Windows Vista

[bornl33t]

Not all of Dells models come with the option of xp. The 1st one I selected only offered Vista. After I read the details of all the models and checked out some of the higher priced models I found that I could choose between xp and vista.

I ended up getting xp. The system has the minimum requirements for vista in case I decide to upgrade later.

Actually that's the way to go. MS wants vista on as many machines as possible. I can elaborate on this in a minute. So if you buy a computer right now with XP you can most likly get a free upgrade to vista. So you have XP but inthe future when Ms stops support for XP you want easily switch.

Back to my earlier comment. This kinda pissed me off. I've had a really bad week of extremly poor customer service so this was just icing on the cake. My wife who is still in collage had her teacher mail her some information. This teacher mailed it in a format I'd never seen before (.docx) Apearantly it's a new format created just for the new office 2007 (a 300$ suite mind you). This professor does not want to send it to her in a format that office 2003 an open. After some correspondance it turns out that the entire collage staff was provided with 2007 for personal use through MS to "get the ball rolling". So we have to either download the word2007 viewer or buy office 2007. That's kind of a cheap shot if you ask me.
Sure it's partially to blame on the proffesors incompliance with what I consider common curtesy but I'm already feeling the presure to upgrade to vista/office 2007. I wonder if googles office suit will be able to open and edit MS word 07 files?

I would like to point out that this is how I'm seeing it right now. I've only done a little research on the matter so if anyone can sees a problem in my logic that will help me out PLEASE point me in the right direction.... you'll get a cookie!

[Hexis]

I thought there was a plug-in or whatever to open/save .docx files in earlier version of Office (for Windows). The Mac Office version is going to take a while.

edit: Yeah found it:
Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats

My googlefu is powerful (or something).

[Glickman]

Actually that's the way to go. MS wants vista on as many machines as possible. I can elaborate on this in a minute. So if you buy a computer right now with XP you can most likly get a free upgrade to vista. So you have XP but inthe future when Ms stops support for XP you want easily switch.

Back to my earlier comment. This kinda pissed me off. I've had a really bad week of extremly poor customer service so this was just icing on the cake. My wife who is still in collage had her teacher mail her some information. This teacher mailed it in a format I'd never seen before (.docx) Apearantly it's a new format created just for the new office 2007 (a 300$ suite mind you). This professor does not want to send it to her in a format that office 2003 an open. After some correspondance it turns out that the entire collage staff was provided with 2007 for personal use through MS to "get the ball rolling". So we have to either download the word2007 viewer or buy office 2007. That's kind of a cheap shot if you ask me.
Sure it's partially to blame on the proffesors incompliance with what I consider common curtesy but I'm already feeling the presure to upgrade to vista/office 2007. I wonder if googles office suit will be able to open and edit MS word 07 files?

I would like to point out that this is how I'm seeing it right now. I've only done a little research on the matter so if anyone can sees a problem in my logic that will help me out PLEASE point me in the right direction.... you'll get a cookie!

yes, docx is the office 2007 version. the teacher SHOULD have checked off the "2003 compatable" option, but of course thats too much to ask teachers.

this link will show you how to open docx in word viewer

if you still need to open it, and cant find any other way, i can try to you up. if you have AIM throw me a IM, mine is ComputersRuinMe.

fortunately at my college, 90% of the teachers are quite computer literate (RIT), especially the ones in my major (Networking Security)


btw, vista is really not all that bad on RAM as you think. make sure you disable the aero effects, and some of the less necessary features, and it runs fine on my 1.7gHz celeron w/ 1gig of crappy ram. In fact, i multitask on it fine too (ie. running a vent server for 8, photoshop CS2, browse the intrawebs without much lag) the problem is that Vista's options mostly come on be default, with a little tweaking, you shouldnt find a problem if you have 1 gig of ram

[thecavemankevin]

btw, vista is really not all that bad on RAM as you think. make sure you disable the aero effects, and some of the less necessary features, and it runs fine on my 1.7gHz celeron w/ 1gig of crappy ram. In fact, i multitask on it fine too (ie. running a vent server for 8, photoshop CS2, browse the intrawebs without much lag) the problem is that Vista's options mostly come on be default, with a little tweaking, you shouldnt find a problem if you have 1 gig of ram

of course disabling these pretty effects will free up a bunch of ram, but how about that personal security annoyance that mac makes fun of in the commercials. I know it has its benefits, and can be disabled but what a pain. I wanted to check out the hardware on the laptop, and it asked me to authorize access. So fine, i authorized and you'd think that it would either then be authorized for that session or at the very least for a time period. but nope, i right click on my computer, access hardware list and it asks every time. Now there may be a way to disable some of that or adjust the settings but i felt like i was in the mac commercial.


you think that microsoft would be able to set up vista to detect when a local mouse click has taken place and auto allow simple events like this instead of asking permission.

meh, keep it.

[slade]

a friend of mine had XP on his computer.

he then legally installed linux.
he then pirated and installed vista.

...he chose to use linux.