Windows Vista and XP Head To Head

thefickler sends in an article comparing Windows Vista and Windows XP in the areas of security, home entertainment, GUI, parental controls, and networking. The author clearly believes that Vista wins across these categories.

It better.

[Somatic]

It better be better. That's what upgrades and new releases are for.

Of course, why the new system requirements are so ridiculously higher than XP is something I'm still waiting on a good answer for. I'm sticking with XP until I'm absolutely forced to upgrade in 5 years or so because nothing has XP support anymore. I mean, give me a break. There is no earthly reason an OS should bloat so massively in versions that are only a few years apart. It's an OS, not Doom 3.

Randomization?

[Saxophonist]

From the article:

Windows also has a new 'randomization' layer, which slightly changes the memory configuration of every Vista machine to make it harder for co-ordinated attacks to affect scores of machines at the same time.

Huh? What is this, and why would it make any difference whatsoever in preventing exploits?

Re:i agree

[redi99]

i assume you're referring to activation tied to hardware changes? a few days ago i popped a tv tuner in, and sure enough 'your hardware has changed, you need to re-activate vista'.. so i clicked activate and it reactivated just fine. i do agree that this business of tying activation to hardware profile is a bit stupid though.

Re:ROFL

[QuantumG]

Which is one of the many reasons I hate Vista. Like MMORPG designers they blindly copy features from their competitors without actually thinking if those ideas are any good, make sense to their current customer base, etc. So we end up with features that make absolutely no sense on Windows because they're just pale imitations of the Mac.

Re:i agree

[imemyself]

You know, I could understand if it were something as major as a different type of motherboard, but for something as minor as a f*cking TV tuner? Not only is that absolutely unnecessary, its absolutely pointless. I wonder how many changes it will take before you have to contact MS's support. Or is this a Technet copy (10 different activations IIRC)? Does anyone know what they'll do with VLK type licenses (or are doing I guess)?

Re:Not surprising?!

[oddfox]

Given this information, there is absolutely no reason whatsoever that any operating system should not run very comfortably using a tiny fraction of my system's resources, no matter how many bells and whistles it has.

When was the last time you ran the KDE Desktop Settings Wizard, by chance? Bells and whistles take computing power, it says so right in there and gives you a slider to illustrate the point, though it should be common sense that the more you have your OS doing at any given time, the more it's going to demand from your system.

By the way, if you meet the minimum comfort level for running Windows XP, you meet the minimum comfort level for running Windows Vista. Don't expect whiz-bang stuff like Aero to rock out on your antiquated hardware (And yes, four years is antiquated in terms of performance), and also keep in mind that there's a lot of functionality (Services, etc...) in the system that can be trimmed if you need to make your system leaner, same as XP.

Wrong direction? I'm sorry, I beg to differ. I actually enjoy having the OS evolve with the times, and I'm thankful that Aero didn't make its debut as a resource hogging slow-poke, like Aqua did when it first hit the street. Good thing for everyone though that Apple continued to tweak things, but charging for minor updates is a load of crap IMHO though I love the software.

People can cry all they want about how software development is going back asswards, and how software written today is by and large nothing but a bloat fest, but that doesn't change the fact that, hey, these days, people tend to multitask, a lot. Or at least power users who complain about system resources being eaten up on modern systems do. What you call bloat I call making the product easier to use and in general more pleasant to use, but hey, remember how the old saying goes? One man's trash is another man's treasure, and for what it's worth, on my system, Vista runs much faster than XP. That's progress, same as with how GNOME2/GTK+2 and KDE3/QT3 keep improving.

Re:Inquiring Minds Want To Know...

[thejynxed]

GUI: Vista loses hands down. A GUI shouldn't take 250+ MB of RAM while just sitting there doing nothing. Not to mention that it is a poor imitation of Gnome/Aqua/KDE. XP's GUI can be customized. Patched Uxtheme.dll, WindowBlinds, etc. using alot less resources.

Network: XP can use IPv6 as well. Vista just comes with it enabled by default. Not that anyone actually uses IPv6 yet anyhow. Improved network stack? Only if you like being crippled to 10 half-open TCP connections without a way to change it. Good luck with your torrents.

Gaming/Entertainment: Gotta love that DRM thing. No Hi-Def movies unless you have a compatible DRM compliant monitor. Yee-haw. DX10? If it's that great of a dev package, why did MS drop sound support? Not to mention forcing DX9 apps to run in emulation mode after DX10 is installed. WTF. That's going to go over great with gamers...upgrade to DX10 to play a few of the latest games now and toss all of your old DX9 or earlier games. Wonderful. Not to mention that MS has already stated that gaming is slower by 15%-25% in Vista compared to XP SP2, and that is before you take into account that fugly transparent Fisher-Price GUI.

Frankly, you'd have better results gaming in Linux Distro Dujour.

Re:It better.

[Mwongozi]

The one benefit of Vista will be to stop manufacturers from putting crappy integrated graphics into laptops (even apple does this on the non-pro line).

I installed Vista on my non-pro MacBook and Glass works just fine. So the graphics may be "crappy" but they're not crappy enough. Personally, I'm glad the MacBook has integrated graphics - it improves the battery life signifcantly. If I wanted proper 3D hardware I would have bought a MacBook Pro - that's what they're for.

Do I want those bells & whistles?

[PopeRatzo]

What's amazing to me is that I've read many articles about Vista in the past weeks and I still haven't figured out if I want any of the "bells and whistles" it offers.

I'm gonna lay out that kind of dough for translucent screens? I don't give a fig about translucent screens.

The bottom line for me is that head to head on a given bit of hardware, it sounds like Vista performs WORSE than XP overall.

For the first time in memory, I won't be upgrading my OS for a good long while. I know the University I work for won't be upgrading either.

Did anyone actually *READ* the comparison?

[qazwart]

I read it and it pretty much says "Windows XP offers this feature, Windows Vista offers this feature in a bit better way".

Security
=====
Windows XP offers basic firewall. Commercial software is better.
Windows Vista an improved firewall. Commercial software is still better. IE 7 offers a phishing filter which slows down browsing and is only partially successful in catching phishing attacks. New user control access is annoying, so author (and probably you will turn in off).

Home Entertainment
=============
Windows XP has basic capabilities, and Windows Media Center upgrade expanded those.
Windows Vista has improved media center included in most versions of Vista. An improved version over XP's Windows Media Center (it should be because XP's version is now 2 years old), but not by much.

Graphical Interface
============
Windows XP looks like crap -- especially compared to Mac OS X which has been offering features that Windows Vista will now finally offer.
Windows Vista looks very nice, but many computers won't be able to run it in its full glory. System wide desktop search is nice, but XP actually had similar feature that few people knew about. And, finally, a "sidebar" which will allow you to run widgets*.

(*Ask any Mac OS X user how often they actually use "widgets" provided by Dashboard, and you'll see how useful that feature actually is. It also ends up being one of Apple's bigger security headaches, and probably will be a big security headache in Vista too)

Parental Controls
===========
Windows XP had no parental controls. Vista has excellent parental controls. (Now all the parent needs is for their kid to help set it up for them.)

Networking
=======
Windows XP network's automatic setup sucks. Vista's automatic network setup wizard actually works.

No where did it claim that Apple stole anything from Vista. No where did it give Vista such glowing reviews that it makes people want to immediately upgrade from XP to Vista. The two biggest areas: Protecting you from porn, and a wizard that can help you setup a network if you're a n00b means nothing to the /. crowd.

Vista Graphics on Laptops

[Ethoscapade]

Is anybody else worried about the effect that Aero might have on laptop battery life? When I buy a laptop, the two things I look for (other than form factor) are a decent videocard and good battery life. Nearly all of these videocards have had some firmware option to underclock such and such when they're not working very hard; i.e. when I am not playing a game. What's going to happen with Aero?