Thinkpads Forum

Hi all, I have an X200s that came with Vista Biz. I don't hate it that much, but am still thinking about dropping the $50 (highway robbery for a pair of DVDs!) to downgrade back to XP. I'm specifically wondering about two issues - if both of them are a wash between XP and Vista then maybe I'll save my $50 for something else.

Issue #1: Battery life on the same machine doing the same thing between XP and Vista, anyone have experience? I'm not talking about comparing XP to Vista w/ Aero as some have done, but an apples to apples comparison. Any experience?

Issue #2: General performance, boot up time, etc. I feel like this machine should be a little faster than it is and although I want to blame Vista, maybe that's not fair.

Anyone who's switched either way, I'd love to hear what you found. (I already know everyone hates vista, so hard data points would be a little more valuable: XP lasts 45 more minutes on battery, Vista boots 2 secs faster, etc)

Thanks!

I love vista. I disabled aero and hdd indexing. Vista being an operation system with some more years of technology inside, it seems you'll get more battery time out of a vista installation that provides the same as a xp installation: so disable aero and hdd indexing and update vista just with windows update (you can setup vista to do that automatically) and do not use lenovos system update. Sometimes lenovos drivers are somewhat outdated. Also do not run programs that xp needed, but are not needed for vista as they are build in: access connections is one candidate There is an ongoing discussion about whether lenovo should even provide software at all as most new operation systems have all programs build in.

Another thing that maybe important for mobile users: If you plugin a vista notebook to a new printer when you are in a new office, vista just downloads and installs new printer driver automatically there is nothing you have to click on, not even a "do you want to install this driver?" box. For me its far more easier to use than xp.

You sure about that? A cursory look around Vista's networking features doesn't look like it can do any of the cool stuff I use Access Connections for, such as defining a default printer, proxy settings, vpn, etc on a connection by connection basis and then automatically applying them when connecting to said network.

The printer feature is cool I suppose, but XP does the same thing, doesn't it? Adds printers with the word "Auto" in front of it when they're shared on a network? Besides, the day to day performance hit (that's been reported) of using Vista more than makes up for the occasional time when I need to manually install a printer.

Thanks for your comment, does anyone have any harder comparison data?

Vistas build in network features can not do what you accomplish with Access Connections. The driver thing was obviously just one example on how vista works differently than xp. I did not see a speed difference between vista and xp but I only use 1 gb ram. Vista can make use of more ram better than xp. From my experience most users who ask whether staying with xp or going to vista usually are more happy by staying with xp.