I would have thought that you would have been far less naive in your statements about this. On a reasonable system (dual core cpu, 1.5gig ram and a decent graphics card) there is no noticeable difference. On my system running at 1680x1050 i cap my fps at my monitor's refresh rate in most games (the exception being crysis), so making that comment is wrong as for me there is NO difference between xp and vista gaming wise.

LOL

I have to agree (mostly) with human_error, I run XP and Vista dual boot and have most of my games installed on both. The games do run in general 3-5 fps faster on xp(max), but if that 3-5 frames difference is making your games jerky and unfluid in vista then the specs of the machine are low anyway. I wouldnt say there was no difference in gameing on xp and vista, but the diffrences on a modern pc for gaming are negligible. If your PC is not built for games, don't play them! Or upgrade

I swear this date gets further and further back. I'm also pretty sure we'll be getting a decent number of DX10 games as this year runs.

r.e. Windows Se7en - isn't is a bit early for april fools?

Or are Microsoft really going to name the next version of windows after the (very good) psycho serial killer film?

LOL

hmm more likey that its not worth installing, there are perfecly working copys of Vista OEM patched disks its more likey that users find XP better, not sure about SP1 yet as i have it but it has not disabled it self yet on my on my test pc

Badly written, uninformative article. Tell us something we don't know.

Windows Vienna/7 has been talked about for well over a year now, it is rumoured to be a completely new platform (Vista is just a beefed up XP version essentially, hence it needs soo much power), which in my opinion with the time Microsft had to programme and release Vista it should have been a completely new platform.

I've used Vista when I've "fixed" computers for friends and friends of friends (I'm no expert but I do know the ins and outs at a pretty good intermediate level) and I hate Vista, it's a pig to work with, all those "security" pop-ups which I presume are the UAC thing, I installed Office 2007 on one computer and do you know what? It refused to install, claiming I didn't have administration priviliages when I'd double checked I had, there was another error too but I can't recall what, in the end I had to use a "hacked" Office 2007 downloaded version along with the original official MS product key to get it to install. Now that's what I call brilliant compatibility.

With regards to games, it's a massive issue in my opinion, the majority of people expect quite recent old games to run, such as Sims/Sims 2, I've had reports that the original game(s) run but install the expansion packs and you quickly run into a brick wall.

The transfering of files and un/zipping are no way near as smooth as under XP. Vista just seems a bit clunky and not so user friendly. OK, it's pretty to look at and is more secure but is it my choice of an OS, no way!

I'm sticking with XP for as long as possible, reports were a year ago Windows Vienna/7 that is would be released around 2010, at the time that was only a 3 year wait, plus Microsoft planned to "support" XP upto until 2012 at the earliest which means they'll continue to provide "updates".

So why the need to buy Vista when it weighs a ton and a clean streamlined new platform of Windows is being talked about for what I see as a 2010/11 release!

The only reason I can see to go down the Vista road is to take more advantage of the Dual Core and "extended" memory, but how many programmes are fully going to take advantage of the full power of that before a new Windows OS arrives!

With regards to the gaming performance, side by side on a single core CPU XP will always out gun Vista purely on the fact that Vista bares a heavier load on resources and single core is how Vista should still be judged, I suspect that the majority of the typical home user will still be using a single core machine.

Single core systems sold have dropped in price and regardless whether it's AMD or Intel a 3Ghz (or rated) CPU offers a very attractive buy for first or even second time buyers and from last January all machines were sold with Vista already installed with the exception of Dell (after consumers demanded XP - well done to Dell).

Personally I'm still running a single core AMD XP3200+ 'Barton' clocked to 2.5Ghz under water cooling, with Windows XP running on it (with a Windows ME dual boot, purely coz when I first got XP a few games as well as my scanner refused to work under XP) next time I "spring clean" and format my hard drive ME will be leaving and Linux will be introduced. I tried a Linux install last time but I partitioned my hard drive wrongly as I was a Linux newbie and I didn't need to create a dedicated Linux partition as it would create it's own from one of the others I selected).

Hardware upgrade wise I'm waiting for the 3rd or 4th quarter of this year as it seems another step will be taken regarding CPUs, we all know Intel have been holding back due to the lack of real competition in the dual/quad core market, so I thought there's no real need to upgrade just yet, as soon as AMD start closing the gap Intel have capacity to blow them away again. My XP3200+ still does what I ask of it, the only thing I am pushed for is in the graphics department but I'm not going to upgrade on an AGP platform when ePCI is what all new mobos come equiped with, it would be just a waste of money.

If you have the option, in my opinion forget Vista and hang on for the Vienna/7 platform.

Windows 7 in such a short amount of time is no suprise - Microsoft openly said when Vista was launched that it would go back to its 3 year operating system cycle. From 98SE to XP was the biggest gap between OSs that they'd evey had. The main problem with XP vs Vista is the thorny issue of DirectX 10 - I agree with people who say that there isn't much need to upgrade, but in the meantime I will have to go for 2 or 3 years looking at the DX9 version of games until the next version of windows comes out. This is the dilemma for people building a machine now. Then there is the issue ot making proper use of the multi cores etc... - All in all a transitional period for the industry - new Intel platform on the horizon, production problems for AMD multi cores, question marks over the HD / BluRay battle, operating systems with little extra value, DDR3 vs DDR2. I think in 1 year there will be a much clearer picture and we will be back on to the "normal" upgrade cycle.

I think it's wrong to moan about Vista's increased hardware requirements. Thats just progress, if you want more features, it's going to take more hardware. I've built £300 pcs which run Vista & Aero fine, if you only ever upgrade your pc every 10 years thats your problem :-)