jwcolby
jwcolby at colbyconsulting.com
Mon Dec 3 09:17:03 CST 2007
Break it out and put XP Pro on it. It will run that like a speed demon. Or alternately just run it for awhile and see what you need that can't be found in 64 bit versions or won't run in the compatibility box. Or... see if you can run a 32 bit virtual PC that is running XP inside the virtual PC. Then you could run those applications in XP on the virtual PC. That WON'T work for the latest games of course due to the already discussed virtual graphics driver, but it should work for pretty much everything else. John W. Colby Colby Consulting www.ColbyConsulting.com -----Original Message----- From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Alan C. Lawhon Sent: Sunday, December 02, 2007 7:33 PM To: 'Access Developers discussion and problem solving' Subject: Re: [AccessD] Interesting Laptop / Vista commentary Subject: [AccessD] Interesting Laptop / Vista commentary http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2222303,00.asp?kc=EWKNLBOE120107STR1 John W. Colby Colby Consulting www.ColbyConsulting.com John: "Interesting" article indeed. About six months ago I bought a top-of-the-line HP dv9500t which I had "custom configured" [upgraded] to 2 GB of RAM, an enormous amount of hard drive storage, a super accelerated graphics processor, and other "bells and whistles" that came with that particular model. By the time all the costs were added up, the whole rig came out at just over $3,000.00. In short, I bought a [very expensive] laptop hot rod. Now, you would think (for that much money) that I wouldn't have any major problems. Think again. The sales folks at HP "recommended" that I go with Vista Ultimate for my operating system, since the "Ultimate" version of the OS was compatible with the dv9500t's 64-bit CPU. It was only when I unpacked my "hot rod" and attempted to load (and run) some of my existing 32-bit [XP-compatible] software - such as Wilson Software's poker simulation program - that I discovered Vista "Ultimate" won't run a lot of existing 32-bit applications developed for Windows XP!! This was infuriating - to say the least. The sales folks at HP failed to point out this pretty little fact - all they seemed to care about was making the sale. So now I'm stuck with a virtually worthless piece of $3,000.00 hardware that I'm not using. I just put it back in its box and said to hell with it. Hewlett-Packard constantly sends me emails asking me to participate in "surveys" intended to help them "improve their customer service" and the "quality" of their products. Their concern and "caring" is very touching, but I have probably bought my last computer from HP. I consider it unforgivable that they failed to warn me about software compatibility issues with the "Ultimate" version of Vista. If I start doing a lot of traveling in the future (and actually need to use the laptop), I will probably take it to a local computer shop and tell them to get rid of "Vista" and replace the OS with XP-SP2. (On the other hand, since this is [partially] Microsoft's fault too - prior to "Vista" all previous operating systems had been backward-compatible with existing software applications - I may just decide to try Linux.) Alan C. Lawhon -- AccessD mailing list AccessD at databaseadvisors.com http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/accessd Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com