Fast Loading XP vs Feature-Rich Vista

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Phimp

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Dec 9, 2006
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I have Vista and want to go back to XP because it loads faster... but I don't want to ditch the features and cool looks... anyone else with this dilemma?

-long drawn-out description below because I tend to type way to much-

I had my pc running XP for years... and the entire boot time from pressing the power button on my case to staring at a completely loaded desktop in XP never took longer than 30 seconds. At one point I even tried out RAID-0 and managed to get a 14 second boot time.

I moved to Vista Ultimate for the heck of it.

Everything was great, minute and a half boot times at first which was annoying but I just got used to it.

After using it for a few months now, it takes up to 4 minutes to boot up and completely load just the vista os. I don't use any cpu hogs like norton or anything and even if i did, I don't have ANYTHING load at startup other than basic needed OS services.

I can't handle these long boot times anymore.. I want to go back to XP..
but there are a few things I just can't live without...
  • Kickass login screen
  • Awesome startbar w/ "All Programs" not popping up and end up taking up half the screen
  • Way better looking icons
  • Flip 3D (i use this like every 15 seconds)
  • Thumbnails look better
  • Folder previews (how they show 2-3 images like files in a folder rather than showing 3 square images and one empty yellow spot over a square folder - so korny looking after using vista) (see images below)
  • The entire GUI for windows
  • Scalable thumbnail sizes (i freaking love this)

Click images for full size

vs


^I hate that empty yellow space... to fix it I would need to go through all 350+ folders for just the artists in my music and if there were 3 or less albums for that artist, then create one folder.jpg for that artist so it would show only a single image... which would be lame...


anyways... call me crazy but i just cant function without these and many other small features and differences... a lot of them can be used in XP with the installation of a program such as Window Blinds or a logon screen changer, but those programs end up slowing down the system and the boot time...

Any suggestions?

I could always dual boot... but that's not what I want... I want the cool looks/features w/ fast boot time without having to massively upgrade my system...

heck I would almost be fine going back to XP if it just had the thumbnails preview functionality that Vista has... XP's thumbnails drive me nuts!
 
Suggestions? Stick with Vista. Period.

Boot times as a yardstick to compare entire OSes? That's a bit irrational, I'd say. How often do you reboot, man? And why are you turning off the PC at all? It's called Standby and is far superior to the heat up/cool down/heat up/cool down/heat up/repeat cycle of turning a machine on and off, sometimes more than once a day (not during a warm reboot, but during a power down like turning it off for the night, etc).

You said in the very first sentence:

Phimp said:
I have Vista and want to go back to XP because it loads faster... but I don't want to ditch the features and cool looks... anyone else with this dilemma?
Click to expand...

I personally wouldn't consider slower boot times considering all that Vista does during its boot process a "dilemma," I would call it perfectly normal operation for Vista. Apparently you either don't have a clue about what's going on behind the scenes of Vista or you just haven't taken any time at all to learn the very same information that would have you realizing "Ok, that's normal, and now I understand why the boot process is longer than it is on XP, because it makes Vista faster in day to day operation."

Be nice if more people would figure that out.

I see a bunch of positives in that post and "things you can't live without," and the only negative (which isn't a negative in reality) is your focus on the boot time.

Stick with Vista.
 
My boot time is way faster now that I've switched to Vista and I love that as soon as I enter my password and the desktop loads everything is usable right away. No having to wait for minutes for everything to finish loading. From the time I first see the desktop I can immediatly enter the start menu and launch a game in a couple of seconds. Try and do that in XP....
 
bbz_Ghost said:
Suggestions? Stick with Vista. Period.

Boot times as a yardstick to compare entire OSes? That's a bit irrational, I'd say. How often do you reboot, man? And why are you turning off the PC at all? It's called Standby and is far superior to the heat up/cool down/heat up/cool down/heat up/repeat cycle of turning a machine on and off, sometimes more than once a day (not during a warm reboot, but during a power down like turning it off for the night, etc).
Click to expand...

excuse me!
He has a issue with the bootspeed (and yes 4min is long) and your suggestion is... leave in standby

WTF! esp that justification "far superior to the heat up/cool down"

You really have no idea abt power do you!

You have now strayed into the area that I work in and have done for the last 10years
Don't give out piss-poor advice

if the computer isn't going to be in use for a period of time.. TURN IT OFF!!! its a waste of electricity, increases yr utility bills.
And the justification " far superior to the heat up/cool down/heat up/cool down/heat up/repeat cycle of turning a machine on and off" BIGGEST PIECE OF BS I have heard!!!

WTF do you think happens when system goes into standby?... it uses less power as things are either de-powered or enters into power-saving mode... ie IT COOLS DOWN!!!!! sure might not cool down as much as a full power off but it still cools down.

You go and kick it back into life and you get the warmup associated with the losses. You let it enter standby and it cools down

oh what is happening.. cool down, warm up, cool down, warm up...!!!
and you suggested "Standby" as a system management that is "superior" to powering down?
 
Just realised I didn't actually answer your question. Oops.

Stick with Vista, have you played around with hibernate, maby it will cut some of the boot times your seeing.

Just remember and do a full reboot every now and then.
 
well.. rather than degrade back to XP, why dont you speed up yer boot time.

see if theres a minlogin type program for vista, use vlite and cut up vista a bit, goto add/remove programs in vista then turn off the windows functions (its on the left) you dont use (like tablet PC support)

and then finally, run msconfig and cut off any programs you dont need from starting up.

then, run bootvis, thats speeds it up by about 5-20 seconds...


but most importantly, get a readyboost flash drive and stick it in a usb port. that cuts my boot from about 43 seconds to 23 with vista
 
scotlandrocks said:
My boot time is way faster now that I've switched to Vista and I love that as soon as I enter my password and the desktop loads everything is usable right away. No having to wait for minutes for everything to finish loading. From the time I first see the desktop I can immediatly enter the start menu and launch a game in a couple of seconds. Try and do that in XP....
Click to expand...

Same here!

Superfetch FTW!

I can't stand using XP anymore... it's so slow :(
 
bbz_Ghost said:
Boot times as a yardstick to compare entire OSes? That's a bit irrational
Click to expand...
I'm not comparing OS's by boot times... I'm saying I don't like the longer boot times... not that Vista is worse because of it...
I also only have 1gb ram so games are a lot more sluggish on vista than on XP
just things in general or slower moving...
they weren't at first but over time the registry just filled up with all the programs i have installed, and I've went through and cleaned up using registry cleaners and manual editing and it only helped a little bit. i also defrag regularly.

SippieCup said:
see if theres a minlogin type program for vista, use vlite and cut up vista a bit, goto add/remove programs in vista then turn off the windows functions (its on the left) you dont use (like tablet PC support)

and then finally, run msconfig and cut off any programs you dont need from starting up.

then, run bootvis, thats speeds it up by about 5-20 seconds...

but most importantly, get a readyboost flash drive and stick it in a usb port. that cuts my boot from about 43 seconds to 23 with vista
Click to expand...
ive done just about everything i can to speed up the boot time.
I think I'm going to just disable the password, have it auto login
ive removed unused functions and stuff and maintain everything in msconfig
dont think im gonna buy a readyboost flash drive for it, but ill look into bootvis, thanks



my computer is usually on for about 12 hours every day and left on overnight probably every othere night.
so I'm not worried about power consumption too much


Does anyone know of any program/hack/tweak that can give XP the thumbnail functionality that Vista has? Or Flip3D? Lighter version of WindowBlinds?
 
calebb said:
I can't stand using XP anymore... it's so slow :(
Click to expand...
XP has always been fast and responsive for me and I've used it for years.
Vista is much quicker with 2+ gb of ram but otherwise, it's a slight slowdown
dont get me wrong though, I love vista and everything about it, and I wouldn't have this issue if I had a few hundred to spend on a couple wanted upgrades lol
 
Phimp said:
I'm not comparing OS's by boot times... I'm saying I don't like the longer boot times... not that Vista is worse because of it...
I also only have 1gb ram so games are a lot more sluggish on vista than on XP
just things in general or slower moving...
Click to expand...


Get another gig of RAM! It'll only cost you ~$15 or so these days.
 
Been testing XP and Vista all weekend. I have came to the conclusion that I, cannot with my eyes, tell the difference in gaming framerate between the two. Vista has a plethora of new features that I have become aware of and very fond of.

So long XP you did me good.. But Vista is better hands down.
 
I suggest using the Hibernate feature it kicks ass. I never used it in XP cause I felt it slowed things down after awhile, but I think vista has better memory management.

Hibernate shuts down the computer completely just like turning it off, but it only takes 12-13 seconds to load back up. And everything is already in memory ready to go. Hibernate is your solution.
 
kre62 said:
I suggest using the Hibernate feature it kicks ass. I never used it in XP cause I felt it slowed things down after awhile, but I think vista has better memory management.

Hibernate shuts down the computer completely just like turning it off, but it only takes 12-13 seconds to load back up. And everything is already in memory ready to go. Hibernate is your solution.
Click to expand...

I was about to note that. OP, assuming all your drivers work, why are you ever formally shutting down?
 
Baxter299 said:
http://www.blackviper.com/WinVista/servicecfg.htm
go here maybe
Click to expand...
Oh dear......

CanOfWorms.jpg
 
I hate a lot of things about Vista, but if you already payed real money for it, you may as well use it. If speed is the only thing really bothering you, maybe some tweaks or hardware upgrades would help.
 
I recommend putting your computer into sleep with S3 power mode. It's fantastic in Vista. The computer turns off almost completely (except the RAM I'm assuming) but wakes back up with the click of the mouse. And it's back to a usable state in about 5 seconds.

Good guide: http://www.exoid.com/?page_id=47
 
I have to wonder if you've somehow screwed up your system configuration. Vista boots considerably quicker for me than XP ever did, on every machine I've installed it to.

You aren't seeing a situation where an update is completing its install during the bootup are you, and assuming that to be evidence of a general slowness in bootup times?
 
Phimp said:
I have Vista and want to go back to XP because it loads faster... but I don't want to ditch the features and cool looks... anyone else with this dilemma?

-long drawn-out description below because I tend to type way to much-

I had my pc running XP for years... and the entire boot time from pressing the power button on my case to staring at a completely loaded desktop in XP never took longer than 30 seconds. At one point I even tried out RAID-0 and managed to get a 14 second boot time.

I moved to Vista Ultimate for the heck of it.

Everything was great, minute and a half boot times at first which was annoying but I just got used to it.

After using it for a few months now, it takes up to 4 minutes to boot up and completely load just the vista os. I don't use any cpu hogs like norton or anything and even if i did, I don't have ANYTHING load at startup other than basic needed OS services.

I can't handle these long boot times anymore.. I want to go back to XP..
but there are a few things I just can't live without...
  • Kickass login screen / *CHECK* Download the free Logon studio for XP
  • Awesome startbar w/ "All Programs" not popping up and end up taking up half the screen / *CHECK* XP startbar can be customized easily
  • Way better looking icons / *CHECK* Download a bricopack with Vista visuals www.crystalxp.net for free
  • Flip 3D (i use this like every 15 seconds) / *CHECK* Download Yom'd 3D for free for 3D cube desktop effects
  • Thumbnails look better / *CHECK* Bricopack will update the thumbnail views too
  • Folder previews (how they show 2-3 images like files in a folder rather than showing 3 square images and one empty yellow spot over a square folder - so korny looking after using vista) (see images below) /*CHECK* Bricopack will give you this
  • The entire GUI for windows /*CHECK* Bricopack is your answer
  • Scalable thumbnail sizes (i freaking love this) /*CHECK* available through a free addon


heck I would almost be fine going back to XP if it just had the thumbnails preview functionality that Vista has... XP's thumbnails drive me nuts!
Click to expand...
As replied in your list you don't need Vista for any of those needs!
A bricopacked XP looks like this:
bricopack-vista-inspirat.jpg
 
I put Vista Home Premium OEM on my new build 2 weeks ago and it takes exactly 92 seconds to load from cold boot to a fully loaded desktop, including Avast anti-virus. My new build isn't even anywhere near top of the line - C2D 6420 2.13ghz, 2gb ram, geforce 8800gts, seagate 250gb 16mb cache sata hard drive and it loads about 3 minutes faster than my old P4 2.8ghz, 1gb ram.

I don't think I would have messed with upgrading my old computer. Vista seems to be for fresh builds unless you want to do some heavy tweaking and/or troubleshooting.
 
Seriously you guys have vista faster loading then Winxp? My xp64 boots way faster then vista.. You know whats even stranger my OSX boots faster then both :p
 
feek said:
I recommend putting your computer into sleep with S3 power mode.http://www.exoid.com/?page_id=47
Click to expand...
for some reason, my pc is messed up when it comes to the hibernation/sleep mode... it won't wake up from it... at all... no matter what...

Finn said:
As replied in your list you don't need Vista for any of those needs!
Click to expand...
Ok, so I installed a vista bricopack on an another xp pc i have to test it out and it definitely did not change anything about the thumbnails... I want the thumbnails/previews to look like this -> link
 
Phimp said:
for some reason, my pc is messed up when it comes to the hibernation/sleep mode... it won't wake up from it... at all... no matter what...
Click to expand...

"It's the drivers... it's always the drivers..."

Because of drivers that aren't 100% ACPI compliant, you'll encounter:

- shutdown issues
- standby issues
- hibernation issues
- assorted other problems

If you have no warnings (no yellow ? marks or red ! marks) in Device Manager, that does not necessarily mean your machine is fully ACPI compliant. Here's one page you can check for more info about shutdown/standby/hibernate issues, and while the info is primarily geared towards XP itself, it'll be of some use to Vista owners also:

http://www.aumha.org/a/shtdwnxp.htm

Can't speak about the Brico junk; it's easier to run Vista than screw around with a lot of system-related files in XP. :D
 
bbz_Ghost said:
"It's the drivers... it's always the drivers..."

Because of drivers that aren't 100% ACPI compliant, you'll encounter:

- shutdown issues
- standby issues
- hibernation issues
- assorted other problems

If you have no warnings (no yellow ? marks or red ! marks) in Device Manager, that does not necessarily mean your machine is fully ACPI compliant. Here's one page you can check for more info about shutdown/standby/hibernate issues, and while the info is primarily geared towards XP itself, it'll be of some use to Vista owners also:

http://www.aumha.org/a/shtdwnxp.htm

Can't speak about the Brico junk; it's easier to run Vista than screw around with a lot of system-related files in XP. :D
Click to expand...

It's better to have stuff integrated then tacked on. For me the pros of Vista are much greater then the cons.

I don't have proper sleep and hibernation working. My laptop wakes up about 20min after it sleeps but I 'm asleep by then. Can't get hibernation to work as I get a "intelppm.sys" (that's the driver for the CPU, go figure) bluescreens when it wakes up. The stock driver clicks occasionally when under high load in video and music but doesn't in warcraft3.

But I'm willing to live with those querks, my 80+ extension loaded FF runs faster under Vista, TrueType for all means it's much easier on the eyes (major plus) for me and for once explorer.exe doesn't die at least once every session.
 
Phimp said:
for some reason, my pc is messed up when it comes to the hibernation/sleep mode... it won't wake up from it... at all... no matter what...

Ok, so I installed a vista bricopack on an another xp pc i have to test it out and it definitely did not change anything about the thumbnails... I want the thumbnails/previews to look like this -> link
Click to expand...

The Bricopacks give different effects and some won't change the folder views. It's possible however as I've seen it happen at least in the original Vista inspirat bricopack. With a couple minutes work I'm sure you'll find a pleasing folder style for your good old XP.
 
bbz_Ghost said:
"It's the drivers... it's always the drivers..."

Because of drivers that aren't 100% ACPI compliant, you'll encounter:

- shutdown issues
- standby issues
- hibernation issues
- assorted other problems

If you have no warnings (no yellow ? marks or red ! marks) in Device Manager, that does not necessarily mean your machine is fully ACPI compliant. Here's one page you can check for more info about shutdown/standby/hibernate issues, and while the info is primarily geared towards XP itself, it'll be of some use to Vista owners also:

http://www.aumha.org/a/shtdwnxp.htm

Can't speak about the Brico junk; it's easier to run Vista than screw around with a lot of system-related files in XP. :D
Click to expand...

Yeah, then Vista was/is released with malfunctioning drivers as people are reporting problems straight out of the box.

Bricopacks couldn't be easyer to use, just click install and it's finished in a fraction of what Vista takes to install, with FAR fewer problems and most important of all with no cost whatsoever.
 
Phimp said:
for some reason, my pc is messed up when it comes to the hibernation/sleep mode... it won't wake up from it... at all... no matter what...

If you haven't already, play around with your bios power settings to see if you can fix your sleep or standby problems. For me, my system won't awaken unless I have Repost Video on S3 Resume switched on. I assume it gives the video card a kick in the pants. There are also ACPI settings you can toggle to see if it helps. I use sleep in XP and now Vista, and it's great. I only restart when required installing programs or when something gets whacky. With Vista, it's about 10 seconds minus entering my password recovering from sleep.
Click to expand...
 
I'll have a look in the BIOS to see if tinkering with some settings will fix the sleep issue, I'll also take a look at the installed drivers and clean some up.

Oh... and no bricopack, program, or hack for XP can give you the folder preview feature that Vista has. Oh, and I found out the actual name for it is Live Folder Icons.

So it looks like I'm stickin with Vista. I was thinkin about upgrading my other H20 cooled rig to Vista, but I'm holdin off till I can upgrade the specs.



Right now on my Vista pc, I have vista installed on a 75Gb partition on a 250GB SATAII HD.
I'm thinking about putting my two 160GB HD's in a RAID-0 setup and have a 75GB partition for Vista... or maybe like 50GB for the C drive and another 50GB parition for Program Files.

Each 160 GB HD has an average read of ~53 MB/sec. In RAID-0, it jumps up to an average of ~104 MB/sec... not bad at all...
HD Benches - 160GB #1 / 160GB #2 / 306GB RAID-0

Anyways... it should improve the speed a lot. I had this setup for XP before I switched to Vista and it was an incredible improvement over XP being installed on just the 250GB HD..

I just don't want to have to deal with the hassle of raid drivers for the vista installation, moving files from hd to hd trying to reorganize the partitions so I can use the now occupied 160GB hd's, and the usual hassle that comes with a reformat - tweaking everything back to normal such as programs and their settings...
 
Rofl phimp if you're so sure about the folder thing, which technological limitation is there? It's just graphics.
 
Finn said:
Yeah, then Vista was/is released with malfunctioning drivers as people are reporting problems straight out of the box.

Bricopacks couldn't be easyer to use, just click install and it's finished in a fraction of what Vista takes to install, with FAR fewer problems and most important of all with no cost whatsoever.
Click to expand...

Vista was also released with the capability of downloading and installing driver updates, so people aren't somehow "stuck" with whatever immature or inadequate device drivers hardware manufacturers had provided at that point in time when Vista was released! You're grasping at straws!

If people want to move on with the times, and their hardware isn't amongst the 95% or more of existing stuff which is perfectly well supported under Vista, then they should really sit back and reconsider if that hardware is what they need to meet their needs into the future. If it hasn't got suitable drivers by now, it probably won't ever have!

Finn said:
Rofl phimp if you're so sure about the folder thing, which technological limitation is there? It's just graphics.
Click to expand...
Rather than belittling somebody how's about providing some helpful explanation yourself?

FYI it's not "just graphics" at all. The folder icons being discussed here are actually 'live' previews of folder contents. I'd really like you to explain to me how THAT can be achieved with an icon set included in an XP 'themes' type pack!
 
Ya those bricopacks are cool for giving XP a cool look that's reversible...

but why not just use an MSStyle instead? It doesn't install anything and doesn't alter any system files.. (other than the cracked uxtheme.dll), whereas the bricopack basically mutilates every possible system file lol

And ya, Vista drivers are very upgradeable and basically everything you would ever use is compatible with Vista with up-to-date drivers.

And Finn... what you said is like arguing against someone who says you can't clone sheep with a Dell, and you say, "rofl if your so sure about that.. its only cpu cycles"

Graphics would be the easiest part of it... not even close to the majority of the coding and hard part..

Anyways... I'm still putting some serious thought into the whole RAID-0 setup.
But I just played around in the BIOS, and sure enough, there were ACPI Sleep settings that were set to S1 instead of S3 and some were disabled.
 
I'll skip the RAID-0 part because I could go off on a very long tangent on that overhyped tech, but oh well.

You are absolutely correct to avoid a bricopack or whatever the hell that is. Replacing one system file in the recovery console is much easier/safer than installing software absolutely notorious for killing systems. Flyakite, anyone?

I do find it awfully ironic that the person most famous for trolling around on how much Vista sucks and isn't stable, would be willing to load such crapware on their PC, that's easily capable of ruining the entire system. That's as idiotic as screaming bloody murder over how unhealthy McDonald's food is, while sitting at a Burger King, eating their food.
 
djnes said:
I'll skip the RAID-0 part because I could go off on a very long tangent on that overhyped tech, but oh well.
Click to expand...

Well when I went from XP freshly installed on a single 160gb hd, it took 37 seconds to boot up including the bios, all the way to a fully loaded windows desktop.
With the freshly installed XP on the 2 160gb raid-0 setup, it tooks i think 21 seconds including the bios...

it definitely isn't overhyped...

if you want to work with what you have and you already have two identical very quick drives... raid-0 will only increase the performance.. I'm sure a raptor might perform better but I don't have a raptor.

it's provent itself to me at least...

And although RAID-0 is more like AID-0 because it isn't redundant, I'm keeping an entire backup of Vista and important files on another HD.


Oh, and the Sleep works now but the video doesn't wake back up...
bios is set to DPMS Support and I have an evga 6800gs.
should I try Blank or V/H Sync+Blank?
with either of those, the video card isn't still running in sleep mode is it?
 
Phimp said:
Well when I went from XP freshly installed on a single 160gb hd, it took 37 seconds to boot up including the bios, all the way to a fully loaded windows desktop.
With the freshly installed XP on the 2 160gb raid-0 setup, it tooks i think 21 seconds including the bios...

it definitely isn't overhyped...

if you want to work with what you have and you already have two identical very quick drives... raid-0 will only increase the performance.. I'm sure a raptor might perform better but I don't have a raptor.

it's provent itself to me at least...

And although RAID-0 is more like AID-0 because it isn't redundant, I'm keeping an entire backup of Vista and important files on another HD.
Click to expand...
Without derailing the thread, RAID0 doesn't give you very much of a performance boost, if any at all. It's been proven over and over again, and the argument should have been deceased a long time ago. And honestly, if 16 seconds difference in boot time REALLY matters to you, why not leave the PC on all the time, lest not ye waste those 16 seconds! I can't possibly fathom why people give a shit about boot times unelss they are very very slow. But, it's your system. If you want to pretend it's speeding everything up, no one's stopping you. At least you know enough to back your data up.
 
Man you folks have really been suckered into believing M$ hype about Vista. It contains zero revolutionary stuff. Zero. All it introduces is more glitter at a performance hit.
 
Phimp said:
Well when I went from XP freshly installed on a single 160gb hd, it took 37 seconds to boot up including the bios, all the way to a fully loaded windows desktop.
With the freshly installed XP on the 2 160gb raid-0 setup, it tooks i think 21 seconds including the bios...
Click to expand...

I use Raid 0, but I expect boot takes longer because it has to load the Raid bios settings that it doesn't do if it's disabled running in normal SATA mode. Biggest issues I've had with Raid are programs like Ghost that won't see the drives in DOS. At least Vista sees my array natively (unlike XP) and I don't have to install drivers from a floppy on initial install. It's a ULI Raid chipset on an ASUS board.

Phimp said:
Oh, and the Sleep works now but the video doesn't wake back up...
bios is set to DPMS Support and I have an evga 6800gs.
should I try Blank or V/H Sync+Blank?
with either of those, the video card isn't still running in sleep mode is it?
Click to expand...

Both my ASUS boards (A8V Deluxe and A8R32-MVP) have a Repost Video on S3 Resume. Your bios doesn't have similar? As I said, for me the screen stays dead unless I enable that setting.
 
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