I had to rebuild a Dell computer recently... and what was nice was the ability to enter the service tag # and download the specific drivers for the hardware that was originally Dell installed. I had also installed a lightscribe DVD/CD, so I had to search for that driver.

Of course, I had to load the operating system and get enough running to be able to do the download.

I understand the frustration of not having a good experience with a repair service.

I used to bring my hardware to CompUSA before it closed and the local folks there were very good at diagnosing and fixing problems.... I have not had satisfactory results with any Geek Squad in at least 4 Best Buy stores. For the computer that I just rebuilt, the local Circuit City Firedog folks were good - they listened to what I wanted to do and assisted me - Geek Squad just flat out lied because they did not want to service a computer that they did not sell. (Obviously, both make the most profit when they do things like install Anti-Virus and MS-Office software on brand new PCs.)

well, I've heard some horror stories on Dell support. But they were mostly laptop related; my main customer just bought several Dell desktops, all configured the same way, and they have thier own resident "geek", so they have had very few issues.
The laptop issues were a couple years ago, haven't heard anything recent other than a good friend say he'd buy the Dell and avoid the support. I think that's probably true with more than just Dell too.

Anyway- up and running, actually typing this in my Vista boot, but still trying to get the files and such transferred to the new box....what a chore. It'd of course be much easier if I had an optimized and trash free hard drive in the old computer; I don't want to go copying a bunch of stuff I don't need, so I have to go folder by folder.
Pain.

Anyway- BillyG, I think your wife would quickly adapt to Vista, and if you're getting a new computer anyway, most of the issues we've discussed here wouldn't apply, since it'd come already setup.

As to your service pack question, they are generally "bug fixes" and security updates, also hardware driver updates and such. It's usually available after someone discovers a major vulnerability or a system bug they've gotten lots of complaints on. They are worth downloading, for sure.

Happy hunting-
TY

Worse case; I'd take Vista and give her XP. Trust me guys; you don't know this lady. She refuses to learn how to set the time, or alarm on our digital clock, nor does she know how to shut if off, but she can name beers in a blind taste test. That's my girl and she sure does make life interesting...30 years and counting.

Thanks for the non-sales oriented lowdown. Its information I can believe.

G

no problem BG-

I've been learning more than I thought I'd need to here about Vista, but it's all good I guess. Overall, since I'm running a dual boot XP Pro/Vista Business 64 setup, I can run what I need to run without too much crashing around. Found a real easy way to import all your existing messages from Outlook express into Vista Mail, too, found it online....basically you set up a new folder in your my docs directory, find the *.dbx files on the old machine (especially important is the folders.dbx)and copy it into the new directory. It takes a while over the network.
Then, just go to "import messages", click on Outlook Express 6 as the type, and browse to the new folder. Select it, give it a few minutes (or more)to import, and there it all is, just like on the old box.
Yeah, Windows has something called "easy transfer", but I didn't want to monkey around with it, since there's lots of stuff I'm NOT copying.

Here's a question for the experts here (like Kat!) that has me baffled...can the XP boot and the Vista boot share the same email directories and files? I don't want to end up with a bunch of emails in both boot versions.....

Later
TY

The quick answer is not easily ... because if you enable POP3, you've downloaded from the e-mail server into that client's data store. You would have to attach the data store when you switch to the other OS's client, and I'm not sure whether you would see resultant file corruption because they're basically big indexed files, not databases of messages.

IMAP leaves copies of the messages on the server, so both clients would see it - however, not all e-mail services offer both POP3 and IMAP. AOL does, which is why many people use it, plus you can use their SMTP (outbound) e-mail from any network.

You can share directories by NFS share... you mount the NFS on one and share it to the other. You might see file locking if you have a file open on one client... and you would have to close the file to access it from the other one.

Hadn't thought about nfs- sharing may work. And yeah, roadrunner is a pop3. I guess I can just live with two sets of emails, I don't know...those dbx files are pretty huge after a few months.
I have also thought about having it auto-redirect the email, and have it forward the xp to the vista.
This is out of my league...maybe I'll just keep the old box running as my email server, that way I wouldn't even need to have email on the new machine. Would need a new hard drive for sure though...that is one main reason I'm replacing it, aside from it's age- IO know the HD is about to die, it's screaming like an Emo band....

Thanks Kat- you're always quck to answer, and with useful info....maybe you should run Microsoft's customer service

Later
TY

So true Tony. She's a keeper!

Well, after having this guy set up for the better part of a month, this week I started using it for actual income generating work. It runs great as expected, in XP. Vista usually does great, although I still get a random lockup/blue screen of death. Usually occurs after running iTunes or Media Player, and quitting out of the player. I've had it happen on a webpage flash player too. Since it's such a random thing, I'm not going to spend a lot of time chasing it down.
Also, it's touchy about usb connected items...if I have my printer running during a session, the turn off the printer and later reboot, it takes a couple tries. I think if it doesn't see the hardware it assumes a problem, or it could be the HP software, not sure.

Anyway, for a machine running two Microsoft op systems, (I'm REALLY tempting fate here ) it's doing ok.

XP boot up time is a bit slow, and it won't shutdown via software controls, but I've read somewhere about how to fix that.
The major hurdles are behind me, I hope.

BillyG, did you buy one yet?

Later
TY

I've had a couple of software crashes for new products that I've bought... but it was fixed with software updates.

Mostly.... I left everything pretty generic to see what Vista is all about. This week, I start tuning it.... because I'm not fond of how it caches folder views.... and indexes metadata. I hate watching that little spinning wheel while it tries to give me the folder view it thinks I wanna see.

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=printArticleBasic&articleId=9015738

http://www.pcworld.com/article/137214/20_vista_downloads_to_tweak_and_improve_your_system.html

Well, a few months into it, and have had the opportunity to run XP Pro SP3 every day, and Vista Business 64 every few days.
One thing I really like about having a dual boot setup is that I can keep the software that my main client wants me to use in XP TOTALLY separate from my own software that I use for other customers (weird, tho- both are Unigraphics products, but my SolidEdge stuff runs great in Vista, I-deas runs only in XP.) Separate partitions, etc.
The more I use Vista, the more I like the overall feel of it (with Aero disabled of course.) Boots almost instantly too.

Hassles within that are duplicate emails, having to reboot to discuss a design with another customer when they interrupt- but all that's minor. XP still has some stability issues, I have seen the blue screen of death a bit more than on my old box, but I think it's more memory related....I need another gig or two.

Anyway- so far it's working out. I'll do some tweaking and check out those links when I get a bit more of a break.

TonyY