[Uchuujinsan]

Good thing I'm getting it for free if I want (like vista) :>

[colecampbell666]

Wait, so what about Windows 7 Ultimate? Is that half-price?

[CP5670]

After doing some searching, it looks like the "XP mode" is nothing more than marketing speak for a Virtual PC setup, which would be lame. Virtual PC is quite slow and has no 3D support whatsoever, so I have to keep an XP setup around in order to play D2X-XL and a few other games with good music.

[JGZinv]

There's also no IPX protocol in Vista or Win 7.

So much for old style lan parties.

[CP5670]

Yes, that would be another reason to keep an XP install. I occasionally use IPX with Hamachi to play Red Alert 1 (with various mods) with my brother.

[High Max]

;-)

[MP-Ryan]

Wait, so what about Windows 7 Ultimate? Is that half-price?

No, but it's also a complete waste of money unless you need multi-language support in real time (pointless) or BitLocker encryption (equally pointless as TrueCrypt is both better and free).

Save your money.  Buy Win7 Professional.

[MP-Ryan]

After doing some searching, it looks like the "XP mode" is nothing more than marketing speak for a Virtual PC setup, which would be lame. Virtual PC is quite slow and has no 3D support whatsoever, so I have to keep an XP setup around in order to play D2X-XL and a few other games with good music.

Dual-boot and/or VMWare?

[MP-Ryan]

I heard how Vista didn't work very well with certain programs and wasn't good for gaming.

Compatibility with ancient games is always a problem; as for Vista wasn't good for gaming, you'll have to elaborate.  I've been running Vista Business x64 for over a year and it's been better for gaming than XP.

[The E]

I hope the new OS won't break compatibility with older games, like Doom and FS2. Doom does have a form of an SCP and graphical updates like FS2 is to FSO. I heard how Vista didn't work very well with certain programs and wasn't good for gaming.

Sorry to say this, but you can't expect a brand new OS that was explicitly designed with reduced backwards compatibility for the sake of better forwards compatibility to work with really old stuff. Having said that, there are solutions out there to get even really old programs to work correctly (DOSBox comes to mind). As for Vista not being good for gaming, that may have been the case back in '07, when Vista was still fresh, but at the moment the difference in performance between XP and 7 on current hardware is almost negligible. Besides, it's getting harder and harder to add support for new hardware into a system as old as XP (Which, IIRC, has problems with SATA drives, for example), in addition to severe deficiencies in its security model.
In short, there are several very good reasons  for upgrading, and only very few points against it.

Sidenote: If you have difficulties getting old progs to run on Vista and 7, it almost always comes down to application developers ignoring the guidelines Microsoft publishes for developing software on Windows. Blaming Microsoft for the failures of others is a bit stupid, IMHO. They make enough mistakes that they CAN and SHOULD be blamed for without adding other people's deliberately broken software into it.

Compatibility with ancient games is always a problem; as for Vista wasn't good for gaming, you'll have to elaborate.  I've been running Vista Business x64 for over a year and it's been better for gaming than XP.

It was one of the accusations that came up early in Vista's lifecycle, at a time when Computers with multiple cores and 2+ GB of RAM were not standard yet. As with other Vista flaws, this one is always getting dragged out in "Vista Sux"-Threads, mostly by people who can't or won't upgrade to Vista because of some cargo-cultish attachment they have for XP.

DISCLAIMER: I was what you call a Vista fanboy. I now am a 7 fanboy.

[DeepSpace9er]

I moved my new laptop and my primary desktop over to 7 RC. Just pre-ordered 2 copies of 7 from Amazon.com the night the pre-orders started.

[TESLA]

I liked windows 95. It was cool, clicky, graphics, my computer, all this new stuff for my generation

I liked windows 98. it was similar, but updated, new hardware, and software (new computer) had promise

I liked windows 20000. More of the same. But progress. As a teenager could not spend much money on my PC

I loved windows XP. I found it different. A new style, unique in a sense, revolutionary, the sex of computers (in a code sort of way) 

Then...........

I bought a new Computer.....
This came with Windows Vista.
Direct x10 = excellent

Everything else? I feel like i installed hell on my computer. Nothing has gone right!!!!!
My god what did i do to deserve an operating system like this?
Why must I click three to four times to confirm a single action!! Frak no!!!!!!!!!!!



I felt like Microsoft had raped me!

For the love of God, Vista was such a pile of ****e!
It is as useful as the underwater hairdryer.
Its purpose is as worthy as an inflatable dartboard

I know Vista has its minions and supporters out there, but I don’t fraking care, to me, it was the biggest mistake ever. Like have sex without a condom and 9 months later paying the price.

It ranks along side the same guy who invented cat slippers!

For all that is good and right about the universe,
To give me peace and sound of mind,
To restore my faith in computing and software,
To balance good and evil,
Let the new windows be good…….

[colecampbell666]

What besides UAC (which is easy to turn off) was wrong after the first little while? I agree that it should have been better tested (we got XP 3 days after it came out and it worked flawlessly), but after a few months when hardware drivers caught up it was pretty good.

[TESLA]

What besides UAC (which is easy to turn off) was wrong after the first little while? I agree that it should have been better tested (we got XP 3 days after it came out and it worked flawlessly), but after a few months when hardware drivers caught up it was pretty good.

Well when you turn off the UAC, then you have to turn off something else to stop that lil bubble in the right hand side of your screen, telling you UAC is off. Its like multiple steps to get where you want to be with your system, just found it very annoying.

Reminds me of Direct X 3 (Caused many Gateway computers to simply show four green lines across the screen) Ahh the old days, lol

[CP5670]

Dual-boot and/or VMWare?

I'll almost certainly end up keeping my current XP install. VMWare and VirtualBox may be worth a try though. Unlike Virtual PC, they have some basic support for D3D and OpenGL, which would make them useful even on XP. I couldn't get the free version of VMWare to work with sound when I tried it a while ago though. Maybe I should give it another try.

WINE probably has the best 3D API support and might be more useful than any of these, but I'm not sure how to get it working on Windows.

In short, there are several very good reasons  for upgrading, and only very few points against it.

There is all of one good reason for me to upgrade (64-bit memory support), and three or four reasons not to (the main ones being that clunky hacks are needed to use unsigned drivers and the lack of a Vista/7 version of my Yamaha virtual midi driver). That one reason is important and will override the others, but there are certainly tradeoffs involved.

However, I would expect any 32-bit program that works on XP to also work on Vista and 7, as long as the hardware is unchanged. I have yet to hear of any confirmed exceptions to that. The issues are mainly with drivers.

[Blue Lion]

I turned off UAC and haven't had a problem with Vista. Maybe I'm not cool enough to push this OS to the limits!

[High Max]

;-)

[castor]

I liked NT4. As much as I'm able to like a Windows system.

[ssmit132]

I still have that OS. It is still pretty good. I have used someone else's computer before with Vista on it a while back and it sucked that it required 2 steps to access task manager and it took up the entire screen when I pressed Ctrl+Alt+Delete, unlike XP.

You can also access the Task Manager by right-clicking the taskbar in Vista.

[The E]

I still have that OS. It is still pretty good. I have used someone else's computer before with Vista on it a while back and it sucked that it required 2 steps to access task manager and it took up the entire screen when I pressed Ctrl+Alt+Delete, unlike XP.

You can also access the Task Manager by right-clicking the taskbar in Vista.

There's also the direct shortcut Ctrl-Shift-Escape.