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Windows XP and Vista - Both???

cmcbridejr

cmcbridejr

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Sep 28, 2007
509
1
Alpharetta, GA
I am about to purchase a MacBook Pro and will occassionally need to run a Windows OS for work (and maybe games). I plan on using Bootcamp and also connect sometimes via VMware Fusion.

I already have Windows XP on an old computer, and so, I have some software (Office 2003 Pro, etc.) and games (King's Quest, etc.) for that OS. However, I would rather have Vista on the new computer since support for XP is soon ending, and also because I just want to try out "the latest and greatest";).

So, would it be necessary to purchase both Windows XP and Vista to ensure the most compatibility between all of my applications, or is Vista compatible with almost everything that runs on XP?

I don't mind having both Windows OS and money is not an issue, but if it is not necessary, then I would like to know if just one is enough so I can save some money.

Please let me know if this does not make sense and I will try to better explain.

Thank you in advance.
 
cmcbridejr said:
I am about to purchase a MacBook Pro and will occassionally need to run a Windows OS for work (and maybe games). I plan on using Bootcamp and also connect sometimes via VMware Fusion.

I already have Windows XP on an old computer, and so, I have some software (Office 2003 Pro, etc.) and games (King's Quest, etc.) for that OS. However, I would rather have Vista on the new computer since support for XP is soon ending, and also because I just want to try out "the latest and greatest";).

So, would it be necessary to purchase both Windows XP and Vista to ensure the most compatibility between all of my applications, or is Vista compatible with almost everything that runs on XP?

I don't mind having both Windows OS and money is not an issue, but if it is not necessary, then I would like to know if just one is enough so I can save some money.

Please let me know if this does not make sense and I will try to better explain.

Thank you in advance.
Click to expand...

Honestly, Vista blows. It's slow, has a large kernel, needs a ton of memory to run and Microsoft is quietly going to put down this beast soon. Because the working world did not grab to it. Plus, I don't even know if bootcamp drivers for MBP exist (64 bit). At last not for mine when I tried it with leopard. I know thew Mac Pro has vista 64 support.

I honestly say, stay away from vista. run XP. Plenty of games run in XP. and VM Ware Fusion I believe is limited to direct x 8. Correct me on that one if I am wrong.
 
I also say stay away from Vista. XP will still be supported by software vendors for quite a while. Until recently most software supported Windows 98se and almost all still supports Win 2000 SP4.

Vista uses up far more system resources. So whatever you do in XP will take longer in Vista. As far as games go Vista supports older games poorly compared to XP. I noticed you used Office 03 steer clear of 2007, the user interface is horrible with the lack of file menu's and toolbars that we have been using for a long time.

On my gaming rig and laptop I tried Vista out. On the laptop I installed, booted, ran updates and it was slooow immediately formatted and reinstalled XP. My gaming rig ran reasonably OK but Knights of the Republic 1 and 2 would not run and in general everything was much slower than in XP. I tried making myself run Vista for several months but in the end I formatted and returned it to XP.

If you do get vista turn off UAC (user account control) the constant pop ups are frustrating. Also turn off Windows Firewall and Defender. Instead download and use Firefox, Zonealarm Firewall (the free edition only), and Avast antivirus. This will minimize the slowdowns and frustrations of Vista while providing good security against Malware and viruses.
 
My Good Luck With Vista

I've been running 64-bit Ultimate Vista on my MBP for a while. You can tell the OS was built with 64 bit in mind as it runs much better than the 32-bit counterpart. I haven't had any major compatability issues (meaning I've had one issue with an unknown little app and wasn't too worried) and office 2003 should run just fine (I use 2007 but whatever works for ya). Places I have noticed issues are with local HDD to HDD copies (They're slower than OS X) and game load times. But as for games running I've seen about a 5% increase in framerates. Network copies have been A LOT faster than XP. The redone IP stack makes a difference.
Vista does use more memory but also has the appearance of using A LOT more memory. The reason is superfetch. Superfetch loads stuff that it predicts you will need into memory while the disk is idle. So if you launch office it will load some extra DLLs into memory that you might not need so things run more smoothly. That doesn't mean it won't page those out if you don't need it and need something else. Superfetch does make things run better as a whole. Especially large apps like Office.
As Vista having a large kernel, I'll argue that one later. But lets just say there's a reason Apple is slowly moving away from Mach and toward a large monolithic kernel like NTOSKrnl.exe. Same goes for Linux.

Oh yeah, that and the 64 bit drivers are only for Vista :).
 
Neil321 said:
XP support probably wont be ending for at least a couple of years,and if you believe in that line i quoted then i'd certainly have a rethink
Click to expand...

So, you think that when Microsoft stops shipping XP in January 2008 that software vendors and game companies will still be developing for that OS for years to come?
 
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