Topic Title

I purchased a new Dell computer before xmas and believe a free upgrade to vista (from xp) is available to me for a limited time (the end of this month or March).

I'd like to hear your thoughts or pro/cons of making the upgrade.
DataCAD & CorelDraw are the main programs I use.
The new computer is a Dell Dimension 9200 with a dual core processor.

Thanks in advance for your insight!
andy

"can't wait for V12"

My opinion - I think I would wait until the first service pak comes out, by then most of the compatibility issues should be addressed.

Good point!
Any idea or MS history of releasing their service packs? (timeframes)
Vista is a free upgrade to me right now.

Thanks,
andy

If you have the option of getting Vista delivered on a CD, as opposed to instaled over the internet, I would recommend you get it now while you have the free upgrade. You can always hold onto the disk and install it when you feel comfortable that the downloadable updates make it stable for your installation.

Get the upgrade sent to you now when it's free and then when you think you're/Vista is ready, install it. I had a few minor issues with the 32bit version of the betas and release candidates. The disc you get from Dell is actually a custom install disc that will have all the drivers and files to support everything that came with your computer, tested for your computer model and setup so it's usually pretty safe to upgrade with those discs hardware wise. The only software issues I had was with the hardlock driver (which has been addressed with the latest version from Datacad's website) and Daemon Tools which I use to run CD images. It was blocked by Microsoft as a known app that "wont work properly". I'm sure they blocked it because it's used a lot for pirated games.

I was using DCAD 11 with the Vista beta for awhile and it ran faster than under XP. The only problem I had with Vista was the Bluetooth drivers were not up to date so my wireless keyboard and mouse didn't have the special functions enabled.

Just check and make sure there are Vista compatible drivers for all of your hardware and it will be ok. Either way, go ahead and get the disk so you don't have to pay for it later. You can always install it down the road after they come out with the service packs if you want to.

Thank you all!!!
I was able to order the disks last night, I only have to pay for the shipping. For some reason I thought it was going to be a download.
Now I can install it at any point I desire, will most likely wait for bit.

andy

Hello,

I bought a new copy of WinXP recently, and it came with the upgrade to Vista -- they are rumored to be extremely slow? They may not ship for another month or two?

I'm not concerned because I will wait a year or more until I hear that it is worth doing. The increase in the required RAM alone will limit what machine can use it: Vista takes up ~700MB in RAM vs ~300-400MB that WinXP uses.

BTW, M$ has completely stopped supporting Win98 -- I just reinstalled it on a ~9 year old machine; and there are NO updates available! Even more oddly, it gives an error message saying something about that you can't update a Macintosh system??! Well duh, I think I'll try that...

BTW, M$ has completely stopped supporting Win98 -- I just reinstalled it on a ~9 year old machine; and there are NO updates available! Even more oddly, it gives an error message saying something about that you can't update a Macintosh system??! Well duh, I think I'll try that...

On this note:

Is there a way to grab all the updates for the other OS's?

Say for Win XP and then put it on a CD to run if you put XP on a new machine?

BTW, M$ has completely stopped supporting Win98 -- I just reinstalled it on a ~9 year old machine; and there are NO updates available! Even more oddly, it gives an error message saying something about that you can't update a Macintosh system??! Well duh, I think I'll try that...

Did you try manually going to the New Windows Update page (v.6) and installing the new Microsoft Update software (as opposed to the old v.4 Windows Update that comes with Win98) Might work, haven't tried it though. If that doesn't work you can get at least the corporate downloads here. I thought only incident & direct support was going to end along with no new security updates to be created for these products. I didn't think they would stop downloads of existing updates. I sure hope that's not the case. Makes everyone less safe. There are some unoffical service packs for Win98SE around on the net you might try also.

Is there a way to grab all the updates for the other OS's?

Say for Win XP and then put it on a CD to run if you put XP on a new machine?

You can get at least up to SP2 for XP by downloading it from the Microsoft Download Center. XP SP1 is also no longer supported along with Win98. Neil there might be some things hidden there for 98 also. Good luck friend