By Michael Santo
Executive Editor, RealTechNews
As I previously wrote, I could not even START upgrading to Vista, because of a missing wi-fi driver. You may also recall that since I wanted to try Vista ASAP (call me anxious), I opted to buy the Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Card, which has a driver on Dell’s website. I haven’t had a chance to try this card yet, as it just arrived this week, but … I did finally see an answer to a post I made on Dell’s Community Forum.
In that post, I was told by a Dell Liason that the drivers were native to Vista. OK … why did Vista Advisor not say that? She had a good explanation for that (later in the thread). OK … why did Tech Support not tell me that … no explanation for that.
However, also in that thread, a different user tried those “inbox” drivers … and he could not connect. Switching to a different card worked, so it wasn’t the network configuration. He also tried a Linksys WPC300N driver … and that worked.
We Say: So, as I said, I still haven’t tried this … most likely this weekend. But I do find it odd … disconcerting … upsetting? that tech support didn’t tell me the driver was “inbox”, though of course, at this point evidence indicates I would still have an issue. I’d try to return the new card, but there’s that restocking fee and of course shipping. In all fairness they should let me return it for a full refund (including shipping), because it was their bad info that made me buy it, but I don’t feel like spending another hour on the phone with “George” or “Sam” or whatever faux-named support person to get that satisfaction. 
I have installed Vista Ultimate x64 on my machine. I originally had XP X64 edition. There was no upgrade option and I had to install from scratch!
My experience so far has been a mixed bag. The most disappointing thing is some instability with some applications that I know work better under XP (Adobes just released Lightroom).
Some sluggish performance is not pleasing as well. I have a dual core Pentium D 3Ghz with 2GB of Ram.
I got better stability and performance with a vendors video driver (ATI X700 Radeon). But still had crashes playing videos in WMP. A new driver from two days ago seems to have fixed that.
There are features I really like about Vista. The search feature is wonderful. The new start menu not so much. I use the start menu to find programs to launch rather than using it to navigate to the icon to launch so not a big deal.
In all honesty I don’t really find the experience better or worse than XP except for the experiences above.
I have Vista Ultimate 32-bit installed on my Macbook and Honestly it works great for me.
It’s a Core2Duo 2 Ghz, with 1 GB of ram. And while I don’t run programs like Lightroom on it I haven’t found it to be sluggish at all.
I’m even amazed that while I am using integrated graphics(Intel GMA 950) I still can use Aero Glass. And it looks fantastic at that.
I actually love the new start menu. I just type what program or anything else that I want and it pops up. I find it far more logical than having to wade through several folders when I know exactly what I want already.
I really like the fact if I’m running an unsupported app and it decides to become unresponsive I know exactly what is going on. It’s not just a white window. The app greys out and I know intuitively that I can’t interact with it.
My experience with it has been mostly positive so I’m usually the odd man out in the crowd.
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Let’s recapitulate. Not broken, but gotta fix it….by installing Vista–a dog in my opinion.
Yes I have it on a new desktop, just to say I know a bit about it. Will never be my OS of choice.
More on the Dell Vista Upgrade…
I posted in mid-February about the Dell Vista Upgrade that you can get with systems purchased between October 26th, 2006 and March 15, 2007, and about how people were already complaining about how long it was taking for customers to receive their copy….
[...] As you may recall, I had issues with the installation of Windows Vista on my Dell Inspiron XPS M1710, because, for one thing, there was a missing wi-fi driver. A bit of confusion later and after buying an Intel ABG mini-PCI card, it was revealed to me by a Dell Liason that a) there was a Dell 1500 draft-N driver built into Vista, b) it didn’t work too well, c) there was a new driver due out in late March, d) he would refund the cost of the ABG card to me. [...]