just got a laptop and i would like some advise

E

everleet

New Member
so i just bought a laptop, a dell xps 1530. im pretty excited about it as ive been saving up for it for awhile. it comes with vista and i want to know what you guys think about switching to xp. would it be detrimental, should i just keep vista? im not sure if its 32bit or 64 as it didnt say but im pretty sure its 32 (as with the majority). here are the stats

XPS M1530 Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T9300 2.5GHz/800Mhz FSB 6MB Cache

Operating System Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium Edition SP1

LCD Color and camera High Resolution glossy widescreen 15.4 inch LED LCD 1440x900 2.0 MP built in camera

Memory 4GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz 2 Dimms

Hard Drives Size 320GB 5400rpm SATA Hard Drive

Combo or DVD+RW Drive Slot Load DVD+/-RW DVD/CD read/write

Video Card 256MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 8600M GT

Wireless Networking Cards Dell Wireless 1505 Wireless-N Mini-card

Bluetooth and Wireless USB Dell Wireless 355 Bluetooth Internal 2.0+Enhanced Data Rate

Primary Battery 56 WHr 6-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery

Sound Card Integrated Sound Blaster Audigy HD Software Edition

SECURITY Finger Print Reader XPS M1530

Dell Printer Driver Windows Vista™ Premium

Software Adobe® Acrobat® Reader 8.1

Processor Branding Intel Core 2 Duo Processor

Software McAfee SecurityCenter with anti-virus, anti-spyware, firewall, 24-months

Microsoft Works

Photo Video & Burn Software ROXIO CREATOR 10 PREMIERE Ultimate Burn/Authoring

warranty & Service 2Yr Ltd HW WRTY, InHome Service after Remote Diagnosis

Accident and Theft Protection 1Yr LoJack for Laptops Theft Protection

thanks alot guys
 
Sweet machine...congrats

I would stick with Vista....

Reason being is..retail machine often have a variety of pieces within the software included and if you swap...while you can do it...you can run into some issues with making everything run properly..

particularly if you can't find an exclusive Dell driver..

Stick with vista.....
 
awesome, i appreciate the input. what you said was my biggest concern, not being able to find drivers and what not. i sure do hate vista but i guess ill stick it out
 
everleet said:
awesome, i appreciate the input. what you said was my biggest concern, not being able to find drivers and what not. i sure do hate vista but i guess ill stick it out
Click to expand...

Keep vista...but customize it to suit you...

change skins, icons...etc..make it look and act like xp or 'classic version'...

makes vista very workable...for most people..vista is a fine o/s..it's only us computer nuts that bitch...
 
scooter said:
Keep vista...but customize it to suit you...

change skins, icons...etc..make it look and act like xp or 'classic version'...

makes vista very workable...for most people..vista is a fine o/s..it's only us computer nuts that bitch...
Click to expand...

Lol, you're recommending Vista despite the "upgrade to XP" thing your Sig :D

But naah, you're completely right. For most people, Vista is OK. Just make sure it has Service Pack 1 (apparently this "fixes" most of the bugs - it will probably come with this). It's only really Computer Nuts who find it...difficult.

That machine is definitely powerful enough to run Vista well (it's a sweet machine). It is probably 32Bit, not 64Bit. If you can find the necessary drivers for everything in XP, then XP should run faster than Vista, but tbh if you're just using it for normal office tasks then you probably won't notice any difference (and if you are using it for games, I think most of the compatibility issues have been sorted out on that front).

If the only thing you don't like about it is the look, then you can customize it quite easily.
http://www.tweakvista.com/VistaInterfaceTweaks.aspx
contains various ways to get the interface working the way you want it to. I dunno if any of this will appeal to you, but it does show that you can do alot with the interface.

Extra Note: It is probably Vista 32Bit, in which case it will only see about 3GB of your 4GB of RAM. I have heard that it is possible to make Vista "see" all 4GB, but it takes a bit of tweaking.
http://www.ocmodshop.com/ocmodshop.aspx?a=989
A bit complex, and you probably won't need to do this because 3GB should be fine, but if you really want to use all 4GB, the above link is a fairly concise guide on doing so.
 
EvilCheeseGrater said:
Lol, you're recommending Vista despite the "upgrade to XP" thing your Sig :D
Click to expand...

Hahaha...yeah I know..

The thing is..us computer guys/gals find Vista annoying and bloated and ...etc. because we were used to better/more effiecient o/s...and alot of us know that Vista was over-hyped, poorly executed, and just doesn't offer what some of us demand....(The idea that things improve and get better with new versions of stuff has been thrown out the windows, pardon the pun..)


That being said--

95% of computer users will never even notice a difference and probably wonder why people bash on Vista--as they will see no issues in the normal tasks that they do.

Vista isn't good or bad...its just another choice out there to run your computer..

...but as for my sig...you are the 6th person to mention it, ask me questions, or whatnot...so its been a silly joke sig but has ended up helpin a few members make some basic changes to make vista more workable for them.

Bonus!
 
Lol

Yeah, I have several friends who don't notice the difference between XP and Vista, except for the pretty transparent theme and sidebar of course (which is why I just recommended it as well :D).

But from the point of view of performing lots and lots of memory intensive, often administrative things, Vista just doesn't perform well enough for me (I know it's supposed to be running more things than XP in the background, but from what I can see the result is it just takes more memory to do the same things). And when seeing Compiz Fusion run the same effects as Vista, and indeed more, without any real noticeable performance hit on my Linux install (on the same machine as Vista), and thus running far more efficiently than Vista, I do start to wonder if there is any point to Microsoft's new, "improved" operating system.


Having said that, you are completely right that Vista is just another option, and a perfectly viable one to most users. To the average user, the extra eye-candy that vista offers well outweighs the performance hit, which, to them, is undetectable. And, whether good or bad, Vista will most likely eventually become the standard operating system for the home PC (I mean, it already is, but at least most things still support XP at the moment).

everleet, it is therefore probably better for your needs to keep vista. Of course, you said that you don't like it, so if after a few months you really find yourself hating your computer, the XP "upgrade" option is still open to you.

And scooter, if your joke sig has helped many people, then that sounds like a successful sig to me :D
 
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