Better to wait before buying new PC?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Brett
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Brett

I need a new desktop but am not sure if I should wait until Vista is
released in January or buy an XP box and upgrade via a free Vista coupon
(HP). I imagine the hardware (4GB RAM, 250GB HD, dual core Intel) I buy now
on an XP box will be just fine for a Vista upgrade. The question mark for
me is what may be the differences in the long run between working on an
upgraded Vista box verses a full install of Vista. Maybe hardware that
doesn't doesn't brand itself with Vista or something and ends up causing
problems when I upgrade.

I also wonder what a restore will be like with a Vista upgrade. I'll have
to restore the original XP then upgrade to Vista everytime. Any comments
are welcome.

Thanks,
Brett
 
I need a new desktop but am not sure if I should wait until Vista is
released in January or buy an XP box and upgrade via a free Vista coupon
(HP). I imagine the hardware (4GB RAM, 250GB HD, dual core Intel) I buy
now on an XP box will be just fine for a Vista upgrade. The question mark
for me is what may be the differences in the long run between working on
an upgraded Vista box verses a full install of Vista. Maybe hardware that
doesn't doesn't brand itself with Vista or something and ends up causing
problems when I upgrade.
Click to expand...

Decisions, decisions - Xmas is on its way so write to Santa :-)

I also wonder what a restore will be like with a Vista upgrade. I'll have
to restore the original XP then upgrade to Vista everytime. Any comments
are welcome.
Click to expand...

That's not been the case up to now with the NT tree - you boot from the
new CD and show it your qualifying CD when asked.
 
Brett said:
I need a new desktop but am not sure if I should wait until Vista is
released in January or buy an XP box and upgrade via a free Vista
coupon (HP). I imagine the hardware (4GB RAM, 250GB HD, dual core
Intel) I buy now on an XP box will be just fine for a Vista upgrade. The
question mark for me is what may be the differences in the long
run between working on an upgraded Vista box verses a full install of
Vista. Maybe hardware that doesn't doesn't brand itself with Vista
or something and ends up causing problems when I upgrade.

I also wonder what a restore will be like with a Vista upgrade. I'll
have to restore the original XP then upgrade to Vista everytime. Any
comments are welcome.
Click to expand...

If you need one "today" get one today. There is always something better
around the corner in the computer world. If you wait for Vista to be
available pre-loaded in shops then you'll see everyone is talking about some
new intel 8-core processors, so you wait for those, by which time Vista SP1
is being talked up and....

As for buying now, a careful look around should show some systems being
advertised as suitable for various editions of Vista, and various "upgrade
coupon" options. The mechanics of performing the upgrade might be a pain of
course, but that's life...

If your computer will run for another couple of months, however, it
certainly would be simpler to wait and get a pre-loaded system if you want
Vista.
 
If your computer will run for another couple of months, however, it
certainly would be simpler to wait and get a pre-loaded system if you want
Vista.
Click to expand...

I agree. Thanks. Robert.

Brett
 
No more show your cd. You have to install and upgrade version from the
installed system. To another partition if you are doing a clean install
 
No more show your cd. You have to install and upgrade version from the
installed system. To another partition if you are doing a clean install
Click to expand...

There was quite a long thread on this yesterday and I *thought* the
conclusion was it was the same with Vista as XP. If not that's really bad
news - the regular 3 monthly re-installs will take twice as long.
 
Not to worry about a Vista "upgrade" as it's not an upgrade in the same vein
as other, prior Microsoft OSes have worked. The Vista upgrade process is
really more like a migration - settings and programs are gathered, Vista is
installed, then the migrated settings and programs are put back again.

I would recommend that if you're worried about failure/reinstall that you
look into an imaging product that can create a perfect offline image of your
computer and store it for those rainy day problems.

--
Richard G. Harper [MVP Shell/User] (e-mail address removed)
* NEW! Catch my blog ... http://msmvps.com/blogs/rgharper/
* PLEASE post all messages and replies in the newsgroups
* The Website - http://rgharper.mvps.org/
* HELP us help YOU ... http://www.dts-l.org/goodpost.htm
 
I am just going by what Darrell Gorter (MSFT) has written. He has been very
reliable for over a year in the x64 group. Do a search on his posts and
interpret for yourself on this subject. Quite a few yesterday were to the
point. Both here and on the installation newsgroup
 
Vista has Complete PC Backup Restore which -is- a disk image tool.

Lang

Richard G. Harper said:
Not to worry about a Vista "upgrade" as it's not an upgrade in the same
vein as other, prior Microsoft OSes have worked. The Vista upgrade
process is really more like a migration - settings and programs are
gathered, Vista is installed, then the migrated settings and programs are
put back again.

I would recommend that if you're worried about failure/reinstall that you
look into an imaging product that can create a perfect offline image of
your computer and store it for those rainy day problems.

--
Richard G. Harper [MVP Shell/User] (e-mail address removed)
* NEW! Catch my blog ... http://msmvps.com/blogs/rgharper/
* PLEASE post all messages and replies in the newsgroups
* The Website - http://rgharper.mvps.org/
* HELP us help YOU ... http://www.dts-l.org/goodpost.htm


Brett said:
I need a new desktop but am not sure if I should wait until Vista is
released in January or buy an XP box and upgrade via a free Vista coupon
(HP). I imagine the hardware (4GB RAM, 250GB HD, dual core Intel) I buy
now on an XP box will be just fine for a Vista upgrade. The question mark
for me is what may be the differences in the long run between working on
an upgraded Vista box verses a full install of Vista. Maybe hardware that
doesn't doesn't brand itself with Vista or something and ends up causing
problems when I upgrade.

I also wonder what a restore will be like with a Vista upgrade. I'll
have to restore the original XP then upgrade to Vista everytime. Any
comments are welcome.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
I would recommend that if you're worried about failure/reinstall that you
look into an imaging product that can create a perfect offline image of
your computer and store it for those rainy day problems.
Click to expand...

Do you have a preference on what you use to image? I only have one machine
now so how can it image if the OS is loaded?

Thanks,
Brett
 
I'd try Vista's own Complete PC Backup Restore tool. It is an imaging tool.
Hmm... If you only have one partition on your hard drive, you can backup to
DVD if you have a DVD writer. Or to an external USB drive or a separate
internal hard drive (I'm assuming the last suggestion is possible... know
for sure the first two are possible.)

Lang
 
I was thinking more for the XP machine.

A DVD won't be near large enough for either machine.

Brett
 
Hi Brett;

Regardless of whether you get a PC now with XP on it, or wait on getting one
with Vista, insist on getting a full install CD (if XP) or DVD (if Vista)
rather than relying on a restore partition or disk. When I got my Gateway
computer 4 years ago, I made sure that I had an XP CD with it and it has
been handy to have.
 
Brett, just a note.

Just because a PC will say "Vista Premium Ready" doesn't always mean that it
will run Vista Premium like you may want.
You may be needing to upgrade certain things for a more enjoyable experience
in the vista world. Most likely a Video card, maybe a power supply for that
video card.
As far as computers go, my HP Pavilion a1630n is Vista premium ready. With
the 19" widescreen, it costed me about $950 bring home. But because of
performance, I decided to replace the video card, and because of the video
card replacement, the power supply as well.
That also depends on your uses. If you are one who only uses your computer
for productivity, you can get away with the computer as is. but if you are
big into multimedia or games, you may want to make room for the upgrades.
You will be focusing more on the processor speed, memory ammount and speed,
and less on the onboard video, because if you are doing games and multimedia,
you will be most likely upgrading your video GPU.

I guess my point is this:
Before you go out and buy a new computer, really set your needs and
expectations. You can get a computer that runs Vista, and have no issues. You
may also have to do some upgrades, and if you are going to do that, know
where to focus.

Hope this helps :-)
 
Has been done for years now. Drive Image was the first I remember now owned
by Norton and sold as Ghost.
Best bet is to an external hard drive for safety. Any I don't know how the
Vista one works, but the older versions would launch a DOS level program
that ran the image.
 
Another thing to consider when buying a PC for Vista is the same problem that
a lot of new XP PCs have. No drivers for the latest hardware built into XP -
how could it be - the hardware world has turned over twice so far since the
release of XP.

If you buy your hardware now, probably Vista will support it - it certainly
did my NVidia 7600GS I bought just two weeks ago. If I buy the latest video
card in 3 months, will Vista support it off the shelf? Possibly not. I can
always get the drivers but it saves me that extra step every time I reload
the OS and I reload my OS's a lot.

Dale
 
Does Ghost let you know how much space the image will take up ahead of time?

How does it make an image with so many files loaded?

Thanks,
Brett
 
Brett said:
I also wonder what a restore will be like with a Vista upgrade. I'll have
to restore the original XP then upgrade to Vista everytime. Any comments
are welcome.

Thanks,
Brett
Click to expand...

Noy if you get a copy of Ghost and make YOUR OWN image right after
upgrading.

Even so, I'd upgrade from a freshly loaded copy of XP.
 
I think the PCs with Vista installed will be able to run Vista fine. This
is compared to an original XP installed machine running XP fine but have
performance issues once upgraded to Vista. In other words, I'm expecting
machines with original Vista installs to outperform XP machines. So, I'll
wait for Vista and have all the correct drivers, hardware and compatible
software. I still think it's iffy to buy a "Vista x Ready" box now and
upgrade. Many have already alluded to (possible) issues on upgraded boxes
and particularly those surrounding restores.

Brett
 
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