Surely the best tactic is to never buy an OS directly always get it as part of the computer you're buying. I mean for trading purposes is it going to help you make more or lose less? As most computers should be replaced about every 4 years you'll always be natrally upgrading overtime. Although I'm using XP on most of my machines I've still got one (well more than 1 actually as windows 2000 doesn't have any verification on it ) running windows 2000 and it does the job very well.
This pc is win 2000k pro also. This is the web surf, e-mail machine. Vista will be in the new box build. Why would anyone buy win XP PRO when VISTA is coming out? ALL software is always in beta testing. Windows XP postponed SP3 until later, surely this was done because vista was hitting the street. Go with vista if the decision is buying either xp pro or vista. Buying xp pro when the new vista is out would be like marrying the ex . go with new and different..
I see your point, of course.... however if I were buying a trading rig today, I'd opt for XP Pro... it will be good until 2014 at least, and I wouldn't have to cope with all of Vista's "new OS problems"... not to mention the ridiculous cost.
I wish people would stop the MS bashing. Just because it costs money (maybe even a significant amount), it's bad? XP Pro costs $299 for the retail version, right? It was released in 2002. It is now 2007, and 4 full years have passed since its release. Divide $299 by 4, and you get something in the realm of $75. Is $75 really so bad, per YEAR of o/s usage? XP is extremely reliable, and any problems with it are caused by its users. BTW, out of curiosity ... due to the Java-based nature of IB's Trader Workstation, has anyone successfully run this on Linux or BSD?
Sweet. I was just curious .... I just signed up w/ IB, and while I am kind of an MS junkie, I have had my times experimenting with mostly FreeBSD, but it's very similar to Linux, so ... who knows where the o/s world will go. For now, I plan on continuing to use XP, but I do keep up with the times, so I see Vista in my future as well. Thanks for confirming.
I'm not really familiar with *BSD, but I know that there have been some issues with lagging Java versions. Java is better supported on Linux by Sun, IBM, Oracle, BEA etc. My first choice would be Linux, but as Java is now (or shortly) fully open source expect even better things in the future. I've had no real problems with TWS on Linux with Sun 1.4, 1.5 and 1.6 JVMs. The IBM 1.4 JVM also was fine when I tried it.
Yeah, well, the only reason I'd go with BSD at all is because of the recently improved compatibility with Java. I installed Java on FreeBSD a year or so ago, and it was an absolute bitch. In fact, come to think of it, I don't think I ever got it working. Haha ... I'm sure that if I did set up a Linux workstation, I would use something like Fedora Core or Ubuntu though. Have you tried the free version of Solaris x86? I grabbed all the ISOs at one point, but never installed it ... hmmm