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 enlarge | From: Microsoft OEM Licence
Category: Software
Buy New: £125.00
New (2) from £125.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  13 reviews
Sales Rank: 1550
Platform: Windows Vista
Media: DVD-ROM
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 0.4 x 0.4 x 0.4
Legal Disclaimer: Disclaimer: This OEM product is intended for system builders and may or may not be transferrable to another PC once it is installed. This product is for New and/or Fresh Installation and is NOT Retail nor Upgrade product. The purchaser of this product is required to comply with the terms of the System Builder license, including the responsibility of providing all end user support for the software.
MPN: 1315116
Model: 66R-00765
UPC: 882224348652
EAN: 0882224348652
ASIN: B000MFFIBO
Release Date: January 30, 2007
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Nice but only with NEW computer and parts. October 7, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I will agree with the previous reviewers. It is quite nice but not as an upgrade. It needs a lot of power and there are no drivers for almost any hardware part that came out after Jan 2007. Even those vista drivers that exist for older hardware are of limited functionality. I will also agree that the security pop ups reach the point of ridiculous. I have an Hp officejet 7310 who would not print correctly on both sides of a page. Although I did have the ultimate, the only extra program that I got over the internet was video desktop themes.
Overall, I was disappointed by the backwards compatibility. It is almost a completely new OS. Buy it only with a new computer and accessories. Personally, I went back to XP and I am happy that everything works fine.
 A downgrade "upgrade" August 27, 2007
4 out of 9 found this review helpful
We bought this as an upgrade to a well specified business PC. 2GB RAM, 256MB graphics card and 120GB HDD. So far, so good except:
Vista would not recognise the graphics card and there is no Vista driver available for this card. We swapped the card for another ATI card which did work. Vista would not recognise our scanner. There is currently no driver available ofr the scanner. The manufacturer cannot tell us if they will even be doing one! There is a software clash with our camera. We have been told that it will be 6 months before a driver is available as the camera (18 months old) is not a current model. We have also had numerous other hardware issues.
Using Vista on the network is a drag. The security is overpowering and sometimes requires as many as 6 separate dialogue warning boxes to be clicked yes/no/ok before it actually lets you do what you needed to do.
There are also major software issues with some of our legacy software, especially anything that was originally DOS based. This is a critical issue for the business as some of the software is still the only tool for the job. We have also had trouble with some current non-Microsoft software.
When it did work, it slowed everything to about half the speed of XP. The new user interface "Aero" and the scrolling screens attracted much criticism from the users. The "see through" function meant that on many of our LCD screens the text was indecipherable. Whilst better on the old CRT monitors, it was still far from perfect.
Microsoft have really lost the plot with Vista. It is next to useless as a business tool. It was so bad that we have uninstalled it from the machine and returned to XP. We are currently requesting a full refund from the seller (who is not being co-operative).
If you are a business user, hang on to XP for as long as possible.
pretty but not practical July 21, 2007
5 out of 7 found this review helpful
If you have a system running XP i would suggest you stick with XP.
This has major issues with drivers and aplications being unavailable to go with previous hard ware (for instance check the forums of creatives audigy sound card range)It also is missing the vital sound hard wear control layer for games, you will have to purchase a seperate piece of soft wear to get that working.
major lag issues with java internet apps at the moment:
in all it looks nice but im buying a copy of XP to put on systems as i'm going to get less problems
Nvidia Video Card Owners Beware! July 10, 2007
13 out of 17 found this review helpful
Trusting the latest reviews of Vista featured here, I decided to take the plunge and upgrade to Vista in the hope that any software teething bugs would have been rectified by now. How wrong I was.
The installation was a breeze and I have to admit that Vista looks great!
However, if you play computer games or run 3D software then the following might apply to you?
My system runs an NVIDIA graphics card which presently Vista has problems running smoothly (even with the latest drivers). I discovered this after attempting to play Lord of the Rings Online and FEAR. The screen would intermittently turn black after which an error message would pop up stating that the NVIDIA graphics driver had stopped responding and has been successfully restarted. This makes games unplayable.
It seems this issue has been ongoing for five months now and still there is no software fix. Try a quick web search with the following VISTA NVIDIA STOPPED RESPONDING to view just some of the forums reporting this problem.
There seem to be four options/solutions for this problem:
1) Wait for the fixed video card driver to be released (hopefully within 12 months).
2) Buy a new non NVIDIA video card (a decent video card costs 250)
3) Format hard drive and install XP (defeats objective of upgrading Windows)
3) Create a partition on your hard disk drive and install Windows XP there.
I opted for option 4. My computer now dual boots which means I select Vista at start up for non 3D related tasks and select XP at start up to run computer games. This is by no means ideal but I don't expect to see a fix for this issue anytime soon.
In short, if you are a NVIDIA video card owner then stay well away from Vista until this major driver bug is fixed.
If you are unsure of which make of video card you have installed on your PC then try START / SETTINGS / CONTROL PANEL / SYSTEM / HARDWARE TAB / DEVICE MANAGER / DISPLAY ADAPTERS
 Pretty Pleased! May 15, 2007
9 out of 10 found this review helpful
As a web developer I researched Vista pretty thoroughly before deciding to take the plunge. The OEM version is great value for money, you even get a smallish installation booklet/manual with it. I really can't see the point in buying the full version - everything you want to know is probably on Google anyway.
I decided on the fresh install rather than the upgrade. I've learnt from past experience that trying to load one OS on top of another OS leads to slow and sluggish performance. So would recommend getting a usb hard-drive and backing up your files and then doing a fresh install.
Word of warning - not all applications are supported on Vista and many have incompatibilities. Microsoft products should be fine but Norton Ghost 9.0 didn't want to play ball at all. I installed Coldfusion 7 with some tech help I found online but could not do any upgrades to the application. If you rely on a host of non-Microsoft applications and are not prepared to purchase updated versions (some of which have yet to become available) then I would hang fire for the time being.
What am I running it on? I decided to upgrade my Latitude d610 to 2gb RAM which involved removing the keyboard (but that was easier than it sounds). Even though the compatibility checker said I couldn't run Aero (transparent windows and 3d flick thru tabbing graphics) the upgraded D610 handled it with ease. So don't always believe everything the compatibility checker tells you. But Aero isn't all that really, I could quite easily turn it off and be none the wiser - just a bit of fun.
So what's different - well the whole thing just has a better feel to it, its generally kinder on the eyes - and generally i enjoy working on it - a feeling that up until now has been the privilege of Mac users. Things work more smoothly and the filing system is more logical - more Mac OSX and less clunky in presentation than XP. There is better security although so obtrusive for the experienced user I had to turn it off. Overall stability is excellent, no crashes as yet. The new gadget bar is pretty pointless, although will be interesting to see what gadget's third parties develop for Vista.
Why it took MS 5 years to develop it though is a mystery (maybe because they scrapped their direction 3 years in, so this is only really 2 years development). Lets hope now that they've found their direction they can begin to accomplish all those things that they said they were going to do 5 years ago.
If I'd bought Ultimate at the full price I would probably only give it 3.5 stars, but this is good value.
My Advice: If you're the early adopter type, go for it, its fun. But if you're a technophobe steer well clear for another year at least OR buy it when you next get a new PC.
HTH
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