XP vs Vista on new box (NOT upgrade)

Here's our story:

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My wife purchased the one year accidental protection plan on her laptop, which is a good thing, because she managed to dent the cover, and in turn, the screen, when she was reaching to turn off her lamp when going to bed and put a solid elbow into the top of the laptop (I'm not sure how, but she's got this amazing clumsy-like luck, so I attribute it to that).

We sent the computer into the shop and they're supposed to return the fixed computer in 3-5 business days or update us of the status if it will take longer than that. I called because it's been almost two weeks, and they apologized profusely, offering to send us a new computer to replace the old one because it could take a couple of weeks to replace our old computer.

The kicker: They don't have any new computers anymore with XP, only Vista.

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So our delima is: Do we wait two weeks to get the machine with XP back, or do we take the new one that has Vista installed on it?

I wanted to see what other people's experiences with using Vista have been. Again, it's a new computer so we're not worried about problems encountered during upgrading, only any issues that a fully installed Vista seems to have with your computer. Our main concern is program compatibility, mainly Microsoft Office and a photo organizing program my wife uses (We'll check their website to see what they say about Vista compatibility).

I'm not a Vista user myself, but imo it's worth getting Vista rather than XP now. All the new drivers, games, etc will put their focus on the new OS which will leave XP a little bit behind. Of course, the older games and hardware have a huge number of competibility issues, but I guess that the others will tell you about that.:p

The other important point is that you actually get a totally new laptop. I don't know how old your last one was, but new laptops have a couple of advantes, such as clean ventilation system, new drives and a new battery. That is providing the laptop they give you is the same or a higher model then you older one.

Use XP for another year or so, imo. So that MS can sort out the biggest problems.

I'd go for the new machine and then just pirate/find a way to legally aquire XP if you don't like Vista/use Linux. :p

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Originally Posted by Grinenshire

II don't know how old your last one was...

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Our laptop is about 4 months old.

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Originally Posted by Yamaneko

I'd go for the new machine and then just pirate/find a way to legally aquire XP if you don't like Vista/use Linux. :p

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It's not very legal, but you can just burn a copy of XP that was given to you with your last laptop and get a new key from the net/use the old one. That would do for a year or so, as Mirage said, before Vista becomes fully functional. A friend of mine uses Vista though and had no problems so far. He doesn't play much though.

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Originally Posted by Flying Mullet

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Originally Posted by Grinenshire

II don't know how old your last one was...

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Our laptop is about 4 months old.

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Well, after 4 month your battery usually goes down the drain (providing you always run the comp on external power), so that's a reason enough. The drives should be still topnoch. The cooling really depends on how often you vacuum clean the room you're using and the laptop construction (My dad's laptop overheats easily and has to be cleaned every month or so, mine runs alright.).

So, yes, I'd go for the new one really. I guess it's the same model, eh?

Yeah, it'll be the same model. And this won't be for gaming. The most gaming my wife does is the occasional Diablo II or Sims. It's mostly for her work and photo storage/organizing.

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Originally Posted by Flying Mullet

Yeah, it'll be the same model. And this won't be for gaming. The most gaming my wife does is the occasional Diablo II or Sims. It's mostly for her work and photo storage/organizing.

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Then I'd suggest Vista. As I said, I don't own it myself, but I know quite a few people who do and had no problems with it other then the usual (drivers, games). I'm really not sure if Diablo II will run on it though.

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Originally Posted by Flying Mullet

Yeah, it'll be the same model. And this won't be for gaming. The most gaming my wife does is the occasional Diablo II or Sims. It's mostly for her work and photo storage/organizing.

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Get the new laptop and install Windows XP on it is the best way forward.

You can see if they'll give you a deal on the copy of XP that came with your last laptop. They might even let you keep it for free if you're really nice, since they don't sell it with their new computers any more. :p

The thing about laptops though is that you'll loose all the utilities and tools after the reinstall of the OS. I.e. battery controls (not the BIOS ones), special sound software for the loudspeakers, tuneups, etc will be lost.

I have Vista Ultimate. I tried it for a couple of months and frankly, it's nothing special to me. It's decidedly more annoying than XP, in that there are niggly little things like asking for admin permission that occur all too frequently for my taste.
I don't like that the system requirements have skyrocketed since XP. You're likely to see a decrease in performance on Vista relative to the power of the machine, especially if it doesn't have a reasonably powerful GPU.
In my experience it's not as stable as XP yet, the operative word being yet. I think that as time passes, were going to see a decrease in the number of driver-related crashes as developers get to know the system more thoroughly.

However, it is the way of the future for Windows users, and support for XP can only decrease from here. Most software functions similarly in Vista to how it did in XP, but it's rare to see a program that hasn't been affected in some way by the difference in OS.

If I were you, I'd (begrudgingly) accept Vista, and install Linux on another partition. :p

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Originally Posted by Grinenshire

The thing about laptops though is that you'll loose all the utilities and tools after the reinstall of the OS. I.e. battery controls (not the BIOS ones), special sound software for the loudspeakers, tuneups, etc will be lost.

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You can download all that again from the manufacturers site.

I would wait. Vista's buggy as hell. My laptop came pre-installed. It keeps losing its CD-Rom and I have to restart. IE's started to lock up a lot. Its very quirky. And they don't put fixes online for anything yet everytime something stops responding you have the option of checking online for a solution. XP was stable and had almost all its quirks worked out. Very reliable. I'm with Mirage. I'd wait on Vista. Unless you do like others are suggesting and replace the OS I'd wait for your old computer. I've spent two months with Vista and I'm not computer illiterate. Its just annoying. I personally can't wait for Service Pack 1. And there are compatibility issues currently. Zone Alarm won't install right now, for example. And as stated, it is a needlessly huge resource hog for some reason. My XP desktop has a standard 40-50 applications running in the background. Vista has upwards of 70. And usage is impossible to actually judge. CPU usage goes 100% and you try and figure out what's eating it and see that the only thing using it in the process list is only using 50%. Retarded OS...

I would take the new one just because I know how to put whatever I want on it. And getting to try Vista for free would be good(though a friend of mine already has a pirated version apparently and has been offering everyone a crack at it).

Experiences:

-Networking professor just laughs at it(he majorly dislikes it and doesn't feel that currently it is as productive as XP)
-My friend with the pirated version likes it on desktops but on laptops is more iffy on it since Vista can really drain the resources much more visibly on a laptop than a desktop.
-Various other people I know who have tried it dislike it because of how much it slows down the system.
-Another note; I have heard that the boot loader is not as safe in Vista as it has been in previous versions. This could be a very dangerous issue, though I'll admit that I have yet to try the OS myself and thus can't be sure how easy it is to mess stuff up like that(before I install vista I need a major processor upgrade, which means I need a major motherboard upgrade, which in turn could cause me to acquire all new hardware(except hard-drives) due to older hardware in my system).

Err.... anyways I would just go for the new one, it wouldn't be to hard or long of a process to do a wipe and re-install of XP. And it wouldn't require a lot of waiting(I hate waiting for a computer to be fixed). In addition for what you want to do with it Vista may be just fine.

However, if you do go with XP do remember that up until 2006 Win98 had still been supported. So I doubt they will just drop XP. They'll wait at least a couple years after the release of Vista to discontinue with XP, and if Win98 is any hint it may be more than just a couple years :p.(and yes I still have a '98 system and it runs much better(quicker, smoother) than my XP system(and my xp system is on a computer far more powerful than my 98 system), trouble is nothing supports it anymore *cries*, that and 98 can really do some funky stuff with you lol).