Hello everyone,
I've worked with almost every version of Windows, except Windows 1 and 2. Windows XP was a good operating system. It ran well even with older hardware, and support for it picked up quickly.
With Microsoft, however, newer isn't really better. Their programmers have gotten lazy and have not amde their code efficient, hence needing a min. of 15 GB free to extract the WIM, image, from the DVD. Which IMHO is junk. Not only do you need something along the lines of a 4.5 GHz single core, or 3 GHZ multicore, processor, but it won't run smoothly on anything less than the high end DDR2 512 or more, 1 GB RAM on regular DDR 400. On top of that you need at elast a 256 MB high end video card to run the new Aero content.
With Vista, Microsoft decided to try something that they have not done in a long time, develope a new OS from scratch. I commend them on doing this with Vista, however there is a lot of junk code that makes it very inefficient, slow and a HUSE resource hog.
For instance,
My PC specs are as follows:
AMD Sempron 64 3000+ AM2 CPU
1024 DDR 400 Memory
256 MB GeForce 7300 GS PCIE Video
160 GB WDC SATA II 16MB Cache Hard Drive
Sony DVD-ROM and DVD-RW
17in CRT by KDS, still works well.
I installed Vista Business from my Action pack. The OS ran OK. Not fast but not slow, at elast it was smooth. I did their Windows Vista Experience Rating thingy and got a 3.2, seems how my video card was the weakest point in my system... runs great with games like Halo, Half-Life and other FPS and C&C Generals.
Given my specs I should not ahve too much trouble playing even the older games like Half-Life. I went ahead and played it on Vista for a couple of weeks. The gaem a choppy, slow and the sound studdard...
I turned off all the eye candy with Aero, and the game still was bad, although it was better. I took Vista off and installed Windows XP with the video bumped up to its max with the latest video and chipset drivers, perfect! Not one glitch, not one bump... simply perfect. Although I still have my own copy of Vista, I won't install it again. Vista is junk. It requires too much to the point wehere you have to buy new hardware just to run the thing.
I also have Unbuntu 7.04 installed with Windows XP, on another partition of course. I play games on XP and everything else on Unbuntu. I tried to use WINE in Ubuntu but I could not get my games working on it... until I do, I'll still have XP.
God bless,
Johnathan