There is another perception that Windows Vista underperforms in every area of the system when compared to Windows XP. This bothers me because I have Windows Vista & Windows XP side-by-side all the time. I kept one machine on Windows XP for the exclusive purpose of understanding the differences in usage and overall “feel” while maintaining my primary machine as a Windows Vista box.
Now I know that the critics aren’t doing the same because I have the same stuff loaded on both of them. And not like your typical dinky benchmark testing stuff like Office or Adobe Acrobat or Photoshop. I’m talking the stuff that the average power using human uses. Stuff like SnagIt, uTorrent, MuvAudio, SyncToy, Foldershare, Juice/iPodder, Slingplayer, Pinnacle Studio, AnyDVD, etc.
See? Real software & tools. And all of it works brilliantly on Windows Vista. If anything I’ve noticed that I see far fewer “pauses” in the OS on Windows Vista than I do on Windows XP. XP has always had the tendency to freeze because of bus contention or something. I never get that on Windows Vista and that for me has been really nice.
TALKING ABOUT PERFORMANCE
Without getting into the differences in hardware requirements between Windows Vista and its predecessor, this screencast – Windows Vista SP1 outperforms Windows XP SP2 in file copy – shows the under-the-covers process traces of just how it achieves its performance lead running on the same hardware as Windows XP.
Windows Vista SP1 outperforms Windows XP SP2 in file copies
http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9033360
Not good enough? Fine. Here’s a 3rd party study that concluded the same thing: Windows Vista SP1 is faster than Windows XP SP2.
Responsiveness of Vista, Vista SP1 and Windows XP on common business tasks
http://www.principledtechnologies.com/clients/reports/Microsoft/VistaSP1XPVistaBusResp0208.pdf
Don’t believe Principled Technologies study? How about Ed Bott from Ziff Davis?
Vista screams past XP in gaming tests!
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=458
And don’t even get me started on UAC.
kurtsh
Kurt Shintaku's Blog 