Sony Vaio and ***** VISTA

I'd love to remove Vista and Office 2007 from our newest Dell Inspiron but after a lot of research it seems that there are no XP drivers for some of the hardware in the laptop so it will never work satisfactorily. Even if you could get it to work, XP updates could wreck the installation at any time - unless you don't take the updates and that causes its own problems after a few months.

I'd like MS to explain to me why the controls of Word 2007 are so different to 2003 and 97? I seldom use our new machine but sat down to write a short letter and found that I really needed to take a complete course to understand it. What was the point? Insanity, utterly absurd and guaranteed to make people angry and inconvenienced.

Vista and Office 2007 must be he biggest disaster in the history of Microsoft. For the first time I have given serious consideration to buying an apple. Trouble is compatibility. How many of the interesting software packages are available on a Mac? 20%?
 
Thanks Lemain; that was another very well worded example of why you should switch to an Apple Mac. Seriously; life is really too short to struggle with Windows, isn't it? Mac's just work. Drivers? What is that?

You would probably find that there are close to 100% of the software application functionality in the Mac world compared to the Windows world. Some would argue that there is more than that as the Windows world is very barren for graphical design software. Note that most media organisations are typically Mac only. In addition, the 'iLife' package of software bundled into the Mac OS is still not matched in the Windows world.

You might not find the same volume of programs for Macs, but volume is not always equal to quality......
 
Thanks for all of the input,

when I get back from the USA next week I will talk to DABS about getting rid of this thing. A couple of points, I have been using "home computers" since the first Apple in about 1982, I even took an OSBORNE II to the Azores and back in 1983 so I have some experience. I appreciate that the overhead demands of the Sony software are considerable, but the slower, older, crowded registry T2XP runs superbly. It is the overhead of VISTA and Officew 2007 which seems to be screwing this machine up. Although how that can explain the failure to be able to use explorer to drag and drop some photos from my camera to a pictures file is beyond me. Explorere closes down with an error message each time I try.

As I don't expect to kep this expensive toy much longer it is probably not worth trying to get photos onto it.

Of course switching to an Apple will have other problems I am sure, such as living with a US keyboard and Apple's attitude towards hardware failures, but several of you guys are right when you say that life's too short to fight Microsoft rubbish.

One final point, having dealt with BT at a corporate level in the past I have less confidence about getting support from DABS under BT ownership than before.

As it's sunny on the Gulf of Mexico, I'm putting Bill Gates and his devil's work out of my mind and going sailing!!!!
 
I have a Tz31WN and it's great.

If you really are struggling then take it somewhere (local non-franchised PC repair shop) and ask them to install XP and Office on a PARTITION.

You want a "dual boot" option.

Basically it will ask you if you want Vista or XP operating systems when you start up...and you can choose XP but retain the integrity of Vista (and the license and the like) for the future.

Might cost you £100 all in...but probably gets you the best of both worlds.

PM me for more of a chat if you want.
 
Thanks, I'll PM you when I get back. In the meantime I am glad we brought three laptops with us on this trip and I just wish that I was rich enough to video the latest POS being crushed by a HUMMER and then put on youtube, or whatever that thing is that youing people use. In the meantime I'm glad that the other two Vaios don't lock themselves up overnight and do all of the othe rhateful things that the TZ21 does.

But, what the hell, the sailing was great!
 
[ QUOTE ]
sorry to rain on the Mac 'love-in'

[/ QUOTE ]
Mac fanatics . . . /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

Mac has changed OS far more times than Windows, with all sorts of related problems.

I used to run training courses in a college, some in Mac labs, some in Windows labs. Same amount of hassle on both, same number of system crashes. When Windows crashed it would say something like General Protection Fault in module USER.EXE at 000B:0094 while the Mac would show a row of bombs. I can't say I found either very helpful.

The other myth seems to be that Steve Jobs is a jolly nice person while Bill Gates is the antichrist. I just wish Mac users would grow up - it's a computer, for gawdsake, and will give you grief. It is just a question of which brand of grief you prefer. Personally I find there is far more software, support and advice available for Windows; buying a Mac is a bit like joining the Masons IMO

Re. the problems you are having with the Vaio - as others have said, it is probably not Vista-related at all, but is down to a lack of memory/too many processes running/the dreaded Norton cludgeware

my suggestions would be:

- Turn off all the non-essential Sony software

- Uninstall Norton and replace with AVG

- Either install more memory or turn of the Vista Aero desktop

- W
 
Agreed we have three MAC labs and the most trouble comes from them - the phase "bombs out" has mac origins. And why is it when a MAC bombs out its so ill its with mac for weeks? WE simply restore the ghost image on a XP PC when it blue screens and off it goes again and that happens once or twice a year in a population of around 500 XP machines. XP failure is now so infrequent that we dont bother to find out why it crashed in the first place - takes too long. Hard drive failure ON ANY portable machine is a serious issue I am convinced that modern cheap and cheerfull hard disks all capacities and bay sizes (3.5 and 2.0) are of dubious quality. Not to mention USB memory sticks that some rely on as a bacup - one day without warning they just stop working I have one thats now over 5 years old and it has out lasted offerings bought this year but I wouldnt trust it as the only version of a data store.
 
Office 97 does run on my Sony Vaio with Vista on it...

However I don't use it, just have it for the odd Excel doc that does not work with Open Office.

As I have a similar setup and no problems you may try what I did:

1. Uninstall Norton
2. Uninstall Office 200whateveritisnow
3. Install Open Office

Have fun. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Oh, and I have only 2000 GB RAM. No problem.
 
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