Get ready for ... Win XP SP3

['97ventureowner]

Just when you thought Microsoft was done with XP when it released SP2, comes the next "update" SP3, due to be released sometime next year, and is now in beta. http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2704,2200774,00.asp

[03cavPA]

I think that says more about Vista than anything we could post here. I don't seem to be having the problems with Vista that I've been reading about, but I still like using my other XP boxes better.

I just went with Vista because it came on the new Dell, and I figure I should start using it to get more familiar with the problems people are going to start asking me to help them fix on their Vista machines.

[ericn1300]

glad to see they are still paying attention to XP because Vista sucks so far. I bought a new laptop with Vista and had to upgrade to XP to get the apps I need the most to work.

[Polygon]

Originally Posted by ericn1300

glad to see they are still paying attention to XP because Vista sucks so far. I bought a new laptop with Vista and had to upgrade to XP to get the apps I need the most to work.

What a sad, but proper, use of "upgrade."

[00accord44]

More overrated: Vista or iPhone?

[ericn1300]

Originally Posted by Polygon

What a sad, but proper, use of "upgrade."

Sad but true, most of my national accounts are still running Win2000 and passed on XP and Vista. Microsoft tried to obsolete all prior operating systems and reel in the big bucks with Vista which turned out to be multi-media platform aimed more for the entertainment environment while neglecting the nitty gritty business needs to support legacy apps that go back to DOS coding. Vista makes the best argument for going over to Unix or Linux so far yet. Based on the implenmitation rate of Vista in the business world, planned obsolescence might not be a good business plan after all.

[Oz]

On the bright side, at least they are backporting some Vista apps, and it's not just an update rollup.

[03cavPA]

I just bought 2 identical Dell Vostro notebooks, and ordered 1 with Vista and 1 with XP. The XP machine is for 1 of my kids, where the university doesn't support Vista yet, and the Vista machine is for the kid that lives off campus. I thought it would be interesting to see how much difference there is on identical hardware.

I'm not sure how fair a trial I gave it, though, since I turned off all the eye candy on the Vista machine, because it annoyed the hell out of me, and she won't care as long as it runs OK.

XP boots faster, and has no compatiblity problems with any of the software I run now. No surprise there. I think sound and video are a little bit "richer" in Vista, and performance doesn't seem to suffer, but I'm running with 2 gigs of RAM on both machines. It's weird to switch back and forth between machines, though, because XP starts to look a little "dated" after using Vista for a while.

Vista runs pretty smoothly, but as expected, some of the software is a problem. I've managed to get around that so far by running the stubborn ones in XP compatiblity mode. My scanner, which works flawlessly in XP, won't work in Vista. No surprise there, either. The networked printer works fine in Vista.

I hesitate to compare the Vista rollout to the WinME debacle, but MS is getting a lot of pushback on Vista, from what I can see. Look how many people are "upgrading" to XP. I had the thought that I'd just dump Vista and put XP on the other machine if I didn't like it.

So far, I can take it or leave it. The IT dept. here has told all users that they have no intention of supporting Vista any time soon.

[Oz]

03cavPA - if you're interested in the difference between Vista and XP on your new machines, why not benchmark them?

This is a good tool:
http://www.futuremark.com/products/pcmark05/

I'd be interested in the results if you decide to run PCmark.

[03cavPA]

Good point. Doh! Why didn't I think of that? I guess I was thinking more about "seat of the pants" usage.

I'll give it a shot when they're both home next month.

['97ventureowner]

Originally Posted by 03cavPA

I think that says more about Vista than anything we could post here. I don't seem to be having the problems with Vista that I've been reading about, but I still like using my other XP boxes better.

Well have no fear, Microsoft is expected to release SP1 for Vista around it's first anniversary of release in January 2008.

[03cavPA]

I wonder how many of the problems we hear about are from users who use Vista "straight out of the box" or from people who have upgraded to Vista while using "substandard" hardware? The hardware requirements for Vista are pretty hungry for best usage, that's for sure.

By no means am I suggesting that people who are having trouble with Vista don't know what they're doing, but I turned off most of Vista's "advanced" features as soon as I got my hands on the machines, and it runs pretty darn smooth for me. But, this is on brand new hardware. Not top end by any stretch, but it is current graphics, SATA drive, and DDR2 RAM stuff.

To be fair, though, I've always run XP on "best performance" settings, and it never gave me any trouble, either. I have boxen that I'm still running W2K on, too.

[Damien]

This is weird, my g/f's comp just updated and showed SP3 as a new update.

[ericn1300]

From PC World magazine: http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,12...e.html?RSS=RSS

Though Microsoft still won't confirm that it will release a third service pack for its Windows XP operating system, a preview version of the software update has been made available on the Web.

[Oz]

Originally Posted by Damien

This is weird, my g/f's comp just updated and showed SP3 as a new update.

Probably for Office 2003, which just had SP3 released. XP SP3 isn't available through Microsoft Update or Windows Update yet.