My Vista drivers are working much better now and so is my Toshiba M400. Over the last couple months the only problem I've had is with hibernate waking up occassionally by itself--hours after being powered off. It's very odd.

A developer friend just upgraded to Vista and he's both impressed and a bit frustrated. His high-end graphics card is too old for a solid driver. Supposedly the device is supported but the manufacturer is yet to release a Vista driver so he's using an XP driver which causes his system to blue screen from time to time. Overall though he likes Vista better than XP, but I'm not so sure for how many more crashes this will be the case. Now that he's used Vista for a little more than a week he says he doesn't want to go back. He's debating whether to get a new graphics card or wait for a true Vista driver. I've suggested he upgrade the hardware. Time for a run to Frys. :-)

I have another friend who runs a small, high-tech business and after showing him Vista he purchsed all new Vista machines for his office. It didn't work out. Several of the machines (from two different companies) supposedly didn't have Vista drivers for the hardware he received. And this was about two months ago. He returned them with no problems and got XP systems instead.

Not all people I know are running into Vista problems though. My parents both run Vista 100% and have never encountered a blue screen or errant behaviour. So I take it it's hit or miss. I run so much beta software I'm not a fair test case. I live on the edge constantly.

I really like the idea though of Microsoft working with customers during this transition period. It says a lot.

Downgrading option has been there from the day one: http://download.microsoft.com/download/d/2/3/d23b9533-169d-4996-b198-7b9d3fe15611/downgrade_chart.doc

Can I downgrade my OEM version of Windows Vista Business to Windows XP Professional?

Yes. OEM downgrade rights for desktop PC operating systems apply to Windows Vista Business and Windows Vista Ultimate as stated in the License Terms. Please note, OEM downgrade versions of Windows Vista Business and Windows Vista Ultimate are limited to Windows XP Professional (including Windows XP Tablet PC Edition and Windows XP x64 Edition).

The hibernation waking up by itself is part of the Vista Task Scheduler. Open it up and see what task is waking up hibernation and disable it.

Having played with a device running Vista at the GBM roundup I was impressed at how well it did handwriting recognition even when I was purposefully "writing sloppy", compared to my Nec Versa Litepad. Over at http://jkontherun.blogs.com/jkontherun/2007/09/even-microsoft-.html?cid=83710085#comment-83710085 I asked if people had ways where they tried to use a "Vista-Lite" version that was leaner than full Vista, so you could get the benefits for basic functioning of a Tablet but maintain speed and minmimize crashes. There have been a number of suggestions there.

Any manipulations that worked well for people here? Or turned into a disaster?

Thanks.

We ordered 170 Gateway tablet PCs for our school this year with the XP downgrade. Our students all use the tablet PCs in class to take notes, and when we tested vista on a set of the same tablets last school year, we couldn't get an update for our trend micro firewall - they offered us a beta version, but hadn't released a full version for vista. We also had trouble with the software that lets students and teachers connect to the wireless projectors in the classrooms, and the IE7/vista/Outlook Web Access combo didn't work either (and there was no fix from Microsoft). Since the student and faculty e-mail from home was unusable, the firewall/antivirus client wouldn't run, and we couldn't use the mobility of the tablets in the classroom, we ditched vista for now. It is a shame because there are some excellent uprades to the inking and handwriting recognition in vista that our students can't use.

Robert Carlson
Thomas Jefferson Independent Day School
www.tjeffschool.org/edge

We ordered 170 Gateway tablet PCs for our school this year with the XP downgrade. Our students all use the tablet PCs in class to take notes, and when we tested vista on a set of the same tablets last school year, we couldn't get an update for our trend micro firewall - they offered us a beta version, but hadn't released a full version for vista. We also had trouble with the software that lets students and teachers connect to the wireless projectors in the classrooms, and the IE7/vista/Outlook Web Access combo didn't work either (and there was no fix from Microsoft). Since the student and faculty e-mail from home was unusable, the firewall/antivirus client wouldn't run, and we couldn't use the mobility of the tablets in the classroom, we ditched vista for now. It is a shame because there are some excellent uprades to the inking and handwriting recognition in vista that our students can't use.

Robert Carlson
Thomas Jefferson Independent Day School
www.tjeffschool.org/edge

We ordered 170 Gateway tablet PCs for our school this year with the XP downgrade. Our students all use the tablet PCs in class to take notes, and when we tested vista on a set of the same tablets last school year, we couldn't get an update for our trend micro firewall - they offered us a beta version, but hadn't released a full version for vista. We also had trouble with the software that lets students and teachers connect to the wireless projectors in the classrooms, and the IE7/vista/Outlook Web Access combo didn't work either (and there was no fix from Microsoft). Since the student and faculty e-mail from home was unusable, the firewall/antivirus client wouldn't run, and we couldn't use the mobility of the tablets in the classroom, we ditched vista for now. It is a shame because there are some excellent uprades to the inking and handwriting recognition in vista that our students can't use.

Robert Carlson
Thomas Jefferson Independent Day School
www.tjeffschool.org/edge

Is there an echo in here...?