Windows Vista?

[KennyChaffin]

Well, I tell ya... ..... I went shopping, I found nothing available except Windows Vista machines. There is very little software of any kind made for Windows Vista just yet, and the operating system itself is reportedly pretty buggy because of the standard rush-to-market-without-working-all-the-kinks-out that Microsoft has become famous for. ...

Joe

And there in is the flaw, it's clear the market is NOT demanding, but MS is trying to increase revenue.....somebody should figure out how the horse and cart operate.

KAC

[thelevellers]

I think you should stop fooling yourself and switch Linux all the way!

I'm actually very happy with it at the moment because I finally found some good games for it, and got some windows games working well in it! YAY! Now I can waste whole days at a time

Oh, and I might just have to say, any computer that can't 'socialize' with others I consider to be LOWER on the ladder than those that can - i.e. Vista, although newer than XP, is lower on the ladder because it can't handle the simple task of backward compatibility... So for Vista I would say that maybe it's lonely on the bottom?!

[roxhythe]

Yes, you may be right. When I first started thinking about this, three years ago, they were still working on a good "Windows emulator" for Linux. They had a good DOS emulator (which is good--I still have some DOS programs for which there has never been a decent Windows "improvement"). But I had that sophisticated, expensive graphics-design software to worry about (still do).

So when I had "Alice," my home computer, built, I had her configured with a dual boot--Windows 98SE or Linux, to give me an opportunity to learn Linux and still get work done. Wasn't a bad arrangement--but when I had the Windows upgraded to WinXP, the upgrade wiped out the Linux (prompting concerns that the shop that did it didn't know what they were doing). So now I have Windows XP and no Linux. (I still have the installation disk, however.)

All of which prompts a question, since I've been away from the issue for a while: How is the Windows emulator these days? Can it run Windows XP programs? (I have rather a lot of those now.) How about Windows 98 software? (I still have those graphic-design programs to worry about--and I have no intention of upgrading them in the immediate future.)

Input, please? Thanks.

Joe

[thelevellers]

Well, for specific programme names that run or don;t run try Wine (although ,as the recursive name [Wine Is Not an Emulator] suggests, it's not an emulator )

So far I have not had much cause to use Wine, but I hear good things... I would imagine 98 programmes are more likely to run, but plenty of XP stuff runs too Failing that you could always try getting a virtual machine up and running, meaning that you run Linux 100% of the time, and when you need windows, you can boot it up *inside* Linux... Again, not done it myself yet, but hear good things!

First things first I would recommend re-installing Linux, as it takes very little time with an install disk, and as long as you are either competent with computers or read (and maybe print out for reference) a how-to it wont touch your windoze installation...

Once you are dual-booting again I would advise at least TRYING to have Linux as the primary boot, so that you automatically go there as this will help you put effort into making windows equivalents work in Linux (there's another point, try googling for equivalents for all the programmes you can;t do without, there might be a new one out that will cut down your windoze reliance!)... That's my main problem - being bothered to make stuff work - in theory I should be able to get MIDI working in Linux, but I just can;t be bothered to try! lol...

Anyway, that's quite a lot of writing to basically say 'ask google'!! lol... Good luck bringing the Penguin back into your life, hopefully you wont have a bad experience (I did first time round, put me off for a year or so, then a geek friend helped out for the second try - haven't looked back! )