A Vista Aversion

May 7, 2008 3:08 PM

I'd like to buy a new laptop and to avoid Vista. Further, I have spent years getting the look and feel of my XP computer just the way I want it: properly functioning software, settings just right, internet programs securely locked down, etc. What problems will I encounter if I try to restore a disk image of the current laptop's configuration onto a brand new laptop (first erasing the Vista after making a disk image of Vista's base configuration). For example, what authentication hoops will I have to jump thru to get future Window's XP updates? Might there be any hardware/software incompatibilities? Any licensing issues for non Microsoft software that might be tied to a certain machine? (A dual boot machine is a possibility, I suppose, although that seems complicated.)
posted by bbranden1 to Computers & Internet (12 answers total)

You could run into a lot of problems going this route-- with the wrong drivers you could bork the whole system-- video, audio, network problems. I recommend you do a fresh install of XP and recreate the look and feel of it over time.
posted by sharkfu at 3:12 PM on May 7, 2008

If it's a laptop you will absolutely run into driver issues. Additionally, it's very likely that you have an OEM version of Windows with manufacturer customizations that will not work on your new laptop. You could try the settings migration wizard which will migrate many but not all of your settings.
posted by GuyZero at 3:16 PM on May 7, 2008

There are third-party migration tools out there that could provide significant relief. My personal experience has been with Symantec Backup Exec System Recovery Desktop Edition in recovering to a brand new naked hard drive. Ridiculously long product name aside, it was painless; I fired the laptop up and picked up where I left off.

One of the product's features is the ability to migrate between dissimilar hardware, so you don't have to resolve all the drive conflict issues people reference upthread.

FWIW, I don't work for Symantec and even if you bought it from Dell, it wouldn't have any impact on my personal income.
posted by ZakDaddy at 3:58 PM on May 7, 2008 [1 favorite]

I would *never* use an image from different hardware. You're bound to run into glitches, bugs and blue screens.
posted by wongcorgi at 4:16 PM on May 7, 2008

I bought a second drive for a thinkpad A31, duplicated it, stuck it in another a31 and now, I have two absolutely identical units. There were slight driver differences related to the internal wireless, but all my passworded software and commerical software installs work fine. (I cannot run them both at the same time because they collide on my home network... same computer name.) Periodically, I make sure they are synched (I use IMAP email).

A31's and other thinkpads had a really flexible architecture with slots for second CDs, floppies, DVDs, batteries, and hard drives that really made life simple. If your new laptop has such a feature, that second hard drive is wonderful. I also did this with a Dell 610.

I suspect that if you move over to another machine that is not almost exact, you'll see a ton of "new hardware detected" crap and lots of driver adjustments, but you know, with drives selling cheaper than what I paid for a box of floppies a few decades back, WTF? It's worth a try.

FWIW, thinkpads also had a hidden partition with the OS installation software in place, just in case you ever wanted to really do a 'factory reset' on the machine. Pretty handy.... no missing drivers, etc.

I understand the desire to avoid Vista. A friend brought me a brand new mid-scale laptop (a Dell) with Vista and while pretty, it was sluggish to the point I thought it was broken. Not impressive.
posted by FauxScot at 4:36 PM on May 7, 2008

As of last December, you could still order Dell laptops with XP instead of Vista on most models, which is what I did for my daughters. Most outlet/computer stores/ models come preloaded with Vista in my experience -maybe you should try ordering online with the manufacturer.
posted by Pressed Rat at 6:51 PM on May 7, 2008

While you just say you want to avoid *Vista*, not Windows entirely, it would probably be worth looking at what laptops are generally friendlier to Linux -- that's a pretty good indicator of hardware with widely available drivers / documentation, regardless of your software preferences.

And while it wouldn't be *new*, I've had very good experiences with a Thinkpad T41 I got off ebay for about $450 (with several months warranty left). I swapped the wireless card to a Ralink RT2560 for $15ish, but otherwise no changes -- it's running OpenBSD, but could probably run XP quite capably, depending on your needs. (Posting with said laptop.)

Also, seconding that just copying an image from one laptop to another will probably have weird side-effects. (Though if you want to copy personal stuff smoothly once your drivers are set up, check out rsync.)
posted by trouserbat at 7:03 PM on May 7, 2008

There are probably technical workarounds for all the issues you will encounter going this route (see this guide, for instance) provided you can actually find XP drivers for your new laptop; many laptop manufacturers are no longer releasing those. But if your original XP is an OEM installation, you will be violating the terms of your Windows EULA, and you will need to do some fast talking to Microsoft's product activation people on the phone to get Windows to reactivate. You'd be better off starting with a laptop that comes with XP preinstalled, and using the migration wizardy thing.

We'll take my usual pro-free-software diatribe as read, but I would like to encourage you to install Ubuntu on the new machine as a dual boot, and have a play with it. XP will go the way of 98 one of these days, and if you've managed to find your way off the Microsoft update treadmill by then, you'll be better off.
posted by flabdablet at 7:45 PM on May 7, 2008

My XP Dell came in the mail last week, and I friggin' love it.
posted by M.C. Lo-Carb! at 8:01 PM on May 7, 2008

Yeah, laptops are still being sold with XP installed on them. (For example, browse the Dell site.) If you want a new laptop with XP, that's the way to go.

If you really want to buy a Vista laptop and "upgrade" it to XP, know this: It is much easier to do if that same model laptop was formerly sold with XP installed, since the manufacturer has all the XP drivers that work with all that hardware (and you can download them from the manufacturer's web site).

(Personal rant: I would love to upgrade my Toshiba-Vista laptop to XP, but my particular model was never sold with XP, and all over the web people are still searching for every last XP driver for it. What good is a new laptop is some of its features don't work, and never will?)
posted by exphysicist345 at 9:58 PM on May 7, 2008

Also, you can always use nLite to customize XP before you install it, which saves a lot of time because you don't have to chase down all these options/settings hidden within the XP operating system.
posted by wabashbdw at 7:14 AM on May 8, 2008

You might consider, as an interim solution, creating a virtual image of your current machine and using it on your new laptop until you bring the new machine up to your standards. VMware provides an excellent (free) utility that will make a virtual machine from your current physical machine, which you can then run in VMWare player (also free). You'll no doubt need an external hard drive to create the new VM, which you can then copy to the new machine's hard drive. With a sufficiently powerful new machine you could go a long time running your "old" system while tweaking whatever you use for your new system (even a Mac or Linux machine) to make it the way you want it.
posted by lhauser at 2:10 PM on May 8, 2008 [1 favorite]