URGENT response please: PC choice

[readingr]

Thanks to all the responses, the new system has finally been ordered. Its a little different now that I've had time to research what was required along with the advice from here. I even looked at the Mac range, but they are totally over priced for what you get, so ended up getting another PC.

I went to a local store and looked carefully at what was required and found that I didn't need the quad core systems or the heavy duty graphics cards as you chaps had pointed out.

The system will be complimented with a 2 TB NAS storage system when I get round to ordering it. The old system will be reconfigured to be a storage system for the time being giving me a total storage of 1Tb on the old system and .6Tb on the new.

I bought a Dell system - specification below:

Base
Intel® Viiv™ technology - Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E6750 processor (2.66GHz)

Memory
3072MB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [2x1024+2x512]

Monitor
Dell™ 22" Black Wide Flat Panel (E228WFP) - UK/Irish

Video Card
256MB nVidia™ GeForce 8600GT graphics card

Hard Drive
640GB (2x320GB) 7200rpm SATA Hard Drive - Dual HDD Config

Floppy Drives and Additional Storage Devices
19-in-1 Media Card Reader

Microsoft Operating System
Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium - English + XP Pro

Optical Devices
16x DVD +/- RW Drive

Video Editing
IEEE 1394 PCI Adapter card

TV Tuner and Remote Control
Integrated Hybrid (Analogue/Digital) TV tuner PCIe x1 card and Dell™ remote control

Roger

[SmartWombat]

Good luck with Vista.
I'd like to know how compatible you find it with your applications.
I hear that Vista SP1 managed a measly 2% speed improvement, but XP SP3 seems to get over 10% faster.
So I'm trying to stick with XP.
Good news is Microsoft have extended the period for selling XP with new systems.

[readingr]

It is supposed to be delivered after the 12th so when I get it I will Test it with Vista and then if needed install XP in dual boot with Vista for testing.

Can you just buy the MAC OS for a PC?

Roger

[Medley]

Can you just buy the MAC OS for a PC?

Roger

No, there is nowhwere that you can buy OSX for a pc. In fact, it is a violation of Apple's EULA to run their os on any non- Apple computer.

It has been hacked and cracked, but results were sporadic and buggy at best. The last time I heard anything about it, there was still no wifi or sound, just as an example.

There has been a kind of grassroots project to adapt the os to run on x86 architechture, but I quit following such things some time ago. It was known as the OSx86 project, and I'm sure if you Google it, you'll come up with something.

- Joe U.

[readingr]

I don't believe it - ordered the machine on Saturday evening and I just got a call to say the new machine is being delivered tomorrow morning. What great service, assuming it does arrive tomorrow morning.

Roger

[readingr]

Well it arrived on time at 10:30 with all the software installed but not registered. It included PSE 6 and Premier for video editing, so will play with these before installing CS2

So far Vista has been easy to install software on with no problems. It had already been patched with loads of patches before arrival so hats of to the chaps at Dell.

I will continue to play with Vista for a while or if it keeps going this well then it will stay on the machine.

The only software that I will have to buy new is Ghost but then mine was very, very old version.

Canon software worked out of the box - once copied off the web and so did the Gretag Macbeth off the CD so the monitor is colour adjusted. Spotted quite a few recent photos with yellow cast, all now corrected.

Still getting used to some of the things on Vista and cannot get the TV part working but that could be the ariel feed is only connected to the radio anntena not the TV anntena.

Will let you know how I get on in the next few weeks.

Roger

PS. I was determined not to like Vista, but its growing on me.

[readingr]

I promised that after checking things out with the new PC and Vista that I would report back on the problems found. Well I am disappointed - it seems to run better than XP :cryin: :mad2:

I have now installed all the software that I used to use on XP and the only problem is with Firefox which will not always startup. Cannot find a solution to this problem and the Mozilla forums aren't that helpful. Some say its a problem with Zone Alarm, others say its a RAID module on Dell machines, others say its a profile issue. Well its none of these. I have no RAID on this machine, It happens whether Zone Alarm is running or not, and the profile fix does not work.

As for Adobe CS2/PSE6/Bridge they run like clockwork with no issues at all. Just make sure that you execute the setup.exe as an Administrator then no problems at all.

EyeOne colour management installed out of the box with no issues

Canon software was downloaded from the WEB and as long as you have the original CD in the drive it installed with no issues and runs perfectly.

My OED V11 and thesaurus works even though its not supposed to.

Garmin software worked out of the box with the update.

No crashes from Vista or any of the apps since I got the system.

Spamfighter, AVG, Zone Alarm cause no problems

And as for the 24" Dell LCD monitor in wide screen it is sharp and the colour rendition is excellent with loads of space for the picture and the tools on the screen. Makes life so much easier than shuffling everything around when viewing the picture at full resolution.

Conclusion:
Vista stays on the system. Will wait for Firefox to get its act sorted - disappointed that it doesn't work though and especially on the amount of help available from Mozilla.

Roger