I'm currently saving up for a laptop for several purposes. One of these is gaming and another is graphics. I can't decide whether to go used and get XP or new with Vista. The main games I'll be playing are Guild Wars and Halo. I have heard that Vista is horrible and eats up a crapload of memory. Well what should I do.

Most definitely Vista. If you ever looked through and compared Vista with Xp then you would see how much better Vista is. Vista is the counter-part of Macintosh. Microsoft specifically made it to compete with the macintosh. I think they have done a pretty good job, seeing that Vista has much better graphics, a much better interface, and just a much better look to it. Plus, I never really liked Macintosh's as my school had them, plus they cost way too much. So vista is much better i think, and is much better than Macintosh's(but thats another topic )

Macintosh?

I'm debating between two Microsoft systems.

Lol

I've heard that only Vista would let you play Halo with other online players. So if games are your motivation the latest Operating System would be best. Send the extra money to purchase more RAM for your laptop. When purchasing a laptop be sure to find out the maximum RAM capacity. You don't want to be stuck with a laptop that only has 1.5GB RAM as its maximum upgrade.

Personally, I would still stick to Windows XP but the PRO version (not the HOME edition). It's still the very best for Windows networking OS without whole bunch of crap built-into it. Dell is still offering Windows XP Pro with their business lines. If a company like Dell is still offering XP Pro, there's something to be said about that particular OS.

Any Vista version to match XP Pro's administrative and networking functionally is Vista Business Premium Edition or higher, and who wants to pay all that money for something that is the copycat of XP Pro with fancy GUI? It's a scam I tell yas!

Command prompts and DOS keys all the way! (Okay, I'll stop rambling)

Okay, one more: I predict Vista would be as a failure as Windows ME. Do you remember how long that edition lasted? Only a year, at best.

Unless you have some critical need that only Vista can relieve, then I really recommend that you stick with Windows XP. Do not get Vista just because it looks better, there are plenty of ways of making Windows XP look just like Vista. If it's because of DX10 games, I would recommend you wait longer, since there are very few of those at the moment anyways. Better yet, why not run a Windows XP and Linux dual-boot system? The two operating systems work very well hand-in-hand for me, where one can do anything the other can't.

I would need specs because if your 'going to become yours' computer has bad specs i.e. 1GB ram, single core processor etc then its XP (personally I prefer MCE) but PRO is good for networking as BuffaloHELP said. but if the computer has 2GB+ RAM duo/quad core CPU etc then its definitel Vista, Im running Vista x64 right now and I gotta be honest... its one if the BEST OSes ever made, even though I still have XP installed (I don't trust MS that much) just in case Vista didn't suit me.

If you want Vista, your system must be descent. RAM - 512 if you want to run the Starter Edition with no problems. 1024 MB+ if you want the Ultimate, couse it eats up much resources.

I recommend you to stay with Windows XP few more time, couse of the Vista software incompatibility, and couse of the bunch of use of resources.

This post has been edited by ZaM0: Oct 9 2007, 09:18 AM

Windows Vista just isn't quite ready for a lot of business users just yet. There's a lot of industry specific software that gets broken by it. I know of a number of large format software RIP applications where that is a fact. I have even heard of issues regarding Adobe's own applications, such as problems with Acrobat.

Vista is even turning out to be problematic on home computers running a lot of different games. It seems the games run a lot faster under XP.

I'm also wondering if Windows Vista will allow the old Adobe Type Manager 4.1 program to run. I have a number of old Type 1 Multiple Master fonts that I still like to use. But you can't install them straight into Window's own font manager.

One more thing -get the standard 32-bit version of WinXP. Avoid the 64-bit version. None of Adobe's applications are compiled in 64-bit word lengths at this point. And 64-bit breaks some functions.
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Go with vista. I know it still is quite new and SP1 has not come out yet for it, but i have had no problems with it and have been using it since it came out to licenced buisness customers roughly a year ago. Therefore, that is say much. Originally, a few drivers were not available so i could not print and so forth but that did not bother me. By the spring time, all of the drivers were released and no issues there. From an end-users point of view, it is very similar to XP except a few small changes in the interface and security options. However, as an advanced user, you would notice lots of changes and I tend to think they were for the best and still are not to hard to adjust to.