Vista on an X41 Tablet?

Has anyone in this forum tried running Vista (x32) on an X41 Tablet?

Mine came shipped with Windows XP Tablet but I was considering upgrading to Vista (& I understand Vista supports Tablet functions without need for a special Tablet edition). Just wondered whether others here had any experience running Vista on an X41 Tablet...

 

You should read this BLOG POST. It goes into great detail about putting Vista on the x41T.

From what I've read, the x41T may actually perform BETTER in Vista than in XP. This is because Vista is more aggressive in the use of RAM and Readyboost as a cache. This minimizes the weakest link in the x41T (the 4200RPM HDD).

I suggest you give Vista (or Win7 beta) a try on your x41T. I would also recommend that you max out your RAM and invest in an SD card for Readyboost ( this Kingston 2GB should work well). You won't get the Aero interface, but you will get an improved tablet input panel and other advantages.

 

Thanks Jon. Actually I opened this whole can of worms b/c I tried to get the X41T to recognize 2GB of ram by using the /3GB switch. Suceeded only in making the thing unbootable. Figured if I'm reinstalling the whole schmozle, I might as well go for Vista in the process.

One question, if you have time, can you explain a little more about the SD card for Readyboost? I have several as I'm a keen photographer but I'm a little fuzzy on the readyboost function ...

 

Basically ReadyBoost uses a NAND flash device (e.g. USB thumb drive, or SD card) as a secondary cache. It tries to serve as a bridge for when you run out of main memory and before you have to page to the hard drive. From what I understand it compresses (and encrypts) program data and other files that it expects you might use. Then, when you call this data it can be accessed from a NAND flash device with a <3ms access time rather than your very slow hard drive.

On the x41T ReadyBoost can make a substantial difference. This is because the hard drive is extremely slow, and as you found out yourself going above 2GB of RAM can be problematic as well.

On a newer machine (e.g. x200T with 4GB RAM and an SSD), the advantages of ReadyBoost are slim to none. However, on an older machine for which substantially upgrading the RAM/HDD is impractical, ReadyBoost can make a big difference.

 

Thanks Jon, one final question - ReadyBoost works equally well in x32 or x64 versions of Vista? (It's my understanding that the X41T doesn't have the resources to run Vista in 64 bit mode).

 

You can't run any 64 bit OS on a X41 because it uses a 32 bit chip.