NEC downgrading Vista to XP Pro [Archive] - The PC Guide Discussion Forums

jlreich

02-09-2008, 07:30 AM

Many people working on such tools does indeed show just how much of a failure vista is. I don't know of any business that would willingly upgrade to vista anytime soon. Heck my company hasn't even pushed out IE7. :p

My wife just bought a new laptop with vista a few weeks ago. It runs pretty decent and hasn't crashed or anything. It's snappy to open programs and such.

The machine came with Core 2 Duo 7250 and 2GB ram. I told my wife to see how it is with the 2GB and if needed I will order 4GB. Well after about three days she said get to ordering. :p

So I did, and she said it did make a noticeable difference in performance. Vista is a resource hog, even after visiting Black Viper, but I paid $85 at Newegg for 2x2GB Corsair DDR2-667 SODIMM's. And that was regular price with no discounts or MIR's. You can't complain about that. ;)

Unless of course if you are a business with many computers. Especially if you are a large corporation with literally thousands and thousands of computers. That would be rather expensive. :eek: And the cost of hardware would be the cheap part. Dealing with all the ensuing problems of upgrading would be far more costly.

Rick

02-09-2008, 09:04 AM

The link above and the story leaves out one major fact
DRIVERS for the new hardware and XP pro
It's a sad fact that MANY companies have stopped providing Drivers for XP

And IF your unlucky and get a Windoz Vista only Bios :( Your S.O.L.

Is NEC providing the XP drivers for all their Vista systems ?
I'd check before doing the down grade

jlreich

02-09-2008, 09:33 PM

That is a good point Rick. When my wife and I were looking for her laptop I tried to push her in the direction of a business class machine because most of them still have XP drivers available, while most consumer laptops are now vista only. Even if it came with vista that was fine. If she liked vista, great, if she didn't I could wipe it and install XP. But she ended up going with a vista only machine anyway. I told she had better hope she likes vista because she was stuck with it. ;) Fortunately she seems to like it well enough. The only exception is her genealogy program not working in vista. But we knew it might not going in to this. So she will have to buy a new program. Fortunately the new program was able to import her current files so she doesn't have to reenter five billion trillion bits of genealogy data. :p

Mini-Me

02-11-2008, 05:40 AM

Vista-only BIOS is the most insane thing I have ever heard.
I know it is true, and they really do make them like that now, but it is just plain mad IMO.

Vista-only BIOS effectively destroys any possibility of installing anything OTHER then Vista - Linux users beware...

If they can lock you out of anything but Vista at the BIOS LEVEL, then any chance you have of installing any other OS is gone.

It would seem, that the manufacturers are also in-bed with MS over this - that or they are being raped: "Do what we say, or we'll cut your nuts off."

MS have the power to be able to do this these days - who REALLY can fight them?(rhetorical)

Hardware manufactures are essentially cutting themselves off at the feet with this concept of Vista-only BIOS's, but the hard truth is, that the MS OS is the one most people will want, so MS can dictate terms back to the industry, involving totally different BIOS's to fully support the latest MS offering.

It stinks like a large pile of dinosaur dung.

XP was(and is) such a good attempt from MS, but now with Vista, they seem intent on pulling down that wall they managed to build, in order to replace it with a house of cards.

Paul Komski

02-11-2008, 08:04 AM

So many server platforms run under Linux that I can't see this being the death knell of "generic" pc boards and also bear in mind that Macs are no longer dependent on motorola CPUs.

It has long been a stated aim of MS to "integrate" the hardware and the software - probably as the only long-term way of controlling piracy - and with the added aims of integrating every bit of connectable hardware in your household.

It won't happen despite their best attempts to expand their almost monopoly of the domestic market. They lost the plot a long time ago and Vista a year or so later on has failed to grab the imagination of most users I come across. I'm amazed at how many people (and I'm not talking about geeks, nerds and IT pros) do not want Vista on their new PC.

Rick

02-11-2008, 09:26 AM

Paul Komski

02-11-2008, 09:38 AM

However for those who want MS windoz and Not Linux they are stuck with VistaI suppose another workaround (daft as it might sound) would be to run the most minimalist vista possible and then run xp etc from within a virtual machine.

jlreich

02-11-2008, 09:55 AM

Vista-only BIOS is the most insane thing I have ever heard.
I know it is true, and they really do make them like that now, but it is just plain mad IMO.
It isn't a vista only BIOS. It is the new EFI (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensible_Firmware_Interface). It isn't that it is vista only, but that XP and current Linux distros are not compatible with it.

EFI is something we have been needing for awhile. Our old BIOS can't keep up with technology anymore. Can they make XP compatible? Probably, but they most likely won't.

Linux on the other hand will be at some point. Hopefully soon.

Paul Komski

02-11-2008, 10:46 AM

Isn't EFI a techology that can embellish various features (particularly OEM based features) of those OSes that support it but that legacy OSes will still be able to start up using the Compatibillity Support Module and thus emulate legacy BIOSes.

The following quote from: http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/firmware/efibrief.mspx
Microsoft expects that most UEFI platforms in the near future will choose native 64 bit support along with a BIOS compatibility module so that these platforms can run earlier versions of Windows that support boot only through a BIOS. Nearly all new processors in the Windows Vista timeframe will be 64-bit capable. Microsoft would like to use the advent of mainstream 64-bit computing as a transition point to enable a move toward EFI boot. Although a platform vendor could choose to have UEFI 32-bit support, this has a short life and diminishing returns. In the near future, OEMs won't need large, multipurpose firmware images.
From that article it looks that if a Windows OS is installed using EFI as opposed to the BIOS Compatibility Mode then you are stuck with using that mode to restart that installation of Windows. Surely this is different from MS tying its OS to the motherboard. I can't find any articles now but I'm sure I heard Bill Gates talking about this (for supposedly security and anti-malware reasons as I recollect) a couple of years ago.

Rick

02-11-2008, 02:03 PM

EFI or not
It was mandated to soon
By the manufactures or By M$ ?

A core dual @ 1.7 is to SLOW for Vista even with 2gig of ram
and that is one of the quicker systems on the market that was shipped with the Vista only bios and will not work with any earlier version of Windoz..

Add to that the manufactures Not suppling any XP drivers for these same systems ..
Even If you wanted to run them in a Compatibility Mode you can't without the basic hardware drivers

Unless you can figure a way to get them to run a PCI system as ISA :(

Paul Komski

02-11-2008, 06:17 PM

Even If you wanted to run them in a Compatibility Mode you can't without the basic hardware drivers
True. But there is a distinct difference between something that is incompatible and something that has not been supplied. If there is a demand then (notwithstanding any pressure from MS) the hardware component manufacturers or others with the know-how will write the relevant drivers. You can be sure this will be done by the Linux community. Of course if the mobo makers never include the BIOS compatibility modules then it closes out that area. However Macs on the intel platform utilise EFI so why not others. EFI is not a sine qua non for a MS only or a Vista only System.

An embedded operating system would of course be a different proposition altogether and, if memory serves, this could have been what Gates had been alluding to.

Mini-Me

02-11-2008, 06:54 PM

They lost the plot a long time ago and Vista a year or so later on has failed to grab the imagination of most users I come across. I'm amazed at how many people (and I'm not talking about geeks, nerds and IT pros) do not want Vista on their new PC.

Heh, heh!!!
:D

Well, in the original link at the top of this thread about NEC, they state in there that XP still beats Vista in terms of speed on any hardware they test the two on, so what does that tell you about how bloated Vista must be.
:(

Mini-Me

02-11-2008, 07:01 PM

On this point it is a matter of time before the Linux community creates a work around for the Vista only bios

Like so many other hardware and driver issues in the past

However for those who want MS windoz and Not Linux they are stuck with Vista

I agree with you here, but Linux users should not HAVE to code Vista-BIOS work-arounds, just to allow Linux to run on such hardware.
:(

Mini-Me

02-11-2008, 07:07 PM

It isn't a vista only BIOS. It is the new EFI (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensible_Firmware_Interface). It isn't that it is vista only, but that XP and current Linux distros are not compatible with it.

EFI is something we have been needing for awhile. Our old BIOS can't keep up with technology anymore. Can they make XP compatible? Probably, but they most likely won't.

Linux on the other hand will be at some point. Hopefully soon.

Thanks for the link.
:)
Reading it now...

ADDITIONAL: Hmmm. Interesting read. This has helped my understanding of the issue. Looks like there are some useful aspects, such as a GUI boot-loader, which will be/can be cute, and CD and DVD playback from within the EFI shell, but also looks like it locks out most open-source ideas - another way for big-business to control what actually happens...

Oh well - looks like it was bound to happen then, and as such, not much point in me complaining about it anymore. I think I hear Linux calling me for another session at learning how to use it...

Paul Komski

02-11-2008, 07:28 PM

jlreich

02-11-2008, 11:41 PM

I still think it is emotive to refer to this technology as Vista Only or Vista Limited.

I detest Vista and MS - dont get me wrong - but urban myths are easily started by this sort of talk.
I totally agree.

I think this is one of those somewhat painful transitions that technology is going through. One that needs to be done though. There is a lot of legacy ways of doing things that we have been holding on to for a long time for the sake of backwards compatibility. While allowing compatibility with old hardware and applications it has also held us back in many ways.

Mini-Me

02-12-2008, 03:25 AM

I still think it is emotive to refer to this technology as Vista Only or Vista Limited. As far as I can tell that is simply not the case and from the Wiki it looks as if Vista only supports it with the 64bit version and having been upgraded to SP1.

One of the original Phoenix articles (http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Phoenix+Technologies+Announces+BIOS+Replacement+Pr oduct+That+Supports+...-a0135433803) covering some aspects of this area.

I detest Vista and MS - dont get me wrong - but urban myths are easily started by this sort of talk.

You are correct.

If I may show my ignorance for a moment, i thought that all this BIOS stuff WAS Vista and MS only - but it would seem I am wrong...

It just sounded to me, so much like something that MS would do.

However, I have(as of this thread!) been enlightened.
:)

mjc

02-12-2008, 10:47 AM

As to Linux and EFI...

http://kerneltrap.org/node/6884

http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=7705

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elilo

http://elilo.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/blosxom

Rick

02-13-2008, 09:03 PM

One small bug in that MJC

Once vista is installed on a system with EFI
IT prevents you from booting from any drive other than the primary
Even if you have it set in the bios or boot menu

I know I have attempted to boot this laptop from every disk I have
Even using the bios boot menu and telling it to boot off the cd
Vista and bios won't allow it

Same thing with the POS acer my daughter has
Is it EFI or is it just Toshiba's implementation of EFI??

I don't know But It is a pain in the ( You know where)
I had to delete most of the system files on the Kids Acer to get it to boot off the cd. So she could do a clean install ( attempted XP first ) the did a reinstall of Vista

Paul Komski

02-13-2008, 09:25 PM

Once vista is installed on a system with EFI
IT prevents you from booting from any drive other than the primary

AFAIK, as I said earlier "if a Windows OS is installed using EFI as opposed to the BIOS Compatibility Mode then you are stuck with using that mode to restart that installation of Windows".

The reason, I believe, is largely to do with the BCD which will differ, configuration-wise, depending on the installation mode. The MBR and the EFI partition are also of particular relevance.

The following (Vista related article) quoted from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Vista_startup_process
To maintain a consistent boot experience, on Extensible Firmware Interface systems, which also have a boot manager of their own, the Windows Boot Manager, and hence all of the installed Windows operating systems that can be booted using it, appear as a single entry on the EFI boot manager menu. (On EFI systems, the Windows Boot Manager is an EFI application stored on the EFI System Partition (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EFI_System_Partition).) Microsoft only adds multiple entries to the Windows Boot Manager(BCD) menu itself, and sets the timeout of the EFI boot manager to 2 seconds.

PS I wonder if either the command line utility bcd.exe or VistaBootPro can edit things so that you could boot to a CD where the "bug notes listed" include a complete inability to boot to an installation Vista CD/DVD. The other thought (if you can boot to a floppy diskette - or is that also prohibited?) would be to run fdisk /mbr (having first made a backup of the mbr if at all possible) from an MSDOS boot floppy.

Rick

02-13-2008, 10:23 PM

PS I wonder if either the command line utility bcd.exe or VistaBootPro can edit things so that you could boot to a CD where the "bug notes listed" include a complete inability to boot to an installation Vista CD/DVD. The other thought (if you can boot to a floppy diskette - or is that also prohibited?) would be to run fdisk /mbr (having first made a backup of the mbr if at all possible) from an MSDOS boot floppy.

HEHE
Now that is funny :)

The list of laptops with floppies is next to Zero today
And a USB floppy as a boot device to over ride BCD or Vistabootpro.
Not going to happen..

If it won't allow a cd boot even when set in the bios And selected during the post then a floppy boot is funny
As stated before I had to delete the vista system files Just to reinstall Vista on the kids Acer

Paul Komski

02-13-2008, 10:44 PM

As stated before I had to delete the vista system files Just to reinstall Vista on the kids Acer
Presumably this was BCD and bootmgr and ?? from within Windows or from another PC. It does seem extraordinary that you cannot choose another boot device from the BIOS setup - particularly when there are pages around the web (http://www.pctipsbox.com/uninstall-vista-bootloader/) that indicate one can repair various elements from an installation disk (but that may of course only be for legacy BIOS). Are you sure the system doesn't need a BIOS upgrade - or is that too a thing of the past - unless done dynamically while on-line maybe.

Certainly the disk signature has different effects (http://www.multibooters.co.uk/mbr.html) when changed under Vista and is one reason for having a backup of the MBR - but then that's of little use if you cant get in to replace it without having to access the drive from another PC of course. (By the way having an MBR backup should always be done for Dell systems with a restore partition; one cannot restore from that partition if the non-standard Dell MBR gets changed).

On most recent modern systems the ability to boot from USB floppy and/or CD seems to be almost universal and tends to work very well, so having an internal floppy drive (assuming there is a slot for the cable of course) is unlikely to be needed. One could I suppose, with forethought, have a DOS partition on the hard drive - assuming a dual boot is feasible.

Interesting area that we will all, no doubt, become more familiar with as time passes.

Rick

02-13-2008, 11:46 PM

In my case If a system of mine gets so screwed that a repair is needed
I forgo that and do a clean install ( this has happened maybe twice and all the years I have been dealing with windoz XP and Vista)

But it was the Acer that gave me the most hassles.
Having only done the Toshiba once in an effort to rid the system of vista
Just to find NO support for XP and reinstalling Vista :(

But these are new systems. with all the bells and whistles including direct support for USB boot devices ( floppy,thumb drives and whatever)
Vista does NOT allow these devices to boot.
By over riding the bios settings and or defaults

Paul Komski

02-14-2008, 06:04 AM

If I have understood it correctly then - once you have installed via EFI - in order to boot to a CD it needs to have the two El Torito boot entries outlined in the MS article. That should allow the Vista installation CD but not "legacy" boot CDs to operate.

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/firmware/efibrief.mspx
Windows shipping on optical media will be able to boot either via UEFI or BIOS. El Torito multiple boot catalog support is used for this capability.
•The default El Torito boot entry will be BIOS ETFS bootstrap code with an "X86" platform tag. For this to work:
•The BIOS must support multiple boot entries.
•It must ignore entries that do not have the "x86" tag.
•It should default to booting the default entry.

The second El Torito boot entry will be for EFI boot application and will have the "EF" platform tag. This tag points to a mountable file system containing \EFI\BOOT\BOOTX64.EFI.

EFI should ignore the PC/AT BIOS entry and recognize the EFI entry to mount the ESP partition before launching the boot application.

The only other option would seem to be to be able to add CDROM as the boot loader in the BCD database as a multi-boot option. Haven't found out if this actually as opposed to theoretically possible.

It's certainly a hard one to fathom since we are so used to being able to use legacy BIOS to control the bootstrap code. Would, I wonder, one be able to boot to a Live Linux CD if the HDD was temporarily disabled in the BIOS setup or would the HDD need to be physically detached temporarily or could there even be some unknown hotkey to allow for a legacy BIOS startup.

Rick

02-16-2008, 11:13 AM

It's certainly a hard one to fathom since we are so used to being able to use legacy BIOS to control the bootstrap code. Would, I wonder, one be able to boot to a Live Linux CD if the HDD was temporarily disabled in the BIOS setup or would the HDD need to be physically detached temporarily or could there even be some unknown hotkey to allow for a legacy BIOS startup.

There is a Hotkey on my laptop to get to this menu with options for CD/dvd or HDD

But Vista still over rides it

As for the Linux live.. the answer is NO
I gave that a try also.. No it doesn't work

EDIT: I didn't try it with the HDD disabled in bios yet.
I need to find that disk again. and give that a try

Paul Komski

02-17-2008, 04:41 AM

Rick, with respect to "I know I have attempted to boot this laptop from every disk I have. Even using the bios boot menu and telling it to boot off the cd" can you confirm that this includes a genuine Vista installation CD/DVD. That would be a most useful thing to know, since (if I interpreted it right) only such CDs have an appropriate boot sector making them bootable in the presence of EFI firmware. Other (non EFI-bootable) CDs might behave just like legacy boot CDs on legacy BIOS and sometimes fail to be bootable at all.

Even with legacy software/hardware not all ostensibly bootable CDs become IPL devices and can thus remain unbootable (and often invisible) from certain legacy BIOS - even when using third party boot managers.

Traditionally, the floppy (from its slot) has been the most standard IPL device (it does after all only have one sector on which to organize things). CDs and all USB devices have been a bit more hit and miss. It now appears that EFI BIOS are going to present us with new challenges - if only challenges of understanding.

Rick

02-17-2008, 06:34 AM

I just did a test with another Vista disk ( full version ) and booted it till it started the menus.
Surprise.
After that I am able to boot using my Mandriva 2008 disk on the toshiba
I don't know what that boot disk did.
But it is allowing it to boot now off the cd/dvd drive.

???
Maybe the new full retail version made a change to something during the boot process ??
Correction it was/is an OEM un-branded full version of vista disk.
Now I am thinking the Vista OEM that came with this Toshiba may be the problem.
I'll have to give the kids Acer a try next and see what happens

I'll let you know what happens IF Linux gets past this point.
At the moment it just finished the location and time prompt.
Now the screen is blank and it only gave one small spin of the Dvd
Booting this far is something.
But it looks to have come to a stop..
IF It continues. I'll post the results.

Paul Komski

02-17-2008, 06:41 AM

That's really very interesting. So it really does look as if the Vista CD does have the two boot sectors necessary; one for legacy and one for EFI BIOS. If that's so it looks as if it finds that it cannot boot using the legacy sector (which it would try I think first) but then tries the EFI boot sector and succeeds. Without the second bootable sector if behaves just like a normal unbootable CD in a legacy system and gets ignored by the BIOS. Loading Linux will be interesting and my guess is that if an EFI capable boot sector is required by Linux (and other) Live CDs they will begin to come on stream before too long.

PS Floppy would be interesting too! ;)

Rick

02-17-2008, 08:14 AM

The first boot attempt failed when the screen went blank. When I hit the power switch to try again the screen flashed and the menu and next was highlighted BUT the power button was already pushed so it went into shutdown mode

On the second attempt the boot menu worked again.
Selected the cd/dvd and went through the process of selecting all the options and waited.
This time no blank screen
In about the same time as Vista takes from the HDD Linux was up and running off the cd/dvd drive..

Now the surprising part.
it found all the hardware ( Correctly I may add) this thing isn't all that advanced or newest latest greatest. ( one year old )
in Fact I still think it was or is a turning point system.
To new for XP ( In Toshiba's mind ) and too old and slow for Vista

After running a few programs I rebooted and let Vista start.

No problems and No trace of linux

SO I have to conclude that the original OEM disk from Toshiba was/is branded by them and does make some as yet unknown change that the un-branded OEM disk removed or altered

I have to thank you for asking
If you hadn't I would probably not have tried the other disk

Paul Komski

02-17-2008, 12:30 PM

Well it all adds to one's own troubleshooting armoury even if we cannot be absolutely sure about what happened. That's both the beauty and the beast of trying to be "cutting edge".

The only thing I would say with regard to booting from CDs is that it is the most imprecise booting area and is designed, it seems, to set one mad at times. The number of times I have had problems that leave you scratching your head; was it the CDROM or the Drive or the BIOS; a dirty disk or drive; a closed or unclosed disk; is USB seen or bypassed; bad batch of media; its endless. Often one never gets a satisfactory answer and a dirty disk in an old system may work whilst a presumably pristine one in a brand new system can fail.

Just cleaning a dodgey disk with one's finger tip can sometimes mend things so presumably a speck of dust at a critical spot may be all that it takes.