windows 8 less cpu usage than XP?!?

[ganon11000]

I have a X41(Laptop) with a SSD, 1.6GHz Pentium M 2GB ram etc.. And windows 8 is somehow faster, only issue is flash video (no gma900 driver :'( but why is this, both have up to date drivers, windows 8 has trim disabled and both have 30gb partitions. What is wrong with my thinkpad for 8 to be faster??

[twistero]

Why do you think there's anything wrong? Why "should" Win8 be slower than WinXP?

[SafeHarbor]

My T61p has survived Vista Pro, 7 Pro, and now 8 Pro. Each brought something. Vista had gestation problems with Nvidia that crashed it down to bones and profanity, but an update fixed it almost immediately. There were also some issues with the sound system that never really got fixed in Vista, much of which got hashed and rehashed right in this forum. 7 was smooth sailing all the way - no significant problems. 8 is so far, so good. I quickly installed Classic Shell to get a Start button and Win8GadgetsPack to get my sidebar widgets back. The standout feature for me is the hybrid shut-down and quicker restart. You probably won't appreciate that with an SSD. And yes, 8 is faster for me, but I notice it more on my desktop. Right now with Word open, a movie running in VLC, and a download going, this box has 5.7 GB free of 8 GB and is using 20% CPU. Multitasking seems to be a little faster, too, but I can still bog the system down playing around with 3D rendering. The standout feature on the desktop for me is the better support for multiple monitors. Gee, I don't think anything is wrong with your ThinkPad for it to be faster. Win 8 just has lower resource usage for the same tasks. (Or did I misunderstand the problem?)

[dr_st]

Win8 is a great OS. Some of its user interface and application model are controversial, but the kernel and core OS itself is definitely an improvement over previous generations in more than one way.

[pianowizard]

Why do you think there's anything wrong? Why "should" Win8 be slower than WinXP?

XP is way overrated. Many people like its user interface, and I respect that since that's a subjective preference. But there is this widespread superstition that since XP was designed for 2001 technologies, it should be much faster than all subsequent versions of Windows. The truth is, XP has become increasingly bloated through the years thanks to the hundreds of updates, and now, in April 2013, it's actually about as slow as Vista, noticeably slower than 7, and significantly slower than 8. Aside from 8's unconventional user interface, it is the very best Windows version currently available. Those who tried it for 15 minutes, then decided it's not for them and went back to 7 are missing out.

On the other hand, XP Fundamentals for Legacy PCS is indeed really fast, and is ideal for ancient computers.

[ganon11000]

*UPDATE*

well windows 8 is now my primary os and I've deleted XP as the cpu was maxed out doing nothing?? (X41 issue perhaps?) anyway I'm very happy and are using Spotify instead of YouTube for music as it uses loads less cpu!)

As always no WDDM for my gpu (GMA900 in a 915GM chipset) means no sleep which is a nice feature to have :/ thanks a lot intel >:(