Vista is now available with SP1, however, XP SP3 is imminent. Does anyone know whether SP3 for XP is available? What will it improve upon? Would SP3 for XP make for greater stability and performance over Vista? I'd appreciate some advice as I'm tempted to make the jump to Vista with SP1. Thank you.
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Vista SP1 vs XP SP3
- Thread starter 7beauties
- Start date
An RC version of XP SP3 was available from Microsoft a while back. I got it and have it installed on both my systems. Honestly I noticed NO difference -- which is exactly what I wanted. I mean there are some issues that t does address but it has the major benefit of being an all in one install instead of the massive amount of updates I had to do from a clean install of XP SP1, which my current CD is.
I remember reading the info about the SP3 and performance wise I do not remember anything jumping out at me. The majority of improvements were mainly in getting a crap load of security patches in and some other tweaks here and there.
My GF uses Vista (with the SP1) on her laptop. She loves vista for how it looks. I hate Vista for how complicated or hard it is to find things I am so comfortable with in XP, and the amount of overhead it has. However, I have to admit that now that she has been running her system for months on Vista, her laptop does indeed feel very snappy. However she does not game, do any video encoding, program etc. All she does is email, surf and bloody facebook so for her Vista is perfect. Heck Win98 would do the trick.
Depends what your needs are and what is more important to you.
If it matters, her Vista SP1 is rock stable -- she has not had a crash ever. Again -- base that on the simple things she does. On my end, I OC my Quad q6600, have a crap load of hardware in my case, I have dozens of programs running, play all sorts of games, encode, decode, program and pretty much abuse my XP system daily. It has not seen a crash or hang in AGES.
I remember reading the info about the SP3 and performance wise I do not remember anything jumping out at me. The majority of improvements were mainly in getting a crap load of security patches in and some other tweaks here and there.
My GF uses Vista (with the SP1) on her laptop. She loves vista for how it looks. I hate Vista for how complicated or hard it is to find things I am so comfortable with in XP, and the amount of overhead it has. However, I have to admit that now that she has been running her system for months on Vista, her laptop does indeed feel very snappy. However she does not game, do any video encoding, program etc. All she does is email, surf and bloody facebook so for her Vista is perfect. Heck Win98 would do the trick.
Depends what your needs are and what is more important to you.
If it matters, her Vista SP1 is rock stable -- she has not had a crash ever. Again -- base that on the simple things she does. On my end, I OC my Quad q6600, have a crap load of hardware in my case, I have dozens of programs running, play all sorts of games, encode, decode, program and pretty much abuse my XP system daily. It has not seen a crash or hang in AGES.
mooseracing
Golden Member
I'm very happy with XP SP3, I'm running it at work now for about 1.5 months without any issues on my main rig. The only dislike is the change to remote desktop, you don't enter your password until you conenct to the server. I see the benefits though.
I force myself to use Vista because I am going to have to support it coming up in the next few months. The hate has alot of truth behind it, why is MS offereing support after install of SP1, because it f'ed up more things. I went from 3GB of mem to 32GB, I move the sticks around and now I am down to 16.3, even though I truly only have 3GB. That is a Vista bug. I'm not going to type out all the problems I've had in the past 6 months but there is truth to alot of the bugs and has nothing to do with learning.
I force myself to use Vista because I am going to have to support it coming up in the next few months. The hate has alot of truth behind it, why is MS offereing support after install of SP1, because it f'ed up more things. I went from 3GB of mem to 32GB, I move the sticks around and now I am down to 16.3, even though I truly only have 3GB. That is a Vista bug. I'm not going to type out all the problems I've had in the past 6 months but there is truth to alot of the bugs and has nothing to do with learning.
EarthwormJim
Diamond Member
If you're basically all up to date in security updates for XP, there's no significant difference between what you have now and SP3.
So really ask yourself, is it worth your time switching from XP to Vista period.
So really ask yourself, is it worth your time switching from XP to Vista period.
Chiropteran
Diamond Member
Vista has been out more than a year and some people are still afraid to use it. Do you really think these same people will jump on Windows 7 at release before any service packs are out? I doubt it, it'll be the exact same story, except they will be talking about how much better Vista SP2 is than this new bloated Windows 7.
dmcowen674
No Lifer
Not true if Win 7 actually works as advertised.
Griffinhart
Golden Member
My rule of thumb for people...
If you are running XP on your current PC there is no rush to upgrade. If you are building/buying a new PC you will be better off with Vista.
MS is offering support because they have always had support for Service Packs. XP SP1 and SP2 also had support. Using the fact that MS offers support for it as proof of Vista problems is really just more FUD.
If you are running XP on your current PC there is no rush to upgrade. If you are building/buying a new PC you will be better off with Vista.
MS is offering support because they have always had support for Service Packs. XP SP1 and SP2 also had support. Using the fact that MS offers support for it as proof of Vista problems is really just more FUD.
Griffinhart
Golden Member
Based on an unclear quote. I won't believe that Windows 7 will be out in a year. Even if MS has every intention of releasing within 12 months, MS has never been great at timely releases. I'm still betting on 2010 or even 2011.
Edit:
Arstechnica has a good write up on the hype over the supposed release date of Win7. it's worth a read.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ar...7-next-year-quote.html
EarthwormJim
Diamond Member
Read the quote, it's completely open to interpretation, and I think the writer of the article interpreted it wrong. Probably looking for a good headline.
There is no way Windows 7 is coming out in a year. If it was due out in a year, public beta testing would have started already.
WINXP SP3 is quite small & easily downloadable. According to news reports this service pack demonstrated a 10 percent increase in performance. Looks like it shouldnt hurt to install it.
Below is excerpt from:
Worldwide News and Product Reviews
?The latest in tech news and hot product reviews.?
by Charles Carr
'According to Suzanne Tindal over at CNET, "New tests have
revealed that Windows XP with the beta Service Pack 3 has twice the
performance of Vista, even with its long-awaited Service Pack 1. When
Vista with the Service Pack 1 (SP1) beta was put through benchmark
testing by researchers at Florida-based software development
company Devil Mountain Software, the improvement was not
overwhelming, leaving the latest Windows iteration outshined by its
predecessor."
According to the tests, which included creating a compound document
and supporting workbooks and presentation materials, SP1-powered
Vista took more than 80 seconds to complete tasks that XP with the
SP3 beta finished in just 35 seconds.
It gets worse: "Vista's performance with the service pack increased less
than 2 percent compared to performance without SP1," notes Tindal,
"much lower than XP's SP3 improvement of 10 percent." '
Below is excerpt from:
Worldwide News and Product Reviews
?The latest in tech news and hot product reviews.?
by Charles Carr
'According to Suzanne Tindal over at CNET, "New tests have
revealed that Windows XP with the beta Service Pack 3 has twice the
performance of Vista, even with its long-awaited Service Pack 1. When
Vista with the Service Pack 1 (SP1) beta was put through benchmark
testing by researchers at Florida-based software development
company Devil Mountain Software, the improvement was not
overwhelming, leaving the latest Windows iteration outshined by its
predecessor."
According to the tests, which included creating a compound document
and supporting workbooks and presentation materials, SP1-powered
Vista took more than 80 seconds to complete tasks that XP with the
SP3 beta finished in just 35 seconds.
It gets worse: "Vista's performance with the service pack increased less
than 2 percent compared to performance without SP1," notes Tindal,
"much lower than XP's SP3 improvement of 10 percent." '
soonerproud
Golden Member
1. Much of the hate against Vista is being spread/expressed by people who have never seen/used Vista nor ever intend to. You even have some former haters recently admitting that was the case until they actually tried the operating system for themselves. As with all things, there is a grain of truth behind some of the hate. Much of it is overblown to be a much bigger issue that it really is.
2. Microsoft offers free support for all of their service packs including for XP SP2 when it was being released. This is not a good argument that the free support is a result of Microsoft fucking something up. (All service packs fuck something up. It is called trade offs, and it has been the rule of any and all bug fixes forever and ever.)
Looking at the poll so far it seems that Vista is a lot more popular with actual users than what bloggers on the web want you to believe.
soonerproud
Golden Member
The test that were used to determine the so called 10% performance increase are script based test running productivity suites (Ms office) at superhuman speeds. In other words this is not something that is measurable by actual office suite usage scenarios. You will probably be hard pressed to see any difference using office apps on either Vista or XP due to the speeds that humans actually work at.
In other words, that so called 10% performance increase claim is bogus and is not repeatable on benchmarks across the board.
mooseracing
Golden Member
What type of users? Generic Homer users or power users? I find it hard for myself to use Vista especially after reinstalling XP to get Vista to see teh hard drive so I could reinstall Vista. Xp 64 was killing Vista in boot up and running nearly anything. Once a fresh install of Vista x64 and SP1 it was still as slow as it was on my old drive. With quad core (dual-dual cores). 3GB ram, and a raptor vista should not be so painfully slow. I hope it is just drivers or some update soon to be released.
I work with XP everyday and Server 2003R2, I know the share of problems they both have, but I'm not looking foward to introducing Vista (kinda looking fwd to serv 08) into our workplace. Of course then 2yrs from now I will want to keep Vista (once all the bugs are worked out) and not want to install 7, since 7 will have bugs and Vista's will have been fixed. It's a boring cycle, but people will need to install Vista for it to get better, otherwise the bugs don't get found.
Right now after experiencing both I feel XP SP3 is a better fit for most. Most people here don't have stock settings on their pc/hardware, nearly everyone is trying to squeeze that extra bit of speed out. This will make a big diff on how the OS runs between us and the Offic/Home user. But again I know there is pretty much one choice out there for the next OS.
Griffinhart
Golden Member
The 10% SP3 boost has been over reported. While technically true, the boost is only in one specific benchmark (Office Bench) which opens, closes, scrolls, cuts, pastes etc... Nothing actually heavy hitting and even the slowest PC/OS will run these tests faster than any human can even try. Not exactly real world.
What makes the test pretty bogus to start is that any sort of animation applied to opening and closing windows affects the tests dramatically.
Worse yet, The particular article doesn't tell you, but if you look at the details, all of these tests are run on Virtual machines and not machines dedicated to XP or Vista.
soonerproud
Golden Member
On this forum, it would be power users for the most part.
More than likely a driver issue. How old is the hardware you are trying to run Vista on? Anything made within the last year and a half should have decent Vista drivers by now. Vista should not be much slower than XP x64 in boot times and it definitely should not be painfully slow to use. Post the model number for your motherboard and maybe we can help you find better drivers for it.
You might have to go directly to the chipset manufacturer to get decent drivers. (I have a nForce 4 SLI DFI motherboard that I have to go directly to Nvidia to get Vista drivers for since DFI hasn't bothered to update the drivers since early 2006.)
This is probably the nightmare of most IT professionals have. Of course if what I currently had in my company was meeting all the needs then I would be hard pressed to even look at upgrading. By the time most companies are ready to move on, most of the issues will have been resolved and the upgrade will not be as painful.
I would beg to differ here. A lot of users at these forums happily run stock settings, including myself. I used to overclock, but have found today's cpu's are so powerful, I just don't see the need to deal with the issues overclocking can cause anymore. There are different types of users here including those that are willing to sacrifice a little speed for functionality and security.
I don't buy into this "average joe user" crap. What is a "average" computer user? I know you didn't say that specifically, but it was implied by the first sentence. No computer user fits neatly into some box since each persons needs vary wildly as does their computer usage. I certainly am not going to say that Vista is the better fit for most, just like I am not going to concede to you that XP sp3 is a better fit. That should be decided on a user by user basis, and not some blanket recommendation.
badnewcastle
Golden Member
Good rule! :beer:
Maximilian
Lifer
Very true, i had a lot of problems with my laptop and vista, ive googled many of the problems and theyre common, some have fixes which are about 35 steps long and others have no fixes at all. Either way yeah theres definate truth behind a good chunk of this hate.
Mem
Lifer
Agreed!..I have Vista on two systems and do a lot of gaming and general use,my brother/sister and friend also have it installed with no issues,unfortuantely there is a lot of unwarranted FUD spread about Vista,bottomline it has longer life span,future DX support,better security etc..why stay with XP thats so dated and coming towards end of its life.
mooseracing
Golden Member
Yea I have skipped Tyan for drivers and gone straight to Nvidia for nforce pro 2200 drivers. My board is an S2877, more than enough horsepower to run Vista but prolly outdated by standards today even though it runs two-2.3Ghz-dual core optys. I hoping to get a copy of server 08 through MSDN shortly and start using it and hoping it runs better and utilizes the power.
I know this doesn't apply to Vista as much but for to those that are gaming with newer titles I've had the worse luck with their security software and virtual drives.....Sometimes I get fed up with restarting the PC so many times and disabling all the virtual stuff, I just say screw it. The only reason I mention this is because I have seen people accredit it to Vista when they don't understand it is the game manufacture like Sony and DRM.
And of course we are all going to agree to disagree over the topic until Windows 7 rolls out in 3 or so years then we will be back to the same debating 🙂
ChronoReverse
Platinum Member
Nvidia. Well, that doesn't surprise me then. I'm facetious but Nvidia hasn't been impressing with their drivers for quite a while now.
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