Getting a new laptop - Should I go for Windows XP or Vista?

[Thudlow_Boink]

@Simplicio

I think most of the hate for Vista isn’t so much because it’s that bad of an OS, its just that XP (after the Service Packs were released) worked pretty well for most people, and most users don’t really have a burning desire to learn the ins and outs of a new OS when their old one already did everything they need.

My main fear would be that Vista is bloatware, and that a computer running Vista would run more slowly and have less available memory & hard drive space than the same machine running XP.

[Wakinyan]

If you’re getting a new, modern machinery, 2009, there’s generally speaking no point having Windows XP installed. As an IT pro I could rant around about Vista for a long time, but things have settled, and (again, generally speaking) Vista will work like a charm on your new PC, and you will probably like it a lot.

[Voyager]

@Windwalker

Thanks for the responses, everyone.

One thing that seems strange to me is that I’ve been looking at random system requirements for stuff, and the ones for Vista are so much more than for XP. For example, on a Logitech Quickcam, minimum is 128 MB RAM and 1.4 GHz CPU for XP and 512 MB and 2.4 GHz CPU for Vista. What’s up with that? Is Vista really that much more resource-inefficient?

Yup, like every other new MS OS. I had a Vista loaner with 512 MB of memory, and it was a total disaster. My laptop now has 3 Gig (32 bit Vista) and it runs just fine - in fact much faster than my old XP machine thanks to dual core. I got 32 bit because Cisco doesn’t support the VPN I use on 64 bit Vista, and the various workarounds seemed too much trouble. It was cheaper also.

I guess I have some hardware that I’m not sure about, like my TP-Link wireless card and a bunch of random USB devices, like multi-card reader, external DVD drive, external hard drives, etc. Some of them (like the reader and hard drives) are 3-4 years old.

I have an external hard drive about 2 years old, and haven’t had a problem. Nor any with my printers. In fact everything I’ve tried ported just fine. I’m not sure that is true with 64 bit Vista, though.

[Markxxx]

I’ve had no problems with Vista, but with Windows 7 being developed you may want to take that into consideration