Posted on 02/28/2008 10:57:49 PM PST by militem
Both HP and Dell have systems available with Vista Business that also have “downgrade” rights to Windows XP. It might cost you a little more than the typical Vista Home Premium machine but you’ll be able to have XP now and the ability to move to Vista in the future.
Hard Disk (C:) : 103.45GB (41.03GB, 40% Free Space) (NTFS) @ ST9120821AS 120GB (SATA150, 8MB Cache)Yeah, but the hard drive is a 5400RPM unit. That's standard issue speed for notebooks (you pay more to get 7200RPM), but it's not speedy enough to keep Vista being more of a pig than it already is. Unfortunately 10KRPM is unavailable in any notebook I've ever seen.
Make sure the Vista indexing features are turned off. Otherwise every disk operation is slower. Yeah, that's one of the features that differentiates Vista from XP (sort of), but it wasn't done right and so it's a pain to live with. Better to turn it off, IMO.
It came with the obligatory HP “Vista media pro” or something stupid like that.
I scraped it clean and installed a retail copy of Vista Ultimate, thinking that it would somehow help.
There was ALL kinds of garbage on this thing.
A feature that allowed me to listen to MP3s with the laptop *off*, for instance.
[like I don’t already have 3 iPods, numerous CD stereo systems, etc and *need* such a stupid “feature”]
It’s not the *system* that’s a dog....it runs like wildfire when freshly formatted.
As soon as you have to jump through hoops to install external drives, programs, etc, is when it simply craps out.
[I have turned off the “installation security” features and it made not one whit of difference.]
Vista just inexplicably “loses” things.
I’ve had my Photoshop CS3 just “go missing” from one day to the next.
Just ~gone~...’missing DLLs’ are the rule, not the exception and of all stupid things, 2Gs of RAM are “not enough” to backup my email and saved data when I get fed up enough to start the reformatting process over again.
[about every 3 months, here, lately]
No matter.
One way or another, I’ll force XP down this thing’s throat as soon as I have a day to devote to it...or kill it, trying.
It would be over and done with by now if I didn’t have 2 more art pieces to make for my dog breed club’s benefit auction.
There’s a deadline on those and I just don’t have a day to ‘waste” messing with this, right now.
It’s off, as are all of the other “safety” features.
I can take care of my own security and file management *without* MS holding my hand.
Google please release the GOS, so once and for all we can be done with windows.
Heh... Out of Google, Microsoft and Apple, I hate Google the least, so I’d probably get that, if they made it.
“so once and for all we can be done with windows.”
You all had a choice years ago. IBM’s OS/2 was a terrific Operating System. But The Press took Microsoft’s side in the OS Wars and IBM surrendered.
OS/2 still exists in the form of eComStation.
I have been using it since 1999.
Buy a ASUS Notebook from a local computer store. they can custom build it for you. Or you can send me a private email and I can have one built for you.
Dump windows. Go with Unbutu.
Hopefully you can figure how to USB install XP Pro on SATA drive with lockdown BIOS . Like some new HP computers the Phoenix BIOS you can’t change SATA mode to native IDE anymore. I had to build by command line slipstreaming the XP Pro SP1 install CD integrate with SP2 update plus AHCI driver and bunt it into bootable XP Pro SP2 install CD with AHCI driver. Without AHCI driver XP Pro won’t install. I simply carefully followed what I found in the Web.
Very true. I think this is the beginning of the end of the run.
I tried your Ubuntu 7-10 for desktop, the CD doesn’t wanna install for some reason.
Hmmmm. I’m assuming you partitioned your hard drive. Pose your question to tech/PC section. Many Wizards over there.
Maybe I’m a rarity, but I’ve had Vista Business running on 4 home systems (two laptops and two desktops, all 2-3 years old) for about 8 months now, and I haven’t had even one problem.
I never thought I’d say this, but I’m really happy with it.
Other posters here are correct - get the fastest non-built-in video card you can, along with Dual Core processor and lots of RAM (at least 2 GB) and you’ll be OK.
Don’t buy a Vista machine. I have a dual core desktop, slow slow slow, locks up all the time, my XP machien won’t see it on the network, etc etc etc.
Vista bites the big one.
Maybe I’m a rarity, but I’ve had Vista Business running on 4 home systems (two laptops and two desktops, all 2-3 years old) for about 8 months now, and I haven’t had even one problem.
I never thought I’d say this, but I’m really happy with it.
Other posters here are correct - get the fastest non-built-in video card you can, along with Dual Core processor and lots of RAM (at least 2 GB) and you’ll be OK.
My computer has an Ati chip and a Gig of RAM. Still sucks.
you should upgrade from Vista to XP — the latter runs up to 10% faster with the same hardware...
If it is to browse the Web, use Email and send and receive documents created with Office, Vista will serve you well and is significantly more secure.
If you plan on using older software that isn’t easy to update/replace then you’ll need to think hard. Numerous older programs written for 98/XP do not work correctly on Vista.
If you plan on playing real time high performance 3D games, Vista is slower than XP.
Vista has a nicer look. Has new tools/features and is more secure but has serious compatibility issues.
you should do a SHA1 or MD5 hash checksum on the CD (or DVD) to make sure it wasn’t corrupted when downloaded off the net (or during CD/DVD writing)... this is a very common problem depending on how good your ISP is...
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