Re: buying a laptop in spain
 

can you tell me where that was

Re: buying a laptop in spain
 

Ibought our desktop there and they charged the same but they have now closed down

Re: buying a laptop in spain
 

Vista Home Premium is a minimum of £80 in the UK, Ultimate is about £140 and XP pro (better for a low spec laptop) is about £65.
So anyone that is going to charge you €50 to install and English version is going to use a dodgy copy! You may as well download one yourself from the net, or buy a Dell (if you have to!), or something half decent like this;-
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/164844

Re: buying a laptop in spain
 

Or use the Froggie site for free. ;-))

Re: buying a laptop in spain
 

I had a look at that JDR - most impressed - it seems like the best (free) solution.

When you think about it, the ability to download and install language packs is only prevented by MS putting a block on it for the cheaper versions of Vista. It can't be too difficult to crack it and the froggies seem to have done it.

If you do it, I would be very careful not to install Vista SP2 as that might kill it.

Re: buying a laptop in spain
 

You might be right there Fred as they may of uncracked it with SP2.
The problem I had with the loss of updates can be cured by.....

"I recommend you to uninstall Windows Search 4.0, nowadays automatically installed via Windows Update. It is an update of the Vista integrated search engine, you can work without it easily." Cheers, froggie.

I changed mine back to Spanish though cos I like a challenge. ;-))

Re: buying a laptop in spain
 

To most people Vista in English is a big enough challenge!!

Re: buying a laptop in spain
 

A cheeky Chappie provided me with a well-priced version of Vista Ultimate, in German, which installed perfectly on my Spanish laptop, along with a few tweaks, and it was a breeze to change it to English. Then I got fed up with the Spanish keyboard and changed it (the OS) to Spanish. Todo bien.

I'm debating whether to install Windows 7 RC, free until next June.

It's funny, everything works on my Spanish desktop and my Spanish laptop, they're both about two years old, and I keep wanting to change things. They've both got separate versions of Linux, changed every few months, Firefox and IE, and for most of the time I still work in XP, and I'm definitely not a geek.

Am I the only one? Is it the sun?

Re: buying a laptop in spain
 

Windows 7 is fine but I can't say it really improves much on Vista because most of the changes are at the operating system level and few users go there. It is an obvious good move if you still have XP and have resisted upgrading to Vista but I would wait until October and buy a full copy.

Installing the free RC version will work OK but when you get to June next year you will have to buy a copy anyway and reinstall everything - as far as I know you cannot do an upgrade from RC.

You say everything works fine on your desktop and laptop. I assume they both came with Vista installed. Most of the criticisms of Vista are from people who have upgraded from XP and experienced hardware and software incompatibilities. Most first time Vista users have had no problems.

The moral of course is, "If it ain't broke don't fix it!" Upgrading operating systems is for geeks or masochists - I'm not quite sure which category I fit into (answers on a postcard please);).

Re: buying a laptop in spain
 

Quite right, both came installed with Vista Basic, in Spanish, and I couldn't wait to install my copy of XP, Ubuntu and OpenSuse, although I must confess that I quite like Vista Ultimate, if only for the Chess Titans.

If it ain't broke . . . sensible words, but how can you resist all those tantalising free offers? I regularly buy English computer magazines, here in Spain, and they all have DVDs with free programmes, red rag to a bull, isn't it? I got one this morning with the new Ubuntu, it's trying to hypnotise me, but I've resisted so far . . .

Re: buying a laptop in spain
 

Congratulations - you have officially been promoted to Super Geek.

Just keep layering on those new Operating Systems - when no one wants to talk to you any more you can keep re-booting to your heart's content!

;);)

Re: buying a laptop in spain
 

We did it the easy way and bought both our laptop and desktop from PC World UK when we were there last year! The guarantee/warranty applies in Spain, at PC City.

We're in the UK at the moment and have brought the laptop with us, although our son will not allow it to go on his network as he is paranoid about Windows Vista:frown: However, he has set us up with an old XP system he was keeping for spares, which he WILL allow on his network!!:rofl:

We're here till probably sometime in August so need to be online! It's a luxury to us to have the fast broadband!

Re: buying a laptop in spain
 

Hello, would that be the big computer place at Vistahermosa (close to Media Markt)? Ed.

Re: buying a laptop in spain
 

if it is,, it has :thumbup:now shut down + the nearest is Valencia

Re: buying a laptop in spain
 

PC City is the same company as PC World in UK, therefore to be avoided unless you are in dire straits!