I am old enough to remmeber when Apple treated its customers JUST as badly as MS does theirs, now. I have a long memory.
Intoxication by success infects any company eventually.
My "state of the art" XP 1GB system is 6 years old and I have to upgrade.
I use memory intensive graphic stuff like Adobe CS3, Lightroom, printing utilities, etc. and would need at least a 4GB system with Vista. I'll need that much RAM anyway.
I have to stick with some version of Microsoft's offerings. It's very frustrating. I'm ready to buy an expensive multi-monitor system and I'm afraid to pull the trigger.
(I know, I know.... Buy a Mac, vote for Ron Paul, wear hemp-fibre clothing....)
Microsoft is allowing the installation of XP on new machines through the end of June. You just have to order them online, like through the Dell website. I believe you can do the same at the Gateway website.
I am old enough to remmeber when Apple treated its customers JUST as badly as MS does theirs, now. I have a long memory.
Intoxication by success infects any company eventually.
One of three. Ron Paul is a raving loon, and hemp clothing is scratchy. I prefer cotton.
Hemp for paper and fuel, that's a whole 'nother question.
You can still buy new machines with XP Pro on them. After arguing with the Sales team at Best Buy about getting such a machine, they kept up the party line “They all come with Vista, that’s the only way we sell them”. One young lady pointed out that they have a Best Buy for Business website only that sells new machines with XP instead of Vista. bbfb.com if you want to go that route or Tiger Direct.
Hope this helps.
With 4GB of RAM you’ll be fine with Windows Vista.
You will have to get used to finding where things are if you’re used to getting under the covers with Windows XP (ie Control Panel).
I have multiple systems running Windows Vista without a problem. I’m using Windows Vista Home Premium on the system I’m using to type this on and it’s on the low end with a 2GHz Core 2 processor amd only 2GB of RAM. I even do video processing on this machine.
Yes I had printer driver issues early on (more HP’s problem than Microsoft’s) but no more.
Why do you have to stick with MS? Is it a work requirement or your preference?
I would highly recommend that you find a trustworthy local white-box builder to facilitate your upgrade. XP will run on any of the new hardware I have found available, and one can even use Win2k if someone knowledgeable is building/installing the system.
Many of my graphics guys are still using Win2k, as it is so lightweight, while others are using a pared down (shut off unneeded services) XP. I would not recommend going to Vista unless you need to implement the new graphics (Aero) for some reason.