Vista

I was thinking upgrading from XP to Vista, just for fun, and I just wanna know if it's worth it... I'm not too keen on gaming and stuff, just want to know if it will be compatible... I have an Aspire 1642Z NWLMI, Pentium M 735A (Centrino) 1.7 GHz, 512 DDR2, 80GB HDD, Intel 915 GPU 64 RAM (shared)....

Anyone thinks it's worth it or something? Will my programs run on it: Winamp, Office 2000, Mozilla, BS Player, ULEAD Photo Express, Yahoo Messenger, Antivirus, you know, what I use right now... maybe DAEMON p )


Good luck to you all

 

Windows Vista should work on that system. However, you may want to consider some more RAM, because Vista seems to use alot of RAM, and coupled with running alot of programs at once, 512 MB will result in slow performance. Also, if you have a GMA 900, then the Aero feature will not work.

 

I personally wouldn't do that. I tried Vista on my old laptop with a PM740, 1gig of ram and the same IGP and got pretty sluggish performance. All the programs you listed should work though.

 

ok then... just wanted some opinions, cause i'm really bored and usually i install stuff...

thanks for the answers, i'll wait a little for some more RAM and maybe some service packs for VISTA, because i've read it has major issues... also my 80 GB hdd isn't just yet ready for "the vista experience"

 

don't do it.

I installed it dual-boot on my TM 8204 - all works but I did have to upgrade the Bios. And download some drivers most notably Bluetooth.

However:
- You don't have enough RAM - with 512, forget it.
- Not sure about the graphics card - yours may be too weak to display all the pretty stuff in Vista
- The TM8204 has a Vista experience index of 4.5 which is _very good_ and 5.0 in most categories except hard disk. And it still felt slow.

I have since switched back to XP because there is no real good reason to switch to Vista. There is nothing in Vista that makes me go "wow, I really need this". The windows are prettier, but that's it. The 3D task switcher is gimmicky and IMHO ugly as well as not providing any functionality above XP.

I liked the sounds, the smooth text, and the much improved graphics for windows and such. But anything else - forget it.

In particular I found many things that are just plain annoying - User Account Control, need to turn that off immediately or you will go mad from having to click "allow" a bazillion times a day. There were many other time wasters in Vista too, wireless networking is much more cumbersome than on XP.

Good example actually - counting the clicks I need to go through to get to a wireless network, it was OS X 1 (!!), Win XP, 4, Win Vista, 10. I am perfectly fine with XP there, but Vista has just a number of additional annoyances that overall make it worse than XP IMHO.

 

Hi, Home Premium running fine with 512mb of ram here on a 1801. Running wireless was much easier than XP and more straight forward, and I have three networks I need to connect to. There aren't any major issues with vista, pre SP1, just some tweaks that are needed....
ChrisC

 

Ditto on the previous comments. Vista just isn't worth it, especially if you have an integrated graphics chip that can't handle Aero. I'd recommend at LEAST 1gig of ram, preferably 2g to get a smooth experience.

If you just want some of the eye candy, but don't want the operating system itself, there are several small apps that will give you the 'vista experience' without Vista itself.

Yahoo Widgets
Stardock's Windowblinds
Vista Transformation Pack

Check out this Cnet video showing you how to get xp to look/act like vista:
http://www.cnettv.com/9710-1_53-26097.html