Windows XP home vs Windows Vista home premium (64 bit)

[0v3rc10cl0ck3d]

well im stuck on this here choice windows xp home already owned or windows vista home premium 64 bit edition i have never ran vista before and heard that it doesnt have very good driver support i can get the above mentioned OS for 105.99 idk if any one here as seen my posts of my build but ill be useing it for gameing and regular useage what do u guys think vista or xp

 

[Computer Head]

Well Vista Home Premium is like XP Media Center 2005 Revamped. If you are building a new rig from scratch Vista would be good if you crank up the specs on your computer. Also, even though XP Home Edition would activate, it's a breach of the License Agreement to add to other computers.

 

[0v3rc10cl0ck3d]

so vista would be better i also hear that xp only recognizes 3gig of ram also i intend to OC would vista better for that and what about games umm if you need my list for my build to see if my hardware is vista cabasble ill gladly link it if i can find the most updated one

 

[Kage]

Personally XP is still the best choice for playing games, and running programs.

It seems to be changing though, with compatability getting better.

Vista I've heard only sees 4GB's of RAM, and as for overclocking, it has no real difference to the operating system you use.

 

[Computer Head]

Your hardware should be compatible. But the downside to Vista is that some games have not been certified as compatible with Vista. You will have to look into what games will work. But if you are building a rig with a large hard drive, you can also consider Microsoft Virtual PC. That allows you to create a "PC within a PC", so you can install XP on the Virtual PC for the programs that dont work. It is as functional as an actual PC, and uses all the same hardware with full access. But you have to install everything and make sure that the drivers and such are installed.

 

[compguy91]

Vista is a nice choice for multimedia but for games and overall compatibility XP is still the choice. Maybe once Vista SP1 comes around it will fix those issues.

 

[Äߧý∩†H♠H䎀]

You may want to edit in your build. I saw some of your first ideas on a build but don't know what you finally settled on and i'm not looking. If you bought a dual core under 2.0Ghz and 1gig of memory I'd say XP home. If you bought a cpu over 2.0ghz dual core and 2gigs of ram I say Vista 64bit.

Not sure were you here this driver support bs from. I'm guessing another person on the rumor mill hating on vista. Driver support is fine unless your trying to install hardware older than 2 years or so. Any modern hardware should have Vista driver by now. If your unsure google all your parts and make sure it has vista drivers.

The only real problem I had with Vista was finding a working modem. I'm out in the country and its only dial up or satallite internet unsure if i'm staying here or moving I don't want to get in a contract with a satallite provider. So I needed a modem that worked. My old BCM was a no go next up was a USR modem also a no go, finally called a computer shop and they said I could pick up a trendnet modem and if it didn't work I could return it. It worked without needing to install anything and that was my only hardware related problem.

Software I still have not gotten a burning program for vista yet. Not really worried because I run a dual boot.

Possibly a suggestion for you would be pick up a extra 80 gig HD and put vista on that. You said you had a XP home disc use that as your main OS and experiment with Vista. If you find everything up to spec reformat vista on your primary drive and put xp on your secondary boot for incompatible programs just so you have something for everything till you find what you like for vista.

XP is hit and miss on what i detects on ram. It can be up to 3.25gigs and as low as 2.75gigs. Depends on your motherboard and bios. Mine only reconizes 2.75gb in XP. See's the full 4 gigs in 64bit vista. MAKE sure you get 64bit if you plan on running more than 3 gigs 32bit vista only supports the same window as 32bit XP.

I should add in I have not had any game problems yet. Although I have not tried games that were made more than 3 or 4 years ago.

 

[Kage]

That seems like a rather good idea, but aren't you then running 2 operating systems at once, which could slow things down a bit?

My desicison if I would be to buy Vista would be to create a partition and have Windows XP installed on one, and Vista on the other, so you could boot whichever you needed.

EDIT:

I guess running in 64 bit would cause more incompatabilites than running in 32 bit also for older programs, or am I wrong there?

On the good side, i run 3D Studio Max 9, and if that runs on Vista (I'm not too sure), then the 64 bit version would speed things up a lot.

 

[Computer Head]

Well I use Virtual PC but it is to be considered what you will use on the virtual computer. If you are gaming, there will probably be too much lag. I just use it for my productive applications that are not Vista Compatible. I agree that you should create two partitions. The only thing about that is you will probably be constantly rebooting to switch operating systems.

 

[Kage]

I wonder if theres such thing as a hot swap boot, to allow operating systems to swap on the fly... doubt it, but that'd be a good idea.

So, just like when you run in Hibernate mode, and the backs up what you have on the hard drive, so it can pretty much straight away get you onto the system, have that on both Operating systems, saving what your doing on each one.