Four months ago I took the plunge. I picked up a
Vista based Windows machine after 4 years of exclusively owning a Mac. When I dropped my
Dell on
eBay Windows XP was just finding its feet in the world. Now all my old tricks and applications are either out-dated or just flat out don't work. I'm a new fish in the pond. I had HUGE reservations about living in a dual operating system home - I was very comfortable in OS X; however, my 4 year old PowerBook was struggling to keep up with my RAW work flow. I needed a production machine badly and I was blessed with an amazing machine that should have cost me immeasurably more than I paid for it:
HP Pavilion M9040N
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4Ghz
3GB DDR2 667 RAM
3x 320 GB HD
TV Tuner Card
NVIDIA GeForce 8400 GS 256GB Video Ram
Windows Vista Home Premium 32bit
(hopeing to upgrade to Ultimate 64 in the not to distant future)
My initial reservations around Windows Vista were not dissimilar to
the general public's distaste for Microsofts current operating system; however, the deal was too good so I dropped the green and picked up the machine listed above. I wish I could tell you that my first few weeks were an amazing experience but it wasn't. I had USB driver issues that caused my computer to blue screen all over the place (since patched) and stuff wasn't where I was used to it being from XP. I was cranky and frustrated and so after putting up with it for about 2 months I installed XP on one of the 3 drives in the computer so that I could give it a try to sooth my woes. After a few weeks in XP I found that Vista actually ran things like Photoshop and Lightroom better. GASP! The past month has been a journey for me a journey of acceptance and tweaking. Surrendering to the superiority of Vista over XP (not OS X) I decided that if I was going to live with Vista I had better get it set up to do what I wanted. This weekend I will be posting a 3 part post windows vista essentials. I will be sharing some of the software, websites, and configuration utilities that have transformed my Vista experience into one of the BEST Windows experiences I have ever had. We live in a Vista world - lets make the best of it!
3 comments:
We look forwaring to your future posts about this subject.
Thank you so much for sharing.
I read your blog on a daily basis from Europe and I'm grateful.
Thanks again.
Michaelbs
oops..."forwaring" ??
Should have been "forward"
Me too, after 6+ years with Win-XP, I almost wanted to format my Vista machine, after 2 months with struggle, and install the XP, I gave it a try for another month. Well, th Vista seemly works much better than XP as it turn out. I still run into system hang now & then, perhaps - due to the configuration that i set up. The other frustration is the ACL (Access Control List or something like that), which it prevents mefrom copy/edit file/folder from an external drive.
I am interested to see how your case will turn out...Thanks for sharing.
Sam
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