Vista on ThinkPad T42 review. Aero working. Links 2 Pictures

[Melvyn]

Machine Configuration:
Intel Pentium M 745 1.8GHZ
1.5GB Ram
ATI Mobility Radeon 9600, 64MB
80GB, 5400rpm Hitachi hard drive
Infrared, Bluetooth, ThinkPad 11 a/b/g Wireless LAN Mini PCI Adapter II
Fingerprinter Reader.

My disc already have a Windows XP Professional running on the first partition (30gb), another set of partitions host a Linux installation. A third partition was at the end of hard drive containing data. Using Partition Magic 8, the ending partition was resized to obtain a new 20GB, primary partition at the end of the disc and the rest was shrinked to store data.

Just mounted the .iso file with Alcohol, it got autorun and installation process started. The choices in the menu were a fruitpunch: starter, home basic, home premiun, bussiness and ultimate, all them also with N version (less ultimate) and 64 bit versions, so around 13 versions. Vista Business was my choice. Everything got ok. It need around 5gb to copy files from DVD to hard drive; according to the installer, it need almost 11gb to uncompress it and another yadah yadah... It asked for licence but you can skip that step "meanwhile" before activating it. I did it because I want to test home premium and ultimate. The licence here is for Business.

It took around 25 minutes of total time to install. After the copying and extracting process (the most time wasted) it rebooted and start installing without questions... After 15 minutes I got my Vista working. It asked me to choose wallpaper, login image, login name and password, machine name (I like this part because the default was "Melvyn-PC" instead of those stupid default names from XP). When it finished asking information rebooted and take a while for first time boot.

At first sight I didn't note it, but as far as I know, I got Aero working. I didn't notice at first time, but when I installed on my desktop machine (Athlon64 and ATI Radeon 256MB) I didn't notice diferences in the default theme. They looked similar.

Aero on ThinkPad T42:
http://www.infosantiago.com/melvyn/vista/Aero.jpg

At device manager only 3 devices appear failing. I downloaded what I found for vista in Lenovo's download site: Active Protection System, Atmel TPM. Installed and working. Just waiting for fingerprinter reader. It appear that Biometric Coprocessor is recognized, I'll just install fingerprinter software later. Installed the same hotkeys than XP and they work. Only one note: It don't recognize the wireless card. when pressing FN+F5 an error appear saying something about no network card. The wireless can be turned on and off from windows networking space with a quote: the indicator light will not turn on. I got connected and surfed and the light was off. Insted of wi-fi, the bluetooth got recognized inmediately and FN+F5 worked to turn on/off the bluetooth before than hotkey installation and after it worked similar that xp.

Let's talk about windows Experience Index:
Processor (1.8GHZ): 3.7
Memory (1.5GB): 4.1
Graphics: 2.0
Gaming Graphics: 3.5
Hard Drive: 4.2

General Score: 2.0
http://www.infosantiago.com/melvyn/vist ... 0Index.jpg

A curious note: Graphics is detected correctly as mobility radeon 9600. It appear to use 256mb of shared memory from the ram, but never used it while I was testing.

http://www.infosantiago.com/melvyn/vist ... etails.jpg

Looking at the screenshots you can see how good is working Aero. I've not compared side by side with my desktop, because I've spend only around 2 hours with watching and busy. Desktop PC is just installed nothing touched and appear like ThinkPad at first sight.

I'll update the post according to whatever I can see. Question and recommendations are welcome.

Enjoy.
________________________
Edit:
Somebody can explain about the graphic card and shared sytem memory? (See the above screenshot).

Two more screenshots. I stopped at the mall and while waiting for a fried chicken take 2 more pictures:
http://www.infosantiago.com/melvyn/vist ... %20t42.jpg

http://www.infosantiago.com/melvyn/vist ... 0vista.JPG

[agarza]

I also installed Vista (Ultimate) in my native Spanish language. Real quick installation, but I don't think is worth to migrate now to Vista, considering primarily all the RAM just to get Windows running (about 500MB physical memory). I prefer XP using a modded version with just the basic services a home user needs (PageFile usage about 120MB)

[Melvyn]

Hello,

Real quick installation, but I don't think is worth to migrate now to Vista, considering primarily all the RAM just to get Windows running (about 500MB physical memory). I prefer XP using a modded version with just the basic services a home user needs (PageFile usage about 120MB)

I agree with you and that's the main reason to keep my xp pro installation. I'm developer and need a lot of aplications not supported on windows vista. By the way, I'll need to test my apps on vista for compatibility issues.

I also installed Vista (Ultimate) in my native Spanish language.

Well, spanish is my native too, but my first time in front of a computer was in english and the second and the third.... That become the "normal" way for me. I don't understand a lot of things using spanish sorry.

[warder]

To learn about your memory questions, check this document out directly from Microsoft:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/ ... Memory.doc

[brentpresley]

I also installed Vista (Ultimate) in my native Spanish language. Real quick installation, but I don't think is worth to migrate now to Vista, considering primarily all the RAM just to get Windows running (about 500MB physical memory). I prefer XP using a modded version with just the basic services a home user needs (PageFile usage about 120MB)

Common misconception.

Vista actually uses far less RAM than people are thinking. The reporting of used RAM has changed between XP and Vista, so when people open up task manager and see 500MB allocated, they get all nutty.

Vista is much like Mac OS X in that it prefetches EVERYTHING it can into RAM to make the computing experience much more smooth. If you have 512MB of RAM, the OS will use every last bit of it UNTIL a program is opened up that needs the resources. Then the OS sits second seat to the program's needs. Same thing if you have 2GB+ of RAM. For example, if you run 512MB RAM, on most systems Vista automatically turns of Aero and runs a minimum prefetch.

The only exception to this is if you are running the 64-bit version of Vista. In that case your real RAM usage will be about 250MB higher simply because you are loading TWO operating systems (the 64-bit kernel, AND the WOW - windows on windows layer to run 32-bit apps).

More info here:
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000688.html

[Gart]

I have Vista Ultimate loaded on both my T60p and my T41p. I wanted to see how they worked together in a networked environment.

My T41p has 1gb ram, 60gb 7200rpm hd, 1.7GHz Pentium M, and I get a Vista rating of 3.4.

My T60p has 3gb ram 100gb 7200rpm hd, 2.13 Duo core Pentium and I get a Vist rating of 4.2.

With my T41p I can do Aero, and when I add my 1gb Sandisk PCMCIA card, I can use speedboost and Vista rocks!...faster than XP ever was on that machine.

Lovin' life on the edge.

[hiyel]

I have a T43 (see signature) and I got about the same scores as the OP when I installed a beta release couple months ago. The lowest score was 2.0 for my ATI x300 (64MB physical, and 256MB with software) video card. And for that reason I didn't get the Aero.

OP doesn't mention any hack or anything to get Aero work. So I am wondering if they lowered the cutoff score for Aero in a new release, or it was just me that couldn't figure out how to enable it? Do you adjust a setting or something to get this work?

[Melvyn]

OP doesn't mention any hack or anything to get Aero work. So I am wondering if they lowered the cutoff score for Aero in a new release, or it was just me that couldn't figure out how to enable it? Do you adjust a setting or something to get this work?

No setting was modified. I reinstalled again with more space using ultimate and it rocks. Everything is ok without any hack.

[hiyel]

Thanks Melvyn, I'll give it another try when I have time...

[Melvyn]

By now, I have a better knowledge over vista.

1) Work great on ThinkPad T42.
2) Biometrics don't work
3) Fn+F5 get an error and ask for driver update for wi-fi device. It only show bluetooth. Anyways, you can turn on/off wi-fi using Mobility Center at Control Panel.
4) Power consuption: same that XP. I recognize that XP enlarge my battery time to 7 and 8 hours at max battery fully tuned with NHC. At dinamic switching it reach 5 to 6 hours. Max Performance give 4 hours and a bit. All that with XP. Now, with Vista, NHC don't work. It recall a blue screen when installed/executed and reboot automatically. So, I'm working without NHC and nothing optimized. Just with Vista power management. All visual effects and "balance" profile give me 5 hours. Max Performance give 4 hours. Not enough test with max battery, but it promises 6:30 hours. Considering all vista efects and no tricks, I consider that same or better than XP (almos without visual efects and fully tuned).

Now, in general impresions:

Vista looks good. It's a new world of interface for Windows users. I've seen almost all those efects in Mac OS X and Linux using XGL.

I've found issues with Borland Developer Studio 2006, Visual Studio 2005 Professional, Code Charge Studio 3.1, and NHC of course. So, I can't use it as main system as developer, and I'll keep my XP system for serious things.

My final word: If you use windows for job, stay on XP. Aero don't help you getting productive. It's the opposite. Aero can be the worse enemy of doing things fast and serious. By the way, if you change the theme to classic, it looks so crappy... it's everything but nice. I prefer whatever on XP's look and feel instead of classic under Vista. Another shot about this later.

So, multiple boot will be present on this machine. XP+Vista+OpenSuse.

Melvyn