Thinkpads Forum

When ordering a new T61 should I go with the Vista or stick with XP Pro

I went with Vista. Choosing XP seemed like standing still to me. We'll have to accept Vista at some point, so we might as well get acclimated sooner rather than later. Just my $0.02

If you have or can get your hands on a copy of XP, I would say get the Vista, then when you get it make recovery discs with Vista, then install XP. Vista is not stable enough for me yet, so I did this and it gives me the option to switch in the future without buying Vista Ultimate in my case.

It depends (in my point of view) whether you are in business or not. Business people I know usually need connectivity to an office by VPN or some such, and Vista is not supporting the common methods yet. For this reason, I cannot switch to Vista (would if I could), and the single business person I know running Vista has to run XP in a virtual machine to connect home.
... JDH

To be a little bit more specific, many 3rd-party VPN clients are not yet supported on Vista.

If your company uses Microsoft's built-in VPN capability (PPTP or L2TP), there is no problem with VPN connectivity.

My suggestion having worked and worked on getting Vista to work acceptably in an existing environment I would recommend XP unless this will be used in a completely new environment.

I had trouble finding acceptable drivers for many existing peripherals.

Brad

fishslayeryo wrote:If you have or can get your hands on a copy of XP, I would say get the Vista, then when you get it make recovery discs with Vista, then install XP. Vista is not stable enough for me yet, so I did this and it gives me the option to switch in the future without buying Vista Ultimate in my case.

I'll go with this idea

Get Vista! But just to have it, then install XP. I really don't see any reason upgrading to Vista. It's slow, unoptimized and resource demanding. The common user would just want the visual improvements over XP. And it's currently unadapted to laptops.

get vista, so you'll have a copy for when it does become stable after the first service pack.

i had vista on my machine 1.83 duo core with 2 gigs of ram. it was slow and definetly resource hungry.

I think MS went a little too fast on the hardware requirements for this OS.

Vista and XP on my T60 is almost like night and day. XP boots up in approx 40-45 seconds while Vista takes at least almost 2 minutes. I can go to the rest room and come back and it'll still be at the splash screen.

-B

Just one note on the VPN stuff.

Cisco has a Vista ready VPN-Client since about 1 month which i'm using for connecting to work and university.

for those that recommended purchasing vista, but installing xp: how difficult will it be to later upgrade to vista using the r&r discs? will it involve a clean install, or can the data be migrated as well?

thanks,
bA

From my experience with the T61 and Vista, I would say go with XP right now if you can. I had major problems with the system and Vista. I believe most of the problems stemmed from immature drivers, especially the Intel Matrix storage drivers, causing major slowdowns (5-10 minute boot and shutdowns) and multiple Blue Screens. All this after re-installing the OS cleanly 6 times.

Now I am running XP and everything is smooth and fast so far.

Your mileage may vary of course.

it all depends on how good you with computer or not.

personally, i hate vista. i think its a step closer to please those mac people that are mentally retarded or idiot enough not willing to learn a new skill. yes using a pc properly is a skill.

i will still choose vista if i buy a machine because microsoft have a thing called downgrade rights. if you own a vista license it is your right to install a copy of windows xp on that machine if you feel like it. and it is perfectly legal. but you can't do t hat if you have a xp license. you need to pay another $$$ to get vista on it.

but as with any new machine i buy, format after receive is almost mandatory to keep all the junk ware out. although lenovo is very good at keeping bloatware to a minimum.

o1001010 wrote:i will still choose vista if i buy a machine because microsoft have a thing called downgrade rights. if you own a vista license it is your right to install a copy of windows xp on that machine if you feel like it. and it is perfectly legal.

You have to be careful here. Only businesses with Open Value or Software Assurance license are allowed to downgrade from Vista to XP. For every retail version you have to carefully read the EULA which doesn't permit you to make a downgrade to XP.

As far as i know only Vista Business and Ultimate give you the right to downgrade to XP. But you need a valid XP License which consists of a legit CD and the corresponding COA. This license could already be activated but can not be used on another PC and you have to call MS to reactivate it a second time.

Best is to call MS support and ask about the details.

arni wrote: As far as i know only Vista Business and Ultimate give you the right to downgrade to XP. But you need a valid XP License which consists of a legit CD and the corresponding COA. This license could already be activated but can not be used on another PC and you have to call MS to reactivate it a second time.

Best is to call MS support and ask about the details.

And from what I've heard in THAT regard, the downgrade usually results in having to re-image anyway.

ista and XP on my T60 is almost like night and day. XP boots up in approx 40-45 seconds while Vista takes at least almost 2 minutes.

I have found almost the opposite. I have Vista 64 on a Core 2 Duo (2.1 GHz), 2 Gig ram and a 7200 Hitachi 100 Gig HD on a T60P. I have the original XP on another HD in the Ultrabay so I can boot from either. Vista come right up faster with my large collection of applications. I have it set to do things in the background so that may make a difference.

Of course, Vista is still not really ready for prime time. Too many little crashes etc.

Had to take Vista down on t61, will wait for the sp1, until then will use xp

the only problem some hardware is not supported by xp, had to use drivers from t60 )))

Yeah, I really gave Vista a chance... in the end, it was just too unpolished, too sluggish (even with Aero and everything else that could be turned off, turned off), and way too buggy. The fact that nVidia's power management is non-existant in Vista is a big turn off as well.

I'll take tried and true over new and glamorous any day.

I find that with the ATI Fire GL V5200 CCC seams to fight the IBM/Lenovo Presentation Manager and the built in Windows Mobility stuff. The consequence is that display management, from location to location is difficult and all over the place.

At home I have a second flat panel DVI on the dock. At work I use it stand along except when giving a presentation. Then it has to work with the overhead projector that happens to be in the conference room I was assigned (one of five options, all different).

With the T43P and XP, that worked fine. I could select the room from the Presentation Manager and it would immediately put up the correct setup. However, with Vista 64 on the T60P, it does not.

I've posted in other threads on this same subject before ("Should I use Vista or XP?"). Here's my "shorter version" of my ideas:

I use both but mainly Vista. I have two hard drives and so can boot from XP when the SATA adapter is in the media bay. Also, I use the free VirtualPC 2007 from Microsoft to run XP under Vista (fast, smooth, reliable) for those applications that really, really don't like Vista yet--and thankfully those are very few. I can run XP in my virtual environment because I own a full retail license to XP Pro. (By the way, it's weird but running XP under Vista is faster than running Vista under XP in VirtualPC.)

I have to say I really like Vista. Yes, it offers much of what the elegant and refined Mac OSX offers and that's a very good thing. And compared to XP Pro, I think it is better in almost every way (except outright compatibility). In fact, Vista is far better in terms of its stablility than XP was when it was first released--if that matters to anyone here (meaning that if XP is "your hero" now then what was your hero back when XP was first released? Win98? 2000?). And, as the months have gone by (3 now) Vista gets better and better on my T60 (as it updates itself and as I learn how to solve niggling problems).

I say if you're buying a T61 now you should have Vista Business or Home Premium, not XP Pro. The only reason not to take Vista with a new purchase is, as other posters have pointed out, your office or business uses VPN or certain apps which are not yet compatible with Vista. In short, I say that choosing Vista for a new machine is a no-brainer. Cost is the issue, for one thing, unless you already have a full license for XP Pro (which I did), not an OEM license.

Finally, regarding those folks who really "dis" Vista (as in "dislike and disrespect") I have to wonder if they've ever even run it. There are all sorts of psychological reasons why some people avoid change and/or something new and better. And those reasons have nothing to do with the actual facts of what running any piece of software is actually like.

Hope this helps someone. Questions? Write to me....

fishslayeryo wrote:If you have or can get your hands on a copy of XP, I would say get the Vista, then when you get it make recovery discs with Vista, then install XP.

I agree that's the best thing to do. If I were to order a new computer today, I would do the same thing, using the Win XP CD provided by my institution. I prefer using XP, but when I sell the unit later, having Vista and a COA sticker for it will increase the unit's value by $50 or more.

Wally, that seems to be the general concensus--that is, many people like the look and feel of Vista. However, when I logon to XP and it feels like everything's moving on turbo, I tend to prefer that to the look and feel of Vista anyday. I honestly have not seen many reasons to stick with Vista, except for the fact that it supports more drivers out of the box. Some reasons not to:

* Surprisingly enough, nVidia does not support power-saving options in Vista (Why? I wish I knew)
* Driver support is sketchy at best. I know I had several crashes due to driver conflicts, ones that I have yet to encounter in XP.
* Learning curve!
* Most software runs better and faster on XP, so why upgrade if its not needed?

Just a few reasons. You're right in another sense, though... back when XP came out, it was buggy as all hell. I stuck with 2000 for at least a year or two until XP stabilized. As such, I would recommend doing the same for Vista--although considering much of the code has been rewritten or is newly introduced in Vista, I'd expect to have to wait longer.

Just use whichever you want. If Vista doesn't bother you, stick with it. However, be prepared to notice performance drops.

You're going to hit that learning curve sooner or later anyway, unless you stick with XP permanently. There is no free lunch -- you pay now or you pay later!

So I plan to run Vista with my new X61. Not everything may be optimized yet, but I surely will not be waiting for things to run on a 2 GHz dual-core system, either, based on what I've seen of Vista on other people's systems so far.

tomh009 wrote:You're going to hit that learning curve sooner or later anyway, unless you stick with XP permanently. There is no free lunch -- you pay now or you pay later!

Not necessarily. Windows XP will probably be good enough for most people until at least 2012. If a new version of Windows is released before 2012 and if it's better than Vista, then I would rather upgrade from XP to that version, skipping Vista.

pianowizard wrote:Not necessarily. Windows XP will probably be good enough for most people until at least 2012. If a new version of Windows is released before 2012 and if it's better than Vista, then I would rather upgrade from XP to that version, skipping Vista.

"Good enough" in the sense that Windows 2000 is today, sure. But if people are happy skipping every other rev of Windows, then more power to them -- they can indeed reduce the amount of time spent learning.

But then you might as well skip new Office releases, new Photoshop releases, new Firefox releases, new game releases -- what's the point in learning new application features when they will get replaced in a year or two anyway?

True, but you can't honestly say that general usage between Office XP and Office 2003 was substantial, can you? The general interface maintains the same layout, and the functions remain nearly identical. But how can you replace 6-7 years of experience with XP? You can't, especially considering how easy it is to make XP do what you want.

Besides which, do you honestly think everybody went out and purchased Windows Vista? I'd guess 98% of the population using any version of windows are using XP or lower, and I doubt that the number will drop substantially for quite a few years. Most people are happy with XP (I know I am), and don't feel that the performance, stability, and "comfort level" of XP is worth abandoning.

Like I said, in order for XP to get to where it is now took years of debugging, service packs, and updates... Vista will (hopefully) be at the same place sooner or later, but not yet.

In my own business, I tend to see lots of PC's for one reason or another. Most of what I see today is XP (and the vast majority of that XP Pro). I see some Windows 2000, but not much. I see almost no Windows 98 any more (thankfully). I see no Vista at all (I have heard of two instances). ... JDH

Like I said, in order for XP to get to where it is now took years of debugging, service packs, and updates... Vista will (hopefully) be at the same place sooner or later, but not yet

Vista IS and WILL go through the same growing pains XP did, if you were into MS newsgroups years ago people hated XP just about the same percentage they hate Vista now, same with the other office apps, it's cyclic and very predictable. Every once in a while I ask customers IF they have used vista or office 2007, most of the replies are the same "no but I have a friend who tried it and he/she hates it", hmmm I think, "tried it" how long did people try XP before they all of the sudden came to love it. OS's are practically living organisms they are never finished or perfect they just get old.

Vista is the best thing that has ever happened to Apple Corp since the Apple II.

Look at the verdict of Vista according to Mr Market (ie., stock prices), which represents the total consensus of all informed opinions. Collectively, it's a big thumbs-down for Vista, and executives at MS are no doubt terrified about Vista's flop and the ascendancy of Google.

Kyocera wrote:if you were into MS newsgroups years ago people hated XP just about the same percentage they hate Vista now

That's very surprising, considering that the difference between XP and 2K is much smaller than that between XP and Vista. When I upgraded from Win 2K to XP, I got used to it instantly. By contrast, I tried very hard to adjust to Vista but never succeeded.