007)

leww37334 said:


> I set up a dual boot system with XP and Vista, the same ap's run anywhere from 5 -10 percent slower with Vista. I have an MDP-130 card installed in the machine, the only way it will run under Vista is if I turn UAC off. But, the interface sure is pretty.


I think this has a lot to do with drivers and the fact that the interface and add-ons(sidebar for example) take a lot more memory then basic XP. So 2GB might be plenty on your XP system but a little lacking on Vista. I for one have seen a jump in my computers speed, I believe that to be a better driver for my raid configuration though.


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## deltafowler (Aug 28, 2007)

If it's all so very obvious, then please show me some viable numbers.
Benchmarks?

Plenty of features.
Glad you cleared that up too.


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## deltafowler (Aug 28, 2007)

Never mind, mate.
I found what I was seeking.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/xp-vs-vista,1531-11.html

http://news.cnet.com/Windows-XP-outshines-Vista-in-benchmarking-test/2100-1016_3-6220201.html

Love the first comment - Unfair test - The test of Vista was conducted on a machine with 1 GB RAM. That's not enough! XP will certainly run on 1 GB RAM, but Vista needs 2 GB to run well. Ideally, the test would be done on machines that were optimized for each OS. XP could be run on a 2 GHz single core machine with 1 GB RAM and Vista could be run on a 2 GHz dual core machine with 2 GB RAM, then it would be equal. :lol:

http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=1332&page=4


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## Mark Holtz (Mar 23, 2002)

So, any good Vista 64-bit apps out there? So far, I am only aware of the MAME for 64 bit systems.


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## crashHD (Mar 1, 2008)

deltafowler said:


> Love the first comment - Unfair test - The test of Vista was conducted on a machine with 1 GB RAM. That's not enough! XP will certainly run on 1 GB RAM, but Vista needs 2 GB to run well. Ideally, the test would be done on machines that were optimized for each OS. XP could be run on a 2 GHz single core machine with 1 GB RAM and Vista could be run on a 2 GHz dual core machine with 2 GB RAM, then it would be equal. :lol:[/url]


So it's a fair test if the Vista machine has a hardware advantage?


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## deltafowler (Aug 28, 2007)

crashHD said:


> So it's a fair test if the Vista machine has a hardware advantage?


According to that guy, it is.
That's comical at best.
It's like me saying my Chevy is faster than your Ford, but I need twice as much horsepower to make it a fair race. :nono:

I searched quite a bit last night, trying to find some tests that would definitively prove Vista to be an improvement over XP.
Instead, all I found was more and more reasons to keep recommending that my customers stay with XP for now.

I simply can't accept an OS that claims improvements in performance, but only if you throw more resources at it.

Perhaps some of the rabid Vista promoters will step up and post some data to support their blanket statements of "Vista is better because it's new".


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## phat78boy (Sep 12, 2007)

deltafowler said:


> If it's all so very obvious, then please show me some viable numbers.
> Benchmarks?
> 
> Plenty of features.
> Glad you cleared that up too.


Call it what you will, but there hasn't been a stable or widely supported version of 64-bit windows until now. I myself am one that was greatly in need of more then 4GB of RAM, I know I'm not alone on that either.

It seems, to me, that if you can't actually click on it and use it...you don't feel its a feature. Vector based graphics, UAC, better support for multi-core CPU's, Aero, builtin two way firewall, sidebar, etc... not sure how many things you need listed. While you can say you can do all that in XP, they are not included by default and would require quite a few software installs to get there. After installing all that software, your minmum specs would probably have to be what Vista requires.

As for 64-bit apps, there are many out there, though probably not what your average home user would be using. From burning apps, to web editors, database programs, video editing....just to mention a few. Not only that, any 32-bit app that could benefit from more then 4GB of RAM would be something you would want to run on a 64-bit OS too.

I just find it funny that because Vista doesn't do what you think it should, its a complete loss. It has many advantages for those who can provide it the necessary hardware and do more then just email and web browsing. To say any different is really being misinformed.

As for benchmarks, I don't think thats a fair measurement. As stated above, if you installed all the 3rd party apps on XP to bring it up to what Vista is doing, then you'd have a viable benchmark.


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## phat78boy (Sep 12, 2007)

As some have requested, actual numbers.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=369

There are many articles in this series, but I have pointed the link to the performance one.
http://4sysops.com/archives/windows-xp-vs-windows-vista-performance/


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## deltafowler (Aug 28, 2007)

phat78boy said:


> I just find it funny that because Vista doesn't do what you think it should, its a complete loss.


I don't think it's a complete loss.
But it's certainly not the end-all of OS's that it was hyped to be.
UAC is annoying and mindless.
Rather than address the obvious faults of the OS, it simply asks the already clueless everyday users if they want to allow something to screw up their machines.
These are the same people who click the OK button on webpage pop-ups without so much as a second thought.
The OK button just became the Allow button.
BFD!

As for sidebar, and other cute refinements, I simply don't see the value.
Google gadgets are free for the asking, if you like that sort of thing.

Even in the links you posted, I saw minimal to no improvements under Vista in real-world use.


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## phat78boy (Sep 12, 2007)

deltafowler said:


> I don't think it's a complete loss.
> But it's certainly not the end-all of OS's that it was hyped to be.
> UAC is annoying and mindless.
> Rather than address the obvious faults of the OS, it simply asks the already clueless everyday users if they want to allow something to screw up their machines.
> ...


I was trying to get an unbiased review. Never stated that Vista was the end-all of OS's, just trying to show that it isn't worse then XP as many claim. As you said, you can find many of the apps included with Vista, for XP. Once again though, they are included, thus there are benefits with Vista that don't come with XP.

As for sidebar, I can't stand it on a single monitor that is less then 19". On a dual monitor setup or something you can run 1600X1200, I find it very useful. On the same token, Sidebar uses far less resources then if you were to install the same type of applications on XP.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

phat78boy said:


> I just find it funny that because Vista doesn't do what you think it should, its a complete loss. It has many advantages for those who can provide it the necessary hardware and do more then just email and web browsing. To say any different is really being misinformed.


I quoted this part because... isn't the above EXACTLY the same reason some folks have given to support XP being "old" and "obsolete"?

This statement could very well (from the point of view of an XP user) be said: I just find it funny that because XP doesn't do what you think it should, its a complete loss.

I, for one, have never taken the stance that Vista is useless... but some Vista users have definately taken the stance that XP is useless. My participation in this particular thread has been to support XP for the things it does well and question why one should feel a need to go to Vista AND have to buy a bunch of new hardware just because XP is not the latest and greatest.


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## fluffybear (Jun 19, 2004)

Michael D'Angelo;1603565 said:


> What problems have you had with Vista? I have upgraded all of my PC's to Vista and love it. I would never go back to XP.


I recently downgraded one of my laptops back to XP.

It was nothing against Vista so much but the lack of support for Vista by Sony. I lost all the great features I had purchased that laptop for.


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## phat78boy (Sep 12, 2007)

HDMe said:


> I quoted this part because... isn't the above EXACTLY the same reason some folks have given to support XP being "old" and "obsolete"?
> 
> This statement could very well (from the point of view of an XP user) be said: I just find it funny that because XP doesn't do what you think it should, its a complete loss.
> 
> I, for one, have never taken the stance that Vista is useless... but some Vista users have definately taken the stance that XP is useless. My participation in this particular thread has been to support XP for the things it does well and question why one should feel a need to go to Vista AND have to buy a bunch of new hardware just because XP is not the latest and greatest.


On that we can agree. XP will eventually lose support and then it would be wise to migrate to a OS that is currently supported. As of now, thats not the case so I personally don't see any problem with a good machine running XP.

Both Vista and XP are perfectly good OS's IMHO. Vista can just do more if using newer hardware and software. On an older machine with low hardware options, XP is probably still your best choice.


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## phat78boy (Sep 12, 2007)

fluffybear said:


> I recently downgraded one of my laptops back to XP.
> 
> It was nothing against Vista so much but the lack of support for Vista by Sony. I lost all the great features I had purchased that laptop for.


That, unfortunately, is the biggest problem for all new OS's. Laptops always are left behind in OS upgrades as the builders never want to support current or old hardware more then they have to.


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## crashHD (Mar 1, 2008)

I've been giving this some thought, and I've decided I'd like to try Vista on my desktop. I'm willing to recognize the possibility that my wife's laptop/vista problems could be specific to that particular installation. I also want to try a few things on my desktop that the laptop does not have the horsepower to do... like aero. 

My critical system specs are:
Pentium 2160(dual core, 2x1MB L2, 1.8GHz). I run this cpu at 2.4 GHz, but I can push it to 3.0 GHz if I keep the fans 100% clear of dust. 
2 GB DDR800
750GB WD SATA
Geforce 8600 GT.

It really hauls (my opinion) in either linux or xp. It ought to be enough hardware to be decent with Vista. 

NT4 was pretty crummy until SP3, 2K was decent after SP2. XP was junk pre-SP1, ok after SP1, and (my opinion) has been reasonably impressive since SP2. I'm willing to wager that Vista will turn out much the same, and I'm going to give it the benefit of the doubt that Vista/SP1 might have actually fixed the bugs it shipped with...it would be in line with the trend thus far.

I intend to install it as a dual boot option with my current XP installation. I've got plenty of disk space for that. My understanding of the product activation scheme suggests I should be able to install from someone else's vista disk, and it will let me run it for 30 days, before the activation timer runs out, right? That, I think, should be plenty of time to demo it. 

Any suggestions for things I should look at when trying it, and/or comments regarding how it will run on my hardware, would be appreciated.


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## phat78boy (Sep 12, 2007)

crashHD said:


> I've been giving this some thought, and I've decided I'd like to try Vista on my desktop. I'm willing to recognize the possibility that my wife's laptop/vista problems could be specific to that particular installation. I also want to try a few things on my desktop that the laptop does not have the horsepower to do... like aero.
> 
> My critical system specs are:
> Pentium 2160(dual core, 2x1MB L2, 1.8GHz). I run this cpu at 2.4 GHz, but I can push it to 3.0 GHz if I keep the fans 100% clear of dust.
> ...


Sounds like you should be fine to me. I would hunt online before doing the install and make sure you can find good drivers for all your components. Motherboard, PCI cards, so on. If you have some memory intensive apps, you could probably use a bump in memory. Memory intesive as in games or if you do a lot of compiling, not word processing.

You are correct in that you have 30 days before you have to activate.


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## deltafowler (Aug 28, 2007)

Who here remembers when RAM was $1.00/mb?
Are these great times or what?!


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## Hansen (Jan 1, 2006)

$1 per meg; that was a lot. But things have come even further than that. My father-in-law recounts projects he worked on for IBM in 60's and 70's where 1 meg of memory occupied the space of a large refrigerator and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars if not millions.


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## bobnielsen (Jun 29, 2006)

When I upgraded my first PC (1985 Compaq DeskPro) from 64k to 256k, $1 per meg would have seemed extremely low priced. Even $1 per meg for hard drives would have been a great deal.


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## deltafowler (Aug 28, 2007)




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## phat78boy (Sep 12, 2007)

deltafowler said:


> Who here remembers when RAM was $1.00/mb?
> Are these great times or what?!


I remember doing a job in 96' and part of my payment was keeping the old RAM. I was upgrading 2 8MB sticks to 2 32MB sticks. At the time, I was reselling the 8MB sticks for about 80$ a piece. I couldn't even get 8 cents for an 8MB chip now.


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

I have a page from an old computer magazine that offered a 10MB Winchester style hard drive for $3,398. The average seek time was 70ms. The 5MB mechanism was $2,898.

There's a guy that still owes me $110 for two 1MB SIMMs.


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## Nick (Apr 23, 2002)

Don't mean to be a fuddy-duddy, but let's return this thread
to the topic of downgrading or reverting from Vista to XP.

:backtotop


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## EVAC41 (Jun 27, 2006)

I had to downgrade my laptop from vista to xp pro because it was having so many connection issues with my wireless, server and just being so slow. When I put xp back in everything worked just fine. Plus my work we use Novell and they are just not ready yet for supporting vista.


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## crashHD (Mar 1, 2008)

crashHD said:


> I've been giving this some thought, and I've decided I'd like to try Vista on my desktop.


No Outlook Express for Vista...strike 1


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## Steve Mehs (Mar 21, 2002)

Microsoft Mail replaced Outlook Express. I've I haven't used Outlook Express in about 10 years and I never used MS Mail, as I've always used regular Outlook, but I can't imagine they're that much different.


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## crashHD (Mar 1, 2008)

You mean "Windows Mail"? I tried it. It doesn't support hotmail accounts.


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## Steve Mehs (Mar 21, 2002)

Yes Windows Mail. From looking around, Windows Live Mail Desktop supports Hotmail intergration, but it's in beta right now. Outlook Express was just a plain awful e-mail client, big brother Outlook had it beat in every way, shape and form. MS did the world a favor by killing it off, but it doesn't look like Windows Mail is much better.


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## crashHD (Mar 1, 2008)

Tried outlook...didn't like it. I've never had a problem with outlook express. I'm not particular about it, I just want an email client that accesses my hotmail account in an "imap-like" way. 
Windows Live Mail is much like...well, nothing. I tried it, and it's almost exactly the same as logging into a website (ugh...webmail...grrrrr).


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

crashHD said:


> No Outlook Express for Vista...strike 1


As if Outluck Express was the metric by which all other e-mail clients should be measured.

Good riddance!


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

I have to say, I never cared much for either Outlook or Express. I used Netscape's email client for many years... and finally switched over the Thunderbird more recently.


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## psweig (Feb 4, 2006)

HDMe said:


> Any number of things older than about 3-4 years ago, including printers & scanners as an example. I happen to own a printer, for instance, that does not seem to have a Vista driver available... though I'm not running Vista yet myself I began looking into it in case I follow through and build myself a new computer.
> 
> It doesn't matter who is at fault if the driver doesn't exist. If someone has perfectly good hardware that they can't get to run in a new operating system, there's no reason to upgrade to that operating system.
> 
> ...


I have an HP photosmart 1000 and an Epson Perfection 610 scanner. They are both about 7 years old, and HP says they will no longer support it (under vista). Epson has no twain driver for my scannerthat will install in vista. So .... there goes the savings account. :nono2:


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## CoriBright (May 30, 2002)

If you're running 32 bit Vista, most printers (and some scanners) will work with the XP drivers. Twain drivers may work in Vista 32, but they will NOT work with 64 bit (which is exactly the same as XP 64 bit). This is due not to MS but the demise of the Twain Group which developed the system in the first place. www.hamrick.com has debveloped his Vuescan system so that some of the scanners that seem to refuse to work in 32 bit Vista, do function perfectly in his software.

The stand alone units are the ones with the least problems. Multifunction units have issues, and always have done, unless you happen to have one of the very large commercial devices that is networked.

If you can't find Vista drivers for your model of printer, find the manufacturer's unit that appears (in model number) to be most like yours and try them. If they don't work, try the XP drivers. If you have a laser printer, try to find which emulation it uses and find drivers/software for that.

If your printer is 7+ years old and you intend to use a 64 bit O/S, then it's probably worth getting a new printer.

If all else fails, use Virtual PC or similar, and load up into a legacy version of Windows.


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## psweig (Feb 4, 2006)

CoriBright said:


> If you're running 32 bit Vista, most printers (and some scanners) will work with the XP drivers. Twain drivers may work in Vista 32, but they will NOT work with 64 bit (which is exactly the same as XP 64 bit). This is due not to MS but the demise of the Twain Group which developed the system in the first place. www.hamrick.com has debveloped his Vuescan system so that some of the scanners that seem to refuse to work in 32 bit Vista, do function perfectly in his software.
> 
> The stand alone units are the ones with the least problems. Multifunction units have issues, and always have done, unless you happen to have one of the very large commercial devices that is networked.
> 
> ...


Thank you, I guess I'm giving up too soon. I really appreciate your help, the printer and the scanner have never had service and they both work well. I was getter up on my green high-horse.


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## OverThereTooMuch (Aug 19, 2006)

CoriBright said:


> If your printer is 7+ years old and you intend to use a 64 bit O/S, then it's probably worth getting a new printer.
> 
> If all else fails, use Virtual PC or similar, and load up into a legacy version of Windows.


Actually, if your printer is 7 years old and you're using ANY OS it's probably worth getting a new printer. At least for home.

It doesn't take too much effort to find a good quality multi-function printer that's really cheap (not much more than the cost of ink). Normally their prices stink, but many good deals can be had with coupons + rebates at places like Staples.

Regarding Virtual PC, there's no support for USB devices in Virtual PC 2007. I think there are some versions of VMWare that offer this support (not sure if it only works for input devices, or if it works for printers/scanners too).


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## Steve Mehs (Mar 21, 2002)

psweig said:


> I have an HP photosmart 1000 and an Epson Perfection 610 scanner. They are both about 7 years old, and HP says they will no longer support it (under vista). Epson has no twain driver for my scannerthat will install in vista. So .... there goes the savings account. :nono2:


Must not be a very big savings account. You can get an HP 6988 Wireless G printer for $70 after rebate that can print circles around any 7 year old printer. I paid $130 for the 6980 about two years ago, when my ink goes dry I'm going to junk the thing, and upgrade. Cartridges are $40, for $30 more I can have a new printer. HP Scanjet scanners start at $99. For under $200 you can have brand new equpitment that can trounce what you have now.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

Steve Mehs said:


> Must not be a very big savings account. You can get an HP 6988 Wireless G printer for $70 after rebate that can print circles around any 7 year old printer. I paid $130 for the 6980 about two years ago, when my ink goes dry I'm going to junk the thing, and upgrade. Cartridges are $40, for $30 more I can have a new printer. HP Scanjet scanners start at $99. For under $200 you can have brand new equpitment that can trounce what you have now.


That's sort of a low blow from the guy who didn't want to spend another $200 to max out his memory on his new computer in the other thread. Not sure why you have to "go there" and insult the guy's savings account.

In my opinion, a guy who is building a new $1500 computer has less reason to balk at $200 for max RAM than a guy who is trying to be frugal and use as much of his old equipment as long as possible. Maybe the guy has lots of money saved but has better things to do with his money than replace perfectly good hardware that still works.

That said... your observation on the price of printers isn't without merit. I've noticed lately several models of printer that don't cost much more than the price of the required print cartridges... so IF my printer ever dies I won't feel as bad about replacing it... but I'd still feel like it was a waste to replace it just for lack of drivers.

As a society we seem to not be learning how to make things that last as much as in the past... and too many things are viewed as disposable. One day the landfills are going to be full and everyone will wonder how we got there.


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## psweig (Feb 4, 2006)

HDMe said:


> That's sort of a low blow from the guy who didn't want to spend another $200 to max out his memory on his new computer in the other thread. Not sure why you have to "go there" and insult the guy's savings account.
> 
> In my opinion, a guy who is building a new $1500 computer has less reason to balk at $200 for max RAM than a guy who is trying to be frugal and use as much of his old equipment as long as possible. Maybe the guy has lots of money saved but has better things to do with his money than replace perfectly good hardware that still works.
> 
> ...


Thank you.


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## Steve Mehs (Mar 21, 2002)

> That's sort of a low blow from the guy who didn't want to spend another $200 to max out his memory on his new computer in the other thread. Not sure why you have to "go there" and insult the guy's savings account.


Looks like cost/benefit ratio is something you don't understand. 6GB of RAM or 8GB of RAM, not much benefit at the moment. Going from old clunker hardware to new stuff that's faster and higher resolutions, bigger benefit. And yes, I did max out the RAM at 8GB, my theory was why pay for it at the factory when I could get it cheaper and add it myself, but the price dropped so I had it come from the factory maxed out anyways. Invalid comparison, I'll give you an A for effort though.



> As a society we seem to not be learning how to make things that last as much as in the past... and too many things are viewed as disposable. One day the landfills are going to be full and everyone will wonder how we got there.


Electronics are commodity items, simple as that. I'm sure I could have a landfill dedicated to myself with all the junk I got rid of over the past few years. Just tossed 6 year old Compaq printer the other day. In the days of wireless networking I don't want or need some ancient thing with a parallel port connection in my sight. With all the advancements made, and how little things cost compared to the past, I see no reason to use old hardware. It works, so what, big deal. That's an extremely poor attitude to have. I'm sure you could find a rusted out 1987 Ford Escort that still works. A lot of things 'just work' but without the desire for more, bigger and better, improvements will be slow to come. My Linksys G w/Speedbooster router goes out this week, 802.11G is so 2004. In my main set up, this 2 year old printer is the oldest piece of hardware I have, other than my speakers. I so want new computer speakers, but I can't find any comparable to what I have, so I have to live it.

I'm the same way with clothes, for Bills and Sabres apparel, I buy the same stuff the players and staff wear, but once the fall hits and football and hockey are back in full swing I will not wear what I currently do anymore, it's outdated, I need the new 2008-2009 styles.


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## tcusta00 (Dec 31, 2007)

Steve Mehs said:


> Looks like cost/benefit ratio is something you don't understand. 6GB of RAM or 8GB of RAM, not much benefit at the moment. Going from old clunker hardware to new stuff that's faster and higher resolutions, bigger benefit. And yes, I did max out the RAM at 8GB, my theory was why pay for it at the factory when I could get it cheaper and add it myself, but the price dropped so I had it come from the factory maxed out anyways. Invalid comparison, I'll give you an A for effort though.
> 
> .


There goes "THE POINT" ... you just missed it --- quick, if you run, you may be able to catch it.  :nono2:

Lay off the guy.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

Steve Mehs said:


> I'm the same way with clothes, for Bills and Sabres apparel, I buy the same stuff the players and staff wear, but once the fall hits and football and hockey are back in full swing I will not wear what I currently do anymore, it's outdated, I need the new 2008-2009 styles.


Not to pick on you personally, but I believe that is a societal flaw that I've been pointing too... being wastefull and going to needless excess.

For the clothes example... I do buy new clothes and new shoes for work... but I cycle the older clothes and shoes down to around the house status... and when they get a little worn for that, then they become work clothes for mowing the yard and stuff before finally being so worn as to be useless... but as long as they can be worn and don't have larges holes in them, they are good to go.

I've never understood the "need" to follow fashion trends... and for that matter, fashion tends to cycle around so that if you stick around the planet long enough your old out-of-style clothes will come back in style again!

Sometimes you sound like a guy I used to know who refused to eat cold pizza. He would order a large pizza, eat half of it, and then throw it out. No saving for later that day, no eating for breakfast or snack the next day... he wouldn't even put it in the fridge or consider re-heating it later. He threw anything away that he didn't eat right at that mealtime.


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## Richard King (Mar 25, 2002)

> I so want new computer speakers, but I can't find any comparable to what I have, so I have to live it.


Why would you want to "buy something comparable" to what you have? You should get a pair of computer speakers like I have. http://mixonline.com/products/review/audio_jbl_lsrp_selfpowered/ If your savings account can handle it, of course.


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## CJTE (Sep 18, 2007)

Steve Mehs said:


> Yes Windows Mail. From looking around, Windows Live Mail Desktop supports Hotmail intergration, but it's in beta right now. Outlook Express was just a plain awful e-mail client, big brother Outlook had it beat in every way, shape and form. MS did the world a favor by killing it off, but it doesn't look like Windows Mail is much better.


There is one feature that Outlook Express has, that I havent found in Outlook.

In outlook express you can view the entire source/header of the email, outlook, not so much.


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## deltafowler (Aug 28, 2007)

CJTE said:


> There is one feature that Outlook Express has, that I havent found in Outlook.
> 
> In outlook express you can view the entire source/header of the email, outlook, not so much.


View> Options


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## Doug Brott (Jul 12, 2006)

deltafowler said:


> View> Options


after you open the message in a separate window .. Biggest pain if you ask me.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

Interesting report from yesterday's New York Times:

June 25, 2008, 5:08 pm
*
Et Tu, Intel? Chip Giant Won't Embrace Microsoft's Windows Vista*
By Steve Lohr
_Intel, the giant chip maker and longtime partner of Microsoft, has decided against upgrading the computers of its own 80,000 employees to Microsoft's Vista operating system, a person with direct knowledge of the company's plans said. [...]_

The rest of the article may be found here. /steve


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## Drew2k (Aug 16, 2006)

deltafowler said:


> View> Options





Doug Brott said:


> after you open the message in a separate window .. Biggest pain if you ask me.


Before you open the message: Right-click the message, select Options. "Internet Headers" is at the bottom of hte dialog.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

What I found most interesting in this 2003 Bill Gates memo (criticizing XP at the time) was that he apparently saw the need to routinely reboot his PC every night, something I haven't found necessary to do since Windows 98. If it wasn't for Windows Updates, my XP machines rarely reboot these days. /steve

http://gizmodo.com/5019516/classic-clips-bill-gates-chews-out-microsoft-over-xp


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