XP or Vista

I'm assuming most of the chartplotter programmes are designed to run on XP - maybe they now sell them to run on Vista. Regret I have a limited knowledge of all things IT ... looking at running a chartplotter on a laptop so was just wondering.
 
Don't know, but I do know it is resource hungry and many people who are upgrading are short of hardware drivers, but the same can be said when XP appeared.

For the first time ever I am not chomping the bit to upgrade, I am actually satisfied with XP, my copies are stable and run at an acceptable speed. Usually I have been upgrading from flimsy hanging on by the knuckles operating systems like win95, Me, 98 (okish). The best previous copy of an OP I had was win2000 but this was not great for gaming which I was doing a lot of at the time.

XP is actually a good system, oh it has faults, but not enough in my case to worry about going to VISTA. I also don't like direction micronsoft are going with their licensing and media players, I do not use windows media at all now except for online stuff. Though I am starting to like IE7 which I hated at first, so what I have said regarding Vista might all go away if I ever have to upgrade.

It is the resources that it uses that bother me the most!

Also, XP on my little laptop runs all my boat nav and SSB software under XP perfectly, as the software is to pick up SSB and it currently works very well, I do not wish to start messing about trying to run vista to do such in reality, menial tasks.

I might, if I was still running a fast home machine be more inclined to have a look-see.
 
Golly! I've been trying to read the right stuff on the subject ... found a good looking Dell with a processor speed of 2GHz - I believe this is important for running chartplotter software - Hard Drive 80gb, RAM 1gb with a 15.4 screen .... but it runs Vista. Judging by what you say I need to find the same thing which runs XP. /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif
 
[ QUOTE ]
Golly! I've been trying to read the right stuff on the subject ... found a good looking Dell with a processor speed of 2GHz - I believe this is important for running chartplotter software - Hard Drive 80gb, RAM 1gb with a 15.4 screen .... but it runs Vista. Judging by what you say I need to find the same thing which runs XP. /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

Nope - buy it, but phone Dell up and tell them which one you want, and then say the magic words: "please supply it with XP!"

It will then turn up miraculously with XP on instead of Vista!!!

Having said that, I run XP on my laptop, but we have several machines with Vista and have only had problems with two pieces of hardware, and v. little software...

I like Vista very much, yes it in theory uses more resources, but actually it manages memory etc. much better and you can always buy a memory stick, put it in the computer and tell it to use it as extra RAM - lovely...
 
Ubuntu with Win2000 in vmware. It will be a long time before all navigational and weather software is tied into Vista! When it is, it is too late....
 
That's a wee bit unkind - the OP asked for simple language - I am not sure that document is even written in English /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif
 
If your laptop came with Vista installed it will almost certainly run XP without any issues. In simple terms you will need to partition the hard disk and install XP in the new partition. If you're not sure aboout what you're doing this is one case where it might be wise to get someone else to do this as you risk losing the data on your PC at present if you do it wrong.
 
Vista itself isn't resource hungry - Vista Basic will run happily with just 512MB of RAM but don't expect to get Aero (which is the flashy animations bit in Vista Home Premium etc.) running as well. I built a system for someone else which had a Pentium 4 with 512MB and Vista Basic and it not only ran fine, it didn't look a lot different to the full-fat Vista when you used it.

Absolutely agree about not needing to upgrade though. If it ain't broke, don't fix it...
 
why even try to run Vista basic, when most people will run a higher version
XP will do what most people want, and Vista provides very little.

I was part of Vista beta, it provides little you can't get with google and other add ons
 
I've got Vista Ultimate running at home. I like it and it's whizzy fast but admittedly I'm running a high end machine inc 2GB RAM and 2 x 320GB hard drives so space won't be an issue for oh... at least a couple of weeks!
 
Many thanks for all your replies ... some of which I understood! I think I'll get the Dell and ask for XP as suggested! Thanks again .... great place for advice these forums ... I've been away from sailing for about 25 years and just bought a new pride and joy - new to me anyway and probably bigger than was wise!... ain't things different? Cheers!
/forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif
 
Do you want a Landrover or Ferrari? Both do the job, but one costs many times the other in terms of hardware and software resources, plus you may have driver problems
 
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