XP is back on Miyagi- XP 1 -Vista O
The mess that Vista SP1 made of Miyagi, my Fujitsu P1610, just got worse and worse. I was getting a BSOD every 10 minutes or so and Miyagi was totally unusable as a result. It was evident I was going to have to rebuild the Fuji to get rid of SP1 and when I said I was going back to XP rather than reinstall Vista I wasn’t kidding. Last night I restored to XP using the Restore disc that shipped with the P1610 and that went flawlessly. In about 20 minutes the Fuji was back to the factory state and waiting for me to reload my programs and data.
Program install went without a hitch and in short order I had my core work configuration up and running. I then copied all my data using the Asus EasySync cable that came with my R2H. EasySync is a USB cable that plugs into two computers and it has the transfer software in flash memory on the cable itself so there was nothing to install. The two computer’s files opened up in tiled windows and I just drug and dropped my documents and all my music from the HP to the Fuji. It was 20 GB of files but took less than an hour, the EasySync cable is very fast indeed.
Once I had all my data copied over I downloaded and installed Windows Desktop Search to enable instant searching in Outlook 2007 and OneNote 2007. In just 20 minutes it had indexed all my 40,000+ files and searching is lightning fast as a result. My work will be easy to do with the system now fully functional. I didn’t realize how much I’d missed using the P1610 until I couldn’t use it for a few days. It feels so good to have Miyagi back!
I should cover how well the Fuji is running under XP compared to Vista. Can you say snappy? I knew you could. That’s how Miyagi is running now, I had not complained about how the Fuji ran under Vista prior to SP1 mucking things up because the performance wasn’t bad. I wasn’t having performance problems with Vista on this device severe enough to make me regret loading Vista, just the occasional disk thrashing and slow resumption from sleep mode. Those awful docking/ undocking graphics problems were annoying too. Now that I’ve got XP loaded back on it is apparent to me how much faster it is now than before. Standby and Resume takes a couple of seconds, and I don’t find the hard drive active unless I’m doing something with it. The system is downright fast, and I am a very happy camper. I would compare the overall performance of the P1610 with XP as fast as that of the HP 2710p with Vista. That’s impressive when you compare the specs:
Fuji- 1.2 GHz Core Solo processor; 1 GB of memory, 60 GB hard drive
HP- 1.2 GHz Core 2 Duo processor, 2 GB of memory, 100 GB hard drive
That’s pretty telling when a much better equipped mobile PC running Vista Business runs about as good as a much older device running XP. Based on my experience with the P1610 for the past 24 hours I would not recommend anyone who is buying one of these, and I highly recommend the device, to order a model with Vista. I can’t state it any clearer than that and I do get asked that question a lot.
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James:
I don’t understand it at all. It makes me want to scream “WAKE UP” to MS. Vista is a dog – make that a DOG on mobile devices. I’ve already mentioned my utter frustration at not being able to spend my hard earned gadget dollars on a new laptop/tablet/umpc because Vista simply doesn’t work well on them. I returned an X61 tablet and a Sony T series (which was gorgeous) because Vista was slow and buggy.
I can’t/won’t/shouldn’t have to spend hours trying to tweak and debug that disaster of an operating system to try and minimize BSOD’s from occurring. I was hoping that SP1 would clear up most of the problems so that the OS would be stable enough to warrant spending $$$ on mobile devices again. Based upon your experience – probably not.
And while you have been an outspoken advocate about Vista’s problems on mobile devices, I don’t think you have gone far enough. I know from speaking with some gadget friends, that Vista is the *sole* reason they are not spending money on new laptops and mobile computing devices. Think about that for a moment – right now computers are running better chips, some of the new hardware is gorgeous, intuitive, interesting and very enticing – but my days of playing programmer are over. I want my OS to work out of the box (normal tweaks excepted) – and I demand that my OS be stable. Is that so much to ask for? Vista is single-handedly stopping me (and others) from purchasing a new device. That’s scary. And sad.
Your comments resonate here.
I recently bought a Fujitsu U1010 with VISTA. I’d planned to buy an XP pre-installed version but just couldn’t get hold of one. Despite tweaking extensively, the machine is just too slow to use. I’ve still had no reply from Fujitsu tech support in regards to obtaining XP Tablet recovery disks/ XP installation solutions. I tried to install XP with the drivers yesterday but many of the devices don’t work and the device is about as useful as a paperweight. All in all, it’s not been a good experience so far…..My Sony UX280 with XP Pro continues to perform flawlessly.
When will the manufacturers and Microsoft realise that VISTA is NOT appropriate for the majority of current microPCs / UMPCs /palm-laptops? A dedicated VISTA-lite or UMPC-XP is needed!
Basically, VISTA on those little toys is unusalbe.
Well, it’ll certainly stop ME buying any more mobile PC hardware unless it comes with XP or a customised OS pre-installed and most others in this house now feel the same. Trying to get my hands on a full copy of XP tablet OS is still a ‘works in progress’ here in Oz! I just hope that the manufacturers realise that VISTA is killing off the microPC/ UMPC market, just when the hardware is maturing. Most people want something that works after the unboxing ceremony rather than beginning a few days of extended technical adjustments punctuated by poor customer support experiences, long internet searches, a few failed experiments and the occasional *@#$%^** expletive…..Bill Gates and Mr Fujitsu- I hope you’re listening!
Bluescreens? Sounds like you got sh!t drivers, not that the OS blows. Fujitsu is one company that *will not* provide any sample machines prior to them releasing for us to do testing with and then when they release a system that turds out they squak.
I am not saying we do not buy machines, but when other OEM/ODMs build hardware we get a chance to dev in concert with the prototype hardware as we do the OS work.
Oh sure, some say OS should be stable reguardless of the hardware and while we have our fair share of bugs, we can not find driver bugs for hardware we do not have access to before it gets in the hands of customers.
iWorkThere (if you really do):
1. this device has been on the market for almost a year
2. this device ran Vista fine, it’s SP1 that causes the BSODs
3. instead of complaining that Fujitsu won’t provide units to MS, why don’t they BUY them. Can’t MS afford them?
4. consumers have a right to expect any OS to be stable once it ships, no matter the hardware. Especially hardware that was properly designated as “Vista capable” according to MS guidelines
5. maybe MS should quit allowing Vista to ship on hardware that is not capable of providing a proper operation experience, ya think?
James,
I didn’t realize the Vista SP1 was available for consumers! You are speaking about a retail SP, right?
let me get this straight. you install a WAY beta SERVICE PACK for vista and bitch about stability? i purchased a 1610 in december A GOOD DEAL in part because of your reviews. The 1610 is a trainwreck and to blame vista is a cop out. the drivers suck and vista drivers were clearly an afterthought from day one. the device is pathetically underpowered and to blame vista as bloated is pathetic. IS IT SO HARD FOR THESE MANUFACTURERS TO ACCOMMODATE 2GB OF RAM? its 2007 people get real 1gb is useless now. all the umpcs on the market are a wate unless they can accommodate vista and to actually tell people to go back to xp instead of letting the hardwre vendors off the hook for antiquated designs is a joke. hindsight IS 20/20 and the hardware will always catch up. i cant wait for my 2710p to arrive do i can dump the 1610.
In James case, it’s a combination of issues that just doesn’t work well with Vista.
* Max 1GB RAM with microDIMM’s
* Late Vista drivers
* 4200 RPM hard drive. The hard drive seems to be the main bottleneck with Vista. Where’s the emphasis of hybrid hard drives being a requirement to be a stamp of approval for Vista Premium.. After some time now, we still haven’t seen any. ReadyDrive? No mention of that in the blogosphere and I’m not even talking about ReadyBoost.
* Chipset. It usually takes the next generation of Intel/VIA chipsets to be optimized for the next version of Windows.
Besides these issues, IMO, Vista is a bloated piece of crap. There’s a lot of processes in the background running we don’t know what the hell they are doing. For portable/mobile devices, it’s better to be as efficient as possbile.
Going back to XP, it’s doable with 1GB RAM. Going with Linux, it’s doable with 512KB of RAM.
I personally want to thank Microsoft for releasing Windows Vista. After running XP Media Center Edition on my Dell M1210 Core 2 Duo laptop with 1GB of RAM, I received my free upgrade to Vista. Within days of its install, I was so fed up with the OS’ lackluster performance and stability that made me flash-forward things to come for Windows-based PCs, that I immediately Craigslist’ed my notebook and bought a MacBook. Stability issues and remarkable performance with the same specs as my previous M1210, I never looked back again. Thanks to Microsoft, I am now a proud Mac owner. Don’t worry, I’ve Boot Camp’ed your copy of XP but I’ve yet to boot that side more than once every three or four weeks.