To upgrade or not to upgrade...

[bittnerart]

Hello all. I have a question and, as in the past, I am turning to the experienced users on these forums for some advice.

My brother has, just today, procured a copy of Windows Vista Ultimate, free from his job, and has offered it to me. Would it be a bad move to upgrade from XP Pro to Vista Ultimate at this point? I had heard a lot about the problems Vista has had since launch and had decided to avoid it altogether until things were ironed out. Now, that Windows 7 seems to be on the horizon, I had thought I would stick with XP until it's release. But, with a likely launch date slated sometime in 2010 I feel impatient, and drawn towards Vista.

Granted, I haven't been keeping up with things as much as I should, and I'm sure I'm behind the loop on what's been occurring with Vista. What would you do in my shoes? I'm currently running a system with a Pentium Core 2 Quad 6600, 2 Gigs of ram, and a Geforce 8800 GTS 640mb ram. Any info or advice would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Brandon

 

[notherdude]

The rumors of Vista's problems are 99% FUD at this point. Thank those misleading Mac adds and other MS haters who continue to smear Vista with little or no experience of their own for that. It's actually quite a popular choice now among gamers and enthusiasts, particularly Vista 64. Gaming benchmarks have long since equalized. I have similar specs (8800 gts 640, core 2 e 6600, 8 gigs RAM.) and my system is stable as it could be and fast as hell. I think superfetch in Vista actually speeds up frequently used code quite a bit.

There are still a few compatibility issues with Vista and old hardware/software but on equipment such as you have it works like new money. Vista has its little quirks but all in all I much prefer it to XP at this point. Sounds like you are simply itching for a change. Vista is that. Don't expect to be blown away by it but you will probably appreciate the change of scenery.

Here's an idea. RAM is cheap these days. The Ultimate DVD has the option to install Vista 64. 64 bit will support 4 or more gigs RAM. (32 bit on your system would only get you about 3 gig usable) So install 64 and load up on more RAM. Having 4, 6 or 8 gig to run whatever on is pretty nice. Driver support for Vista 64 bit is nearing 100% these days and it's catching on very fast, it runs 32 bit software easily so compatibility issues are few.

 

[maximiza]

my advise is do a dual boot config, you can keep everything right now that you have and slowly migrate over. You would need a new Hard Drive though. The reason for my dual boot was I did not know what would happen. I have found that some older printers and similer divices loose functionallity wth Vista 64 ultimate due to manufactures not making updated drivers for older equipment. Some accounting and property mangement software may have to be repurchsed to work on Vista 64, but if it is working good in XP 32 why rebuy it? Also some older games work better in XP 32 then Vista 64 ultiamte. Others you can get working on 64 bit with some config file tweaking which does take more time. I have found though Vista 64 Ultimate crashes less then XP 32 most definitly.