> installing Vista
I think I've figured out your problem. Get rid of that clause, and you're home free.

Take a look at
http://tech.slashdot.org/tech/08/08/18/2016228.shtml

I'd suggest staying with XP.

Well, I was a victim of Windows ME so I'm not naive about installing the "latest and greatest".

Vista's been out for awhile now and I'll be installing it with SP1, so I've let the others do the beta testing (unlike my head first dive into MT 4.2). I've browsed around a few forums like Anandtech and the Newegg forums and I'm just not seeing the negatives that you get from the types at /. I agree with the person in that thread who said that this is the type of complaint you heard all the time when XP was released. If I listened to the nay-sayers I'd still be on Windows 2000.

I'm going to give it a go on my home machine which is an "enthusiast" machine (though now lagging a bit since the year or so ago that I built it). I won't be bothering with my laptop or office desktop which certainly don't have the horsepower.

Anyone who suggests Linux is too much of a geek for their own good. I need things to just work as much as possible, and to be able to use standard software. That said, maybe one of these days I'll toss a partition in and give it a spin, but I spend enough time tweaking as it is.

Hope you're feeling better soon. If I can find a decent connection, I'll try to post something.

I'm here in Amman, where no decent connection exists, so I'll have to wait till later.

Aspirin, aloe and sleep are good for sunburns -

Anyone who suggests Linux is too much of a geek for their own good. I need things to just work as much as possible, and to be able to use standard software.

Why not try Open SUSE?
What is "not being too much of a geek"? Needing someone to put the DVD in the drive? :-)

OpenSUSE, ha! I just laugh at all these people in comment threads saying, "M$ sucks, I use [Linux distro X]..." as though that's helpful advice to the average person.

I am impressed with how much stuff like Ubuntu has developed, though, it's just not a substitute for Windows on a general, multi-use machine.

I've now installed Vista twice...I got it set up the other night with the basics (drivers, immediately needed software), but then I decided to to give up on my multi-partition hard drive (one partition for OS, one for apps, one for games, one for data like email, my documents, music...) and repartition with one big C: drive and let Windows put things where it wants. I did that last night.

I won't say much about Vista yet because it's going to take some time to work with it, but here are a few first impressions:

Install is fairly quick and easy. It does a good job of finding drivers for everything. In fact I stopped it from auto-installing sound and video drivers since I wanted to make sure and do it myself. It's pretty. There's a lot of temptation to start installing widgets and things that will bog a lower-end system down. Some horsepower helps. I'm impressed with just how much stuff for customization and tweaking is built in (I repartitioned my drive from inside Windows!). I've barely dipped my toe in. There's a lot of built-in security, backup, optimization...and it just ...feels... solid (/knocks furiously on wood)...at least nothing's happened so far that made me say, hmmm...better reboot just to be safe.

Then again, I liked WindowsME the first few weeks. I can say with authority though that you should ignore anyone who says Vista is just XP with a pretty face. There's a lot here.

I can say with authority though that you should ignore anyone who says Vista is just XP with a pretty face.

Nobody who says "Anyone who suggests Linux is too much of a geek for their own good" can say anything with authority.