Well,so far, it's been rocky...tried to install XP, it would never get past a certain point with the hardware. I think it had to do with the MoBo bios; I couldn't get it to run the intel utility at all.
Then, I installed Vista Business 64, it actually made it all the way, installed the updated bios, drivers for the video card, Vista SP1, etc. Everything runs, but it'll only go for a little while (like 10 to 20 minutes) before it blue screens and memory dumps. Obviously haven't installed the application software yet, have to trace down the hardware crash issues. What scares me is this could take days, or might be solved in a moment, you just never know.

I suspect the video card, but have to dig into this.

Later
TY

Make sure you install the SP1 from April. I would not have gone to Vista without it... and I figure that the march to it is inevitable unless I want to keep maintaining an older system.

There are also several patches after SP1 for video, mouse and audio.

Thanks Kat, I'll check that- it came on a cd, but separate from the Vista package.
Haven't had much time to mess with it today, but I plan to this evening.

Thankfully, SP1 installed without a problem and my computer hasn't crashed (knock on wood).

My computer crashed again 25 minutes ago right after start-up. It hasn't crashed since, but me saying that will probably lead to another one.

Mike... I'd recommend that you use Dell's online tool to evaluate your hardware and make sure that the bios, the intel flashes and everything else is Vista compatible.

No computer should be crashing as frequently as yours is crashing... you might have something in an IRQ that needs to be reconfigured.

http://www.pchell.com/hardware/irqs.shtml

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interrupt_request

Hi Kat, Bassix, Bonnie, Mike, and Billy G.,

This is good I am in the market for a new computer and wow
I hear buy Vista, no don't buy Vista you can't use any XP, get Apple no don't get Apple. A guy at work a real true blue geek.I love geeks cause they know their stuff. This guy use are you guys sitting down get ready for this now he use Linux and loves it to death. Talk about being in control of your computer.

I so feel ya' Billy G. I don't know the geek ling-go I am just trying to find a computer I am comfortable with I am still researching. Kat is on it.

Yeah Pam. We love linux. Only problem is that there's not much you can do with it (yet) in your house. I can't run much of the software that I use - and I could move to Mac, just that I don't want to pay $5,000 for software that I already own on Windows.

I have not had any problems at all with my new computer.... only the screen saver problem due to the mouse.... the screen saver didn't kick in because the mouse always appeared "active" even when it wasn't.

The file properties on my external drives - was easy to resolve.

If you're considering an upgrade, download the compatibility tools from the computer manufacturer - and make sure your h/w is compatible.

I think for most users... it's the small changes which will make them crazier. Like in all the Office products - there are these big ribbons with icons which take the place of the menu bar. Excel is driving me nuts... for example, I couldn't find the "save as" option to save my spreadsheet.

How non-intuitive of me not know to press ctrl-alt-a to bring up that menu. HUH? Oh I guess I should have bought a new microsoft keyboard for Vista..... sigh.

OK, after a long night, we're running Vista Business 64. Barely.
What a pain in the a$$ to setup, but it DID work, when XP refused to get past a blue screen. I am still going to do a dual boot, hopefully the driver updates will allow XP to install too.

I had to do an update to the bios for the MoBo, disable the onboard video and audio, and then restart the installation. Once it was running, I immediately did the SP1, then started installing the video card drivers etc.
Still don't have the onboard networking working, but I've downloaded the latest Intel updates for all that software too. Communication with the outside world is next on the fix list.

Now here's a pain too (on my current XP box)- we recently updated our phone plan, and got new phones, plus unlimited texting (but not the blackberry services, just at&t). That actually is saving me 30 bucks a month, since we were on the pay as you go, and my daughter would freak without it....her generation uses it a lot, I have to admit I like it too. Anyway, got a Blackberry Curve, which of course comes with software cd....sorry stuff installs Roxio media manager, but everytime I reboot the thing, it continues to "gather information for installation", and it screwed up my XP cd writer (which of course I'm using to burn cds to transfer all these updates for the Vista box).
Then when I try to uninstall it, boom, up comes the "gathering info" popup again.
I did find a fix on the net from microsoft and it worked- but I guess this means I can't use the media (mp3 and video)features of the Blackberry until I get it figured out.

Maybe I'm overdosing on high tech stuff here, but this gets frustrating- good thing they don't build cars like this.

Oh crap, they do

Later
TY

I feel for you.... after the power surge, I had to rebuild my laptop and the old XP desktop..... the desktop was easier than the laptop, took forever to find the drivers on the dell website. I re-installed as much as I could from the CDs... just enough to get the internal ethernet card working. When I finally connected to the net .... I entered the service tag from the laptop on the dell site, and started downloading all the latest drivers.

Re: the Blackberry... I could not get my new Blackberry to synch to Office 2007 with that mess of a Roxio version. The Web forums are full of unhappy users who can't sync their calendars. I ended up de-installing the Roxio version and downloading the last version before RIM integrated with Roxio. Everything synchs up and it won't screw up your drivers.

As for the file transfer....ack! It's easier to use a straight thru cable to connect the ethernet ports... or put them both on your router.... once they have IP addresses, use ftp to move the files.