Well, I wasn't going to but couldn't resist. So I installed Vista Ultimate on my El Cheapo floor model Gateway MX3416 notebook that cost me a grand total of $389 after all rebates at Office Depot. It's a 2GHz Turion64 with a gig of RAM and according to Microsoft's Vista upgrade checker, Vista-ready (and also has a sticker to that effect).
So I upgraded. It took about three hours but Vista came right up. Initially it didn't have the NVidia drivers needed, so I downloaded those from the Gateway site. A few other assorted updates were required, but the thing works, even with the fancy Aero interface. For those in the know, the cheapie notebook does 4.1, 4.5, 3.1, 3.0, 4.1 on the Vista scores.
Sadly, no audio yet. Gateway added a few files and a BIOS reflash, but so far no sound. Big deal. It'll happen.
What I thought was funny was that several of the upgrades needed to be installed via an ancient command line directive, c:\cabs\.....exe and such. Ahh, the ghost of DOS.
Overall, Vista works better than I thought. Sure they (not all that successfully) stole most of the look directly from Mac OSX and it's still Microsoft-clumsy, but it's quicker than I thought and some things work better and more transparently than on XP. Overall I am glad I took the step early.
So I upgraded. It took about three hours but Vista came right up. Initially it didn't have the NVidia drivers needed, so I downloaded those from the Gateway site. A few other assorted updates were required, but the thing works, even with the fancy Aero interface. For those in the know, the cheapie notebook does 4.1, 4.5, 3.1, 3.0, 4.1 on the Vista scores.
Sadly, no audio yet. Gateway added a few files and a BIOS reflash, but so far no sound. Big deal. It'll happen.
What I thought was funny was that several of the upgrades needed to be installed via an ancient command line directive, c:\cabs\.....exe and such. Ahh, the ghost of DOS.
Overall, Vista works better than I thought. Sure they (not all that successfully) stole most of the look directly from Mac OSX and it's still Microsoft-clumsy, but it's quicker than I thought and some things work better and more transparently than on XP. Overall I am glad I took the step early.
