Microsoft Vista from £64.61

Wi11iams

gromituk wrote:

It's a worthless costly update. Try Linux - it is free, much less subject to attack, just as easy to use nowadays and you are not tied into a company's business model. I recommend you download or otherwise get hold of an Ubuntu CD. Just put it in your machine and boot. It will work without touching your Windows installation in any way. If you like it, you just select the install icon and you can make your machine dual-boot - allowing you to continue to use Windows if you want to. As updates come along, or you want software which isn't on the CD, you simply run the package manager and it is downloaded and installed. And it all costs absolutely nothing. I am using Ubuntu now.

If I install Ubuntu over my xp will it keep my existing drivers, program files, registry and documents? or will I need to reinstall everything as with a fresh install?

gromituk

You don't exactly install it over your XP - you make a new disk partition (it ought to fit comfortably in 5GB or less - look at the Ubuntu site for details), and it installs a "boot loader" called Grub which allows you to select which OS to use whenever you boot. You can change the order of the list so if you do nothing at boot it will boot whichever OS you prefer (by default it loads Linux). If you select Windows, it will behave exactly as before except that you will, of course, have less disk space by the amount you partitioned off for Linux. All you are modifying is the "master boot record" which allows Grub to intercept the boot-up process to allow you to select which OS you want to start.

Due to Microsoft's pig-headedness, Windows will know nothing about your Linux partition because MS refuses to support the Linux filing systems, even though their specifications are completely published and there is no legal barrier to using them. I believe that you can, however, download free third-party drivers for Windows to enable you to mount your Linux partition as a drive letter in Windows.

Linux, however, will know about your Windows partition, and will allow you to access the files on it. However, because Microsoft's specifications are secret, Linux developers have had to reverse engineer NTFS to guess how it works. Because this is not considered foolproof, the files will not be writeable so that you can't corrupt your XP partition because of some innocent oversight on the part of the Linux developers. You can therefore, for instance, open a Word document in OpenOffice under Linux, but it'll appear as read only, so you'll have to "save as" to the Linux partition in order to commit your changes. Alternatively, simply use the Linux file manager to copy the file over before opening it.

My laptop came with XP, and I partitioned at new, ages ago, for a previous Linux, so I didn't need to partition for Ubuntu. Ubuntu's installer has all the tools you need to partition your disk, but you may need to defrag your XP if it's left stuff littered all over the place, which will prevent you from being able to partition it without losing XP data. Alternatively you can use a completely separate drive if you like. You'll need to do a little research on this - I'm sure info is available via the Ubuntu site.

Note again that booting the Ubuntu CD will not touch your hard drive at all, so will have no effect on your computer whatsoever. (The Windows Registry, like everything else, is simply a file on the hard disk.)

h4x3r

OEM - IT will work as normal can reinstall as many times as you want the ONLY prob is when you change motherboard you will have an issue

everythingblogcast

h4x3r wrote:

OEM - IT will work as normal can reinstall as many times as you want the ONLY prob is when you change motherboard you will have an issue

the you just ring Microsoft Up. Just an extra few minutes.

tbird3

GromitUK- obviously you like Linux. However, for the everyday joe (or josephine) Linux can be a can of worms waiting to be opened, due to actually having to fiddle about to get things to work, even I have had problems running Mandrake 6.2 on certain stuff, like it wouldn't even find my Epson printer- not exactly non-standard stuff. I do find it hard to warm to the Linux community, they are so fervent about a product thats open source- its a bit like communism really. The reason its free? No-one would buy something you have to "tweak" so much to get working. And believe me, I know, the amount of people calling me about it get one piece of advice now, as I used to spend hours trying to sort things out-
"Don't".
"But its free".
"Yes".
"and its not MS"
"so?"
"MS are teh Devil incarnate"
"Ok- so its the devils work, and Bill and all his little pixies of death eat babies, but its stable, and you don't have to phone me every 5 minutes saying "it doesn't see my wireless card/printer/graphics card I have just bought- so guess what? put it on, you are on your own"
Or, of course, theres the forums- populated by people with names like "Pingu the Slayer" and "M$Sux0r". They are entertaining, to say the least.
The basic points to note are, before we get into a "Linux is better" war (which was not was was asked- the second point was "should I change to Vista or wait?") and continue hijacking the thread, was the points that Lord Jason The Invincible made so eloquently- stick with XP unless you are 120% sure you want to change, or until the service pack(s) are out. My Pcs will be running Vista Ultimate in the lounge, WindowsXP Pro for main pc, and laptop is running XP home. Don't put all your eggs in one basket is the analogy really!

gjchester

pardal51 wrote:

Correct me if I'm wrong:

I think you need to order a system to be able to buy an OEM copy....

Also, I wouldn't upgrade to Vista right now...wait till SP1 at least....XP is a very robust OS....Another good option is Linux. They've become very user friendly....try Suse 10...

Your Wrong

You need to buy it with a "non peripheral" piece of hardware, Common sense says thats mobo, cpu . memory, graphics card or case.

However the licence lives and dies with the hardware, so if you but it with a graphics card and then upgrade it the licence dies. Also a condition of the licence is the sticker with te code on is put on the case, so even if you bought it with a MoBo and decided to then later on change the case (say a bigger one or a different colout) then the licence dies as it's not atatched to the case of the computer it was originally licenced for.

Long and short of it is OEM copies are not really for joe public, but as it's a cheap way to get a OS legitematly, then it gets bought. Joe publick is exoected to buy the boxed retail product in PC world, as iether a new OS, or as an upgrade


OK in reality MS won't know what was the piece of hardware you bought it with unless they ask for proof of purchase, but thats what it says about it.

I actually don;'t think XP before SP1 was that bad as long as you didn't install 3rd party drivers, it woo a while for everyone to be able to write drivers correctly for XP rather than just both fix the older windows 2000 ones (ie anything that you have to click "continue anyway" when installing them), and thats what caused most of the issues not the OS itself.

h4x3r

gjchester wrote:

Your Wrong

You need to buy it with a "non peripheral" piece of hardwareQUOTE]

No you dont most compaines inforce this but Over Clockers UK dont

everythingblogcast wrote:

the you just ring Microsoft Up. Just an extra few minutes.

i didnt ring microsoft why would i do that?

sco0ter

h4x3r wrote:

No you dont most compaines inforce this but Over Clockers UK dont

According to the official microsoft OEM license this is an illegal practice and it must be bought with Motherboard,CPU,hard drive.

http://oem.microsoft.com/downloads/Public/sblicense/English_SB_License.pdf

look at section 4.1

Danosaur

sco0ter wrote:

According to the official microsoft OEM license this is an illegal practice and it must be bought with Motherboard,CPU,hard drive.

Apparently you won't get any support from Microsoft if you have license problems. Upgrading hardware would be a big problem after it is installed. I would be tempted by this cheap way of doing things but the amount of upgrading I do I don't think it would be a good idea.

It begs the question why do so many companies sell these OEM products with no questions asked? I always buy OEM computer components because they are so cheap. Didn't know I was breaking the law.

h4x3r

sco0ter wrote:

According to the official microsoft OEM license this is an illegal practice and it must be bought with Motherboard,CPU,hard drive.

http://oem.microsoft.com/downloads/Public/sblicense/English_SB_License.pdf

look at section 4.1

yeh i know what u mean but over lcokers dont