Fred James

Most new PC's ship with Vista. Getting XP can be more difficult.

Vista works well on new PCs - most of the few reported problems with Vista relate to old programs and old peripherals where people have upgraded from XP on the old PC.

I have been using Vista for over 18 months with no problems, both as an upgrade on a 4 year old PC and as the main operating system on a new PC.

If you go for Vista make sure it is the Home Premium edition not the Home Basic.

spanishfamily

If you have a small business, Dell Vostro are really good value and they have a good service package in Spain.

XTreme

XP....no question!
Vista is nice and slick, and seems very stable. However....even if you've got a serious bit of kit, it's bloody hard work. It's not that it makes all computers run that much slower....it's just that everything you try to do seems to take twice as long.
But if you're buying with an OS pre-installed you're going to get Vista anyway.

jdr

Loading Vodafone tools onto Vista took about 12 accepts as it ran through, then there was an update, same again aggggh

Fred James

Vodafone had some initial problems with Vista as, like many other manufacturers, they had not bothered to provide suitable software drivers in time for the Vista launch although they had about a years notice!

It is easy to blame Microsoft when something doesn't work with Vista but often it is lazy manufacturers who would rather sell you a new product (hardware or software) than take the trouble to provide a free upgrade.

It was the same when XP was introdeced, in fact, with Vista there were many more drivers/upgrades available than there were when XP was launched.

XTreme

Yes....but in the case of XP being launched most Windows 2000 drivers were compatible. With Vista there was no backwards compatibility to fall back on.

EsuriJohn

Same with Office 2007 and my new PC came with both installed which is a bu**er since if I send a word document in 2007 anyone at the other end with O 2000 or 2003 can't open it!

leighbloke

Just use the save as earlier version option - don't be so selfish!!!!

zads

Back again.

thanks for the advice guys, 90% certain I am gonna get a laptop when I get there even though they seem to be a tiny bit cheaper here. The top and bottom is that we need to be online asap and as we are goin to be transient for a while is the fact that having no permenant address gonna be a problem. ( one month holiday let while we try to find a long term rental )

So, the initial plan was to take my T mobile MDA (internet phone thingy)which is on a 'web n walk' unlimited useage contract and use it as a wireless modem for a laptop. However, this would cost a fortune as web browsing out of the uk is not within the contract. It cost me £120 for 20MB while on my hols in Greece last year. Just had a quick look at Dell uk and they can supply laptops fitted with a vodaphone sim card using GPRS 3G, think sony have done a similar thing with T mobile, anyone know if there is anything like that available in Spain and what the tarrifs are like.

Fred James

Hi Zads

You can get Vodafone 3G (subject to coverage) in Spain OK.

There is a lot of chat about it on another forum http://tinyurl.com/2m67fv

Fred

Lionda

Depends what you are looking for. We have a music (kareoke) download which vista won't accept, it works on the desktop - XP (try taking that around the bars!) but not on the laptop which is vista!

jdr

have a look on the karaoke website, they may have an updated driver for Vista.

leighbloke

Do you remember real DJs - with records - each album case was bigger than a PC. You must be really comitted to your business.