Windows Vista Premium

[amigaksi]

>Technically what is wrong with it? Please just do not say it >sucks.
>Thanks.
>
>Edit: 17:05 ***********
>I guess that there are as many opinions as there are hardware >manufacturers.

If you are asking from hardware point of view, it would depend on the hardware you install Vista, XP or any other OS on.  Why settle for opinions, when you can benchmark the hardware I/O for yourself.  Here's results I got with running a peripheral simulation task that uses I/O transfers more than non I/O 80x86 instructions (mainly LPT port):

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320189144289

Compaq Armada 1120 w/16MB running Windows 3.11: 1.2MB/second
Toshiba 460CDT w/32MB running Windows 3.11: 1.5MB/second
Toshiba 460CDT w/32MB running Win98SE: 1.1MB/second
Tecra 8000-366Mhz w/128MB running Windows 3.11: 1MB/second
Tecra 8000-366Mhz w/128MB running Windows 98SE: 960KB/second
Tecra 8000-366Mhz w/128MB running Windows XP: 930KB/second
Tecra 8000-366Mhz w/128MB running Vista (can't install it-- not enough memory-- probably does not support 366Mhz)
HP Ze1000 1.3Ghz w/512MB running WinXP: 560KB/second

The more software layers/drivers/protection you put on top of the hardware, the worse the performance.

[amigaksi]

By "more I/O transfers", I meant spends more time in I/O transfers than in executing non-I/O 80x86 instructions.  So, it won't make a difference whether you are running dual-core or 1000-core processor if the I/O bus is a bottleneck, the Toshiba 460CDT w/Win3.11 will kill it in performance.  And on the same hardware running various OSes, the software layers/drivers/protection will make the difference in performance.

[amigaksi]

>Without analysis of the methods used to communicate with the >para port in this software which you ran on two completely >different operating systems makes this benchmark a waste of >time and the results irrelevant.

The software used to communicate with the parallel port is the same-- MPDOS Pro available with floppy simulator or other link I gave:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320189136265

It uses assembly language instructions IN AL,DX and OUT DX,AL not high level languages.  You can try running the MPDOS Pro yourself on various operatings systems and see the results for yourself.  It works on Windows 3.x, Win 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP.  Vista too if they did not screw things too badly in creating upgrade for XP.

If you want to try without MPDOS, run the DEBUG program in the command prompt and try the following sample code:

Mov DX,378
DB 66
Mov CX,0
DW 1000
In AL,DX
DB 66
Dec CX
Jnz 109
Int 3

Use your wrist watch to time the above code which does 256MB of IN instructions.  You can similarly do other port addresses or OUT instruction.  378h is the port address for all the machines I mentioned.  The above code will work in DOS box for Windows 3.11, Windows 95/98/ME.  For 2000/XP, you will first have to disable I/O port trapping for the parallel port else you'll get much worse results than those I gave.

The IN/OUT instructions for reading/writing bytes is the same in 16-bit or 32-bit modes so it does not change when you switch OSes being discussed.