Boot Camp users: Which Windows do you prefer?

[Mr. Laser Beam]

To all of you who use Boot Camp on your Intel Macs: which version of Windows do you use? XP or Vista?

They both cost the same off the shelf. I'm not immediately planning on jumping in, but I was just curious as to which version of Windows most users of Boot Camp would prefer.

 

[Marc]

Babaganoosh said:
To all of you who use Boot Camp on your Intel Macs: which version of Windows do you use? XP or Vista?

They both cost the same off the shelf. I'm not immediately planning on jumping in, but I was just curious as to which version of Windows most users of Boot Camp would prefer.

Are you going to run purely bootcamp or make use of VMware fusion or Parallels as one Vista performs better under on than the other.

I've installed Vista as bootcamp and XP under Parallels and XP was slightly less of a headache.

But having used Vista I'd say - go XP.

 

[ialfan]

Go with Vista and take advantage of x64 goodness.

If XP were cheaper I'd say go with it but Vista is a pretty nice upgrade to XP overall.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I'm leaning towards XP myself. (I'd be only interested in Boot Camp, not Parallels or VMware or any 'virtual machine'.) This is because I'm really not hot for any of that extra stuff that Vista trumps all the time (definitely not keen on the authorization issues or extra DRM/copy protection).

Plus I heard that XP is faster.

 

[The Doctor]

ialfan said:
Go with Vista and take advantage of x64 goodness.

If XP were cheaper I'd say go with it but Vista is a pretty nice upgrade to XP overall.

Ugh, don't even bother.

x64 is not at all worth it yet, even after years of availability.

Additionally, with x64 Vista you get all the driver availability issues of x64 XP, with none of the compatibility and stability of the XP platform. It's like the worst of both worlds.

Stick with 32-bit XP Pro. It's the best OS that Microsoft has, currently.

 

[Marc]

ialfan said:
Go with Vista and take advantage of x64 goodness.

If XP were cheaper I'd say go with it but Vista is a pretty nice upgrade to XP overall.

64bit versions of Windows are not supported by Bootcamp.

It all has to be XP Pro or Vista Business and capable of a clean install from CD - no compliance checking, no requiring other discs.

So it has to be either a full retail version or it has to be an OEM version.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

You can also use the Home versions (of XP or Vista).

 

[Marc]

Babaganoosh said:
You can also use the Home versions (of XP or Vista).

Okay maybe it's just not being able to use them in a virtualised (e.g VMware) environment but that maybe more a licence condition than a physical restriction - I manage to avoid home versions of Vista and XP most of them time.

 

[Flavius]

We use XP only. For two simple reasons: I had two spare XP licenses.

 

[The Doctor]

Marc said:

ialfan said:
Go with Vista and take advantage of x64 goodness.

If XP were cheaper I'd say go with it but Vista is a pretty nice upgrade to XP overall.

64bit versions of Windows are not supported by Bootcamp.

Actually, as of yesterday they are.

Regardless, x64 is not at all useful for the average home user.

 

[Flavius]

Unless you run OS X, right.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

The Stig said:

Marc said:
64bit versions of Windows are not supported by Bootcamp.

Actually, as of yesterday they are.

Yesterday? Why, what happened yesterday?

 

[Deleted 2]

The Stig said:

Marc said:

ialfan said:
Go with Vista and take advantage of x64 goodness.

If XP were cheaper I'd say go with it but Vista is a pretty nice upgrade to XP overall.

64bit versions of Windows are not supported by Bootcamp.

Actually, as of yesterday they are.

Regardless, x64 is not at all useful for the average home user.

Maybe it's interesting for Mac users who finally want to run a 64-bit OS?

 

[Marc]

Zero Hour said:

The Stig said:

Marc said:

ialfan said:
Go with Vista and take advantage of x64 goodness.

If XP were cheaper I'd say go with it but Vista is a pretty nice upgrade to XP overall.

64bit versions of Windows are not supported by Bootcamp.

Actually, as of yesterday they are.

Regardless, x64 is not at all useful for the average home user.

Maybe it's interesting for Mac users who finally want to run a 64-bit OS?

I think you'll find that OS X is 64bit already and those people that need to run Windows 64bit will probably not be the sort of people who will be doing it bootcamp unless you're running a MacPro (a nice as the Mini and the iMac are for sheer grunt and graphics they don't quite pass muster that a high end Windows box would).

But for most people. Windows 64 would be a pain in the arse with little or no real benefit. After all if there was something to be gained from it, OEM systems would come with Vista64 pre-installed not 32bit.

 

[The Doctor]

Flavius said:
Unless you run OS X, right.

OS X isn't a true 64-bit system currently, even with the improvements made in Leopard.

 

[Lindley]

I was under the impression that the PowerPC version was, or nearly, but that Apple took a step back from that direction when they shifted to Intel.

 

[Deleted 2]

Leopard is functionally 64-bit, meaning that it can run 64-bit code in a flat 64-bit memory space.

The kernel, however, runs in 32-bit mode, which means they have to switch back and forth between modes and flush the translation lookaside buffer any time a system call is made.

The overhead of an address not being in the TLB is something like three times the overhead of a normal memory access, so this is pretty significant.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I care about whether my OS is 32 or 64 bits only *slightly* more than I care about frakking Super Tuesday.

 

[Marc]

Babaganoosh said:
I care about whether my OS is 32 or 64 bits only *slightly* more than I care about frakking Super Tuesday.

Which proves what I said about 64bit OS being pretty irrelevant to most users.

 

[The Doctor]

Marc said:

Babaganoosh said:
I care about whether my OS is 32 or 64 bits only *slightly* more than I care about frakking Super Tuesday.

Which proves what I said about 64bit OS being pretty irrelevant to most users.

Yep.