I have a Dell Latitude D630 laptop - a decent enough little workhorse that's good enough for times when I need portable computing. Originally it came with "Windows Vista Business" installed, but most of the time I swap out the hard disk with one that has Linux Mint installed - the only reason I keep the Vista drive is that I have some software that just won't work on Linux via an emulator such as Wine or VirtualBox (e.g. software for updating my SatNav).

If I haven't used the Linux system for a while I get notification of updates in the message bar. A dialog appears, I confirm, then it takes maybe 1 or 2 minutes tops to do the job, then the dialog closes. End of excitement.

I have just put the Vista drive back in (last in about 1 or 2 weeks ago) and it's just taken me 2 hours to finish the updates! (including 1 lock-up and a warning message on restart). I know Windows 7 is far better, but I'm not prepared to pay that sort of money for an equivalent spec version for an OS I rarely use.

In a similar vein, when I turn it on using Vista it takes anything up to a minute to find my wireless network (sometimes it fails and I have to sort it out manually). If the laptop is on its docking station then the hard-wired network is available, giving greater speed - Vista insists on using wireless.

In Linux I turn it on and within 10 seconds of the system opening I get a message stating that the wireless connection is up and running. If the laptop is on the docking station then the system picks up the hard-wired network immediately, ignoring the wireless.

Aarghhh!

Thank you for enduring this rant - I feel better now... [breathe in... breathe out... breathe in... breathe out... ahhh]

i know the pain, i moved from vista to linux about a year ago, only thing i miss is the big softwares i used like solidworks, i will need to either change it back or get windows 7 for when i need solidworks again, but until then im enjoying 6 seconds to boot up and trouble free paint free computing

stick a copy of win2K on it - simple and solid

(it uses the same drivers as xp so you can still make it work on most things)

I have Win2K on the old clunker laptop I use to set up my Megajolt, and WinXP on my VirtualBox installation!

I used to work for a software company that had links to MS, so I tried to make sure that all my software was legitimate - which I've just about achieved. That's another reason for mainly using Linix Mint - all the functionality I want is free...

Yesterday it took full days work to install Windows 7 up date it then install anti-virus and office and after all this time windows still can't automatically find drivers for common bits of kit such as USB wireless keys off the net.

Install Mint 11 Katya and all the required software and printer and network drivers straight on to the net and update it takes less than 30 minutes.

[Edited on 11/7/11 by britishtrident]

Maybe you have the wrong Vista, mine's not that bad and my laptop's that slow I can make it lock up by typing too fast

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Originally posted by Ninehigh
Maybe you have the wrong Vista,

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Originally posted by David Jenkins

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Originally posted by Ninehigh
Maybe you have the wrong Vista,

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Yes, you're right - mine's the one written by Microsoft...

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Win 7 is a much better system - it's got the stability and usability that Win2K and XP still have, wrapped up in a much more modern OS. It's even got the good bits out of Vista! (there are a few).

I still can't justify spending money upgrading to Win 7 while I only have to use it about once every 3 or 4 weeks.

I'm sure you could dig up a legit copy of 2K or XP for nothing - someone on here is bound to have one left over
(I'm all out at the moment - would have had a few copys of 2k but someone at work binned them )

[Edited on 12/7/2011 by mcerd1]

Don't worry - I'm not planning to lose any sleep over this!

It does the job on the odd occasion I have a task for it - I just have to plan to turn it on a couple of hours before I need it, so that it can update itself...

I don't think Vista is as bad as people make out, although I do agree it's really annoying when it asks for permission to run a program you cliked on... or tells me I need to contact my administrator about deleting a folder

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Originally posted by Ninehigh
I don't think Vista is as bad as people make out, although I do agree it's really annoying when it asks for permission to run a program you cliked on... or tells me I need to contact my administrator about deleting a folder

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Even Windows 7 isn't that great it is just not as bad as Vista.

How come just about any modern Linux distro can keep itself up to date, reliable and secure but even a recent copy of windows seems spend anywhere between 2 minutes and 20 minutes everyday updating sometimes introducing more problems than they cure.

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Originally posted by mcerd1

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Originally posted by Ninehigh
I don't think Vista is as bad as people make out, although I do agree it's really annoying when it asks for permission to run a program you cliked on... or tells me I need to contact my administrator about deleting a folder

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you can turn that stuff off I think (win7 does alot of that too untill you tell it not to)

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