Opinions on installing Vista to laptop

Karrie

I got a laptop for Christmas. I am now thinking of installing Vista (which I have bought). I have had it a couple of weeks but am weary of installing it. Was thinking of taking it to a computer shop to get someone who knows what they are doing to install it. Should I stick with XP or be brave an install Vista?

mdrandall

Stick with XP !!!!

Unless the laptop manufacturer has offered the unit with Vista (or an upgrade voucher) then there is no guarantee that Vista will run properly. If you install Vista yourself then you are very unlikely to get any support from the manufacturer.

Vista is memory hungry (1 MByte min) and may have bugs yet to be discovered. It also does not include much more than XP in terms of applications etc. If there is a specific function you need that Vista offers but XP does not, then look for a 3rd party app for XP.

Eventually Vista will become the 'norm' as folks buy new machines but currently XP rules and will do for some time.

Sell the Vista package (you didn't say which version) on ebay and stick with XP.

Madmink1

Hi there

I have actually just bought and installed Vista Home Premium on my own laptop which is over a year old. It looks and feels great, i think i had one compatability issue which i resolved after about 30mins.

I would advise to run the vista compatability checker, which is available on the website, before installing to make sure it can install properly. Its really good, i wouldnt listen to all these people saying its crap when they dont even have it.

The installation itself is pretty straight forward, just like installing a normal peice of software, apart from it takes a few hours, but once you get it started you just leave it to it.

Hope this has helped, let me know if you have anymore questions!!

Karrie

Thanks Madmink1. Will go to Microsoft site now and do a compatability check. Thanks again.