Vista vs. XP laptop advice

PeterWalls

I am shortly to invest in a laptop. My budget is 1-2k. I work as an accounting and business information systems consultant for small and medium business.

The technical support people for one of my clients advise strongly against VISTA in the believe that it is not tested and will not integrate with XP which most of my potential clients are likely to still use for some time as small businesses.

All advise and comments most welcome...

Tom Dunne

PeterWalls wrote:

All advise and comments most welcome...

Yeah, quit hijacking somebody else's thread.

vir7ual

Toshiba are one of my most favourites.

Have nothing to knock with their customer service, they might be a bit pricey but if the service backs it then its worth the little extra. They replaced a laptop belonging to a customer of mine (they put the telephone cable in upside down and damaged the 2 pins in the modem, this is their problem and not toshibas) and to my surprise toshiba got back to me and said they replaced the board. I cant knock that and never had an issue with them.

Timans

Vista is ****.

vir7ual

just noticed you changed the title,

stick with XP for the time being.

Creamy Goodness

nothing really wrong with vista unless you have software say your companies software that's dependant on xp.

but for a laptop vista is a no go with 1gig of ram, it works yes, no doubt but after about a month or so it will run so slow it's will bring you to tears.

Tom Dunne

Timans wrote:

Vista is ****.

Now what use is that? How did that contribute anything to this discussion?

Timans

Ok then, If I were you OP. I would stick soley to XP as Vista is a mess. There is nothing on it which betters XP apart from maybe Networking. But, the minus' outweigh the plus' of Vista.

Wait till Vista get's more drivers/reliable/less ****

Now, happy?

Tom Dunne

Timans wrote:

Now, happy?

Much better. Now continue your rant against Vista on the Windows forum.

Steven_in_Cork

True

i also recommend XP over Vista especially in your job.
You got enough to worry about you work and if your OS is giving you grief
there is nothing worse.
To sum it up XP still for now, get Vista when the need arises (in a year or two).

Timans

tom dunne wrote:

Much better. Now continue your rant against Vista on the Windows forum.

That I shall.

Jonathan

The advice i would give is to get a laptop with a licence for Vista Business. This entitles you to have either Vista Business or XP Professional on it, as Vista Business includes downgrade rights.

Makes more sense to have rights to use both rather than just the older one.

See Here

Can I downgrade my OEM version of Windows Vista Business to Windows XP Professional?

Yes. OEM downgrade rights for desktop PC operating systems apply to Windows Vista Business and Windows Vista Ultimate as stated in the License Terms. Please note, OEM downgrade versions of Windows Vista Business and Windows Vista Ultimate are limited to Windows XP Professional (including Windows XP Tablet PC Edition and Windows XP x64 Edition). End users can use the following media for their downgrade: Volume Licensing media (provided the end user has a Volume Licensing agreement), retail (FPP), or system builder hologram CD (provided the software is acquired in accordance with the Microsoft OEM System Builder License). Use of the downgraded operating system is governed by the Windows Vista Business License Terms, and the end user cannot use both the downgrade operating system and Windows Vista Business. There are no downgrade rights granted for Windows Vista Home Basic or Windows Vista Home Premium.

ethernet

Timans wrote:

Ok then, If I were you OP. I would stick soley to XP as Vista is a mess. There is nothing on it which betters XP apart from maybe Networking. But, the minus' outweigh the plus' of Vista.

Wait till Vista get's more drivers/reliable/less ****

Now, happy?

I like Vista. Too many people are too comfortable with XP because it's been so long since the last Windows release and this is perfectly understandable.

Hardware is a dodgy area. However, Microsoft has said it will write drivers for particular hardware if enough people complain about it -- no sign of some manufacturers writing drivers any time soon. Unless more people adopt Vista, this won't happen, drivers won't be written and we'll be stuck in the same place.

SP1 should iron out a lot of issues and increase uptake, IMO.

Ghost Train

I'd me more inclined to go with vista at this stage, unless there's specific software you need to have that won't work on vista.

You can always install xp alongside vista and have both os's if you need to/are able to

art

eolhc wrote:

I'd me more inclined to go with vista at this stage, unless there's specific software you need to have that won't work on vista.

You can always install xp alongside vista and have both os's if you need to/are able to

That's all very messy for a laptop. You just want a laptop to work and you don't want to be sacrificing the smaller amount of storage space inevitably on a laptop for dual boot partitions.

For a stable, efficient Windows OS, you'd be far better sticking with XP for the foreseeable future. jmccrohan suggestion above though is a good one, assuming you can indeed upgrade when the time comes and Vista has proven itself a more preferable option (eg 12-18 months down the road from here?).

inode

xp at the moment is far better, you will just be slowing down your new laptop by putting vista on it and can get all the same software etc on xp