Windows XP still on top

Post by **GeneralAdmission** » 02 Dec 2008, 02:03

Valve's hardware survey always has interesting data. Scroll down to see that while we are very close to Vista's 2-year birthday, XP still commands an 80% share on Steam.

I'm still on XP, and I have no plans to leave it anytime soon. How about everyone else?

If you have Vista, did you get it with a new PC, or did you actually upgrade an older version of Windows?

Post by **The_cranky_hermit** » 02 Dec 2008, 02:27

Where's my "human blood-powered OS of doom" option?

DaFox · Post by **DaFox** » 02 Dec 2008, 02:29

XP, But theres nothing wrong with Vista. I would move to it if I was not so lazy.

Post by **Abram** » 02 Dec 2008, 02:43

Since i use my computer mainly for gaming, I use XP.

I've tried Vista and the very few features that i like don't outweigh the poor performance and pain-in-the-ass security crap that i have to disable.. I tried it again after SP1, but then XP SP3 came out and blew Vista out of teh water, once more. (gaming numbers, that is)

But apperently the next Wondows OS is coming out next year, so i think i'll be skipping Vista, a.k.a. Win ME 2.

Cynagen · Post by **Cynagen** » 02 Dec 2008, 03:35

Valve's hardware survey always has interesting data. Scroll down to see that while we are very close to Vista's 2-year birthday, XP still commands an 80% share on Steam.

I'm still on XP, and I have no plans to leave it anytime soon. How about everyone else?

If you have Vista, did you get it with a new PC, or did you actually upgrade an older version of Windows?

We passed Vista's 2 year birthday. It was released second friday of November, 2006 to corporations. That's when I got it. I had it 3 months before the general public, but as far as general public is concerned, yes, almost 2 years for genpub.

Post by **Mach1.9pants** » 02 Dec 2008, 04:02

I use both cos somethings are better on one than the other.

However valves hardware survey is a crock of..... I have submitted surveys often and not one has picked up that I have SLI....that is 7900GT SLI, 8800GTX SLI or GTX280 SLI on many different rehashes of hardware. I take it with a HUGE grain of salt

infernus · Post by **infernus** » 02 Dec 2008, 04:15

XP, but I'd upgrade if I had the money to spare. Way too busy buying games.
Also, I'm posting from Linux. :S

Mesh · Post by **Mesh** » 02 Dec 2008, 07:46

I've put vista on all my pcs, including my recent inspiron mini that I wiped of xp and put vista on it. Why? I've generally had less problems with vista than xp. This laptop (not the inpiron) has only recently got it's first bluescreen, and that fault lies with buggy powerdvd ultra, not vista itself. The same video had no such BSOD played on vlc.

Post by **scavvenjahh** » 02 Dec 2008, 13:43

Just like Mach1.9pants, good ol' XP is still here, but Vista64 has become my main (gamer's!) OS. I once thought Vista was all eye-candy, bugs and low framerates, I'm glad I was wrong :)

And I don't have a Steam account so I'm another long-time SLI user (+ more recently TripleHeader and 30" owner) left off of their numbers :P

Post by **g00seberry** » 02 Dec 2008, 17:27

I use XP SP2 still.
Is SP3 good then? Does it make any difference whatsoever? I don't know much about it.

infernus · Post by **infernus** » 02 Dec 2008, 17:49

Been using SP3 since it came out, no problems so far. From what I can tell through normal use, they added a little extra security (copying from other places, not from your computer, will prompt a small dialog). It also fixed a problem I had with the shell (tooltips forgot their ontop-ness after right-click in menu). Guess it doesn't matter too much if you don't get it.

mengzor · Post by **mengzor** » 02 Dec 2008, 17:56

tbh , id use vista if it would recognize my 400gb partition , but it doesent for whatever reason so i -have- to use XP...

KelsieKatt · Post by **KelsieKatt** » 02 Dec 2008, 18:01

I've been using Vista Ultimate 64-bit for about a year now, and I prefer it over Windows XP. The performance loss is negligible on my system so it doesn't bother me at all, and all I do is play games and browse the internet mainly. The main thing I'm happy about is Windows XP was always a pain in the ass for me, I used to have a lot of bugs, crashes, corrupting drivers, and degrading performance over time.

Haven't had any trouble with Vista since I installed it last december instead, and I'm no longer complaining about crashes and blue screens, and find myself bitching about lacking widescreen support and poor game mechanics instead. There's some annoying security things I had to disable, but in the end, I'm just happy to have a completely stable computer for once.

I've been quite lucky with compatibility as well. I've tested over 130 games out of my collection and they all work fine except for one. I can't get Rayman 2 to play on my machine, although considering it never worked for more than 5 minutes on Windows XP either(cpu lock ups and such) it doesn't make a difference.

I also have my older PC parts reassembled in a back up machine running Windows XP, just in case, but since I've had such good luck with Vista, I only use it to store file backups on and occassionally host servers with it.

Best part is, on top of that, it was totally free. I used to be quite sceptical about it, since I heard all the complaints, and would never have tried paying for it, but my dad has a developer license to MSDN, so he picked up a copy of Vista for us.

Post by **Paradigm Shifter** » 02 Dec 2008, 18:02

I have one one gaming rig running Vista, and one running XP. So take your pick.

The XP rig seems to be developing some odd quirks, though - Dr. Watson will hang explorer.exe for no reason, explorer dies, explorer restarts, all is well again.

Seems to only happen when I'm playing music through Winamp and surfing the net with Firefox 2 and have something else from Office 2003 (like Word/Outlook/Excel) and Spybot S&D open too. Kind of annoying. But unless that collection of things is running, everything is fine.

skeeder · Post by **skeeder** » 02 Dec 2008, 18:09

While Vista has come its way since launch and I own...lets see...Enterprise, Business and Home Copies in both flavors (64bit too). XP Pro SP3 seems to be just fine for me. With how old my machine is...it doesn't make sense to upgrade. Vista is harder on machines, they don't bench as higher either. Not until I upgrade would I even consider it.

Osuperman · Post by **Osuperman** » 02 Dec 2008, 19:03

Well I love Vista x64 :) The transition was almost painless from 32-bit Vista, which was okay, but I wanted more memory... oh but now all my 16-bit apps don't work :( *cries* Ack well they were crap anyway.

I couldn't dump that ugly Windows XP quick enough.

p.s. Crysis FPS boost with Vista 64-bit & 64-bit executable was very noticeable.

Post by **Mach1.9pants** » 02 Dec 2008, 19:25

I use XP SP2 still.
Is SP3 good then? Does it make any difference whatsoever? I don't know much about it.

Yes install it, "Security isnâ€™t a dirty word, eZ. Crevice is a dirty word, but security isnâ€™t."

Doesn't make much of a game difference, although it improves some. However it plugs a fair few crevices, sorry holes in XP's security

Post by **g00seberry** » 02 Dec 2008, 19:58

I was running XP SP2 without any installed updates for the past year and a half :P I may be wrong, but I always thought that as long as I think about everything I do, I won't catch anything nasty in any, errr, crevices? *touch wood*. Err....

Have updated to SP3 now :mrgreen:
Haven't noticed anything different except this Windows CardSpace thing whatever that is.

Post by **Mach1.9pants** » 02 Dec 2008, 20:07

Yeah you can get away with updates being really careful, same with anti-virus...but it just takes one error or bit of bad luck and some Bulgarian Bandit has a keylogger on your PC and access to your online banking.

I have seen this, 25k whisked away while he was on hols in the UK :(

KreK · Post by **KreK** » 02 Dec 2008, 20:22

I've been using Vista for the last year or so, 64bit version on a quad core CPU with 8 GB of RAM. You'll have to put a gun on my head to force me back to WinXP. Rock solid, sleek and fast, those are the only words that can describe my experience.

I do agree that people with older hardware should not switch to Vista in the same way that people with 486 CPUs should not switch to WinXP.

If games are the primary software on your PC, don't bother with Vista. The majority of games are console ports and most developers will put very little extra for the PC platform. A PC with 2 GB of RAM, WinXP and GeForce 8800 GT will serve you good until the end of this console cycle.

The next console generation will be build around DirectX11 or DirectX12 and then you will have no choice because those games will not work on WinXP.

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