Worth installing Vista on old(ish) laptop?

[Bobby]

I'm currently using Vista on my desktop PC (it's great) and I am considering
also purchasing it for my laptop.

The problem is that my laptop is a couple of years old. It's spec is:
Centrino 1.6MHz, 512Mb RAM, 60Gb HD with no graphics acceleration. It's
currently running XP without problems.

So my questions are:

1. Is my laptop capable of running Vista?
2. What sort of speed could I expect?
3. What laptop-specific features does Vista provide?
4. Would special features of my laptop (such as the touchpad acceleration)
work?

Thanks in anticipation.

Bobby

 

[Jupiter Jones [MVP]]

I have a Toshiba Tecra S1
1.6 GHz, 512 MB RAM
Eventually I plan on installing more memory, but for now 512 MB is fine.

1. Vista should run fine depending on what you do.
2. Fair to good, again depending on what you do.
3/4. Depends on the specific drivers needed and if they are included in
Vista or available from the manufacturer.
If you install Vista, plan for none to work but hope for better.
Of course see if the manufacturer has an Vista support information for your
model.

Find a forum with users of your specific make and model of laptop to get
first hand information.
You could also install Vista on the laptop and see what happens.
I installed Vista clean and hoped everything would work on this older laptop
and everything is fine.
All that is missing is Aero, not really an issue for the laptop.

 

[Kai-Uwe v. d. Ohe]

I'm currently using Vista on my desktop PC (it's great) and I am

considering also purchasing it for my laptop.

The problem is that my laptop is a couple of years old. It's spec is:
Centrino 1.6MHz, 512Mb RAM, 60Gb HD with no graphics acceleration. It's
currently running XP without problems.

So my questions are:

1. Is my laptop capable of running Vista?

Yes, but 512 MB of RAM is merely enough for Vista itself plus maybe
one or two smaller apps. Honestly, I'd strongly suggest at least 1 gig
of RAM. Since your grafics card apparently (?) uses shared memory, this
will subtract some RAm, too.

2. What sort of speed could I expect?

It will be deadly slow when trying to work with larger apps, say for foto
editing for instance.

3. What laptop-specific features does Vista provide?

It makes my fan run more than it used to under XP, which is (ok, was)
a matured, stable system for me on my laptop. I upgraded to 2 gig's
of RAM (from 1.5), since I'm running apps that are RAM-hogs (virtual
machines for example). Battery runtime became clearly worse, despite
the fact that I have all the drivers and power management stuff installed
and apparently working correctly. The higher load on the GPU may
be one reason.

4. Would special features of my laptop (such as the touchpad acceleration)
work?

They work for me, since the manufacturer provides the drivers. I'd
suggest to check for /all/ the drivers you'd need first (seriously)!

Regards,

Kai-Uwe

 

[Conor]

I'm currently using Vista on my desktop PC (it's great) and I am considering
also purchasing it for my laptop.

The problem is that my laptop is a couple of years old. It's spec is:
Centrino 1.6MHz, 512Mb RAM, 60Gb HD with no graphics acceleration. It's
currently running XP without problems.

So my questions are:

1. Is my laptop capable of running Vista?
2. What sort of speed could I expect?
3. What laptop-specific features does Vista provide?
4. Would special features of my laptop (such as the touchpad acceleration)
work?

1) Yes...just.
2) Dire.
3) Quite a few.
3) Yes.

I have tried Vista with 512MB RAM. It wasn't nice. Think XP with 128MB.

 

[Mike Hall - MS MVP Windows Shell/User]

Running Vista is not just a question of processor speed and RAM.. drivers
for video, Ethernet (especially wireless) and sound may not be available now
or ever.. check with the manufacturer before proceeding..

I'm currently using Vista on my desktop PC (it's great) and I am
considering also purchasing it for my laptop.

The problem is that my laptop is a couple of years old. It's spec is:
Centrino 1.6MHz, 512Mb RAM, 60Gb HD with no graphics acceleration. It's
currently running XP without problems.

So my questions are:

1. Is my laptop capable of running Vista?
2. What sort of speed could I expect?
3. What laptop-specific features does Vista provide?
4. Would special features of my laptop (such as the touchpad acceleration)
work?

Thanks in anticipation.

Bobby

--


Mike Hall
MS MVP Windows Shell/User
http://msmvps.com/blogs/mikehall/

 

[R. McCarty]

Not only drivers, but there are applications that can't work under Vista.

The expense of the Operating System upgrade may not be all you'll be
required to purchase. Security software is available for no-cost but I'd
inventory what apps you have and visit the vendor website to check on
compatibility or if a update/patch to allow Vista use is available.

512 Megabytes is a little low for Vista. It will consume most all of that
for just normal operation.

If you do upgrade, do yourself a favor and get an imaging program and
backup your current setup. If you upgrade to Vista and it fails to meet
your goals you can roll back to XP fairly quickly/easily.
Acronis True Image 10.0 Home Version is what I'd recommend.

 

[Bobby]

Thanks for the advice.

How do I use Acronis to backup my laptop? Does it backup the entire system?
How then do I re-install it if I have to?

Cheers.

Bobby

 

[R. McCarty]

Two ways, either from the GUI based install in Windows or use the
Boot Builder Optical disk that you create when you install the app.
You can burn the image directly to Optical media if your notebook
has that capability. It's just a little more error prone due to buffering.
What I do on notebooks is use a small USB external drive called a
Firelite ( 40.0 Gigabyte ). I set the destination to it and then once the
image is created burn that to Optical media. This done using the boot
CD-R disk. USB destinations is best done on High Speed (USB2)
ports. Trying to image across USB-1(.1) is like watching paint dry.

One thing about any imaging program - you want to select the option
to Verify the image. This doubles the time, but does a verification pass
on the image. Nothing is worse than having a backup you can't use.

 

[Mike Hall - MS MVP Windows Shell/User]

Ain't that the truth..

Two ways, either from the GUI based install in Windows or use the
Boot Builder Optical disk that you create when you install the app.
You can burn the image directly to Optical media if your notebook
has that capability. It's just a little more error prone due to buffering.
What I do on notebooks is use a small USB external drive called a
Firelite ( 40.0 Gigabyte ). I set the destination to it and then once the
image is created burn that to Optical media. This done using the boot
CD-R disk. USB destinations is best done on High Speed (USB2)
ports. Trying to image across USB-1(.1) is like watching paint dry.

One thing about any imaging program - you want to select the option
to Verify the image. This doubles the time, but does a verification pass
on the image. Nothing is worse than having a backup you can't use.

--


Mike Hall
MS MVP Windows Shell/User
http://msmvps.com/blogs/mikehall/