Vista

[smvp6459]

I don't know if anyone else has played around with putting Vista on the X60s...

I installed it and there are a couple of issues people might want to be aware of:

1. Upgrade takes forever compared to a fresh installation.
2. Upgrade may not work (mine wouldn't boot because of something to do with imagedrv.sys (which might be associated with Nero, but I'm not 100% sure).
3. If you fresh install with the BIOS harddrive set to "Compatibility Mode", you won't be able to change it back to AHCI once Vista is installed...it BSODed when I tried to change the setting. I reinstalled using AHCI mode and it booted just fine.

From briefly playing around with it, I'm not super impressed by Vista's whistles and bells...if I wanted something slick and pretty I'd buy a Mac. The power management seems almost as unimpressive as XP - though it appears you can set the min/max % of processor utilization. The network management doesn't seem as brain-dead as XP's can be at times. I didn't spend much time on it, but it looks like getting Vista to look and act like Windows 2000 will take even longer than it takes to make XP look and act like it (if you liked Win2k's clean simplicity).

Vista seems to be able to pull down almost all of the drivers necesary for the X60s to function properly. In fact, some of the drivers were updated yesterday.

One nice thing: Vista didn't hose the MBR so the laptop still boots and when I reimaged and put XP back on.

I'll take any questions about my installation and the 30 minutes to an hour I spent playing with it.

[jdhurst]

I have loaded Vista (I put a number of notes in a different thread, so look for those as well). The only discussion in the press these days is the bells and whistles. I don't need those. I set XP to look like Windows 2000 as well. I don't find XP networking to be a problem, though. It works very well for me. So, this far, no reason to go Vista, although I probably will when I replace my laptop. ... JD Hurst

[sugo]

I also have classic theme, explorer, search, taskbar and start menu in XP - just like a Windows 2000. Vista had better keep those classic look as an option.