<p>With great fear I have purchased a new laptop for use by my wife that has Vista for Business as its operating system. It has two gigs of ram. I frankly have been afraid to turn it on. Once I get over that fear what are the first steps I should take to make it easily usable? </p>
<p>I realize that I have offered up a straight line to all you comedians out there, please resist the cute comments.</p>
<p>Mossberg has some excellent suggestions. Get rid of all the trial versions of the software (you might not have much, since you got the “for Business” version).</p>
<p>My husband has been running VISTA for months now without any problems.</p>
<p>why are u afraid? yeah, get rid of any bloatware, depending on who made your laptop. I’d be excited. 2 Gegs should keep you flying.</p>
<p>Due to a harddrive failure, I bought a new computer last year. The installation was fairly simple since it had an Xp operating system. Even so it took the better part of a weekend to finalize the installation. First I was given a CD that was supposed to update all the recent patches to Xp. It took about an hour for those updates to install. Then I had to re-establish my internet connection and email. Then I went online for updates not included on the CD. I wrongly thought that would be quick. Those updates installed one after another for almost 3 hours and that was with a high speed internet connection. After that I had to go online for scanner and printer drivers and install those devices along with the associated software. Then the camera software. Then software for audio and video editing. Then I restored my files from DVDs. The operating software had no backup so I had to backup the system on DVDs. Then I tried to wade through all of the bloatware and other software that wanted to automatically access the internet. Finally, I installed antivirus software and windows defender.</p>
<p>You will be glad you got the 2 gig ram. I wouldn’t consider anything less for the programs I use.</p>
<p>I’ve watched a couple of friends and WashDadJr go through the “fear of Vista” cycle. All are now perfectly happy with it. I don’t know where edad bought his computer, but the last few PCs in our family were Dells that pretty much worked out of the box, within a couple of hours. All the drivers were installed at the factory. The system and application upgrades did take a while, but not quite as bad as edad – although we did not install much other software.</p>
<p>Having now sounded like a success story, I pretty much reserve a Sunday for any update to a PC other than a simple software install. Things like swapping out video cards, adding a new backup solution, or changing OS’ always takes longer than you would think it should.</p>
<p>D got a laptop with Vista Business. Got it out of the box, plugged the cord, pushed the “on” button, and went through the prompts to set up user accounts, passwords, etc. H then went through it and uninstalled some junk that came pre-installed, loaded anti-virus, etc.</p>
<p>A little warning: Vista will need to update itself, and it might take a while. Do not shut the computer down in the middle of such updates. In the first week of use D’s laptop ran out of battery juice in the middle of some auto-update, and the incomplete update corrupted some file, so her Vista would not start. It should not happen in theory, but apparently happens all the time. We though the computer came with “system recovery discs”, but it did not. With some manufacturers you are supposed to make your own disks… So do not delay it. H fixed the problem and recovered all D’s files, but had to re-install some software.</p>
<p>It takes some time to get used to the new MS Office…</p>
<p>Thanks for the suggestions. It’s a Thinkpad X-61 with a 12 inch screen. My wife loves the look of it, but I haven’t had the courage to start it up. I just finished installing a wireless network . It was fairly easy. I’ll add that to it shortly once I get the courage up.</p>
<p>And btw, Vista comes installed.</p>
<p>I should not have mentioned all of the updates needed for my last computer. I have had two other computers and they were pretty much plug and play, except for loading my software, peripherals, and cleaning out the bloatware. The other two were perfectly useable including the internet within an hour.</p>
<p>In our area, Circuit City is offering a deal where students can take in their laptops and get them streamlined for free. Of course, once you take it in, they want you to subscribe to their other services, but at least I was able to get some advice on the Vista environment. I also went through the tutorial offered on the laptop itself. It was helpful.</p>
<p>I did it!!! Up and running and installed on the wireless network. I downloaded ant-virus software from the university so that’s installed. Alas, I now can’t the printer to work on the older laptop that it’s attached to, but I’ll figure it out.</p>
<p>The recovery disks did come with the unit.</p>
<p>A while ago someone provided info on how to get the on-screen text to look better. Anyone have a link to that?</p>
<p>Just asked my H- my computer guru. Did you check your resolution or change the text size? And what were you wasting such a gorgeous day doing computer stuff??? (we spent much of the day doing hardware upgrades…)</p>
<p>Wis:</p>
<p>Because it was a birthday present for my lovely wife, and I promised her I would set it up.</p>
<p>But you are right, Saturday was a great day. Sunday wasn’t too bad either. But today, Monday, meh.</p>
<p>Don’t fear Vista. I found its memory sweetspot was 4 gig v 2 gig for XP. I tested it for a long time. From final beta on no serious problems. Just fine for home use but it will not run as of today much of my accounting and tax software.</p>
<p>Not to scare anyone… I got a new Dell laptop in April, with Vista Business installed. 4 weeks ago I started getting the blue death screen. I re-installed the operating system, didn’t help. Dell sent me a new hard disk, still got the dump. I finally made Dell take it back to do a thorough check. When they sent it back to me, they have uninstalled everything except for the operating system. They claimed it was incompatible software I have installed (I had nothing on it except what Dell had installed) To actually figure out which softerware is not compatible, I install a new software a day (kind of like when you used to introduce new food to your baby). I am never going to install new Microsoft operating system again. I am going to be at least one generation behind.</p>
<p>Just started using my new Dell Vostro 1700 Laptop with vista business today. No problems so far. I have only added aol and norton security and spysweeper to this baby so far.</p>
<p>There are minor annoyances with Vista, but I have found it to be more stable than XP was. It asks you for permission to do too many routine tasks, and too many operations require multiple clicks through menus, but those things are certainly tolerable.</p>