For all those that say they hate Vista - run XP at the same time
While it seems that it may not suit the personal feelings of a lot of people, computer manufacturers are now incessantly moving towards shipping machines with Vista pre-loaded. This doesn't worry me one bit, but for some it does.
The answer - run Vista for all day to day stuff such as internet access and email. Also use it for applications you know work extremely well on it such as Photoshop and such. For those apps which you've found require specific XP drivers to control hardware devices that seem only to work under XP..... then run XP AS WELL - at the same time.
I have just downloaded Sun's "VirtualBox" - a FREE virtual host application which allows you to run any Intel-specific operating system on your machine alongside Vista.... such as XP or Linux. I have a 2GHz machine with 1Gb of RAM, so it's no powerhouse, but it seems to run very well with the two operating systems running simultaneously.
At this very moment I'm running on my Vista box the following:
Thunderbird mail
Firefox 3 browser (3 windows with 8 tabs each)
Photoshop CS3
Sun VirtualBox with an instance of XP Home edition running IE6
The machine is still very usable, with hardly any performance hit at all. OK - it's not as spritely as it is without a virtual machine running, but it's still very quick.
Installation and setup is a BREEZE. Install the program, create a "virtual" disk via the menus, enable its access to your systems DVD drive, pop your old XP disk in and select "start". It starts the XP installation in its own sizable window and hey, presto! You're running XP alongside Vista at the same time - just like yo'd run any other app. The disk space allocated to any virtual machine can be fixed or left dynamic - so it grows as you need it to.
I acknowledge that there have been many other virtual host applications out over the years (VirtualPC being one), but this one is totally FREE and runs extremely well. It's also the easiest to setup by FAR.
So - you can buy your new machine running Vista - and simply load XP to run when you want to. If you go outside and want to run K3CCD or PHD Guiding with that old webcam, then fire up XP and go for it. It works!
Depending on your machine (and the way Vista is installed), get the 32 or 64-bit version.
Have fun! I am - and I'm just installing Fedora Core 9 onto another virtual disk so that I can run Vista and Linux simultaneously - without having to dual-boot into one or the other. Very nice!
Well what a silly idea to run Vista and XP at the same time. I might as well go for DOS5.5 and Windows 2000. Vista just sucks with its peurile questioning about whether you really want to do something or not. Keep questioning a child when its trying to do something and it will just give up. Maybe I'm a child but Vista on my machine with 2Gb RAM was OK but XP is stable and really flies on it. Also I have all the drivers etc for my astro programs and they all run well - Vista just doesnt. Maybe when Vista gets more "mature", less pedantic and stops snooping on whats on my machine etc. then I'll look at it again but for now forget it.
LOL! Not a silly idea AT ALL. Allan - what you fail to realise is that many machines coming off the production line now CANNOT run XP natively. They are BUILT to run Vista and that's it. What I'm suggesting (silly me!! ) is that for those people who will eventually have to buy a machine like this (or be given one through work or whatever) there is a way they can have their cake and eat it too. They can run Vista (because they have to (oh dear!!) AND run a virtual copy of their favourite XP at the same time, which will allow them to run that very XP-specific bit of hardware or software until the manufacturer of that item gets off their bum and fixes it to work under the new OS. I run my machine for work OTHER than astonomy-specific more than 95% of the time - so being able to run XP when I want for an evening is fantastic.
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Well what a silly idea to run Vista and XP at the same time.
There are plenty of reasons to do this Allan - if you can't peronally see one, then it's not your place to knock those that do. Shoot Microsoft - not me!
That's not the point Andrew. The point is that I bought a new Toshiba laptop the other day that physically can't be made to run XP on its own. The firmware requires Vista to run and that's it. It's OK for you who has an older machine that you were able to wipe Vista from - but for me I can now run XP as well where I couldn't at all before...and simultaneously too - no "dual boot" required anymore. That's old hat.
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Originally Posted by RB
No thanks, I'll stick with XP as long as I want/can.
I don't like being forced (by the manufacturer) to take up the latest, especially if, in my eyes, it's inferior to what I have running atm.
I have considered a dual boot scenario, but decided not to.
Vista just sucks with its peurile questioning about whether you really want to do something or not. Keep questioning a child when its trying to do something and it will just give up.
Go to Control Panel / User Accounts and "Turn User Account Control Off". You then get a warning that it is turned off when you boot, but those annoying popups are gone forever
First thing I did. Never been a problem, or annoyance since.
There are a HUGE number of options in Vista to turn all sorts of stuff on or off depending on your taste. If people gave it a little time and explored these options they'd realise it isn't as "nasty" as they thought.
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Originally Posted by Tandum
Go to Control Panel / User Accounts and "Turn User Account Control Off". You then get a warning that it is turned off when you boot, but those annoying popups are gone forever
What a wacky world. Are you telling me that the new laptops are built to run Vista only. Then how about running Lunix on them if you DONT like Microsoft?. Get real the customer decides and Im a customer that doesnt like the big brother attitude to OS. Microsoft has a lot to learn about customer relations and programming. Their software is bloated, intrusive and not user friendly as they keep changing the interface so often that you cant find in Word or someother piece of software where to italisize, change margins or backgrounds, delete comments etc etc. How many times have I come back to my PC and found that there is a littler message that says my computer has just rebooted as it downloaded another CRITICAL update and didnt save the bloody work I was writing.
Defend them if you will but this customer and many others think the OS and some of the software sux big time. My opinion but I dont want to know all the nuts and bolts of my PC and its OS I just want to be productive with it and not be snooped on when I connect to the internet or asked all the time if I want to do things. My choice.
Rant off! Have a nice day.
That's not the point Andrew. The point is that I bought a new Toshiba laptop the other day that physically can't be made to run XP on its own. The firmware requires Vista to run and that's it. It's OK for you who has an older machine that you were able to wipe Vista from - but for me I can now run XP as well where I couldn't at all before...and simultaneously too - no "dual boot" required anymore. That's old hat.
Oh OK I'm sorry, my mistake, I was thinking in terms of dual boot.
Well now that is a good option for people with new Vista laptops.
I'm 'lucky enough' if you could call it that, that my laptop was a pre-vista, XP model.
A P4 3.2g that (even has a parallel port) and enough grunt for now to do all my asto work.
I just think it's very unfair what MS is doing, pushing Vista like this when people actually prefer XP.
Back to the original posting. Its good to see that Sun Microsystems placed this software as freely available and open-sourced for the computing community to use. With over 4 million downloads there obviously is a big need to run different OSs - see http://www.sun.com/aboutsun/pr/2008-...20080212.1.xml
Pity Microsoft wasn't as altruistic. There may be many who love Vista/Microsoft but I bet they either have a vested interest and when I see comments cropping up about this OS in particular most (and I do mean most, dont like it and the way MS have gone about implementing it as well as the way it downloads things "for your benefit/convenience") its saddening.
But then again I support minority views and if you love it, want it and work with it - all power to you. Minorities have inalienable rights too.
Allan - I run Windows only because I HAVE to.... and on as few machines as possible.
You make me sound like an MS evangelist - but that's so far from the truth as I avoid MS product wherever I can. I run Macs in the office for our artists, Linux on some desktops, Linux/Unix on all my servers and only run Vista on a couple of machines because I'm a software development manager and need to know that our products will run on the platforms that our customers buy.
New laptops will be manufactured with BIOS/firmware which depends on Vista to run. There are functions and features in the new OS that old hardware won't support any more. Given that, it doesn't mean that you can't still blow it away and run Linux if you prefer - or Solaris... or BSD... or whatever. It just means that the hardware won't still support XP natively, which is a dead system. Sad (to some) but true. It's gone. XP's SP3 is what killed much of the time MS engineers had to work on getting Vista ready because XP was so prone to hackers, virii and bugs that they were re-deployed to fix XP up - again - and quickly.
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Originally Posted by allan gould
What a wacky world. Are you telling me that the new laptops are built to run Vista only. Then how about running Lunix on them if you DONT like Microsoft?. Get real the customer decides and Im a customer that doesnt like the big brother attitude to OS. Microsoft has a lot to learn about customer relations and programming. Their software is bloated, intrusive and not user friendly as they keep changing the interface so often that you cant find in Word or someother piece of software where to italisize, change margins or backgrounds, delete comments etc etc. How many times have I come back to my PC and found that there is a littler message that says my computer has just rebooted as it downloaded another CRITICAL update and didnt save the bloody work I was writing.
Defend them if you will but this customer and many others think the OS and some of the software sux big time. My opinion but I dont want to know all the nuts and bolts of my PC and its OS I just want to be productive with it and not be snooped on when I connect to the internet or asked all the time if I want to do things. My choice.
Rant off! Have a nice day.
Allan - I run Windows only because I HAVE to.... and on as few machines as possible.
You make me sound like an MS evangelist - but that's so far from the truth as I avoid MS product wherever I can. I run Macs in the office for our artists, Linux on some desktops, Linux/Unix on all my servers and only run Vista on a couple of machines because I'm a software development manager and need to know that our products will run on the platforms that our customers buy.
New laptops will be manufactured with BIOS/firmware which depends on Vista to run. There are functions and features in the new OS that old hardware won't support any more. Given that, it doesn't mean that you can't still blow it away and run Linux if you prefer - or Solaris... or BSD... or whatever. It just means that the hardware won't still support XP natively, which is a dead system. Sad (to some) but true. It's gone. XP's SP3 is what killed much of the time MS engineers had to work on getting Vista ready because XP was so prone to hackers, virii and bugs that they were re-deployed to fix XP up - again - and quickly.
In fact this product looks exactly like the vmware product, I'd guess it's a licensed version that Sun is rebadging. Even the virtualised devices are identical.
I look after a bunch of servers at work that use VMware to run all sorts of stuff, from Windows Server 2003, XP, Win2k, linux etc all on our HP servers. It works well, but I've never tried to use it for capturing lots of video data via usb.
Or... run a nice and stable Linux, with its great networking ability and have a virtual XP box running those Windows apps when you need them... It's so nice to have CHOICE hey?
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Originally Posted by Terry B
I'd like to use it on an XP machine and run linux on the virtual box. This sound like it would be easier than the dual boot I curently have.
LOL! Not a silly idea AT ALL. Allan - what you fail to realise is that many machines coming off the production line now CANNOT run XP natively. They are BUILT to run Vista and that's it.
Interesting!! I didn't know this. I have been planning to reinstall XP on my Acer desktop currently running Vista Home Premium.
Now I'm worried - how do I know if my machine will only support Vista? Is there a check?
As discussed here in another thread, these machines don't come with Vista install discs . So I might have to purchase both the XP and Vista O/S installation discs - worst case scenario!!!
) is that for those people who will eventually have to buy a machine like this (or be given one through work or whatever) there is a way they can have their cake and eat it too. They can run Vista (because they have to (oh dear!!) AND run a virtual copy of their favourite XP at the same time, which will allow them to run that very XP-specific bit of hardware or software until the manufacturer of that item gets off their bum and fixes it to work under the new OS. I run my machine for work OTHER than astonomy-specific more than 95% of the time - so being able to run XP when I want for an evening is fantastic.
. So I might have to purchase both the XP and Vista O/S installation discs - worst case scenario!!!
