Jack Hoelz posted on February 06, 2007 05:43
Installing Vista was a snap. I'm not a big believer in "Upgrading" operating systems unless they are the same generation (XP to XP Pro). Performing a "clean" installation when possible is always the best choice. This wipes out the cob webs from the previous OS and gives you a fresh start.
The version of Vista I installed was "Vista Ultimate 64-bit". I did not run the "Upgrade Advisor" prior to upgrading. I would recommend running it if you plan to upgrade.
The machine of choice for this installation was an older (3 years) eMachine M6810 notebook. System Specifications as follows:
As you can see by the
Windows Experience Index this machine is in the middle of the road as far a performance for Vista. The Windows Experience Index ranges from a low of 1 to a high of 5.9 so 3.3 is just a tad above average.
The installation process was very straight forward. Booting with the disk in my DVD drive the system gave me a choice of upgrading or doing a clean installation. I selected the clean installation, formatting my disk, unpacking the files and installed the OS from start to finish took about 20 minutes. Outside of a driver update for my
Cingular 8525 everything seemed to go very smooth.
My intention for this installation was as a testing ground for the "Final" installation that would support this computer for the next year or so. I wanted to test some of the other software I use for compatibility with Vista. While I am running a 64-bit processor, most of my software was designed for 32-bit systems. After installing the latest version and updates for most everything I use on a daily basis I was very pleased to see that everything worked fine out of the box. When installing a 32-bit program on the 64-bit system the application gets installed into a "Program Files (x86)" directory.
Things were going well and I was very pleased with the overall performance. I would have liked to have a faster duo core processor and more ram for sure, but it looked as if the older system would work and perform just fine with Vista. After installing some more software for testing and fooling around with some of Vista's settings it was time to do it all over again. This time around I wanted to resize one of the partitions on my disk and re-install everything for the long haul. Now is when things get interesting..............