What to do when my Vista laptop arrives?

I thought I was going to stay with Apple forever, but I've decided to go back to Windows, and because of that I haven't really kept up with Windows Vista. So, I'm planning to buy an HP Compaq 2510p, and after hearing about some problems with Vista, I've been searching around this forum trying to gain more insight into the various issues and whatnot.

However, I'm confused about two things: (1) Are the majority of people who are experiencing problems the ones who owned desktops/laptops before Vista came out and then installed the software, or is this an issue that extends to recent desktops/laptops with Vista pre-installed? Is it both? (2) If all are true (well, even if they aren't), is there anything I should do once my Vista laptop arrives in terms of maintenance or whatever? I'm not really that tech savvy, so I'm just wondering.

Thanks.

 

Open up the notebook, use it and enjoy it.

 

Just remember that Vista isn't nearly as bad as most forum members would like you to believe, the ones with problems just usually tend up to be the loudest group.

If you visit an old computer site/forum that has been around since XP launch, you can find the exactly same complaints about XP back then.. OMG no drivers! OMG product activation! OMG DRM! OMG Win2k is faster! OMG XP is just eye candy!

 

Vista does have some incompatibilities with pre-Vista sofware, but that would mainly depend on what you use. Most every-day applications work just fine, like web browsers and word processors.

As to what the first thing is that you should do, I would have to say, as I would for any Windows machine, install anti-virus, ensure firewall is active, install a defragging application, install a registry editor etc.