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Is XP better to use than Vista

D

donald17

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 27, 2008
4
0
I am buying a new MBP and want to use an Ancestry.com genealogy program (Family Tree Maker) that will only work on a PC. I know nothing about Windows and don't know what OS ie.. Vista or XP to buy. I ordered Parallels 3.0 and will have 4GB on my MBP. Can you offer any advice on what I should get.
Thanks in advance
Donald
 
Stay with XP... your geneology program will run just fine with XP, and technically you are not allowed [per the Microsoft License] to run Vista under Virtualization anyways.

I have a MacPro with Parallels 3.0 and XP runs great. My wife is getting one of the new MBP laptops and we plan on doing the same thing there. There are just some programs we still need XP to run...
 
I personally find vista one of the worst operating systems i've used. All be it the interface looks smooth & smart. The errors and security settings are too extreme for my liking.
 
XP hands down. More stability, more compatibility, in my opinion faster since it doesn't use as much overhead as Vista does.


You said you had 4g of ram, keep in mind XP 32bit will only see 2g, while XP 64bit (not totally compatible with most software) will see all 4g. No biggie since your running in Virtual Mode.

SDDave2007 said:
and technically you are not allowed [per the Microsoft License] to run Vista under Virtualization anyways.
Click to expand...

Actually you can, unless they lifted the virtualization license running Vista will cost you more since you'll need the Business versions rather than the Home/Personal versions as MS decided they didn't want people running the cheaper version in a virtual machine. The license issue was only restricting home/personal editions, business and higher can be ran in virtualization.

As far as Parallels/Fusion, eh, they bost cost the same and since your only doing it for a few small apps, I don't think one or the other will matter. Lots of people here use virtual windows for more than just one or two apps so they/we tend to be biased to a particular software *cough*fusion*cough* but I think you'll be fine.

Recommendation: XP
 
kkat69 said:
You said you had 4g of ram, keep in mind XP 32bit will only see 2g, while XP 64bit (not totally compatible with most software) will see all 4g. No biggie since
Click to expand...

Actually, the consumer versions of 32-bit Windows XP and Vista have a stated limit of 4 GB RAM, but a practical limit of about 3.1 GB.
 
Thank you all for your advice

I will definitely buy XP to run my Ancestry.com genealogy program based on all the great advice given here. I assume I should purchase the Home edition but wonder if it can let me search the internet for Census data etc that Ancestry.com offers. I guess Parallels 3.0 would easily accommodate switching over to the Mac for that function. When I buy XP what other things or features such as "Home Edition" should I ask for?
Your help to a newbie like me is so appreciated, I can't say thank you enough.
Donald
 
hurriance said:
Actually, the consumer versions of 32-bit Windows XP and Vista have a stated limit of 4 GB RAM, but a practical limit of about 3.1 GB.
Click to expand...

Key word "STATED."

They'll take it yes, but Windows will only use about 2.5 ~3 leaving 1g behind technically unused by the OS.

donald17 said:
I will definitely buy XP to run my Ancestry.com genealogy program based on all the great advice given here. I assume I should purchase the Home edition but wonder if it can let me search the internet for Census data etc that Ancestry.com offers. I guess Parallels 3.0 would easily accommodate switching over to the Mac for that function. When I buy XP what other things or features such as "Home Edition" should I ask for?
Your help to a newbie like me is so appreciated, I can't say thank you enough.
Donald
Click to expand...

Home edition is just fine. You shouldn't worry about "searching" the differences between it and pro are transparent to the normal avg user.

There are no "features" to ask for. In the XP world your either gonna get Home or Pro, that's it. It's not Vista with the 20 choices. Just NewEgg.com and look for Windows XP Home OEM and that's ALL you need. When installed inside Parallel's it'll act just like your old windows machine with little to no difference.
 
If you plan on running XP in Bootcamp make sure that XP has SP2 on the disk. Otherwise you'll have to slipstream SP2 onto the disk.
 
donald17 said:
I am buying a new MBP and want to use an Ancestry.com genealogy program (Family Tree Maker) that will only work on a PC. I know nothing about Windows and don't know what OS ie.. Vista or XP to buy. I ordered Parallels 3.0 and will have 4GB on my MBP. Can you offer any advice on what I should get.
Thanks in advance
Donald
Click to expand...

I think you make a great choice. I heard that Parallels is ok for both OS. So it's your choice, but as about me I prefer XP :)
 
Hate to say, I prefer Vista over XP because of XP would end the mainstream support in next year such as no new update and Apple would maybe or not release new version of iTunes, Quicktime and Safari after end mainstream support in 2009.
 
kkat69 said:
Key word "STATED."

They'll take it yes, but Windows will only use about 2.5 ~3 leaving 1g behind technically unused by the OS.



Home edition is just fine. You shouldn't worry about "searching" the differences between it and pro are transparent to the normal avg user.

There are no "features" to ask for. In the XP world your either gonna get Home or Pro, that's it. It's not Vista with the 20 choices. Just NewEgg.com and look for Windows XP Home OEM and that's ALL you need. When installed inside Parallel's it'll act just like your old windows machine with little to no difference.
Click to expand...

I have 3GB RAM on Vista 32 bit and shown as 3GB on it, not 2GB or 2.5GB.
 
iCharlie said:
I personally find vista one of the worst operating systems i've used. All be it the interface looks smooth & smart. The errors and security settings are too extreme for my liking.
Click to expand...

It's quietly not true, you can configuration on security setting to make turn down, I had disabled all of them and runs so very good, plus haven't get error after updated massive of update to fix the bugs. Now, Vista seems more stable than last year and new SP1 would going be rocks.
 
lucky3killer said:
It's quietly not true, you can configuration on security setting to make turn down, I had disabled all of them and runs so very good, plus haven't get error after updated massive of update to fix the bugs. Now, Vista seems more stable than last year and new SP1 would going be rocks.
Click to expand...

Have you ever tried using it in a work based environment its a piece of "crap"
 
I used to use Vista with my MacPro but its a pain, you are better off with XP, you will also save on space.
 
neil321 said:
Have you ever tried using it in a work based environment its a piece of "crap"
Click to expand...

I use Vista at work and hate it. Now, IT at work won't support Vista so I can't even update it because they "unwittingly" block Vista update, so I hope it starts to work better once the updates start rolling in. It does work better on my home machine, but I still don't "like" it. The only things I've seen in Vista that are an improvement are the sleep function for laptops and wireless networking. I scratch my head on the rest and wonder why they changed what they changed from XP. Anti-productive at least for me.
 
Stick with XP for sure - better software compatibility, better performance. I just bought a large number of PCs for work (I'm the systems admin / I.T. manager there), and specified XP - we trialled Vista but it's a bit of a sluggard in many ways.

Interestingly, ALL of the I.T. pros I know - both professionally and socially - are sticking with XP - there's just not enough good reasons to 'upgrade' and a LOT of good reasons to stay put.
 
tersono said:
Interestingly, ALL of the I.T. pros I know - both professionally and socially - are sticking with XP - there's just not enough good reasons to 'upgrade' and a LOT of good reasons to stay put.
Click to expand...

I work in a fortune 500 company and I seriously doubt we'll go to Vista until the end of life for XP nears. As an enterprise, there is absolutely nothing that Vista offers for us over XP.
 
cohibadad said:
I use Vista at work and hate it. Now, IT at work won't support Vista so I can't even update it because they "unwittingly" block Vista update, so I hope it starts to work better once the updates start rolling in. It does work better on my home machine, but I still don't "like" it. The only things I've seen in Vista that are an improvement are the sleep function for laptops and wireless networking. I scratch my head on the rest and wonder why they changed what they changed from XP. Anti-productive at least for me.
Click to expand...

You and me both,i work for a college,the college supports it ( it has to as its courses are windows based) but it drives me frigging mad.Vista is a lame excuse for a OS ( not that i ever slag it off )
Its that bad that when im at work i dont mind having to use the computers that run XP now thats
gotta be saying something
 
Oh Phew!
I just agonized over this and today ordered 64 bit XP Pro because I'm running programs that need to see all the RAM.
I only need to run two or three programs on it and iTunes etc I'll run on OSX.
 
neil321 said:
Have you ever tried using it in a work based environment its a piece of "crap"
Click to expand...

No idea.

I just need Vista because of Halo 2, only exclusive to Vista.

Vista is running so fast on my MBP after updated all updates to fix the bugs.
 
1/10th our company of 120 users is now on Vista. No issues, no drama, no hassles. Not sure what you're experiencing but we've had no issues. Our software developers are still on XP but some of our designers who are using the creative suite packages are over on Vista as are some sales people and a couple of the VP's.



neil321 said:
Have you ever tried using it in a work based environment its a piece of "crap"
Click to expand...
 
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