Vista on older hardware (laptop)

[coolVariable]

I upgraded my Media Center PC to Vista Ultimate and am quite happy with it (my only gripe is a problem with the ATI graphics card drivers which apparently still do not work well with Vista and cause problems with games and the HDTV).

Since I got Vista Ultimate as the Retail Upgrade Kit, I am elegible for the Family discount and I am very tempted to upgrade my main laptop.
The only question is how well the laptop (now 3 years old) will run Vista.

I use that machine a lot (especially at work).
Mostly it is used of MS Office (Outlook, Word, Excel, Powerpoint, ...) and Photoshop CS2.
Occasionally, I will play games ... mostly AoE 2.

Here's the specs:

Dell Latitude x300
1.2 GHz Centrino (1st Generation Centrino)
1.1 GB RAM
Intel 82852/82855 Graphics Controller (=> NO AERO!)
5400RPM HDD (40GB)

I like my laptop to be quick and responsive for my office work and continously have multiple programs open (Outlook, Word, Excel, ... I also work with very large files (e.g. 100MB powerpoint files or 300MB publisher files).

Would Vista be slower? The same? Not noticable?

 

[wpshooter]

An article I read recently talked like running VISTA on this type of hardware might be a CHALLENGE !!!

But personally, I have no expertise in this area.

 

[loup garou]

I am running Vista Business on equivalent hardware on an Inspiron 700m. It runs about as well as XP did...I also have a 1GB SD Card devoted to ReadyBoost. However, I don't use it for much aside from Remote Desktop, VNC, Outlook, web browsing, dvds, music and video, so I can't give you advice on how well it works with stuff like large Publisher files, Photoshop or AoE.

 

[coolVariable]

Originally posted by: loup garou
I am running Vista Business on equivalent hardware on an Inspiron 700m. It runs about as well as XP did...I also have a 1GB SD Card devoted to ReadyBoost. However, I don't use it for much aside from Remote Desktop, VNC, Outlook, web browsing, dvds, music and video, so I can't give you advice on how well it works with stuff like large Publisher files, Photoshop or AoE.

What CPU do you have in the 700m?
Is it the 1.6GHz Centrino?

Ars did an article about running it on some older hardware and there are 1-2 other reviews that can be found via google.
But nothing convincing ...

Some say it is slow, some say it is 5-10% slower and some say it is the same if not 5% faster/more responsive.

 

[Shawn]

don't do it.

 

[loup garou]

Originally posted by: coolVariable

Originally posted by: loup garou
I am running Vista Business on equivalent hardware on an Inspiron 700m. It runs about as well as XP did...I also have a 1GB SD Card devoted to ReadyBoost. However, I don't use it for much aside from Remote Desktop, VNC, Outlook, web browsing, dvds, music and video, so I can't give you advice on how well it works with stuff like large Publisher files, Photoshop or AoE.

What CPU do you have in the 700m?
Is it the 1.6GHz Centrino?

Ars did an article about running it on some older hardware and there are 1-2 other reviews that can be found via google.
But nothing convincing ...

Some say it is slow, some say it is 5-10% slower and some say it is the same if not 5% faster/more responsive.

Yep, 1.6GHz Centrino/1.25GB RAM/5400rpm HD.

 

[coolVariable]

Originally posted by: loup garou
Yep, 1.6GHz Centrino/1.25GB RAM/5400rpm HD.

Yeah. A friend of mine has a lappy with similar specs and told me that his Vista is the same if not faster than XP.
I don't know whether the step from 1.2GHz to 1.6GHz (and better CPU architecture) might make the magic difference.

 

[imported_Solace666]

I have an IBM t40 laptop with 1.25 gig of ram and 1.4 ghz centrino (i think). Vista works perfectly fine on it (actually had drivers that were a pain to find for XP) It feels just as fast as XP.

 

[Arkaign]

Wait for the SP1 rollup before even considering Vista at this point.

 

[coolVariable]

I think I will take the plunge over the weekend.
Install it with the clean install method ... see if it works well (if it does I will buy a home premium key through the family discount program and if it doesn't I will do a nice clean install of XP).

 

[coolVariable]

For those of you who are interested.

I took the plunge and installed it over the weekend.
So far so good.

I do not really notice a performance difference but it is hard to judge.
Installing a driver (any driver) takes very, very long ... otherwise it still looks and feels different, so I cannot judge whether it is faster or slower.
Might be slower during booting but during normal operations it feels the same.

Not sure yet whether I like the new Windows Explorer look/GUI.

Drivers for webcams are the only thing I did not get to work (and why the driver for a 3 year old intel wireless card was not included is beyond me - the driver from intel works flawless).