Which OS to choose for my new system?

[ofield]

Hey Guys,
I'm buying a new Desktop and I have the choice of Getting Xp Home, XP Professional, or Vista Home Basic.

I have Windows Xp Home on my old Desktop and was wondering if you could give me any Advice on which OS System to Choose. The Specs of the Desktop are below.

I really Need Advice On this One, Thanks

GeForce 7300GS 256MB PCI-Express (1DVI / 1VGA) Card/

3GB DDR2 PC5400 Memory

Intel Core2 Duo E4500 2.2GHz 2M 800Mhz Processor

80GB 7200RPM 3G SATA II Hard Drive with a External 320GB Hard Drive

500 Watt Power Supply

[jeffy]

I don't want to be a nitpicker, but...
IMHO: I have Windows XP Professional and I am more or less satisfied [2GB = 2 × 1GB 800MHz DDR2 memory].

If your system is something like this linked below, then why PC5400 (667MHz) memory? 800MHz DDR2 is a better deal. 3GB won't be in a Dual Channel mode, I would get 2 or 4GB [2 × 1 or 2 × 2GB] (but you cannot use all 4 GB under XP/Vista 32bit - http://support.microsoft.com/?scid=kb%3Ben-us%3B929605)

You should also take in consideration if the 80GB internal HDD is enough for you. If you like playing games, 80GB (74.5GiB) gets full soon.

Also, if you plan gaming demanding games, your graphics card might not be fast enough.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/configdetails.asp?Base=3346918

[foxyshadis]

Don't get pro unless you need to join a domain or really want easy access to folder security. Home will do everything pro can, except for a small amount of system administration tools. Unless it's cheap enough, then hey, why not.

Vista vs XP, you can't really know until you have a few to play around with a Vista machine and run your favorite software on it. Once you do that, you'll know whether you must have the new shinies or it'll be a constant frustration. A lot of people here hate Vista, since it gets in the way of quickly installing and updating and sometimes even running software, and folks here do that all the time.

[jeffy]

Quick XP comparison:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/howtobuy/choosing2.mspx

Quick Vista comparison:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/editions/choose.mspx

[Blue_MiSfit]

Looks like a nice little system. I would probably go for a full 4 GB so you can run in dual channel mode (as long as they don't want to charge you much of a premium for it).

If you do any gaming, a 7300gs it wholly inadequate. Get that replaced if you need to.

OS wise, as foxyshadis says it's a very personal thing. I tried vista for a good 6 weeks, and was pretty happy with it. There were some quirks, and I had some driver issues with my Creative sound card. For most people those issues will not apply, and Vista has become pretty mature. The annoying UAC popups can be easily disabled, so that's a non issue to me. The one thing that really gets to me is the hopelessly flawed image viewer. It uses nearest neighbor interpolation when you zoom an image, which looks like CRAP. Really. Absolute crap. XP uses at least bilinear, and you would think implimenting something better would be easy and very fast, considering the whole stupid desktop is composited when you run Aero Glass. Oh well. Maybe SP1 will fix this?

If you're nervous about it, get XP Home. No reason to go Pro unless you need to do domain networking. Home works fine even with a quad core system.

If you're feeling adventurous, get Vista. It's very pleasing, for the most part.

~MiSfit

[ilovejedd]

Vista's quirky but works fine for the most part. I got a low-end laptop with Vista Home Premium pre-installed. I use it mostly for surfing the internet. Sometimes, for watching standard resolution TV caps and DVD rips converted to DivX, Xvid or x264. There's also the occasional word processing and spreadsheet. For those simple needs, I haven't yet encountered a problem with my Vista laptop.

Most annoying for me is software incompatibility (just a few freeware utilities that I use) but the problem is usually solved by running the apps as administrator.

If you're planning on using the computer as an HTPC, the Media Center in Vista Home Premium is pretty nice, although I don't know if Basic has it. I'm guessing not. There are several HTPC front-ends for XP, GB-PVR comes to mind. However, if you want one built-in, the one in Vista Home Premium (and higher) isn't bad at all.

I've used Irfanview and CDisplay for all my image viewing since Windows 98 so I couldn't comment on Vista's built-in image viewer.

At this point in time, I'd still go with XP. It's wicked fast at those specs. XP Home's fine if you don't have special networking needs. When quads hit the sub-$100 price range, that's when I'd go with Vista.