When Will the Right Time Come for XP SP3 vs. Vista SP1?

By offering both Windows XP and Windows Vista concomitantly, Microsoft is catalyzing the comparison between the two Windows iterations. In this context, although Vista was introduced as the natural evolution from XP, the latest Windows client, barely one year old, is losing ground in the operating system measuring contest against its predecessor. There are, of course, multiple facets to the Vista vs. XP face-off, from market share, to the pace of adoption, to corporate uptake and to reliability, performance, look and feel, security, compatibility, support, etc. And simultaneously with the upcoming refreshes aimed at both operating systems, the time to compare Vista and XP comes yet again. Only that this time the focus will be on Windows XP Service Pack 3 and Windows Vista SP1.

But, when will it be the right time to draw the line on the two service packs and decide which one comes out on top? In November 2007, the Devil Mountain Sofware threw beta development milestones of the service packs against one another in the same arena. At that time, XP SP3 Beta outperformed both the Vista version that was released to manufacturing in 2006, and the Beta build of Vista SP1. The conclusion of the benchmarking tests seemed to be discouraging for the Vista users that were waiting for SP1, as Vista's first breath of fresh air after coma. Microsoft, through the voice of Product Manager Nick White, came out and disputed the finding of the tests, claiming that the comparison between beta versions of XP SP3 and Vista SP1 was irrelevant.

White's point was that the comparison should be done on the RTM builds of Vista SP1 and XP SP3. As far as Vista SP1 is concerned, Microsoft is preparing the final version in the first quarter of 2008. At the same time, the company offered confirmation that XP SP3 was also due in early 2008, rather than by the first half of the coming year. This points to a XP SP3 RTM vs. Vista SP1 RTM in the first quarter of 2008. And Microsoft is bound to get in on the action. A similar move from the Redmond company involved a comparison of XP SP2 and Vista RTM from back in November 2006, via a study commissioned to Principled Technologies.

The rough conclusions of the "Responsiveness of Windows Vista and Windows XP on Common Business Tasks" revealed an equivalence between the two operating systems. "Windows Vista was noticeably more responsive after rebooting than Windows XP on several common business operations. Overall, Windows Vista and Windows XP were roughly equally responsive on most test operations. Windows Vista was more responsive on some operations, and on those operations on which it was more responsive, Windows XP typically responded only a half a second or so faster. Windows Vista Aero had little effect on the responsiveness of Windows Vista. Over 95 percent of the response-time differences between tests we ran with and without Vista Aero were under a tenth of a second, and all of the differences were under one second", Principled Technologies claimed at the time.

Reading between the lines reveals the fact that Vista delivered almost nothing on top of XP, in terms of performance. Microsoft is bound to repeat the comparison of the two platforms, but this time featuring XP SP3 and Vista SP1. However, it will not be enough for the Redmond company to have a null match between Vista SP1 and XP SP3. This time around the first has to win over the latter at a score...