Comparison of Windows Vista and Windows XP

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This page is a comparison of Windows Vista and Windows XP . Windows XP and Windows Vista differ considerably in regards to their security architecture, networking technologies, management and administration, shell and user interface, and mobile computing. Windows XP has suffered criticism for security problems and issues with performance. Vista has received criticism for issues with performance and product activation. Another common criticism of Vista concerns the integration of new forms of DRM into the operating system, and User Account Control (UAC) security technology. [1] [2]

Contents

Compatibility

Windows Vista faces backward compatibility problems with many of the games and utility programs that work in Windows XP. As of August 2007, there were about 2,000 applications that specifically carried the 'Vista Compatibility Logo', [3] although the majority of applications without the logo will run without any problems. This number is low compared to the number of programs that were compatible with XP in 2007, either natively or under emulation.[ citation needed ]

Performance

Initial performance tests have demonstrated that Windows XP outperforms Vista in several productivity areas. [4] [5] File copy operations are speculated to be one area where Vista performs better than XP.[ clarification needed ] In a test run by CRN Test Center, 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.[ citation needed ] The Vista implementation of the file copy is arguably[ who? ] more complete and correct as the file does not register as being transferred until it has completely transferred; in Windows XP, the file completed dialogue box is displayed prior to the file actually finishing its copy or transfer, with the file completing after the dialogue is displayed. This can cause an issue if the storage device is ejected prior to the file being successfully transferred or copied in Windows XP due to the dialogue box's premature prompt.[ citation needed ]

Another test was performed by Tom's Hardware in January 2007. [6] 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 Desktop Window Manager (DWM) consumes more energy than Windows XP's window manager. All of the tests were performed on a computer with a 2.93 GHz Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 processor, 2× 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.

A paper evaluating the performance of Windows operating systems concluded that Windows Vista did not provide a better overall performance on the high-end computer system compared to Windows XP. Some performance improvements could be seen in memory management and graphics display, but other parts of OS have equal or lower performance than Windows XP. On a low-end computer system, Windows XP outperformed Windows Vista in most tested areas. Windows OS network performance depends on the packet size and used protocol. However, in general, Windows Vista compared to Windows XP shows better network performance particularly for the medium-sized packets. [7]

Security

Security was a top priority during Windows Vista development. In Windows XP, every user is set up as an administrator by default (unless added through Computer Management). As a result, most home users 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 large amount of existing software doesn't run well as a standard user, due to developers not implementing the principle of least privilege in their design and testing. For example, many poorly written applications often assume incorrectly that they will have read and write access to the entire filesystem and system Registry. [8] Denying such an application access to any of these assumed rights can cause the application to fail. Sometimes, a person logged on as a standard user under Windows XP can't perform user-specific tasks such as changing the system clock and calendar, changing the computer's time zone, or changing the computer's power management settings due to so-called "LUA (Least-Privilege User Account) bugs". [9] 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. Windows Vista is able to work around many LUA bugs in third-party applications with its file and Registry virtualisation feature, as well as application compatibility shims. Internet Explorer 7's Protected Mode 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 does not support Protected Mode on XP. Windows Vista also includes Windows Defender, a spyware scanning and removal tool that is also available for Windows XP for free. Enterprise and Ultimate editions of Windows Vista include BitLocker Drive Encryption, which aims to help protect data in the case of stolen devices.

Vista implements address space layout randomization, that makes it considerably more difficult for malicious code to exploit Return-to-libc attacks than on previous versions of Windows, particularly on 64-bit systems. Furthermore, Vista implements heap management enhancements that make it much more difficult to carry out buffer overflow attacks. [10]

64-bit editions of Windows Vista require all kernel-mode drivers to be digitally signed, initially making it difficult for rootkits to install until Alureon managed to overcome this obstacle in 2010 by subverting the master boot record.

The firewall in Vista has been rewritten, allowing both outbound as well as inbound traffic to be blocked. [11]

FeatureWindows XPWindows VistaWindows 7Windows 8.xWindows 10Windows 11
Windows Defender Available as a free download [12] YesYes (added antivirus capabilities, available in older versions as the Microsoft Security Essentials download)
Windows Firewall Yes
Windows Security Center Yes (starting with SP2)YesYes (replaced by Action Center)Yes (replaced by Security and Maintenance)
BitLocker Drive Encryption Only viewing contentsYes (Ultimate and Enterprise editions only)Yes (Pro and Enterprise editions only)Yes (Pro, Education and Enterprise editions only)
Parental controls Some (Internet Explorer allows parental control of web browsing)YesYes (replaced by Family Safety)
User Account Control NoYes
Data Execution Prevention Yes (starting with SP2)Yes

Shell and user interface

Visual styles

Luna is the default visual style in Windows XP. It is available in three color schemes: Blue (default), Olive Green, and Silver. Windows XP Media Center Edition comes with Royale as the default theme.

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 compatible graphics card, with a WDDM driver, DirectX 9 support and 32-bit color; otherwise, Windows Vista is displayed using the "Windows Vista Basic" visual style.

See also

Related Research Articles

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In computing, the superuser is a special user account used for system administration. Depending on the operating system (OS), the actual name of this account might be root, administrator, admin or supervisor. In some cases, the actual name of the account is not the determining factor; on Unix-like systems, for example, the user with a user identifier (UID) of zero is the superuser, regardless of the name of that account; and in systems which implement a role based security model, any user with the role of superuser can carry out all actions of the superuser account. The principle of least privilege recommends that most users and applications run under an ordinary account to perform their work, as a superuser account is capable of making unrestricted, potentially adverse, system-wide changes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Windows 7</span> Microsoft computer operating system released in 2009

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The Encrypting File System (EFS) on Microsoft Windows is a feature introduced in version 3.0 of NTFS that provides filesystem-level encryption. The technology enables files to be transparently encrypted to protect confidential data from attackers with physical access to the computer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Windows Registry</span> Database for Microsoft Windows

The Windows Registry is a hierarchical database that stores low-level settings for the Microsoft Windows operating system and for applications that opt to use the registry. The kernel, device drivers, services, Security Accounts Manager, and user interfaces can all use the registry. The registry also allows access to counters for profiling system performance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Architecture of Windows NT</span> Overview of the architecture of the Microsoft Windows NT line of operating systems

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Windows Vista</span> Personal computer operating system by Microsoft released in 2007

Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, which was released five years earlier, at the time being the longest time span between successive releases of Microsoft's Windows desktop operating systems. Development was completed on November 8, 2006, and over the following three months, it was released in stages to computer hardware and software manufacturers, business customers, and retail channels. On January 30, 2007, it was released internationally and made available for purchase and download from the Windows Marketplace; this is the first release of Windows to be made available through a digital distribution platform.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">User Account Control</span> Security software

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Windows Vista contains a range of new technologies and features that are intended to help network administrators and power users better manage their systems. Notable changes include a complete replacement of both the Windows Setup and the Windows startup processes, completely rewritten deployment mechanisms, new diagnostic and health monitoring tools such as random access memory diagnostic program, support for per-application Remote Desktop sessions, a completely new Task Scheduler, and a range of new Group Policy settings covering many of the features new to Windows Vista. Subsystem for UNIX Applications, which provides a POSIX-compatible environment is also introduced.

In computing on Microsoft platforms, WoW64 is a subsystem of the Windows operating system capable of running 32-bit applications on 64-bit Windows. It is included in all 64-bit versions of Windows—including Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, IA-64 and x64 versions of Windows Server 2003, as well as x64 versions of Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Server 2012, Windows 8.1, Windows 10, Windows Server 2016, Windows Server 2019, and Windows 11, as well as ARM64 versions of Windows 10, Windows 11 and Windows Server 2022, except in Windows Server Server Core where it is an optional component, and Windows Nano Server where it is not included. WoW64 aims to take care of many of the differences between 32-bit Windows and 64-bit Windows, particularly involving structural changes to Windows itself.

References

  1. ↑ Fisher, Ken (2008-04-11). "Vista's UAC security prompt was designed to annoy you". Ars Technica. Retrieved 2022-09-11.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  2. ↑ Pietroforte, Michael (2006-10-10). "Windows Vista Activation really is a mess". 4sysops.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  3. ↑ LeBlanc, Brandon (August 28, 2007). "Windows Vista Service Pack 1 Beta White Paper". Windows Vista Blog. Archived from the original on September 2, 2007. Retrieved February 3, 2023.
  4. ↑ XP outperforms Vista in benchmark test Archived 2008-03-15 at the Wayback Machine , CNET
  5. ↑ XP outperforms Vista in benchmark test, ChannelWeb
  6. ↑ Windows XP vs. Vista: The Benchmark Rundown: Is Windows Vista Faster Than XP?, Tom's Hardware
  7. ↑ Martinovic, Goran; Balen, Josip; Cukic, Bojan (2012). "Performance Evaluation of Recent Windows Operating Systems". Journal of Universal Computer Science. 18 (2): 218–263. doi: 10.3217/jucs-018-02-0218 .
  8. ↑ UAC - What. How. Why., Channel9
  9. ↑ Aaron Margosis (August 2006). "Problems of Privilege: Find and Fix LUA Bugs". Microsoft.
  10. ↑ Adrian Marinescu (2006-08-03). "Windows Vista Heap Management Enhancements" (PDF). Microsoft . Retrieved 2008-10-10.
  11. ↑ "What's New in Windows Firewall with Advanced Security".
  12. ↑ Windows Defender, Microsoft
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