Will it be safe to install vista??

freer

I've just downloaded Vista beta 2, but I dunno if I should install it. I've checked if my system was compatible with the system advisor and im O.K. but I'm not sure weather to install it. Can I go back to XP if I dont like it?? Will all my files be deleted??
Thanks.

Gosh

You should only install Windows Vista Beta 2 on a PC if you can roll back to your previous OS, this will mean a full reinstal back to XP so you need to make sure you have the original XP install disks. Not everything supported in XP is supported in Vista so check around on the internet to make sure any devices you have and rely on will be supported. When you do a full Vista install you will have to re-install your current programs so again make sure you have the disks - files will not be deleted, in fact the Vista install creates a folder called Windows.Old which includes your Program Files (but you cannot reinstall from these) folder and User files.

Above all, remember Vista is only for testing at the moment and will cause problems on some installs. Caution is the keyword - if you're not comfortable then don't take the chance ...

freer

Thanks, I'm not sure I want to now.....and I didnt get an XP disc with mine all I know is that I can run symentec to restore my PC to the way it was when I bought it, Will this part of the HDD be gone If I run Vista?? Can I Install it onto my iPod??

freer

Oh wait I've just noticed in my programs that I have Dell OS recovery CD, and when I run it, it asks me id I want to make a back up copy of my current OS, can any 1 tell me if they have this on their Dells and if it does just make a copy of XP so I can reinstall it if Vista is not for me?? Thnaks for all your help.

SouperComputer

Its not a big deal, either partiton your HD with partition magic etc or throw in a cheap 10Gb to install it on. If you have a lot of stuff, it may be an idea to backup important info, just in case,

Vista will detect your existing OS and add it to your boot menu.

Stephen

I'm dual booting Vista and Windows XP at the moment. I certainly would not rely on vista as my primary operating system in its current state.

As an aside, if you have any Linux partitions, Vista, like previous versions of Windows, completely ignores them when it writes its bootloader, so you may need to boot from your linux distro's CD to repair the bootloader.

freer

I was just about to install it, but when I tried to open if from the dvd it says NOT A VALID WIN32 APPLICATION my processor is Intel Pentuim 4 531 with HT, and EM64T, so yeah I'm mad I downloaded the wrong version of vista haha hey guess it's not ment to be.

irlrobins

It's prob an auto booting DVD and you should boot your PC using it in order to start install process.

Anyway I'm getting a feeling that installing and being comfortable using a beta OS is a bit beyond your knowledge. No offense meant, I only have your posts to base this on.

freer

irlrobins wrote:

It's prob an auto booting DVD and you should boot your PC using it in order to start install process.

Anyway I'm getting a feeling that installing and being comfortable using a beta OS is a bit beyond your knowledge. No offense meant, I only have your posts to base this on.

:eek: just kiddin yeah, I'm actually beta crazy, al well........

dahamsta

Stephen wrote:

I'm dual booting Vista and Windows XP at the moment. I certainly would not rely on vista as my primary operating system in its current state.

Ditto. It's a very rough beta. Office 2007 is even worse.

adam

nikimere

anyone got a screenshots of VISTA?

Stephen

freer wrote:

I was just about to install it, but when I tried to open if from the dvd it says NOT A VALID WIN32 APPLICATION my processor is Intel Pentuim 4 531 with HT, and EM64T, so yeah I'm mad I downloaded the wrong version of vista haha hey guess it's not ment to be.

Sounds like you're trying to install the 64-bit version of Vista from within a 32-bit version of XP. Boot from the DVD and it should work.

subway

freer wrote:

Can I Install it onto my iPod??

eh, no.

dahamsta

nikimere wrote:

anyone got a screenshots of VISTA?

Anyone know a tool I could use to, like, search the intarweb?

WizZard

Ken Shabby wrote:

Anyone know a tool I could use to, like, search the intarweb?

Try Google (I hear it's great)

SouperComputer

nikimere wrote:

anyone got a screenshots of VISTA?

No screenshots but LFS seems to run well on it

davkav

i m running vista at the moment. Have to say its very slow at the moment but its early days yet still only beta. Sweet looking and all but it seems they just jazzed up xp a bit. Notice in Internet Explorer how they robbed the tabs from mozilla?!

dahamsta

They didn't rob anything from Mozilla. Tabbed browsing didn't appear in Mozilla until 7 years after the first tabbed browser (InternetWorks), and 4 years after the first mainstream one (NetCaptor).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabbed_document_interface

adam

davkav

what I meant was they've obviously included it in internet explorer 7, to try and get more users to switch back to microsoft instead of netscape. Alot of people moved to mozilla for the ease of use and the tabs especially.

mr_disc

ive been trying to download vista but seem to get the run around in the microsoft site .. like one link just brings me to another and another.... u have a direct link to the download ?.. ta

kaizersoze

davkav wrote:

i m running vista at the moment. Have to say its very slow at the moment but its early days yet still only beta. Sweet looking and all but it seems they just jazzed up xp a bit. Notice in Internet Explorer how they robbed the tabs from mozilla?!

If you're finding it slow then your pc isn't powerful enough:p .
I find it's running just as fast as XP on my laptop and faster than XP on the desktop.

dahamsta

davkav wrote:

what I meant was they've obviously included it in internet explorer 7, to try and get more users to switch back to microsoft instead of netscape. Alot of people moved to mozilla for the ease of use and the tabs especially.

Sorry, I don't mean to be pedantic, but that's not true either. If people wanted to switch to another browser for the tabs, and/or ease of use, they would have switched to Opera years ago. People switched to Firefox - not Mozilla - because of a fantastic word-of-mouth marketing campaign.

And, much as I like Firefox, if the developers don't fix the horrendous memory leaks in the current version, people will switch back again in droves pretty soon -- the first movers because they're a fickle bunch, the rest because they're told to. Such is life in modern society.

adam

radiospan

Yes, but you can't deny that there wouldn't be tabs in IE7 if it weren't for Mozilla and Firefox's success.

dahamsta

Absolutely not. But my point stands: Microsoft didn't rob anything from Firefox, and people didn't switch to FF just because of the tabs.

adam

Serbian

The Firefox debate is an interesting one, but it's not really relevant to Windows Vista! I was thinking of installing it on my spare PC which is a Pentium III 2.4GHz with 768 megs of RAM. Is it likely to be sluggish on the machine? Also, I'm currently downloading the 32 bit version of Vista, just want to make sure that's the right one?

dahamsta

Yes, it'll be sluggish, but not so bad you can't play with it. Yes, that's the right version.

adam

VroomVroom

Ken Shabby wrote:

Ditto. It's a very rough beta. Office 2007 is even worse.

adam

Have to agree with this, Office 2007 Beta is very unstable. It does have a handy little feature that tell you that the Office Assistant has noticed that Outlook seems to be crashing regularly. It doesn't offer any reasons as to why it keeps crashing. I've gone back to Office 2003, wouldn't touch Vista based on Office 2007 Beta...

kaizersoze

VroomVroom wrote:

Have to agree with this, Office 2007 Beta is very unstable. It does have a handy little feature that tell you that the Office Assistant has noticed that Outlook seems to be crashing regularly. It doesn't offer any reasons as to why it keeps crashing. I've gone back to Office 2003, wouldn't touch Vista based on Office 2007 Beta...

Vista is waaaaaaay more stable than Office 2007. I've been running it for the last 3 weeks or more on a laptop and a desktop with varying specs and it hasn't crashed once. I'm not a gamer so I can't comment on that but it handles everything else fine.

hopeful

mr_disc wrote:

ive been trying to download vista but seem to get the run around in the microsoft site .. like one link just brings me to another and another.... u have a direct link to the download ?.. ta

HERE ya go

Mutant_Fruit

Vista is a fair bit slower for games, so if you're a gamer, don't use Vista yet. I think you're looking at at least 15% worse performance in games.

TimTim

I use office 2007 and it hasn't crashed on me yet. Albeit I only use excel and outlook mainly, but I'm impressed anyway.

Supercell

Just installed the 64 bit version, wish I hadn't bothered.

Unquestionably fantastic eye candy but am not going to touch this with a barge pole until sp1 retail is out.

The nag screens would drive you crazy - everytimeit opens something, even its own fecking control center thingy its asking you if you want to grant it permission to do so, very very annoying.

Apart from the slow install didn't have any speed issues though have an amd 3000+ 64 bit and 2gb of ram , if the past is anything to go by with MS OS's the more ram the better so suspect this is why I didnt have the sluggish issues some others mention. Graphics card is a realativly old Radion 9600 with 256mb ram.
The driver support was poor, didnt recognise my sata disk at all ..considering i've a k8t-neo motherboard - hardly the most rare of boards this was a pita as the second drive wasn't seen.
The os didnt recognise my Hauppauge WinTV Theatre card or my DVB-s card either...for a multimedia os of the future this is a little suprising..but as its beta will forgive that.

All in all,its a 2/5 from me, the nag screens have to go, would consider it unusable to anyone with half a brain in their head, if they keep them in for the final version, well XP will be my last MS OS

XP is going back on, might try that Vista skin though, it really does LOOK great..but thats about all thats great with it imho.

dahamsta

Longfield wrote:

The nag screens would drive you crazy - everytimeit opens something, even its own fecking control center thingy its asking you if you want to grant it permission to do so, very very annoying.

These were originally password prompts, for security reasons; but they dropped them for convenience reasons. Another Microsoft mish-mash that ends up defeating the entire purpose of the intention.

adam

philologos

if you don't like vista you could use MBRFix (google it) to replace the old XP bootloader on, and then after that you could remove the Vista partition and then XP will be still okay

jArgHA

wots ms's official release date on vista (service pack 1)?

mr_disc

I think it plans to go on general release in Jan / Feb of next year ( all six versions of it !!)

MartMax

jArgHA wrote:

wots ms's official release date on vista (service pack 1)?

wats service pack?

anyway, i have given up using Vista in working environment. i struggled to get used to the file browsing structure. i cannot commit to go through the learning curve while working with loads of files at this moment, including graphics, html, php files. back to basic, XP as simple as it is. in Vista, the eye candy interface kinda distracting me.

mart

mr_disc

mart_max wrote:

wats service pack?

mart

Good point .. the first proper release will not have a service pack included .... wouldnt make sense !

god's toy

Really liking my vista working as fast as my old XP and so far very little has gone wrong/not worked right, so yea I'm happy.

kaizersoze

mart_max wrote:

wats service pack?

anyway, i have given up using Vista in working environment. i struggled to get used to the file browsing structure. i cannot commit to go through the learning curve while working with loads of files at this moment, including graphics, html, php files. back to basic, XP as simple as it is. in Vista, the eye candy interface kinda distracting me.

mart

It's beta software and like every beta release it's not recommended for use in a working environment.