Oh yeah, Speaking of drivers, I think I heard that Vista won't supported unsigned drivers.

Is this true? (I don't really care, I use the manufacturers drivers anyway, but you never know.)

Vista 32bit supports them (in the same way Xp did).
Vista 64bit requires signed drivers, however I think there's a registry fix to get around it.

Yeah, I'm going with 32-bit then.

What package would you recommend I get.

Also, If I upgrade from XP, would I use the same key? or would it just require that I have XP already installed. And would I still be able to use said XP key to install and update using a different computer. (legally?)

Home Premium seems to the average one that comes with Dell, Hp, Gateway, etc.. computers. I'd go with that one.

If you get the upgrade version, it will look for your XP installation and install over it (I believe you can keep your old files or remove them. It should ask you). The upgrade version has it's own cd key.

You could install Xp on a different computer upgrade it to Vista(you wont even have to register Xp), the Vista Upgrade Key should let you install it a few times without it rejecting you. This is because if you ever change your computers hardware dramatically Vista might think it's a different computer, and they don't want to be crazy and force you to buy Vista again. If it does reject you when you install it on a different computer, call Microsoft's support hotline (Vista Upgrade Box/Vista Register Screen will have the number) and manually do it (they give you a code to type in). Just tell them you updated your motherboards drivers and Vista wants to reactive itself. The support hotline let me install Xp on a bunch of different computers. Note it is technically illegal to install Vista on several computers, however your not using any cracks/hacks to bypass Vista's activation, just utilizing customer service.

You can also install an upgrade version manually, it justs takes a little bit longer. You have to choose to install the version of Vista you have, leave the CD-Key blank when prompted, and install the 30-day trial period Vista. After that's done, go to Windows Anytime Update (or upgrade?) and choose the version you currently have. Now you put int he CD-Key, and install normally.

IMO- Vista is less than or equal to XP. I've got 2 laptops and 1 desktop with Vista, and 2 desktops and 1 laptop with XP, a mac laptop: so I can rightfully say i've tried it all. I prefer the XP style(Vista is all mac-ish bubble-gummy). Also, I've had my fair share of errors on both os so either way nothing is perfect, but i prefer the XP over them all. good luck!

Once you get used to the UI in Vista, you really start to appreciate it over XP. There used to be a number of problems that presented me with a good bit of frustration such as using a lot of Ram (a big problem with games like Supreme Commander and Lord of the Rings Online) resulting in a crash to desktop. However, these problems have been largely fixed. Vista also improves networking, and generally makes things a lot more streamlined such as installing drivers (although the implementation is imperfect yet). There also feels to be more customization available to the user for all aspects of the OS. If anything, I'd say that Vista is an upgrade over XP in that it makes for a more integrated package, combining the user friendliness of Macs with the obvious advantages of Windows.

Actually, it is more severe than that, potentially. I only have a 256 MB graphics card, but the total amount of physical memory address space reserved to hardware on my system is 1 GB. I have 4 GB of ram installed in my system, and this means I can only use 3 GB of it on a 32-bit OS. If KilaByte installs the 32-bit edition and then upgrades to 4 GB of ram, it may be that something more like 2.75 GB might be available. If the computer then had another of those cards installed for SLI, that could further reduce the available addressing space for system ram to only 2.25 GB, so that only that much was available to the OS. This is basically a hardware limitation of 32-bit mode, for the most part. Anyone planning on having 4 GB of ram in combination with a gaming-class graphics card (hence more ram) should plan on having to install a 64-bit OS in the very near future. On that note, actually everyone in general who will be getting 4+ GB of ram should be planning on having to install a 64-bit OS. As even 4 GB is cheap now, 64-bit OS's really need to move forward now, since more and more people are requiring it.


The 64-bit version does run 32-bit apps. It is 32-bit drivers that it does not run. For apps, it is 16-bit apps that it doesn't run. The 32-bit apps that do not run won't run mainly because they require a driver to run and don't have a 64-bit version of the driver yet.


Sometimes you can even find OEM discs of Ultimate for about $150, which nearly brings it on par with the old price of the OEM disc of XP Pro.


I hear that is partly as a result of trying to get the memory usage of file caching under control in Vista. I've seen XP go completely crazy with the amount of memory it has used for the file cache when working with files larger than the amount of system memory, making it completely unusable for several minutes as soon as you tried to do something else, because basically almost every single other thing was forced to be paged to disk to make room for the cache.


Haha, not everyone hates that feature. UAC is part of what makes more programs able to run without admin rights; the elevation prompt is just part of it. I don't really find the elevation prompt annoying anyway. I even have it set with a mandatory password (for admins, not just regular users), so it isn't just a simple "continue" or "accept" to allow the action. Of course, this does have a positive effect of making the elevation prompts completely consistent in their appearance/layout and maybe even position, since it no longer needs to keep programs from having a chance of simulating a click in the window. Also, turning off installer detection keeps it from coming up in places where it shouldn't be, in the case where you are running a program that is not an installer, but triggers the detection because of its name, etc.


Not quite correct. It has nothing to do with Windows Anytime Upgrade. To use a key for an upgrade version, you simply need to have installed Windows from the DVD when a version of Windows was running, rather than from the bootable installer. Basically when you install from the bootable version, using an upgrade key is disabled in the installer or the resulting installed copy. On the other hand, when you install from the version that you run from within Windows, using an upgrade key is allowed in the installer or the resulting installed copy. In other words, the capability of using an upgrade key is simply determined by how you ran the installer. You can even do this to install a trial version that will accept an upgrade key that you later input.

Now the catch here is that you are able to get Windows onto your system to run the installer from Windows (thereby running the version that enables upgrade keys) by first installing a key-less trial version when you boot from the Vista DVD. This should also be possible from a key-less trial version of XP SP3 (which is an added feature on the installation media for that version), though I don't know why anyone would want to do so, because that would mean upgrading from XP to Vista instead of Vista to Vista, which theoretically should be cleaner as it doesn't involve a different Windows version.

I failed WGA with a plain install, but passed using the method I described, which I found on the internet.

I've been using vista for about four months and have not had an issue with it that wasn't easily solved with a little googling. I disabled quite a bit of its features and so far, I am very happy with what it had going good for it. It runs everything great, old programs that XP wouldnt run, Vista does, which is awesome. I am loving Vista.

I've been thinking about getting vista but ultimately decided against it. I'll just like to make one comment:
A manufacturer's driver can be unsigned if they don't pay microsoft to have it signed. Which can be a problem for smaller companies that don't pay for it, older hardware, etc. Nvidia, in the past, commonly didn't sign all there driver updates, just some here and there. I think it's bogus for anyone to pay microsoft to have their driver signed.

They have to pay to have it signed by M$? LOL!

You don't have to pay Microsoft, however you will have to pay someone. Verisign (the people how created the signature) is $400 and apparently other places do it for cheaper.

I haven't been following this thread so I'll just state my oppinion.

I have had no problems with vista at all on my 3 month old laptop. No slowness, no crashes etc. I have had some very minor compatibility issues but have found ways around all of them so far. I see no real improvement with vista though. Of course that doesn't mean the inner workings of vista is at all the same, just the interface. It Looks a lot better than xp, but in my case that doesn't really matter since I always used windowsblinds and changed it to a much better looking interface. It handles crashing programs a lot better than xp did.

On the whole, I say vista is a good operating system, I've had absolutley no issues with it although I may be special. I imagine a lot of the "slowness" people get from vista is simply because their computer was made before vista and consequently was not designed for it. Another thing I guess is that I got my laptop right after sp1 was released so perhaps before that it was much buggier. Is it better than xp? Yeah, why not. Better than mac ox 10.5? No, they both have their pro's and con's, neither is a clear winner though.

Laptop specs:
Vista home premium 64 bit
2.3 ghz dual core turion thingy. (AMD)
2 gigs ram
Also has 8400m gs graphics card and some other crap, although not important for vista comparisons...