From XP to Vista

El Weirdo

Ok people, here's my story:

I've been using XP on my own Dell Inspiron 8500 for several years now and I've had very few problems with it as long as I keep it cleaned and defrag as is needed.

Unfortunately, it's the hardware that has finally let me down and I am now having to use my work laptop for my own personal use until I get my own laptop fixed (if possible).

Anyway, the work laptop runs on Vista Business 32bit which was ok for work (Outlook, Office, etc) but when I'm using it at home for surfing the interwebz, torrents and downloading the odd podcast on itunes, I am finding it painfully, painfully slow.

I've tried all I can think of: I've disabled most of the display bells and whistles, defragged, cleaned the registry, disabled any unnecessary processes, etc. but all, it seems, to no avail.

Even if I'm just running Firefox and uTorrent (along with the AV software) the lag when just switching between windows can be unbearably slow... and that's before I open itunes!

My own 6 yr old laptop would handle these processes with hardly any problem with 1/4 of the RAM.

The work laptop specs:

Dell Latitude D531
Windows Vista Business 32bit SP1
AMD Mobile Sempron 3600+ 798MHz
2.00GB RAM
ATI Radeon X1270

Any suggestions that may help speed it up a bit greatly received!

watty

Install XP or Linux or Both.

Then optionally add Win7 as an alternate boot in October.

250G laptop drives available, and 960G soon.

I used Partition Magic and an Desktop PC with 2x 2.5" IDE adaptors to move my 6 year old XP install on a 30G drive to a new 120G drive without any re-installing.

April 2002 install of XP on Inspiron 8200 (1.8GHz P4M). Outperforms most Vista laptops and many newer XP laptops still. I added an extra 256M RAM to the 512M RAM. But it's hardly ever used the full 512M. (GeForce 440 Go 32M graphics and 1600x1200 Ultrasharp LCD)

As well as all the usual stuff I do a lot of CAD/CAM/Simulation/PhotoEditing/Programming on the Laptop. No games any more demanding than CIV4 Beyond Sword (Claims to need 64M Video, but works, occasionally have to Alt Tab to desktop and back to "repaint")

I've replaced Vista with XP on some Toshiba CoreDuo Laptops and installed RH, Fedora, CentOS, Ubuntu, Debian and Barak on many Laptops, PCs and Servers.

It's criminal that Vista purchasers don't get Win7 free as a SP3. Because that's what it is.

El Weirdo

Thaks for the reply Watty. I was thinking that installing XP or Linux would be the suggestion! Unfortunately, it is a company laptop and I don't have that option.

If I'm unable to get my own laptop fixed I will obviously be in the market for a new one and I can tell you that, after the past couple of days, I have really been put off any future Microsoft OS.

cc

I have an 8500 also for 6 years now and a few months ago was going through the same situation as yourself. Really slow and unresponsive. Couldn't afford the outlay of a new laptop so I reinstalled xp on a new 160gig hard drive from ebay, bought 2 gigs of ram, and its now uber quick and responsive. Total cost €105.

Blazer

el_weirdo wrote: »

Thaks for the reply Watty. I was thinking that installing XP or Linux would be the suggestion! Unfortunately, it is a company laptop and I don't have that option.

If I'm unable to get my own laptop fixed I will obviously be in the market for a new one and I can tell you that, after the past couple of days, I have really been put off any future Microsoft OS.

If you've never used Ubunut or any linux flavours you're in for a shock
Even installing a driver is a major pain in the ass in linux.
They really need to sort this crap out so linux etc can take off.
No recompiling kernels..no code changes..just a simple double click and next next next and finish.

El Weirdo

cc wrote: »

I have an 8500 also for 6 years now and a few months ago was going through the same situation as yourself. Really slow and unresponsive. Couldn't afford the outlay of a new laptop so I reinstalled xp on a new 160gig hard drive from ebay, bought 2 gigs of ram, and its now uber quick and responsive. Total cost €105.

That's just it. My 8500 running XP is still sound except from the hardware issues. It's the work's Latitude running the bastard that is Vista that I'm having the problems with. Even browsing the web is frustrating.

I've downloaded the Live CD from Ubuntu and gave it a little spin earlier to see how I found it and will continue to trial it over the next couple of days. I know that I won't be able to do feck all when booting from a CD but at least I'll get to know how it looks and feels and whether or not I could consider using it as my main OS.

An Fear Aniar

el_weirdo wrote: »

I've downloaded the Live CD from Ubuntu and gave it a little spin earlier to see how I found it and will continue to trial it over the next couple of days. I know that I won't be able to do feck all when booting from a CD but at least I'll get to know how it looks and feels and whether or not I could consider using it as my main OS.

It's a good idea not to ditch Windows straight away, if you do decide to install Ubuntu, make it a dual boot.

.

Dartz

el_weirdo wrote: »

Thaks for the reply Watty. I was thinking that installing XP or Linux would be the suggestion! Unfortunately, it is a company laptop and I don't have that option.

If I'm unable to get my own laptop fixed I will obviously be in the market for a new one and I can tell you that, after the past couple of days, I have really been put off any future Microsoft OS.

http://www.xubuntu.org

Has caused me less hassle doing anything and everything, than XP on the same laptop. And I prefer the look and feel.

If you can't install and use Ubuntu... you have no business using a computer mate... it's easy. If something breaks, it's all there in the manual. And it'll do well on low end systems, since you don't need to run AV and internet security suites. (Although some poeple say you don't need to for Windows either, but these people are better than us norms)

Installation is simple, once you realise it uses a different paradigm entirely to Windows. You don't have to compile anything if you don't want too... and compiling most things is easy enough anyway.

I really have had less issues with it, than I'#ve had from Windows's

An Fear Aniar

Dartz wrote: »

If you can't install and use Ubuntu... you have no business using a computer mate... it's easy.

It is easy, that's true. But depending on what hardware you have, you might have to go through a few hoops to get drivers working, but as it is, an awful lot of hardware is supported right out of the box.

.

cc

Using Ubuntu even by way of a live cd will instantly show you how slow and lumbering Vista is. I've had no problems using it and worked straight out of the 'box' with my graphics card, network adaptors, network printers etc Even worked with my phone tethered for usb internet with no set up needed

El Weirdo

cc wrote: »

Using Ubuntu even by way of a live cd will instantly show you how slow and lumbering Vista is. I've had no problems using it and worked straight out of the 'box' with my graphics card, network adaptors, network printers etc Even worked with my phone tethered for usb internet with no set up needed

True. Everything seemed to work on my work's laptop and I even tried it on my own 8500 and everything seemed to work nicely, until my touchpad packed up on me again. Super fast even running from the CD when compared to Vista. No installing drivers or anything so far. It's looking more and more like linux for me in the future.

ScumLord

At this stage I think it's best to skip Vista and go straight to Win7.

mukki

thread title is xp to vista, but OP reads as if poster wants to go from vista to xp


el_weirdo try my famous boards.ie vista speed tips, anything goes wrong you can just do a system restore

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=61492466&postcount=3

also forgot to add to that list the a lot of people have vista set to "power saver" which reduces cpu by 50%, make sure its set to balanced or performance

El Weirdo

mukki wrote: »

thread title is xp to vista, but OP reads as if poster wants to go from vista to xp

Sorry if the thread title is misleading. I started the thread to explain my experience of using Vista after using XP for so long.

Thanks for the link. I'll give it a go and post to let you all know how I get on.*

*If anyone's really interested.

mukki

el_weirdo wrote: »

Sorry if the thread title is misleading. I started the thread to explain my experience of using Vista after using XP for so long.

Thanks for the link. I'll give it a go and post to let you all know how I get on.*

*If anyone's really interested.

i'm interested, how did it go?

gcdwebmaster

I would go for a dual boot(or triple boot) if you have the harddisc space or an extra hard disk
of Windows XP, Linux(Ubuntu?) and maybe later try Windows 7..

I am not a fan of Vista.... at all