Some questions on Vista

[capink]

I switched to Linux last year and using it as primary operating system now. I have windows xp partition that I rarely use.

I don't want to lose touch with how things progress on windows just in case I need to deal with it. I have not tried Vista and do intend to, but I like to keep informed. So here are few questions that hopefuly will be answered by people who used Vista.

1. Is the install procedure any different from xp? Do you still need to press F6 and use a floppy disk for sata drivers? Can you use usb flahs instead?

2. Can you install it on FAT32?

3. How much harddrive space does a fresh install take? What is the recommeded partition size?

4. Is the recovery console still there? Or has it been replaced by another alternative?

5. What about fixmbr? Is it still there?

[karellen]

I switched to Linux last year and using it as primary operating system now. I have windows xp partition that I rarely use.

I don't want to lose touch with how things progress on windows just in case I need to deal with it. I have not tried Vista and do intend to, but I like to keep informed. So here are few questions that hopefuly will be answered by people who used Vista.

1. Is the install procedure any different from xp? Do you still need to press F6 and use a floppy disk for sata drivers? Can you use usb flahs instead?

2. Can you install it on FAT32?

3. How much harddrive space does a fresh install take? What is the recommeded partition size?

4. Is the recovery console still there? Or has it been replaced by another alternative?

5. What about fixmbr? Is it still there?

1. no, you don't need floppy disk for sata drivers
2. no, you need NTFS for that
3. aprox 15 gigs
4. I think no, but I'm not sure
5. yes

[SunnyRabbiera]

just keep in mind vista is a space and memory hog, the more recent your computer is the better.
However if your computer was made before 2007 there is a huge chance it may not work even if it has that sticker that says "vista capable"

[karellen]

just keep in mind vista is a space and memory hog, the more recent your computer is the better.
However if your computer was made before 2007 there is a huge chance it may not work even if it has that sticker that says "vista capable"

not quite, my computer is 5 years old - P4 2.4 ghz with 512 mb of ram and an ide hdd - and I was able to run Vista aproximately fine. of course aero was disabled, and with a couple more tweaks, it ran as fast as xp...

[eljoeb]

not quite, my computer is 5 years old - P4 2.4 ghz with 512 mb of ram and an ide hdd - and I was able to run Vista aproximately fine. of course aero was disabled, and with a couple more tweaks, it ran as fast as xp...
Heh... Mine is a 1.4 Ghz with 2GB of ram and vista ran swimmingly. Video card was a GeForce6600GT. Aero worked very well. If my hard drive didn't fail loading wiping my linux partition with gparted, I'd probably still use it.

[karellen]

Heh... Mine is a 1.4 Ghz with 2GB of ram and vista ran swimmingly. Video card was a GeForce6600GT. Aero worked very well. If my hard drive didn't fail loading wiping my linux partition with gparted, I'd probably still use it.

nice. I think I'll buy 1 gb of ram as it's not too expensive. and a larger hard drive

[LaRoza]

1. no, you don't need floppy disk for sata drivers
2. no, you need NTFS for that
3. aprox 15 gigs
4. I think no, but I'm not sure
5. yes

1. But you will need drivers for every other piece of hardware. My Vista is still yelping about no drivers for my web cam although it is installed

2. NTFS is different from the NTFS of XP, so only use the newest versions of GParted if you decide to use that for anything.

3. You can do less if you don't have a large page file, but you'll have to shrink it with a GParted, Vista doesn't like shrinking itself.

4. If you need to fix the bootloaders, I recommend getting the Super Grub Disk, it can restore the MBR of Windows also.

[karellen]

But you will need drivers for every other piece of hardware. My Vista is still yelping about no drivers for my web cam although it is installed
luckily it's usually not very hard to find drivers for Windows (even Vista)

[angryfirelord]

not quite, my computer is 5 years old - P4 2.4 ghz with 512 mb of ram and an ide hdd - and I was able to run Vista aproximately fine. of course aero was disabled, and with a couple more tweaks, it ran as fast as xp...
Did you use vLite?

[karellen]

Did you use vLite?

what's vLite? :D

[linksolo74]

Hmm.... well after doing some research a few days ago, i found that vista is the worst OS microsoft has ever made. Do to the new DRM (digital rights management) that has been implemented in the entire OS (which is what slows it down so bad), it will monitor everything you do and send "everything" you do to microsoft (scary!). Not only that but it can delete anything on your computer at anytime if it thinks that it is bad for it. I could keep on going, but it is pretty bad. Your better off sticking with linux or mac or XP,

[LaRoza]

luckily it's usually not very hard to find drivers for Windows (even Vista)

Sort of. My web cam worked out of the box (and my printer) with Ubuntu, but even with the web cam Vista driver, Vista still yelps about it "Found new hardware", "This device may not work", "searching for drivers", even though I did install it, and had to reboot.