Monday December 29
 
10:11
 
Hello Vista!

I’ve not been Vista’s greatest fan, but after installing it yesterday, I’ve changed my mind completely. Installing Vista has completely cured my laptop fuzzy VGA output (see comment here).

This is more likely due to drivers than anything else. My suspicion is that due to Aero’s requirements (needing a Graphics score of 3.0) and the class action about what “Vista Capable” really means, Intel and Microsoft have been forced to pay attention to driver implementation for common chipsets, hence the better overally quality. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the initial GMA950 (945GM) driver upon installing Vista rated 2.2 and the later driver installed during Windows Update meets the exact minimum for Aero.

The other problems with Vista may still be there – I’ve yet to try out network shares – but this one change alone makes Vista a keeper for me. I’m actually astounded the VGA output is now clear – I expected the issue to be with the power of my laptop’s analog D-SUB output rather than a driver issue (I’m sure my XP drivers are up to date).

Why did I install Vista? Two reasons. Firstly, everyone I know now that asks me for PC help has Vista. Secondly, if I do build my own PC, it will have 64-bit Vista to take advantage of 4/8Gb memory.

I am now completely Macless. Due to limited disk space, I had to replace the Macos X installation on my LG with Vista. I’m now Windows only. I should probably have tried the VGA output from Mac before scrubbing the installation – don’t know why I didn’t think about doing that.