dv9000t vista upgrade arrived! What should I expect?

Hello all, I do realize that vista upgrades have been discussed ad nauseum on these boards but I couldn't find any threads on the specifics of upgrading the dv9000t (or z for that matter), so forgive me if I'm wasting forum space with this question:

I just received my Vista express upgrade yesterday and would like to make the switch, but I'm not sure if I should expect any difficulties, and whether these difficulties have any workarounds. I ask this question specifically for this series of laptops since I get a better of gauge of how this hardware works in the new OS. My specs are fine, with the 1.83 Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB of RAM and the 7600 Go series video card, so I'm sure performance won't be too much of a problem.

I guess what I'm asking on the bottom line is whether anybody's had any difficulty with drivers, programs, anything like that. Has it gone smooth as silk for you? I'd like to hear from you too! Thanks guys.

Edit: I should also add that I received Vista Home Premium, as well as a second disc labeled something along the lines of "Vista Upgrade Utility." I'm guessing this second disc will help things move smoothly after the upgrade?

 

Yes, most people seem to be encountering at least one or two issues after an upgrade. Some people were so sickened that they even reverted back to XP. I think you should be fine upgrading, just so long as you remember some tips

1) Backup your important files
2) Download fresh drivers / updates from HP. Vista needs new drivers for specific devices
3) If you have external accessories that are new, go ahead and download the newest Vista drivers for them before you upgrade.
4) Listen to the upgrade advisor when installing Vista. It will tell you where you may encounter problems. Be aware that its list of problems may not be exhaustive.

 

didnt see a problem with my dv9000t when installing vista. everything seemed to work fine including the audio driver and quickplay buttons. the nvidia driver if u have an nvidia card is quite bad but hopefully will get better

 

I plan on dual booting my DV9000T when it arrives. That way I can play with it until everything gets settled with the drivers. Has anybody else done this?

 

Yup i got xp and vista on the same drive

 

Swipe: would you mind going through the dual boot process for us? I guess my disc is probably sitting in the mailbox now, but I won't have time to tackle it until this weekend.

Isn't the upgrade supposed to basically take over your XP license? When you activate the Vista upgrade, does it deactivate your version of XP?

I know there is the install twice workaround to get Vista installed without overwriting XP, is that what you did?

Basically, I have no desire to give up XP. I'm sure i'll be using XP on my laptop for quite a while, but I want to play with Vista. Can I use my upgrade disc to install Vista on my laptop and still keep my XP license operational?

Hope this isn't a thread hijack; I figured the questions were relevant to the OP.

 

Yup the upgrade replaces your vista. Ive got an OEM version i purchased cuz well in my region they only gave me home basic as an upgrade option and i have to $50+shipping to get it too! so i bought the OEM instead.

basically when the PC starts and pasts the POST, it asks u to choose between Vista or a previous version of Windows. If u click the previous version it takes u to ur XP OS, clicking Vista takes u to the Vista OS.

there is a workaround for the upgrade but why dont u download Vista and install it with ur upgrade key?

 

On my dv9000 it was one smooth sailing install
followed the paper that came with the dvds
and when all was said in done
working vista

very happy with the install
but even in beta i was happy with it on my netvista computers. glad this was just as smooth

 

I went ahead and did it and yeah, quite the smooth install. Audio and everything's working just fine.

 

D.B. Cooper, I did the dual-boot install last night. I posted this in another thread but will repost here. Hope this is helpful.

***

I'm relatively new here and have never posted much, but have found these forums to be a very good resource and have appreciated everyone's input, so I thought I'd share my own experience.

My Vista Express Upgrade package arrived yesterday. A week had passed since my receipt of the initial "your order has shipped" e-mail. Interestingly, USPS tracking with the tracking number provided by Mail Extress yielded virtually no actual tracking information until the package was delivered to my mailbox, at which point I got an e-mail stating that it had been delivered.

My system is a DV9008nr (Turion 64x2 TL-50, 1 GB RAM, nVidia Go 6150). (Basically a Best Buy-only variant of the DV9000z.)

The install, generally speaking, went very well. I did the following - much of this, like the defragmentation and virus scanning of the existing XP install, may have been overkill, but I'd rather be safe than sorry:

Preparation (within existing XP install)

-Defragmented all my hard drive space (XP partition plus a logical partition where I store my documents)
-Ran virus and spyware scans (probably irrelevant to Vista install since I was putting it on a different partition)
-Backed up entire HD using Norton Ghost
-Created an additional primary partition for the Vista install, using Norton Partition Magic (hint - upon install, Vista doesn't identify partitions by drive letter, so if you want to dual-boot, give the new volume a name and note its size so you can identify it more easily when asked where you want to put the new OS)
-At this point, per the instructions, I inserted the drivers DVD provided by HP and let it autorun. I went through the first several steps ("have you backed up your data?" etc) , but quit the application when it wanted to "prepare the hard drive for Vista," as I didn't want it to blow away my existing XP installation.
-The next step in on the DVD would be to update the BIOS, so I just downloaded the BIOS file from the HP website and updated manually.
-I then restarted the machine with the Vista DVD in the drive, and booted from the DVD.

Vista installation
-DVD booted without a hitch, and after a couple of questions (product key, etc.) it asked me where I wanted to install the Vista OS. I pointed it to the partition I'd just created, and it started cranking away.
-After a reboot or two, Vista itself booted from the hard drive. Just had to pick an administrator name and password, a background image, and my time zone, and I was in. I'd say the elapsed time between the first boot from DVD and the first view of the desktop was no more than 15 minutes.
-Initially the desktop looks rather ugly, to be honest, because the resolution settings aren't correct. (I think it was defaulting to 640x480 or something like that, on my 1440x900 monitor - everything was very grainy and the icons were much bigger than they should be.) This proved to be easy to fix.
-I reverted to the HP instructions and put the drivers DVD back in. I told it to load all the drivers and some, but not all, of the software. (I don't need Movie Maker and all that garbage.)
-The driver installation process hummed right along until it came to the nVidia video driver. It stayed on that for a good 20 minutes and was clearly stuck, so I stopped it, at which point it said that drivers were updated and it was time for a reboot. I let it do so.
-Upon reboot, the graphics reverted to the normal 1440x900 and looked great, and the nVidia video driver appears to be installed correctly. I updated my Windows Experience Index score, which ended up at 2.8, then after a second scan, it landed at 3.0, with the graphics card being the lowest sub-score, not surprisingly. Once I reached the 2.8 level, Aero Glass switched on automatically.
-Everything else seems to be working fine so far. Wireless is working, and indeed, as soon as Vista connected to the internet, the automatic update process started. One more reboot after this was done and everything was complete.

Issues
-I only had an hour or so to play with it, but so far the only issue I've had is getting the Nortel Contivity VPN software to work so I can check my work e-mail. I installed the version provided by my company (I suspected it might be XP-only, but decided to try anyways), and while the installer ran fine when I ran it in XP compatability mode, it failed to make a connection. I got some sort of socket error. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to get Nortel Contivity VPN working in Vista? Could I run it in XP from within Vista, via Virtual PC, and if so, any ideas how? (I have no experience with any virtual environments.)
-For those who may be curious, I downloaded the latest Norton Internet Security for Vista and installed it using my NIS2007 product key without a hitch. It seems to run very smoothly and doesn't bog the system down at all, from what I can tell.
-Despite all the fretting about UAC that I'd read prior to the installation, so far it doesn't seem overly intrusive to me. It asks things now and again, but I find myself saying, "Good, thanks for asking." I like to know when changes are being made to my system; if the only way the OS can accomplish that is to ask me a question even when it's painfully obvious that I want to proceed, I really don't mind.
-Overall, in fact, this Vista installation seems decidedly faster and more responsive than my existing XP install. I'm sure it's a matter of open debate whether that can be attributed to the fact that it's clean and doesn't have much "junk" on it yet, or if the OS itself is faster and more efficient. At this point, I don't care - it seems to work very well and it looks great. If I can figure out a way to make the VPN work, I will probably be ready to abandon XP entirely within a few weeks.

Hope this is helpful. If anyone has insight into my VPN issue, I'd be thrilled to have a response.

Brgds

Evan

 

expect extremely poor battery life

 

Thanks for the breakdown.

Kitt: got any references for that? Or are you just making the assumption since this 9000t sucks down the battery like it's going out of style? I guess I don't see how the OS would affect battery life. Maybe if the graphics card is constantly running or there are background processes, but once it is suspended aren't both OSes the same?

Well, I'm probably going to go for the clean install of Vista, but I want to keep XP. I was thinking I could update XP with Vista and then get an XP OEM license and install that as well. I figure XPMC keys are a bit cheaper than Vista.

I guess I just want to be sure that there's no way I can keep my XP intact and still install Vista with the upgrade. Is it possible or is getting another key my only option?

 

well first of all vista uses more resources so that cud drain the battery quicker

secondly if u enable aero then of course the graphics card will work harder

 

Jay,

If you have the HP Vista Express Upgrade disk, you should be able to install Vista on a separate partition, provided that you have a disk partitioning utility, and keep XP, just as I did. See my previous post.

Brgds

Evan

 

Don't need references, got the facts. I have a dv6000, it was running 2:20 min screen brightness basic usage. New bios dropped it to 1.5 hours. I have a 17 inch screen, you have a 19 in screen. Since it is clear that bigger monitors draw more power, what do you think is going to happen here? Your machine will be even worse than mine.

Oh and BTW, I'm a college professor that teaches electronics for a living. I think I'm on safe ground.....

The OS requires more CPU and GPU clocks to render the screen, it will draw more juice PLUS the vista drivers really suck ass right now.......

Most have already stated these issues in other threads.....

 

Well I had the chance to dual boot my DV9000T and play around with it. No problem with the Vista install and I downloaded all of the drivers from the HP site ahead of time.

One problem I noticed was I can't get a wireless connection if I have the ESSID Broadcast disabled. Anyone else notice that?

 

i have a dv6000

if i only have an 80gb hdd, should i dual boot? i would half to split the remaining partition in half, giving each OS's less than 40 gb to operate

 

I like the dual boot option. I use XP for all of my major work and Vista when I surf or I'm just playing around. Buy dual booting I have the best of both worlds until all of the bugs are fixed on Vista.

I have a 100 gig drive. I have 50% allocated to XP and 50% to Vista and no QP partition. The Vista partition uses 11 gigs.

 

kitt: Didn't mean to put you on the spot or anything. I'm always wary of statements like that with no explanation. It sounded like something one of those Mac zealots would post to start an argument. Of course I'm not accusing you of being one of those either.

On a side note, your laptop is 15.4", mine is 17". I only say that because I know how you college professors like to be corrected.

I managed to get my Vista upgrade installed; thanks for everyone who gave some tips. After the first install, I was messing around in XP and somehow managed to screw up the Vista bootloader (something to do with Partition magic I think, even though I didn't make any changes). I managed to get it fixed using bootsect from the command prompt.

Unfortunately, I think I'm going to have to reinstall it again. I ended up installing it on my D drive, since I was having problems with Partition Magic (maybe I should quit trying). I think I'm going to partition my C drive in half and install XP and Vista clean. I have an XP Media Center retail disc, so I think I should be able to use that with my OEM (am I wrong?).

Another observation is that Vista seems to be screwing with my drives a bit. When I boot into XP, my C drive is pretty full, but when I boot into Vista, it is pretty empty. I went to backup my SWSetup folder and whatever OS I am in, the SWSetup folder is on that drive and like 3 GBs. There is a version on the "other" drive and it is really small. Anyone else notice anything like this?