I have an AMD 2.2GHz x64 processor on an ABIT board with 2GB's of RAM and a 256 MB video card.
I had been running plain ole' Windows XP Home x32 for a long time and was happy. Then I got the Vista bug and tried out Home Premium x32. Since I like speed and crispness in my OS, I immediately set to work on Vista, disabling services, undoing scheduled tasks, tweaking this, unchecking that, all in order to make things run, maybe not as fast as XP, but at least faster than it was. I finally gave up and went back to XP, but this time I loaded XP Pro x64 and was inmmediately impressed with it's stability and speed. What I was not impressed with the lack of things like a good anti-spyware for x64. Someone had told me that an older version of Spy Sweeper would work on it, but I never could get it to. That left only those mediocre programs like AVG, SUPERAntiSpyware etc, which I don't feel do much good.
So I immediately started thinking about other options and, borrowed a friends x64 Vista Home Basic to see if I'd like it. I chose home basic because I knew that disabling the Aero interface saves alot of resources. It was faster that my x32 Home Premium and I thought about buying it from him, but it was on a scratched up DVD and I'm not sure I got the full benefit out of it (i.e....all the files not loading, certain key files missing etc.) I think I can back up this claim since I had some problems after I installed SP1.
So I went on to plan B, which was reading somewhere that if you own a 32 bit version of Vista you can upgrade it for a nominal fee. But since I had Home Premium x32, I had to order x64 Home Premium. It is on it's way in the mail as I speak. So I just want to know, first of all, will the x64 version of Home Premium be slower than x64 of Home Basic? I mean I am going to disable Aero and all in that too.
I'm still not even sure that I want Vista because it's so damm slow. In fact, I know alot of you tech guys run Vista and have few complaints, but I don't see how that's possible!. I mean are you satisfied with the slowness of Vista or are you just patiently waiting around for SP2?
I mean I'm glad I ordered that x64 Home Premium, especially with the price they offered for it, But since I was so impressed with XP Pro x64 I am tempted to make it my main operating system for the next few years and maybe by then, Vista will have gotten faster and I can break Vista x64 out.
What I am looking for here is some feedback. I just can't seem to decide which route to go right now, but I know I am sold on x64. (And no, I don't want to dual-boot) I guess what has confused me , are some of the reviews I have read. While XP Pro x64 has gotten good reviews, there are those who say only developers and such should mess with it. That's not a good enough answer for me. I like doing things differently than others. And when I did have it running, I had no problems running most programs and finding drivers, once again, with the exception of a good anti-spyware.
The other thing that confuses, or should I say frustrates me, is that, like many people, I like to have the latest and best system available, not neccessarily hardware-wise, but OS-Wise. And there lies the trouble. Vista just frustrates me. It's too damm slow and I don't know if it's worth the trade-off of having it, just to get a good anti-spyware or not. And the only reason I am considering it is because of the availability of x64 programs for it over x64 XP.So on that note, just a few more questions...Do you think Microsoft will speed up Vista over time (SP2)? Will the next OS be less resource-hungry?
You can see, I'm just trying to develop a battle plan here.
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