Im use dual boot xp and vista, no prob.
Otherwise agree with vStyler : from skinners XP is currently the best .

  100% love it!


Everything but one Black Laser (3 yrs old) worked. I purchased Ultimate, I am running a Dual Core AMD 4200 with 2 Gigs of Ram, X1300 PCIE vid card, ASUS 32/64 Bit Motherboard (running under 32 bit). Runs like Cream... not a chance to go back to XP Pro.

I'm liking Vista just fine....Ultimate on AMD Athlon 64x2 4600 @ 2.6; Asus A8N VM mobo; 2gb DDR 400 RAM (back to 3gb soon); Nvidia 7600 GS PCIe and a Soundblaster Audigy 4 card.

Apart from some functions (record, EQ & EAX Console) on the Audigy 4 card not working at present, all my other apps & hardware run just great.

I also find that Vista loads and runs more quickly than XP, despite several arguments to the contrary because it has more processes to load/run. I have a clean install of both XP Pro and Vista Ultimate (done the same day on the same machine) and each are loaded with the same apps, etc......so it's not that my XP install is slow due to bloat, but rather that Vista is more efficient.

Starkers:

I am not sure if you ever go to Creativelabs.com and read their forums but I hate to break the bad news to you about this : Apart from some functions (record, EQ & EAX Console) on the Audigy 4 card not working at present, <--- It well never work at all, creative has never released any actual drivers for the Audigy 4 that well support EAX, in fact in Vista that is history(sorry to say) that is why I am using my High Definition built in card.
Yes Vista does run alot faster and installs faster to then XP could ever do!
I love vista now that i did a clean install, for some reason the Upgrading isn't such a good idea to say the least.

The main users I've heard with the complaint of the slow load/run time have been people running Vista on close to the minimum system requirements. Anyone with ANY experience with Microsoft operating systems knows you NEVER run it on the minimum system requirements. If your PC won't take more than 512 mb RAM, give it up. You're not going to be happy with the results, period.

As I've said, I have nothing wrong with Vista as an O/S. My chief complaints are: 1) cost (although OEM versions of Home basic can be found for $130, I won't run Home on my machines); 2) lack of backwards compatibility; and 3) the fact that Microsoft plans to release its next operating system, which will almost certainly better utilize 64 bit processing, in two years. Upgrading the whole network seems rather silly in light of that.

Well i have one sentence that can explain my entire Vista experience.

I'm moving to Linux.

Yeah, I have seen that, but I'm not overly concerned as I have a hi.def on-board card for recording & EQ functions, etc.....and if i really need any of those creative functions I can simply reboot into XP Pro.

The main thing for me is that the current Audigy 4 drivers allow me to run my Creative Inspire 5600 in 5.1 surround sound on Vista quite nicely....and I can always upgrade my soundcard to one with full functions at a later date should I so desire.

Welcome to the dark side. We have cookies!

I got no problems , it's Great except for the WC stuff that doesn't work yet ....... hint hint WC need the 64bit support for all things !

Judging from all that microsoft is doing to ram this down user's throats ( see the article at...WWW Link) I'll stick with my XP pro till Vista is more fully established...with full support for apps I have.

same her AZ. the only thing I want now is to put WC stuff on my pc. vista is super.  

I love Vista Ultimate. I have no problems with it loading and I believe it is much more stable and safer. I am not sure it is as user friendly but it just takes a little time to work through the changes. I didn't like it at first. I bought a new computer in March and I was not happy with all the software changes I had to buy. But in the long run, I don't think I would ever want to go back to XP.

I hope you have some White Fudge chunk chocolate chips cuz those are gooooood!!!!!

Anyway, I havent switched to Linux yet but I probably will before next weekend. I just need to look in some forums, etc. to make sure my Inspiron 1501 is compatible with Ubuntu 7.04 in all respects and if its not, what I have to do to make it.

Yep...Bye Bye Windows...I hope.

I'm running Vista Business on my new Tablet PC (Fujitsu T4215). It is awesome, and it's only going to get better as support for the OS grows.

I'm not really thrilled about the new open/save as dialogs, but other than that, I have very few complaints.

I have Ubuntu 7.04 (Feisty Fawn) and will intall it on a third drive on my custom build to experiment with once I have figured out how to format and set up the partitions, etc. I only downloaded it a few hours ago so haven't had time to fully investigate the process as yet....but looking at the 'live' disc info, it's a bit more involved than whacking in a Windows installation disc. Hopefully it won't be too steep a learning curve cos I'm itching to see what all the fuss/hype is about.

However, I like Vista a lot and will continue using it as my primary OS, with XP Pro as a secondary for a few apps and games that haven't caught up yet, and Ubuntu Feisty Fawn as a plaything/learning tool.

Can anyone recommend another operating system that I can dual boot with my Vista Home Edition.

I dual boot xp and vista. That way, if something is not yet supported on vista, and i just have to have it, i can run it in xp, which is supported by damn near every thing.

The OS is a tool to run apps.

It should run the apps I use.
It should support of my hardware.
It should meet my price range
It should meet my level of expectations on responsiveness.

XP does all theses things
Linux does not handle the software and some hardware
Vista misss my old scanner
OS X can't handle my software either

I tri-boot between Vista, XP, and Ubuntu. But Vista is the standard now.

I'm sick of everyone taking sides of an operating system. like Zubaz said, its just a tool to run programs on a computer. That's really all it is. Sure, they're important (can't run the programs without them), but it's not like everyone in the world is suddenly going to be stricken down with a deadly plague if one operating system (in the person's opinion) is better than another. Here are my views:

Windows is here to stay. It's been around for the past ~20 years, and it is what all other operating systems are measured by. Most people know what Windows is, even if they don't know what a computer is. During the Windows 95 launch, people bought it who didn't even own computers just to see what all of the hype was about. It is offered and runs on almost every single computer on the consumer market. Also, it has about 90% market share.

Mac OS X looks good. It just looks great. The interface is bright, shiny, and attractive. But, its not really good for productivity for me. I try to work on a Word document, and for some reason I repeatedly press the F12 key just to see Dashboard come up. The water effects when widgets are launched are so pretty... Also, OS X can't natively run all the programs that Windows can, making it a not-so-good alternative for some people.

Linux...oh dear, Linux... When I first heard about this, a free alternative that could, potentially, run every program I ever needed, I was excited. But then I had to pick a distribution. I went to http://www.linux.org/ to find a distro, but I was overwhelmed with the hundreds upon hundreds of types of Linux. Wow, there were so many. Finally, I tried out a few of the most popular ones, Ubuntu, Fedora Core, Knoppix, and OpenSUSE. I finally settled on Ubuntu. Okay, now on to the important parts: Linux can be easily customizable. I don't know ANY Linux code and in about 5 minutes of copying-and-pasting from forums, I had Beryl/Compiz running on my mom's 3 year old desktop. It ran a lot faster than Vista on my Gaming monster but with a lot more eye candy. But that's where it fails to me. I am using Ubuntu 7.04 "Feisty Fawn" right now, and I really like all of the eye candy. But that's where Mac OS X got me down. I can't seem to work very good in this environment. A few other bad things share roots with OS X too. Again, market share is a problem. Like Apple's operating system, Linux has only about 5% of the world's computer market. Not many people know about it.

Finally, I would like to discuss one more operating system. It is not completely done, but in my opinion (and many others on the Joejoe.org site), it is one of the greatest things to happen to computers. It is called the Longhorn Reloaded project. I'll try to explain here: Back in 2003, Microsoft started Windows codename "Longhorn". It was to be the successor of Windows XP, and it was just plain amazing. From the demos in PDC 2003, those who knew about it were literally excited. I was only 11 years old at the time, but when my uncle came home and showed me a video of the demos, I thought it was like watching Star Wars for the first time all over again. Breathtaking. Anyway, in mid-to-late 2004, Microsoft got overwhelmed with the Longhorn project and started from scratch. They scrapped all of their work with Longhorn since 2002-2003 and started over from the Windows Server 2003 code base instead of that in XP (which they had used at first). This new Longhorn would eventually, through the years, change its name to Windows Vista. Anyway, the Longhorn Reloaded project aims to revive the original Longhorn and make it a viable operating system for real people. It will have the productivity of Windows, since it is Windows after all, but it will also have good security, and of course the eye candy that people just love to see on a computer. I wish the best of luck to JoeJoe.org and their project.

I'm not trying to side with Longhorn Reloaded, as I don't want to seem hypocritical. I just like the idea of reviving a good operating system from almost certain doom. I still like Windows Vista. I still like Mac OS X. And, I still like Linux. I like them all equally. I don't care which one I use, as long as it gets the job done.

I would like to thank Zubaz for the inspiration of this long post.

Windows is the only operating system on the market that supports the programs I have. So it's pointless for me to even consider another operating system.