Apr
25
Written by:
Darren Neese
4/25/2009 11:32 PM
I just installed Vista 64-bit Ultimate Edition on my home workstation. For the past week or two I've been dealing with a faulty system drive that had XP Pro on it. About a week ago, I went to a .net user group meeting here in Orlando, FL and won the Vista Ultimate pack (32 & 64-bit). At first I doubted my old AMD64 Athalon which I build about four years ago could handle it.
After taking a week to back up all my hard drive's file to a one terrabyte external drive (I was suprised it took this long too), I finally decided to give it a try. I opened the side door to my rather large tower case, unplugged the old IDE drive which it had been booting off of and only left my faster SATA drives in place for Vista to attempt to recognize and use.
I booted off the 64-bit disk of Vista Ultimate and it immediate recognized my SATA drives which previous XP Pro was never able to pick up when being installed. HOT DOG! It was also able to install a proper video adapter driver so I could run a decent resolution without spending hours hunting down my driver disk or looking around online for it. The installation went quick and easy. Although I've had a lot of experience (nightmares) installing Vista being a network administrator who implemented it for brave volunteer users, I was suprised it went so quick and easy. The difference being this time is probably that this disk has service pack 1 already included in the install.
The only problem so far is that it didn't recognize my sound card. My system operates so much faster now, I don't even care I don't have sound for now. XP Pro was proabably so slow before because it was using an old IDE drive that was ready to retire. Typically a system will run Vista slower and use much more resources than XP ever would. Another benefit this time around is that I actually installed a 64-bit OS on my 64-bit hardware. I had access to XP's 64-bit edition, but it was new at the time and it didn't play nice with some hardware/software that I needed it to.
I'd have to say, I'm pretty happy with my set up so far. Thanks to Orlando's .net user group and Microsoft who I'm sure sponsors their events with such gifts!
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