Vista or Xp?

[Jam0864]

I am getting a laptop for my birthday... It's the same price to get XP as Vista... Which should I get? I think I'm gonna have to go Vista. But what do you reckon? (your votes may change my opinion)
I'm not really sure how to make a poll on this forum... so just post your votes, and maybe some reasoning behind your answer. 

[durnurd]

XP.  XP.  XP. (Does that count as three votes?)

Vista is still not up to snuff.  It's not nearly as well supported by third-party hardware and software vendors, whereas XP is almost universally supported.  Software that ran on Windows since '95 will often stop working in Vista.  Vista may intentionally degrade hardware and software performance when watching high-definition (HD) commercial content (i.e. a DVD).  Vista requires a larger portion (much larger if you go with Aero) of your video card's time, your CPU's time, and your RAM, which leaves less for other programs.  There is no reason as yet to upgrade to Vista.  The only real differences are in its ultra-paranoid level of security, and its DRM-enriched media playback system which often makes it actually much harder to watch HD content than on XP.  I would only ever get Vista if it were cheaper than any other version, in which case, I would format the harddrive and install another OS on it as soon as I got it.  But that's just me.

[SmartBoy16]

I would agree with that. Vista has great features, but slows down a lot, especially if you are using a laptop. XP would do a lot better for now. I you do get Vista, i would wait until its next service pack is avalable or it becomes faster.

[durnurd]

Well, it's never going to get faster, only slower as more is added to it.  The first Service Pack probably won't be released for quite some time.  The features that Vista has are really not necessary or all that great, as far as I'm concerned.  The only necessary reason I can think of is that DirectX 10 requires Vista, but most DirectX programs shouldn't be migrating to requiring DX10 for some time, seeing how many XP systems there still are around.

[SmartBoy16]

I you do get Vista, i would wait until its next service pack is avalable or it becomes faster.

i read somewhere in PC World that the first service pack is coming soon