Answers on upgrading to Vista

Reader mail is flooding in this week, along with offers for the Canadian lottery, the estate of my long-lost uncle in Nigeria and herbal remedies (not to mention penny stocks). Let's get right to the chase.

Question: I upgraded to Windows Vista Business Edition, if you can call it that, on my laptop. It is now glacially slow.

The rating on it is a 1 because it says my on-board graphics card is not very good (it is a Dell D610 laptop with Intel graphics). What are my options?

Answer: Well, none on the graphics. Check with Dell's support site and see if there are any updated video drivers, but your model (along with others using that chip) are not slated for any Vista-specific upgrades because the underlying architecture isn't good enough to support the Vista "Aero" interface. However, you can run Vista quite happily if you have enough system memory ... you just won't get the cool graphics.

I would upgrade your RAM to at least a gig and perhaps 2. Check the Crucial.com memory computer to see what your laptop can hold and then cram in whatever your budget can afford. That will make Vista usable when it comes to speed.

Question: I have Microsoft Office 2003. If I upgrade to Vista do I need to upgrade Office as well?

Answer: No, your 2003 version will work just fine (a patch will be applied using Windows update after your installation). Office 2007 is a huge leap in terms of Office platforms (it works differently) so you may need to consider if you need the new features or not.

Question: My AVG Free anti-virus quit working after my upgrade to Windows Vista Basic. Do you have any advice?

Answer: Yes, the same thing happened to me on one of my installations. For other readers I would recommend uninstalling your anti-virus product prior to the upgrade, then reinstalling after. For you, I would suggest getting rid of the product completely using Add/Remove Programs and then reinstalling it. Make sure you are using version 7.5 of the free AVG product. Version 7.1 has expired.

Question: My daughter is going to college in the fall, and we are shopping for laptops now. Do you have any suggestions in terms of quality?

Answer: Yes, I would wait until three weeks before she leaves unless you have a pressing need to buy one now.