Windows Vista now or wait?

[Tangerine]

Have anyone run Windows Vista Ultimate version on Mac Pro 2.6GHz with only 1GB of Ram? Will my Mac Pro run Windows Vista fine? Many have suggested 2GB, but why so much? Is Window Vista that much of a Ram hog? If I can run Windows Vista fine, should I go with x86 Version? Currently Bootcamp only support x86 Version? I don't want to run X64 Bits if they both the same. Any benefit in running X64 Version at all?

Thanks

 

[72930]

Why do you want Vista over a much more stable XP?

 

[janey]

Have anyone run Windows Vista Ultimate version on Mac Pro 2.6GHz with only 1GB of Ram? Will my Mac Pro run Windows Vista fine? Many have suggested 2GB, but why so much? Is Window Vista that much of a Ram hog?

the recommended minimum for vista ultimate is 1gb, period. i'd honestly go for 3+ if you can in general - will boost performance for both OSs and if you multitask.

and if you actually are going in that direction...macosx and certain apps can be just as big resource hogs.

 

[Tangerine]

Why do you want Vista over a much more stable XP?

Because Windows XP is so boring! I like the flip and the Aero effect of Windows Vista. Though I own a Mac Pro I use Windows a lot, so I want it to look good. Vista got the similar eyes candy feel of Mac OS X.

 

[JNB]

Because Windows XP is so boring! I like the flip and the Aero effect of Windows Vista. Though I own a Mac Pro I use Windows a lot, so I want it to look good. Vista got the similar eyes candy feel of Mac OS X.

If you really need to use a Windows OS, then stick with XP. It's been wrung out pretty well, has drivers for nearly anything on the planet, and can be almost a useful OS is set up intelligently.

Vista is a RAM and video memory hog - particularly to support Aero, which doesn't do anything other than look new (which will last about six months), supports almost nothing, and has killed more computers than a legion of Luddites.

 

[Alican]

You might get some system improvement if you have a usb memory stick dedicated for 'readyboost' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReadyBoost

But I'd also say go for XP

 

[Shanesan]

Last thing you want to do is beta-test a Microsoft product.

Go XP.

 

[Queso]

I'd agree with the XP people at the moment. Vista is in that OSX 10.0 period where too much doesn't really work and it's too resource heavy if you attempt to do anything on it. Microsoft could do with tightening up the code and doing a "10.1" release, but that's going to take them at least six months to a year, by which time a lot of the software and driver incompatibilities will also be worked out.

So XP for now. It's boring but it works.

 

[Willis]

Vista is in that OSX 10.0 period where too much doesn't really work and it's too resource heavy if you attempt to do anything on it.

You aint kidding. Setting up at network on 10.0 was a nightmare, not to mention printer sharing...

10.1 was a nice free update... was a bit more reliable. 10.3 was the kicker though. So, in terms of Vista getting to that stage... I would wait for SP1 =)

 

[PCMacUser]

You aint kidding. Setting up at network on 10.0 was a nightmare, not to mention printer sharing...

10.1 was a nice free update... was a bit more reliable. 10.3 was the kicker though. So, in terms of Vista getting to that stage... I would wait for SP1 =)

Yep, agreed, and usually Microsoft's upgrades are free, unlike Apple's!

 

[mkrishnan]

]Many have suggested 2GB, but why so much? Is Window Vista that much of a Ram hog?

Because Windows XP is so boring! I like the flip and the Aero effect of Windows Vista.

Is there really more than a coincidental link between these statements?

Consider Panther and Tiger. What explains almost all of the increased memory footprint of the basic Tiger install? Dashboard. What explains almost all of the increased need for "free" hard drive space the system can use? Spotlight. New features come with a price tag.

 

[PCMacUser]

Spotlight is my friend

 

[Queso]

Yep, agreed, and usually Microsoft's upgrades are free, unlike Apple's!

Microsoft's Service Packs are free, but so are Apple's. 10.4.1, 10.4.2 etc. were all free downloads provding you owned 10.4.0. The differences between 10.0.x and 10.2 made it worth paying for, just like Windows 2000 to XP. Much more than just bugfixes involved.

And the same goes for 10.3 over 10.2. Not too sure about 10.4 over 10.3 though. Some nice features, but didn't really have massive advances over the previous version.

 

[mkrishnan]

Microsoft's Service Packs are free, but so are Apple's. 10.4.1, 10.4.2 etc. were all free downloads provding you owned 10.4.0. The differences between 10.0.x and 10.2 made it worth paying for, just like Windows 2000 to XP. Much more than just bugfixes involved.

This is always a tough discussion... MS *has* offered free service packs with more substantial feature upgrades than Apple typically does (e.g. adding the firewall feature in XP/SP2 -- SP2 was a more significant upgrade than any dot upgrade of OS X that I can think of in the Panther or Tiger cycles).

So you end up having to pay several times for the upgrades that Apple offers.

But what is the alternative? Would you really rather the system stayed free, but that after more than five years, you were still on a service packed version of XP? That's not a cycle I want.

 

[Queso]

This is always a tough discussion... MS *has* offered free service packs with more substantial feature upgrades than Apple typically does (e.g. adding the firewall feature in XP/SP2 -- SP2 was a more significant upgrade than any dot upgrade of OS X that I can think of in the Panther or Tiger cycles).

Good point, but it could be argued that the toughened security in XP SP2 had to be released for free. Microsoft's reputation was going completely down the pan. I think if they'd made the users pay for it, they would have faced lawsuits for releasing a "broken" product in the first place.

 

[jhero]

Vista runs fine...It's just the viruses that are annoying :/

 

[sushi]

Microsoft usually gets their OS correct on the second try/upgrades:

- Win 95 SR2
- Win 98 SE
- Win 2K SP4
- Win XP SP2

I would wait until...

...Vista SP2.

But that's just me since XP works fine for what I need.

 

[iMacZealot]

Another thing about Mac OS X updates vs. Windows updates is that they cost more--- Vista Ultimate is $259 whereas all major Mac OS X updates have given you every single feature for only $129, and most people skip every other one anyways....I'm planning on skipping Leopard.

 

[skinnylegs]

I'd hold off on Vista because it is a very immature OS. In terms of Flip 3D and Aero....that will be a short honeymoon and what you wil be left with is someone you really don't want to wake up next to each morning if you get my drift.

 

[Jebaloo]

I have a friend on a new 17inch MacBook Pro who runs Vista (the top edition) using parallels, and says that its fine... hope this helps.

 

[quik]

I'm getting tired of Mac fanboy saying Vista is buggy. I have been running Vista Home Premium since day 1 and it's perfect. Didn't noticed any more problems than on Windows XP.

Mac OSX isn't that great neither, it also has some random bugs.

 

[skinnylegs]

I'm getting tired of Mac fanboy saying Vista is buggy.

Whoa! Slow down there big guy! It's not "Mac Fanboys" who are having problems with Vista 'cause us "fanboys" use OS X exclusively. It doesn't take much Googling to see that there are *many* people having issues with Vista. Why do you think Dell is giving 'peeps the option of installing other OS's?

If Vista is working fine for you.....great! Consider yourself one of the lucky.

 

[contoursvt]

Whoa! Slow down there big guy! It's not "Mac Fanboys" who are having problems with Vista 'cause us "fanboys" use OS X exclusively. It doesn't take much Googling to see that there are *many* people having issues with Vista. Why do you think Dell is giving 'peeps the option of installing other OS's?

If Vista is working fine for you.....great! Consider yourself one of the lucky.

I can google "Problems Vista" and get a wackload of stuff
I can google "Problems Win2k" and get a wackload of stuff
I can google "Problems WinXP" and get a wackload of stuff
I can google "Problems OSX" and get a wackload of stuff
I can google "Problems Redhat" and get a wackload of stuff
I can google "Problems Freebsd" and get a wackload of stuff


I have to support OSX, Win2k, WinXP and Vista at work and all have their quirks and none of them major or nothing a restart doesnt fix 99.9 of the time. On all windows boxes we run antivirus and since I've been there for 4 years, we have not had one virus issue so for people that complain about viruses, just throw on a free AV software and forget about it. Its not brain surgery. Computers these days have huge power and speed so whats 1% performance loss to be safe?

Anyway Vista has had no issues other than some obscure hardware that has no drivers but on boxes with drivers and hardware that are supported, it has been rock solid.


PS. Considering that the installed mac user base using OSX might be less than 5% of people on the net (I'm taking a stab guessing) and the amount of stuff I do find in terms of problems and posts, I'd say its looking like OSX has more issues overall. Cant say for sure but it looks that way.

 

[skinnylegs]

some obscure hardware

.....like nVidia GPU's?

We can argue this point all day long but the reality is that *many* Windows users are returning to XP after being underwhelmed by Vista.

 

[skinnylegs]

I'd say its looking like OSX has more issues overall.

Why am I getting the distinct feeling that if I click on any hyperlink you may post it will lead me to http://www.microsoft.com