XP or Vista?

[DWx]

I'm getting a new laptop to go away to uni with and have the option of either getting one with XP or one with Vista. Which is better? At the moment I use XP for the desktops at home. Never had any major problems with it and I can pretty much do what I want with it. Seems to be loads of criticisms regarding Vista so I'm not sure I want to upgrade just yet. Anyone using Vista at the moment?

Also anyone got any recommendations for good laptops?

[bushido_man96]

I have heard that Vista is nothing but a pain in the butt. I have not experienced it myself, but I hear enough bad that keeps me away from it. I would go with XP if you have the option.

[Lachrymosa]

Unless your university requires you to have Vista, I would go for XP.

Vista is by no mean a bad operating system, they just pushed a bit too far the security concept. Vista just spam you with security questions, "Are you sure you want to do this?", "Are you sure you want to do that". You can turn off some of those alerts though but its still annoying.

You are quite lucky to be able to get a new pc / laptop with XP, most manufacturer only install Vista now.

[Patrick]

I use Vista Ultimate on both my desktop and my laptop. I bought them both at the end of last year. I like Vista. If I was buying a new one now, I'd get Vista. At the end of the day, either is fine, though.

Vista does receive a lot of criticism, but my problems with it have been relatively few and, besides those, it runs really well for me. The security prompts have annoyed a lot of people, but I just turned them off when I first set it up, which isn't hard to do, so I don't have them.

I have only used Vista for about 8 months, though, and I think a lot of the criticisms that it has received were based on the initial product and how it was received, rather than how it is now. For example: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-9998336-56.html

Good luck.

Thanks,

Patrick

[Shotokan-kez]

I have both here, XP on my pc and vista on the laptop. To be honest i didnt like vista at first because i couldn't navigate around it very well, didnt know where things were ect, but that is the only reason really. I'm getting used to it now but i reckon they are both ok.

[KarateEd]

I run XP, but my dad has Vista on one of his computers. Like Shotokan-kez said, I have trouble doing certain things in Vista because I am expecting it to function just like XP, which it doesn't. Vista does annoy you to death with all the question-asking, but, as others have said, that feature can be disabled, though I don't know how.

Also, I have found that the new version of Word, which was installed on some computers at my school just before I graduated, is hard to use. You have to relearn what functions are under which menu. It seems that the logic behind some of the changes in the menus was flawed.

[Lachrymosa]

Microsoft redesigned all the interface for the Office suite because a lot of people would send them email asking if they could add functionality to their software. Most of the features that were requested by the user were already in the software they just did not know where / how to use it.

The new interface should be more intuitive for users. but its hard for old time users since they knew where to find all the functionality they used.

I have not used the new Office suite so I can not really comment on how it is. (We are still using 2003 at work)

[tallgeese]

'03? Hech, I still miss '98 .

[Patrick]

I have Office 2007 on the desktop and laptop and I like it, actually. The menu was new, but I got used to it and now I kinda like it. The previous versions of Office are good, as well. I used Office 2000 for a long time.

Hey Ed,

To disable the UAC features, go into the Control Panel, then to User Accounts. Your account should be selected. Click the "Turn User Account Control on or off" link, uncheck the check box and then press "OK". You'll have to restart. And, I think, that should take care of it.

Hope that helps.

Patrick

[DWx]

That article was quite interesting Patrick. I've never used Vista myself so I'm only going on heresay which I guess most of those people would have too.

With one of the places I'm looking at for a laptop, you can actually ask specifically for it to have XP rather than Vista. You also get the choice between Vista Ultimate or Vista Home Basic, any opinions on these? If I was to choose Vista I would probably go for the Ultimate edition but is it worth it? Or the other option for me instead of just buying a laptop would be to get another custom build and have XP (or Vista) put on it. Don't know if I can be bothered with that though if I can get a decent "ready-made" laptop.

Another question, anyone running one of the MacBooks? My biggest concern with getting one of them is transfering stuff between the desktop at home or the uni system which both run on Windows. I'm thinking it might just be easier to stick with Windows for now...

I have not used the new Office suite so I can not really comment on how it is. (We are still using 2003 at work)

We still use 2000 for everything at work. Its like stepping back in time.