Vista or XP

db

#chaplife
well, i would hate to be the one to say "i told you so" lol..

you should be fine.. vista will talk to xp, it's just a bit temperamental.. you'll probably find your shares disappearing from time to time, or you machine randomly disappearing from the workgroup.. a reboot usually sorts it, but yeah, vista is a pig when it comes to simple networking tasks..
 

wmrcomputers

Stafford PC & laptop repair specialist
gk141054 said:
Must just add....

I also use a netbook with XP on and used to have shared folders that I could access on my desktop from my netbook and viceversa..

If I lost this functionality then i'll be quite annoyed as i'll have to get off my ar$e to go upstairs, copy stuff on to a memory stick.... :(
I have a shared folder on my XP machine, which my Vista backs up docs to fine. Just make sure you turn on file sharing and network discovery etc in Vista and you should be fine. I didn't find it half as difficult to work out as some people are saying it is. Slightly different to set up than XP but not impossible.

All the best!
 

Toble

Well-Known Forumite
tek-monkey said:
Isn't ubuntu a live disk? So you could run from CD to get a feel for it.
You can install it over the windows file system for playing about with. My laptop is dual boot this was as I didn't want to wreck anything with repartitioning.
 

shoes

Well-Known Forumite
wmrcomputers said:
gk141054 said:
Must just add....

I also use a netbook with XP on and used to have shared folders that I could access on my desktop from my netbook and viceversa..

If I lost this functionality then i'll be quite annoyed as i'll have to get off my ar$e to go upstairs, copy stuff on to a memory stick.... :(
I have a shared folder on my XP machine, which my Vista backs up docs to fine. Just make sure you turn on file sharing and network discovery etc in Vista and you should be fine. I didn't find it half as difficult to work out as some people are saying it is. Slightly different to set up than XP but not impossible.

All the best!
My vista box will happily read files from the xp box, when it sees it although as DB says it will just disappear from the workgroup for no apparent reason requiring either a reconnect to the network and occassionally a reboot. I have googled this to death and am none the wiser other than many people report the same problem and many report having no problems at all.

My real issue is accessing files on the vista box from the xp box, all permissions are correct, and looking at the settings, which in all fairness are not confusing in the slightest, it should work. But it doesn't.

I am not sure whether this is something to do with vista's security or whether the networking just doesn't work or (most likely) a missed check box somewhere along the line.
 

wmrcomputers

Stafford PC & laptop repair specialist
I've never had this problem whatsoever. Hmmmm. Unless it's more reliable in Vista Ultimate edition maybe?? :s
 

My Name is URL

Well-Known Forumite
Stupid Q time....

How do I check if I have SP2 installed?

Have just down'd and installed all of the important updates so assume it is in there but taking nothing for granted.
 

wmrcomputers

Stafford PC & laptop repair specialist
gk141054 said:
Stupid Q time....

How do I check if I have SP2 installed?

Have just down'd and installed all of the important updates so assume it is in there but taking nothing for granted.
In Vista, right click my computer, then properties.
Appears at the top in the Windows Edition section.

(allthough Service Pack 1 I'm sure you meant? 2 not released yet)
 

My Name is URL

Well-Known Forumite
All I got is this....

Viats.jpg


Does that mean I don't got it....?
 

wmrcomputers

Stafford PC & laptop repair specialist
Well mine appears where yours says Upgrade windows vista

Is that not linked text in blue?? Does clicking that not bring up an option for installing SP1?
 

My Name is URL

Well-Known Forumite
No, it just tried to get me to upgrade to Vista Ultimate....

Just downloading SP1 now and will try and install and see what happens.
 

wmrcomputers

Stafford PC & laptop repair specialist
Okie dokey.

Just done a bit of googling and it looks like there's very soon to be (if not already) a Vista SP2 beta release downloadable by the public.

ATM I'm quite happy with SP1 and will wait till the SP2 goes out via updates (at least by then we know it's stable!!)
 

My Name is URL

Well-Known Forumite
Right have just installed SP1 and when I check it does say Service Pack 1...

I'm amazed that last night it downloaded 72 updates and has done at least 10 more since, yet it doesn't appear to have done SP1....

To be honest doesn't seem any different to before I installed it so wondering if it was there before but just didn't announce itself?
 

wmrcomputers

Stafford PC & laptop repair specialist
gk141054 said:
Right have just installed SP1 and when I check it does say Service Pack 1...

I'm amazed that last night it downloaded 72 updates and has done at least 10 more since, yet it doesn't appear to have done SP1....

To be honest doesn't seem any different to before I installed it so wondering if it was there before but just didn't announce itself?
Bear in mind that a service pack covers all the updates before that service pack was released, so in theory the 72 updates pretty much covered SP1. You'd have obviously saved alot of time installing SP1 first then you'd have still only had a dozen or so individual updates to do.

As long as you're sorted. Let us all know how you get on with general performance etc and whether you prefer it to XP. :)
 

wmrcomputers

Stafford PC & laptop repair specialist
dirtybobby said:
This has only been agreed with new HP systems though, and licenses for XP will still no longer be purchasable in any other way. Any other PC manufacturers mentioning XP will be reffering to the dowgrade rights within vista, which i believe ends this June anyway. Also, after 30th April they will only release XP important OS updates for XP Pro, and all other types of updates will cease.

They've extended the availability to HP as they had their arms twisted so to speak, but they aren't entirely happy to be doing so.

I agree that XP is an essential OS for people with older systems that would barely run Vista, but hopefully these people all carry their XP license sticker on their machines incase of the need to re-install. As for all modern systems (including HP), Vista runs so sweetly now that I can't understand them not wanting to keep up with the times.
 

db

#chaplife
wmrcomputers said:
They've extended the availability to HP as they had their arms twisted so to speak, but they aren't entirely happy to be doing so.
that's exactly my point! despite digging their heals in very sternly for years now, and claiming they absolutely will not continue selling XP past X date, they continue to push this date back and back because of the backlash against vista.. and this is in the corporate sector, where users have given real, quantifiable reasons for refusing to migrate (as opposed to retail consumers, who might just be jumping on the "vista sux lolzzz" bandwagon)..

wmrcomputers said:
As for all modern systems (including HP), Vista runs so sweetly now that I can't understand them not wanting to keep up with the times.
see my previous post for many reasons..
 

wmrcomputers

Stafford PC & laptop repair specialist
Some fair comments in the post you mentioned, and admittedly there was definately HUGE differences in XP than it's previous OS's, and I do think that more should have been obvious in Vista. The differences I see in Windows 7 to Vista are even lesser, which is why I said that I believe it shoud have been released as a Service Pack Update to Vista and not branded as an entirely new operating system.

One thing I know Vista does superbly though that XP can't (and one of my main reasons for using it), is that it can take ownership of files on a connected device that was passworded with XP. For example I can connect a customers hard drive that was passworded on XP and retrieve their documents without needing the password.
As far as I'm aware I can't acheive this with XP (at least not with a simply click).... but please put me right if I am wrong.
 

db

#chaplife
wmrcomputers said:
Some fair comments in the post you mentioned, and admittedly there was definately HUGE differences in XP than it's previous OS's, and I do think that more should have been obvious in Vista. The differences I see in Windows 7 to Vista are even lesser, which is why I said that I believe it shoud have been released as a Service Pack Update to Vista and not branded as an entirely new operating system.
this is certainly true; microsoft have even said as much.. i'm sure i read somewhere that internally windows 7 is actually marked as windows 6.1, as it is basically a revision of vista! the whole "windows 7" thing is basically an admission of how tarnished the word "vista" is and is microsoft's attempt to dig themselves out of a hole..

fortunately, they seem to be doing alright so far, as opinions of windows 7 seem to be almost unilaterally positive..

wmrcomputers said:
One thing I know Vista does superbly though that XP can't (and one of my main reasons for using it), is that it can take ownership of files on a connected device that was passworded with XP. For example I can connect a customers hard drive that was passworded on XP and retrieve their documents without needing the password.
As far as I'm aware I can't acheive this with XP (at least not with a simply click).... but please put me right if I am wrong.
how bizarre.. one could argue that this is a security breach, although i highly doubt anyone is using windows built-in password feature as their only means of securing their data.. as you suggest, this hurdle to rescuing data from a slaved drive was more an annoyance than anything else, so vista apparently ignoring it is definitely a good thing in my book!
 

shoes

Well-Known Forumite
I'm looking forward to the official release of Windows 7. Hopefully as its essentially Vista they won't have the same problems which they had with Vista originally and the stigma still sticks three years on, and is failing due to a tarnished name rather than being technically inadequate.

As a side note, since apple have wholeheartedly embraced the windows platform and making it ridiculously easy to install windows on your mac in a dual boot scenario, it will be interesting to see if apple release a version of leopard for PC users, and whether Microsoft create their own version of bootcamp to enable users to set up a dual boot system on their PC as easily as you can on a Mac running Leopard. I doubt it, but it can be done, Kalyway made a pretty good go at it and despite driver issues I had a stable box running Leopard from the old 3200+ system I bought off Tek.
 
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