Vista Upgrade for Toshiba M45-S359

Has anyone upgraded a Toshiba M45-S359 to Vista from Windows XP SP2, were there any problems and could you get drivers from Toshiba?

 

Well... Toshiba M45-S359 has a Intel 915 but the chipset architecture does not allow anything more than Vista Basic (BASIC) to be run. Vista Basic allows the "gadget sidebar" but does not enable Dreamscene, Vista Aero Glass, Movie Maker, or DVD Maker functionality. So in reality, Vista Basic works like WinXP with an attractive skin. I spent 3 months hunting down drivers (Dec. through Feb. 2008) and trying to fix my computer to get it back to XP SP2 compatibility. I still field constant errors about old programs that aren't supported, such as anything under Adobe Acrobat Professional 8 though Photoshop 7 works all right.

After running it for 4-5 months and being pretty good about optimizing Windows, my computer has really slowed down. If it was XP, I would just reformat, but because it's Vista, I'm terrified of trying to track down all the drivers again to obtain basic functionality (i.e., sound card and internet working). I end up running a lot of programs on "Compatibility mode."

In my opinion, keep XP - if you want the "fun" stuff, get WindowBlinds or add-on programs, instead of "upgrading," because the hassle isn't really worth it.

But if you do it, here is the official Toshiba drivers page:
http://www.csd.toshiba.com/cgi-bin/...BV_EngineID=cccdadedlkijkdicgfkceghdgngdgmn.0

Here's a blog about the 915 chipset problem:
http://softwareblogs.intel.com/2007/05/07/update-on-the-915-graphics-wddm-vista-driver-issue/

 

Sage advice. I'm not sure of all the specs for an M45-S359, but I had an M45-S265 until recently when I passed it down to my sister. It only had a Pentium M 1.6GHz processor and the abysmal Intel 900-series integrated graphics. It handled XP quite well with 1GB of RAM, but I can't imaging running Vista on it.

Besides the eye candy, is there really any valid reason to upgrade? I have a Dell XPS desktop (3.0GHz E6850 Core 2 Duo, 3GB DDR2-800 and 256mb nVIDIA 8600GTS graphics card) and it has plenty of muscle to plow through Vista Home Premium, but I still ponder downgrading to XP.

My advice would be to hold off until you can buy a new machine that's up to the task instead of trying to upgrade your existing machine.