Quick decision. To buy XP or Vista.....

[Archandy]

Hey all,

Ive just upgraded my late 2007 2.4Ghz Macbook Pro 2GB RAM to Leopard today.

Ive been happily using Vectorworks, Cinema4D, Sketchup, Photoshop etc in Tiger OSX and am still blown away by how the MBP just cruises along when you throw multiple task at it (rendering, modelling, animation). Such a good machine.

However I have now have a need for PC only apps like Microstationv8 and 3D studio Max as my job is all PC based. I would like to put these programs on my MBP so I can learn them quicker (and run them quicker too)

My question is which Windows OS is best for my needs. I was just going to buy XP SP3 as I hear that Vista is not as good yet. I really know nothing about PC's.

All I want a stable platform to do drafting, rendering and play the occasional game.

Any info would be gratefully received guys!!

Cheers

Andy

 

[rake_mistry]

The thing is (from what I've seen and done so far) that XP is tried, and for the most part true. Also, the Windows-only apps you need to use are most likely working perfectly on XP now, and they will continue to be for quite a while to come now (including future apps, sorta like the OS 9 to OS X move), so unless you feel you MUST spend an extra hundred bucks for something that is (actually pretty solid, just a bit of hardware issues I've had, nothing that big software-wise), Windows XP is a definate choice.

 

[camomac]

i find that when i have to use windows that:

-vista is SLOW and BLOATED.
-XP is much more responsive and intuitive (as far as windows goes)

i would recommend XP over vista any day.

 

[CWallace]

Having used both, I am still partial to Windows XP for 32-bit computing (Vista for 64-bit). I like Vista's look, but find XP to be overall more responsive (even when run on Mac Pro-level hardware).

I'll eventually move on to Vista x64, but for the moment, I am happy with XP.

 

[rdowns]

I tried Vista twice on work laptop. Both times I upgrade to XP.

 

[The Flashing Fi]

I personally like Vista a lot more than XP.

I assume that you plan on upgrading to 4 gigs of RAM in the future? If so, you'll definitely want a 64-bit OS, and Vista 64-bit (to use all your RAM). Not only that, to use all your memory, you may want to get a hold of 3D Studio Max 64-bit (even if you can't, you can still use Vista 64-bit).

The only reason I wouldn't go with Vista is if there are any known issues with 3D Studio Max with Windows Vista.

Vista has been out for over a year and a half, and driver issues that were present to begin with is pretty much fixed. SP1 has helped out a lot and fixed many issues. I see no reason to not use Vista. XP is a 7 year old OS. Would you consider running Mac OS X 10.1 (assuming that you could)?

 

[aki]

vista sp1

if u are getting it for some special apps maybe its good to check vista compatability first but its crazy to buy xp now....vista is not slow on any modern mac....its not osx or close but its easy better than xp

 

[ayeying]

i find that when i have to use windows that:

-vista is SLOW and BLOATED.
-XP is much more responsive and intuitive (as far as windows goes)

i would recommend XP over vista any day.

Vista is bloated, but its not entirely slow depends on what type of hardware you use. I find running 512MB in a Virtual Machine in VMWare Fusion for Vista with every eyecandy turned on possible seems pretty fast (not as fast as XP) but its not "SLOW"

 

[Archandy]

thanks for the response. Interesting to see views are very devided.

So basically XP is stable, reliable, compatible with most apps but old and will eventually be obsolete (not soon I hope)

Vista will be the future and will get the best out of my computer eventually but is still rather slow and requires a lot of RAM (which I dont have )

Mmmm. Seeing as XP is pretty cheap I think ill buy that for now and upgrade to vista when I have to. (much like upgrading to leopard now)

 

[Stridder44]

thanks for the response. Interesting to see views are very devided.

So basically XP is stable, reliable, compatible with most apps but old and will eventually be obsolete (not soon I hope)

Vista will be the future and will get the best out of my computer eventually but is still rather slow and requires a lot of RAM (which I dont have )

Mmmm. Seeing as XP is pretty cheap I think ill buy that for now and upgrade to vista when I have to. (much like upgrading to leopard now)

Vista 64 would be your best choice (I'm assuming you're going to max out the ram at some point...I mean why wouldn't you, it's dirt cheap). It's way more stable than XP and is very fast. And from everything I've heard SP3 for XP is a nightmare (but that's about as accurate as saying Vista is bloated, so yeah).

Go with XP. The pre-2008 Macs can't even run a 64-bit Windows OS anyway (not because of hardware, because Apple has yet to release drivers for them).

 

[atlanticza]

No contest: XP is a mature OS with plenty of third party support. Vista is still an infant that few seem willing to adopt... yet.

 

[TBi]

I've taken a liking to Vista personally. Most of the people who diss vista would probably love Mojave It's cool these days to say bad things about Vista but i do wonder how many of these people have actually used it.

My recommendation though is that if you want 64bit then get Vista. I've been using Vista since it came out and converted to 64bit just about when SP1 came out. SP1 made a massive difference and fixed most of the problems people found with Vista.

However XP is still a very good stable 32-bit OS and unless you want the eye candy of Vista there is no reason not to get it.

Just get the nice WMP11 (Vista) theme from oddbasket

 

[cathaus]

Vista 64 not such a good choice...

I am in a similar situation as my wife needs Windows in order to run some of the software required for an online class she is taking. She also needs a spreadsheet for this class and I'm really struggling with whether to get Office or iWork. At any rate...

A friend of mine bought Vista 64 for his new PC. He is running C4D and hoped to see a jump in his render speeds on complicated scenes. From his accounts, Vista 64 has little support from 3rd party vendors. The only non-linear editor that is currently certified to work in 64 bit mode is Sony Vegas. Also, there appear to be a great many issues with Quicktime. We were going to use his 4 core machine to do some transcoding using MPEGStreamclip. We bought the Mpeg-2 plugin from Apple and set forth to do some batch processing but soon discovered it would not be possible in 64 bit mode. Vista is the future for Microsoft so I suppose you either get it now or buy it down the road. I can say from limited experience that the 64 bit version is not quite ready for prime time but this seems to have more to do with 3rd parties not coding their apps for 64 bit.

 

[TBi]

A friend of mine bought Vista 64 for his new PC. He is running C4D and hoped to see a jump in his render speeds on complicated scenes.

64-bit won't be faster unless the application is 64bit. It might be slower given the code translation WOW64.

Also, there appear to be a great many issues with Quicktime. We were going to use his 4 core machine to do some transcoding using MPEGStreamclip. We bought the Mpeg-2 plugin from Apple and set forth to do some batch processing but soon discovered it would not be possible in 64 bit mode.

There is no technical reason why it shouldn't be possible under 64bit windows. Unless this is a glitch with the 64-bit version of the MPEG-2 plug in but i didn't think apple had any 64-bit software for windows.

Vista is the future for Microsoft so I suppose you either get it now or buy it down the road. I can say from limited experience that the 64 bit version is not quite ready for prime time but this seems to have more to do with 3rd parties not coding their apps for 64 bit.

As long as you have hardware support then there is no discernable difference between running 64-bit and 32-bit Vista from a 32-bit software viewpoint. All 32-bit software will run on both OS's and with 64-bit vista you get the capability of using 64-bit software.

 

[Stridder44]

I am in a similar situation as my wife needs Windows in order to run some of the software required for an online class she is taking. She also needs a spreadsheet for this class and I'm really struggling with whether to get Office or iWork. At any rate...

A friend of mine bought Vista 64 for his new PC. He is running C4D and hoped to see a jump in his render speeds on complicated scenes. From his accounts, Vista 64 has little support from 3rd party vendors. The only non-linear editor that is currently certified to work in 64 bit mode is Sony Vegas. Also, there appear to be a great many issues with Quicktime. We were going to use his 4 core machine to do some transcoding using MPEGStreamclip. We bought the Mpeg-2 plugin from Apple and set forth to do some batch processing but soon discovered it would not be possible in 64 bit mode. Vista is the future for Microsoft so I suppose you either get it now or buy it down the road. I can say from limited experience that the 64 bit version is not quite ready for prime time but this seems to have more to do with 3rd parties not coding their apps for 64 bit.

What are you talking about? Vista 64 has a ton of 3rd party support. You must be thinking of XP 64.

No contest: XP is a mature OS with plenty of third party support. Vista is still an infant that few seem willing to adopt... yet.

Few? You mean the XP fanboys (can't believe I'm saying that)?

 

[Sesshi]

I'd say XP. The Mac is not a fully Windows-compatible machine for work-critical tasks and XP to us certainly has seemed more stable than Vista under Boot Camp, unlike better-working professional-level hardware from manufacturers such as Dell, Lenovo and HP. If you had a real computer, I'd say get Vista64.

 

[The Flashing Fi]

Vista will be the future and will get the best out of my computer eventually but is still rather slow and requires a lot of RAM (which I dont have )

Mmmm. Seeing as XP is pretty cheap I think ill buy that for now and upgrade to vista when I have to. (much like upgrading to leopard now)

I don't find Vista any "slower" than XP. On the contrary, with Vista's Superfetch, I find that applications load up faster (commonly used applications are cached in the memory). Vista doesn't "require" a lot of RAM. If you have 2 gigs of RAM, you should have no problems. Even if you have 1 gig, it's still ample for basic tasks and some multi-tasking. Obviously, the more the merrier. As far as the key difference between XP and Vista, for memory management, is that Vista uses all your memory, XP does not. Vista will use as much of your free memory as possible to for superfetch (as an FYI, Mac OS X attempts to do the same thing with your free RAM). When you start an application though, Vista will release the memory on the fly for the program. I've run programs that needed quite a bit of memory and when I unloaded the program, I saw my memory percentage around 30-35% (in contrast, it may have been around 45-50% in use), but after a few minutes, Vista "gobbled" it right back up.

Having unused memory is just wasted memory. It's literally not doing anything.

As far as price, Vista and XP are the same price for comparable versions. I'm assuming you plan on buying an OEM license? You can get Vista Home Premium for under 100 bucks if I recall correctly (which, if you plan on buying Vista, I would definitely go with Home Premium, and only consider Vista Business if you need the networking and administrative options).

You can get Vista Home Basic for 89.99 (same price as XP Home on Newegg), or you can get Vista Home Premium for 99.99 (10 bucks more, and it includes Aero, Media Center, and a few other things, and for 10 bucks more, why not get it?).

Vista Business and XP Pro are also the same price (which I would only get if you need the networking and administrative benefits).

 

[aiterum]

as long as you have sufficient ram (2gb or higher) you'll be able to run vista fine. At this point, I'm only still running XP because I've experienced it longer, but really, at this point in time there isn't a reason to buy Vista over XP, as XP is pretty much dying out except for those of us who have used it in the past and are resistant of change.

The other thing worth mentioning though, is that on laptops, Vista uses battery less efficiently than XP does, especially if you have aero enabled (because that uses the GPU), so keep that in mind. you'll still be able to get 2-3 hours, just not 4-5

 

[hogfaninga]

as long as you have sufficient ram (2gb or higher) you'll be able to run vista fine. At this point, I'm only still running XP because I've experienced it longer, but really, at this point in time there isn't a reason to buy Vista over XP, as XP is pretty much dying out except for those of us who have used it in the past and are resistant of change.

The other thing worth mentioning though, is that on laptops, Vista uses battery less efficiently than XP does, especially if you have aero enabled (because that uses the GPU), so keep that in mind. you'll still be able to get 2-3 hours, just not 4-5

I run Vista(Home Premium) a lot and I consistently get between 3 1/2 to 4 hours on my Macbook battery. I used to have XP and it got about the same. Not any difference really.

 

[TBi]

The Mac is not a fully Windows-compatible machine for work-critical tasks

Um... yes it is... It is a PC after all.

 

[Archandy]

Okay, so I guess Ram wont be the over riding issuefor me. Especially as Ive decided to upgrade to my 2GB to 4GB

It does make sense to put the newsest platform on my machine but I think the deal clincher for me will be how Micorstation / AutoCAD / 3dsmax runs on Vista.

Has anyone experienced these programs on xp and vista? How do they compare? I will check myself but prefer tp trust peoples first hand experience.

Cheers

 

[TBi]

Okay, so I guess Ram wont be the over riding issuefor me. Especially as Ive decided to upgrade to my 2GB to 4GB

It does make sense to put the newsest platform on my machine but I think the deal clincher for me will be how Micorstation / AutoCAD / 3dsmax runs on Vista.

Has anyone experienced these programs on xp and vista? How do they compare? I will check myself but prefer tp trust peoples first hand experience.

Cheers

Well Vista allows you to use it for up to 30 days before registering. Why not get a copy of Vista 64 (there are ways and means but we aren't allowed talk about it) and see if it works for you? Just install the version you will be buying and if it works then you can just buy it retail (or preferably OEM) and put in the license key. You won't need to reinstall.

Think of it as a trial run and not that P-word people keep throwing about...

EDIT: I think SP3 XP allows this 'trial-run' behavior too but XP-64 doesn't have SP3 yet.

 

[cathaus]

64-bit won't be faster unless the application is 64bit. It might be slower given the code translation WOW64.

That's obvious. The reason he went with Vista 64 was he planned on using the 64 bit version of C4D. As far as that goes, it seems that 3D apps are the only programs really taking advantage of the 64 bit architectures.

There is no technical reason why it shouldn't be possible under 64bit windows. Unless this is a glitch with the 64-bit version of the MPEG-2 plug in but i didn't think apple had any 64-bit software for windows.

The MPEG-2 plug in is not 64bit. Neither is Quicktime at this point.

As long as you have hardware support then there is no discernable difference between running 64-bit and 32-bit Vista from a 32-bit software viewpoint. All 32-bit software will run on both OS's and with 64-bit vista you get the capability of using 64-bit software.

By hardware support I assume you mean software drivers for the respective hardware. That is certainly the key. My point regarding the purchase decision is that the choice of OS depends on what you're doing. Because all applications have not been ported to 64 bit you may find your specific workflow impacted as in our case. Vista 64 does not offer the seamless, "best of both worlds" environment that one might think it does.

 

[Stridder44]

The Mac is not a fully Windows-compatible machine for work-critical tasks and XP to us certainly has seemed more stable than Vista under Boot Camp, unlike better-working professional-level hardware from manufacturers such as Dell, Lenovo and HP. If you had a real computer, I'd say get Vista64.

If you had a real computer? The Mac is not a fully Windows-compatible machine? I can't believe what I'm reading.

MacBook Pros are VERY capable machines for Vista 64. Like I've said before, I've been running it since SP1 was released and it's been nothing but awesome. The only reason his pre-2008 MBP can't run Vista 64 is because Apple has STILL not released drivers for their own hardware.

And please explain to me how the Mac isn't a fully Windows-compatible machine? I would love to hear your failed logic behind that statement.

 

[aiterum]

I run Vista(Home Premium) a lot and I consistently get between 3 1/2 to 4 hours on my Macbook battery. I used to have XP and it got about the same. Not any difference really.

note that the macbook doesn't have the dedicated video card capabilities for aero functions either (which if enabled will greatly reduce battery life)