The Vista Guide

Vista Guide For The Dumbies!
Note
I managed to recover the old copy of this I had. But all the changes I made were lost due to the reformat. So I will get eveything back up to date ASAP!
Introduction
This is a guide for advice with installing, and trouble shooting Vista. Vista has obviously grown and become more mature in the past year since I wrote this guide, so not eveything in here applies as it would of at that time.
Tips and Advice for Installing
The Whys, Whats, Wheres, And Whens with Vista
The Whats:
What Is Vista?
Vista is the latest operating system from Microsoft. It comes preloaded with many, many features, and security apps. It comes compliment with DirectX 10 for future games like, Crysis etc. Comes with Windows Aero (if card meets requirements, ATi: X300 and above nVidia: Pending...) this gives Vista a fantastic look. It makes windows transparent, it's also fully customizable to any colour of your choice.
I'm buying a new PC, What's the Express Upgrade?
When Vista is released you will have you ability to pay about £25/$50 to go to Vista, higher the version higher the price obviously.
The Whys:
Well switching has many advantages, but also some disadvantages.
A break down of them would be:
Advantages: (Taken from Vista Ultimate)
Windows Aero
Future proof
DirectX 10
Has a far superior look, and easier GUI
Very customizable with colours etc
Allows you to get right in there with the settings
Comes preloaded with Windows Firewall, and Windows Defender
Far better security, things like: UAC (user Account Control) are on by defualt
Windows Update pre-installed
Windows Media Player 11
Windows Mail
Windows Media Centre
Windows SideBar
Pre-installed Xbox 360 support
Internet Explorer 7
Far more options in control panel, at least 15 more compared to XP
FireFox works on it! (A lil' personal of mine)
iTunes compatable
WinAmp compatable
KMS server Activation for multiple licenses (Business and Enterprise ONLY)
Supports Zune players
Disadvantages: (Taken From Vista Ultimate)
Terrible for playing some games - puts a big performance hit on 99% of game titles.
1GB of RAM minimal! (Takes about 50%-60% of 1GB RAM running idle!) But 2GBs is highly recommended.
Has memory dump issues when display drivers aren't installed with ATI cards.
If a program doesn't support Windows Aero, Windows Aero automatically disables itself 'til the program is closed.
The Wheres and Whens:
Where and When should I install Vista?
You should install Vista when you think the time is appropriate. Perhaps bug fixes or other things are solved. Drivers are more sofisticated, etc.
How Long Will It Take to Install?
On my machine, it took about 40-45 minutes from putting the disk in to finaliazing the Vista setup.
So obviously time shall vary depending on your specs.
Although on my 3400+ it took about 1hr 15mins. So you get what I mean with the time, yes?
Where can I find some drivers for Vista?
32-bit and/or 64-bit:
ATi: http://ati.amd.com/support/drivers/vista32/common-vista32.html
nVidia: http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_downloads_rel70betadriver.html
AMD: http://www.amd.com/gb-uk/Processors/TechnicalResources/0,,30_182_871,00.html
Intel: http://downloadfinder.intel.com/scripts-df-external/Support_Intel.aspx?iid=homepage+hdr_nav2_download
Now that the drivers and questions are out of the way...
Installation!
So you want to take the challenge of Installation...?
Upgrade or Fresh Install?
Upgrade is of NO option in my opinion. For the majority of drivers and software you have. There will be at least one of each that will not work with Vista. Thus that could stop Vista from booting. So a format and fresh install is reccomended.
(NOTE: A handy way to keep all your data is by partitioning your drive. Putting the data on the one partition, then your apps and OS on the other. I have found this to be awesomely effective when it comes to back-up.)
The Installation Process
The process of the Vista installation is quite simple.
0. Drop the disk in, boot it up.
1. Wait for the setup Window to show, then click "Install Now".
2. You will be prompted for your product key, insert it, click "Next".
3. Setup will then show you the different versions available or automatically pick from the key you entered. (Versions shown) Choose which one you wish to install, left click, then "Next" once again.
4. Setup will then display a license agreement. Decline; setup will exit. Accept; setup will proceed.
5. The installation process begins. Copies files to computer, expands the files, then configures settings etc, etc.
NOTE: Machine will reboot 7 times during installation.
Finalizing the Setup
After the installation process finishes setup will boot Vista, and display a full screen window similar to that of the XP finalization.
Go through each step, choosing to your preference.
After you have chosen, Vista will run the Windows Experience Index. Think of it as a becnhmark. This usually takes about 5-7 mins to complete.
Once the Windows Experience Index is completed, machine will reboot, boot Vista, then you may choose your user account.
NOTE: If you only typed in one user, automatic logon will take place unless a password was used.
Congratulations! You just installed Windows Vista! So check out some of the features, and do some tweaking. But I highly reccommend to disable UCC, as it is VERY annoying if you do alot of Administrator actions.
Trouble Shooting!
Vista Won't Boot Up and/or Crashes During Start-up
There are many ways in which you can fix these type of problems.
The first one is:
0. Drop your Vista disk in, boot it up.
1. Once booted, select the system restore option
2. Choose your restore point, and restore back.
The second is:
0. Drop your Vista disk in, boot it up.
1. Select the repair option
2. Allow the process to continue, machine will reboot then Vista should boot up.
The third is:
REINSTALL! Lol.
This guide is an on-going thing. Updates are very welcome, and possibley any mistakes I made are welcome to be pointed out.
I hope this has helped your understanding of Vista a bit more! And that you look foreward to using it in the future!
Thanks for reading!
Version 1.0
UPDATE: Version 1.1: Fixed CSS and spelling errors. Added Intro and some extra tips.
UPDATE: Version 1.11: Fixed more spelling errors. Added Zune compatability advantage. (Thanks to Tiresmoke)
COMING SOON: Version 2.0: Full refresh of article, everything updated etc.
Found it. Don't ask how, I have no idea myself.

Some useful links to tuning Vista to your needs:
Vista Service Configurations
Vista Tunetips
TweakVista
Vista How-to guide
Vista Sidebar gadgets

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    I managed to install it but ended up with a few doubts, about some parts of the installation.
    On the "Partition Hard Drives" part, it says that there are 3 types of disk partitions (primary, extended, logical), but when I'm creating the partitions with cfdisk, I can only choose between primary and logical. Does the extended gets created automatically when I create some logical partitions?
    When I have to set the filesystem mountpoints, I think that I don't do anything to the /dev/sda (I only set the ones with numbers at the end - the partitions), but I don't think the wiki is clear on this, the only thing I see there is this part: "Recall that partitions end in a number. Therefore, sda is not itself a partition, but rather, signifies an entire drive" which is easily overlooked when you don't understand much.
    When you need to choose the mirrors (/etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist), the wiki doesn't tell much. For example, what is the difference between choosing ftp or http servers? do you choose both? In the beginning there's a server that has as a comment #any, does this mean it will choose automatically which server it will use?
    that's it... for now :)

    moosie wrote:For the hard drive part, someone correct me if I'm wrong, but sda refers to the whole drive where as sda# refers to a partition, one might say portion, of this drive; i.e sda1 would be the first partition sda2 the second and so on. As for the mirrors for the difference between ftp and http refer to this link: http://daniel.haxx.se/docs/ftp-vs-http.html  I haven't read this but it seems to be a good source of knowledge. Also for the mirrors and the install as a whole I recommend watching this youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjTTl_9aUXc in the video the reflector and curl are used to come up with the fastest mirrors based on your location and he goes through the whole installation process all the way to the point where he installs gnome.
    In general, if you're not sure of something, better not to post it. Also, don't do googling for someone else, Arch users are expected to be competent to do their own research. Else you end up feeding help vampires (not necessarily saying the OP is one).

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