New laptop advice

Yes, you can dual boot XP and Vista.  The setup isn't all that challenging, but you are going to need at least one of them already installed and the installation disk for the other.  Might be a challenge if you received the operating system of your current PC with the PC itself, in which case the installation disk is probably a recovery disk that will only work on the same PC.  You will have to create a partition for the other operating system.

One thing you may be able to do if you act quickly is to call the vendor you purchase the laptop from and request that they install an OS downgrade.  Typically this would mean you would buy Vista but they would install XP for you.  They should also send you the Vista disks.  That would give you an XP machine that you could then partition and install Vista into that partition for your dual-boot solution (see here or lots of other forums for instructions).

I say act fast though because if I'm not mistaken Microsoft won't allow their resellers to do this after June 2008.  At least my company (which installs and ships the very configuration I just described) has been notified by Microsoft that we can only ship Vista after June.

Something else also comes to mind:

I have a lot of software on this current machine that I would like to put on my new laptop.  A lot of these I have on CD, but some are downloaded freeware software, which is also easy to sort out, because I can re-download them.

However, I have a lot saved games and addons (especially for Firefox, where I'd like to keep my profile) and all sorts for things, so it'd be easier to transfer everything across in one go.  I do realise that installing software is the way to go though, because then it enters into the registry properly and everything.

Anyhow, is there a way of making my laptop talk to this PC, without using a network cable?  This machine doesn't have bluetooth, unfortunately.

I'll have to move a lot of my install and saved files over to my external drive otherwise and I'd rather not do that if I can, because it could take ages.

As I said, I'm getting a new 1 tb external drive and I have 250 gb one already.  My 250 gb drive has over 100 gb of files on that I'd actually prefer to put on my 1 tb drive in the future, but my current PC has very small drives, so I won't be able to move them to there (that's why they're on the external in the first place -- lack of space).

The only option I can think of for now, is to copy (not move) my files from my 250 gb external over to my new laptop's 250 gb drive and then move them all to the 1 tb drive.  After all, I only want to use my laptop drive for installed software really and keep the external for saved files and the actually install files themselves.  Plus my music, of course.

I don't think I can plug in two large drives together.  My brother tried it on this machine once and it reset my computer.  Memory sticks and large storage devices are fine though.

Any ideas on how to transfer my files quickly?


Edited by James - April 22 2008 at 23:06

Because I prefer AMD.  All my machines, except my very old 386, have been AMD and they've never let me down, so I want to stick with them.

Besides, I've found a laptop that has an nVidea graphics card and an AMD chipset.

I would wait for the quadcore AMD for laptops, but that could be a while yet.

James wrote: I would wait for the quadcore AMD for laptops, but that could be a while yet.

Are you going to run processor intensive software such as video editing or heavy(multiple channels laden with effects) sound recording?
If not, why bother getting quad-core. A dual-core is suitable for light editing and recording.

sheesh, I need sleep. Too many typos.


Edited by king of Siam - April 23 2008 at 02:25

king of Siam wrote: James wrote: I would wait for the quadcore AMD for laptops, but that could be a while yet. Are you going to run processor intensive software such as video editing or heavy(multiple channels laden with effects) sound recording? If not, why bother getting quad-core. A dual-core is suitable for light editing and recording. sheesh, I need sleep. Too many typos.

Maybe in the future, but not at the moment.

I'm quite happy with a dualcore, besides, it's cheaper.

Oh I know that, but I wanted an AMD/GeForce laptop and that's one of the few available.  The new Pavilion series doesn't have a replacement for it.

king of Siam wrote: James wrote: Oh I know that, but I wanted an AMD/GeForce laptop and that's one of the few available.  The new Pavilion series doesn't have a replacement for it. http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping/computer_can_series.do?storeName=computer_store&category=notebooks&a1=Category&v1=Entertainment+powerhouse&series_name=dv9700z_series US version. BTW, most people say that Intel is better than AMD for laptops.

Here we go, this is more like it.  This is the one Siam was referring to and it has a GeForce card.

http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?Quicklinx=4XW8&CategorySelectedId=11105&NavigationKey=11105,50220000,42880000,50240


Edited by James - April 23 2008 at 02:54

http://www.notebookcheck.net/ATI-Radeon-Xpress-X1250.6946.0.html
not so much of a graphics card.

What's your price range?

Lol, I think since it's just me, Siam and James, we might as well take this back to the Velvet Room.