What OS does your school use?

[Jericho]

2 Mac OS X
1 Vista
Loads of XP laptops and Desktops.
1 really old senile 3.1 computer in the Tech room

[Recursion]

So you insult me by saying I have no knowledge of hardware nor software because I rather back XP as opposed to Vista? That's ridiculous. It's personal preference. I don't care if Vista is supposed to have improved RAM management, it's pointless due to how much more system resources Vista occupies. (I've been forced to use Vista on my laptop for a year now) the user account control is pointless, many useful applications are incompatible with Vista (including a handful of games. FS9 wont work for many with the aero experience, and I've tried it on two Vista machines to discover that my display driver fails..not impressed). My Intel Centrino Duo came with Home Premium, and I couldn't even handle the aero-experience without sticking an extra 2gbs of ram in my system. XP beats Vista in benchmarking tests (quite disappointing, seeing as it's with SP1) http://news.cnet.com/Windows-XP-outs...3-6220201.html . Here's a breakdown I got from http://blogulate.com/content/xp-beats-windows-vista/:




The only features I admire on Vista are the indexing feature and the extra undo options in mspaint. I can get Google desktop and get indexing on XP.

The minimum specifications for XP are also much lower than Vista. HTC is selling 800mhz CPU, 512MB UMPCs equipped with Vista...that’s totally ridiculous.

If the resources are available, why can't it use them?

I found it useful, It will actually allow YOU to decide what runs as admin and what doesn't...

Well, I ran FS9 perfectly fine on Windows. The only game that turns of Aero for me is FSX... and that is to improve performance I guess. All applications work fine with Vista? :S

Actually my dad has a UMPC with those specs, fair enough, not 512mb RAM but the CPU doesn't make too much of a difference.

Benchmarks tell you nothing. Apart from the Networking one (which I never even mentioned), nothing is telling me speeds of the OS. The other thing is is just some score some piece of software gives out to every tom, **** and harry OS. XD

Anyway. Yes it is opinion. But imo schools need to start transitioning to the latest OS. We can't use XP forever.

[Jordy]

So you insult me by saying I have no knowledge of hardware nor software because I rather back XP as opposed to Vista? That's ridiculous. It's personal preference. I don't care if Vista is supposed to have improved RAM management, it's pointless due to how much more system resources Vista occupies. (I've been forced to use Vista on my laptop for a year now) the user account control is pointless, many useful applications are incompatible with Vista (including a handful of games. FS9 wont work for many with the aero experience, and I've tried it on two Vista machines to discover that my display driver fails..not impressed). My Intel Centrino Duo came with Home Premium, and I couldn't even handle the aero-experience without sticking an extra 2gbs of ram in my system. XP beats Vista in benchmarking tests (quite disappointing, seeing as it's with SP1) http://news.cnet.com/Windows-XP-outs...3-6220201.html . Here's a breakdown I got from http://blogulate.com/content/xp-beats-windows-vista/:




The only features I admire on Vista are the indexing feature and the extra undo options in mspaint. I can get Google desktop and get indexing on XP.

The minimum specifications for XP are also much lower than Vista. HTC is selling 800mhz CPU, 512MB UMPCs equipped with Vista...that’s totally ridiculous.

It's not Microsoft's fault if companies can't be bothered to release compatible drivers and also why does gaming matter, we're on about OS's at schools.

[Recursion]

It's not Microsoft's fault if companies can't be bothered to release compatible drivers and also why does gaming matter, we're on about OS's at schools.

True true, Most companies drivers are crap. Not Microsoft's problem. Gaming for me (at home obv.) was better on Vista than XP, mainly for the DX10 experiance.

[PaulMacC]

Windows XP and we also have a mac suite.

[Jericho]

*Post to end all MS arguments*
OS X 10.5 Leopard - Simple!
Only joking.
Judging from personal experience I would say Vista is a great OS, I prefer xp out of MS OS' because its just easier in general. But OS X is my OS of choice because it has useful apps built in, what I want, amazing media suite built in.

[MJJ]

Like most people here, my school uses Windows XP.

[HotelUser]

If the resources are available, why can't it use them?

I found it useful, It will actually allow YOU to decide what runs as admin and what doesn't...

Well, I ran FS9 perfectly fine on Windows. The only game that turns of Aero for me is FSX... and that is to improve performance I guess. All applications work fine with Vista? :S

Actually my dad has a UMPC with those specs, fair enough, not 512mb RAM but the CPU doesn't make too much of a difference.

Benchmarks tell you nothing. Apart from the Networking one (which I never even mentioned), nothing is telling me speeds of the OS. The other thing is is just some score some piece of software gives out to every tom, **** and harry OS. XD

Anyway. Yes it is opinion. But imo schools need to start transitioning to the latest OS. We can't use XP forever.

Just because it's the lastest software doesn't mean schools should be switching to it. I'll make a detailed post later, I have to go now. But as I said it is about personal preference. Benchmarks do mean something.

[Recursion]

It has been out for almost 2 years now? They should be switching.

[Jordy]

It has been out for almost 2 years now? They should be switching.

I wish they'd use Vista as well but the main reason is because they use huge and expensive laser printers all over the school and it'll cost a lot to replace them all for Vista compatibility. My school also uses a lot of old CAD software from around 2003 (it's piss poor stuff) and there's no hope of Vista support with that.