Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Vista or XP?

R

richardcanham

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 8, 2007
13
0
I am now looking at perhaps getting vista seeing its the latest version of windows, will it have problems though working through parallels as its so new, is there any bugs and which is the better option?

I'm using a 1.83ghz macbook with 512mb ram so not sure to be honest if vista wouldn't over power the macbook?
 
Vista breaks a lot of programs and offers no exclusive apps. With a Mac, just think of Windows as a Windows App launcher utility. Use your Mac to handle your OS needs.
 
dominicansrul93 said:
Is parallels virtualization? Because if it is then microsoft said that in vista it will be illegal.
Click to expand...

Parallels is visualisation and i think it does break the EULA on all but the Ultimate and best business models (IIRC) but they won't know and it is such a petty and stupid rule.

With only 512mb on your machine i would definitely go with XP because you will only be able to give about 300 MB of ram to the guest OS which is not very much at all, Vista would die with that amount of ram. If you want/need acceptable performance with parallels then you will need to upgrade your ram.

Ram is pretty cheap at the moment for the Macbook. Don't know the specifics of you machine but it looks like to get 2Gb of Ram it will cost you $131 from crucial.
 
xUKHCx said:
With only 512mb on your machine i would definitely go with XP because you will only be able to give about 300 MB of ram to the guest OS which is not very much at all, Vista would die with that amount of ram.
Click to expand...

(Emphasis mine)
Absolutely.
Go with XP with that much ram.
And even if you upgrade to 1gig+ I'd still run XP.
 
Go for XP. I'm running an iMac C2D 2GHz with 1GB of RAM. Vista Business runs pretty well under Bootcamp, but as another poster said, it offers no unique apps, is slower than XP, and also intermittently breaks Battlefield 1942's multiplayer games (which is mainly what I use Windows for). I currently have XP running in Parallels with no problems. I'm going to erase my Vista partition and put XP back on it. That way I can use the same XP install for Bootcamp and Parallels.
 
dominicansrul93 said:
Is parallels virtualization? Because if it is then microsoft said that in vista it will be illegal.
Click to expand...

then they are lying.
Virtualisation can't be made illegal for OS's, only emulators for gaming consoles etc can be illegal.
 
Cybergypsy said:
Vista all the way XP is crappy....
Click to expand...

...Did you not read what the others here have said? Vista needs alot of RAM, of which the OP doesn't have.

BTW, Vista is just a HUGE copy of Mac OS X. You're pretty ignorant if you think it's better than OS X. Vista has no original ideas AT ALL.

dominicansrul93 said:
Is parallels virtualization? Because if it is then microsoft said that in vista it will be illegal.
Click to expand...

Yes. Parallels is virtualization.

Below is an article about why MS is banning virtualization of Home Editions of Vista.

How I love Google...

http://www.betanews.com/article/Mic...dered_Banning_Vista_Virtualization/1172269896
 
ShiggyMiyamoto said:
...Did you not read what the others here have said? Vista needs alot of RAM, of which the OP doesn't have.

BTW, Vista is just a HUGE copy of Mac OS X. You're pretty ignorant if you think it's better than OS X. Vista has no original ideas AT ALL.



Yes. Parallels is virtualization.

Below is an article about why MS is banning virtualization of Home Editions of Vista.

How I love Google...

http://www.betanews.com/article/Mic...dered_Banning_Vista_Virtualization/1172269896
Click to expand...

Anyone who says one operating system is the best, is showing their ignorance. No one operating system can be the best, it all depends on what you plan on doing with it, for instance OS X isn't my platform of choice for Gaming, but it is for day to day internet / publishing.

If you think that all of Apples ideas, are Apples own unique ideas then you are extremely ignorant. However I'm not saying Vista hasn't got similarities to OS X.
 
ecksmen said:
Anyone who says one operating system is the best, is showing their ignorance. No one operating system can be the best, it all depends on what you plan on doing with it, for instance OS X isn't my platform of choice for Gaming, but it is for day to day internet / publishing.

If you think that all of Apples ideas, are Apples own unique ideas then you are extremely ignorant. However I'm not saying Vista hasn't got similarities to OS X.
Click to expand...

...I never said that one OS was better than another... I merely was stating that XP would run better than Vista on his hardware and that OS X is better than XP (not the best). Yes, not all of Apple's ideas are original, but that doesn't give the right for other companies to copy it.
 
ecksmen said:
Anyone who says one operating system is the best, is showing their ignorance. No one operating system can be the best, it all depends on what you plan on doing with it, for instance OS X isn't my platform of choice for Gaming, but it is for day to day internet / publishing.
Click to expand...
Parallels does not support 3D, so no games there...
 
Vista On A MacBook vs XP

I have been using Vista Business on a MacBook 13" 1.83GHz for three weeks. It was very slow with 512MB of RAM. I upgraded to 2GB and it runs much better. Vista was very difficult before the latest boot camp drivers (1.2) It is still not perfect, but it does work better. I have issues of waking up from sleeping and loosing USB and wireless networking. If I had to choose I like Vista better because it looks more like the Mac OS.
At the school I work, we have been running boot camp with XP on 48 machines. It has been working well since the beginning in early June. I have had a few Winodws installs go bad, but other than that it works well. The only issue I have had, and this could be my own misunderstanding, is keyboard layout and right clicking. In Windows, it is much easier to use a two button mouse and a Windows keyboard.
My overall opinion would be XP is very stable, but Vista looks better. The only down side for Vista is the RAM requirement and the current issues, but I am sure the issues will be fixed soon.
 
i have the same dilemma, am just trying to buy a xp, but all the stores are stacked up with vista. Need it quite urgently hence havent checked the internet... (which would take 2-4 days shipment)
 
I got myself Home Basic a few days ago for my games and it works pretty well, except for the fact that once in a while the sound stutters, even during video playback. That could just be faulty Boot Camp drivers, because otherwise the system is pretty slick.

Too bad they didn't make the system easier to configure: you're still going to have to dig deep into the Control Panel to find what you want.
 
Cloudsurfer said:
I got myself Home Basic a few days ago for my games and it works pretty well, except for the fact that once in a while the sound stutters, even during video playback. That could just be faulty Boot Camp drivers, because otherwise the system is pretty slick.

Too bad they didn't make the system easier to configure: you're still going to have to dig deep into the Control Panel to find what you want.
Click to expand...

Which Intel Mac are you running it on, and what're the specs?
 
Cloudsurfer said:
I got myself Home Basic a few days ago for my games and it works pretty well, except for the fact that once in a while the sound stutters, even during video playback. That could just be faulty Boot Camp drivers, because otherwise the system is pretty slick.

Too bad they didn't make the system easier to configure: you're still going to have to dig deep into the Control Panel to find what you want.
Click to expand...

I also got stuttered sound although with Warcraft 3 on Vista.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back