Thread: Quick Question .

Originally Posted by Fusion

Hi Guys. I have a Dell Dimension E520 Pentium 4 HT . It has a sticker on it that say designed for XP (which i'm running ) and below it says Vista Capable . So is it as simple as installing it or will something else need to be done ? Thanks .

Hi
Micro$oft has a Vista upgrade advisor for download
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/win...e-advisor.aspx

Cheers
Dave
South Oz

The Dimension E520 was and still is a great PC - SATA drives, 7.1 channel audio and NVIDIA graphics if memory serves?

"Vista Compatible" was a marketing term that hardware vendors used in 2006 to keep customers buying PC's instead of waiting until Vista went to production in late 2006 and early 2007.

Vista (Home Basic or Home Premium) will run "adequately" on a Dimension E520 P4 if you have at least 2GB of memory and don't want the Aero/glass features of Vista Ultimate. As I recall, the E520 has a NVIDIA 256MB graphics card, so it will handle Aero/glass but it still takes resources away from memory and the CPU itself.

Truthfully, I'd suggest that XP is a better option on a E520.

If you do decide to make the move to Vista, go to dell.com.au and download the Vista device drivers for your E520, save them to a memory stick or write them to a CD. Then do a fresh install of Vista rather than an upgrade - make sure you back up all of your personal data first!... e.g. pics, music, email, financials etc - to a memory stick or CD (twice to be sure) then do a clean install of Vista, re-formatting the hard drive. In the longer term, this is a better option than trying to sort out all of the incompatibilities with installed applications if you try to do an upgrade.

Best wishes, Paul.

wait 12 months and buy Windows 7???

Originally Posted by Pedro_The_Swift

wait 12 months and buy Windows 7???

LMAO - I'll be waiting 36 months before even considering Windows 7.

Just bought a new laptop - 3gb memory, dual core, etc ,etc, running vista.
But it cannot run sims 2 for the mrs!!!!

If only these games would run on Linux.

Originally Posted by mjm295

LMAO - I'll be waiting 36 months before even considering Windows 7.

Just bought a new laptop - 3gb memory, dual core, etc ,etc, running vista.
But it cannot run sims 2 for the mrs!!!!

If only these games would run on Linux.

you left out the important part of that spec---

on board graphics???

I was talking to an IT bloke about vista and he said there is nothing wrong with it, just because it is a bit more complex and nice-looking, it soaks up a lot of memory and has heaps more processes at any one time compared to XP. if the computer's credentials aren't up to scratch (meaning quite modern i think) it will just drag it down.

Originally Posted by mjm295

If only these games would run on Linux.

be careful what you wish for...

Try WINE WineHQ - Run Windows applications on Linux, BSD and Mac OS X - it will allow you to run many Windows apps on Linux. Will Sims 2 work with WINE? no idea.

Another option for Linux users is to run Windows inside a virtual machine using something like VMware Workstation, Xen or VirtualBox.

For example, your PC or laptop could be running Ubuntu as its primary operating system with OpenOffice for documents and spreadsheets, Firefox for web browsing, and Thunderbird for email - all for the cost of a download.
Then you load up VirtualBox, create a VM for a Windows XP installation and off you go. Will Sims 2 work in this scenario? No idea.

Windows users have the same options for running Linux inside a VM too.

Geez, the ramble above makes me sound like a Linux geek... I'm not, but I do like to play with both Linux and Windows systems hence my interest in virtualisation software.

Originally Posted by PaulP38a

be careful what you wish for...

Try WINE WineHQ - Run Windows applications on Linux, BSD and Mac OS X - it will allow you to run many Windows apps on Linux. Will Sims 2 work with WINE? no idea.

Another option for Linux users is to run Windows inside a virtual machine using something like VMware Workstation, Xen or VirtualBox.

For example, your PC or laptop could be running Ubuntu as its primary operating system with OpenOffice for documents and spreadsheets, Firefox for web browsing, and Thunderbird for email - all for the cost of a download.
Then you load up VirtualBox, create a VM for a Windows XP installation and off you go. Will Sims 2 work in this scenario? No idea.

Windows users have the same options for running Linux inside a VM too.

Geez, the ramble above makes me sound like a Linux geek... I'm not, but I do like to play with both Linux and Windows systems hence my interest in virtualisation software.

Far and away the best post of the lot...

On the subject of running Windows inside a VM on Linux, I suspect that would be a (much) better alternative than doing the opposite.

At least with a (large) number of Linux distros around nowadays, you can actually live boot the CD/DVD to see whether your hardware "likes" the OS (ie. All devices found etc).

My Mrs has recently "acquired" our DRP HP laptop (2GHz dual core/2Gb RAM etc), so I've "acquired" her old Acer 1.6GHz dual-core laptop as a "spare". That will ultimately replace my identical notebook which is currently running XP (quite well, I might add), when I find a Linux distro which will go on with minimal fuss. (Fedora 10 is looking good so far).

Steer well clear of Vista...