ScottC

Yes, and it works just fine.

DeafFlyer

If I get home premium rather than Ultimate, what features am I missing out on? Is there a listing of features

FlyingToFly

Here is Microsoft's guide to edition features:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/pro...ns/choose.mspx

Here is a more detailed guide to edition features:
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/...2068721,00.asp

murphy

What video card are you using? Everything I've read has indicated that the vista video drivers from ATI and Nvidia are nearly un-optimized, and this very very slow.

CApreppie

I'm just going to use XP2 until I buy a new computer then I'll switch to Vista or until I'm forced.

willyroo

Maybe the speech recognition hack?

Microsoft downplays possibility of Vista voice hack

Microsoft researchers said this week that it is unlikely Vista's new voice-recognition component could allow hackers to prompt a machine to download malware.

But, the software giant admitted Wednesday on its Security Response Center blog, it is possible to play an audio file that could permit such actions as "copy," "delete" and "shutdown."

LIH Prem

Apple says it doesn't work fine.

Perhaps what you meant to say is that in your individual case, you haven't had any problems, but others might have problems?

-David

ScottC

Not interested what Apple says. The question was whether anyone installed iTunes, I have and it works just fine.

I didn't "mean to say" anything else, and I didn't make any claims on results from other people. When I post, I don't speak for others, I speak for my own experiences.

I don't have a single issue with iTunes, it works just as well as it did under XP including things like showing artist/album information on my Bluetooth keyboards display.

ScottC

7600GT. Speeds are 22% faster than they were under XP with the newest drivers. I'm not much of a gamer, so the speed increase isn't that important to me.

cedric

To follow up from my previous post, I have completed the upgrade and like ScottC am very happy with Vista so far. The interface is much more efficient in locating the files I need to work on as well as launching programs from the start menu. I am also quite happy with the performance of the system. Boot up time seems quicker.

A couple of notes regarding some minor issues if anyone faces these scenarios:

-if you purchase an upgrade DVD, MS expects you to run it from within your previous version of Windows. If is not setup to allow you, as in previous versions, to boot directly from the DVD and install it from there. That means if you want to format your drive and do a full clean install like I did, you need to use a workaround. And here's that workaround:
1. Boot to the Windows Vista DVD
2. Start the setup routine by clicking on Install Now
3. When prompted for the product key, do not enter a product key and click next.
4. You will be prompted to confirm that you wish to continue with the install without entering a product key. Click on No, to continue.
5. When prompted for the edition of Windows Vista, select the edition corresponding to your Windows Vista upgrade product key.
6. Continue with a clean installation.
7. Once the installation has been completed successfully, restart the setup routine within the Windows Vista.
8. When prompted for the product key, enter your Windows Vista upgrade product key.
Yes, that means you'll have to install Vista twice, but installing Vista is not like installing XP. It completed in about 25 minutes on my system.

-I also had a hardware issue that initially prevented Vista from booting properly on my system. It seems to be a bug with the way that the setup runs if you have a very specific hard drive configuration. I have an old IDE drive which I use as a backup drive, and a SATA drive that is my primary. However, Vista put it's boot information on the IDE drive rather than the SATA drive. A temporary workaround was to change the boot order of my drives in the BIOS - so that it booked from the IDE drive rather than the SATA drive. However, since I imagine that drive will be replaced before the other, I contacted technical support who helped me manually have the boot information installed on the SATA drive. That procedure is as follows:
1. Open computer and disconnect data cable from IDE drive.
2. Start computer and boot from Windows DVD
3. Continue through the language screen and click on "Repair my computer".
4. The setup will say that it has encountered a problem attempt to repair it.
5. You will have to restart the computer, and again boot from the Windows DVD.
6. This time, when you click "Repair my computer" it will allow you to select your Windows installation and continue to a menu of options. What you're looking for is the first one. This will copy the boot files to your SATA drive.
7. Shut down your computer, plug in your IDE drive and restart. It will now work correctly.

I imagine that MS will eventually release a patch for this so that it works correctly the first time.

I have not had any problems with my software. My antivirus (Panda) has released a free Vista version for registered clients of the old version. Wordperfect Office X3 and Wordperfect Mail work great, and according to Corel a patch is forthcoming very soon that will let them use some of Vista's new features. Although I used to use Firefox, IE7 has the features of Firefox that I found useful so I'll stick with that for now.

I'm typically an "early adopter" so I anticipated having a few issues and am glad that I went for it. My advise to anyone considering upgrading now is to run the Upgrade Advisor and see if any of your software or hardware is not expected to work immediately under Vista, and make your upgrade decision from there.

KMHT FF

Oh, and a 4GB USB drive for ReadyBoost.

I don't know whether it really makes things faster.

But it shure is kewl.

sany2

Thats just what I can't afford to have happen. I am not an expert with computers, and when I have new operating systems installed, the same thing always happens. I don't do the upgrades myself (too much of a hassle), and the people that do the install know what they are doing (much like yourself), but I can't have the systems down for a couple of hours. To get people to swtich, they need to make it much easier.

ScottC

An upgrade from XP to Vista took just 32 minutes here.

This upgrade was the easiest of any I've ever seen from MS.

SharpDoggy

they also say that people wanting to upgrade to vista should wait 4-6 weeks (keep in mind the new OS for apple comes out in approx. 2 months)

bdjohns1

I got my free copy of Vista Business from the "Power Together" campaign (nothing like running webcasts in the background to get free software!) and installed it on my laptop (Dell Inspiron E1505, 1.8Ghz dual-core, 1.5GB RAM, currently running XP Home). My install took longer than everyone else's (about 2 hours), but everything works fine. No obvious performance hit. According to the system, my "Vista Experience" score is 3.9, which is decent.

Probably wouldn't have bought the upgrade, but I can't beat the price.