Try Vista for free!!

kryptonic: The vista beta can no longer be downloaded from Microsoft. It was only available for a limited time. The version I installed was extremely buggy. Every time I turned it on it detected a new network card and would install it without uninstalling the old one. By the time I was bored with it, I must have had at least 60 network cards installed when there was really only one. I still can't figure that one out... It probably had to do with VMWare in some way or another. Not only that... but it was very slow. I gave virtual machine 2 gigs of physical ram (out of 4 in the system total) and full access to the Pentium D on a sata2 disk. The VM host was XP and there were practically no services/programs running... disgusting.

Moira: Did you run right out and get XP when it was released? If so, do you recall having as many problems?

I tend to wait until the first service pack comes out before I'll use the OS. I've considered getting Vista and dual booting... but I don't want the same headaches that everyone else is having. I might order a PC with Vista OEM to play around with at work... but many of our third party apps have not been certified to work with Vista and I can't go there if I wanted to (which I don't...)

I remember when XP came out I had a lot of problems getting all my hardware to work and there were lots of incompatibility problems with the apps that I was using. After SP1 came out, most of those issues were taken care of.

Hi Moira, I ran the MS Vista compatibility/capability testing tool on this box.

Basically it passed OK to use the Business Edition with the exception of the video, which I expected, as I haven't even bothered to stick a video card in it so it is an onboard chipset, with 64Mb of shared memory. That is perfectly adequate for what I use this machine for..............yes, there are two video cards on the shelf about three feet away...........(an nVidea and an ATi) and the screwdriver is about 18" from my right hand........... but I would have to get my lazy butt out of this chair and disturb my cat in the process:D

It did tell me I had to go to an MS site and get a new sound driver............. perhaps that is the problem? I must admit that I found that a little surprising, as the implication was that the driver wasn't in the Vista package?


The tool is called "Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor"

I am sorry that I did not know what you were going to do, or I would have suggested that you downloaded the tool and ran it on your machines first. It seems to do a pretty thorough check of drivers and warns you when you need to go and get an update. It also checks hardware and software compatibility :)

What do you mean, are they Vista ready/capable? Even my laptop (brand new in December), can display aero with Intel's latest onboard graphics, and has a dual core processor and 1.5 GB RAM. My own PC is an Athlon64 dual core processor with 2GB RAM, a PCI express graphics card bought specifically to utilize aero and 2 fast SATA drives. It has a 22" widescreen tft monitor, though that wouldn't really influence Vista. I've also got a fast 1 GB USB stick to take advantage of ReadyBoost.

My second desktop PC isn't as high spec but is still an Athlon64 3000+ processor, with 2GB RAM, one SATA and one IDE drive, an FX 5700 nvidia graphics card (easily good enough for Vista) and a 17" tft monitor. In case you still don't think Vista is capable of running, take a look at a desktop screenshot I took last night:

http://tinyurl.com/25vwph

Well it seems to me Im going to do the same with Vista as I did with XP......Wait a couple years lol

Quote:

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What do you mean, are they Vista ready/capable?

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Just because your hardware requirements meet the standards does not mean your system will run Vista without problems ("Vista Ready", as far as I know, only means that you've got at least an 800MHz CPU with half a gig of RAM - it does not mean that Vista will run just fine). There's a difference between "being ready" to run Vista or "being capable" to run Vista, and "actually being able to run Vista without problems". To determine if you're actually able to run Vista without problems: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/pro...deadvisor.mspx

It's probably not fool-proof, but I'm pretty sure that it's going to complain (or would have complained) about the issues you mentioned.

That sounds like a load of bollocks to me .... if your system requirements are more than capable of running all the features of Vista then what excuse can MS come up with as to why it shouldn't work? The only possible problem could be hardware that might not have drivers to support Vista, but that's different to your PC not coping with the actual operating system. I've already done the upgrade advisor scan, which (predictably) told me the scanner and modem wouldn't work - but that was all.

Moria: It may run, but not without problems. (eg. no drivers for certain devices, buggy drivers, might need x hardware for y feature) As far as I know, the machines that got the Vista Capable means just what Negative said: Read it for yourself:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/pro...e/capable.mspx

It said if you want the bells and whistles, it may require additional hardware. I believe that was all he was trying to point out.

BTW: Which version of Vista did you install?

What I was trying to point out was that my machines are more than just Vista capable. OK, there might be the odd problem with surround sound or a scanner and a dial up modem I don't really need, but the specs of all of them are more than enough to be vista "bells and whistles". Don't take my word for it - install it yourself and if you don't find it an exercise in frustration then I'll be amazed.

I've bought an OEM copy of Home Premium for my main PC, my laptop gets an upgrade to Home Premium free - currently I've installed the same Home Premium DVD on it, which is counting down to activation, but hopefully my upgrade will arrive before it is disabled. If not, I'll just use XP until it arrives.

On the second desktop (the PC I'm on now) I installed Vista Ultimate.

Hmmmm?

I haven't jumped into the pit of Vistas just yet:D

I think that I will toss in a Gates and a Balmer first, just to test the water, so to speak:eek:

Moira, I think that a lot of your problems are due to the fact that you are obviously not loading an OEM copy onto a "clean machine"............ I would bet that you are having problems because of their new DRM ;):D

Err ... sorry, but I'm having problems because Vista still has crap hardware support (particularly for older hardware) has been rushed out while still full of bugs, is generally flakey and in a lot of cases, doesn't behave logically. Try opening your own document folder for instance from My Computer or Explorer - you'll find you're denied access and to get access is an unbelievably fiddly and complex business. Of course you can access your documents without taking ownership and setting complex NTFS permissions, but it's not by the most obvious path, and there seems no good reason to deny access to My Documents by whatever route is chosen.

And just for the record, I installed Vista onto a "clean machine", ie I formatted the hard drive it was being installed onto - I also had to reinstall XP on the other hard drive (thanks to Vista) so really nothing was cluttered or pre-configured. I'm not the only person to be having Vista frustrations - it's just Vista, not me.