L
Laurie
After reading about many Vista problems and negative opinions, I thought I
would share a good Vista and Compaq experience. My old XP machine died and I
went off to Futureshop to buy a new PC. I need to run XP for a couple old
applications not supported in Vista. FS only sells preloaded Vista PC’s, and
that’s fine as I have my retail copy of XP to install on it. I chose an
inexpensive $600 CDN Compaq as it’s just a second PC but needed for the old
applications. Ya’ gotta love FS, right away the guy tries to sell me the
extended warranty. No thanks I tell him. Then he says, well you can pick up
the PC in about three hours, as we have to get Vista ready for you. The cost
is $80 but well worth it as you would not be able to do it yourself. No
thanks, I tell him, I’ll muddle through it somehow. Besides, I’ll be
installing XP instead. He say’s you can’t as there are no drivers available.
I had done my homework and knew most drivers were available from the device
manufacturer.
So I get the PC home, plugged in and finished the Vista install in about 10
minutes. Can’t figure out what the $80 does. What a lot of crap Compaq
install with their PC’s. It wasn’t running very fast, even with an
experience rating of 3.4. I make the recovery DVD’s, test them, plug in my
XP Pro CD and restart. I delete the recovery partition and in all create
three partitions. I install XP. All the drivers were readily available on
the internet except for the NIC of all things. Took me an hour to find it,
but I did and all devices are working correctly. I activate XP and do all
the updates as well as install my applications. It’s running great, quite
fast really.
So I get thinking about the Vista COA on the side of the tower. I own it,
it comes with this PC and can be legally installed. Obviously not with the
recovery DVD if I want to keep XP. So I get out my retail version of Vista
Ultimate (purchased for my main PC), and use that media with the Compaq COA
to install it, dual booting with XP. While the install is running, I’m
thinking, I hope I can find all the drivers for everything. 35 minutes
later, I’m at the Vista desktop. Drivers had been installed for every
device! I do the updates and activation thing and install some software. It
runs beautifully! Fast and responsive. What a shame the PC manufacturer’s do
not include the OS media with a new PC.
Anyway, I’ve been using Vista since RC1 and really like it. Even on the
lower end PC I just purchased, it definitely rivals XP in terms of
performance. And the eye candy is very nice indeed.
would share a good Vista and Compaq experience. My old XP machine died and I
went off to Futureshop to buy a new PC. I need to run XP for a couple old
applications not supported in Vista. FS only sells preloaded Vista PC’s, and
that’s fine as I have my retail copy of XP to install on it. I chose an
inexpensive $600 CDN Compaq as it’s just a second PC but needed for the old
applications. Ya’ gotta love FS, right away the guy tries to sell me the
extended warranty. No thanks I tell him. Then he says, well you can pick up
the PC in about three hours, as we have to get Vista ready for you. The cost
is $80 but well worth it as you would not be able to do it yourself. No
thanks, I tell him, I’ll muddle through it somehow. Besides, I’ll be
installing XP instead. He say’s you can’t as there are no drivers available.
I had done my homework and knew most drivers were available from the device
manufacturer.
So I get the PC home, plugged in and finished the Vista install in about 10
minutes. Can’t figure out what the $80 does. What a lot of crap Compaq
install with their PC’s. It wasn’t running very fast, even with an
experience rating of 3.4. I make the recovery DVD’s, test them, plug in my
XP Pro CD and restart. I delete the recovery partition and in all create
three partitions. I install XP. All the drivers were readily available on
the internet except for the NIC of all things. Took me an hour to find it,
but I did and all devices are working correctly. I activate XP and do all
the updates as well as install my applications. It’s running great, quite
fast really.
So I get thinking about the Vista COA on the side of the tower. I own it,
it comes with this PC and can be legally installed. Obviously not with the
recovery DVD if I want to keep XP. So I get out my retail version of Vista
Ultimate (purchased for my main PC), and use that media with the Compaq COA
to install it, dual booting with XP. While the install is running, I’m
thinking, I hope I can find all the drivers for everything. 35 minutes
later, I’m at the Vista desktop. Drivers had been installed for every
device! I do the updates and activation thing and install some software. It
runs beautifully! Fast and responsive. What a shame the PC manufacturer’s do
not include the OS media with a new PC.
Anyway, I’ve been using Vista since RC1 and really like it. Even on the
lower end PC I just purchased, it definitely rivals XP in terms of
performance. And the eye candy is very nice indeed.
