Comparison of Windows Vista and Windows XP
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This article or section may contain original research or unverified claims. Please improve the article by adding references. See the talk page for details. (May 2008) |
This page is a comparison of Windows Vista and Windows XP. Windows XP is currently the dominant operating system in the desktop and personal computer markets, with a market share above 70% as of April 2008 [1]. Windows Vista is Microsoft's successor to Windows XP, and currently holds a market share of 14.57%.
Windows XP and Windows Vista differ considerably in regards to their security architecture, networking technologies, management and administration, shell & user interface, and mobile computing. Windows XP has suffered widespread criticism for security problems, issues with performance and presence of product activation. Windows Vista has received mixed reception. Like XP, Vista has received some criticism for issues with security, performance and product activation. Another common criticism of Vista concerns the integration of new forms of digital rights management (DRM) into the operating system, and User Account Control (UAC) security technology.
Contents |
[edit] Compatibility
Both XP and Vista had compatibility issues when they were released. Programs that required real mode DOS to run didn't run properly in Windows XP, since XP did not come with MS-DOS like Windows 9x/ME. Windows XP introduced the "Compatibility Mode" feature, which is still present in Vista. Compatibility Mode is a feature that enables Windows XP or Vista to trick older applications into believing that an earlier version of Windows is running.
Windows Vista, on the other hand, is facing compatibility problems with many of the games and utility programs that previously worked in XP and now can no longer work under Vista, not even in a virtual machine environment. As of July 2007, there are about 2000 applications with the 'Vista Compatibility Logo' [2]. That may sound like a lot, but is actually an extremely low percentage compared to the number of programs that can currently work under XP, either natively or in simulation modality.
[edit] Performance
Various performance tests have proved that XP outperforms Vista in certain productivity areas [3] [4]. File copy operations proved to be one area where Vista performs better than XP. A 1.25 GB file was copied from a network share to each desktop. For XP, it took 2 minutes and 54 seconds, for Vista with SP1 it took 2 minutes and 29 seconds. This test was done by CRN Test Center.
Another test was performed by Tom's Hardware [5] in January 2007. Applications such as Unreal Tournament 2004 and the graphics benchmarking suite SPECviewperf 9.03 suffered heavily from the lack of support for the OpenGL graphics library under Vista. They reached the conclusion that Windows Vista clearly is not a great new performer when it comes to executing single applications at maximum speed. On the other hand, they did not find evidence that Windows Vista's new and fancy Aero Glass interface consumes more energy than Windows XP's 2D desktop. All of the tests were performed on a computer with an 2.93 GHz Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 processor, 2x 1024 MB DDR2-800 RAM, HIS Radeon X1900XTX IceQ3 graphics card, 150 GB Western Digital WD1500ADFD hard drive and a Gigabyte GA-965P-DQ6 motherboard.
[edit] Security
Security was a top priority during Windows Vista development. In Windows XP, every user is set up as an administrator by default. As a result, most home users still ran all their software with Administrator access. However, this left most users unwittingly open to potential security threats, such as hacking and malware downloads. A huge amount of existing software simply didn’t run well as a standard user. For example, applications often assumed they had read and write access to the entire filesystem and system Registry [6]. Denying such an application access to any of these assumed rights would cause the application to fail. Sometimes, a person logged on as a standard user under Windows XP can't even perform some of the most basic tasks, such as changing the system clock and calendar, changing the computer's time zone, or changing the computer's power management settings.
User Account Control in Windows Vista improves this by limiting application software to standard user privileges until an administrator authorizes an increase in privilege level. In this way, UAC prevents users from making inadvertent changes to system settings and locks down the computer to prevent unauthorized applications from installing or performing malicious actions. Protected Mode in Internet Explorer 7 is a feature that utilizes User Account Control to isolate IE from other applications and prevent it from writing content to any location, except the Temporary Internet Files folder. Internet Explorer 7 is available for XP, but IE7 Protected Mode is not supported. Other security features integrated into Vista include Microsoft's Windows Defender spyware scanning and removal tool, and its BitLocker drive encryption system, which aims to help protect data in the case of stolen devices.
| Feature | Windows XP | Windows Vista |
|---|---|---|
| Windows Defender | Available as a free download [7] | Yes |
| Windows Firewall | Yes | Yes |
| Windows Security Center | Yes | Yes |
| BitLocker Drive Encryption | No | Yes (Enterprise and Ultimate only) |
| Parental controls | No | Yes |
| User Account Control | No | Yes |
| Data Execution Prevention | Yes | Yes |
[edit] Shell & User Interface
[edit] Visual Styles
Luna is the default visual style in Windows XP. It is available in three color schemes: Default (blue), Olive Green, and Silver. Windows XP Media Center Edition comes with Royale as default theme. The look and feel of Windows XP can be customized using software such as WindowBlinds. Now in its sixth version, it supports alpha blending effects similar to the compositing of Windows Vista, but on XP.
In most editions of Windows Vista, the default theme is Windows Aero. Aero offers translucent window effects, as well as live thumbnails, animated transitions and Flip 3D. However, it requires a higher-end video graphics card, DirectX 9 support and 32-bit color; otherwise, Windows Vista is displayed using "Windows Vista Basic" visual style.
