Nooooooooo! Windows Its like a nightmare!

[sophie]

They made a really bad move with Vista.
XP wasnt bad, although it is now an old system.Very old.
And Windows 7 sure looks nice, but thats not enough. Ive been using Mac OS for over a year now and I sure can say this has been the most relaxing, problem-free time Ive had with my computer:D
I also used Linux in High school, but that was old times:)

Anyways, I think you can say that Apple is to computers what Xm is to cars:D
Both are incredibly comfortable and both are incredibly expensive;)

But if one wants his life to be stress-free he should buy an XM and an Apple computer:)

[Ciaran]

Agreed on Fista.
XP is the best OS they've produced to date, where as Fista is easily the worst.

Windows 7 is a marked improvement (they've actually bothered to improve the code, make it more efficient, and its actually faster than XP in some places), so will tempt some people away from XP. Its essentially what Vista should have been before it was pushed out the door, half-baked, by an overzealous marketing department, and media demand.

MS learned an expensive lesson with Vista, and I like how they said with 7 'it'll be ready when its ready'. The way it should be done.

Most of what I would say on the subject has already been said by others, though I would remark that as someone who works in IT, I tend to use XP. I've dabbled with umpteen flavours of Linux, Unix etc over the years, but find for simplicity, ease of use, and having stuff that's immediately compatible with user's stuff, Xp just does what it says on the tin, provided you don't load it up with shite.

Macs are great, and I love using them, they just... work. Unfortunately they're a very expensive, propietary option for what I do. They're unrivaled in fields, just mine isn't one of them.

As someone said, there's a 'right' computer / OS for everyone, it varies depending on what you need it to do, one size certainly doesn't fit all

[ItsGrimUpNorth]

I know my XP like I know the iside of my pocket. Because of that, I can modify it to fit my needs and don't have to fiddle around with the annoying bits like the horrible user interface or the stupid sounds. I do enjoy all other operative systems (Apart from Mandriva and SUN Solaris *shivers*).

I can't believe that Windows couldn't tell how bad Vista was gonna be. It's like Windows ME all over again.

Oh, also - this is my first post here. Hi!

[demag]

So what's wrong with ME then?!!

Strange I know, but before XP I ran ME for years and loved it. Hardly had any probs and it did just what I wanted.

[rowanmoor]

So what's wrong with ME then?!!

Strange I know, but before XP I ran ME for years and loved it. Hardly had any probs and it did just what I wanted.

What's wrong with ME is that you are probably the only person in the world with that experience

[Ciaran]

[steelcityuk]

So what's wrong with ME then?!!

Strange I know, but before XP I ran ME for years and loved it. Hardly had any probs and it did just what I wanted.

What's wrong with ME is that you are probably the only person in the world with that experience

Well it's strange you should say that but I ran ME at home for a good while before swapping over to XP. On the machine I had it rarely fell over and did what I wanted. Some time later I tried it on another PC and it was horrific. That's computers for you... My place is sticking with XP until Windows 7 is 'fully' sorted and then we're going straight over to that.

Steve.

[hobblerian]

Just thought I'd add to this, I'm running Vista 64 sp2 on my laptop, runs very well indeed no problems at all and I wouldn't go back tp xp if I was paid to. Yes Vista was a pig when it was first launched but so was XP. Now driver availability is widespread and all the main issues have been sorted out I can't see why people give Vista such a hard time. Most people who criticise Vista turn out to of never used it, or tried running it on a machine not up to spec to run it. If you've got 2gb of RAM and semi decent Dual core it runs like a dream.

[Ciaran]

I know what you're saying, it has indeed improved, and it does run alright now there's better driver support.

However my main problem with Vista, is that like for like, on the same hardware, its slower and more cumbersome than XP doing the exact same tasks. Its change for the sake of change, rather than change for any actual benefit. Case in point, the hopelessly crippled filesystem, the network layer which suffers slower performance because its loaded up with DRM based crap. Try playing an MP3 off your network on a Vista machine, and check the CPU usage, then compare it to doing the same in XP.

From a corporate point of view, I actually bust out laughing in the meeting with the MS reps when they said 'So will you be thinking about a Vista deployment this year'. I said 'Not meaning to seem rude, but it won't be this year, or any other'. There is not a snowball in hells chance I would deploy Vista in here, again it comes down to cost and resource usage vs business benefit, of which I can see none over XP, still, two years+ after Vista's released.
I'm not saying it can't be made to work, of course it can, your laptop is a case in point, but the effort of doing so outweights any plausible advantage when you consider the only thing it has above XP are fancy visual effects and a redesigned interface.

Just my take on it, in an attempt to provide some insight into while its still widely reviled.

Ciarán

[demag]

I'm running Xp again!!

Yes it's running on Virtual Box inside Linux!! It's ok, a bit slower this way but it allows me to run a few Windows applications.

Virtual Box is good, similar to Virtual pc.