Dell E1505 + Vista Beta 2 Review / Comments

To be brief:

Vista Beta 2 (recently released to the public) installs just fine (took about an hour). After the first boot, you will need to do a Windows Update to get the Intel video driver (for WSXGA+ res) and a few other drivers.

A few things you can expect:

- I have noticed the touchpad driver is a bit buggy. It's quite annoying. Sometimes you will be in a dialog box and no matter how many times you tap or click on something, it just won't work. Quite annoying.

- If you have the integrated intel video (945gm chipset), you will NOT have Aero/Glass available YET. This is NOT because the 945 doesn't support it, it's because Intel did not release a WDDM driver for Beta 2 (although they did release one for the CTP in February - which is NOT compatible with Beta 2). Remember, the Intel 945 can borrow up to > 200mb of video memory from the system ram (thus supporting Aero/Glass). It's just a matter of no driver being available at the moment.

Just thought I'd point out the first few gotchas I ran across.

-DJS

 

Thanks for the overview on your success and glitches. Keep us updated on stability as you go on.

 

I was able to enable Aero/Glass!

Just like several other people have said, you simply have to use the Microsoft WDDM Lakeport driver (which Windows will claim is not the correct driver, but it works, and enables Aero).

I did it by uninstalling the Intel driver (installed by Windows Update) in device manager, reboot, ignore the popup "locate device driver", go back to device manager, select update driver on the display adapter (which will now show up as Standard VGA), select browse for driver / select from list, uncheck the "compatible only" box, select Intel, then choose the Lakeport driver.

On my machine, the screen then went a little nuts and I had to power cycle. Upon reboot, Aero + Glass enabled. Although Vista will still think you're using the wrong driver.

Oddly enough, this also resolved the touchpad issues.

Hope this helps someone who wants to experience Aero/Glass!

-DJS

 

Sleep seems to be buggy. After closing the lid on my laptop last night, this morning when I opened it back up, the keyboard/touchpad was unresponsive and required power cycle.

I'm reverting back to the supported intel945gm chipset graphics driver as it seemed to not have this issue.

I think all will be well as soon as Intel releases a Vista Beta 2 WDDM driver which is officially supported.

We just have to wait.

 

I have the X1400, but I dumped Vista after a day on my e1505. It was too slow and buggy for my purposes, but Aero glass worked like a charm.

Ben

 

what is so great about aero glass? that seems to be the big deal about vista

 

Well, the new "Aero" interface is gorgeous. Admittedly, it's not Mac OS-X, but still gorgeous. The window movment is smooth and a pleasure to look at, too.

Ben

 

I myself don't get why everyone is in such a hurry to get and try out the next *cough* great *cough* version of Windows.

 

I've been fellowing and waiting for M$ Vista release for awhile. I'll be surprise if it didn't get delayed again. And even if Vista comes out, I'll wait until atlease a year or it's second service pack, until I attempt to install it on my computers. M$ is simply taking too long and I can't help wonder what kind of problems or security issues on it's initial release. But I give you guys credit though it takes a lot of guts to be one of the lab mouse for M$, and install incomplete OS in to your beautiful systems.

 

I'll second that. I put it on my 9300 (specs below...yes, 2GB of RAM) and it took an average of 8-10 minutes to boot completely, crashed and froze constantly, and I couldn't get playable frame rates out of anything with any graphics driver. Vista went on on Friday, and XP went back on today. Vista is frankly crap. Very pretty crap, but crap nonetheless.

 

Well put.

Ben

 

Can you really make a determination on the complete quality of a program while it's still in Beta stage? And did you install beta 1 or beta 2?

 

Even though it is still M$, it still is in beta. Nobody seems to remember how much everybody freaked out about XP before that came out. To say it's crappy based on the beta version is rather unjustified.

 

Definitely agreed. Bold added by me.

What are people expecting from a beta program anyway?