jfl92 and vista sp1

just a short question regarding m$'s newest patch compilation dubbed the SP1 and the great and new compal 15.4" as i'm about to cancel one order (the reseller behaved in rather immature way) and place another one (hopefully now i'll get fully working one right away) and this time my new rig is offered with a couple of operating systems options - besides the usual division between cheap home premiums (interesting), more costly business ones and far too expensive ultimate ones (all in 32b and 64b flavours and i'm taking the 64 bit one) there's also another decision level problem... as i'm into taking the 64bit product (for the moment having hard time deciding between vhp and vb) and i know the 64bit line has problems with drivers, the decision between vista regular and vista sp1 integrated (no price difference) really becomes hard to make. so anybody having jfl92 rig and using vista sp1, are there any problems or maybe there are none what-so-ever? so what would you say, should i go for the sp1 oem system or take the elder regular oem one and install updates through windows update (or maybe there are some issues with jfl92 rigs that the sp1 doesn't even show)?

 

I will say this about most resellers: we don't offer an OS option unless we can guarantee it will work. This is why you don't see many resellers offering Linux (unless it's an in-house distro), and why very few resellers offer Windows XP x64. The JFL92 is new enough that Compal knows it is in their best interest to be absolutely certain that their drivers are not only WHQL certified, but fully compliant with Vista SP1.

 

so basically choosing vista 64bit sp1 oem is a safe way to go, no problems foreseeable for the moment?

 

Correct. If there are problems, they will arise either from older software you still use or older external hardware that SP1 nullifies, which has been true of Vista since day one.

 

All depends what are you going to be doing with the lap, I have vista business because my work, but it seems that vb doesn't support some multimedia stuff, so check that out, I think so far the ultimate is the best buy, as per my opinion.

 

my only external gear would be the lcd screen... then some usb flash drives by ocz, hp 1018 laser jet, one joypad and some speakers/headphones/mic so hardware wise there's no need to be worried, am i right?

of the software - besides baldurs gate i see only some work-related stuff, but i think i'd need to tamper with them either way you know, tex, latex, mathworks, cad/cam and a few others i need at uni courses as well...

of the use - from light gaming on not-that-very-not-demanding-titles through media "center" (animation creation) up to programming and project polishing and writing my master's thesis...

if you want to know about that bestbuy offers... ultimate costs 505,00 PLN = 143,1406 EUR = 222,5846 USD = 111,7578 GBP = 225,5270 CHF - so at the shop it's almost twice the home premium price (275,00 PLN = 77,9478 EUR = 121,2094 USD = 60,8582 GBP = 122,8117 CHF)... business costs a tad less than the ultimate - to be exact 440,00 PLN = 124,7165 EUR = 193,9351 USD = 97,3731 GBP = 196,4987 CHF. basically i'd say that i won't use neither all options that business nor hp offers so paying that much for the build that offers everything from both worlds would not be that good idea... i'm not planning to use the whole drive copy (yeah burning nearly 20+ dvds... as if i always wanted to burn so much ) as well and do not plan any domain work in the foreseeable future, not to mention faxing - so basically business bonuses lose the usability points a bit and price difference is quite big... still price difference between SP1 integrated and non-integrated versions is none, same for 32bit vs 64bit systems, but buying things later or downloading them means either time lost or costs. hope you understand why i wanted to know whether SP1 64bit vistas make the world problematic not a better place for compal rigs' owners.

 

I personally recommend to go with 32 because among the many reasons there no many applications out there for 64, plus as you mentioned 64 is not error free. One value though to have 64 is that the BIOS will recognize above 4GB RAM, which is not the case of 32. Also I believe that with a 64 you don't need the robson (Intel Turbo Memory), so you can save some money there.

 

@ wirelessman
i am not planning to buy the intel robson memory as all the reviews i've seen seem to point out the fact that it does almost nothing to help the 'books work throughout the day, especially ones with lots of ram (1.5GB+)... and there are quite a few people here on the forums who had bad experiences with robson due to the drivers being not stable. so what would be the point of having one? if it was robson2.0 with eg. 4GB+ of memory i can see the point, but now?
also i wanted to get 64bit just to be able to use the whole system ram, i know there are problems (it took me almost 3 months to make some of my apps work on my "testing grounds" - that is my desktop, and all i can say is vista 64bit was problematic but was far less prone to hang-ups/bsods than xp 64bit), i experienced some of them, but i also had the chance to play with that technology somewhere at the beginning of the vista career - the drivers were quite non-existent, apps as well. i was hoping sp1 would treat some of the maladies, besides lots of stuff probably getting more mature by now.
do you think that sp1 brought no problems but only treatments of all kinds to make the system more stable? it would be a good thing for 64bit planners

@jernkar
thx for the guide but i think i'll just get myself sp1 integrated vista to save time... and your guide doesn't lead to bypassing licensing restrictions, as after updating with the sp1 you would end up with lots of windows and messages jumping here and there to inform you that you haven't activated the thing, it is not fully legal etc. (been there, checked that, sp1 removes the trial 'handicapped' period - there's full functionality, only a lot of messages that make you want to buy 10 licences to shut the messages up as they are as the infamous paperclip from offices - at least that's how it worked on my cousins' rig because he forgot his uni-given keys, he is really willing to activate the OS as this copy protection makes him mad, it's worse than UAC, but the keys he'll get after the easter break and will input them this weekend ).



anybody here can state that the compal drivers for 64bits are truly worse than 32bits? or maybe there'll be some people who could encourage me through their experiences with 64bit and sp1 to switch to 64bit architecture? i'm still awaiting opinions...

 

I will state the following.

I have 2 BTO notebooks.
1 BTO 15W25+ (Compal FL90)
1 BTO 15W26+ (Compal FL9 SRR)

I installed several OS and tested them with drivers, no issue so far.
To be more detailed and informative I installed both 32/64 Bits version for Vista.
No issue detected, no error received, no BSOD when running HW and no driver problem or application problem.

 

Installed Vista Ultimate 64 on my IFL90 to try it and had no problems. Everything was recognized and seemed to work correctly. I switched back to 32 bit to get 1 old program to work.
I do have real Microsoft COA's for all 5 versions. The "work around" was posted by MS because some new machines were shipped with the wrong upgrade when Vista was first released. But you do need an authentic COA to install it and have it verified as Genuine.

 

It makes sense.