I would highly recommend NOT downgrading from Vista especially on a laptop because you tend to run into driver issues. I had tried downgrading a Vista laptop that my friend owned, and low and behold XP network drivers didn't exist for it.

But the primary concern is pretty much what leafo was talking about. UAC is in fact a feature - it prevents your computer from being an open door for all malware and shit to come in and invade like the plague (this was a HUGE problem for XP if you don't remember right - see Mac popularity). Vista has a lot of subtle features that you don't notice right away but you miss when running XP. My computer isn't even that good and I was reluctant to upgrade for fear of losing performance in games but this never happened when I installed Vista Business! All my games run great as long as I run them in XP Service Pack 2 compatibility mode.

Since it works with ALL my programs flawlessly, I use it. If I can add security WITHOUT compromising compatibility, then cool, otherwise; GTFO. 

I would list ALL programs... But then you would complain that they are old/outdated and newer versions are out disregarding the fact they cost money and lots of it. So, I will only post a few;

Skulltag 0.97d beta 4.3
Program manager 5.2
Real Producer 7
Photoshop 6.0
DMP poweramp RC3

I paid good money for last 3 and I am not just gonna abandon them and pay for what I don't need.

For fucks sake dude all of those programs have newer versions which run happily on Vista. No one is stopping you from pirating newer versions.

So yeah - there are plenty of reasons to stick with Vista. I can't concieve going back now, but before I knew anything about Vista I was a hater.

Okay, this isn't a thread about bickering whether a program does, or does not work in Vista.

Also another reason I'm sticking with XP, is that Service Pack 3 for it has been showing around 10% performance gains.

Please say you were specifically talking about Vista and not actually preaching to people about how they should use Castrated Limited User accounts in XP.

In this case yes because user privileges are absolutely atrocious in XP - you HAVE to run an administrator account to actually use it because so many applications for Windows were programmed terrible. But that's just another reason to use Vista.

*Sigh* I think compatibility comes first and security comes last. That is all otherwise why would I use SP2 for server 2003 on my system?

haha good luck running any of your programs when your box is owned

i got my new pc, with windows vista x64, after 2 days, i downgraded back to xp. i hate the way vista works, why do you ened permissions to do everything?

its security gone nuts, it sucks, and looks far too shiny.

it took me a coupla days to find all the drivers, but works like a beast now

and just because you haven't had any problems YET doesn't mean you WON'T in the future. just because you think you're a power user doesn't mean you're immune to security vulnerabilities. in fact if you think "i don't need it i'm fine" is a reasonable response to security then you're just as bad as the users who barely know how to operate a computer.

This seems to be logical, but in reality, it seems that this approach is using the same logic as someone wearing a Kevlar Vest in a safety bubble, escorted by armed guards and having covering fire by snipers just to get their mail. Sure, there's the off chance that you can get hit by a bus or get a mail bomb or have a piano fall on you or get caught in a suburbian drive by, but if nothing like that has ever happened to you before and there's a very, very small chance that it ever will, why take all of these insane crazy security measures to prevent it?

That's the impression I get with Vista's security features.

This seems to be logical, but in reality, it seems that this approach is using the same logic as someone wearing a Kevlar Vest in a safety bubble, escorted by armed guards and having covering fire by snipers just to get their mail. Sure, there's the off chance that you can get hit by a bus or get a mail bomb or have a piano fall on you or get caught in a suburbian drive by, but if nothing like that has ever happened to you before and there's a very, very small chance that it ever will, why take all of these insane crazy security measures to prevent it?

That's the impression I get with Vista's security features.

Because having your security compromised is like 5 trillion times more likely to happen than any of those things.

This seems to be logical, but in reality, it seems that this approach is using the same logic as someone wearing a Kevlar Vest in a safety bubble, escorted by armed guards and having covering fire by snipers just to get their mail. Sure, there's the off chance that you can get hit by a bus or get a mail bomb or have a piano fall on you or get caught in a suburbian drive by, but if nothing like that has ever happened to you before and there's a very, very small chance that it ever will, why take all of these insane crazy security measures to prevent it?

That's the impression I get with Vista's security features.

here's a better analogy: crossing the street without looking. deliberately putting yourself at risk from something that has a high chance of happening just because it's easier.

you must have missed my anecdote about installing windows XP. it actually happened. the internet is a dangerous place for a computer to be. your computer is being bombarded by hundreds of packets, many of them are malicious. a secure computer will have no problem, but an insecure computer will be ruined very, very quickly.

This seems to be logical, but in reality, it seems that this approach is using the same logic as someone wearing a Kevlar Vest in a safety bubble, escorted by armed guards and having covering fire by snipers just to get their mail. Sure, there's the off chance that you can get hit by a bus or get a mail bomb or have a piano fall on you or get caught in a suburbian drive by, but if nothing like that has ever happened to you before and there's a very, very small chance that it ever will, why take all of these insane crazy security measures to prevent it?

Straw man.

I'm really getting sick of these pro-Vista/anti-Vista threads.  All these threads ever turn into is just one or two people that know what they are talking about, who then get attacked by everyone else.  These attacks usually just involve anecdotal evidence (I had this problem, so everyone has it, get rid of Vista!).  If this thread doesn't turn around, I'm locking it.

As for all of these people crying about compatibility issues:  Have you tried disabling AeroGlass, and turning on Windows XP SP2 compatibilty?  If you haven't, then go do that before you claim that no program can ever run on Vista.

At the moment I am thinking Vista is kinda like GLaDOS...

"You're not even going the right way. Where do you think you're going? Because I don't think you're going where you think you're going."

I want a Mac.

JohnnyCasil, I in no way meant for this thread to turn into anything. To me, it doesn't matter if I have Vista or XP, I just want whatever works best for me. I'm not trying to set up any straw man arguments or any of that shit because I'm not trying to debate. I'm just trying to get some computer help and advice. Jesus.

My earlier analogy was just based on my own experiences. In my almost ten years of owning a computer, I have NEVER, EVER run into any problems with malware or viruses or any of that. While it does now make sense to adopt a defensive approach to protecting your computer instead of waiting for your computer to be overrun by viruses before you realize it, I am only human, and I naturally adopt positions based on my own past personal experiences. If I've never ever had any problems with computer security in 10 years, and all of a sudden now I'm being told that the Internet is a dangerous place where a virus can mess up your shit at any time, it's natural if I have reservations about it.

Go back to XP. Use it for a month - no, a week as you normally would. Run a spyware check. Tell me your results.

Studies show that over 80% of XP systems have some form of spyware or adware installed. This study was done before Vista came out.

So either you are lying, you only visit secure websites (so everyday you use the internet for CNN and that's it), you didn't know that you had spyware when in fact you had all sorts of shit, or you just have impressively good luck. Personally I think the third one - especially if you've never even scanned.

Straw man.

I'm really getting sick of these pro-Vista/anti-Vista threads.  All these threads ever turn into is just one or two people that know what they are talking about, who then get attacked by everyone else.  These attacks usually just involve anecdotal evidence (I had this problem, so everyone has it, get rid of Vista!).  If this thread doesn't turn around, I'm locking it.

As for all of these people crying about compatibility issues:  Have you tried disabling AeroGlass, and turning on Windows XP SP2 compatibilty?  If you haven't, then go do that before you claim that no program can ever run on Vista.

that wasn't a straw man at all, he was saying windows vista has more security than is necessary and it makes it a pain to use

also most 'spyware' is market analysis crap checking which websites you go to or which websites you came from
unless you are downloading and installing programs etc you shouldn't have anything that's actually dangerous imo (password/credit card stealing things or access to files)

Go back to XP. Use it for a month - no, a week as you normally would. Run a spyware check. Tell me your results.

Studies show that over 80% of XP systems have some form of spyware or adware installed. This study was done before Vista came out.

So either you are lying, you only visit secure websites (so everyday you use the internet for CNN and that's it), you didn't know that you had spyware when in fact you had all sorts of shit, or you just have impressively good luck. Personally I think the third one - especially if you've never even scanned.

Or 4) You really know what you are doing, use a good browser and software that can delete and protect you from spyware.

Or 4) You really know what you are doing, use a good browser and software that can delete and protect you from spyware.

yeah why use preventative measures when you can just deal with malware when it actually infects you

by the way, if your system is compromised you can never have any guarantee that it can ever be clean again unless you format

Vista's way of handling this is probably shit (I don't know personally because I have never used Vista)

it's basically the same as any other operating system: things that require privileges prompt you to perform the action. normal usage will not trigger many prompts at all. vista even includes a feature to make programs that weren't designed to run with limited access work without prompting (file writes to restricted directories are redirected)

if you turn them off i bet you'll be angry when some malware decides to fuck up your installation when all it took to stop it was a UAC prompt

that wasn't a straw man at all, he was saying windows vista has more security than is necessary and it makes it a pain to use

Oversimplifying an opponent's argument into a simple analogy, which can then be attacked.

This is what he did with his analogy.  It may not be a true straw man, because I don't think Mog was intentionally trying to debate with anyone, but still, his analogy was ridiculous.

The fact is that Windows Vista security is actually a good thing.  And as was already stated earlier in the thread numerous times, if you find it a pain, you can turn it off.  I don't understand why this argument has to continue about Vista's security features.  It is a good (albeit annoying) feature that can be turned off.  In my opinion, this isn't a reason to downgrade to XP.

In this entire thread, I don't even see any real point made that someone should downgrade their computer from Vista, unless you have some sort of archiac software that will not run on Vista.  If that is the case though, I think it is probably time you upgrade your software anyways.  Like the example before, someone said that they couldn't run Photoshop 6.0 on Vista.  That program is 8 years old.  If you are a professional using Photoshop, you would have upgraded by now anyways.  If you are just a hobbyist or have it for fun, there are other free alternatives.  Granted, they may not be as good as Photoshop, but they are available.

I used to run Vista on my computer.  I only ran it for a couple of weeks because I didn't want to authorize it (I'm saving it for a new computer).  In those weeks I didn't experience any sort of compatibility problem, or many of these other problems people bring up.  It ran fine on my 2.2GHz P4 with only 512MB RAM.

yeah why use preventative measures when you can just deal with malware when it actually infects you

by the way, if your system is compromised you can never have any guarantee that it can ever be clean again unless you formatit's basically the same as any other operating system: things that require privileges prompt you to perform the action. normal usage will not trigger many prompts at all. vista even includes a feature to make programs that weren't designed to run with limited access work without prompting (file writes to restricted directories are redirected)

if you turn them off i bet you'll be angry when some malware decides to fuck up your installation when all it took to stop it was a UAC prompt

I do use preventive measures. I've got software that immunizes me against a shitload of spyware.

Additionally, Vista sucks, really. At the moment atleast. Maybe it will be a better option for me in the future. But now? Certainly not.
Also, as I said before, I really, REALLY want a Mac.

Oh, I forgot to add: I don't know if this would be reason to downgrade to XP, but I haven't "upgraded" to Vista in the first place. And I don't think I will for a long time yet.