Hi Guys, hope you are all doing great . I have a little problem and someone need to give the best solution. I need to buy a Laptop. But the problem is now the laptops available in the market by all the companies come with Operating system as Windows Vista only. Though some of the Brands claim that there systems can even run with Xp, but some clearly say it won't work properly with Xp as they are meant for Vista only. Now if I plan to buy Vista, it works slower than Xp and if I use Xp in it am not sure it will work properly or not. Though there's 2 or 3 gb ram being provided with the Vista loaded system these days and it can even be increased up to 4 gbs, but am still not sure if to buy the system with Vista would be the right choice or not as I do not have very good knowledge of hardware.
Secondly as Microsoft has declared to launch the new or the extended version of Windows vista, presently being named as Windows 7, early next year, will the system bought today with vista be compatible with Windows 7 or can it be a problem in future?
Waiting for some good solutions.


Bobby

Windows XP is officially discontinued.

Windows Life-Cycle Policy

You still can get copies of it, and computers with XP installed. Microsoft extended the availability of Windows XP for OEMs until Jun 30, 2010 or one year after Windows 7 is available (which it looks like will be Oct 2010)

Microsoft will continue to support Windows XP for 3 years after it ends availability. Whether that will be in 2011 or 2013, only the Microsoft gods know.

Vista has some features that XP does not have and it is, generally speaking, "safer". Having said that, there are a lot of professionals who don't like Windows Vista and refuse to install it. Many companies are opting to avoid Windows Vista and will wait for Windows 7. Vista requires more resources than XP (i.e. if you don't have those "resources", which include memory, processor speed, video card, etc, it will run slower.

Windows 7 will be available (presumably) in October 2009. I think most people agree that it will fix the problems that people complain about Windows Vista. It's not an "extended version of Vista". It's a new operating system.

I would recommend that you eventually plan on putting Windows 7 on the laptop.

First, I don't see Vista running slower than XP, especially if you throw enough RAM at it. Second, since Vista has been out for over 2 years, many new pieces of hardware are designed for Vista only. This is to make sure their performance is better.

So planning on putting XP on a laptop designed for Vista is an iffy proposition.

Finally, Win 7 is schjeduled for release this October. Any computers purchased starting tomorrow that have Vista Home Premium or higher installed on them will get a free upgrade to Windows 7 when released.

Unlike XP and Vista, which were radical changes in OSes, Win 7 will be fully compatible with Vista hardware, so upgrading a machine that is sold with Vista should not be the problem that upgrading Xp to Vista (or anything to XP) was.

In other words, starting tomorrow, people should have no qualms about purchasing a Vista machine now rather than wait for Win 7 to be released.

Note: the Upgrade offer is not available for machines with XP or Vista Home Basic installed.

In most cases when installing XP on a Vista laptop, you will run into needing to download drivers from the laptop mfg that XP did not recognize or install (most of time mfg are good about posting drivers for their models on their sites)

But with that said, some of the drivers being provided by mfg's were made to work with Vista and not backward compatible to XP. At this point you would search for a compatible driver for the device that will work (doesn't always work though)

This would be a trial and error if that was a decision one would make to install XP. (But as being new computer, can always use system recovery to go back to a fresh install of vista)

Note: Installing XP over vista may Void some part of some warranty if something goes wrong and you have to send it in for service. If that happens, make sure you have Vista installed on it - So if your machine won't start and you send it in and they see XP, you would not be covered.



Should not have any issue with upgrading vista to 7 if that is an option to you.

If you do get or have a system currently, you can download and run - It will scan system and provide information of system currently being run on as to upgrading that system to Windows 7

Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor
Download details: Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor Beta