[newvistaowner]

I just installed Windows Vista Ultimate on my laptop. I have a Toshiba Satellite Intel Centrino with dual processor and 1G of ram. So nothing Vista should have too many problems with. What is my computer still level? I have owned about 7 computers in my life. I can do pretty much everything but programming. I'm not a computer nerd, but I'm smarter than any of my friends when it comes to computers. I'm not trying to be technical here, only speaking in layman's language.

The upgrade took about 2 hours. I installed it on top of Windows XP so I could keep all my files and settings. Everything seemed to go smooth. I did the Advisor before hand and deleted the programs that Vista said were not compatible. The advisor had no big issues. I logged on and found out my antivirus from Computer Associates no longer works. I am trying to figure it out. I've tried to do a complete uninstall of my antivirus but it would not accept it. So I did a reinstall but still no luck with the latest program from Computer Associates website. The website says there are issues to still be resolved. I can tell something is really messed up. So I will figure it out later.

Also have a few drivers not working. Nothing seems to affect the computer now though. I guess I will find out later when I actually use the drivers in question. I did restart once and it immediately told me I had a driver problem. I clicked cancel and it popped up again. I click cancel and it popped up again... it did it 4 times! So that was kinda irritating. The drive was from Sonic. I'll find out if I need it later. It doesn't affect my computer use now.

Also Windows Defender is a part of Vista so it found a way to block all my network connections with my family computers. Spent a hour trying to fix it but just decided to turn it off so I can make network connections.

And I did the Windows update. It said I needed 8 critical updates and 12 optional updates. This is a mess. I downloaded the updates and half of them failed. Did it again, and still can't install half of them. And doing some of the language updates took forever! I left my computer on at night and they still were not done in the morning, so big problem here. So I'll ignore these updates for now.

As for the computer... everything works the same. I don't see any increase in speed as everyone talked about. I don't see any quicker start up. Same.. have to wait. To be honest... I see no improvement. Why did I spend $340? I will probably end up doing a clean install because so far.. only the upgrade sucks!

Well, the computer does move smoother... thats the only improvement I see. I tried to do the photo gallery because Microsoft bragged about it so much, but when I went there and told it to browse my photo folders... it said it will slow down my computer a bunch while it brings them to the Photo Gallery? I'm not sure what it was doing, but I didn't have time to wait for it to display all my photos, which are in the thousands. It felt like it was moving them! The old windows exployer is much faster and easier to work with. Maybe I'll learn the tricks on how to use the photo gallery later since I paid big bucks for it!

End result. Not worth the money. I have other computers in my home I wanted to upgrade too. Microsoft has a family plan that allows any Ultimate owner to buy 2 additional keys for $49 each. That is the main reason I got the expensive Vista Ultimate. But for the improvement I see now that I've had Windows Vista for about 15 hours.... it is not worth it.

My only other option is to do a clean install and start from scratch. Then I can see if that is the best way to use Vista. ...... not happy! I guess I'll do that later today because I'm getting tired of trying to patch this thing up.

[Judas]

an unfortuneate case for a notebook owner.

I've seen several people complain about how vista isn't working well with thier notebooks or even there prebuilt desktops. There are issues, but there isn't really any fixes.

Vista i found the first day or so was a little sluggish in comparison to later on.. it would seem that vista takes awhile for it to fully recognized and configure itself while in use. Best bet is to let it take it's time to go through all the photos you have, let it search through all the media, do it's thing, and then go from there...

[Veridian3]

HI "Newvistaowner", welcome to the forum.

From experience i can tell you that the majority of your problems will disappear with a clean install. Toshiba make very good laptops (if i was buying one today they would be near the top of the list) however there is a lot of software they add which isnt great and isnt designed for Vista.

I would suggest backing up all your information... pics, vids, documents, emails, favourites etc and doing the clean install.

For example, on a clean install you would not have had the network issue as when nearing the desktop for the first time you are given the option to choose home or public network and Vista would have configured the system automatically (it does for me every time) rather than probably basing some settings on the XP build and it all going wrong.

Sonic/Roxio software is notoriously bad for compatibility also, even EMC9 which was designed for Vista is flakey so the suite you have is probably worse.

The fact that you have Ultimate makes me think clean install even more because a lot of the inbuilt apps will replace the 3rd party ones in Tosh's XP... Cineplayer for example will not be required because Vista has its own DVD decoder in Media Centre... thats the type of thing you got for your extra $$$ that ultimate cost.

Finally, the updates which you need are everything but the language packs. They should take only a few mins to download and install on the clean install and if you then right click the ones you dont need and select hide you will be fine.

If you have any problems give us a shout...i've used Vista Ultimate on very many desktops and laptops since it went RTM and all have been flawless on clean builds.

[shanok]

Originally Posted by newvistaowner

Also Windows Defender is a part of Vista so it found a way to block all my network connections with my family computers. Spent a hour trying to fix it but just decided to turn it off so I can make network connections.

And I did the Windows update. It said I needed 8 critical updates and 12 optional updates. This is a mess. I downloaded the updates and half of them failed. Did it again, and still can't install half of them. And doing some of the language updates took forever! I left my computer on at night and they still were not done in the morning, so big problem here. So I'll ignore these updates for now.

Windows Defender is a spyware/malware cleaning utility and has nothing to do with your network. It can't block your network connections.

I have a feeling you mean the Windows Firewall which can do that. Also you won't see your other PC's unless you go into Network & Connection Center and enable the ability to see other PC's. It's not setup to do that by default.

Also why did you do the language updates? Those are only meant for download if you plan on running Vista in other languages. Not saying that WinUpdate should have failed, but only download the updates that you need. These days WinUpdate properly labels non-needed updates as optional.