Is it safe to upgrade yet?

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marlinspike · #1 Post by **marlinspike** » Wed May 16, 2007 2:06 am

I remember initial reports of massive battery drains and gaming performance drops after switching to Vista early in Vistas life. Have those things been resolved yet?
Thanks in advance.

steveg47 · #2 Post by **steveg47** » Thu May 17, 2007 11:29 am

Somewhat... If you're a gamer you probably should stick to XP.

Vista is still pretty(double entendre) much a "fixer upper".

marlinspike · #3 Post by **marlinspike** » Thu May 17, 2007 12:14 pm

Well, I tried upgrading to Vista and it has gone horribly wrong. Everything seemed to be fine, then it did its final reboot, asked me how to set the automatic updater and then how to set the time, then the hard drive went to work while the screen only shows that Vista desktop background (but no icons, or mouse cursor, or start menu). The hard drive then stopped and it's just been at that screen for the past 10 minutes doing nothing. Any ideas? I uninstalled McAffee and got all the latest drivers before upgrading just like it told me to.

marlinspike · #4 Post by **marlinspike** » Thu May 17, 2007 4:45 pm

Well, I had to do a clean install, which means I'll be doing updates/software installs from here until infinity...oh joy. On the plus side things actually seem a little faster than before, but it wasn't really worth it (though, I'd do it again, just to be on the up to date stuff).

wallybear · #5 Post by **wallybear** » Thu May 17, 2007 7:28 pm

Here is my 2-bits worth....

I know my opinion might "fly in the face" of those people who like to bash everything produced by Microsoft (and who hated XP when it was first released) but for those people who would like a (hopefully) more-neutral and balanced view of Vista running on a T60 I decided to write this posting.

I have had Vista Business running on my T60 for the past month. Overall, I think it is a big leap forward for the Windows platform. In fact, when I have to "go back to" XP at work I think of all the improvements that I'm giving up. As an analogy, I feel sort of like I'm going back to Windows 98 from XP SP2 each time I have to shut down Vista and boot up XP. Surprised me to feel that way, but I do.

On the down side, there are still issues with several ThinkVantage add-ons (Client Security, Power Manager, etc.) and almost nothing from Adobe works properly--or at all--in Vista. In fact, I have had to install a complete XP environment in VirtualPC 2007 to run Adobe FrameMaker, Acrobat 7, and a few other things I use regularly. The good news is that this virtualization solution is more than acceptable. XP runs almost as smoothly and as quickly as it does natively.

On the up side, I think Vista now looks great and has many modern new features that are very welcome. I look forward to SP1 of Vista which I imagine (and hope) will appear later this year. The teething problems we're seeing in these first 4 months of Vista's release will fade away eventually, they always do. That's the nature of both the business and the technology of computing.

So the bottom line for me is this: as someone who reads this forum regularly I am concerned that so few people who put postings here say much in favor of Vista. And there's whole bunch that could be said...I've just scratched the surface here. If all someone wants to hear is that Vista causes scary problems and that staying with XP until they (or it) dies is the "wise" thing to do then forget this posting of mine. But if you're open to a report of a (mostly) positive experience, then reread this posting. I hope it is helpful to someone.

Here's a bit more of my thinking for those people out there who are interested in some "leveling" information regarding the unending Macintosh-vs.-Windows question.

Many of the new features in Vista owe their existence to analogues in the current MacOS--just as did many of the features in previous versions of Windows. Apple has always been the innovator in the industry (and there are good reasons why and for that fact). But I don't think it's reasonable for Vista to be bashed as less "meaningful" or less welcome simply because it's taken years to get these features into a shipping Windows operating system. For those people who think that the Windows-vs.-Macintosh conundrum is terribly significant I would point out that Apple has a teeny, tiny share of the wordwide market for computers...always has and always will. They've been the Saab (or Audi or BMW) to Microsoft's General Motors or Toyota. Size and baggage and complexity all explain why things change and at what rate in this world, not "goodness, truth, or value".

OK. I'll take a deep breath and hope someone's still reading out there (grin). While I'm on the Windows-Macintosh connection let me say that those people (including Apple's advertisers) who mock Windows in comparison to the Mac OS X forget how many years it took Apple to get to a working, useful version of OS X. Versions 10.0, 10.1, and 10.2 were all miserable performers and bug-ridden beyond belief. Only after 4 (four!)years was Apple able to field version 10.3 which was (mostly) bearable for the legion of old-time users (me included) who were sticking with MacOS 9 until Apple saw some reality. Version 10.4 is a nice piece of work---if you can find something that you want to run on it. I'll just mention in passing that Adobe took years to get its software ported over from OS 9-compatible to OS X-native versions. They're still working on the Intel-native versions. Adobe matters more to Apple in terms of its core base of users (artists, etc.) than Microsoft with its Office suite for the MacOS, that's why I mention them here in passing.

So (again) we can thank Apple for showing Microsoft how hard it is to totally reinvent something and then to move a large "herd of cattle" over to it now matter how good it is...particularly when money, time, effort, and frustration are all part of the cost of changing.

marlinspike · #6 Post by **marlinspike** » Thu May 17, 2007 8:41 pm

I'm actually quite liking Vista Business...except for the fact that I had to do a clean install and still don't have things to where they were (several hours of software installing left I imagine).

What happened to Solitaire btw? I have NO Microsoft games?!

#7 Post by **ryengineer** » Thu May 17, 2007 8:47 pm

marlinspike wrote:What happened to Solitaire btw? I have NO Microsoft games?!

Sorry to disappoint you but only Vista Home Premium and Ultimate versions have games.

marlinspike · #8 Post by **marlinspike** » Thu May 17, 2007 9:05 pm

Those jerks! But more importantly, why can't I get the client security software to work beyond using the fingerprint scanner to log into Windows?

chaukap · #9 Post by **chaukap** » Thu May 17, 2007 10:43 pm

Sorry to disappoint you but only Vista Home Premium and Ultimate versions have games.

Thats not correct.
I have games on Vista Business, Solitaire too. You might have to activate games from the add remove windows componets menu.

#10 Post by **Kyocera** » Thu May 17, 2007 10:52 pm

I'm not on my Vista Business machine right now but have several great games, chess is awesome, there is a couple of others but can't remember what they are right now.

marlinspike · #11 Post by **marlinspike** » Thu May 17, 2007 11:07 pm

Well, I sure didn't get any games when doing a clean install with the free upgrade DVD I got from Lenovo.

EDIT: Yes I did, I just had to turn them on apparently.

chaukap · #12 Post by **chaukap** » Thu May 17, 2007 11:12 pm

I did a clean install using the Lenovo DVD too and it has everything,, you should be able to activate and play games.
Control Panel > Programs & Features > Turn Windows features on or off > select Games,, that should do it.

#13 Post by **ryengineer** » Fri May 18, 2007 12:44 am

You guys will probably be right but I'm not sure why Microsoft states false info about the games then?

marlinspike · #14 Post by **marlinspike** » Fri May 18, 2007 6:11 am

ryengineer wrote:You guys will probably be right but I'm not sure why Microsoft states false info about the games then?

That is pretty weird. But I definitley have the games (including those three new ones) and I definitley am running a clean install of Vista Business.

dsigma6 · #15 Post by **dsigma6** » Fri May 18, 2007 7:19 am

Inkball is kinda fun, until you realize how dumb it is.

makaveli559m · #16 Post by **makaveli559m** » Fri May 18, 2007 9:12 pm

I feel like trying Vista again on my Thinkpad A20m. Mostly because I hate that svchost.exe crap that is happening. I hate it though that I have the minimum specs but I cant used WMP11 to play videos

Jedacite · #17 Post by **Jedacite** » Sun May 20, 2007 12:33 pm

I'm actually pretty happy with Vista on my T60. I did the install because I got the free Vista upgrade and just wanted to see what it was like.

I did the full backup of my XP Pro installation because I was planning on going right back to XP after. But I've ended up staying in Vista. I haven't done a full discharge yet, but I've used Vista with the default power settings (on battery power) for over an hour with it saying that I've got something like 1:40 left. I know its not very scientific but I wasn't actually trying to test the battery life.

I find that everything works fine, and with 1GB of RAM its not too slow. I've honestly not installed all of the software back onto my laptop. I've got the Hard-Drive protection software, pidgin, Open Office, Gimp, NAV and Guild Wars installed and running fine. I'll be installing Wow when I re-activate my account, but not until then.

I currently, have no plans to transition my laptop back to XP anytime soon. I feel that the only way that is going to happen is to find some sort of problem or compatability issue with some software that I need to use.

About the only remaining software that I do have to load on is MS VS2005, but that already has Vista support as long as you have the SP1 installed (for VS 2005).

dsigma6 · #18 Post by **dsigma6** » Mon May 21, 2007 7:17 am

makaveli559m wrote:I have the minimum specs

What minimum specs does the A20M adhere to?

Is it safe to upgrade yet?

Is it safe to upgrade yet?

I happen to like Vista on my T60

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