[Ham-Computers] RE: Win Vista Dual-Boot?

[Hsu, Aaron (NBC Universal)]

Paul,

There are several articles on the net on how to dual-boot Vista.  However, I've never liked dual-boot setups...they're too much of a pain in the butt, esp if the boot sector gets corrupted.  However, if you wish to do so, you could use Partition Magic and "isolate" Vista to it's own partition.  An alternative is to install Vista on a different hard drive and use the BIOS to select which drive to boot from.

To learn more about Vista, go here:
  http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/

Then click on the "Get Ready" link to download a Vista compatibility check.  As your system is relatively new, it should be able to handle Vista.  The primary system spec is the video...unless you have a decent video card, you won't be able to "experience" the enhanced "Aero" interface.  You'll also need a good deal of RAM.

Someone mentioned using a virtualizer to test Vista.  Although this would work, it's not a fun experience.  Virtual sessions are relatively slow.  On top of that, the virtualized hardware is based on *OLD* technology.  For example, Microsoft's Virtual PC is based on the venerable i440BX chipset and the S3 Trio 32/64 video chipset.  Both of these were developed almost 10 years ago.  The virtualized video definitely wouldn't cut it for Vista.  Plus, you would need 2GB of RAM in your system so the virtualized session could have 1GB.  Doable, but not recommended!  I thought about it for a while, but decided to just install Vista on a different system with "newer" specs.

Overall, Vista is nice and the Aero interface is "pretty", but everything is too "big" visually (at least in my humble opinion).  The interface is making up for the higer resolutions available on modern video cards/monitors by making icons larger.  Seems fairly stable too, except for the "pre-release" visual glitches.  Will I make the move to Vista myself?  Probably not on my personal system - at least not until a lot of the "version 1.0" kinks are documented and fixed (aka, I'll wait until Service Pack 1).  But, I'll probably install Vista on a different computer as I'll need to support it anyway.  In my line of work, it's hard to avoid anything new.  Heck, I have an old Mac G3 under my desk running OS X for those few people I know who use Macs.

Is Vista more stable than XP?  It's definitely designed to be more stable and secure, but whether it is or not is TBD - need to get it out in the open to really be sure.  Trial by fire, if you will.  But, if you ask me, anything written by Microsoft is still suspect (at least to me) until they've achieved a proven track record of stable/non-hackable code.  And this will be hard to do until they get rid of old code and write everything from scratch...something I'm not even sure they *can* do.  =)

73 all,

  - Aaron, NN6O


-----Original Message-----
From: ham-computers-bounces at mailman.qth.net [mailto:ham-computers-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of paulahkolik at aol.com
Sent: Saturday, October 14, 2006 12:23 PM
To: ham-computers at mailman.qth.net
Subject: [Ham-Computers] Win Vista Dual-Boot?

Greetings to the list.

I'm giving some thought to Microjunk's Win Vista, as I received the "we're pretty sure it'll work on your box" message.

Is it possible install it as a dual-boot option w/a pre-existing Win XP Home SP2 PC? I Googled it, but after reading about two or gazillion conflicting opinions, I thought I'd turn to the experts on this list <grin>

As stated above, I have Win XP Home SP2 with all updates as of this writing, in addition to Zone Alarm, Antivir & Partition Magic 8.

Hints kinks or suggestions?

Thanks

Paul W5PDA (Happy to be back in five land) ________________________________________________________________________
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