Comments on: Windows XP outshines Vista in benchmarking test

Vista with the beta Service Pack 1 fails to keep pace with its predecessor in a series of productivity tasks using the Office 2007 software.

[jfranm]

Time for a downgrade?

True, Vista is not that bad. But is not good enough yet to make me wan't to upgrade. Speed is King for me, and my XP is faster, by any benchmark, on my current PC.
Benchmarks speak louder than words.
Check them out here under my "Time for a downgrade ?" article.

[ljb860ljb]

Vista imho has not gone forward but has retreated to 3.11 days

I just upgraded a couple of XP desktops, if you can call it that as I was forced to do a complete install vs upgrade by Vista Ultimate. Vista is not just much much slower than XP but it reminds me of the old 3.11 days with the blue screen and incompatible drivers. The upgrade left us so dissatisfied that I have since converted all but one machine either to Ubuntu and/or purchased Macbook Pro's to replace older laptops. So far my experience has been positive. Feedback from those using Ubuntu has been that the learning curve is about 5 minutes, from the Macbook folks much longer, no one more than a few hours. Both groups have been given the option to revert to XP Pro and/or Vista Ultimate with no one is accepting the offer. Therefore I expect that my company will be MicroSoft free in the near future all because MS gave us the opening management needed to allow us to try the options.

[jehandan]

Benchmark Hardware Is The Cause of the Vista Slowdown

I believe that this benchmark is not a fair assessment of Vista's performance as the amount of RAM used in the test machine is only 1GB.

From my experience, I know that Vista needs at least 2GB of RAM to run Office 2007's suite of applications effectively without the operating system resorting to virtual memory swapping.

The benchmarks could have been conducted on a machine with 2GB of RAM to give Vista a fair chance.

[evilbill1782]

Re

That doesn't explain why something like half of all games that ran just fine on XP crash or don't even start on Vista. Even a game as simple and non-demanding as Diablo II has problems.

[john3347]

Downgrade????

I am the the owner of my second Vista machine. One has been "changed" to Windows XP Pro and the other one is not showing me much promise to avoid the same fate. My question is WHY do people refer to the migration from such a troublesome, fat, sloppy, undependable, unreliable OS as Vista to a OS that admittedly only marginally better, but clearly better Windows XP as a downgrade. A change to something better is an UP-grade.

[rick47591]

XP Service Pack 3

I've been reading that Microsoft is making available the release candidate for XP Sp3. From everything I've read about this update, it is going to open up alot of worms. For one thing, it turns on by default the black hole router detection. This is just plain stupid. There are those of us that would like to remain hidden in the shadows by using routers that are silently discarding packets. I've also read that this new update will also install all updates that were not previously installed or denied installing using windows updates. Microsoft is also jacking around with the product activation again. Just who is Microsoft? Are they owned by big brother? I see the need to change to a MAC. I'm growing tired of Microsoft constantly updating a system that doesn't need updated and I'm also tired of being bullied into getting something that is totally shameful such as Vista.

[ej8989]

i definitely agree with roger.d.miller and omegawolf. Of course XP runs FASTER than vista with the hardware optimized for XP. Use a computer for xp then another computer for vista which is a faster computer than the one for xp (of course). Now lets see the difference between speeds.

[TechMike]

Hello, my name is Michael, and I have worked in the field of technology consulting for 13 years, and have enjoyed computers out of personal interest long before that. I have seen all versions of DOS and then Windows, all the way up to Vista. I have also seen the MacOS develop over the years, and followed several distributions of Unix/Linux. So here are my 2 cents worth: Microsoft makes an excellent operating system, really they do - but they do release them too early and let the public "fix" it for them. Apple makes an excellent OS as well, it's clean and stable too - but Apple controls everything that is Mac, from hardware to software to sales, so it's understandable that it's always stable, that's no surprise. On still another front, with each passing month, Linux becomes more and more user-friendly and today it touches more desktop users than ever before. We all know how rock-solid Linux is as a server, but it's not as intuitive for the average desktop user. In my honest opinion, all three major OS platforms are well-developed these days. That said, speaking strictly about whether or not to move to Vista, my advice is to take a page from history and apply it intelligently. Every version of Windows has been released to the public later than expected, every single one. Then, upon the official release, it's buggy. You'll grit your teeth, but you'll get by, until ?they? fix it. After a couple of major service packs, it will be solid and stable. Really, you can't expect them to get it right for all hardware, all situations, and all people. So my advice is, if you don't need it yet, stay with XP for now, and after service pack 2 for Vista becomes widely accepted, and the general opinion is more favorable, then go ahead and jump on the wagon. Not only will you be glad that you waited, you'll have the stability of XP in the meantime. In closing, consider this as you pause to enjoy your next coffee or tea: The majority of evidence at hand points to a change on the horizon for Windows, that the next version will not be backward-compatible; hey, it had to happen sooner or later. Your choice to move to Vista now might mean that you have major changes again, perhaps even larger ones, very soon. If the next Windows version is not backward-compatible, you won't only have to change your hardware, but all your software as well. If your choice is to stay with XP, then the next version after Vista might not leave you any further behind, making Vista expensive to your pocketbook, and your learning curve. However, with the other two major platforms reaching high levels of user acceptance, perhaps a major change in your OS might make you open to change platforms all together. ...just a thought. Aside from a short learning curve, that is substantially smaller than you might think, becoming comfortable with another platform might be more desirable now than ever before. If the next version of Windows forces a change to all new software, then it appears to this user, that all three platforms just stepped onto the same playing field. We all like the comfort of the home team advantage; truly, ignorance is bliss.

[Artistechick]

Maybe i've only had Vista for a couple of days but already i know that it SUCKS beyond comparison. Advanced my butt...COMPATIBILITY..anyone ever thought of that?! I need Adobe programs and I can't even install my Adobe CS3 Master Collection properly because I don't have enough memory or whatever that is stopping my computer from installing it (i run Vista Home Premium).

I'm only using Vista because i'm really desperate since my XP just suffered from a really bad virus so i had to have it rebooted..so now am using vista...SUCKS. Suure, security is great and all but of course you're going to be safe against the internet world if no programs are compatible (not even ones that worked on xp) or even have enough memory to run it. If i had a choice, i'd use xp but beggars can't be choosers or so the cliche goes.

[rbslack]

Boy you guys really messed up those tests. I would recomend that you not attempt publishing benchmark that are run without the benefit of knowing how to properly setup an operating system or to properly run a benchmark. After having run all benchmarks on identically configured systems, Vista out performed XP in every area and in every case. so how did you guys manage to get it wrong? Did you even really run the test or is it simply a case of your testers not knowing their job... I'm curious. I really like your publication but you really dropped the ball on this one.

[rtb2008]

vista is a waste of money. i'll stick with xp until ms can come up with an os with better value for money ... or maybe i should just save for a mac

[nww02]

I tried Vista on a brand new HP Pavilion Notebook, and was appalled. It took over 10 minutes to start up, sucked the battery dry in 40 minutes, and prevented me from doing my job by being incompatible with all my software. I couldn't even write a CD-R because vista would suddenly start paging /something/ to the HDD and I'd get a buffer underrun. There is simple TOO MUCH BLOAT. XP suffers from it, and Vista is crippled because of it. I 'downgraded' the laptop to XP (which was a nightmare, thanks to HP's poor support), but I now get over 90 minutes on the battery (double the lifetime!), it boots in 40 seconds, and I can play anything I want from Doom95 to Crysis.

I've tried Vista on Acer workstations, and was similarly appalled. Having to install Gaming-quality graphics cards into Work PCs to support "Aero", is neither practical, cost-efficient, nor energy-efficient. I used a friend's 'Kill-a-watt' to measure the energy usage, and the PC used 40% more power under Vista, thanks to the constant drive accessing.

Lastly, my mum's laptop came with Vista on it (some cheap brand, I can't remember what). Neither her Canoscan scanner, nor her Creative Video / Headset would work. It refused to connect to their modem, and seems to dislike its own inbuilt wi-fi. So, basically, the reason why she bought it (to talk to me, and share video / photos) was killed by this shambolic piece of bloat called Windows Vista.

I can't begin to express my annoyance at the number of frustrated hours I've had switching off UAC on friend's laptops / PCs, and trying in vain to get perfectly-functional peripherals to work. I absolutely LOATHE Windows Vista. Unless Windows 7 is VASTLY cut-down, I'll be sticking with XP for many many years to come.

[blues004]

Not since Windows Millenium has Microsoft delivered such a dissapointing OS. Seems like they were trying really hard to copy Mac's New OS platform. News Flash if I wanted a Mac I would have bought one. Why not take what is probably the best OS you've created XP and make it better. Heck I don't care if you change the name just don't place crap in a box and charge people good money for it. You should also quit force feeding us that crap by making it the only thing available to new PC buyers. There should be a class action suit filed against Microsoft for all of the people who have had to suffer with this OS. I for one will never switch over to Vista no matter how many sp's they release! It is garbage. Sorry guys just being honest!

[Ralphdb]

Like you say it is over a year later and I am sure that I downloaded 85 Patches after a new install last week.. I have 3 Gig of ram which is all Vista 32 supports on my setup. I bought a new HP Vista laptop with a AMD 64 and one gig of ram. everytime I turned around I was getting the BSD. finally I added another Gig of ram, but the Bsd continued but not as bad.. my 3 in one Printer, 2 years old don't work and and Lexmark says it never will.. I owen my OEM copy of XP but MS says I have run out of installs. but, I have only used it with new hard ware upgraded. mostly HD,s most on the same system..Now yesterday I added Sp1 to my Desktop and the Security is much better because not at startup my Ethernet connection is said to be unplugged. after restarting a few more times and searching for the connection it finally connects.. So why is that.. I had a dual Boot one on a ATA Drive (XP) and the other on the SATA drives (2) after a couple days the Xp quits working . Also my AVG Virus program has guit working and was even removed from the task Bar and disabled (Vista) When I ordered my last HD I ordered Vista Home Premium Big mistake now I can't find another XP PRO

[tiki8]

Well, I built up my new machine at home, with the intent of bringing some of my video work home with me. I decided that if I was going to drop 8GB of memory and a quad core cpu in, Vista's (x64) shortcomings and memory hunger would not be a problem. Performance-wise, the machine is working just as well as my XP64 machine at work, but that was only after I turned off the indexing feature of Vista. Indexing is TURNED ON BY DEFAULT, and if you have Office 2007, know that it also has its own indexing service, particularly within Outlook. Since there are two indexers running, you obviously take a serious performance hit.

Once I had all the "hidden extras" turned off, the machine ran just fine - until I hooked my equipment to it. I do my field video capture with a Firestore FS-4Pro HDV hard drive recorder. This little jewel is the heart of my raw footage, and cost around $1500.00 new. When hooking it to a PC (Mac or Windows), you have the option to set it to hard drive mode, and directly edit or drag off the files. The honeymoon ends there - XP works just fine, Vista won't read the volume information. It sees that it is a firewire drive, but won't assign it to the drive manager, and doesn't give it a drive letter. Since the internal format of the drive is simply FAT32, I am at a loss as to why MS would want to shut out videographers who use these non-linear editing devices. So, thinking that I could use my old 866mhz iBook as a bounce-point, I hooked the FS-4 to it (Leopard recognized it immediately) and shared it. Then, I connected a firewire cable between the machines (firewire is much faster than 100mbps LAN) to do an SMB mapping to dump the files over. Guess what? MS decided to kill Firewire networking in all versions of Vista (32 and 64bit). If you don't have a spare port on your switch, you have to unplug someone, or you have to use one of the clunky USB <--> USB transfer cables that require you to load drivers (and may or may not work).

Great move, MS - alienate serious money-spending videographers and drive them to the Mac world. My systems at work run Avid Liquid, and are high-dollar, high turnover machines. Vista plays a game pretty well, but with this incarnation, MS has turned Windows into the "pretty toy, not a serious computer" that they painted Macs to be all these years. I think Macs, although quite competent machines, are way overpriced in terms of hardware, but at least they listen to their user base.

It's not the user interface I have problems with, it's the connectivity. I have also tried Vista 32-bit, and have the exact same problems as the 64-bit machine - no FS-4 connectivity, no firewire networking.

I have no high hopes for "Windows 7", as it was originally promoted to me (by Microsoft) as an "Overlay" for Vista. If I wanted an "overlay", I'd purchase XP Plus and overlay it onto XP.

[rwillis9]

i think windows vista is stupid. i got xp the day after it came out and used it till last year when someone stole my computer and i was forced to buy a new one and if i had the choice to buy vista ar die i would die it freezes frequently it has crashed 3 times already so windows should not have fixed something that was not broken...

[taz10000]

Just get over it vista suks because I am an computer engineer and I know a lot about computing and all vista does is it just crumbles up your computer files and makes it slower there is know difference between xp and vista execpt the fact that xp is way!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! faster

[jeremycnet]

Yeah, XP is a lot better than Vista. Vista does suck! I prefer XP a lot to Vista. Bells and whistles are nice, but the OS should still perform. XP outperforms Vista on all fronts. Vista is such a memory hog. It takes forever to load some programs, and takes forever to shut down. Maybe Windows 7 will be better!