Definitive guide: Windows Vista and XP head to head

So you’ve heard all the hype about Windows Vista, but wonder what it means for you. Here’s the definitive guide on how Microsoft’s Windows Vista stacks up against XP:
SECURITY FEATURES
XP: In the original Windows XP, and with the first service pack or SP1, both versions still in use today, Windows XP has a built-in firewall that gave relatively good protection against hackers breaking into your computer.
The 2nd service pack, or SP2, improved the firewall to protect you from people trying to get it, and bad programs trying to get access out to the Internet, but it is still considered relatively basic compared with commercial offerings. Anyone serious about security should replace it with a good third party firewall or Internet security suite. All versions of Windows XP are also able to be set to download Windows updates automatically.
VISTA: Vista has a similar but improved firewall to Windows XP SP2, but anyone who is serious about their security will still replace it with a third party firewall or Internet security suite. Internet Explorer 7 has an ‘anti-phishing’ filter, but is known to slow down your surfing experience a little as sites you visit are checked by Microsoft’s servers for phishing attack dangers.
However IE7 and Firefox 2.0 have both been rated as only having partial success in detecting phishing sites, and as such have both earned a rating of ‘pretty terrible’ for anti-phishing prowess by us at Free Access (Tech.Blroge).
A new ‘user account control’ system tries to protect you from yourself, so you don’t accidentally make changes to important system settings without being warned first. However pressing the ‘ok’ button lets you do whatever you want anyway, and experienced users will just be annoyed. What did I do? I turned it off completely and am not bothered by it anymore. You’ll probably do the same, too.
Windows also has a new ‘randomization’ layer, which slightly changes the memory configuration of every Vista machine to make it harder for co-ordinated attacks to affect scores of machines at the same time.
Vista also has made protections to the ‘kernel’ or core of the operating system, with a protective measure known as ‘PatchGuard’, but this only extends to the 64-bit version of Vista, a version which most of us won’t be using for at least a couple of years. Most consumers will be using the 32-bit version of Vista which does not have ‘PatchGuard’ built-in.
HOME ENTERTAINMENT
XP: Windows XP has always been able to play mp3 and video files, CDs, DVDs (with third party software), streaming media files and other forms of digital media with relative ease over the years.
An updated version of Windows XP, known as the Media Center Edition upgraded the digital media experience of Windows, giving it a dedicated interface to watch, record and pause live TV, play photos, videos and music, listen to FM and online radio stations and more.
VISTA: Finally, the Media Center capabilities comes built-into most versions of Windows Vista aside from the basic, entry level version. It has also been enhanced over the previous version, although reviewers claim it has not received as much of an improvement as the rest of Windows has over previous versions.
Vista also plays most other forms of digital media through it’s own Windows Media Player software, with a whole host of competing media players available to download, many free of charge, from the Internet.
GRAPHICAL USER INTERFACE
XP: Ridiculed as being the ‘Fischer Price’ version of the Windows 2000 interface, Windows XP was still a fresh update upon its release 5 years ago. Today, however, will still perfectly functional, it is starting to look a little long in the tooth, with Apple’s Mac OS X offering Vista like graphics for several years already.
VISTA: Very cool looking 3D icons, transparent ‘glass’ windows and other lovely eye candy such as the ‘Flip 3D’ way of flipping through open windows. This new graphics system is called ‘Aero’. However this will require a graphics card with enough grunt.
Older laptops may not be able to support the full Aero graphics experience, and will default to a mode which looks similar but lacks most of the eye candy effects, such as the transparent windows and Flip 3D effect.
A system wide desktop search engine is built-into Vista and is fully activated. Interestingly XP has a similar function but it was never explained properly, with most people very familiar with XP’s annoyingly slow search capabilities. Vista’s built-in search is fast, like Google’s Desktop Search, and is great to have already built-in.
There’s also the ‘Sidebar’ which gives you access to downloadable mini programs and widgets to display images, the time, sports scores and other information at a glance, with lots of sidebar gadgets being written and on the way, especially so with the consumer launch on January 30th, 2007.
PARENTAL CONTROLS
XP: Without third party software, the parental controls in Windows XP were rather limited and really didn’t prevent children from visiting inappropriate sites on the Internet.
VISTA: Excellent parental controls are built-into Vista, mirroring the powerful features that today’s third party software offers to parents today. Parents have control over the sites their children visit, and are able to see every site they visit or tried to visit.
The software lets parents determine what times computer use is allowed, which games they play and software they run, and are able to track email messages and instant messages that their children send.
NETWORKING
XP: Unless you know what you’re doing, Microsoft’s ‘set up Wizard’ for wired and wireless networks could seemingly never be counted on to actually work, leading to many frustrations for people simply trying to network two or more computers together.
VISTA: A great deal of concerted effort has gone into making Vista the easiest operating system to network with others, especially other Vista systems, so that anyone, even without massive computing experience, can easily set up a wired or wireless network.
While that sounds positively delightful, does Mr Iemma really know what he is getting himself in for? To start with, the NSW Government has now decided it is going to be an Internet Service Provider to compete with publicly run companies.