I'm using Vista vista business 64 bit and am happy with it. The security is a little bit of a pain but is easly overcome by reconfiguring things. I noticed no great improvement with sp1 althought I did have to find a fix for explorer which was buggy and crashed after running a x86 trading app for a few hours. But over all performance is good(on 4mb ram) with heavy use. If the programs you plan to use work with vista and support a 64bit environment you should use vista imo. edit#Only for a new rig. Old hardware can cause problems. For example videocards should all use the same driver if you use more then one.
I run AI and NN software. It is really memory and processor intensive. I dread the day I will be forced to go to Vista (even though the software is compatible) as I know the load will tax Vista more than XP. Mr. Softy needs to maintain both platforms. Vista for kids and XP for adults.
Your games will also run better on XP SP3 than on Vista. So unless you've got girlies who like the eye candy you can stick with XP. The only cases anyone seems to have made for Vista are: - microsoft and everyone are going to make you take it - you won't be able to support driver/component X with XP. IMHO, not a case that will persuade me to do anything but learn to love Linux.
Some interesting thoughts posted here, thanks for the feedback. It seems like XP pro is the best solution still. If I wanted to trust a software company I would have bought a MAC. I have to agree that Mr. Softy is trying to compensate for a market that they should just stay away from.
Maybe you won't be. Extended Support for XP Pro will continue at least into 2015. By then, MSFT should have a new OS to replace Vista... then it will only be a distant memory like Win ME.
Big thing that helps if you're up to the task. Vlite. www.vlite.net Tastes great, less filling. What it does is that it allows you to trim all the unnecessary elements from Vista. You'll consume less resources and lower the OS's footprint. Rather than go through the details, just click the link and peruse the site. I've done this with XP Pro (Using Nlite).
Businessweek Vista's Upgrade: Not Worth the Wait Microsoft has addressed one of the OS's big problemsâbut what about everything else? http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_05/b4069000450184.htm PCWorld Performance Results Mixed with Vista Service Pack 1 http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,142233/article.html
Hey Joab, Been using Vista for over a year now. I still prefer XP but Vista is the future, at least until Windows 7 due in 2010. If you buy a new system, make sure your programs have drivers for that operating system. Many software and hardware companies don't have 64 bit drivers yet - or not "certified" drivers which is another issue. Of course 64 bit has all the speed you could need. With a 32 bit system get as much L2 Cache as you can (Ram on the chip - much faster). My dual core processors didn't have L2, and with 2GB RAM it was slower than my XP system with 512MB ram. If you do some tweaking you can speed Vista up considerably and eliminate much of the hassles. I don't have many issues with it now. After the tweaking along with replacing Norton AV and IE it's much faster.