I tried everything, thinking that using a standard Windows XP workstation was deprecated. I tried [almost] everything. from Vista, to x64 version of XP passing by an attemp to install a version of OSx 10.5 on my computer, and found that Windows XP Pro is still the best operating system for now.
Hoping that this will convince some body to stay with Windows XP, here is my story.
Step 1, the Vista Odyssey
Once upon a time, I bought a TX1000 tablet pc laptop, running standard Tablet PC hardware like touchscreen, wifi N draft, fingerprint, touch pad, wired lan etc. It was coming with a Vista license, that wasn't working with domain (don't remember well, I think it was the Home Premium version). So, having a MSDN Universal account, I decided to install Vista Ultimate to know the differences between both version, and register it on my domain.
So, I formatted my harddrive, install Windows Vista Ultimate for x64 based systems. My experience was exactly the same as Vista Home premium, but now I was able to register it on my domain. All the features of Vista were there, and all the slowest too. 1 gig of RAM and when I run Office 2007, all the memory was used, and the commit charge was about 65%!
Too slow, using too much resource, even with a gig and a half, the computer was slow. And the Windows Index was 3.0 the minimum required to run Aero Style on Vista.
So, I was thinking... Is there an alternative? The answer was Linux, and I choose the Fedora 8 distribution, because I used Fedora for server since version 2.
Step 2, the Fedora 8 installation phase
My second option was Fedora, and the time that I used it, was in fact half installation, half usage. The first portion installation, was enough hard for my because of the drivers. Linux is good, when you are using at least 2 years old hardware, so that the community is having enough time to build drivers and distro master have the time to integrate them in the distribution.
In my case, the Wifi card was too new, the graphics card too, and do not talk about the touch screen, I wasn't able to make it work.
I think that I am not the only one who is having issues, because the recipe that I have done to install the Broadcom Wifi Network card on this blog is in the top 3 of the pages visits.
After a couple of ... hours, I decided to upgrade to the Fedora 9 alpha distro, to know if the drivers are more included, and the touchscreen interface is enabled by default.
Step 3, the Fedora 9 sneak peak
This was the second shortest installation that i've done on the laptop. All the buggy drivers installation as the Fedora 8 distro, without any improvment on the drivers compatibility.
More it changes, more it stays the same.
Format and try again. But now, I was thinking, what's the alternative for Windows? Mac OSX! But I do not have a Mac... let's try to install it, and if it work, I will buy the license.
Step 4, Mac OsX on a non-mac...
Shortest test: I read the install step from some "hacker", tried to install it on an AMD 64bits based system.
18 hours later, and evidence jumped in my face: A Mac is 600$. Why not just buy one?!?!
Hum... $%!@#@#%$
A little tired of formatting my Hard Drive, I decided to go back to Windows XP.
But I have a 64 bits system. So I installed Windows XP Pro x64.
Step 5, Windows x64 for an x64 system
Ok, now I installed Windows XP x64. After searching a lot for the 64bits drivers for all the components, I successfully install almost all the features of my laptop.
Installed everything, my dev environments, my office environment everything.
3 weeks after I was in a conference room, and I tried to write some now using the pen and the touch screen. I wasn't able to write, Windows XP x64 does not include the Tablet PC edition features.
Secondly Windows XP x64 is using WoW (Windows on Windows) to run 32 bits hardware.
It is slow, not comparable to Windows Vista, but enough to see a difference.
Step 6, the Verdict
I definitely rollback to the Tablet PC edition of Windows XP. A known working OS, that was build for Tablet PCs without the slowness of Windows Vista.
64 bits system are good, for server I'm sure that there is a difference. But for standard workstation operating systems, I am not sure that the world is ready. Even Google is not installalling a 64-bits-Internet-Explorer-compliant Google Toolbar.
-f.