Vista vs XP on T41

[sktn77a]

Well, just got through a couple of weeks "playing" with Vista on my T41 (2.0GHz Dothan, 1Gb RAM, ATI 7500 graphics). Managed to get all the right drivers (eventually) from the Vista install (all native to Vista) and did try it with and without SP1 - no appreciable difference. A little frustrating trying to find files on the darn thing (much moreso than with the Win98 to XP upgrade) and kinda slow, I thought at first......... Until I just re-installed a clean version of XP. WOW, what a difference! All I can say is the T4x series really aren't up to Vista for day-to-day computing.

I realize that several people here are using Vista on their T4x computers. But the transition back to XP from Vista is even more dramatic and revealing that the initial transition from XP to Vista. No, I didn't run any benchmarks - didn't need to! Interestingly, I did have to activate Vista (I used the Lenovo OEM recovery CDs - never had to do this before) - I used the key on the bottom of my T61p. Of course, going back to XP, I didn't need to activate it from the OEM recovery CDs (I used the latest T42 recovery CDs with the latest thinkvantage utilities - some of which are useful and more than just bloatware - and SP2).

FWIW!

[jdhurst]

My first experience with XP was on a machine not certified for XP, and it did not work well. Since then, I have had the best success with machines that come preloaded with an OS certified for the machine. I keep my T41 for XP (and it works fabulously well), and my T61 for Vista (which I finally have working decently well).

Thanks for posting your experience. ... JDH

[karim_ps]

I'm using Windows Vista Ultimate for long time ago and it works just fine without any problems ,it's more powerful than XP ,Now i don't really like to get back to XP .
T41 CPU 1.6 Banias/1GB of RAM/HDD 40Go 5400RMP/Mobility Radeon 7500

[NorrisCell]

I love my T41, but I don't think it has the hardware to support Vista. My wife's laptop runs Vista very smoothly, but it has far superior specs to mine. I sometimes do troubleshooting on laptops for customers at work and the main complaints I get on Vista come from people with terribly underpowered machines. I'm still not a Vista fan, but on a powerful machine, it runs very smoothly.

[T23FUN]

I probably spend too much time reading threads. One thing I've read over and over is that unless your machine is equiped for Vista it is going to be slow on boot up and have issues with running this and that. I think you need at least 2GB ram and need to pare down some start up services to have the OS run as expected if not. I only know three people who like it but they are running Office and browsing and any OS should run that provided the machine can handle it.
So I'm staying with XP on my Dells and T23 and going to migrate to Linux before too long. I just see too much overhead in Micosoft's OS.
AND I just had a friend bring over her new Macbook. Low end of the line but I was very impressed. She just needed to know that her Dell mouse and speaker worked fine on her new laptop.

[defendemus]

I have to agree with T23FUN, if you want to run Vista you really should have 2GB of RAM, a big hard drive and I believe that you should also have at least a dual core processor.

I tried Vista on my T42 and it ran reasonably well but there's a lot of overhead when running Vista. I had 12% to 17% CPU usage at idle and it only got worse as I started to really work with it.

[rbena]

Vista vs XP on T41 ....

Yes, there are resources to consider -

but then you also have to deal with Vista itself.

I find XP a good match for the T4x series. Vista seems best run on Core2duo with plenty of RAM and a reasonably powerful GPU.

For me there still remains the question of need....

[T23FUN]

Environmental rant here...
So MS makes all these very usable computers obsolete with the new OS. I just helped a friend with a Dell Dimension 2400 really not running at all. It has 256 MB ram with numerous adware, spyware stuff on it and fragmented pretty bad. I added 256 MB and cleaned up the system and it runs great on XP. Not like you'd do high end graphics or anything. Email, wordprocessing, home budgets, pictures and slide shows, it does it well on XP.
Anyway, even XP has it's struggles on 256 MB ram.
But making all these machines obsolete is very bad for the environment, young students and school budgets. we're not all defense contractors that can evolve all the machines every 3 years charging the tax payers to ante up the bill.
I'll stop here.

[jdhurst]

Environmental rant here...
So MS makes all these very usable computers obsolete with the new OS. I just helped a friend with a Dell Dimension 2400 .... I added 256 MB and cleaned up the system and it runs great on XP. <snip>
But making all these machines obsolete is very bad for the environment, young students and school budgets. we're not all defense contractors that can evolve all the machines every 3 years charging the tax payers to ante up the bill.
I'll stop here.

Given that XP is still a huge contender (76% market share vs <8% for Vista), keep XP on the T41 and you have a super machine (still my daily driver) *and* keep it out of the landfill. When the machine has run its course, then move up machine and OS (Vista or Windows 7 - who knows). ... JDH

[rbena]

But making all these machines obsolete is very bad for the environment

OT - there's not enough space to list how much is done in the interest of progress / profit that is bad for the environment. Your comment does help put Vista more in its true perspective though, IMHO. Wouldn't it be refreshing if the next OS was more resource friendly, for using with existing notebooks I'll also stop here.

[sktn77a]

Wouldn't it be refreshing if the next OS was more resource friendly, for using with existing notebooks

But then the conspiracy would be broken!