New laptop questions...............

[dkryan]

My understanding is some laptop manufacturers offer Windows XP "downgrade" with certain laptops that have Vista pre-installed.

Is there anything negative about going this route in terms of the O/S running consistently and without any conflicts?

 

[StevieC]

I got VISTA on my new Toshiba laptop which I purchased just before Christmas and I haven't had any problems with it. Microsoft Operating systems are just problematic once they are first released. Now that VISTA has been out a while and been patched with hot-fixes and service packs it's quite stable from my experiences...

I wouldn't go the Downgrade route, especially with the release of Windows 7 coming, and support for XP stopping in the next year or so.

Trust me, VISTA isn't so bad once you have used it a bit, and is quite stable now, unlike the MAC commercials make it out to be.

 

[Nyquist]

I've had Vista for nearly 3 years now--back to the beta days. It has come a long way. Once you get off the erroneous [censored] that comes with the PC, Vista is actually a decent OS. It just doesn't like old and outdated hardware.

If you do have some old peripherals, many manufacturers now have work-arounds to get those devices to work. My 9-year-old HP printer works nicely with Vista and even Windows 7.

 

[Bill in Utah]

My new Dell Vostro 1400 and 220C both have the downgrade.

So far, I've been pretty happy with Vista. 4 gig in both machines and they rock.

My other Vostro 1400 has the same processor and memory (and extra graphics card) and I can not see ANY performance difference.

Bill

 

[youdontwannaknow]

as long as you have a dual core cpu and atleast 2G ram, which by the way is 'basic' configuration in even a $398 laptop nowadays, Vista will not be an issue.

 

[VK56VD]

XP is considered more stable.

 

[StevieC]

After the experiences I have had with Vista over the past year and just recently with my new laptop I would disagree and say they are both equal now...

I spend a lot of time on this Laptop as I work from home and on the road with it all day...

 

[LoneRanger]

MS extended the lifespan of Xp through to early summer 2009 I think. They keep extending it when the deadline nears, because so many users, especially business, are still nervous about Vista's buggy rep.

 

[MONKEYMAN]

My Toshiba laptop purchased before Christmas has not had one hiccup running Vista. Late last Spring I purchased an Acer desktop running Vista. I experimented with dual boot withXP, then gave up and put XP on a separate drive. I went back to Vista since it seemed to do fine unless I wanted to run my Clie. Palm was slow to develop software compatible with Vista. So, if you can run the things you need, I would keep Vista. It keeps getting better and some features are nicer then on XP (like searching for files).

 

[wcbcruzer]

I would downgrade to XP if the laptop is a little slower and only comes with Vista because that's the new thing on the market.

 

[Lyondellic]

Vista is not a bad OS, especially since new patches are being released on a regular basis that improve its overall performance. Vista SP2 is due to be released within the 1st half of 2009, which should further improve performance. With the above being said, I would wait until July 2009 to buy a new computer if possible. Computers bought during/after July 2009 will be eligible for a free upgrade to Windows 7. I have been using the Windows 7 Beta as my primary OS for ~2 weeks and it rocks. Much less of a memory hog and more responsive than Vista. The UAC is configurable and there are many other nice features. It takes less than 5 minutes to defrag an 80gb HDD on my Dell D630 notebook using Windows 7. Boot time is less than 25 seconds too!

 

[Buffman]

I D/L windows 7. I'm getting really anxious to try it out. Lyon compared to XP how is it on memory useage? I'm running a 4yr old system (Althon XP 2500+ oc'd to 3200+, 1.5gb ddr400, 120gb HD, 128mb GF4 card)that's not anything special. Wondering if it's worth the effort to throw W7.

 

[dkryan]

So the lineage is XP/Vista/Windows 7?

And what is "UAC...."

And my Quicken 2008 and every other piece of my "designed for XP/Vista" software ain't gonna be happy with "...7?"

 

[Lyondellic]

Originally Posted By: Buffman
I D/L windows 7. I'm getting really anxious to try it out. Lyon compared to XP how is it on memory useage? I'm running a 4yr old system (Althon XP 2500+ oc'd to 3200+, 1.5gb ddr400, 120gb HD, 128mb GF4 card)that's not anything special. Wondering if it's worth the effort to throw W7.


Those specs will work fine for Windows 7, but I would upgrade from 1.5gb of memory to at least 2gb to 4gb given how cheap memory is these days. The GF4 card will be the limiting factor IMHO. You can purchase a Sapphire Radeon HD 3850 (AGP interface) for ~$129 from Newegg.

On an unrelated subject, I am running 2gb of Corsair 2 latency memory along with a P4 2.6ghz O/C to 3ghz on my son's XP gaming rig. It has 4 WD Raptors in Raid 0 on an Abit IC7 Max3 and the AGP Sapphire HD 3850 graphics card. It works great for all but the very latest games.

 

[Buffman]

I'll have to check, but it's very possible this mobo is limited to either 1.5 or 2gb of ram. I'll have to double check. Either the CPU or the Mobo is showing it's age. I had originally purchased a newer AGP GFX card to use to play Hitman Blood Money (xmas present from my gf ((Now wife)) at the time). I don't know if the card was defective (acted strange in another system), but it was doing weird things. Ended up sending it back. I'd rather not buy much for this system, as I'm planning something new in the coming months. Just wanted to tinker with W7

Matt

 

[OVERKILL]

What you have is enough to tinker. Just don't expect optimum performance. If you don't game, that video card is more than adequate for the desktop effects stuff used by Vista and W7.