Upgrade to Vista? - Comments Page 1

Vista? No. One of Gateways’ last customers before they left Oz’s shores and while I have upgraded the amount of RDRAM ( 640Mb: expensive rare stuff ) and one of the CDROM drives to that of a DVD burner, the ( slow ) 20Gb HDD and 32Mb Nvidia graphics card do not allow for a Vista upgrade of the most basic.
I think that ultimately with the right advice ( perhaps through this site ), I will upgrade my HDD (EDI) and Graphics card and soldier on for a few more years yet with my old faithful Gateway and Windows XP Home edition Upgrade. (No I won’t mention ME.)

EDITOR'S NOTE: I agree, XP systems will be around for quite a few years.

No way Jose, I'm sticking with XP since Microsoft will never bring European prices down to the levels, before tax, that the USA enjoys. What possible justification is there for me, living in Spain, to pay nearly double the price paid in the richest country in the world?

In checking for XP it looks like I must do a clean install WOW!!! I need help --How and where do I "Back Up" all my 33 programs--Favorites for 5 different e-mail addresses---All my Documents---and then figure out how to transfer them all back to a new Operating Program---I see hours and hours of work and the super chance for errors as I am no computer expert---How can it be worth it????

EDITOR'S NOTE: No need to format and install Vista from scratch. It will install right over XP as an upgrade.

I'll just keep my HP laptop running XP until Leopard is released and I have enough money to get a MacBook. Mac OS X beats Microsoft Vista anyday in my opinion. I love how you can boot a Mac laptop into Target mode and use it like an external hard drive. The easiest "networking" solution I've come accross for being able to help a friend back up his/her Mac or for me to migrate to a new one.

I bought a new computer with Windows Vista Home Premium pre-installed. I am NOT impressed; a pretty GUI does not cut it with me. Already had to disable the fancy "User Access Control" feature. Windows Mail, formerly Outlook Express, loads VERY slowly and cannot get my Hotmail email. My scanner won't work and Audacity won't either. Like Chris Pirillo, maybe I'll upgrade back to XP.

We almost have a quorum here :) No to Vista.I'll keep XP going as long as I can. Since I have "Pro",I may have some advantages over "Home". BTW,Volume Shadow Copy is on XP Pro as well. There are many apps that can simulate Vista on XP. I have hundreds of apps that work on XP,but will- or may- not work with Vista. With all the extra costs involved,the choice is clear.Next is switching to Linux.

As a very satisfied XP Pro user I would not use Vista if it were free. I think the only way Microsoft will be successful with it is on new computers that come with it already installed.

One piece of advice: If you are planning to upgrade to vista (permanently or to check it out) make sure you have your Windows XP (assuming it came preinstalled) restore CDs. By having them you can (although you destroy all data on the hard drive) downgrade back to XP. This is of course mainly directed at people who have gotten a "free" upgrade to Vista from the computer manufacturer (e.g. HP).

I use XP at work and on the laptop at home but carried on with Win98SE on my old workhorse PC. For my birthday I got a shiny new PC! So I've made the leap from 98 to Vista. I've taken to Vista in a way that I just never did with XP. Now I'm wishing that they would upgrade to Vista at work (not likely: too expensive and no benefits for higher education).

BTW I'd echo what Alfie says: if you think it is expensive in the US think about us in Europe paying *twice* the price that you do. I won't be buying it for the laptop and we'll wait until prices drop before we upgrade Kev's PC.

Any DirectX9 video card supports Vista. You can do quite well with a $100 card if you need an upgrade. The 8800-type card is only necessary if you want to run DirectX 10 games in Vista, of which there are none as of yet. The price on DX10 cards will come down over time of course.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Low-end cards will "work" with Vista, but they may not support Windows Aero, or the Aero UI may run poorly. DirectX9 graphics performance may suffer as well. Of course try what you have first, and only spend $$$ if your video card isn't cutting the mustard.