If you're in college or have a friend who is, they can probably go to their college bookstore and get you a new copy of XP for dirt cheap. I would get all of the drivers first before I wiped the machine.
I recently upgraded my home computer to windows 2K pro ~ the results have been astounding. Suck on that Vista.
I just got a new laptop with Vista Premium on it and I hate it. The biggest thing that I sucks is that I can't run Autocad on it which is the workhorse of my business. We're currently using Autocad Arch Desktop 2005 which isn't supported on Vista and the only version that is is Arch 2008. I was planning on wiping Vista off and reloading XP but I figured that we were planning on upgrading Autocad soon anyway so might as well stick with Vista since it wouldn't surprise me if Autodesk next version can't be run on XP and I would have to get Vista anyway. In the meantime I'm still making due with my old machine even though its on its legs..
I'll chime in w/ my experience: recently got a low end laptop w/ Vista Home Premium and so far it's been fine. I don't use it for anything heavy: web browsing, downloading, and encoding videos for the iPod/PSP. I have 1 gb and it's ok, but it's also obvious it would run much snappier w/ another gb. My RAM usage is usually near the high end, 80-90%. I've also installed all my .NET stuff (VS, SQL Server) but haven't put them through their paces yet. I'm curious to see how it handles. I do have one strange problem, I've tried to print stuff on two occassions on two different printers and both times all the text was in light blue. Anyone know how to rectify this?
i dont think vista is bad... but definitely not as good as XP or 2000. If you run vista, you MUST MUST have 2 GB of ram to have the system running to its full potential with Vista
After reading these posts, it sounds like y'all would recommend against Vista if you only have 512 MB RAM?
Second that. If you can avoid Vista for now avoid it. Just to add to the Vista b****fest my business partner also got a Vista computer and we noticed another problem with it. Microsoft has changed the names of functions, even though they do the the same thing in Vista as in XP, and also how you access controls. He had a problem with accessing our router wirelessly and we couldn't find the network connections menu to check to see if his modem was active.
Cool -- this thread has been very helpful. Key takeaways for me: 1. Many people think Vista is crap 2. Don't bother without enough RAM 3. At the very least, wait until the service pack comes out in 2008 Awesome thread -- even a luddite like me was able to follow it!
