Windows Vista Discussion Thread

[Mugen_Power]

Originally Posted by Mugen_Power

Today i installed Vista Ultimate and i got score of 4.5. I used it for half day it is running smoothly.

Its around one month now.. and it is working smoothly till now..

[akshay1234]

Originally Posted by Mugen_Power

Its around one month now.. and it is working smoothly till now..

well mine has hung only once since feb.

[vikram_d]

@magma - Just note down the models of all the hardware on your laptop and go to their respective websites where you can get all the drivers for XP.

[Magma]

Originally Posted by vikram_d

@magma - Just note down the models of all the hardware on your laptop and go to their respective websites where you can get all the drivers for XP.

is it really that simple vikramji?
has anybody tried this .
i was under the impression that the sony laptops give a huge problem when the OS is removed

i guess i can try running a dual OS and see
what say vikramji?

[vikram_d]

Yes it really is that simple. Worked very well when I did it for my uncle's Vaio laptop and he wanted to upgrade to Vista.

Also worked very well with my HP TX series laptop. But in my case HP was kind enough to give me drivers for 64bit Win Vista. A few of the drivers on the HP website had bugs or were not the latest ones. So for those went to the respective company websites and got the latest drivers.

Yes you can first try with a dual OS system and if eveything works correctly then you shift to Win XP.

[Sankar]

Originally Posted by Magma

is it really that simple vikramji?
has anybody tried this .
i was under the impression that the sony laptops give a huge problem when the OS is removed

i guess i can try running a dual OS and see
what say vikramji?

Nope it is not that simple.

Hardware manufacturers don't provide XP drivers for most of their new hardware. If you have a new laptop and you're switching from Vista to XP you'll have a lot of trouble finding the correct XP drivers or the drivers that actually work in XP. Some Vista32 drivers would be supported in XP and most won't work.

I bought a Com V3611AU without any OS and i had a hard time finding the drivers for XP. Compaq doesn't provide them on their site. I went to the website of each vendor and still didn't get the drivers. Then i did a lot of search on the online tech forums and finally i collected and installed every single driver except the IR driver.

[Thad E Ginathom]

Here is a superb article on how impressive an upgrade XP is for Vista sufferers!

If Vista was a film, it would have flopped by now: but imagine if you could not avoid buying a copy with every TV or DVD player you bought.

OEM sales seem to be the only thing keeping Vista alive, and it seems to have seriously affected new PC sales even.

Because of OEM sales and eventual withdrawn support, MS will, eventually, flood the market with it.

[amitoj]

Well, no surprises there, PCWorld has declared Vista as the Biggest Tech Disappointment
PC World - The 15 Biggest Tech Disappointments of 2007

"Five years in the making and this is the best Microsoft could do?" LOL

The article also rates the iPhone as number 5 in the list but thats mainly because of the crappy AT&T service it comes packaged with in US.

[vikram_d]

Originally Posted by Sankar

Nope it is not that simple.

Hardware manufacturers don't provide XP drivers for most of their new hardware. If you have a new laptop and you're switching from Vista to XP you'll have a lot of trouble finding the correct XP drivers or the drivers that actually work in XP. Some Vista32 drivers would be supported in XP and most won't work.

I bought a Com V3611AU without any OS and i had a hard time finding the drivers for XP. Compaq doesn't provide them on their site. I went to the website of each vendor and still didn't get the drivers. Then i did a lot of search on the online tech forums and finally i collected and installed every single driver except the IR driver.

Every piece of new hardware being manufactured will have XP support for atleast another year or so. Show me one piece of new hardware for which you dont have XP drivers. Vista is not even a year old as of now and no manufacturer will remove XP support so early.

The problem you faced might be because you did not know exactly what hardware was there since it came without any OS. Did compaq give you a list of hardware installed on the laptop along with it?

[Thad E Ginathom]

... That in itself would be a step backwards.

Surely you'd have to have some very obscure stuff for XP not to recognise and probably have the drivers already.

But the thing is, I really don't care about stuff like that. It is absolutely not relevant to me whether Vista supports my hardware now, next year or in five years time. I'm not going to use it because I hated the experience.

Windows Vista, Office 2007.... No thanks. Don't like; Don't want. Its that simple!

And I'm certainly not going to buy a better machine, or even upgrade this one, to run something that has no appeal .

[GTO]

Windows Vista, Office 2007.... No thanks. Don't like; Don't want. Its that simple!

Likewise; my new IBM Laptop came with a Vista Business licence. Reloaded XP Pro on it already and much happier.

[HappyWheels]

Got myself Vista ultimate 8 months back from the MS store but have held back installing due to the "stability" (couuughhh...) and its issues with most of the software that I have got used to (eg.Nero!).

Hoping that SP1 will be a move in the right direction.

[Sankar]

Originally Posted by vikram_d

Every piece of new hardware being manufactured will have XP support for atleast another year or so. Show me one piece of new hardware for which you dont have XP drivers. Vista is not even a year old as of now and no manufacturer will remove XP support so early.

The problem you faced might be because you did not know exactly what hardware was there since it came without any OS. Did compaq give you a list of hardware installed on the laptop along with it?

I still couldn't find the XP/working driver for the Fast IR port in my laptop

Well, the XP drivers for my machine is not provided by Compaq on their website except for the wifi and couple of other utilities. The vendor sites also doesnt provide specific drivers for the hardware present in my laptop. What they provide is a generic driver which will work with my hardware.

And when it comes to sound card the sound card doesn't 'even' get detected in my machine when i boot it up. To install the sound card i had to first install the Microsoft Universal Audio Architecture drivers. I didn't get this MS UAA from compaq website.. i went to MS website and they asked me to pay $125 (lols hahaha) for whatever reasons before i can download the driver. So asked around in the tech forums and a kind soul told me that i can get one meant for another HP model through a HP site and it may or may not work. I downloaded it and installed it and it worked. After that i downloaded the sound card drivers meant for an older Compaq model and installed it in the machine and now i can listen to music. For the modem I'm using a Vista32 driver and it works, for nvidia nforce chipset also i'm using Vista32 driver. For the Ricoh car reader i'm using one meant for an older model.



Compaq didn't give me the list of hardware, except some basic things like chipset, graphics, wifi; but it isn't hard to find out from the internet what hardware i have inside the machine.

[Thad E Ginathom]

It's like test-driving a car that, after five minutes, you know you do not want. No amount of discussing the specification will change your mind.

I test drove it and I know I do not want it.

Now... both my PC and my laptop are Compaq pre-loads, with a system restore disc. I don't think that is installable on another machine. Damn MS... the first time I ever saw a sticker on a PC box, I said that's it: they're going to make us buy the sodding thing again and again and again every time we get a new machine....

[iTNerd]

Agreed that Vista has some issues with third party softwares/drivers, but eventually, it is going to be the de facto OS from Microsoft (havin spend 5-6 billions on its development). And like it or not, most corporates have already started implementing in mass on Vista, the primary reason, being that Microsoft will soon end support for Windows XP and there might not be a SP3 in fact. Also, starting with Vista SP1 and within 1-2 years ahead, most issues on Vista (hardware, software, drivers etc) will have worked out and eventually, will be more stable and productive.