To wipe or not to wipe Vista?

[poohbear1616]

This is rather comical.

I went to a local retailer and bought a new puter box less monitor with some good specs for a good price assuming xp was on it. I didn't really pay attention to the packaging much since I was gonna wipe the drive and put a few linux distros on it. But when I returned home, I put the box in the corner til I had time to set it up and sat down in the chair for a rest. While looking at the side of the cardboard box I ran accross the word Vista in the labeling. I thought surely not!! Well upon setting up the system and firing it off it is indeed a Vista system. So now I'm not sure if I want to wipe it and put linux on it, dual boot it, or just play with it as is for a while.

What would you do? I am curious what others would do.

[ingo]

As long as it has not registered I'd get back to your retailer and say that you would like to have your money for the Microsoft license returned! This is quite legal and you'll be a lot better off. Be prepared for a bit of (very polite_ arguing, though.

[teaker1s]

duel boot,if you get faulty hardware it's easier to prove to retailer in windows,I keep mine duel boot as bios update is an easy point and click and battery check utility and no other reason:popcorn:

[EdThaSlayer]

I didn't know that retailers would adopt to Vista this fast!

[Miademora]

If you dont need it id suggest try to return it and remove it.

[v8YKxgHe]

return it! That's what I'm trying to do at the moment, Windows Vista license refund - Dell (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=358122)

edit: If you've booted into Vista you've accepted the EULA and so you can no longer return it.

[poohbear1616]

[QUOTE][duel boot,if you get faulty hardware it's easier to prove to retailer in windows,I keep mine duel boot as bios update is an easy point and click and battery check utility and no other reason/QUOTE]

Very goog point and well taken!! I hadn't taken that into consideration.

teaker1s...smart idea! I thank everyone's input on the subject...it gave me some insight on what to do.

[poohbear1616]

Hmmm!!!..that didn't work.

[teaker1s]

if your vista duel boot has problems, may I suggest you look at this site
http://www.commonmancomputing.com/y/Learn/DualBootVistaandLinux/tabid/62/Default.aspx

[Adamant1988]

I played with Vista on some demo laptops, it seemed to be OK. If you're comfortable with it I wouldn't bother deleting it. Dual booting would be a pain, personally I'm going to wait until the kinks are worked out a bit with it before I consider upgrading my laptop. Haha.

[slimdog360]

put a new hard drive in it and that way if something buggers up, you can just take it out again and that way it wont void your warranty. Mum's the word.

[darkROAM_1]

I am currently trying to install onto my new laptop running vista. I don't like vista, it doesn't seem to manage memory very well. Heck, it makes me miss XP even.

During 3 different setups, ubuntu ultimate, 64bit, and kororaa, just to see what would or wouldn't work. They all got locked up after trying to setup the partitions. XP has them setup a little odd and found it's way too odd for me to work with. Neither gparted (on ubuntu and kororaa) and disk manager on vista would let me create a new partition to do so.

So, I myself am considering switching over to just ubuntu. I have it on my home desktop, which dual boots fine w/ XP. If I play games, it's on that anyhow.Upgraded and always potential for more upgrades later. My laptop is more for interweb (yeah, I said interweb, inside joke) and IM'ing, etcetera. I like the safety side of linux, which is why I switched, It's so awesome to customize everything. A little wierd coming from windows but once I get into it, not too bad. It's got me hooked.

Sorry for the long post, I just can't decide. (I have a restore disk and spare Vista install disk that came w/ my gateway)

Edit: Well, too late, after messing w/ trying to install before reading the how-to's, I tried to boot back into Vista, lock ups. Oh well, full wipe here I come. I'm just glad I have the vista DVD for an install later on.

[poohbear1616]

I went ahead and booted vista and registered to try a duel/tri boot. Ran the dapper live disk and it didn't like my sound hardware (realtek high def) I'll have to get the model #s posted on here for others to know. This is a new system so I'm figuring dapper doesn't have the right drivers. I'm gonna burn an edgy disk and see what happens. Burning a FC6 live disk as I type to try. Everything works with the dream linux 2.2 live disk.

[Choad]

people, please. its dual, not duel. duel is what knights do.

[RandomJoe]

people, please. its dual, not duel. duel is what knights do.
Oh, I dunno... Might be interesting to see Linux and Windows partitions duel! :popcorn: I'm thinking a Gentoo install would have the best chances... Slackware might not even bother showing up! :lolflag:

I guess "duel-boot" would mean they fight it out each time you hit the power button to see who gets to start up! Imagine - if they're evenly matched, you never know which will win a given day. It may never boot at all, if all matches end in a draw!

(Gotta have fun with the mis-spells, lest I go insane...! :rolleyes: )

[JAPrufrock]

If you can't get your money back, you should burn the Vista CD and then employ the services of an exorcist to remove all the MS daemons from your box (pun intended).

[rockfloyd]

people, please. its dual, not duel. duel is what knights do.

thank you! i was considering saying that myself

[poohbear1616]

Yes I mis-spelled. Most times I'm in the forums it's in between the busy routines with my three yr old and/or the grand kids are here, or I'm on here early-early in the morn or late-late at night when I'm half asleep. So if I boo-boo in my typings....sorry.

[AndyCooll]

I removed my copy of XP and installed it as a VMware image, you could do that.

...although thinking about it, I think I read somewhere that the Vista licence forbids virtualisation. I might be wrong about this ...however if this is a path you'd like to consider I'd research it first.

:cool:

[poohbear1616]

This is for those who are curious how this turned out.

First of all, for those who do not know yet-Do Not Resize The Vista Partition without making absolutely sure you have a recovery disk if you plan to keep vista on your system. Resize then restore and vista looks for the first primary partition to restore to. That was my experience having 4 primary partitions.

On to wipe or no wipe-After playing with vista for a few days and having to relearn some windows goodies, such as having to defrag, worry about updating antivirus and still hoping I don't get nailed (brings back nightmares) and forever having to watch out for spyware, I had to slap myself in the face and wake up. When you have to cross your fingers every time you get on the net and spend that much time on maintenance I'm thinking I cannot have this--so back to linux I go.

The once was vista system is now running Pclos test release 2...........And vista is a dead horse that I'm not gonna keep beating.

[muguwmp67]

people, please. its dual, not duel. duel is what knights do.
Thank you.

[seijuro]

From what I have heard about Vista's EULA giving M$ rights to the contents of your computer including Grandma's secret recipe for buffalo wings, I would say torch it before accepting anything.