X40 and Vista...

[x40guy]

I have a X40 laptop that's about 2 years old. As with any Windows computer, it's starting to slow down more and more with all the software baggage I've added. I'm considering restoring the computer to the factory setting that it had when I got the machine. I DO have all the restore disks. However, I would then have to go through a LOT of MS updates to get it to today's XP Pro.

I'm thinking of whacking the system totally and installing a fresh copy of Vista when it comes out early next year. From what I've read, my system should qualify to run Vista.

Does anyone have any thoughts about doing this? My main concern is installing all the necessary drivers if I did go Vista. So, I'm wondering if Vista will be able to recognize all my hardware and automatically install the needed drivers?

[jdhurst]

I would offer two broad answers:

1. If you restore to factory, download all the driver patches and install, download SP2 and install it, do the Windows updates. The driver part will take a while (for me it does), whereas the Windows part will be fairly rapid.

2. In my opinion, Vista is not ready for prime time in any working environment. Too many changes and vendors not keeping up. Read the thread Vista and Business.

One decent approach is to restore to XP (given the machine is two years old) and move to Vista when you need a new machine.
... JD Hurst

[godinyou]

I just installed the Vista RC1 5600, which is the final release version of Vista 'til next year.

I've been using it for a week now, and personally I would never go back to XP. After installing Vista, I've noticed that I really don't need much of Think Vantage softwares since Vista itself provides most of the functions.

Only problem you might face is the finger printing device, which in your device manager would show as 'Biometric Coprocessor' with no drivers found icon.

Other than that, I am very much enjoying Vista.

So far, no hardware crashes and most importantly, there's no more of the lag with mouse pointer. Thank god!

I would recommend, but of course, it's your choice.

[pianowizard]

I installed Vista Beta 2 on my X40 (1.2GHz, 1.5GB) several months ago and didn't like the experience at all. It was much slower than XP Pro, and most software that I tried to install couldn't be installed.

[BillMorrow]

Other than that, I am very much enjoying Vista.

So far, no hardware crashes and most importantly, there's no more of the lag with mouse pointer. Thank god!

I would recommend, but of course, it's your choice.

running RC-1 5600 on my T60p..
can't seem to get my stock trading to work..
its web based and all the security has successfully stopped the pop-ups needed for all the charts and so forth..

I installed Vista Beta 2 on my X40 (1.2GHz, 1.5GB) several months ago and didn't like the experience at all. It was much slower than XP Pro, and most software that I tried to install couldn't be installed.

you might try RC-1 5600 as it is MICH better and faster than any of the betas..

that said i have not tried to load it on my X60s.. yet..
but the beta would NOT load on the X60s..
so i am mildly surprised that you got a beta loaded on your X40..

for me, i won't use vista until it comes on a new thinkpad..
my main desktop box runs too many apps that will all probably need to be updated to run on vista..