[Samurai]

Originally Posted by aaggoswami

I would love to see more light being shed on reasons why assembled machines and XP machines must not be upgraded to Vista.

Because your PC configuration won't be Vista certified. Vista is an extremely complex software, if you build your PC like building Jeeps from scrapyard, Vista is bound to crash and burn. In such cases you better stick with XP.

[romyeo4u]

Originally Posted by Samurai

Because your PC configuration won't be Vista certified. Vista is an extremely complex software, if you build your PC like building Jeeps from scrapyard, Vista is bound to crash and burn. In such cases you better stick with XP.

I have an assembled machine, it works perfect for me

@aggoswami - you can try removing all the RAM except 1 GB stick and install Vista - if not remove the Graphics card - try. should work,I'm sure that the Vista DVD you got works fine on other computers.

[HappyWheels]

Originally Posted by romyeo4u

I have an assembled machine, it works perfect for me

@aggoswami - you can try removing all the RAM except 1 GB stick and install Vista - if not remove the Graphics card - try. should work,I'm sure that the Vista DVD you got works fine on other computers.

As long as the system, assembled or off-the-shelf, meets the specification, it will run. I had run Vista Ultimate in my dad's assembled PC, which was running XP, for a month before I reverted.

@Aggoswami, there is definitely something wrong with one or more components in your assembly. Maybe Vista is doing an extra piece of check which XP does not and hence failing. Your case certainly is an exception, a strange one, that too.

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by romyeo4u

I have an assembled machine, it works perfect for me.

Originally Posted by HappyWheels

As long as the system, assembled or off-the-shelf, meets the specification, it will run.

An assembled PC will run, just like any rebuilt Jeep/car. But don't expect bullet proof reliability. The branded PCs are engineered and undergo a battery of punishing tests to ensure every component works reliably with each other under severe conditions. People who are familiar with electronic equipment manufacturing would be familiar with this. Otherwise, every street side mechanic would competing with Maruti and Tata in selling cars.

[aaggoswami]

Originally Posted by Samurai

Because your PC configuration won't be Vista certified. Vista is an extremely complex software, if you build your PC like building Jeeps from scrapyard, Vista is bound to crash and burn. In such cases you better stick with XP.

Yes, but then I think my hardware was more than capable of handling these. My graphics card ( no on board graphics on my mobo ) is vista certified ( I know there are two things, Vista Capable and Vista Ready ), processor of course can take the load, Ram I dont know, but same ram on G33 mobo runs vista like a dream.

Yes I am sticking to XP as of now.

Originally Posted by romyeo4u

I have an assembled machine, it works perfect for me

@aggoswami - you can try removing all the RAM except 1 GB stick and install Vista - if not remove the Graphics card - try. should work,I'm sure that the Vista DVD you got works fine on other computers.

Generally all of my friends have assembled PC as we get what we want. All of them are running vista easily, but I am exception now, dont know why.

I have tried all the ram combination and all the regular BIOS stuff, disconnecting the network cable, etc., but still no success.

Originally Posted by HappyWheels

@Aggoswami, there is definitely something wrong with one or more components in your assembly. Maybe Vista is doing an extra piece of check which XP does not and hence failing. Your case certainly is an exception, a strange one, that too.

Yes, actually the Windows 7 Beta was also not installing. Even Fedora 10 and Ubuntu are not installing and even if I manage to install them with more than one tries, they eventually give kernal panic error when I try to boot up them.

Originally Posted by Samurai

An assembled PC will run, just like any rebuilt Jeep/car. But don't expect bullet proof reliability. The branded PCs are engineered and undergo a battery of punishing tests to ensure every component works reliably with each other under severe conditions. People who are familiar with electronic equipment manufacturing would be familiar with this. Otherwise, every street side mechanic would competing with Maruti and Tata in selling cars.

Now it looks like you are right. Right from day one of my final semester project, the assemebled PCs in our team are giving problem. But those which are barnded are running fine. The branded PC are running DDR1 RAM 512 + 128 MB, but stilll that damm machine is as fast as mine. Very very reliable machine as compared to mine, but in my case I can OC ( took ram to 400 MHZ operating freq as compared to 323 in FSB : DRAM ratio of 1.66. I took that to 1:2 ). I can also OC and mess up with anything I want.

The downside is that I lose compatibility with new gen OS.

One word of advice. If you dont have hardware that can take stress of OC, dont OC it. I have messed up with CPU, graphics card and RAM and I am sure about this now. I had dynet ram and I took it to level for which it was not designed. CPU OC is best avoided on stock cooler at least in case of AMD. Just wanted to warn anyone who would try to extract that last drop of performance only to lose it all eventually.

I think that this OC has also done damage to mobo and hence I am not able to install ubuntu/fedora/vista/windows 7 beta.

[mustang89]

Originally Posted by StarScream

That was my thought process too - I quite like XP, works very well.
What I meant by extras was, for example, Dell machines store an image/copy of the OS in a separate partition for recovery purposes. Not a big deal but nonetheless.


Also, Im worried about the fact that I don't have a clean XP install CD, it is an upgrade from Win2K. Will that cause problems?
One more thing. If you have a personal copy of XP can you install it on a personal desktop and laptop or does Microsoft expect you to buy it twice?

The extra partition is nothing but a burden on the space.If ur computer gets formatted it just goes away.And i have no idea about the upgrade causing problems but as far as the xp cd is concerned i have used the same disk on mine as well as my brother's laptop and there have been no issues so far.so i guess you dont need to buy them again and again.

[anupmathur]

The extra partition for restore is an option, IIRC.
What is the point of a restore if it gets you back to virgin, factory setup condition?
All that YOU want and installed goes away!

Best is to not bother too much with this lame feature!
Set up your machine the way you want and create an image of your C drive with third party software like Acronis.
Store all your important data in another partition. In fact, set My Documents to another partition too!

[vivekiny2k]

Originally Posted by mustang89

The extra partition is nothing but a burden on the space.If ur computer gets formatted it just goes away.

what do you mean computer is formatted? it's a partition that's formatted, and you should not format your recovery drive.

Originally Posted by anupmathur

The extra partition for restore is an option, IIRC.
What is the point of a restore if it gets you back to virgin, factory setup condition?
All that YOU want and installed goes away!

Best is to not bother too much with this lame feature!
Set up your machine the way you want and create an image of your C drive with third party software like Acronis.
Store all your important data in another partition. In fact, set My Documents to another partition too!

well, the recovery partition is just an alternative to the DVD, you need 3 DVDs or a dozen of CDs to create OS installation disks for vista. I would rather have 10 GB of my HDD reserved than having to deal with the DVDs and be worried I might find a scratch years later when i need to reinstall vista.

system restore is not the intended purpose of that partition.

[anupmathur]

Originally Posted by vivekiny2k

system restore is not the intended purpose of that partition.

I would imagine it very much is!
Re-install of drivers or programs or the entire Windows partition; all are taken care of from here.

I tend to agree about the DVDs. Not a reliable enough medium! In fact I prefer CDs!

What I do is get rid of the factory settings files and partition, after my machine is tuned to my needs. Then create an Acronis safe zone and hold my C drive image in that. Ideally it would also be on another physical HDD, but for a laptop that option is not available.

[vivekiny2k]

Originally Posted by anupmathur

I would imagine it very much is!
Re-install of drivers or programs or the entire Windows partition; all are taken care of from here.

if I understand "system restore" right, i.e. restoring to a previous point, say 2 days earlier, then it is not.

it is just like what you would do with an install DVD/CD. reinstall windows afresh.

in fact if you elect to do a system restore, the recovery manager exits and opens the system restore panel.

EDIT: Here's what I found out today. HP ships it's systems with a special MBR which can redirect to recovery manager if I press F11 at boot. Because I overwrote the MBR while installing linux, I not only lost that functionality, I also lost the recovery disk creation capability.

I was finally able to get the recovery boot disk from microsft which can use the recovery partition for a reinstall, but recovery DVDs are still a distant dream.

[anupmathur]

Originally Posted by vivekiny2k

if I understand "system restore" right, i.e. restoring to a previous point, say 2 days earlier, then it is not.

it is just like what you would do with an install DVD/CD. reinstall windows afresh.

in fact if you elect to do a system restore, the recovery manager exits and opens the system restore panel.

Vivek, that recovery partition does not do the job of 'Go Back'. It is meant only for full recovery of the system drive. Also, if a driver goes missing or gets corrupted, Windows will automatically fetch it from there. Any OEM programs that need it, will also get re-installed from that partition.

Restoring to an earlier date or to a chosen system restore point can be done with the native feature in XP.

[GTO]

3 weeks up, lotsa hours logged on Vista and my opinion has only gotten more positive. In fact, I like Vista so much that I even threw away the XP drivers cd that I got made for my laptop. Added advantage : I am now as familiar with the workings / controls / customisations of Vista as of XP. The comfort level is identical.

No hanging up, no network problems, no bugs noticed yet....the ride has been smooth sailing thus far. Opera froze once, but I don't know whether it was due to Vista or the Opera software itself.

Thumbs up!

Originally Posted by GTO

I just had to put in a note on my experience with Vista. Here goes:

I had been a Vista hater. Until the last week. I had only seen Vista on my li'l brother’s laptop & that of a coupla friends. While the graphics were nice, I didn't think too much of Vista since all the computers I tried it on were running SLOW, despite a decent 2 GB of RAM.

A Dell XPS Laptop rolled into my house earlier this month. It's only going to be used on evenings, weekends and travels. Unfortunately (or so I thought), while my Dell work desktop (bought last year) came with an optional downgrade to XP, this laptop didn't. A little google'ing and a quick call to Iraghava confirmed that XP could be made to run successfully on the XPS. But locating & installing the drivers was going to be a royal pain (this one has the works....fingerprint, bluetooth, cam etc. etc.). Iraghava promised to courier me a cd containing all the relevant drivers, so we were pretty much set.

Not too many of us can resist the urge to play with a new tech toy, correct? I figured, while the driver cd was on the way, why not use Vista and get some work done on the weekend? I performed a clean install, got rid of all the bloatware and only installed the absolute must-have softwares. Thanks to Samurai, I realised that all of my vital softwares (designed to work on XP) would work on Vista as well (cross-checked with other users and used compatibility mode).

Confession: The more I started using Vista, the more I took a liking for it. Confession: I am impressed! I don't know if the latest service packs have increased Vistas response time, but the laptop is pretty darn quick. It's running on a Core2Duo 2.0 with 3 GB of RAM compared to my XP workstation running on a Core2Duo with 4 GB of RAM. Honestly, the difference between the two is 5 - 8%. Tops. Vista feels much better to use, thanks to the awesome graphics. Plus, my anti-virus doesn’t seem to be working as hard as it does on XP.
In a nutshell:

Pros
- Much improved over the earlier versions. Naysayers ought to try it again.
- Awesome graphical UI. The windows experience feels much richer.
- More secure.
- Higher level of customisation & control panel options.
- All softwares come with Vista compatible versions

Cons
- Takes some getting used to. As an XP convert, I can tell you that the first couple of hours weren’t as productive.
- As quick as the Vista is running on my laptop, XP would definitely run faster.

As you can tell, I have cancelled all XP downgrade plans for my home laptop

[amitoj]

I have vista on a 2GB ram, core 2 duo 1.8Gig blah blah cpu. C drive is 20GB. I've installed most of the programs on D drive though. There is nothing unusual in the set of programs i have. The top two "heavy" programs i can think of are 1. a convert-to-dvd-format program, and 2. image processing software. Both are on D drive.

But, of late, vista has been complaining that i am running out of disk space on C drive. Why? Because the C:\Windows\Winsxs folder is taking up most of the disk space!! This is what this folder has:

The Winsxs folder, stores multiple copies of dll's in order to let multiple applications run in Windows without any compatibility problem

Brilliant!! I cant delete this folder's contents without risking uncertain behaviour.

It is this WinSxS folder which stores the shared components of side-by-side applications. These files can be multiple versions of the same assembly or application.

Source: The Secret Of Vista's Winsxs Folder.

Just search for winsxs folder on google and you will see how many people are suffering from it now. Its size does not reduce when you uninstall programs. Even if you install programs in D drive, the dlls go here. So, it is just a matter of time before you start getting disk space issues too.

Welcome to Win-duh-ooz.

Hmm, come to think of it, they have named the folder winsxs quite appropriately. It is short for Windows Sucks.

[vikram_d]

Originally Posted by amitoj

Even if you install programs in D drive, the dlls go here. So, it is just a matter of time before you start getting disk space issues too.

This has been the case with almost all versions of windows since windows 98 I think. The DLL's are always installed on C: (the OS drive).

[amitoj]

Originally Posted by vikram_d

This has been the case with almost all versions of windows since windows 98 I think. The DLL's are always installed on C: (the OS drive).

Yeah but not with multiple copies.