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Switch to Vista?

T

tailes151

Senior member
It's about that time again to reformat my computer and get everything nice and pretty. The past few years I've been running XP Pro. However, my school just started offering business students free downloadable copies of Vista Business, along with a various assortment of other software things.

Here's my question: Should I upgrade to vista? Have all the bugs been worked out by now? Would I take a hit gaming wise? I use the system for homework and such, but the majority of my time on it is spent gaming. My hardware is getting old, so I'm not sure whats the best route to take. My Specs are below.

P4 3.0
2gb DDR 3200
X1950Pro
80gb Hard drive 🙁
X-FI Xtreme Music
22" Viewsonic LCD
Logitech peripherals (mouse, speakers, etc...)
Lite-On burner

Thanks for the help!
 

Vista Business is equivalent to XP Pro.

If you're a XP Pro fanboui, you'll love Vista Business...

Of course, this will require some adjustment on your part, but it's the way of the future, you know? 😉
 
Heh, I know. I was planning on switching over to vista sometime, but I just wanted to make sure all the bugs and such are worked out and that my system won't take a hit because of the switch.
 
Originally posted by: tailes151
P4 3.0
2gb DDR 3200
X1950Pro
80gb Hard drive 🙁
X-FI Xtreme Music
22" Viewsonic LCD
Logitech peripherals (mouse, speakers, etc...)
Lite-On burner
Click to expand...

I'm not *sure* about legacy hardware support, but...

Logitech SetPoint borked my touch pad, made Vista boot slow, used a lot of resources, yada, yada, yada.

When I uninstalled SetPoint, it was like a virus - took hours to TOTALLY eradicate it from my lappy.

I finally had to boot in Safe Mode, rename the remaining SetPoint files, and use CrapCleaner (CCleaner) to remove them! :|

So, I'd forget about installing Logitech SetPoint, unless it's absolutely necessary to the operation of your machine...
 
If you're going to do a clean install, I dont see why not. The only thing I'd be a little loathe to use with Vista at this point is the X-fi.

If you're going to do an upgrade install...no way. Your hardware can handle vista just fine - I ran a system almost exactly the same, except it had only 1gb ram, and it ran great.
 
Skip Vista with that rig, let me count the ways :

P4 = Single Core (even with HT, it's one true core)
2GB of Ram = DDR1, hugely expensive to upgrade, and 2GB is fine for 32-Bit XP
X-Fi = Works perfectly under XP, under Vista, not so much
X1950 = Works perfectly under XP, under Vista, pretty good but still a performance downgrade
DX9 Hardware = Useless to install a DX10 OS

Only advantage you would have is improved security, and an arguably 'prettier'/'fresher' look to it. With that hardware (Circa high-end '04, with an updated Video/Sound card combo), it makes sense to stay with what works.

My advice; Build a C2D/DDR2 (perhaps DDR3 if the prices fall enough)/DX10 Video Card/64-Bit Vista rig sometime soon. If you went with something like this :

P35 Mobo
C2D E4500
8800GT
4GB DDR2-800
400GB NCQ Sata 3.0

you could get out the door @ $500ish, and it would blow the hell out of your well-worn P4, which you definitely got your $$'s worth out of.

DONT FIX WHAT ISNT BROKE <---- Wisdom 😉
 
Originally posted by: Arkaign
Skip Vista with that rig, let me count the ways :

P4 = Single Core (even with HT, it's one true core)
2GB of Ram = DDR1, hugely expensive to upgrade, and 2GB is fine for 32-Bit XP
X-Fi = Works perfectly under XP, under Vista, not so much
X1950 = Works perfectly under XP, under Vista, pretty good but still a performance downgrade
DX9 Hardware = Useless to install a DX10 OS
Click to expand...


vista has been running fine all year on my old p4 box. i have a 3.0 northwood.

never had a single problem with vista.

 
Originally posted by: JonnyBlaze
Originally posted by: Arkaign
Skip Vista with that rig, let me count the ways :

P4 = Single Core (even with HT, it's one true core)
2GB of Ram = DDR1, hugely expensive to upgrade, and 2GB is fine for 32-Bit XP
X-Fi = Works perfectly under XP, under Vista, not so much
X1950 = Works perfectly under XP, under Vista, pretty good but still a performance downgrade
DX9 Hardware = Useless to install a DX10 OS
Click to expand...


vista has been running fine all year on my old p4 box. i have a 3.0 northwood.

never had a single problem with vista.
Click to expand...

Yep. You should have no issues with the X1950, P4 or 2gb of RAM. Theres plenty of wisdom behind "if it aint broke, dont fix it", but your system will run it just fine.

Should you have any issues with Vista if you do install it, the first thing youll probably want to do in troubleshooting is to take the X-Fi out. This is not a vista problem, this is a creative problem. They cant write drivers for sh*t.
 
Uhhh, download the image, burn it, install it and if it doesn't work out on your hardware, save it for the future. There's no harm in checking it out if you're not even footing the bill for it.
 
Yeah I agree with a few of the previous comments.

Get the licence and the software; it's free. If you won't use it now,
maybe it'll be useful in another year.

2GB of RAM is "OK" for gaming with VISTA, but there is some limitation there,
and it'd be better with 3 or 4 for sure depending on your game etc.

Your CPU is a little on the slow side because VISTA will be a bit more CPU
intensive than XP Pro, so you will take some FPS / speed hit with VISTA.

Then again Vista does do a few things more efficiently than XP so there will
be some redeeming speed / performance virtues, but if mainly it's gaming
you care about, you'll lose maybe 5% - 10% performance would be my guess.

Otherwise it'll probably work more or less for everything you want do to
with it. It has its own share of annoyances, then again so does XP.

I can't think of any really compelling reason to switch from XP Pro to
Vista Business x64, though, they both do the job and XP Pro is a bit
leaner and more no-hassle no-nonsense.

Vista has enough fairly new stuff for software development subsystems that
if you're programming with those things like all the latest .NET 3.0/3.5
stuff, layered windows, Aero, etc. then those may be relevant for you,
but by and large most of that is compatible "enough" with XP that the
average user doesn't have a compelling need to upgrade.

 
Originally posted by: VinDSL
Originally posted by: tailes151
P4 3.0
2gb DDR 3200
X1950Pro
80gb Hard drive 🙁
X-FI Xtreme Music
22" Viewsonic LCD
Logitech peripherals (mouse, speakers, etc...)
Lite-On burner
Click to expand...

I'm not *sure* about legacy hardware support, but...

Logitech SetPoint borked my touch pad, made Vista boot slow, used a lot of resources, yada, yada, yada.

When I uninstalled SetPoint, it was like a virus - took hours to TOTALLY eradicate it from my lappy.

I finally had to boot in Safe Mode, rename the remaining SetPoint files, and use CrapCleaner (CCleaner) to remove them! :|

So, I'd forget about installing Logitech SetPoint, unless it's absolutely necessary to the operation of your machine...
Click to expand...

I have had no issues with SetPoint on my Vista rig... wonder what went wrong with yours.
 
I did have problems with SetPoint and conflicts with NVidia SATA drivers in XP.

Decided not to install it in my Vista 64. No problems with the G15 keyboard drivers though.
 
Originally posted by: QuixoticOne
Yeah I agree with a few of the previous comments.

Get the licence and the software; it's free. If you won't use it now,
maybe it'll be useful in another year.

2GB of RAM is "OK" for gaming with VISTA, but there is some limitation there,
and it'd be better with 3 or 4 for sure depending on your game etc.

Your CPU is a little on the slow side because VISTA will be a bit more CPU
intensive than XP Pro, so you will take some FPS / speed hit with VISTA.

Then again Vista does do a few things more efficiently than XP so there will
be some redeeming speed / performance virtues, but if mainly it's gaming
you care about, you'll lose maybe 5% - 10% performance would be my guess.

Otherwise it'll probably work more or less for everything you want do to
with it. It has its own share of annoyances, then again so does XP.

I can't think of any really compelling reason to switch from XP Pro to
Vista Business x64, though, they both do the job and XP Pro is a bit
leaner and more no-hassle no-nonsense.

Vista has enough fairly new stuff for software development subsystems that
if you're programming with those things like all the latest .NET 3.0/3.5
stuff, layered windows, Aero, etc. then those may be relevant for you,
but by and large most of that is compatible "enough" with XP that the
average user doesn't have a compelling need to upgrade.
Click to expand...

Benchmarks have shown that the hit is a lot less than 5-10%. It was like that on launch a year ago, but its pretty much a dead heat at this point.

You'll be fine with 2gb for gaming...for now. By the end of this year the story will probably have changed.
 
Originally posted by: indigo196
I have had no issues with SetPoint on my Vista rig... wonder what went wrong with yours.
Click to expand...

Well, this is a laptop, and they're totally different than desktop machines.

I *assume* you're not running Vista/Logitech SetPoint on a notebook - correct me, If I'm wrong...

For starters, there seemed to be a conflict between SetPoint and my Alps touch pad drivers. To make things worse, the Windows Update Service (still) thinks I have a Synaptics touch pad - no telling what SetPoint *thought*.

Anyway, the biggest pisser was, every time I would reboot, SetPoint would reset my mouse motion, et cetera, to the 'neutral' default setting - jacking up both my Logitech wireless mouse settings and my Alps touch pad. This continued after I 'uninstalled' SetPoint, as it had written itself to protected areas of Vista that SetPoint couldn't delete.

Not only that, but the install program wrote, like, 50MB of crap all over my drive - changed some admin registry settings that couldn't be modified or deleted, installed executables in system-protected directories, yada, yada, yada.

OMG!!! What a nightmare!

I 'uninstalled' it months ago, and I'm still finding remnants - found some more SetPoint shortcuts in my Start Menu tonight - no kidding! :|

That ^%$! thing is harder to get rid of than Apple QuickTime/iTune - it's like a root kit...
 
Originally posted by: JonnyBlaze

vista has been running fine all year on my old p4 box. i have a 3.0 northwood.

never had a single problem with vista.
Click to expand...

Sorry to hear that!

My wife has a P4 Northwood HT 3.0 and I have a P4EE Gallatin/Northwood HT 3.4

Now, I'm gonna have to try Vista on them... 😀
 
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