I’ve got to admit, Vista looks really neat, and, they’ve been smart enough to include Tai Pei in their free games.
As a refurbished unit from Acer via Tiger Direct, I didn’t receive any software disks but there’s a backup feature that automatically saves to a "secret" place on the hard drive. Now this is fine with me since Jim was using Win 98 with a 3 gig main hard drive and an extra 5 I stuck in for games and he had plenty of unused space. The problem with the "secret" place as a backup is of course, if the hard drive goes, you’re screwed, and I’ve had more hard drives die on me than any other computer part. But I did make a copy of the default factory set o/s to a couple of DVD’s, and I’ll backup the hard drive to an external drive as I’m doing with the other pcs.
Aside from the lack of a wireless adapter (why?), and that wasn’t a big problem because the hub and stuff are right in the next office "cubicle" next to mine so I could wire it in, Vista found the internet and the network with absolutely no problems. As a matter of fact, this installation went so easily that I realized I hadn’t written anything down (like serial #, duh) in my "Building Computers" notebook that dates back to 1997. I love that notebook, even though it’s generally useless since the stuff’s so old, it does have lots of quickly drawn blueprints of computer guts and connections of all the pc’s I’ve put together over the years.
As with any new operating system, you sort of get a bit stubborn about accepting it (though Lord knows why, since Bill G only gives us a year or two to get to know one well enough to form a relationship before he comes out with another). Vista’s really visually well presented though, and that feature overcomes some of the sense of loss such as Outlook Express. I really like Win XP, but I’ll tell you, if Jim has any complaints about this new setup when he’s coming off of Win 98, I’ll clobber him.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology