Upgrade from XP MCE to Vista ... on laptop should I do it?

jpe20

Hi folks,

Just in a bit of a quandary at the moment as I received my Vista Premium Home edition dvds from moduslink for my Acer laptop this week. I am debating with myself whether to bother doing this upgrade or not at the moment due to some people saying it ain't worth the hassle.

Everything works fine on the laptop now in XP and the spec of the laptop is more than capable of running Vista (2GB RAM, 160GBHDD, C2D T7200, GeForce Go 7600).

Main thing I wanna know is the pros and cons of doing this upgrade, the accessibility features for partially sighted people under Vista and any battery life issues.

Any tips appreciated...

Jools

PS (Laptop is Acer Aspire 5685WLMi (yeah that 700quid one from Comet a few weeks back!).

PPS Is there a time limit on installing this upgrade?

isofa

I personally wouldn't - if it's all working, then don't mess with it!

Until Vista has been out for 6-months to a year, I wouldn't switch, by then more drivers will be available and more bugs found and fixed!

I've no idea if there is a time limit, I doubt it, probably more of a time limit to receive the upgrade (which you already have), but you could check with https://www.microsoft.com

0--ryan--0

I'm not a user of Vista personally and don't plan to be for some time. Yes it looks a lot fancier and all that but stability wise you are best waiting. You may also encounter problems installing programs etc due to compatibility issues. If it ain't broke don't fix it! I would give it a while.

Ryan

jpe20

Yeah I am slowly coming to the conclusion that I'll leave the upgrade discs on the shelf for a bit 3months say. I am keen to try it out though. I shall do a list of the programs I am using on XP that I still need to use under Vista and see where that leaves me.

Jools

isofa

Good idea!

There is a very good Vista software compatibility list at:

http://www.iexbeta.com/wiki/index.php/Windows_Vista_Software_Compatibility_List

nickj_2

i tried to install vista on my daughters acer l/top ran the acer pre install disc
but had major hassle installing vista , in the end it decided to switch back to xp which luckily is still working fine

JonnyThunder

Vista is absolutely brilliant. IF you dont want your old software to be supported! I found that when I went to Vista Ultimate on my desktop, only about 20% of the software I owned worked without patching or upgrade. Vista is great though. If you're working on business apps then vista is faster and smarter than XP. It also boots quicker and looks nicer.

Here's the drawback tho. I wouldn't put vista on ANY laptop of mine unless it was a really high spec. Vista IS resource hungry, so if your laptop isn't Core 2 Duo or something equally beefy then dont bother. Especially if it's a Celeron.

Heres a tip though - TURN OFF THE UAC!! This is a Microsoft feature that protects the OS. Unfortunately it's a bit overprotective and makes installing anything else near impossible!

isofa

Sadly UAC is annoying, but turning it off completely puts your system at risk - it is an unfortunate problem, that us IT pros are very vocal about, it's not as well implemented as the system in Mac OS X.

JonnyThunder

Switch it off during install of your apps, then switch it back on after. I dont ever have mine switched on because I get (through hardware firewall and common sense) good protection for my PC.

If you DO switch it back on however, be prepared to confirm every single action you take on your PC! Yes - it really IS that bad!

Thanks Micro$oft!!