Windows XP Professional vs Windows Vista Business

NOTE: I don't want opinions, I want facts.

I need to compare these two operating systems but I found little info on the following:

1. File systems supported and their characteristics.

I know XP Professional supports FAT and NTFS but I don't know which one Vista supports and what's the difference between their applications.

2. Security support on an operating system level. This has to do with the procedures and mechanisms that allow to guarantee that access to a resource is regulated.(who? what?)

3. Support tools of each operating system on a user level.

4. Compatibility with previous versions.

1. I know Vista uses NTFS normally, and I'm sure it can use FAT as well. Vista's NTFS allows for symbolic links and transactional NTFS and XP's does not, if that matters to you.

2. UAC was supposed to address security, but it seems mostly to have annoyed users. :-\

3. Support tools? I think Vista comes with some antispyware thing, if that's the kind of thing you mean.

4. Not too sure about compatibility, but in general things that worked on XP should work on Vista.

This is coming from someone who's never used Vista.

1. Windows XP supports FAT32 (On smaller drives) and NTFS, while Vista only supports NTFS

2. User Access Control was supposed to solve this, again what Spaz said, this irritated them (including me. [Also, some very old programs cannot run with this enabled.])

3. Vista comes with Windows Defender and an improved Security Center

4. Some of the older things that worked on XP work horribly on Vista (Outlook 2000 for instance, MapleStory at Zak, etc.)

Windows 7 solves all those issues except the UAC, which is still as irritating as before.

4. Not too sure about compatibility, but in general things that worked on XP should work on Vista.

What about XP compatibility with older OS's?

Also, when I say support tools I mean:

Defrag tools, net, ipconfig, things like that. So little info on those. <_<

TKWizard, are you sure Vista only supports NTFS?

XP > Vista
trust me, i have experience. all these people in work always come complaining to me that they bought a new computer with vista and they didnt know how hard it sucks.

I am not asking for opinions. I am looking for technical details on each operating system so that I can write a paper about it.

oh sure than.
1.vista supports only NTFS, while XP supports NTFS and FAT32 (but it doesnt really matter unless you are trying to use some seriously old things).

2.Vista annoys you to death with the UAC notes. i dont really know if it provides any extra security, maybe only for people who dont understand what are they running.
also, windows defender is a freeware, you can download it with xp from microsoft's site. but i personally think its not worth it, a good antivirus is better. vista is also newer than xp, so there might be more security holes in it.

3.i dont think vista has any special tools in it, besides windows media center or whatever its called, but i heard very few feedbacks on this one.

4.AFAIK Vista has some serious compatability problems with software designed for XP or older versions of windows.

by the way, vista SP2's beta is already out and i heard it has some really nice improvements, mainly bugfixings, supporting Blu-ray burning and easier Wi-Fi and bluetooth connections.

oh also, you might want to mention DirectX 10 which is only supported on vista will be very helpful for gamers.

My (not business) computer had Power Shell pre-installed (which has more Unix like commands). So that is always a plus?