VISTA ON X4T

[tr4x405]

Hi wanted to if anyone has installed windows vista on their x41t and if it really does run better hen xp. thank you

[RealBlackStuff]

Vista is a dog, try Windows 7 instead.

[tr4x405]

just got Done installing windows vista and let me tell you that it works a whole lot better then XP. But I have one question is 96mb of video memory enough to run windows aero.

[Harryc]

Aero requires a minimum of 128 MB of Video RAM

[tr4x405]

The reason why I ask is because, have seen people run aero with 64mb of memory.

[billp117]

Try Windows 7...it has all the X41t features built-in and runs very nice. You will need to do all the Windows updates and eventually it will put in a video driver that is OK. You will be very pleased.

Also, you can plug a 2gb sodimm into the X41t and that works fine. Most any 2gb DDR2 sodimm will work.

[dr_st]

While I don't necessarily agree with the statement that Vista is a dog, I do believe that now that Windows 7 is available, and does all that Vista does and some more, there is little reason to install Vista on any machine. If you already have it installed and it works fine, there probably is no need to upgrade. But on a fresh installation? Go with Windows 7.

[ZaZ]

I like Vista. With service pack 2 it runs pretty well. I don't find it all that different than Windows 7. It's funny when Vista was released Microsoft raised the bar hardware wise, but a lot of people were still running older single core machines and you needed pretty decent stats to run Vista. Windows 7 gets released after a lot of hardware has gone through a refresh cycle and now Windows 7, which is Vista 2.0, is now the greatest thing since the silicon chip.

[tr4x405]

thanks for all the advise and info. I still do think that my system runs a whole lot better on vista will try windows7 soon

[dr_st]

I like Vista. With service pack 2 it runs pretty well. I don't find it all that different than Windows 7. It's funny when Vista was released Microsoft raised the bar hardware wise, but a lot of people were still running older single core machines and you needed pretty decent stats to run Vista. Windows 7 gets released after a lot of hardware has gone through a refresh cycle and now Windows 7, which is Vista 2.0, is now the greatest thing since the silicon chip.

This is an interesting topic you bring, and one on which I could probably write a whole essay. I will try to keep it reasonably short, though.

Vista is not a bad operating system at its core, despite what some people think. If it is, then Windows 7 is also bad, because at the core it is the same as Vista.

However, there were several problems with Vista when it came out. I will try to summarize them, and in parallel explain how Win7 improved on them.

Vista was a serious kernel overhaul of XP, which made many of the existing drivers incompatible. At the same time, the cooperation between Microsoft and hardware vendors before the release, to ensure driver readiness on day-1 was lacking. As a result - many things did not work, or there were stability problems. When a user sees a blue screen, they tend to blame the OS, without realizing that most of the time the problem is in the drivers. Most stability/compatibility issues in the first steps of Vista were not direct fault of Microsoft, but in some way, they should be held responsible - it's there duty to push the vendors to provide support - not vice-versa.

The lesson was learned for Windows 7 - collaboration was much better, and as a result - any few issues that existed during the betas were almost completely eliminated at launch time - the users got a product that worked out of the box and were happy about it. One also should not ignore the fact that Windows 7 was a minor revision of the kernel compared to Vista - the transition effort for driver developers was far smaller.

"Raising the hardware bar" as you put it - you are correct that the sluggishness reported on Vista when it was launched was largely on part of the older machines. However - the same machines ran XP fine. This issue I do see as 100% the responsibility of Microsoft. A software vendor should not force hardware refreshes on its customers. It should either adjust to existing mainstream hardware, or at least clearly state in the system requirements that a high-end configuration is needed (like they do with demanding 3D games and apps). Microsoft didn't do either of these, instead they pushed Vista to configurations which could barely support it - no wonder the users complained.

Again - lesson was learned and in Windows 7 Microsoft dedicated serious efforts to measuring system responsiveness as the users defined it, and optimizing it to the users' preference. What matters to users is that when they click an icon, the window opens fast, and whatever background processes are running - can wait. It doesn't matter that maybe overall the same tasks take the same time, what matters is that it feels faster to you.

And again, I cannot deny that you are right - the hardware refreshes that happened during Vista's existence helped it's successor - with dual cores even at the low-end, and quad-cores almost at the mainstream - OS performance issues are almost null and void. I dare anyone to tell the difference between Vista and Win7 performance on their current machine. However, the optimizations MS has built into the new OS may tip the scale towards it on older single-core setups (if any of us still run those).

One final point that worked against Vista are the default settings on some of their newer features, and the way Microsoft publicized (or didn't) these features. Someone used to XP would get annoyed to no end when the UAC prompt starts hitting them for everything, and the only way to stop it is to turn the feature off (but then you lose security, or at least Microsoft claims you do). In Windows 7 they added an adjustable scale of annoyance (even though I just still turn it off). Then there are the Superfetch and related caching features. It may be good to you that the OS tries to cache programs before you use them, to speed up. However, the user sees that his RAM is 90% full without anything running, and goes "Gah! It's such a resource hog."

In the end, I think what killed Vista and made Win7 great is a combination of Microsoft's handling of the refresh process, and the circumstances in the hardware world. Yes, everything in Win7 could have been added to Vista as a service pack. But the image of the OS was already so tarnished by then, that MS opted to work instead on removing it from everyone's memory ASAP.

[ZaZ]

I ran Vista on my R60 with 1GB on day one. I just missed the cut-off date for the free upgrade. I went back to XP after my trial ran out as I didn't have a COA, but I never any trouble with it or any PC/Laptop other than a few annoyances like User Account Control, as long as it had decent specs, like 1GB and a dual core CPU.

As a contrast I was helping someone with a HP laptop a few months later that came with Vista. It had a Sempron CPU and 512MB. I could never get that thing to run decently. I scoured the internet, but came up empty handed. It had a made for Vista sticker too.

The Made for Vista stickers, in perhaps the best stab in the back ever, Intel pushed Microsoft for those stickers, then came out publicly and said they weren't going to upgrade to Vista on their corporate network.

I just don't really find Windows 7 compelling enough to spend the money to upgrade and there's one program that I use that doesn't work in Windows 7. That's enough for me to stay with Vista.

[dr_st]

I just don't really find Windows 7 compelling enough to spend the money to upgrade and there's one program that I use that doesn't work in Windows 7. That's enough for me to stay with Vista.

This I fully agree with.

[automobus]

One viewpoint to add: as I see it, every notable improvement in 6.1 "7" over Vista will only be valued by few people. My favourite two improvements are HomeGroup and improved Tablet PC capabilities. And since this question concerns a tablet PC, that is all it takes to make W7 worth it.

HomeGroup can only be used with multiple W7 installations. Pixel density per user can be realised by multiple users. DirectX stuff means you gotta use suitably modern software and hardware. If you use a fingerprint scanner, then great: biometrics have improved. A TRIM capable SSD: good for you, but far from the majority of people use them. (I really think trim support should be added to Vista with a service pack). XPS: good to have a dedicated viewer, but I do not know anyone who uses XPS anyway. So as I see it, every improvement would only be appreciated by a niche.

Everything else is either so-so, insignificant, or worse than earlier Windows versions.
The tablet features beat all else. I wish I could take the Tablet Input Panel from Windows 7 and use it on XP (or 2000!). I'll take the XPS viewer, too. I could hardly care for the rest.
Make a Windows 7 essentials+Tablet, fit it on one CD, and I'll buy it.
(Take away validation, ensuring I can use it forever after the validation servers are decommissioned, and then I'll /really/ buy it.)

[sjthinkpader]

I upgraded from XP SP3 to Win7 mostly. Recently I installed Vista on two desktops, a Pentium D 930 dual core and a more modern E6320 Core2duo, both with 4GB of DDR2. Vista SP2 on these two desktops ran as well as Win7 on T60/T61/X60. But SP1, SP2 and the final update took one hour each.