Trying vista - worth it?

I'm interested to see what Vista is like. Presuming I could download RC2 from somewhere, would those of you who have it recommend trying it? I'm not experienced with dual boot so that could be a problem...

 

Vista (at least when I ran it again in october) has a lot of driver holes, some hardware won't work at all, others have odd issues. Manufacturers are taking their sweet time in getting drivers ready for January.

It's well worth playing around with if you're careful not to f**k up your XP install in the process.

 

I'm always open to try new softwares and new stuff. So definitely try Vista. I am looking forward for it to be 1) don't use as much ram as the beta versions 2) more compatible with some of the older drivers and softwares and 3) a different look for windows.

 

You should definitely read up articles on dual booting, if you're a first timer. Consider trying Vista only when you feel confident.

Start with this article - http://www.lifehacker.com/software/...-boot-windows-xp-and-windows-vista-179906.php

 

Your system isn't an HP but in the HP forum I wrote a How-to on installing Vista and the problems you may run into on a notebook. Look here. It has dual-booting instructions included. But if you can wait a week or two, I've been told Microsoft will be releasing a 30 or 60 day trial of Vista Final for download. Trust me: RC2 doesn't remotely compare to Vista Final -- so, if you can, wait. That said, I love Vista, and your system meets the requirements for the enhanced aero interface so it's definitely worth checking out.

 

i'm running the final version of vista, and it's amazing how fast is it, even on a 1G laptop like mine. and the drivers... vista come with 19000 drivers in the RTM version, for my laptop (acer 5672) found all, except the card reader.. so i guess the drivers are no more a big issue.

 

Well, drivers are no longer AS BIG of an issue. You should at least be able to get up and running with the included drivers, but there are still some show-stopper driver issues -- especially with certain sound cards. Plus some notebook-specific drivers (HP's quicklaunch for instance) and accessories (such as remote controls) aren't available. But, yes, unlike XP which had to be modified to include SATA drivers to even install it on most recent notebooks, Vista is WAY ahead of the game.

 

vista has no driver for the 7700 go.

Just want to throw that in. Theres at least one problem with it on my system

If I use the vista 7600 games dont run correctly.

If I manually put in the xp driver the vista aero interface doesnt work.

 

I have already tried Vista on the laptop below and let me tell you that it was a nightmare. The OS was sluggish, graphics were grainy and I was short on RAM. But of course, I don't have "powerful" enough hardware to run Vista, as M$ wants me to think.

I do want to tell you what I really think though. The Celeron M may lag in running Vista, an OS that really diminishes in pleasure of use without Aero; my other point. Seeing that the 200m isn't that better than the 9000 below, you probably won't be able to run Aero. Vista will look and run terrible. Tasks that you expect to take less time will actually take more time.

In truth I do not recommend that you install Vista on that laptop for practical reasons.

 

ATI 200m works fine with aero -- 1 GB is really the practical minimum for using Vista -- less and you should REALLY stick with XP. With 1 GB RAM (shared with the graphics chip), he'll get essentially the same performance on Vista as he gets with XP (only with beautiful Vista eyecandy). Get a memory card or flash drive to use with ReadyBoost and Vista will actually be noticeably faster than XP.

 

what about 896MB system RAM w/ the Radeon 9000 on 128MB? Will it run Aero?

 

I think it will run it, but a lot of your rams will be gone. (if it is based exactly like the beta versions) Just make sure you don't get the Vista Home edition because it doesn't include Aero in it.

 

Nope. You need ATI 9500 or higher to run aero, according to ATI. Even then I wouldn't bet on it, because ATI's Vista drivers are for 9600 and higher cards only. So, bet on needing 9600 or higher. 9000 series and you'll be left using MS's included "compatibility" drivers that will offer no aero and only minimal functionality.