Thomas Hernandez21 said:If you have solid hardware—I mean a decent processor and more than 2GB of RAM—performance just isn't going to be the same on XP compared to Windows 7 or Vista. It really comes down to the fact that the Truth is, Windows 7 brought much better memory management to the table than XP ever did. If I recall correctly, you mentioned earlier that your RAM is pretty limited; honestly, you can't really judge which OS is better based on that, because neither Vista nor Windows 7 has enough to work with if the memory is that low. For gamers, though, Windows 7 and Vista are the way to go because of DirectX 10 exclusivity—on XP, they just can't push their graphics cards to the limit. As for stability... whether you want to admit it or not, Vista is significantly more stable than XP. Even when a BSOD happens, it’s usually due to third-party software or faulty hardware rather than the system itself. Networking is handled much better too, and both Vista and Windows 7 support IPv6... there's plenty more where that came from, but I think you get the idea. 🙂
I'm just not sure about those "lab condition" tests where Vidijev compared all three systems on a single configuration (one that was perfectly adequate for all of them). In those tests, Vista ended up being the slowest in most tasks—sometimes twice as slow—though I think it was about equal to the others, maybe even slightly faster, when it came to copying files to a disk. While XP and Windows 7 seemed pretty much neck and neck...
I suspect you'll see similar results in other benchmarks online.
It's common knowledge that Vista eats up a massive amount of system resources, whereas Windows 7 handles processes in a completely different, much improved way. It's practically a different approach altogether compared to Vista.
Meanwhile, Linux probably flies through everything. It's a shame I didn't stick with Linux—or at least run a dual boot—back when I was really into it. These days, I've drifted away from that scene and gotten too used to the convenience here and certain little apps that I'm not sure I could find on Linux. (Not to mention that I hear 512 MB of RAM is basically the absolute ceiling needed for the OS itself over there.)
Personally, I think Windows 7 is fine, but Windows always seems to have its own set of quirks. The people who have the best luck are the ones who just reinstall everything every couple of months—it solves the problems, sure, but it's a pretty blunt way to handle things.
I like Windows 7, but it doesn't run quite as fast as I'd like, and it constantly messes around when I try to open folders in Explorer—either it's sluggish or it won't open them at all. There are fixes for that online, but I haven't found the time to dig into it with you yet because it isn't simple—in fact, it's actually quite complicated.
The biggest headache is definitely Explorer. Browsing through files becomes a real struggle. Yet, when I'm browsing from within Word, Opera, Acrobat, or whatever program I happen to be using (you know, clicking "Open" and navigating from there), it works flawlessly.
Plus, all those "cool" new and supposedly practical features in Vista and Windows 7? On my machine, about 80-90% of them are totally useless and just feel like bloat.
