Changing from Vista to XP

[happytraveller]

If others are hesitating about 'upgrading' from Vista to XP, then do not. I read on the internet a fair amount of stories from people who had problems, things like getting stuck with a computer that would not work, and various parts of the computer that would not be recognized. I finally got around to installing XP over the weekend, and I was very surprised at how easily it went. Not only that, but getting FSX back on has not been too much trouble at all, and again I was expecting far worse. Had to revalidate things like the FEX with Flight1 but this was only 5 minutes, and everything has gone amazingly smoothly. I had all the drivers that I needed downloaded and ready on a CD, so that made things easy too. I guess that the actual installing of XP took about 90 minutes in total, then the installation of programs another couple of hours.

I am now enjoying the benefits of XP again, wish that I had never abandoned it. So the message is, do not hesitate about making the change. One thing that I learnt from the Vista experience is that it will be a LONG time before I buy Windows 7 (or whatever they will call it). I am going to wait a LONG time for people to test it, I will not get caught up in the hype the same way that I did with Vista.

Smooth landings (now on XP)

[markll]

QUOTE (happytraveller @ Feb 25 2009, 09:21 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I will not get caught up in the hype the same way that I did with Vista.

I'm curious - why a) did you downgrade to XP and b) why did you go to Vista in the first place? Were you upgrading on an existing PC, or did you go with Vista ona new machine?

FYI - I've been testing Win7 and yes, there are changes, but it's rock solid, and in fact noticably faster than Vista. Plus it "uses" much less RAM too...

Mark

[cowpatz]

Hi Mark,
Which beta build are you using?
I am not that impressed with Vista I have to say. The only thing I really like is the sleep mode. I am looking at installing a Windows 7 beta. What is the best way to do it?
Have Vista on one drive and Win7 on the other? On boot up will the system automatically recognise 2 operating systems and ask which one to boot to or do I need something like Boot Magic? (Think I have a copy floating around somewhere when I had Win98/XP dual boot system).
How have you got on for drivers.....video, printers etc?

[Adamski]

Arrrgh! Your post strikes a nerve here Without going into the OS wars (and getting banned!!) I find that I'm totally underwhelmed by Vista. There's hardly a single thing that it does that XP doesn't. Maybe DX10 - but so many FSX add-ons don't use it (or produce artefacts when enabled).

Vista [still] totally refuses to talk to my Wi-Fi print server (and stuffs up the *whole* network) and is generally slow and clunky. There always seems to a lot more "bloat" with each successive version of Windows.

My XP license remains on my work machine (no sims, thank you!!!) so I'd have to buy another copy. In these cash-strapped days, it hurts to have to pay to downgrade - but I must say I've considered it many times. The only thing that puts me off is installing the hundreds of freeware aircraft that I've often had to tweak to get running in FSX. Still - good to know that the process isn't *that* painful!!

[Ian Warren]

Vista ! .. hells with Microsoft dumping flightsim ........ I thought they looks at selling Vespa's

and for the people who like to rip software [color=#ADD8E6] .......................... [/color]I stole a Vista BABY ....

[dbcunnz]

QUOTE (Adamski @ Feb 25 2009, 01:36 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The only thing that puts me off is installing the hundreds of freeware aircraft that I've often had to tweak to get running in FSX. Still - good to know that the process isn't *that* painful!!

I have 4 hard drives and use 1 for all my Flight Sim free and pay ware aircraft, scenery and add-on backups.
You can also drag holding the Ctrl key to copy, copies of your FSX SimObjects folder, Gauges, Effects and Sound folders onto a USB external drive or into a Temp folder then burn them onto a CD or DVD, these can then be used to replace their respective folders once you have installed your WinXP and reinstalled your FSX

[happytraveller]

I kept the same computer which came with Vista originally. XP was an option when I bought it but it was something like $100 extra for XP which I thought was on the way out and old. Vista had become too annoying, things like frequent lock ups, annoying messages and also file placement. Trying to go through photos in sequence was often annoying as well, as Vista seemed to place photos anywhere. Even the slideshow would only work at a lower resolution than the screen, so in effect, was pointless. So lots of small niggles. Vista did have a few good points though. I have seen the same as others, that FSX works faster under XP. Strange.

I did the same as dbccun in the last post, installed FSX from the two DVDs then copied and pasted things like the aircraft folder so that I had a lot of the hard work done automatically. Did the same for things like guages and sound. For scenery I did a mixture of copy and pasting and also installing with the original installers.

Bottom line is that changing from Vista is NOT hard, despite some stories on the internet. My advice is that if you are not happy with Vista then change back to XP. It is NOT hard!!

Smooth landings.

[Ian Warren]

QUOTE (happytraveller @ Feb 25 2009, 07:31 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Bottom line is that changing from Vista is NOT hard, despite some stories on the internet.

From my most reliable source , You buy a brand new PC , and for jezzzz sake not a brand name , but a good build , from your fav PC shop and it will be big thumbs up .

[jastheace]

i changed from vista to xp then back to vista again (need to use DX10 for the reviews) i found that the whole process from vista to xp was easy, but then i did do a clean install each time, i am back with vista now, and i am getting much better results running under DX10, which suprised me, i am not even getting the dreaded shimmer on the runways anymore, not sure why, but i think the latest video drivers have helped with that, next on my to get list is vitsa 64, but then given the great reviews about win7 beta, i might wait until that has been released.

[towerguy]

theres a good article in the december APC magazine about how to create a virtual box running xp, vista or linux on each other so you can run both at the same time on the same machine

[markll]

QUOTE (cowpatz @ Feb 25 2009, 01:24 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Hi Mark,
Which beta build are you using?
I am not that impressed with Vista I have to say. The only thing I really like is the sleep mode. I am looking at installing a Windows 7 beta. What is the best way to do it?
Have Vista on one drive and Win7 on the other? On boot up will the system automatically recognise 2 operating systems and ask which one to boot to or do I need something like Boot Magic? (Think I have a copy floating around somewhere when I had Win98/XP dual boot system).
How have you got on for drivers.....video, printers etc?

Well, I've been using the public beta of Windows 7 on an (fairly old ~ 18 months or so) HP laptop, in a dual boot configuration with Vista Business....its all been fine, as I said, really performs well (much better than Vista on the same machine)...as it uses the same driver model, etc as Vista, any drivers that weren't available as part of the Win7 install I just grabbed from the Vista partition...

So, to answer your question about "the best way" to do it, create a new partition and install it on there using the default installer - Vista and Win7 both use the same boot manager, so it will set it up as dual boot for you...Win7 will likely be set to the default OS on boot, but you get a menu on startup, and 30 seconds to chose which one you want...

Mark