Microsoft Vista

Aussie Dave · #1 (**permalink**) August 28th, 2008, 09:36 AM

A couple of weeks ago the Mother Board on my home Desktop PC crapped itself.
It had suffered a slow death constantly crashing and then having trouble rebooting for weeks before, but eventually it died completely.

Options:
1. Repair it by replacing old faulty Mother Board with new one.
2. Buy a whole new updated PC.

I went with option 2 and bought a 'Brand New' HP Elite M9390a desktop PC with an Intel QUAD CORE Q9300 Processor 2.5, 4GB Ram, 1TB HDD and Windows 'Vista" pre-installed.
(It was never my intention to get a new computer with Vista, its just that all the computers that are coming out now have it installed on them.)

I am a XP Pro user and never having used Vista before, I thought "It couldn't be that bad."

Holy Cow, was I wrong!!!...

After a couple of weeks using it I have come to the opinion that it does indeed SUCK as others have implied.
Its slow and so many of the OS options have been removed or altered and the file options altered making simple tasks much harder and more time consuming.

Even my old dead PC with its Intel P4 3GHz with H/T and 1GB Ram running XP Pro operated much faster than my new PC does now.

As soon as the manufacturers warrantee expires Vista will be GONE and XP Pro will take over.

(Only 49.5 weeks to go.)

Cheers,
Dave

Jim O · #2 (**permalink**) August 28th, 2008, 10:18 AM

I feel your pain. My box is leased or I would have installed XP long ago. I still might. Only problem is that (I think) all files and settings get over-written in the process. So... that would mean all data needs to be backed up - not a huge problem since I have a 1TB external back up drive - and software/settings - big pain in the ass.

One thing that I have learned is how to turn off those annoying "needs admin privileges" messages that come up when you make file changes or install software. If I could remember how I would surely tell you...

Aussie Dave · #3 (**permalink**) August 28th, 2008, 11:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jim O

I feel your pain. My box is leased or I would have installed XP long ago. I still might. Only problem is that (I think) all files and settings get over-written in the process. So... that would mean all data needs to be backed up - not a huge problem since I have a 1TB external back up drive - and software/settings - big pain in the ass.

One thing that I have learned is how to turn off those annoying "needs admin privileges" messages that come up when you make file changes or install software. If I could remember how I would surely tell you...

I don't think everything needs to be wiped to install XP.

I'm sure you can install XP via the compters start-up window (Not in MS Windows itself.) in command prompt (CMD) if you have the XP installation CD & Key.

I have actually done this several years ago when my computer's XP OS got corrupted and Windows would operate at all.
All I could have done was a 'Destructive' Restore, setting the system back to day one, but then all my files would be lost forever.

Microsoft Tech Support guided me via the phone how to do a "Parallel Install" of Windows on the HDD using a sightly altered file name for it so it wouldn't be associated with the existing corrupted OS.
Then I un-installed the corrupted OS from the HDD and then altered the working XP OS file name back to its original name.

All files were saved

and the was no need for the dreaded 'Restore to factory settings' that wipes everything.

Just don't ask me how exactly I did it because I was guided throught it too long ago to remember the exact details, execution and typed command prompts.

But it can be done.

Cheers,
Dave

cyberia · #4 (**permalink**) August 28th, 2008, 11:37 AM

I can relate. When I bought my new system it came with Vista and what a mess. I'm planning to install XP but I will do so with the whole "Restore to factory settings" just to get rid of all the carp I don't want.

I'm just procrastinating for what's going to be a long and tedious process.