Lego Star Wars Ii And Vista

[WrongEyedJesus]

I am quickly realising all that I heard about Vista being a pain in the proverbial is correct. Tried to install Lego Star Wars II. It loads then doesn't recognise my USB gamepad and when I exit there is no icon, or listing anywhere I can see.

I am still getting my head round the whole Vista thing. I would appreciate any pointers, both specific to this or on any wider issues, for instance iTunes appears to ruin my Windows Explorer until I uninstall it. I need to run Windows for my partner and kid, so Linux etc not an option. Is Vista simply that much of a pain in the arse when looking at backwards compatibility or is there anything I can do?

I'm not an idiot but I'm no techie either. I've had a read round and there does seem to be some compatibility issues with LSW2 but all seem to specific for me.

All thoughts welcome. Many thanks as ever.

WEJ

 

[Username]

Good luck getting this to work on Vista, I know how bad it is trying to run stuff on it. You're better off installing XP in my opinion.

 

[WrongEyedJesus]

I would do and may stil try to do so, but the PC is as much my partner's and the boy's as mine and it's not fair for me to start messing around with it like I would if it was just mine.

Vista does seem to nothing but hassle, and it's not even a case of me getting my head round it. I remember going from 3.1 to 95 all those years ago and it wasn't this much of a pain. I suppose my in-born refusal to read any manual could be held to blame if I had even got a manual or a disc with Windows on it, but it seems in this day and age paying through the nose for a new computer doesn't even warrant a hard copy of the program!

I'm ranting because I am annoyed, can you tell?!

 

[Mutilator]

i got it to install on vista, legoSW2 and lego star wars. but the second game i had issues in-game. i went through a door and would always be placed on the door in the next screen and sent back to the previous screen was really annoying but tried it on my xp machine and it worked fine.

 

[Username]

QUOTE
I would do and may stil try to do so, but the PC is as much my partner's and the boy's as mine and it's not fair for me to start messing around with it like I would if it was just mine.

I see what you mean. You could try dual-booting and have both XP and Vista, but I think you need a seperate harddrive for that (you could buy a cheap one to install XP on, and have all of your files on the normal one).

 

[Ravnos]

QUOTE
I would do and may stil try to do so, but the PC is as much my partner's and the boy's as mine and it's not fair for me to start messing around with it like I would if it was just mine.

I see what you mean. You could try dual-booting and have both XP and Vista, but I think you need a seperate harddrive for that (you could buy a cheap one to install XP on, and have all of your files on the normal one).

I don't know about Vista, but I know you can have two XP installs on the same partition provided you have the system folders named differently. It's an unsupported configuration, mainly used to recover files from a damaged install before wiping the drive and starting over, but it's possible. I don't see why it would be any different with Vista, but considering how much else Microsoft fucked up with Vista, I wouldn't be surprised if this was fucked up too.

 

[Username]

I don't know about Vista, but I know you can have two XP installs on the same partition provided you have the system folders named differently.

I did that on accident once when trying to reinstall Windows.
Edit: Puncuation

 

[WrongEyedJesus]

Slowly getting my head round Vista. I think what I am going to do is re format my laptop which is pretty good but overused and dying. Then I can use that for anything like this. ( The problems all started when LSWII stopped working on the Laptop and I lose my save. Just bought "invincibility" as well. Git.)

Started to do some p2p stuff too. My partner uses Ares Which I am not familiar with so I am using eMule and uTorrent. Both seem OK but its a long time since I have been online at home and I remember earlier versions of eMule having some spyware issues. Obiously I would rather avoid that.

Anybody got any tips on the best way to go? As I keep stressing I am no luddite but can't get too techie either.

One more thing, my new unit came with the usual package McAfee "use it for a bit until we sting you for a fortune to use it. I know a few people who use AVG and I use it at work (skinflint boss etc). Is it OK or is there anytrhing else out there anyone could recommend?

Many thanks as ever....

WEJ

*edit* spelling

 

[fishybawb]

One more thing, my new unit came with the usual package McAfee "use it for a bit until we sting you for a fortune to use it. I know a few people who use AVG and I use it at work (skinflint boss etc). Is it OK or is there anytrhing else out there anyone could recommend?

McAfee's horrible, I'd definitely ditch that. AVG is good, although I prefer Avira AntiVir myself - also free and light on the resources

I can't stand Vista. I make a living supporting business IT systems, and dread working on Vista machines. I could rant, but won't

 

[Username]

I would recommend Trend Micro PC Cillin and Spy Sweeper.

 

[Squirrel61]

I have Vista on my laptop for the sole reason that it came pre-installed and at that time, no hardware drivers for XP where available. I still have it on my laptop, despite the fact that in the mean while, Toshiba has released the XP drivers, because it's too much of a hassle to re-install everything and Vista is still running with not too much issues (but it seems to be slowly dying).

It is perfectly possible to install XP dual-boot to Vista. But don't install it on the same partition or you'll get one hell of a mess. Just use any non-destructive partitioning software to free up some space on your harddisk and create a dedicated partition for XP. Probably I'll do this myself to have a backup OS on my laptop in case Vista finally collapses. If you can't free up 10Gb or more, you could buy a second harddrive, as suggested earlier. This seems to be the most safe way too, since there's no danger of overwriting the Vista bootblock. In this case, you could use the BIOS's boot menu to select the other harddisk to boot from.

McAfee sucks, especially in combination with Vista. It makes your system 3 times slower than Vista already did. Norton is no alternative, but you could consider Norton's alternative UAC

A few good antivirus products have already been mentioned. For me, NOD32 is the only antivirus left after I kicked all other programs out. It's a matter of personal taste, which product serves you best, but I like NOD32 very much. It only produces messages when there is really something to mention, it has a very good detection rate and you won't hardly notice it's running since it doesn't delay booting or using your computer in a noticeable way. The only drawback is that it's not free, but seeing that you plan to use p2p, that won't be much of a problem.

About p2p, I've dropped it totally. Most p2p downloads are clogged with virus shit, fake programs, porn disguised as games and whatever else you don't like. It seems Limewire currently is the lest affected, although you still have to filter what you're clicking.

As an alternative, you could look at torrents. Most torrents provide high-quality downloads, although usually they may start a bit slowly. For big downloads, you should consider installing a download computer that you can keep running 24/7.

But my absolute fave is usenet. You need an account to get access to all usenet groups, unless your internet provider has an extremely good usenet server that you can use (most don't), but it's definitely worth the money. All downloads run at the max. speed of your connection and the quality of the downloads is very good. And despite programs like Newzleecher being the most popular, a program like Grabit automates the process so much (including automatic unparring/unrarring) that every noob can setup a usenet account and get it running.