Ok, here's the story.

I am looking at a great deal on a laptop. It has everything I need and some things I don't, but it is running the Vista OS. (Home edition, I think)

I will be using this as my work PC and want to use my older hardware and software. I don't want to do troubleshooting or face a steep learning curve on everything when I have work to do.

I have stuck with XP so far and like it. Any thoughts or opinions on how friendly or stable Vista is lately? (especially to pre-Vista hardware or software)

My laptop has vista home edition and I have not had any issues with it. That said, Kim Kommando, the digital goddess, recommends against it. She says to get the premium at a minumum. See if this helps

http://www.komando.com/buyguide/index.aspx?id=3192

There is a program call PC Decrapifier. It will remove all of the stuff the laptop manager added to Vista that slows it down. After running it on my wifes new $400 Compaq Laptop with 1Gig RAM, Vista runs great:

http://www.pcdecrapifier.com/

That might be asking a lot. My company is getting ready to roll out Vista. I'm in the IT dept but not on that project. The team had to upgrade A LOT of software to get Vista compatible versions. YMMV.

Good luck. I bought a Mac instead.

Kind of sad that something like pcdecrapifier is needed. But I'm sure glad you mentioned that. I'm inheriting a laptop with Vista soon.

KISS Kelly

I have to admit that after SP1 and other updates that Vista is running better on my laptop. But it still does some funky things that you just have to accept, I guess.

Software can be a problem. If you use Microsoft Office for instance, you got to buy the 2007 version (and it really sux).

That is my biggest concern. I looked through my software last night and it appears that I have exactly one package that mentions Vista. The rest do not since they were purchased before it came out.

Things like CAD software, statistical packages, and MS Office will certainly be another expense as well as a learning curve. Not to mention the other things like photo/video, graphics, flowcharting, and business planning software.

I suppose I could buy a new hard drive and put XP, software, and files on it then use it in a new machine. However, that does take some of the fun out of it.

Can you put 2 OS's on the same drive? IIRC, it was possible in the past...but maybe that was just me hoping for a better solution.

Amen. Why on earth did MS choose to completely change an interface that has worked fine for years? To make it look more like a Mac?

I'm still avoiding Vista on my laptop despite repeated inquiries by our IT person to see if I want to "upgrade" my laptop from XP.

Another nag. USB a digital camera to a computer and its memory card shows folders, seems to behave like any USB storage device. But that is because the CD for your camera installed a custom driver for that particular camera. Go to a different OS, even within the MS family, and that driver may no longer work. Bye-bye faithful digital camera.

Kelly

Yes, it's relatively easy to load two OS on one hard drive. You have to create a dual-booting MBR, but it's easy to do. PM if you want details.

Oh, I also had to upgrade Adobe Photoshop Elements to 6.0; but 5.0 will also work if you get the patch. Anything below 5.0 will not work.

Vista = Fail

It amazes me how such a large company with such high bandwidth (to barrow a favorite phrase from Gates to indicate "smarts") can lay such an egg.

Perhaps not the stinking rotten one that ME was, but an egg non-the-less.

I guess you can get away with it when your installed base is so large. However, if they keep this up...

And can someone explain to me why so many flavors? Wow. What a brilliant idea.

As someone who is thinking of getting back into the private computer support business, I always tell folks to stay away from anything "Home" edition.

One simple reason.

No remote desktop connection support.

Oh it's actually in there. It's just that the great MS purposely broke it (by design as one of the selling points to pay more for one of the upgraded editions) so it don't work in the home editions.

That one right there is going to cost a lot of my paying clients an extra $50 more than once.

So hey! I guess I gotta love the crippled Home Editions.... right?

I've never bought anything other than the pro/premium/uber editions of any OS for exactly those kinds of reasons.

Err, the "Home Editions" are MS apps, right? I am on Windooozzz, but for the most part I do not run MS apps.

da wude wan

This is not a Vista issue, it is the computer makers who pre-install all those programs to make money from other software vendors.