SO, I got this Toshiba laptop recently with a Pentium dual core processors and 2 GB memory. I found out, real soon, that it was a glorified email machine.
It would not run any of the software that I was using, except for one program. I was not happy. I had read on many Blog that others had the same feelings.
After a lot of looking around over a period time, I finally found a zip files with all the needed drivers needed to abandon Windows Vista and retro back to Windows XP Professional. The retro move when without any problems.
Wow! now I have a screamer of a computer and it runs all of the programs I use. I recommend this solution to everyone, I opine, that has run into this same wall called Vista.
The Toshiba laptop is a Satellite A135-S4527. I love Windows XP Professional, although I can be tempted with an Apple MacIntosh.
My US Gov Agency thought, at first, that they would introduce Vista. We have common workstation images on all our systems, tailored a bit for organizational or individual needs. However, the Vista testing so far has shown that we will have a long wait before that happens. We are all on XP.
One of my systems at work is a Dell 600, badly in need of a refresh. That won't even take Vista.
I find it telling that PC Gamer Podcast, who were big Vista advocates from the get go, officially retracted their endorsement some episodes ago. I'm not subscribed to the magazine, but I expect that I'd find the same retraction there.
They basically said that they thought Vista would improve, and deliver usable game performance. But they still find that you get a much higher frame rate on a comparable machine when running XP as compared to Vista, even when you leave DirectX 10 (Vista only) out of the picture.
I've seen Vista on four machines, but haven't had a long time exposure to one. My initial reactions on all but one of the machines have been "Wow, this is too dog gone slow". One machine was delivered with Vista Home Basic, integrated graphics card and one gig of memory - what a disaster. Two were reasonably capable, and the final one should've been a screamer, but wasn't, at least with Vista on it.
I am running Windows Vista on my high-end desktop machine, but even then, it is rather slow. It is purty though, I'll have to give you that.
The truth is, Vista is great if you have a machine that can handle it. Most of us don't have that advantage. I know my new laptop is coming with Vista, but it's also been boosted to its highest level of processor and ram, so that it can run it. I'd no more install Vista on my older laptops or desktops than I would try to install a MAC OS on them. It just isn't going to work on older machines.
That being said, I work on a large college campus, and we are not moving to Vista anytime soon, either. We have it deployed in one classroom where we are teaching it, but that is about it. There are no immediate plans to deploy it, either, because our equipment just will not run it, and the higher costs of newer machines is not in our budget during an economic crisis.
Well I have nothing but good things to say. I have been able to run all legacy programs except one and the program was reall out of date. This is with a new laptop of course but it is as fast or faster than any of my xp machines.
I wonder what Microsoft knows? They are talking about a new OS which they are calling "Windows Seven." I am thinking, is "Vista" another "Me" like in the past?
Personally I have been running vista for over a year now and am very pleased with it. I do not find it slower than my xp machines, nor do I see many application confilcts (I can't really remember ANY right now except when it first came out.)
I don't think Vista belongs in a Corporate environment yet and it is definitely not for older machines. I currently run Vista Ultimate-32bit on a Dell Inspiron1705 with 2GB of memory and a 2.16 Core2Duo processor.
There's a GREAT podcast episode of MindOfRoot that talks about all these kinds of Vista issues. The entire podcast in general is really good, and no I am not in any way affiliated with it. ;)
http://www.mindofroot.com/2008/04/20/episode-47-vista-and-me/