Best business operating system and Vista on T42

[comptechexpert]

I was just wondering what you people thought is the best operating system for business or professional usage, Vista or XP professional.

Also wondering would An IBM ThinkPad T42 be able to run vista smoothly



The first question is the most important


Thanks

[dr_st]

For T42 - I'd go for XP. Unless you have it maxed out at 2GB, preferably 7200RPM drive, and want to go through the trouble of setting up Vista so that it is not as big a resource hog as it tends to be by default.

[comptechexpert]

Thankyou so much for the quick and helpful reply.

I was also wondering what OS is the best for business on any windows PC.

[Harryc]

I moved your other thread on the same topic out of sight. Please read the forum rules. We do not allow duplicate (cross) posting. Thank-you.

[dr_st]

I was also wondering what OS is the best for business on any windows PC.

That would depend on how you define "business", which applications you use, and which user habits you have. When comparing WinXP to Vista to Win7 (leaving the older OSes aside for a moment), each does things a little differently when it comes to the user interface. Some get used to the classic interface and can't imagine any change, others get used to the new tweaks and can't imagine living without them.

[Tasurinchi]

best operating system for business or professional usage

What do you mean with "Business" and "Professional Usage"??

Do you need it for office tasks/emailing?
Do you need to run specific software?
Do you need improved security?
Do you like to have a simple user interface, or would you like to have more "eye candy"?
...
...

I could keep asking lots of questions, but I think you need to do like a priority of the tasks you will normally do with it.

From gut feeling I would say buy Win7. It's the latest version and probably the one to get the latest support. It does generally the same as XP/Vista. If you need to run older software you may want to give XP a chance. Provided you don't have any OS yet I would skip Vista, but that's my purely personal opinion.

My 0.02 cents...

[comptechexpert]

Thankyou everyone for all the help and sorry if I post anything wrong or in the wrog place I am new here

Sorry for being unclear in what I needed.
But I am talking about the best for:
Office,email,web research and programming.


Thankyou

Admin note: Combined two consecutive posts

[Tasurinchi]

Sorry for being unclear in what I needed.

No issue!

My vote would go to Win7 (Professional or Ultimate). But as dr_st said above, I would also max the RAM to 2GB and max the HDD as well if I were you. I have a WD320GB in my X31 and it runs very well!

Cheers...

[comptechexpert]

Thanks alot for the great information.
Just wondering would win 7 run well on a T42 and what OS are you running and what do you use it for.



Thanks so much.

[mgo]

Thanks alot for the great information.
Just wondering would win 7 run well on a T42 and what OS are you running and what do you use it for.



Thanks so much.

If it's any help, I have run Windows 7 on a machine as old as a R50p with very good performance. Windows 7 is a good tight, fast running operating system, as opposed to the slower, less efficient Vista.

Drivers may be a problem for a machine that old, but one can make do just fine by copying the C:\Windows\Driverstore folder to an external drive, and if device manager or windows update does not install the necessary drivers on your new windows 7 installation, you could revert to those Vista drivers for successful usage.

[Tasurinchi]

I'm running Windows 7 in my X31 and it's working great! I see no problems why it should not work in your T42. It may help posting your model number to see the hardware specs...

[ajkula66]

mgo wrote:

If it's any help, I have run Windows 7 on a machine as old as a R50p with very good performance. Windows 7 is a good tight, fast running operating system, as opposed to the slower, less efficient Vista.

In all fairness, Fire GL T2 GPU helps a lot when it comes to running W7 on the R50p.

T42 with Radeon 9600 will do well in W7. Versions with Radeon 7500 will not run Aero and will not do as well.

[Tasurinchi]

Versions with Radeon 7500 will not run Aero and will not do as well.

My X31 does not run Aero either (I'm sooo sad about it ) but it runs Win7 very well I think its 16MB ATI Radeon M6 should be around the same generation with similar performance than the 7500, shouldn't be?

[dr_st]

Less than the 32MB 7500.

[Tasurinchi]

Less than the 32MB 7500

Good to know, I'm eyeing some T40s around here. Graphics-wise Win7 should work better on them than in my X31!

[comptechexpert]

How about:
Windows XP and Ubuntu dual boot
Windows 7 and Ubuntu dual boot

Are these good options?
If so which is the best option of the two?

Thanks for the great replies!!!!

[Harryc]

Please update your profile here with your location...another forum rule. Judging by the .tk in your forum link, I'd guess New Zealand?

[comptechexpert]

Sorry id it is confusing but the location is correct and my website ends in .tk because it is a free domain name and URL redirection service because the actual web address is really long so I added a domain>
Here is the link to the domain name service if you want to check it out for confirmation:
http://www.dot.tk/en/index.html?lang=en

Sorry for any confusion please tell me if this has resolved the problem.


Anybody got any insight on the linux post above.

Admin note: Combined consecutive posts

[Tasurinchi]

Anybody got any insight on the linux post above.

Well, my personal choices would be:

1. Boot Ubuntu 9.10 only
2. Windows 7 & Ubuntu 9.10

Why have two OS's when one can do the job?

[comptechexpert]

Would windows 7 an. Ubuntu 9.10 run well on an IBM ThinkPad T42

Admin note: Deleted duplicate post

[ajkula66]

What's the 7-character model number of your T42? 237?-???

[Tasurinchi]

Would windows 7 and Ubuntu 9.10 run well on an IBM ThinkPad T42

Well... Windows 7 runs fine in my X31. Even when not knowing which T42 model you have, Your graphic card is more powerful as mine (you should also max your hard drive and memory as recommended in the posts above). So my guess is yes, it will run very fine. Not sure if Aero will work. But I don't thing that's a big loss

Regarding Ubuntu 9.10 the only potential issue I could see is the support for your graphic card. If you have an ATi 9600 it should be no problem me thinks.

[comptechexpert]

Thank you that is helpful information.