Vista or XP for ECE student

[INS-ANI]

Hi guys, I have a query.
I have just booked an inspiron 1420.
As i have no experience with vista, i request you to share urs.
I expect XP to run faster than vista on 1 GB RAM. Beside With vista i may face problem with compatibility, especially mp3 and MS office!
I am an electronics and telecommuncation engineering student.

 

[flam157]

In my opinion, you should at least have a double boot. lots of the software you will need to use won't work on vista.

 

[Rexypoo]

Most of my software runs fine in both Vista and XP. As far as I'm concerned Vista has nothing to offer but eye-candy. I have yet to find a single compelling reason to use it.

There's only one reason I'd start using Vista:
My computer is too new.... it has an x64 processor but doesn't have 64-bit drivers under windows XP. If I used any 64-bit programs like SolidWorks I might make the switch, but other than that I don't see a reason to use Vista.

At least as a Computer Engineer Microsoft actually has some programs to give students free copies of basic Vista and XP (for testing programs etc.) so you might want to look into that. Best of luck to you

 

[sunny_edaboard]

XP is better.

 

[protoncek]

I say you go with XP, or at least double boot vista/xp, but Vista is definitely gonna run slower, especially with 1G of RAM, also on notebooks CPU's are generally slower than on PC's.

 

[eynasantiago]

XP is perfectly fine for ECE.

 

[the_risk_master]

Hi eyna, hi all,

My experience in Vista? Well, not a fan of that OS but your DELL Inspiron 1420 will sure support Vista with no problem (with 1GB of RAM and a good 3D Graphics card), and yeah XP will work faster on your NoteBook, so may be it's really up to you what to choose...

A Dual Boot maybe is a good thing, but I haven't tried dual booting on XP + Vista..
quite a mess

 

[UpVoltage]

dual boot is OK..

You can also use "Virtual Machine" software..
thats allow you run in vista and XP vituarly..