Vista on T42 (2373) -- good idea? Troubles?

[silo]

I've installed Vista Home Premium on my T42 just to try it out and it seems to be working fine, but I thought I'd ask if others were running it straight up as their permanent OS of one of the T4x laptops?

It's running reasonably well on mine, though it only gets a 2.0 rating in Video, everything else is 3.5 and 4.x so I guess that's fair. I'm sort of worried about some of IBM/Lenovo software not supporting Vista.

Anyway, would like to hear if you've had troubles, or tried Vista and gone back to XP -- whatever. Just looking for anecdotal info.

Thanks--

Silo

[gunston]

well, personally i'm not using Vista at the moment.
Some posts in the forum stated that it suck/ consume more power when using battery.
Although, i can't deny that the Vista GUI is awesome and attractive, i would stick with my XP pro because of the software compability.
In future, series upgrade of 2G ram and 7200rpm HD would be the best suit to cater Vista for T4x.

[ArtShapiro]

I've had Ultimate on my T42 for a couple months, and am this far (picture thumb and forefinger held slightly apart) from going back to XP Pro.

Reasons:

a). It takes forever to come up - several minutes after hibernation - and straight power up or power down is similarly poor;
b). Various things keep faulting and terminating - the Windows sidebar, the Google Desktop, etc. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't;
c). The UAC, while I appreciate the rationale, is a bloody pain;
d). The behavior with unfamiliar wireless networks is more sporadic than with XP. I just got back from a couple weeks cross country, dependent on glomming onto rogue wireless connections, and on weak signals I was often stuck in a "local" mode with no internet access. I also had an XP T30 available and it was a lot smoother about grabbing those same signals;
e). Various utilities I use regularly won't run without being specifically run as Administrator;
f). Vista seems to be really squirrelly about putting files in the main C: directory, which is sometimes convenient for me;
g). FN-F5 does not work under Vista to toggle wireless, despite claims here in the forum to the contrary. That's handy at, say, coffee shops when a weak signal in the neighborhood causes frequent popups about wireless networks being available or not available;
h). The Chinese IBM-branded external enclosure that a bunch of us purchased recently fails to correctly install under Vista, at least on my machine.

I'm sure there are other things I've encountered that I find awkward or undesirable, but there's a start.

Art

[GnatGoSplat]

I installed Vista Ultimate on my T43 and it works great! Fast, responsive, and looking very nice. I had a 2.0 for Graphics as well, but I upgraded from 1GB to 2GB and now it's a 2.5.

Mine boots very quickly, and from S3 suspend, it comes up and goes to sleep instantly.

I have not had any trouble with anything faulting or terminating.

UAC can be disabled by going to Start->Accessories->Run, type "msconfig", choose "Tools" tab, select "Disable UAC" and click "Launch". I loathe UAC and disable it on all my Vista machines.

Supposedly, you can enable a real Administrator account and use that instead. I haven't tried it, but here are the instructions I found:

1- Click Start, and type “secpol.msc” in the search area and click Enter.
2- You may receive a prompt from UAC, approve/login and proceed.
3- In the left list, choose “Local Policies”, then “Security Options”
4- Set “Accounts: Administrator account status” to Enabled.
5- Set “User Account Control: Admin Approval Mode for the Built-in Administrator account” to Disabled.
6- Now log-off, and you’ll see a new account named “Administrator” will be available, click on it to login.

I think you should be able to use the Administrator account, migrate all your settings and files over, and probably can even rename the Admin account to match your original one. I know you can rename the Admin acct on Win2003. If that works, it should make you Admin all the time like on XP.

[gunston]

looks like the 2G of ram does help

[Melvyn]

True: you get 2.0 in video. Anyways Aero works (it's supposed to not work with only 2.0), and everything will work as if you have 3.0 or more.

If you install ATI Catalyst drivers you'll get 3.5 of video.

By the way, there's no matter how many points do you get. It works as if you have more, much more, because hypermemory.

Enjoy.