Chase laptops......Vista......HELP!!!!!

[David Drummond]

Karen, check out zipzoomfly.com I have bought MANY things from them and have been very satisfied. I know they have a few laptops, not sure about the OS though. If you have a legal copy of WinXP you could always format the hard drive on whatever you get and reinstall with a fresh WinXP so your not stuck with Vista.

I would never go with a brand new operating system this soon out the gate if I could get around it.

 

[Paul Austin]

Unless you are very confident in your OS expertise, I'd avoid switching to Vista for at least six months. I train users of application software for a living. I like some of what I see with Vista, but compatibility will be an issue for at least a little while. While I haven't used any "chaser" software on Vista, MS Office 2003 isn't even completely compatible with Vista Enterprise Edition, and it's Microsoft! Best of luck!

 

[rdale]

I replaced my Vista install with the 64-bit version today and all remains fully functional.

 

[Karen Politte]

I just wanted to thank everybody for the advice they imparted here. Thanks to this and some research - we were able to buy a laptop last night that will hopefully prove a chase workhorse.

I - like most other consumers right now apparently - am also avoiding Vista like the plague and intend to do so for many years. There's no way on this green earth that anybody could get me to walk out into the Plains with a totally new OS and hope for the best. We've stuck with Xp and it'll be just fine.

Thanks again to all,

KL

 

[Karen Politte]

Just wanted to make one last post on here and let everyone know that I am now surfing and posting here from our new laptop after having it linked-up very easily and readily to our existing WiFi network here at home!!! It arrived Friday 2/2, and it's just perfect! Hopefully it'll prove to be a chase tank for many years to come........Windows Xp and all!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks to all of the advice,

KL

 

[Skip Talbot]

For others who are still deciding on upgrading or purchasing a new machine with Vista, be sure to check out the Vista Advisor:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/buyorupgrade/upgradeadvisor.mspx

It will tell you what software and hardware is going to have issues on Vista. It told me that my cell phone connectivity software is incompatible and thus I can't upgrade (or will have to get a new phone). Its a shame though, because I was impressed with Vista when I got to sit down and play with it. Its not all doom and gloom like everyone says, although there are many legitimate reasons some people should not upgrade.

 

[Patrick Martin]

Thanks Karen for starting this thread, and thank you to everyone for their input. Vista's launch pushed up my plans on purchasing a chase laptop form mid-march to this weekend. Was able to purchase an open box HP w/XP Media Center at a pretty hefty discount yesterday . It also comes with a free upgrade to Vista, so I can upgrde to the new OS at a later date...if I want to.

Has anyone out there tried running Baron Threat Net on Vista, and has it worked? I've not seen anyone mention it yet. Just curious b/c I'll be running that starting this year, and it was one of several reasons I sought out a machine running on XP.

 

[J Kinkaid]

if you are going to buy a laptop from Dell please wait untill there end of quarter sales. You can check sites like fatwallet and slickdeals.net and see when then best deals are posted. You may not intend on playing games on your laptop but wouldn't you want a dedicated video card that will run GR AE ?

 

[Jason Foster]

Bringing an old thread back for update (Vista)

I was looking for some answers to the "Vista" question. I think this started a while ago, and I couldn't find a concrete answer. Figured it's been a while and there should be a lot more Vista users by now.

Is Vista working with the chaser programs?

GRLevelX
Mobile Threat Net (XMWX)
Weathertap
datacards
etc.

and others.

I've already got Vista, which I've been fine with (except there's no APRS or satellite tracking software working with it). If I had a machine with XP I wouldn't upgrade, but don't have the choice attm.

 

[Chris White]

I downgraded after several months of frustrations. I got most everything working GR3, photoshop (CS3, Premiere CS2 and before won't work as far as I know no support is planned, in fact when I first bought it, thier was not a single video editor that worked but, I think most vendors support it now). I got my Canon drivers finally working, casio elixim and a few other drivers never did work but, it had a card reader built in so problem solved. Had horrible time tethering under Vista. I finally got about 90% of things working when my VPN to work was not supported under Vista, so I downgraded to XP and rebuilt it and re-installed everything in about a day and a half, did'nt have a single issue installing a single app.

Due to the SATA drivers (for the hard disk) I had to load the SATA drivers from a floppy disk which the laptop did not have. Turns out XP only supports (from the boot CD ROM) only 3 models of USB floppy's, tracking down one of them took about a week. If you do decide to downgrade make sure you can get XP drivers for all of your hardware (the laptop) first, and if you have a SATA laptop and no floppy that might be a bit of an issue as well. Some BIOS's have an XP compatibillity mode (no clue- mine did'nt) which I hear helps, in some fashion.

I'd say in another year or so (or an SP or two) I might give it another try.