Geek4ever

Ok, so I think its time to try my hand at Windows Vista while I have access to a spare laptop for the next couple of weeks. I am only installing 32bit Vista as the Dell D620 doesn’t support 64bit.

Will collect my notes and thoughts here on what I learn.

First Impressions:

• Installs way better than XP.
• The new user interface is a breath of fresh air, does a lot of things that have been missing from XP.
• Some things are different so don’t assume anything about any file locations or settings.
• UAC - User Account Control, disable this as soon as you can. Its the annoying quesitions about how your mouse has moved and do you want to allow this to happen, just in case someone has hacked your machine.

Links I have needed so far:

How to migrate Firefox from XP to Vista.

Replacing Notepad - I like to use Metapad instead

UltraVNC Addons -?? Make sure to follow the instructions on how to setup VNC to work under Vista.

Handy Sidebar Widgets - The default sidebar widgets are pretty useless.

Overall:

I would say I am impressed, simple things like how double clicking on the clock in the systray works now really show that XP is getting old. It’s the nice little touches that make Vista a pleasure to use, once I have figured out all the different ways some things are done, I think it will be a good move. So far no show stoppers. :-)