Vista Adventures
Posted on August 16, 2007
8 Comments
On a whim, I decided to install Vista Business on my laptop today. A month ago, I tried (and failed) to get Ubuntu on this machine. Today it was time for something different.
The Vista install is amazingly easier and faster than XP’s, isn’t it? I was pleasantly surprised. Unfortunately, my Toshiba Tecra A4 wouldn’t boot after the install. Well, it would boot to a point, then lock up completely. Very distressing.
Fortunately, my search for help immediately turned up a great troubleshooting article that had all the help I needed. “Arf” had the exact same symptoms and while his Toshiba was a different model, the hardware was very similar.
He had two issues, one that forced him to run an external monitor while installing, and another related to the PCMCIA drivers. Fortunately, I didn’t need to resort to the external monitor, but I did have to do some file shuffling to get things rolling.
Once I had things rolling, I had to now resolve my missing PCMCIA driver issue. Fortunately, there were two great comments on that same post (1 and 2) that had all the info necessary to put it all back together again. Culminating with a delightfully geeky (and necessary):
sc config pcmcia start= auto
I’m not sure I’ve had to use the sc command for several years. It did the trick though.
So far I’m pleasantly surprised at how well this relatively old laptop runs Vista. The only visual effect I’ve disabled is “Animate windows when minimizing and maximizing” and that wasn’t really due to performance… all that animation was making me feel almost motion sick! Turning it off makes things “snap” a bit more too.
Not great scores, but like I said, I’m pleasantly surprised at how well things run so far. We’re talking a Centrino 1.60, 1GB memory and a 7200 RPM drive. The display adapter is the mighty Mobility Radeon X600. I’m running Microsoft’s drivers as I can’t find any from Toshiba for my model & Vista.
I have one driver left to chase down. Pity I don’t know what “Mass Storage Controller” is… everything seems to be working properly, so I haven’t yet figured out where to start with that one.
[update: Just realized that must be the built-in multi-slot card reader]
Final thoughts before I get back to installing apps:
- I don’t think I’ll be putting Launchy back on. I’ve discovered that I can just hit the windows key and start typing and applicable programs fill up the list. How sweet to see something so useful built in.
- I’m probably outing myself as a total squirrel, but I’m really liking the “aero” interface.
- I’m still on the fence about the sidebar gadgets.
Probably more to come as I continue to play with it.
Tags: laptop, launchy, microsoft, tecra, toshiba, vista
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8 Responses to “Vista Adventures”
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A 2.1? That isn’t really an old laptop…an old laptop would be one that had a 1.0…try it some time, you’ll see what running vista is really all about
Toss another GB of RAM in that lappie!
I can relate on the disabling of visual effects. I typically do this on an XP setup to get some extra performance. My favroite resource saver, disable window contents while dragging! Such a useless feature, disabling it makes moving windows around much smoother.
I am glad you are enjoying the experience. Mine has been about the same. I think the install process is an improvement over XP, and that the UI is very pleasant. I am looking forward to reading your thought on Vista after a few months of use. I have found that there are a few things that have changed my view on Vista after using it a while. Keep up the great blogging.
One other thing, The Pre-SP1 patches available here:
http://www.windows-now.com/blogs/robert/archive/2007/08/07/windows-vista-pre-sp1-performance-and-reliability-updates-released.aspx
Really help. They fix an issue with resume from hibernate and increase performance. I would highly recommend applying them.
My score is 3.0 on my new laptop Asus F3Sc they determined the score by the lowest subscore…
my RAM performance is 5.9 and All other is around 4.5 and the Graphics for Windows Aero is 3.0
I think that WEI does not really matter.If U wanna have a high WIE than just change a file dont remember and U can get 9.9
Thanks all for stopping by and commenting!
@Vox - 1.0? Cripes. Why?!?
@Peter - another gig would be nice, but probably unlikely. The tip to turn off window contents when moving is a good one — thanks!
@Nathan - Thanks! I’m sure I’ll have more on Vista over time. Still liking it… I’m hesitant to try the pre-release SP’s. Been burned before.
@AskaX - I’m gonna guess yours runs Vista better than mine.
@Ankur - I think WEI matters, but I know for some folks, it’s used more as a yardstick than anything else.
@Nathan - ah, I didn’t realize the article linked to Microsoft! Maybe I will give those a look then.