Which Windows OS is best for energy saving purposes

[DeadSeaSquirrels]

I just put together a new computer, and I think I'm going to relegate my old computer as either a file storage backup, or use it to play movies (sort of, not running Windows Media Center). One important thing to me though is keeping it up all the time so that I can easily move files in and out, and at the same time be energy conscious. If I don't use it for 3 days, I would like it to be using a little power as possible. Which OS is best for this?

I think I read somewhere that Vista is actually really good at power management, and that even though XP is suppose to have your computer in sleep or standby or whatever, it still draws a significant amount of power.

I might think about a unix system too, but since I'm not really a unix user I'd rather not if I didn't have to. Not to mention the Samba issue with file sharing and stuff. Any suggestions?

 

[Game Boy]

Well, Linux definitely gives the best performance (which I assume translates into less CPU usage on idle = less power) and reliability, but the file sharing issue may be a problem or not. Ubuntu Linux is really easy to use once set up with movie-playing codecs , though.

Linux is also free, of course.

Not Vista, though - it has the largest CPU and memory footprint on idle despite the power saving enhancements from XP. Plus "actually really good" is only compared to ther Windows versions, so I don't know how it compares to Linux.

 

[A5]

So you want to run a computer 24/7, but are worried about energy use? If you just want to store files, I would just run a NAS device...uses much less power than any PC.

Otherwise, Linux is the answer...just run it with no monitor or video card after the initial setup, and try to undervolt/underclock your CPU to save power (CPU speed isn't important at all for I/O operations on SATA/IDE drives). If you really want Windows, I'd say Windows 2000 or XP will work just fine as well.

 

[Brazen]

Your choice of hardware is going to have more of an effect on this than your software. However, running a linux distro with commandline only (no gui) will give big savings in processor time and therefore save energy. Also, sleep and standby modes are irrelevant since you will need your computer to be awake in order to move files to/from it. Once you get the computer setup to share files, you can also remove any unnecessary hardware. For instance, my home server, I powered it off, unplugged the monitor, mouse, and keyboard so all that was plugged into it was the power cable and ethernet cable, and then powered it back on. As A5 also said, you could even go so far as to physically remove the video card (mine is onboard, which is also a powersaver over an addon card).

If you are not comfortable setting up a *nix file server, particularly with only commandline, then check out OpenFiler or FreeNAS. I've test driven OpenFiler myself and found it to be very intuitive (to me anyways). It is commandline only on the console, but does use a web interface (which equals almost no processing power, especially compared to a full blown console gui). Installation is easy, and the web interface is setup and ready to use automatically.

 

[DeadSeaSquirrels]

I think standby and sleep modes are going to be the predominant state it will be in. Yes I will use it as a file server, and maybe even play content, HDMI it to a monitor around the corner, but for the most part, I won't be moving files in and out, and I'm suspecting that usually it will just sit there. Basically I will use it to watch movies once a week, backup my main computers data, etc. In this case do you guys have a different opinion on Windows or *nix? I mean *nix sounds like the obvious choice, but I just want to make sure everything works correctly, so I don't end up not being able to play movies or whatever.