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[Varche]

I have an HP pc that is running quite nicely with the Vista Business that was already installed on it and it has a COA.

Mrs V's replacement HP machine will be here soon and that too has a COA for Vista Business on the casing but no operating system installed.

I have three possibilities. XP Home(Have disc and key) XP Pro (have disc and key) . Both are pre service pack 3 or put Vista on it. The last time I installed XP Pro from scratch I had a devils own job with all the updates.

If I go for the Vista option how do I go about cheaply getting the disc? I feel a little uneasy about not having a disc for my machine but maybe setting up an HP recovery partition and buying HP discs off the Internet would do the job. A few Ebay sellers at around £6 for the four.

Any advice appreciated.

[cem_devecioglu]

without doubt you will have a wide variety of answers
 
xp pro would be adequate imo..

[dbug]

I have an HP pc that is running quite nicely with the Vista Business that was already installed on it and it has a COA.

Mrs V's replacement HP machine will be here soon and that too has a COA for Vista Business on the casing but no operating system installed.

I have three possibilities. XP Home(Have disc and key) XP Pro (have disc and key) . Both are pre service pack 3 or put Vista on it. The last time I installed XP Pro from scratch I had a devils own job with all the updates.

If I go for the Vista option how do I go about cheaply getting the disc? I feel a little uneasy about not having a disc for my machine but maybe setting up an HP recovery partition and buying HP discs off the Internet would do the job. A few Ebay sellers at around £6 for the four.

Any advice appreciated.

At that price will be pirate

If you're going to pay out for an o/s go for Win7 - try and get an oem copy

Failing that no reason why XP Pro won't be OK - just make sure you install SP3.

[Kevin Wood]

Anything except installing Vista will be a sensible answer.

[cnj]

as kevin says ,anything but vista. if you can get win 7 at a reasonable cost I would go for that in preference to win xp as support has just/nearly ended !

[Varche]

What is wrong with Vista?

[dbug]

What is wrong with Vista?

Basically its krap - needs high spec machine to cope with a very memory hungry, bloated o/s - else it runs slowly.  HTH

[TheBoy]

Kinda pointless putting XP on anything now, its out next March, so you need to move on from XP then anyway.

Nought wrong with Vista, but Win7 is a later evolution, and a fair bit more refined.

The COA keys may be disabled.

[paul.lovejoy]

So is the best o/s windows 7 professional and what about explorer please, sorry Varche to ask on your post, but this seems to explain some issues i am having Thanks

[Terbs]

Varche, I used to think XP Pro was the best thing since sliced bread. I was put off Vista by so many people I now have Windows 7 32bit and 64bit on my machine. Took a bit of getting used to, but now if I use a machine with XP on it, its like going back to the dark ages.
My machine is high (ish) spec, hence 64bit for me.....the 32bit disk is for when the grandchildren come over so they don't muck my stuff up !!!!!!!!
32bit Ultimate would serve you well imo

Only bit I don't like is using Outlook for mail, and not Outlook Express. I expect the guru's will turn their noses up, but personally, I got on well with OE.

[TheBoy]

So is the best o/s windows 7 professional and what about explorer please, sorry Varche to ask on your post, but this seems to explain some issues i am having Thanks

Without a touch enabled device, Windows 8 looks clunky. Sadly, it appears that Win 8.1, formally Blue, won't fair much better

So Windows 7 would be my preferred choice of OS now.  Hence virtually every PC (I have a few!) in the house runs it.

Given the cost difference between Win7 Home Premium and Win7 Pro, unless you need Pro (ie, bitlocker and proper domain integration - not needed by many home users), Home Premium makes more sense.

If the machine currently runs Vista, I probably wouldn't upgrade it unless I needed to. And to be honest, if it does, its likely to be 4 - 6 years old, so not really worth spending money on, when its about ready for the scrapheap.

If the machine currently runs XP, you need to consider moving away, as extended support ends in a few months (so no more security patches, which means, realistically, you are playing Russian Roulette plugging it into an Internet enabled network). Its pretty likely that a machine built in the XP era is going to need a hardware upgrade, as well as the licence to run Windows 7, so may not be viable.

For most people, anything that is Intel Core2 Duo or higher (ie, Core2 Duo/Quad, i3, i5, i7) and has 2Gb RAM should run Windows 7 well enough. Laptops may need to have the hard disk changed to an SSD to bump the speed up enough to be usable. Netbook owners have little choice to run Win7 - max out the RAM (2Gb for most Atoms) and SSD it, you'll still find it sluggish in the first couple of minutes of switching on.


As for browsers, thats personal choice. The only one of the big 3 I would passionately say avoid is Chrome, on security grounds.

Personally, I tend to use IE, as its updates are integrated into Windows Update, so its one less thing to remember to update. Firefox has some nice tools for web developers, but needs constant updating, at least weekly.

I find IE faster and stable than the others. Its reputation of instability comes from the fact it allows plugins (eg, Java, Flash, Acrobat, toolbars, search etc etc), and some of these are dire. The poor Firefox and Chrome people are just beginning to realise this. With all browsers, be picky about the add-ons you allow.  I honestly can't remember the last time I had IE crash, and I tend to use it all day, every day.

[TheBoy]

I was put off Vista by so many people

Mostly spread about by the (sadly, poor) IT journalists we have, who think its "crap" based on the fact they "cannot be arsed to learn how to use it". Vista also suffered as it was a new kernel, so drivers were a bit slow to become available - much like the Windows 9x -> Windows 2000 step (hence MS introduced the sacrificial Me).

My machine is high (ish) spec, hence 64bit for me

64bit is only worthwhile if you have more than 4Gb RAM, and need to use all that RAM. That said, 64bit drivers are now mature, so 32bit doesn't have the advantage it did a couple of years back. 64bit Windows data structures are larger, so at 4Gb or less, it probably makes more sense to use 32bit (even though most 32bit installations can only "see" 3-3.5Gb of RAM

32bit Ultimate would serve you well imo

Not sure the OP would see the benefits over HomePrem (or Pro) to make the extra cost worthwhile, and Ultimate is quite expensive.

Only bit I don't like is using Outlook for mail, and not Outlook Express. I expect the guru's will turn their noses up, but personally, I got on well with OE.

Outlook (as in the full Office product) doesn't really work unless the mail server is Microsoft Exchange. Its POP3 and IMAP support is a bit weak, and certainly clunky.

I would strongly recommend people stick to OE (older Windows) or Windows Mail/Live Mail (newer Windows, but you have to download it) if you just want to use it with the mail services provided by your ISP. Obviously, other mail clients available, but like the browser in the post above, the MS variants are updated with Windows, so one less thing to worry about.

[Terbs]

Blimey TB

Are you on some kind of pill

That was a couple of very constructive posts !!!!!!!!!

[TheBoy]

Blimey TB

Are you on some kind of pill

That was a couple of very constructive posts !!!!!!!!!

I'm trying to put off configuring a new network switch 

[Terbs]

Not hijacking, probably help Varche.....

The other mail clients...can you still use your existing e-mail address

Re-reading your post, I am assuming the answer is yes