On 12/26/07, Dr Skip wrote: > I need the list's engineering wisdom and help. > > I just received a very nice Acer laptop for Christmas - 2 GHz AMD 64 bit dual > core, 2 GB ram, 17" screen, etc. However, it also comes with Vista, and as far > as I can tell on the net, if I were to try to retrofit XP onto it, I'd have to > do without some of the hardware for lack of XP drivers. It also has an > Expresscard 54 slot, not a cardbus or pcmcia slot... Actually I just bought a Compaq laptop for my wife yesterday - 1.8GHZ AMD64 dual core, 4GB RAM (free Chirstmas promotion), 14.1" screen and Vista Home Premium. After upgrading to 3-year warrantee, it is S$1498 (about US$1000+). > My old laptop is no longer portable and out of steam, so this could be good... > However, can Vista be put on a diet and made to be more XP-like? I'm very > concerned about compatibility too. Any MPlab problems? How about interfacing to > the pickit2? Are usb to serial adapters invisible to software/programmers > written for a true serial port? Hmmm, it doesn't have a parallel port either... > Has anyone tried using a usb to parallel adapter to run as one of the > poor-man's logic analyzer? 2GB RAM should be ok for Vista. You may want to remove the junk Acer installed. I uninstalled Microsoft Office 2007 60day trial and Norton Internet Security 60 day trial and some other junks as the first step to prepare the computer. Then I installed AVG Free. Vista UAC is a bit annoying but I only need to install very few software for my wife and I think it is better to leave UAC on for her. I need to further tune the computer along the way. But I feel Vista is not that slow as reported once the RAM is enough. My wife does not want me to put my junk on her computer so I would not install MPLAB on her computer. According to the report from Microchip Forum, MPLAB should be fine. PICkit 2 should be fine as well. If you are having problems with MPLAB, then try to disable VDI. http://forum.microchip.com/tm.aspx?m=233933 Proper serial communication programs should be fine under Vista using the USB-to-Serial converters. But you can check the website to make sure. As for parallel port, I do not think there are any cheap and good USB to parallel converter as most of them are designed for printers and not for I/O interfacing. I am not so sure if giveio or similar driver will work under Vista 32 or not. It will not work for Vista 64 for sure. Anyway, it is a good thing if it indeed does not work under Vista 32. Go for USB. Activewire is said to have one but it is not so cheap. http://www.activewireinc.com/ > I also have some special cardbus adapters - is there a reliable way to > get them interfaced to the expresscard slot? According to the following website, they are not compatible. http://www.expresscard.org/web/site/qa.jsp#13 > > There is also the issue of unsigned drivers. I run quite a bit of stuff that is > open source and not Microsoft blessed. I understand there is a problem with > unsigned driver installation in Vista. Is it do-able? Will all XP drivers and > code run under Vista fine somehow? I believe you are running Vista 32bit. Then it is not a problem. The driver signing issue is more with Vista 64bit and nobody in his right mind would want to use Vista 64bit right now for PIC related work as it is not supported by Microchip even though it is said that they will support it in the future. Not all XP driver will work under Vista but those are in general not-so-proper driver and I think it is a good thing for the stability of the system. > I'm assuming modeling software and any pure application type app will run fine, > as long as drivers aren't needed. Does it phone home and is it a security or > privacy risk though? I've read reviews, technical and otherwise, and so far I > haven't found much depth, but I thought there would be some that have it and > are pushing the limits on it on this list. ;-) No idea about this. I only played it for two hours and I think it is not bad. It should be more secure than XP SP2 from what I learned. Maybe others can comment further. Vista has problem with lower-end machine (some Vista home basic machine only has 512M RAM, but the shop here will at least update it to 1G RAM as they know 512M is too little). > I could return it for a downgraded one, but if these are small fixable > concerns, it would be nice to keep. What would you do and how would you > make it trouble free (Vista and the stuff we on the list seem to all run)? > > Thanks much in advance. Links, thoughts or advice appreciated. > Vista SP1 is on the road, so I think Vista should be fine. But if you are afraid and it is possible to downgrade to XP without cost, then you can still do it. As far as I am concerned, I think both XP and Vista are fine choice for now. But I feel Vista is a bit more future proof since the mainstream support of XP will end in 2009. I think most user will use Vista then. http://www.microsoft.com/windows/lifecycle/default.mspx http://support.microsoft.com/gp/lifeselectwin Regards, Xiaofan -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist