I don’t think vista’s that bad, it’s just designed to work for a different user than XP - XP is easier to use if you know your way around, whereas vista’s more of a tinker free platform. It is harder to access some of the stuff that more advanced users might need in Vista, just needs a different approach.
I use XP pro on two laptops and Vista on a third, and with a little delving Vista swings along fine.
The thing with Vista (indeed all MS stuff) is that to support that pretty, noddy GUI it has to make like a swan - all calm on the surface but shitloads going on underneath.XP is bloated, but Vista is ridiculous.
Actually, I fully appreciate their help. The same was posted on another forum so I’m waiting to see what happens with Acer. Like I said, I fully appreciated the info and a lot of people have offered advice…what I don’t need is a lecture from a few people who have had the good fortune to be fully aware of what needs to be done with new laptops these days…This is my first new computer and I’ve learnt the hard way.
My gripe wasn’t with the fact it all failed…it was the fact it lasted 12 months and 2 weeks…then failed!!..cracking timing me thinks! :doze: 
I wasn’t trying to lecture and I apologise if it came over that way and caused offence.
My only point was, if I have any kind of important info I make sure I have it backed up somewhere, preferably not in the same house. To me that’s as obvious as servicing your car or bike, that’s all I was saying. I know someone who tells me how they lost all their Uni course work, the day before it was due in… to me that’s just irresponsible in this day and age 
I’ve never made a recovery disc… ever, and I’ve had probably 5 different PC’s or laptops in the past 3 years and yes, more than once they’ve gone tits up, but my documents aren’t stored locally, so it’s no big deal at all. This is the age of cloud computing you know 
Anyway, that doesn’t help you, but might be worth looking into online storage for the future? Failing that, USB memory is so cheap these days, 64gig for abour £25. Might be a worth while investment.
I havent read the full thread so apologies if this has been suggested already.
I do back my stuff up and have an external drive so thankfully when I had issues with my laptop 2 weeks ago, I didnt lose anything that I cared about.
My cousin who reinstalled everything for me suggested I use docstore on gmail and then use flicker or something similar for my photos.
I have started the docstore thing and wish I’d been told about it ages ago.
The good thing about gmail is that the account doesnt stop being active if you dont use it, or at least mine didnt in the last 3 years! 
Do you mean google docs? If not, what do you mean?
Acer are as good as HP on build quality? Tosh too? im not sure i agree on that one having taken apart all of the mentioned brands’ laptops on a regular basis for a few years. Dell and HP have quirks but usually its memory that fails in the HP / Dell kit and these components are not made in house often with the exception of a handful. ive seen COPUNTLESS aer laptops go wrogn and more than often its been the system boards. poor cooling system designs account for the majority of the remainder and i have seen CPU’S burn out 4 times. i really am not a fan or impressed with their kit to be honest!
lol…yeah that.
Docstore is work thing…whoops.
I will just shut up…
I usually do store stuff on disk, but just hadn’t done this for the laptop. I had no intention of using it for pics and docs but as it worked faster than my old big computer it was just to easy to take advantage of it. Most of my pics are on ‘Photobucket’ anyway but thankfully the USB 2.0 to IDE and SATA that I bought for £11 from ebuyer has proved invaluable…if no one has one…get one, they’re great! All pics and docs were downloaded onto Dave’s comp and then saved onto disk.
I’m going to buy another HD for the laptop when I get paid as there’s a slim chance this caused some of the problems.
I spoke to Acer on Thursday and they said they would easily send a reboot disk…for £48.99. Obviously I said ‘thanks but no thanks’…in a polite way…and then just ordered XP Pro this morning.
I’ll be quoting the EU info that was posted on here and the other site I visit when I email them later.
A few people have suggested Windows 7, but Dave needs XP Pro so he can link into his work computer when he starts working from home next week as the company will not be changing over to W7 any time soon.
I’ve also just found out that my big computer is having some minor issues. I think the connection in the back that you plug the screen cable into is knackered as it won’t work on either of the computer screens we have here!! These things come in threes don’t they!! :w00t:
The thing is, the cheaper end of the spectrum for all notebooks are pretty shoddily made.I’ve seen plenty of cheap Dell and HPs disintegrate after little more than a year.There’s a reason they’re cheap - the components are rubbish.Jools’ machine is a mid-range one, and as such is pretty decent quality-wise.The laptops I’ve had to repair have mostly been HP / compaq, so usually it’s the power input that’s come adrift from the board or the screen backlight.I’ve also seen horrifically cheap Acer machines that might as well have been made from cuckoo spit, but the one we have is of comparable quality to Dell/HP/Tosh at the same price point.
Apart from this problem with the OS, the machine has been very good - and from a spot of searching, lots of people with lots of different machines have suffered the same problems with Vista.
Good job I have my Linux machine to fall back on - just a shame I can’t use it for work.
im on a native linux setup at home! screw micosoft!
That’s exactly what GM said!
But Windows doesn’t need to be the same version to connect to each other?
I tried that approach, but Linux still just isn’t an easy OS to use 
For example, my USB Virgin dongle installs itself on Windows, couldn’t be done on Linux, even by someone who know’s what he’s doing
All I know is Dave can’t do a Remote Link to his work computer if I have W7 on the laptop. I like XP Pro anyway so it suits me.
The disc arrived this morning so I’ll be spending all day loading that on!
I’ve adapted OK to the Linux on Dave’s computer. It takes a little bit of getting used to, but its pretty user friendly.
RDP from one machine to another is no problem, it’s the firewall / VPN client that doesn’t work on anything higher than Vista, and neither does the VoIP client.
I need to run the VPN client so that I get a secure connection to work - I then just run RDP and work on my work desktop.I could use virtualbox on linux, but I’s still have to get a MS licence for the guest OS.
As for linux not being user-friendly, I have Ubuntu installed, and it is so much better than the RedHat install I had a few years ago.I’ve not found any hardware it doesn’t support yet, and things like the wireless network management is far superior to the MS offering.
