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Thread ID: 90829	2008-06-17 15:07:00	An Advice in reference to Windows Vista	emmerc (12836)	Press F1

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
679424	2008-06-17 15:07:00	Hello Forum People, I have gotten a lot of wise advice from this site so once again I come for your advice. I have several friends who are acquiring brand new laptops and these machines come with versions of Windows Vista. Various of these friends are by now blue about Vista and they are looking for ways to get their machines free of Vista so they come to me for help. I have tried to install WinXp on these machines but then I face real pains trying to find the drivers for the different devices. Now I see that some of these machines were really built and meant for vista and they will not work well with XP. So, what to do? These machines are a nightmare for their owners because of vista. Some of these friends are trying linux but not all of them are ready for linux because of the programs they need to run on windows plataform. My question is then, would be enough to shut down Aero and try to disable the annoying messages on security and disable all the non essential services? Please give me an idea! Help!!!!	emmerc (12836)
679425	2008-06-17 16:23:00	You need to tell us what the "problems" your friends are facing and the model numbers of the laptops you are trying to downgrade.	beeswax34 (63)
679426	2008-06-17 21:57:00	Quite a few new laptops/PCs have no XP support at all, so they may be stuck with Vista unless someone has hacked together some drivers for that particular model of laptop. Best bet in this case would be to turn off aero & go back to classic mode for everything you can.	autechre (266)
679427	2008-06-17 22:16:00	You must have some pretty hypersensitive friends if Vista's getting to them this much. I use vista every day, and don't really have any problems with it. First thing I did, though, was to turn of UAC. MS admitted that they intended it to annoy people when they wrote it.	Thebananamonkey (7741)
679428	2008-06-17 22:27:00	Vista is fine. When you only have 512 MB of RAM, or Nortons, or God forbid both, you run into serious speed issues, and other problems. 1. Any Vista machine NEEDS a MINIMUM of 1GB of RAM. More is better. If your trying to win Aero and windows flip with on board graphics - don't expect it to work overly smoothly. If you want to make the most of Vista's eye candy, get 1.5GB - 2GB of RAM and laptop with a decent graphics card. 2. INSTALL SP1!!! Vista SP1 has fixed a plethora of problems and makes Vista much more pleasant to use. Install other (Recommended) updates too. 4. Don't use the big internet security suites - Nortons, McAffee, and Trend Micro are the worst. They integrate themselves into Vista, and slow things down, especially Nortons. Eset Smart Security, Kaspersky and Bit Defender are good for whole security suites. Avast is a good free AV. 5. Get rid of any clutter that doesn't need to be running. (Post HijackThis logs if you want, we can help you disable stuff that doesn't need to be running.)	wratterus (105)
679429	2008-06-17 22:45:00	Get off, some people don't like it, going on about how you do and don't have problems is not helpful. There are a number of laptops with Vista Business and Vista Ulimate (only these versions) that qualify for the XP "downgrade" CDs. Make sure you get one of these and then you have a choice of leaving Vista on or changing it to XP with the Restore CDs.	pctek (84)
679430	2008-06-17 23:30:00	Friends, Thanks a lot for your wide range of advice. I knew I will receive good stuff. Well the machines range from an HP Pavilion TX1000 with 2GB of ram (I have not found sound nor video drivers for XP) and the other is a Toshiba Satellite L355-S7811 with 3GB or ram (on this will be installed Ubuntu right away) and an Acer AS6920-6621 also with 3GB or ram. Yes, my friends are sensitive. They are part of a community of master and doctoral students and they do not want to waste time dealing with an OS, they wish a high performance machine that works right away and without annoyances. The problem is that now as they get out of Vista annoyances, they are facing troubles with drivers for their machines in XP. Their complains with vista have to do with things like the constant security messages, and they feel that the machines are slow even though these machines have good processors and enough memory. It is right, these machines are all under US$1.000,00 but they are students and their pockets are not able to get machines over US$1500,00 with discrete video memory and powerful graphic card that would help with vista. So they probably are between scilla and charybdis. Finally, some of them simply and plainly do not like Vista :-( and they want to go back to XP. How to please the user? Well, I will try your suggestions. Thanks a lot!	emmerc (12836)
679431	2008-06-17 23:47:00	Looks like there's drivers for the HP (h10025.www1.hp.com) There's a few XP drivers for the Toshiba (www.csd.toshiba.com)	Speedy Gonzales (78)
679432	2008-06-18 00:10:00	Quite a few new laptops/PCs have no XP support at all, so they may be stuck with Vista unless someone has hacked together some drivers for that particular model of laptop. [A bit OT] I thought WinXP, or any OS, could be installed on any laptop or pc as long as it has adequate specs. Is it true that some laptops will only run Vista? Methinks I am misunderstanding something here... At the moment I have no intention of buying a new laptop, but I have thought if I did, and did not like Vista (if it could not run some of my programs) that I could reformat the hd and install XP. Correct?	Strommer (42)
679433	2008-06-18 00:14:00	You could probably install any version of Windows, you want. Thats not the problem The prob is the drivers. No drivers, nothing will work (LAN/Sound/Wireless etc). After you install another version of Windows I think Autechre's comments meant the lack of drivers, not that newer laptops wont work with XP	Speedy Gonzales (78)
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