XP vs Vista on X61?

I have an extra copy of XP and was curious about how to configure the X61. I really don't want to run Vista just yet. But I don't want to pay for another copy of XP Pro if I have one sitting around, plus I could have a copy of Vista if I ever decide to use it. I also won't have an external CD-Drive to install from. If I was to copy my XP Pro CD to a USB flash drive could I reinstall the X61 completely from scratch from the USB flash drive? I have never had a laptop before I wasn't sure how the OS install works. Any help please.

I am going on trip to Australia at the end of November and even though i shouldn't spend more money beforehand, I really want a laptop to put all my pictures on along with any other uses a laptop could serve while being in another country.

Its kind of hard to pass up on an under $1000 12" computer.

 

yea, my thoughts exactly. I'm in the same boat. I want to jump in on this lenovo deal but I was just wondering how Vista will run on them. I've never used vista in my life... bump fo you!

 

I have to add that I have some laptop specific stuff that I don't think works with Vista which would make Vista almost pointless for me. Thankfully I can still tune my car with Hondata. But music addons are another story with horrible driver support. I also am considering the outlet deals, but the ones I want only have vista.

 

If you play games, XP. The drivers for the x3100 are terrible on vista right now.

 

I have an X61 with Vista Business and it's flying. But then again, it has 4GB ram and I have minimized eye candy. I also have an X60s with XP, much faster and has a much better battery life.

 

MYK, I am very interested to hear on your personal experience comparing your X60s with your X61. E.g. which one runs cooler and which one is the least noisy.

 

I have my X61 for 4 months now and it came with vista business installed. Before this i have never used vista and it was very "different" but i got used to it in not more than 2 days. Everything runs perfect on it and I don't have any problems.

P.S. I forgot to write that I have only 1 GB RAM and it still runs smooth.

 

I tried to install a fresh copy of XP but couldn't get the sound drivers to work properly. The battery was about the same.

 

Vista will run fast and good all the driver problems that vista had when it was first released are now fixed

 

I don't think you'll have much luck moving your vista license from your X61 to another machine. You could save the activation information and reinstall vista on the X61 down the road, but I would not count your OEM license as an extra. I have Vista Business on my X61t and it runs very well. Occasional pauses, but I'm assuming that is power management related than anything else.

 

I bought a new x60 with 2 gig of ram and the very fast drive.... It came preloaded with Vista - at first it was awful, very awful... Now it just sucks....

Being a software engineer, I am amazed at Microsoft's ability to screw everything up it touches. There are some decent features, but they took away most of the normal, simple ways of doing things. The boot up time is still god awful, XP is way better, and I am comparing that to an old IBM A31p with 1.5 Gig vs. my brand new (well it was 6 months ago) X60.

I am contemplating moving back to XP, but really don't want to spend 3 days getting all my stuff back over, trusting the backup, etc.

Microsoft has always made backing up and recovery a near impossibility, I guess I will trudge along and live with this over-engineered, horrible OS.

XP was stable, and was efficient (for Microsoft)... Vista was designed by a brain dead bloatmeister, probably a summer intern for one of the senior execs.

Stay away from VISTA!!!! Enjoy your life!

 

Vista has a number of nice enhancements, and has been rock solid for me. Sorry to hear that your experience has been so miserable.

Phil

 

It hasn't been completely miserable, just a huge letdown.

Everything is slower in Vista.

XP was rock solid for me, I can't remember the last time I saw a blue screen of death in XP (ok, maybe once a year on all 5 of my main computers). I've had a blue screen 5 times so far in Vista.

I will admit that Vista, while still far worse than XP, has been getting better. Some of the drivers got fixed, but unfortunately, there are still 2-3 times more keystrokes to get the same system things done, and I have to wait numerous times per day when it's 'thinking'. XP could do a few things at once on a slower older machine, Vista gets angry and pauses.

Some things like directory lookups, network statuses and network mapping, multitasking, and event viewing are so slow and convoluted that it makes me angry that Microsoft is such a monopoly. If they only had a fifth of the os market, this product surely would have destroyed them.

It seems that Microsoft is primarily a marketing company and business decision company, technology isn't their strong point. This has happened for so many years, I think most non-technology people just don't get fazed anymore.

Anyway, just for fun, look at the convoluted screens for networking and Active Sync (they renamed it in their constant effort to change, confuse and bloat). It is a joke.

 

It is possible to tweak vista. Just type in how to speed up vista and watch the cnet video. If you ever used XP before you will know that it has many ways to speed things up. Turning off many of the features helps.

 

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Thank you.