NationStates Jolt Archive

My specs:

Ram: 512mb
Processor: 2.1GHz
Video card: ATI RADEON 9550 AGP: 256mb

No, no, no. Boo to Bill Gates.

A big giant NO.

Vista will consume your ram, then demand more. Your CPU will try to sacrifice the graphics card in the hopes that the Great Beast will be appeased, but alas for it...

Suffice it to say, only Vista walked out of the room alive.

I checked the requirements and it says you only need 250mb of ram, also I believe I have 1 gig ram overall but windows is using half of it, or something.

A big giant NO.

Vista will consume your ram, then demand more. Your CPU will try to sacrifice the graphics card in the hopes that the Great Beast will be appeased, but alas for it...

Suffice it to say, only Vista walked out of the room alive.

i've had vista for about 2 months now and i'm only just getting used to it. besides a frequently AWOL DVD drive it seems to be working fine now. once i turned off the "are you sure you want to do this" prompts it became significantly less annoying. i've yet to notice any advantage over XP though. and it uses up processor speed or RAM or whatever like nothing else. my new laptop is faster than my old one on paper but in practice with vista it is much slower. i think the specs you list there are better than mine.

I wouldn't bother.

It's hard to get used to, it's not very user friendly, it's inefficient when it comes to going through files quickly, and offends my aesthetics bred from Windows 95. Also, its overpriced for its minimal benefits.

No. Not with those specs.

With better hardware then go for it. I'm currently using it with a 2.4ghz Core 2 Duo, 2048mb DDR2 RAM, and an nVidia GeForce 8600GT card and it's great. Once you get used to and get it setup it it's really a very good OS.

No. Not with those specs.

With better hardware then go for it. I'm currently using it with a 2.4ghz Core 2 Duo, 2048mb DDR2 RAM, and an nVidia GeForce 8600GT card and it's great. Once you get used to and get it setup it it's really a very good OS.

Specifically, which specs need to be upgraded?

My specs:

Ram: 512mb
Processor: 2.1GHz
Video card: ATI RADEON 9550 AGP: 256mbMS recommends 1GiB of RAM to run Vista comfortably. Traditionally, doubling MS's recommendation will run Windows the way most people would define comfortably. So get at least another 512MiB of RAM before considering Vista, otherwise I'd say go for it. I much prefer Vista to XP.

No. Not with those specs.

With better hardware then go for it. I'm currently using it with a 2.4ghz Core 2 Duo, 2048mb DDR2 RAM, and an nVidia GeForce 8600GT card and it's great. Once you get used to and get it setup it it's really a very good OS.Holy shit! Someone besides me and UpwardThrust didn't baselessly trash Vista.

Specifically, which specs need to be upgraded?

All of them?

You'd probably get away with the GPU, but you might need a new CPU and more RAM.

What's the CPU? Intel, AMD?

Holy shit! Someone besides me and UpwardThrust didn't baselessly trash Vista.

Most of the people who trash Vista have probably never tried it properly. I've been using it since RC1, and it's great.

Wait until October and get a MacBook with 10.5 Leopard. Muahahaaaaaaaaa :)

All of them?

You'd probably get away with the GPU, but you might need a new CPU and more RAM.

What's the CPU? Intel, AMD?
Probably Intel (I don't think AMD had a 2.1GHz chip at the time Radeon 9550 were being sold). If so, he might get away with it. If it is somehow an AMD, it should be perfectly fine.

Most of the people who trash Vista have probably never tried it properly. I've been using it since RC1, and it's great.Up, pretty much the same thing as when XP came out.

I'd wait until the first service pack at least.

All of them?

You'd probably get away with the GPU, but you might need a new CPU and more RAM.

What's the CPU? Intel, AMD?

This is what it says in Dx Diag:

AMD Athlon(tm) XP 2600+, MMX, 3DNOW, ~2.1GHz

MS recommends 1GiB of RAM to run Vista comfortably. Traditionally, doubling MS's recommendation will run Windows the way most people would define comfortably. So get at least another 512MiB of RAM before considering Vista, otherwise I'd say go for it. I much prefer Vista to XP.

Whats the price of upgrading ram again?

I'd wait until the first service pack at least.Why? Do you have a Sony digital camera? Or do you have one of the comps that doesn't sleep properly? Or do you plan on using your computer to watch TV? Or are you just waiting for SP1 as a milestone and don't actually care that most of the fixes probably won't apply to you?

Short on ram I would get a minimum of 1 gig first

Holy shit! Someone besides me and UpwardThrust didn't baselessly trash Vista.

YAY I got mentioned!

Edit: and I find it funny we are also two of the biggest proponents of alternative operating systems

Specifically, which specs need to be upgraded?

Ram ... that will be your biggest bottleneck followed by video card, though look to see if it is aero rated if so you should be fine

i just checked my system specs out of curiosity. how do i have only 446MB of RAM? i thought it came in 256MB chunks? and i only have 1.47GHz processor speed, no wonder vista is slowing everything down. is it possible to upgrade RAM on a laptop? is there even room for it in the box?

This is what it says in Dx Diag:

AMD Athlon(tm) XP 2600+, MMX, 3DNOW, ~2.1GHz
An Athlon XP, eh? Not bad, but not great either. It should get the job done, barely. you will get a shit-tacular CPU score.

For those interested, AMD's working demo for their new architecture got a rating of 5.9, the highest score possible.
Whats the price of upgrading ram again?About 60-70USD can get you another GiB of name brand ram from Newegg. Don't get cheap Circuit City brand ram. You get what you pay for. OCZ and Corsair are good brands. So is Kingston.

Whats the price of upgrading ram again?

RAM right now is dirt cheap.

Of course, you run into a problem with upgrading. Depending on what RAM you currently have, you may need a new motherboard that supports newer RAM types. If you need a new motherboard, you'll most likely need a new CPU (which you could probably do with anyway if you were to go with Vista) to fit the socket on the motherboard.

i just checked my system specs out of curiosity. how do i have only 446MB of RAM? i thought it came in 256MB chunks? and i only have 1.47GHz processor speed, no wonder vista is slowing everything down. is it possible to upgrade RAM on a laptop? is there even room for it in the box?

Shared video memory, thats where your ram went


And yes it is, probably the easiest thing to do besides hard drive

Shared video memory, thats where your ram went


And yes it is, probably the easiest thing to do besides hard drive

ah, good stuff. i've managed to figure out external hardisks for myself so i reckon i'll be fine with the RAM then. cheers :)

An Athlon XP, eh? Not bad, but not great either. It should get the job done, barely. you will get a shit-tacular CPU score.


Whats that?

An Athlon XP, eh? Not bad, but not great either. It should get the job done, barely. you will get a shit-tacular CPU score.

For those interested, AMD's working demo for their new architecture got a rating of 5.9, the highest score possible.

Mine gets me 5.4, so it's doing a pretty good job of handling Vista.

RAM right now is dirt cheap.

Of course, you run into a problem with upgrading. Depending on what RAM you currently have, you may need a new motherboard that supports newer RAM types. If you need a new motherboard, you'll most likely need a new CPU (which you could probably do with anyway if you were to go with Vista) to fit the socket on the motherboard.

The ram got upgraded last year I think from 250 to 512 without any hassle.

Whats that?

Vista gives you a hardware rating for CPU, RAM, Graphics, Gaming Graphics, and your HDD. The highest for each is 5.9

The ram got upgraded last year I think from 250 to 512 without any hassle.

Is it DDR2?

i just checked my system specs out of curiosity. how do i have only 446MB of RAM? i thought it came in 256MB chunks? and i only have 1.47GHz processor speed, no wonder vista is slowing everything down. is it possible to upgrade RAM on a laptop? is there even room for it in the box?
RAM comes in powers of 2. 256MiB is 2^28. 446MiB is could be 128+256+64MiB and 2MiB just doesn't register for some reason (ie it is dead). Download CPU-Z (http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php) if you want to know exactly what your ram situation is.

Is it DDR2?

How can you tell?

Vista gives you a hardware rating for CPU, RAM, Graphics, Gaming Graphics, and your HDD. The highest for each is 5.9They are very rough scores too, but Vista uses them to determine which Areo features are used or just turned off by default.

How can you tell?

Well, you should know from when you upgraded, but CPU-Z will tell you.

Give it seven months to a year so they can work out the bugs. Remember, what most companies call a Beta, Microsoft tends to call a product.

Well, you should know from when you upgraded, but CPU-Z will tell you.

Oh, it wasn't me that upgraded this comp.

Mine gets me 5.4, so it's doing a pretty good job of handling Vista.
I have a 4.7. I don't know if I had my CPU underclocked or not when I last took the test. I'm gonna try it again now. Oddly enough, I have a 5.9 for Aero Graphics and a 5.7 for Gaming Graphics. The funniest thing is I have the a previous generation card, and it isn't even top of the line (it is close though) for that generation.

Well, you should know from when you upgraded, but CPU-Z will tell you.

Hmm, I ran cpu-z and it says I have 768 mb of memory:confused:

Edit: oh and it says I have type DDR

Give it seven months to a year so they can work out the bugs. Remember, what most companies call a Beta, Microsoft tends to call a product.And what most companies would call a Gold release, Google would call a Beta. Fucking for-profit companies destroying the meanings of our words.

RAM comes in powers of 2. 256MiB is 2^28. 446MiB is could be 128+256+64MiB and 2MiB just doesn't register for some reason (ie it is dead). Download CPU-Z (http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php) if you want to know exactly what your ram situation is.

thanks :) that one says i have 512MB. guess i still need more anyway.

I have a 4.7. I don't know if I had my CPU underclocked or not when I last took the test. I'm gonna try it again now. Oddly enough, I have a 5.9 for Aero Graphics and a 5.7 for Gaming Graphics. The funniest thing is I have the a previous generation card, and it isn't even top of the line (it is close though) for that generation.

my GeForce 8600GT gets me 4.1 for Graphics, and 4.8 for Gaming Graphics. Methinks something's gone wrong with that.

Give it seven months to a year so they can work out the bugs. Remember, what most companies call a Beta, Microsoft tends to call a product.

SP2 is usually the time to install. That's what I'm waiting for before installing my copy. That and a gig of ram.

my GeForce 8600GT gets me 4.1 for Graphics, and 4.8 for Gaming Graphics. Methinks something's gone wrong with that.
It is possible that a Radeon X1800 would score better. Usually, the midrange product of the latest generation is just a tad worse than the high end shit of the gen before. But it should only be a tad better. Maybe NVIDIA's Vista drivers still suck balls?

It is possible that a Radeon X1800 would score better. Usually, the midrange product of the latest generation is just a tad worse than the high end shit of the gen before. But it should only be a tad better. Maybe NVIDIA's Vista drivers still suck balls?

Yeah, maybe they do. I mean, it's DX10 compatible and all that, so it really should rank better.

I checked the requirements and it says you only need 250mb of ram, also I believe I have 1 gig ram overall but windows is using half of it, or something.

and they say you only needed 250mb ram for XP as well, but everyone knows it runs slow and wonky without at least 512mb.

Where are you people getting these scores anyway.

Why? Do you have a Sony digital camera? Or do you have one of the comps that doesn't sleep properly? Or do you plan on using your computer to watch TV? Or are you just waiting for SP1 as a milestone and don't actually care that most of the fixes probably won't apply to you?Personally I don't plan on ever switching to vista; it has nothing that I need, or particularly want. If it comes with a new computer then I might accept it, but that'd be it.
But with regard to my advice of waiting, it probably comes closest to the "milestone" reason. Unless you desperately need Vista I'd wait till it's "field-tested"; same reason why so many businesses aren't jumping at the chance to switch. And SP1 is an obvious milestone that signals any teething problems of the new OS are probably in the past.

Where are you people getting these scores anyway.

Windows Experience Index (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Experience_Index)

Personally I don't plan on ever switching to vista; it has nothing that I need, or particularly want. If it comes with a new computer then I might accept it, but that'd be it.
But with regard to my advice of waiting, it probably comes closest to the "milestone" reason. Unless you desperately need Vista I'd wait till it's "field-tested"; same reason why so many businesses aren't jumping at the chance to switch. And SP1 is an obvious milestone that signals any teething problems of the new OS are probably in the past.


I just got forced to go to Vista when my old computer broke. So far I'm not impressed. Functionally, it's more intrusive than XP and doesn't seem to have any real benefits for the average user. It took me nearly two days to locate and delete all the bundled crap and shut down all the automated "protections", updates, and popups. I'm still finding things.

I use Firefox. One thing it tends to do is, instead of clicking a link, it occasionally alternates the screen from full to partial. The other is it tends to lock up the internet connection at log on and will only start it working when you restart the computer.

I'm running an intel Core Duo w/ 2Gig of RAM.

Yeah, maybe they do. I mean, it's DX10 compatible and all that, so it really should rank better.Nothing is DX10 yet. Aero is DX9 for compatibility reasons. That said, you should be about be within at 0.5 of my score. Why you aren't, I don't know. I've heard nvidia has horrible Vista drivers (so bad that they faced a class action lawsuit), but by now that should have been fixed.

Nothing is DX10 yet. Aero is DX9 for compatibility reasons. That said, you should be about be within at 0.5 of my score. Why you aren't, I don't know. I've heard nvidia has horrible Vista drivers (so bad that they faced a class action lawsuit), but by now that should have been fixed.

Yeah, but for "gaming" graphics you would expect that a card that supports DX10 (which ships with Vista) would rate higher than an otherwise identical card that doesn't.

If there's anything wrong with Vista, it would be that it's Windows, only it's more Windows than ever before.

Anyway, why so intent on getting Vista? As others have told you, upgrading so that Vista will run smoothly is going to be costly. You might even need a whole new computer. Isn't XP, or whatever you're using now, working for you?

Well I am thinking of having a major upgrade of my comp anyway, so I can play teh latest g4m3z. Right now I can just about play brand new games, but have to have graphics setting right down.

If there's anything wrong with Vista, it would be that it's Windows, only it's more Windows than ever before.

Anyway, why so intent on getting Vista? As others have told you, upgrading so that Vista will run smoothly is going to be costly. You might even need a whole new computer. Isn't XP, or whatever you're using now, working for you?

If there's anything wrong with Vista, it would be that it's Windows, only it's more Windows than ever before.

Anyway, why so intent on getting Vista? As others have told you, upgrading so that Vista will run smoothly is going to be costly. You might even need a whole new computer. Isn't XP, or whatever you're using now, working for you?
Vista is pretty, and DX10 compatable. It also has a shitload of under the hood improvements (specifically regarding networking and security). And it is pretty.

Well I am thinking of having a major upgrade of my comp anyway, so I can play teh latest g4m3z. Right now I can just about play brand new games, but have to have graphics setting right down.
I suppose gamers are in a difficult spot right now, as some games aren't working well in Vista, or not at all. Especially older games can be problematic. Right now XP is the best gamer OS, but Vista is obviously going to claim that title pretty soon since developers from now on will make sure it works on Vista. I guess it depends on how much you care about older games?

Vista is pretty, and DX10 compatable. It also has a shitload of under the hood improvements (specifically regarding networking and security). And it is pretty.
Quoted the wrong post?

I suppose gamers are in a difficult spot right now, as some games aren't working well in Vista, or not at all. Especially older games can be problematic. Right now XP is the best gamer OS, but Vista is obviously going to claim that title pretty soon since developers from now on will make sure it works on Vista. I guess it depends on how much you care about older games?


Whats actually the problem with older games?

I suppose gamers are in a difficult spot right now, as some games aren't working well in Vista, or not at all. Especially older games can be problematic. Right now XP is the best gamer OS, but Vista is obviously going to claim that title pretty soon since developers from now on will make sure it works on Vista. I guess it depends on how much you care about older games?Yeah, we are starting to see the beginning of a long wave of Vista only games which won't end until Windows 7 is released.
Quoted the wrong post?
Nope, those are all good reasons to get Vista, and your post was a 'why would you want Vista?' post so...

Specifically, which specs need to be upgraded?RAM is the most important. MS recommends 1Gb, but if I were you I wouldn't run Vista on less than 2. Vista itself uses damn near 1Gb on my PC, meaning there wouldn't be much less for everything else if that's all I had.

I currently have 4, and I happen to like Vista. The security features take some taming... I decided not to just "shut them off" as some do, but rather figure out how to get them to work. If you take care to install everything you use frequently as an administrator (it's not enough merely to be using an administrator account at the time), it rarely bothers you... and the plus side is that when it does, it might actually be something *gasp* that you should be suspicious about.

In the long run that shouldn't be much bother, as software designers will get used to writing software that doesn't need deep system access to run. They've become casual about it because Windows LET them do it, but for 99.9% of all programs running on your computer there's absolutely no need for it.

My specs:

Ram: 512mb
Processor: 2.1GHz
Video card: ATI RADEON 9550 AGP: 256mb

I hear Vista idles at 500MB of RAM usage. You will need at least 1GB of RAM for anything. I'd recommend 2GB at least, but 1GB may be enough. And besides, you might as well use Windoze XP for now.

No. No matter how good your computer is, vista is a bad idea. (http://badvista.fsf.org/)

I wholeheartedly second the comment that some of Vista's big improvements are in networking. While all the little tidbits for setting up your network are in different places than in earlier versions, once you get used to them it's all much more intuitive and automatic. While I ALWAYS had to "fight" with XP to get it to do/recognize the many things I want running on my network, Vista is really good about figuring things out on its own.

New network device? Detected, before I even ask.

No. No matter how good your computer is, vista is a bad idea. (http://badvista.fsf.org/)

Dear god that site is made of fail.

Regarding games:

I recently bought two old Sierra sets (King's Quest and Space Quest), and I couldn't get either of them running on my XP notebook.

I figured there wasn't a chance in hell they'd run on Vista, but to my surprise... they do! I'm having minor problems with ONE game out of seven in the King's Quest series (it doesn't seem to recognize my graphics hardware), but otherwise everything is fine.

I've also run several old Star Wars games without a hitch, Oblivion, and Prey.

the only game i've found that'll run on vista is my cracked version of tiberian sun. admittedly i don't have many games, but im really missing gta san andreas. it doesn't seem to recognise that i have a mouse even when i run it in XP compatablity mode thingy.

the only game i've found that'll run on vista is my cracked version of tiberian sun. admittedly i don't have many games, but im really missing gta san andreas. it doesn't seem to recognise that i have a mouse even when i run it in XP compatablity mode thingy.

GTASA doesn't work on vista!?!?!? :eek:

But I play that game online the whole time!!

RAM is the most important. MS recommends 1Gb, but if I were you I wouldn't run Vista on less than 2. Vista itself uses damn near 1Gb on my PC, meaning there wouldn't be much less for everything else if that's all I had.

I currently have 4, and I happen to like Vista. The security features take some taming... I decided not to just "shut them off" as some do, but rather figure out how to get them to work. If you take care to install everything you use frequently as an administrator (it's not enough merely to be using an administrator account at the time), it rarely bothers you... and the plus side is that when it does, it might actually be something *gasp* that you should be suspicious about.

In the long run that shouldn't be much bother, as software designers will get used to writing software that doesn't need deep system access to run. They've become casual about it because Windows LET them do it, but for 99.9% of all programs running on your computer there's absolutely no need for it.Vista AMD64 uses only 750MiB of ram. So yeah, 1 GiB is gonna leave you about 300MiB for your apps (If Windows feels it has extra ram to play with, it will keep things in memory longer than they are needed to keep increase access speed to that stuff the next time you need it. It also has some background tasks it can cancel in a crunch too).

And he is right with about the security stuff. Windows has been rather lazy about the whole admin/user and kernelspace/userspace thing and it bit them in the ass security wise. They have had trouble rectifying the situation because it would cause most applications to stop working. Eventually it should get to the point were only drivers and system utilities cause those warnings, but it is going to take a long time.

My specs:

Ram: 512mb
Processor: 2.1GHz
Video card: ATI RADEON 9550 AGP: 256mb

Heeeeeelllll no. Vista will eat that thing alive and spew it out for breakfast.

I'm not even considering it with my Pentium D 945, 2GB DDR2 667MHz, 7600GT machine, which is a fairly recent, though not current-gen, machine. (I get these custom built. I'm going to upgrade to a Core 2 Quad, and an 8800GTS 640MB as soon as funds permit).

I'd look at getting a new machine first... Unless custom building, most machines ship with Vista these days.

GTASA doesn't work on vista!?!?!? :eek:

But I play that game online the whole time!!

with vista? how?? it's the one thing that really pisses me off about vista really, now i finished uni i only use the thing for internets and games and my favourite won't work. bah!

with vista? how?? it's the one thing that really pisses me off about vista really, now i finished uni i only use the thing for internets and games and my favourite won't work. bah!

Nah you misunderstood, I don't have vista but i'm not sure if I could be without SAMP (san andreas multi player) and MTA (multi theft auto).

I voted no, because I think you really need more ram first, at least another gigabyte to be safe. A CPU upgrade never hurts either. Whatever the minimum reqs are, 512 doesn't ever seem to be enough.

Nah you misunderstood, I don't have vista but i'm not sure if I could be without SAMP (san andreas multi player) and MTA (multi theft auto).

ah okay. well if i ever find a fix for it i'll let you know. maybe i just need more RAM i don't know but it's going to be a while before i can afford anything like that. in the mean time i'm trawling tech sites for answers every now and again.

i think i tried red alert too and that didn't work either, another of my favourites :(

like most other people are saying i would not suggest installing vista on those specs. if anything you may want to save up a bit more money and build a new machine and get vista for that or buy a machine with vista pre installed.

Ok heres another question, how hard is it to upgrade your CPU?

Ok heres another question, how hard is it to upgrade your CPU?

depends on your motherboard.

depends on your motherboard.

How can you check?

How can you check?
CPU-Z (there is already two links to it in this thread). Under CPU-Processor there should be a package box, what does it say there?

CPU-Z (there is already two links to it in this thread). Under CPU-Processor there should be a package box, what does it say there?

It says Socket A (462)

It says Socket A (462)
Yeah, your looking at a new system if you upgrade your CPU. You will need a new motherboard, which will require you to get a new graphics. Since you need new RAM anyways, you can toss that in too. Those four make up most of the cost of a new system.

My specs:

Ram: 512mb
Processor: 2.1GHz
Video card: ATI RADEON 9550 AGP: 256mb

Err, no - raise the memory to 1Gb or 2Gb. Video card is alright.

Yeah, your looking at a new system if you upgrade your CPU. You will need a new motherboard, which will require you to get a new graphics. Since you need new RAM anyways, you can toss that in too. Those four make up most of the cost of a new system.

Questions: (btw thanks for your help)

1) Why do I need a new graphics card?
2) Will I be able to keep the ram I already have?
3) Also what else will need to be updated (can I keep my hard drive? sound card?)
4) How much do you think this would cost roughly?

Questions: (btw thanks for your help)

1) Why do I need a new graphics card?
2) Will I be able to keep the ram I already have?
3) Also what else will need to be updated (can I keep my hard drive? sound card?)
4) How much do you think this would cost roughly?

Have you run the Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor (you need XP SP2)?

Questions: (btw thanks for your help)

1) Why do I need a new graphics card?
2) Well I be able to keep the ram I already have?
3) Also what else will need to be updated (can I keep my hard drive? sound card?)
4) How much do you think this would cost roughly?
1) Your mobo probably uses an AGP graphics (it could use PCI however). Most, if not all, new mobos have PCIe slots for graphics, so your card will not plug into a new mobo.
2) Probably not. If you get a Socket 939 it might, but Socket 939 is out of date and hard to buy anymore. The latest Intel and AMD chips both use DDR2 RAM which is not compatible with the DDR RAM you have.
3) Just the four items I listed.
4) You could pull it off for about $500. This should give you a rough idea. Note: their $800 budget assumes that you have nothing that can be reused.

Have you run the Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor (you need XP SP2)?

Yeah I did, the only hardware problem it said was that my C drive was too small, so I have to use my E drive for windows. This means that I have to get a new one rather then upgrade.

Yeah I did, the only hardware problem it said was that my C drive was too small, so I have to use my E drive for windows. This means that I have to get a new one rather then upgrade.
How big are your drives. Vista uses about 20GiB by itself.

Yeah I did, the only hardware problem it said was that my C drive was too small, so I have to use my E drive for windows. This means that I have to get a new one rather then upgrade.

Stick to XP SP2 in this PC, get a new super-duper dual core monster when you get the money.

It's upgrades like Vista that make me glad I've only been using Macs these past years. They're so much more reliable, in my opinion.

1) Your mobo probably uses an AGP graphics (it could use PCI however). Most, if not all, new mobos have PCIe slots for graphics, so your card will not plug into a new mobo.
2) Probably not. If you get a Socket 939 it might, but Socket 939 is out of date and hard to buy anymore. The latest Intel and AMD chips both use DDR2 RAM which is not compatible with the DDR RAM you have.
3) Just the four items I listed.
4) You could pull it off for about $500. This should give you a rough idea. Note: their $800 budget assumes that you have nothing that can be reused.

Cool. Also I will probably have to hire a guy to do it, I'm guessing it's quite a laborious job, will it be expensive?

Cool. Also I will probably have to hire a guy to do it, I'm guessing it's quite a laborious job, will it be expensive?
Pft, a half hour to do, longer if you give him your PC and tell him to canabalize what he can. It shouldn't cost much more than $50-$100 for labour.

How big are your drives. Vista uses about 20GiB by itself.

My C drive is 37 gigs. My E drive is 150 gigs.

Stick to XP SP2 in this PC, get a new super-duper dual core monster when you get the money.

I don't think i'll ever get the money for a new pc though.

My C drive is 37 gigs. My E drive is 150 gigs.
Just install to your E drive. Move all the stuff you want to keep to your C drive before you start.

I'm using Vista for the first time on my uncle's brand new HP laptop with a massive screen, and it looks nice, but I don't see any real improvements.

Stick with XP.

The X stands for Xtreme. :D

I'm using Vista for the first time on my uncle's brand new HP laptop with a massive screen, and it looks nice, but I don't see any real improvements.

Stick with XP.

The X stands for Xtreme. :D

Vista has better networking features. XP networking is stuck in the Windows 2000/NT era unfortunately apart from adding wireless support.

Pft, a half hour to do, longer if you give him your PC and tell him to canabalize what he can. It shouldn't cost much more than $50-$100 for labour.

So we're looking at a maximum of around $900, which is around 500 quid. Hmm... is it worth it?

I'm using Vista for the first time on my uncle's brand new HP laptop with a massive screen, and it looks nice, but I don't see any real improvements.

Stick with XP.

The X stands for Xtreme. :DIt stands for eXPerience. Names with meaningless acronyms, particularly those with X in them, where a trend at the time, so MS incorporated that trend to their name to sound trendier. Since Mac, rivaling business targeted Linux Distros, and Mazda are now using numbers in their names, they have chosen to name their next OS a number (7).

Vista has better networking features. XP networking is stuck in the Windows 2000/NT era unfortunately apart from adding wireless support.

And that is bad because...?

And that is bad because...?

Depends what you want our your networking, I'm a System Admiin - XP networking's limitations can be pain at times.

Depends what you want our your networking, I'm a System Admiin - XP networking's limitations can be pain at times.

Oh I see.

I guess that could become problematic if I were stranded on an island with no means of playing Starcraft online.

That must be avoided at all costs. :D

And that is bad because...?

Because they provide a lot of tools for administrators to actually diagnose problems. They also make the stack more stable which means less downtime for a lot of users.

Oh I see.

I guess that could become problematic if I were stranded on an island with no means of playing Starcraft online.

That must be avoided at all costs. :D

That or if you had homework to do ... or the massive amounts of students taking online courses nowadays

Or business communications such as emails or remote files or applications

Networking is for more then gamers nowadays

Oh I see.

I guess that could become problematic if I were stranded on an island with no means of playing Starcraft online.

That must be avoided at all costs. :D

Home user networking and Windows domain networking are different. Vista has such nice tools to help people like me, XP is alright but too Windows 2000 for me.

Home user networking and Windows domain networking are different. Vista has such nice tools to help people like me, XP is alright but too Windows 2000 for me.

And even non domain but large local networks the tools help people like me (we have about 2500 domain and about 4000 non domain on the network at any given time)

No. Not with those specs.

With better hardware then go for it. I'm currently using it with a 2.4ghz Core 2 Duo, 2048mb DDR2 RAM, and an nVidia GeForce 8600GT card and it's great. Once you get used to and get it setup it it's really a very good OS.
Well-said. I'm planning on getting some memory upgrades for my VGN-TX37GP/W laptop, if not a few repairs, in order to get back what I can with extra memory and what not.

A big giant NO.

Vista will consume your ram, then demand more. Your CPU will try to sacrifice the graphics card in the hopes that the Great Beast will be appeased, but alas for it...

Suffice it to say, only Vista walked out of the room alive.

Windows borrows RAM from your graphics card? :confused:

Windows borrows RAM from your graphics card? :confused:

Don't listen to the Linux fan boys :D

Don't listen to the Linux fan boys :D

O…kay. *is OS X fanboy, is proud to admit it*

Question: Do Windows operating systems use virtual memory? If so, to what extent?

How big are your drives. Vista uses about 20GiB by itself.
:eek:

O…kay. *is OS X fanboy, is proud to admit it*

Question: Do Windows operating systems use virtual memory? If so, to what extent?

Yes, and it depends on how much RAM you have and what you set your virtual memory maximum to be.

:eek:

Well, it's not quite 20GB. My Windows folder is currently 8.8GB, and my primary hard drive had about 14 on it after a clean install.

Yes, and it depends on how much RAM you have and what you set your virtual memory maximum to be.

Heh heh… good old memory maximums… how I used to despise you… :mad: (Okay, so the virtual memory maximum is different than those, but still):
Allocate freely, man! :D

Edit: My System folder is 2.8 GB, plus 5.0GB for the Library (does that count?)

Not if you're only running 512.

Heh heh… good old memory maximums… how I used to despise you… :mad: (Okay, so the virtual memory maximum is different than those, but still):
Allocate freely, man! :D

For the record, my laptop has 1GB of physical RAM - and 1.5GB of Virtual memory. 5400 RPM laptop hard drives aren't very fast.

NO!

I've never been a windows-user in the first place but from what i know, it's simply not user-friendly. (it's a pain in the behind to be honest)
get debian! :D

O…kay. *is OS X fanboy, is proud to admit it*

Question: Do Windows operating systems use virtual memory? If so, to what extent?Yes, probably to the same extent that OS X does. But you were told not to listen to me, so you should unread this post.

Well, it's not quite 20GB. My Windows folder is currently 8.8GB, and my primary hard drive had about 14 on it after a clean install.Mine was about 16-18GiB for Vista Ultimate AMD64.

For the record, my laptop has 1GB of physical RAM - and 1.5GB of Virtual memory. 5400 RPM laptop hard drives aren't very fast.

My computer has 512MB of RAM (:() and usually uses about 6GB of virtual memory. But I usually have many, many programs running. Too many? Probably.

My computer has 512MB of RAM (:() and usually uses about 6GB of virtual memory. But I usually have many, many programs running. Too many? Probably.

Yeah, I don't lke thrashing the hard drives with a large virtual memory allocation, especially expensive 120Gb SATA 2.5" hard drives.

NO!

I've never been a windows-user in the first place but from what i know, it's simply not user-friendly. (it's a pain in the behind to be honest)
get debian! :DYeah, like Debian isn't a pain in the ass to setup either. Hopefully that is rectified in Lenny, I know that is one a Hocevar's priorities.

Mine was about 16-18GiB for Vista Ultimate AMD64.

I've Ultimate x86...

Heh heh… good old memory maximums… how I used to despise you… :mad: (Okay, so the virtual memory maximum is different than those, but still):
Allocate freely, man! :D

Edit: My System folder is 2.8 GB, plus 5.0GB for the Library (does that count?)

Well, you can set it to be whatever size you want, as far as I know.

I've Ultimate x86...Yeah, that is kinda odd. I mean a clean install of AMD64 Debian does use up more room than the x86 version, but not 20% larger. Maybe 5-10%.

All new computers come with it unfortunately. My laptop is fritzed so I decided to get one that happened to be on sale at Staples.

The associate said they didn't make computers with Windows XP anymore :(

The desktop is different. I went to the WWE site and Vista won't let you watch WWE streams. That sucks.

Most of the people who trash Vista have probably never tried it properly. I've been using it since RC1, and it's great.

How do you get the windows media streaming to work?

How do you get the windows media streaming to work?

The what now?

All new computers come with it unfortunately. My laptop is fritzed so I decided to get one that happened to be on sale at Staples.

The associate said they didn't make computers with Windows XP anymore :(

The desktop is different. I went to the WWE site and Vista won't let you watch WWE streams. That sucks.

How do you get the windows media streaming to work?A link to some of their streaming content?

I say go for it, but you will need to do some upgrading. First you'll probably need a new Vista-able mobo for the best performance and to take advantage of its best features. I recommend ASRock.com which is a subgroup of Asus. Then you'll need about 2 gigs of ram to be able to run Vista smoothly and do some gaming too. Also, AGP is dead so move to a PCIe setup with some DirectX 10 capable graphics card (if you are a gamer, when directX 10 comes out, youll want vista and graphics cards that can handle it). Throw in a nice hard drive and you have the beginnings of a fairly badass PC. Lastly you need a big power supply to power all this, so I recommend you get ~500w power supply that is SLi capable for those graphics cards.

I built my PC from the ground up for Vista, and only reused the floppy drive, CDRW, and my 3gigs of ram. The rest is all new. Specs? Why sure!

AMD Athlon 3800+ Venice socket 939 proc
ASRock 939SLI32-eSATA2 motherboard
3gigs of PC400 DDRAM
320GB Segate SATA Hard Drive
EVGA GeForce 7800 GS KO 256MB Graphics Card
SoundBlaster X-Fi Platinum Sound Card
Windows Vista Home Premium

and a bunch of other add-ons like a multi-card reader, two DVD-RW drives, internal wi-fi card etc etc. Total cost was about 1,100 USD, but was comparable to Alienware PC's at the time of building (Feb 2007). Now I need some upgrading myself!

If you have knowledge of building PC's and have about 1,000 bucks to invest in it, I would say go for it. Hell, even if you can but some money down for a gig or two of ram on your current PC i say go ahead and do it, but it won't run at it's full potential.

The main problem I have had with Vista is a good deal of programs I used that are not microsoft produced will not work with Vista. This can be a hassle, but it's all part of upgrading.

If you think you'd like to upgrade or build a new PC, www.tigerdirect.com and www.newegg.com are good sites to visit and are MUCH cheaper than places like Best Buy, Frys, and Circuit City.

A link to some of their streaming content?

The free stuff:
http://www.wwe.com/shows/raw/videos/

It works but when you try to do the subscription (stream Summer Slam or Wrestlemania), it doesn't want to work. It like the Vista doesn't want to work with the WWE site.

The free stuff:
http://www.wwe.com/shows/raw/videos/

It works but when you try to do the subscription (stream Summer Slam or Wrestlemania), it doesn't want to work. It like the Vista doesn't want to work with the WWE site.

Correction: the free streams are not working with vista either.

should I be worried about Vista?
i just ordered a new laptop and am really hoping i don't have anything to worry about
My specs are as follows

Intel Core 2 Duo T7300, 2.0GHz, 800Mhz, 4M Cache
2GB, DDR2, 667MHz 2 Dimm
128MB NVIDIA GeForce 8400M G Insp 1520
160G 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive

When i was building i was thinking of when i got my XP
"Damn I wish this were the specs on my desktop"
but its running XP and i have no experience with Vista..

so i ask again do i have anything to worry about?

BillGates:sniper:
B lG t s:mp5:

Happy?

I imagine that will be absolutely fine for most things. Unless you're going to particularly heavy gaming (like with all graphics turned on) then you shouldn't have anything major to worry about.

I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that it scored my new laptop as being a 2.4.

Good. As far as i know the most pressing thing im going to be doing on it will be Chem CAD.

I'm a BioChemical Engineering major and will be running a LOT of CAD programs.

and well im an audiophile so theres gonna be a good bit of music.

I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that it scored my new laptop as being a 2.4.

I don't know, maybe Microsoft programmed some taste into it and it refuses to play WWE footage ;)

Most of the people who trash Vista have probably never tried it properly. I've been using it since RC1, and it's great.

I used Beta2, and thought it was quite pretty... But nothing worth upgrading to considering 1) all the DRM silliness (and breaking DirectSound!), 2) the increased memory requirements (http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3044&p=2) or 3) how much the damn thing costs.

Its only actual advantage is DirectX10, and my cards are X1900XTs. And I object to paying (on principle, but £65 for the OEM edition of either 32 or 64-bit Premium!) for an OS just to upgrade one API.

WinXP x64 works nicely, thank you. 2K was better, though :p

It came as standard on my laptop, and I've never found any problems with it as of yet. Admittedly, the uses to which I put it are somewhat limited; internet, MSN, DVD's, Cd's, itunes and downloading music, but nonetheless I find little to criticise it over.

Have Vista on my laptop. I see no advantage at this time to having it over XP. You do have more time to think while your comp is booting up though.

I recently got it because a hard drive failed and had to buy a replacement, and since that meant reinstalling the OS I thought I might as well get Vista.

It's been pretty good, I have a system very similar to Nadkor's and there's no slow down at all, it may be a bit slower than the XP x64 I had been using for some things but nothing too noticeable.

Compatibility has been better than I expected. So far everything has run without too much trouble, most annoying is the Gimp that sends a couple of fatal exception errors from time to time but then you click on "Try Again" and it continues happily. And for some reason I can't apply the 8.0.2 patch for Dreamweaver.

I got the 64 bit version and since I was using x64 before I'm kind of used to some thing not working. I'm glad MS determined that to be "Vista compatible" a piece of software has to work on both 32 and 64 bit versions.

Oh, yeah, there were a couple of mysterious crashes at the beginning but they seem to have disappeared now. And the incredibly vanishing DVD drive, but that can be fixed by deleting a couple of variables from the registry (happened a few times in XP as well)

The free stuff:
http://www.wwe.com/shows/raw/videos/

It works but when you try to do the subscription (stream Summer Slam or Wrestlemania), it doesn't want to work. It like the Vista doesn't want to work with the WWE site.The player you use needs to have support for MMSH streams. I have no idea which Windows video players support MMSH.



On a slightly related topic, which music player do you all use? I am using songbird and finding it meh. It doesn't recognize half the tags of my music, so I am in the process of doing it manually.

Winamp, out of habit; it has become too fat lately, really, but I love the 'j' command and can't give it up.

Have Vista on my laptop. I see no advantage at this time to having it over XP. You do have more time to think while your comp is booting up though.

Really? I've found Vista to be quicker to boot than XP...

Winamp, out of habit; it has become too fat lately, really, but I love the 'j' command and can't give it up.I've never liked Winamp. It is just not my cup of tea.

What's the 'j' command?

I've never liked Winamp. It is just not my cup of tea.

What's the 'j' command?

"Jump"; hit 'j', type some characters from the song you want, and then you can either play it now (hit return) or insert it as next in the playlist by clicking a button (or setting up a command for it). It doesn't mess up the rest of the playlist, either; after the jumped-to song it returns to the next track after the one you jumped from.

"Jump"; hit 'j', type some characters from the song you want, and then you can either play it now (hit return) or insert it as next in the playlist by clicking a button (or setting up a command for it). It doesn't mess up the rest of the playlist, either; after the jumped-to song it returns to the next track after the one you jumped from.I always leave the playlist on random, and dynamic if it is available(which is rarely).

I always leave the playlist on random, and dynamic if it is available(which is rarely).

Yeah, same here. It's just dead convenient... You hit "next track" until it picks one you want, then you go back one, then you 'j' to another one you want to listen to and you get two in a row. Also it's a dead quick way to pick songs; 'j'whatever<return>. Easy.

Edit: Also the "enqueue" function; select a track you want, hit 'q', repeat for as many songs as you like, and it plays those songs in that order without messing up the playlist or anything.

Yeah, same here. It's just dead convenient... You hit "next track" until it picks one you want, then you go back one, then you 'j' to another one you want to listen to and you get two in a row. Also it's a dead quick way to pick songs; 'j'whatever<return>. Easy.
Hmm, sounds basically like queues, just with a shortcut. Not a bad idea at all...

Hmm, sounds basically like queues, just with a shortcut. Not a bad idea at all...

When you have over a thousand songs in a playlist, and they're not in any particular order, it's quite convenient :)

When you have over a thousand songs in a playlist, and they're not in any particular order, it's quite convenient :)See, mine MUST be in order. First by Artist, then Album, then CD number, then Track number. Either way, I am gonna see if I can patch that functionality into Exaile.

EDIT: Tested it out, and it is basically implemented already. Instead of loading a new window, your search is done in the current playlist screen.