Gadget User Blog

Well, for some mad reason I decided to upgrade the ol’ R1F to Windows Vista Business. I don’t know why I decided to that. I don’t know what possessed me. But I committed to the upgrade and frankly there is no going back now.

But, what has the outcome been? Well, all in all not too bad. There is very little support on the ASUS site for the upgrade process and so you’re pretty much flying blind. There is little info on the Vista site too about the vagaries of upgrading.

Vista upgrade advisor is of some help, but it doesn’t identify all of the difficulties you may face, as I found out - the hard way.

But to be honest, if you have some time to fiddle around with tweaks, once you are in the Vista experience, it really is pretty sexy. The system seems to run a bit faster and more smoothly under Vista, and the graphics and animated aspects of the operating system are very pleasing to look at. All of the screens actually render beautifully. It somehow looks better than XP from that perspective.

Now, the things that haven’t worked so well are the R1F’s in-built security software systems like QL Protector and TPM Suite. I have disabled these altogether. Before upgrading, I forgot to remove any password protection from the programs and so when the upgrade happened these were deleted but the files within the programs obviously still expect to find the passwords. Can’t find a solution to that problem so I’ve disabled them.

So the first tip is to ensure that all passwords and security settings are disabled and removed before you begin the upgrade. I didn’t actually use the security settings much so it doesn’t bother me. I must say that as I was trying to get the QL Protector to work, it did scan my fingerprint properly for the first time ever - so I was a little excited about it until I realised it couldn’t find my original settings and so just refused to work.

The updated drivers from ASUS work fine after a bit of trial and error and a couple of necessary reversions to earlier system restore points. The wireless control seems to be in the hands of Vista rather than Intel’s wireless manager but so far that works okay, with a couple of exceptions where a restart just after booting was required to launch the wireless connection.

So what’s the good? Software-wise, most things seem to work okay. Skype has some problems so it’s disabled for now. Hopefully a Vista patch will be along soon.

The Vista Windows Update and security settings are pretty good. A few glitches but less I think than under XP. Vista asks you lots of questions about system changes which is all part of their new security, which is designed to ensure that you are in the driver’s seat as far as program changes and alterations to the operating system. These seem okay but might get annoying as time goes on. I suspect you can turn them off somehow.

The Windows Aero is very good GUI eye candy. If you don’t like that sort of thing you’ll probably have a ’so what?’ reaction to it but I happen to think it looks great. The 3D Switch Between Windows effect is pleasant but not really the greatest selling point.

The whole look and feel of the system is soft, modern and uncluttered. There’s lots of fading in and out on start up and shut down and when you move about the system, between windows. Very nice.

I’m using Vista Business with only 1gig of RAM and it seems to work quite well. I’m considering upgrading to 2gigs and that should make the system sing, although it works very well with 1 gig.

The only other annoying thing is that the buttons on the R1F screen don’t work. Well, that’s not entirely accurate, the “Ctl, Alt, Del” button works, but the screen rotation and escape button don’t work. And we seem to be forced to use the Windows Mobility Centre to rotate the screen rather than the old Intel Graphics tool, which I found to be a rather convenient way of choosing screen orientation.

As I find more out about the system I’ll add it, but overall I have to say I’m pretty impressed with Vista. Others in my household are now keen to move across although I’m cautioning on the driver front and the need for some popular software to catch up with the operating system and release some Vista capable versions.

So, if you’re prepared to put some work in and have a day or so up your sleeve to tweak then it’s worth the effort to upgrade.