XP vs. Vista vs. 7 benchmarks; XP loses.

And that has what to do with performance, eh? Don't sidestep the discussion with such trivial bullshit.

In fact, I've had 1 single infection on my own personal computers since I started with computers decades ago, and it was the fault of Symantec that I was infected - they had the signature patch ready but refused to post it on LiveUpdate for people to access for 6 damned days and hence, a shitload of problems occurred because of it for thousands of folk.

I preached NOD32 for years, and it's still a fine product but Microsoft Security Essentials is better, hence that's my AV/malware software of choice.

Now get back to the real discussion.

Websites lying about performance? SAY IT AIN'T SO...

I'd believe that more than I'd believe all of them are 100% legit because it's been proven time and time again that websites get popped for inaccurate and inflated performance testing data.
 
Likewise, users of forums lie about performance for various reasons. If you just want to argue from paranoia, why would anyone believe your benchmarks, or mine? At least web sites have to maintain credibility or they lose customers. What do you have to lose? nothing.
 
And you're continuing this because... ? Your mind is already made up, everyone can read that, so... why?
 
... I think it's obvious why I am responding, because maybe...I have something to say about what you said? I mean this is a forum, that's what we do here, right? If you don't want to continue, and have finished thread crapping with the paranoid fud, feel free to not click on this topic anymore.
 
Joe Average said:
So you don't run XP anymore, at all, even in a VM, yet you felt it necessary to make a thread that brings XP right back into the fray and then open yet another can of worms... right, right.

People run XP because they can, just as they can choose to run something else, such a Vista, or Windows 7, or a Linux distro, etc.

I run Windows 7 because I need to be on top of things for computer support, etc. When I build my dual Xeon (Nehalem) box later this year with 24GB of RAM in it for crunching x264, it'll be running XP Pro x64. It's a faster OS overall, especially when doing that kind of number crunching, by a measurable margin. As I noted a few weeks ago, WinRAR was nearly 15% faster (both x86 and x64 versions) just doing its own internal benchmark on this E7300 under XP Pro x64 than XP Pro x86, and ~10% faster than Vista or Windows 7. The underlying OS itself is faster overall, that's what I care about.

Bleh.
Click to expand...

To each its own, in my own testing I haven't found xp x64 any faster than windows 7 on anything I've thrown at it. I did find winrar 64 to be consitently faster on XP x64, but 7zip was faster on win 7. Difference in both cases was no where near 15%, heck not even 10%.
 
heatlesssun said:
This may be true for some but I don't think that this is the prevailing attitude. I know I would never tell someone to upgrade unless there was some value to the party.
Click to expand...
I take no issue with suggesting that users upgrade when advice is requested, but belittling XP users for their decision to use XP (for whatever reason) is something I take particular issue with, and that's precisely what the OP did in his original post. At the end of the day, it's just an OS: it's just something you use to run applications. One's choice in this matter is not something you should take personal issue with.

devil22 said:
I said XP is much more likely to be infected than Vista/7, not that every XP box is infected.
Click to expand...
You clarified that after I had responded. Originally, your choice of wording suggested that it was merely a matter of time for XP users to become bots -- "when" it happens, not "if". I took your clarification later to be textbook dissembling.

devil22 said:
Yes, XP users need to 'wake up' - botnets are almost exclusively XP boxes, Vista (and the similar win 7) have very low infection rates thanks to vast improvements in security.
Click to expand...
I can configure a Vista/7 machine to be less secure than an XP machine, if that's my goal, and more susceptible to malware/virii. By default, Vista and 7 offer greater security than XP, but only by default. For those who truly don't know how to secure an XP machine, suggesting that they instead use 7 is a fair proposition, but I don't believe the majority of members here don't know how to, or are unwilling to, run XP securely.

devil22 said:
Likewise, users of forums lie about performance for various reasons.
Click to expand...
How would anyone stand to benefit from lying about their experiences with XP64?

devil22 said:
If you just want to argue from paranoia, why would anyone believe your benchmarks, or mine?
Click to expand...
You accuse him of arguing from paranoia when you're the one who has severe concerns about XP-based botnets launching denial of service attacks on your websites. Just out of curiosity, in the past five years, how often have your websites suffered from DDoS attacks from XP botnets?
 
phide said:
I take no issue with suggesting that users upgrade when advice is requested, but belittling XP users for their decision to use XP (for whatever reason) is something I take particular issue with, and that's precisely what the OP did in his original post. At the end of the day, it's just an OS: it's just something you use to run applications. One's choice in this matter is not something you should take personal issue with.
Click to expand...

I am a super pragmatic person. Use what works and if XP does that then awesome. My only assertion is that some XP users think that Vista/7 are just minor upgrades with little value. If thats what they think then so be it. It's just not accurate.

As far as I am concerned 7 is in every way, shape, and form far better than XP. It's like trying to say that 1996 Ford Taurus hold a match to a 2010 whatever. The Taurus works for me and I'll drive it till is explodes but I'm not deluding myself, its a piece of crap but it still does what I need and I don't want to spend money on a new car.

This is the only point I have in these discussions.
 
Well ive been using XP for some time and dont plan on changing..

Vista is trash. I may see how Win7 is, but if its the same stuff with a different look, I may continue with XP. If it aint broke, dont fix it. :)

One review doesnt mean much.
 
Retsam said:
Well ive been using XP for some time and dont plan on changing..

Vista is trash. I may see how Win7 is, but if its the same stuff with a different look, I may continue with XP. If it aint broke, dont fix it. :)

One review doesnt mean much.
Click to expand...

And this is my point, 7 is NOT the same as XP. You may only use the things that XP and 7 look alike in or you may prefer XP, that's your choice. But there's TONS of stuff in 7 that most people don't even know is there let alone use.
 
Retsam said:
Well ive been using XP for some time and dont plan on changing..

Vista is trash. I may see how Win7 is, but if its the same stuff with a different look, I may continue with XP. If it aint broke, dont fix it. :)

One review doesnt mean much.
Click to expand...

Actually Vista is far from trash. It's a solid, stable operating system that has gotten significantly better with time. It is a little bloated but if you have the hardware to run it, it's great. I'd much rather use it over XP any day.
 
FoxhoundOp said:
Actually Vista is far from trash. It's a solid, stable operating system that has gotten significantly better with time. It is a little bloated but if you have the hardware to run it, it's great. I'd much rather use it over XP any day.
Click to expand...

Any XP user that says that Vista is garbage doesn't index their files and are still probably hunting and pecking for stuff or have elaborate organizational setups.
 
Joe Average said:
And you're continuing this because... ? Your mind is already made up, everyone can read that, so... why?
Click to expand...


The fact that you are running XP-64 and even defending its use is really all that needs to be said. It is the worst OS that microsoft has released since Windows ME. Terrible driver support, flawed implementation of the x64 spec and all around garbage.

As long as you continue to defend this POS of an OS your opinions will be laughable.
 
jeremyshaw said:
I used to be rather XPonly.

But after jsut 2 months of Vista (on a laptop... it ran HOT!), the multitasking ability of windows vista has caught me on.
Click to expand...

Multitasking ability or Vista?? Huh?? Multitasking has been a part of Windows for YEARS.... and I don't see how Vista multitasks better than 2000 or XP....
 
You've apparently forgotten about Flip 3D, Qwerty. Flip 3D improves multitasking efficiency by a factor of at least 214%!
 
dugn said:
If you're still running XP, on XP-era hardware, then stick with what you've got. Regardless of the fact that Win7 may run on your machine is the un-asked question of whether it should.

The answer is just as clear when asking whether you should run XP on modern-day hardware: Run Win7. There's no sense is bogging down new hardware with old drivers or constraints inherent in XP (XP x64 gives you a little more breathing room, but not much). Running XP on current hardware only delays the inevitable when you'll want (and eventually may need) to upgrade to Windows 7. ​

And finally, for those in the middle of the XP and present era, don't look back to XP. If your machine passes the Win7 Upgrade Advisor checks, go to Windows 7. And even if AppCompat is an issue, use the Win7-exclusive version of Microsoft Virtual Machine called XP Mode to get 100% compat with older applications (not 3D games).

Again, if you live under the principal of "if it ain't broken, don't fix it - stay with whatever OS you're on" - that's fine. But when the time comes that the latest software with all of its latest features - some of which aren't available on the old XP platform - are something you need. Then, you'll have to bite the bullet and make the switch.

And anything that XP does better than Win7, you can rest assured it won't be long until Win7 is improved to pass it up.

Ditch the benchmarks. Win7 FTW.
Click to expand...


This should be made MANDATORY to be read before making a post or thread, and should be stickied on top of every forum.

Best thing said on the subject that has ever been said and will ever be said. /thread
 
A F'IN MEN

I been running 7 x64 release for a few weeks now (MSDN FTW)

I was very much an alternative OS supporter, from OS/2 to Linux to BeOS to anything that wasn't a MacOS, I would play with. I still used Windows, because its the standard, and things you needed were there.

But Windows 7, is hands down, the best OS I have seen come out of Redmond since Windows 2000 changed the face of computing from 16 to 32 bit.

Its just that damn good. You can gripe all you want about market share this, and blah blah standards that. Its GOOD, not just decent good, but worthy of your dollars without a question good. So much so I'll be formatting all my laptops and installing it on those also. It runs like the cats ass on my Dell lappy.
 
Jon55 said:
This should be made MANDATORY to be read before making a post or thread, and should be stickied on top of every forum.

Best thing said on the subject that has ever been said and will ever be said. /thread
Click to expand...

I totally agree with this and I think that I and others have said the same thing. Bottom line, XP is legacy. Its user base is shrinking, it's not going to get much XP only new support in terms of hardware and software. It's still usable and if it works for you then keep it for as long as you can.

But XP's useful life in the era of new things has passed. Anything new is GOING to work with 7 no question. It probably will with XP as well but there will be exceptions and that exceptions list is just going to continue to grow.
 
phide said:
I take no issue with suggesting that users upgrade when advice is requested, but belittling XP users for their decision to use XP (for whatever reason) is something I take particular issue with, and that's precisely what the OP did in his original post. At the end of the day, it's just an OS: it's just something you use to run applications. One's choice in this matter is not something you should take personal issue with.


You clarified that after I had responded. Originally, your choice of wording suggested that it was merely a matter of time for XP users to become bots -- "when" it happens, not "if". I took your clarification later to be textbook dissembling.
Click to expand...

What a lame argument. I know PRECISEL:Y the infection rates of various MS OSes because MS makes blog posts which reveal this stuff, and it is nowhere near 100% for any OS. That is obviously NOT what I meant, and you know it. 'When' does not in all context mean inevitable. It's just likely. If I used the word 'if' that could mean that no infections will ever occur. Anyways I clarified what I meant, and you are ridiculous trying to argue I meant each and every XP box is going to become infected.


I can configure a Vista/7 machine to be less secure than an XP machine, if that's my goal, and more susceptible to malware/virii. By default, Vista and 7 offer greater security than XP, but only by default. For those who truly don't know how to secure an XP machine, suggesting that they instead use 7 is a fair proposition, but I don't believe the majority of members here don't know how to, or are unwilling to, run XP securely.
Click to expand...

Most users, especially those noobish enough to become infected, run at default. They are not going to go into Vista/7 and switch off everything, hell they won't even know it's there.

How would anyone stand to benefit from lying about their experiences with XP64?
Click to expand...

How do people benefit from the following statements:
1. Windows blue screens every 5 minutes.
2. All Windows boxes are infected.
3. Windows wasn't built with security in mind.

And so on. Yet people make these claims daily.

You accuse him of arguing from paranoia when you're the one who has severe concerns about XP-based botnets launching denial of service attacks on your websites. Just out of curiosity, in the past five years, how often have your websites suffered from DDoS attacks from XP botnets?
Click to expand...

Here's something more interesting; how many XP boxes have I had to remove malware from that belonged to friends, family and clients. Answer: Way too many. As far as sites affected; well twitter was down not to long ago, and AT&T was attacked by 4chan idiots a little before that, and so on. This affects everyone, stop trying to make it about me.
 
phide, devil22.

Have you heard of the magical PM?

take your bickering elsewhere.

Otherwise, for the rest of us, Server 2003x64 drivers work with XP x64.

Hint for those still looking for drivers.
 
TrashBear said:
The fact that you are running XP-64 and even defending its use is really all that needs to be said. It is the worst OS that microsoft has released since Windows ME. Terrible driver support, flawed implementation of the x64 spec and all around garbage.

As long as you continue to defend this POS of an OS your opinions will be laughable.
Click to expand...

lol, you got a really bad problem with xp x64. It runs great like any other OS. Maybe when it first came out it had a lot of driver problems and all that but now in days its just as alright as any other x64 operating system. Only negative is just it only supports dx9. You obviously have never really ran the operating system for an extended period of time. You can pretty much call it windows server 2003 because thats what it is. The x64 mode isn't flawed either. Its just as much the same as vista x64 and the rest. The only reason i'm going to windows 7 is because its new and it has dx11. That won't be for awhile though.
 
You're nitpicking and making the entire argument about the words I chose. It's equally true that it's everyone concern when websites they use get DDoSed by XP boxes. You're making a huge deal out of the fact I simply used the words my and me, but that part is irrelevant to the overall argument. I'm human and I don't always pick the best words possible for every situation 100% of the time, I apologize and I'll aspire to be as perfect as you one day. :rolleyes: I think you can read between the lines basically, but then again do you want to? Probably not because it will sink your argument if you don't nitpick and be a overly pedant clown for our amusement.
 
I have considered going back to windows xp and i dont give a shit what your benchmarks say or what your reason is for me to have windows 7. Let it go.
 
TheResidentEvil said:
I have considered going back to windows xp and i dont give a shit what your benchmarks say or what your reason is for me to have windows 7. Let it go.
Click to expand...

Excuse me, but who cares what you do? The population of the earth is not 1: TheResidentEvil - if you don't care gtfo.
 
I'm sticking with XP until I can make Windows 7 more secure :p
 
Nenu said:
I'm sticking with XP until I can make Windows 7 more secure :p
Click to expand...

LOL, did the short bus stop at an internet cafe this morning, cuz these last few posts... jking, but could u explain the joke or what u mean?
 
devil22 said:
LOL, did the short bus stop at an internet cafe this morning, cuz these last few posts... jking, but could u explain the joke or what u mean?
Click to expand...

Windows 7 doesnt have an IP blocker built in (not that any OS does, just making that clear).
Peerguardian 2, the only viable IP blocker isnt stable on Windows 7 x64 and you have to reduce security to get it to run, so I'm waiting for a stable IP blocker before I switch.

PG2 is a complete IP blocker (not just for p2p) and is very functional and easy to use.
The prepared blocklists encumber the nasty places that have been found around the world, mighty handy if you wish to limit the places that can attack.
You can also add your own IPs if you find strange behavior on your travels or unblock those that you must visit - ie the website may have bought part of a bad block of IPs and dont know they are blocked.
etc...
 
Nenu said:
Windows 7 doesnt have an IP blocker built in (not that any OS does, just making that clear).
Peerguardian 2, the only viable IP blocker isnt stable on Windows 7 x64 and you have to reduce security to get it to run, so I'm waiting for a stable IP blocker before I switch.

PG2 is a complete IP blocker (not just for p2p) and is very functional and easy to use.
The prepared blocklists encumber the nasty places that have been found around the world, mighty handy if you wish to limit the places that can attack.
You can also add your own IPs if you find strange behavior on your travels or unblock those that you must visit - ie the website may have bought part of a bad block of IPs and dont know they are blocked.
etc...
Click to expand...

Ah didn't know PG2 didn't work on win 7; I'm sure they'll fix it soon though. Though I've never used it, and I've managed to stay clean in Vista for 2 years.
 
Can we please keep the bickering to a minimum.
Thank you.
 
Retsam said:
Well ive been using XP for some time and dont plan on changing..

Vista is trash. I may see how Win7 is, but if its the same stuff with a different look, I may continue with XP. If it aint broke, dont fix it. :)

One review doesnt mean much.
Click to expand...

Actually, XP is pretty broken.
 
devil22 said:
Sorry but the number of people who are going to upgrade an OS on an old POS like a P4 is minimum compared to people who buy new hardware. It's a waste of time, as I said, since most everyone buys new hardware.
Click to expand...

you have some facts to go behind those claims? or is just your personal experience, cause based on my experience when i was fixing computers years back, most all of the people who i was fixing for didnt have the money for a whole new system, or just didnt think they needed a new system and just kept tossing new OS's on it.
 
MrGuvernment said:
you have some facts to go behind those claims? or is just your personal experience, cause based on my experience when i was fixing computers years back, most all of the people who i was fixing for didnt have the money for a whole new system, or just didnt think they needed a new system and just kept tossing new OS's on it.
Click to expand...

I only really saw that myself during the Win9x years. It seemed to drop off quickly after 2k and Xp came out.
I always guessed it was because around the time Xp hit computers started getting a lot cheaper than they ever had been, and the original Pentiums, 486's/K5's @ or above 66Mhz could run anything from DOS/3.1 to Win98 somewhat acceptably as long as they had 32-64 megs of ram or better. Those same machines choked on 2k and Xp.
That individual experiences tend to differ is to be expected I guess.
 
phide said:
Hey, it's his thread. If you have people starting flamebait threads, you can expect people like me to jump into the fray.
Click to expand...

Yeah, you're right.

Sorry!


On the other hand...
yeah XP can have botnets, but once those free OEM antivirus demos start running out for vista... (but then, UAC does a decent job, too).
 
jeremyshaw said:
Yeah, you're right.

Sorry!


On the other hand...
yeah XP can have botnets, but once those free OEM antivirus demos start running out for vista... (but then, UAC does a decent job, too).
Click to expand...

It really has nothing to do with free AV demos, it has to do with the anti-exploit stuff that's built into the code, along with things like protected mode sandboxing of IE, and as you said UAC. If hackers find a 0-day vulnerability on XP, it's trivial to exploit and infect/control the box, on Vista it's nearly impossible to do the same due to many things, like randomizing code, data and stack addresses, checksumming the heap and checking heap and stack canary values and some other stuff. Even if they get passed all that, they have to break out of IE's protected mode sandbox, which no one has figured out how to do yet.

It's hard to explain how and why this stuff works to someone not fluent in computer security, but maybe some numbers will help illustrate:

http://blogs.pcmag.com/securitywatch/2009/04/malware_on_vista_rare_accordin.php

Vista with no patches had 3.7 infections per THOUSAND Vista PCs.
XP with no patches had 33 infections per thousand XP PCs.
Fully patched XP had 6 infections per thousand XP PCs.
Vista with no patches had less infections per thousand than a fully patched XP.
(for fullness fully patched Vista had 2.5 infections per thousand Vista PCs.)

That's something to think about, and shows that Vista is not just a 'little' more secure than XP, it's a LOT more secure.
 
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Another series of web benchmarks show 7 x64 and Vista x64 are faster than XP (32-bit this time):
http://www.testfreaks.com/blog/information/windows-xp-vs-vista-vs-7/http://www.testfreaks.com/blog/information/windows-xp-vs-vista-vs-7/comment-page-1/#comment-36029

The author incorrectly concludes that XP is faster, but if you add up the percentages, that doesn't pan out.

Windows 7 x64 is 107.1111% of XP-32 in the 'higher is better' benchmarks.
Windows 7 x64 is 99.97838% of XP-32 in the 'lower is better' benchmarks.

Therefore, Windows 7 is faster than XP. The only reason XP even comes close is because of OpenGL, really, which Windows 7 is not as good at, it seems.

The author concludes erroneously, that XP 'won', and benefits of Win 7 are limited to Aero and DirectX 11, no mention of security or 64-bit support, start menu search, better task bar or anything.

[edit] Vista x64 also appears to be faster than XP x86,
Vista x64 is 105.1051% of XP in 'higher is better benchmarks' (of which there are 18)
Vista x64 is 103.8399% of XP in 'lower is better benchmarks' (of which there are 5)

Over all I believe that makes Vista x64 faster, but it's too early in the morning for me to do all the math.

Just thought someone might find this interesting, especially if they saw these benchmarks on the web and mistakenly believed the conclusion.
 
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