OS question.

My wife is going back to college in the fall to finish her Masters of Psychology course (needed because she's married to me).
Most of it will be online.
I'm going to put together a dedicated pc for her to use for her studies. It will have Office 2007 as well as whatever programs the college requires.
Windows 7 is not final yet. Xp will stop being supported soon and Vista seems to cause a lot of people a good bit of trouble.
Am I better off with XP Pro or one of the Vistas?
Thanks.
Hugger

 

It's been smooth sailing for me so far with Vista. Definitely what I'd go with if I were leery of the Windows 7 RC.

And as always, Linux is worth a shot; it's free, and it's a great alternative if it works for you.

 

Depends on the machine & its hardware...........

Good enough CPU, ample memory atleast 2 GB, Graphic card,72K 8 MB cache hard drive................Vitsa..........otherwise XP Pro.

Just my thoughts!

 

Vista Business with downgrade rights to XP Pro?
When / if Vista gets patched / upgraded to where you are comfortable with it, revert back to it.

 

If someone asks me that they have windows XP and are satisfied with it, should they upgrade to Vista?

I will answer "No, there is no need to upgrade to Vista"

If someone asks me that they want buy an OS and what should they go with, XP or Vista?

I will answer "Vista, as there is no reason to buy XP now"

 

I'd avoid the Win 7 RC as that's got a limited life and you'd find yourself in the same situation a year from now.

If you are going to "put together a dedicated pc for her" as you put it, then I'd say, if this PC has the modern hardware and horsepower and ram, I'd use Vista. If it's older, definitely XP. XP will be supported for some time yet.

I like Vista myself, despite all the negative press we've all heard, I have no real problems with it. Win 7 is a little nicer, but as mentioned, it's not yet final.

 

Does your wife use an imaging software? If yes, she could reinstall an earlier image to "go back in time" prior to marriage and thus avoid college.


sorry, I know it's OT and stupid, still couldn't resist

 

Go for vista.
vista has been fine since Service pack 1 and service pack 2 has just come out and further improves vista.

 

I'd find out what the requirements are for the colleges software before
making a final decision on an OS.

I'm running XP PRO OEM SP3 and am very happy with it.

There are places still selling various versions of XP.
Do some hunting and you'll find it if you're interested.

 

Hello,

Windows Vista has been out for 2 1/2 years and has had 2 service packs so should be stable and compatible with most hardware and software by now. Windows XP left mainstream support in April, is aging, and I'm not even sure if you can buy just Windows XP without getting both Windows XP and Windows Vista for a big ($$) price - the "downgrade" policy.

In addition, there aren't any major differences between Windows Vista and Windows 7 so upgrading to Windows 7 when it's released shouldn't be too difficult if you're already running Windows Vista fine.

From personal experience: I use both Vista and XP and I don't have any more problems with Vista than I do with XP for the most part. I got Vista as Windows Vista RTM (before SP1) and it was buggy, uncompatible, and slow then so I wouldn't have recommended it then. After SP1 (over a year ago) and other hotfixes, Vista was fine, and SP2 improves it even more.

Therefore, I think that you best bet would be to go with Windows Vista . I'm assuming, however, that the dedicated PC for your wife will be new, so will have the requirements for Vista (2GB of RAM). If it's old, then you'll want to get XP.

Let me know what you decide . Don't be scared of Vista.

Regards,

Mark.

 

Thank you for all your help.
Yes, the pc will be new.
E8400, P5Q-E, 4g's RAM, Corsair 620 PSU, GTS 250 for now.
Reading all of the posts I'm leaning towards Vista Business.
Thanks again.
Hugger

 

Hello,

Good choice. That should be more than enough to run Vista with all the Aero eye-candy very nicely.

Regards,

Mark.

 

Go for Vista. It's fine after SP1.