[Hazirak]

Windows XP on my desktop (mostly gets used for games and work, also shares out a chunk of its hard drive to the rest of the house), and Ubuntu on my laptop (school and generally talking to people). Step-brother and parents own a MacBook and iMac, respectively, that I recently had the 'joy' of connecting to the shared drive.

After having to set up my mom's Vista laptop on a gig of RAM, I downright refuse to "upgrade". No operating system should require more than a gig to boot up and log on in under ten minutes, even with other startup tasks (and I'm not exaggerating that number).

[Smith6612]

Vista can run fine on 512MB of RAM. It just chokes over it though. If your mom's laptop is choking over RAM, switch off Aero, Search Indexing, and Windows Defender, along with any Crapware that is installed (in which case you remove that...).

[Hazirak]

Indexing is already off, Defender was never on, and my mom is huge on aesthetics, so killing Aero is out of the question.

As for crapware, I learned long ago that the only way I'll get her to drop Weatherbug is if I pry it from her cold, dead fingers...

In all seriousness though, last I checked, that was all she had that could be called crapware. I made sure to run PC Decrapifyer as soon as it came out of the box, cleaned up the rest of the Sony crap it missed, and removed Norton.[/url].

[Smith6612]

Originally Posted by Hazirak

Indexing is already off, Defender was never on, and my mom is huge on aesthetics, so killing Aero is out of the question.

As for crapware, I learned long ago that the only way I'll get her to drop Weatherbug is if I pry it from her cold, dead fingers...

In all seriousness though, last I checked, that was all she had that could be called crapware. I made sure to run PC Decrapifyer as soon as it came out of the box, cleaned up the rest of the Sony crap it missed, and removed Norton.[/url].

Weatherbug to me is crapware. If she wants something better, weather.com and Windows Sidebar, or get herself a battery powered weather radio from Midland Electronics. With all of the ads and how much memory Weatherbug uses, it's pretty much bloated for what it does. Does she have Google Desktop as well? If so, get a rid of that. Also, get a rid of IE toolbars that she doesn't use. Once you free up the crapware, Vista will run much better, believe me. Or, get her get another GB of RAM.

[componentwarehouse]

Originally Posted by Hazirak

After having to set up my mom's Vista laptop on a gig of RAM, I downright refuse to "upgrade". No operating system should require more than a gig to boot up and log on in under ten minutes, even with other startup tasks (and I'm not exaggerating that number).

1GB of fast RAM costs below £10 (about $20), if you said that a few years a go I would of probably said you are right, but not now. It's like saying a game shouldnt take a £400 ($800) graphics card to get 30fps (eg. Crysis), when about 8 years ago you could play snake on a £200 computer. We all know Crysis has much better graphics and everything than snake, like Vista has much better graphics and everything than other OS's.

Alex

[nterror]

I triple boot modified versions of the following, along with how much I use them.

Vista 64bit (10%)
XP 32bit (5%)
OpenSUSE 64bit (85%)

I prefer the Linux. It was built with the power user in mind. Get so much done compared to Windows. I tried Mac (Leopard) for a couple months. I will never give it a second chance. Might as well be Windows with a designer price. They all have their purpose. Whatever doesnt work in Linux, goes to Windows. Mostly Vista over XP only to use the 6 GB of RAM.

[Dan]

Please when posting in this thread from now on, make sure that you are not just repeating what someone else has said and make sure you are not just posting a one liner such as 'I like PC'. Posts should be more like 'I think PC's are better than Mac's because they are much easier to use and the graphics are loads better. Mac's are also really expensive' etc. etc.

[GG-Xtreme]

I prefer PC, but that's because I'm a PC gamer. Mac is pretty advanced for the OS that it is, but it doesn't run some of my games and programs. Also, I've never had a single problem with either PC or Mac, I've never experienced slow startups or gotten a virus, because I know how to manage my computer. Vista runs without the slightest hitch on my cousin's computer (which I built) and I've never had any of the problems that some Mac users (and even XP users) like to throw out to label Windows as 'inferior'.

[fempower]

I'm on a Windows PC now but am building a new PC on which I'll use Linux. Hopefully, I'll be able to get more done with Linux, using an Windows emulator only when necessary, and Windows only for games that won't work with an emulator. I really want a Mac at some point for content creation.

[GG-Xtreme]

There's always multi-boot if you're in doubt...