Testing the waters with Windows?

Hey, i might be jumping the gun a little bit since i just bought this thing, but this Linpus installation is sooo difficult to use. I have spent 2 days on trying to install skype and Japanese input support; something i would get done in 5 minutes on Windows! I have the 8Gb SSD A110, and i want to try a Windows install using the Tiny XP image Ron put up.

My question is, if i do this, is it an irreversable step? If Windows runs too slowly on my unmodded and standard SSD model, can I use the recovery CD to put Linpus back on? Eventually i want to upgrade the RAM and put a 1.8" ZIF drive in it, but i just want to try windows as is...

Any advice?

 

you can go back to linpus using the recovery CD.
performances on SSD are not great, but you can work around that. Search this forum and you will find plenty of people that have optimized their XP for SSD.

 

Thanks for the info. I think i will give this a go in the next couple of days. I dont mind if its slow, my old PC would take about 30 seconds to load IE. And if i can just use the recovery CD to get back to Linpus, its not that much risk!

 

I use Windows XP on my 110L with the SSD it's just fine! After you disable a few things like system restore, etc. (there is a thread here with a list of things) and use a custom registry key to reduce the amount of services running in the background by a ton, it runs great. Aside from a few lockups in Firefox (I hear it can be fixed by putting the temp on the SD, haven't tried this myself though) it is completely usable. I use mine to play Quake 3, World of Goo and StepMania, which all run surprisingly well under Windows. Make sure you format with FAT32 though, or it will be even slower.

 

Ah thanks sounds like its viable to do this. To be honest, all i ever use my laptop for is browsing and skype/msn... I will probably try it tonight if i dont get too drunk :lol:

 

Hopefully your experience with Windows XP has not been a bit too much. Seriously, I have tried Linux (Ubuntu's latest release 8.10 Desktop Edition) and have been an old XP user. When I had to purchase the machine (I needed something reliable for travel that could hold up to inter-continental travel), I decided against Linux. Though the programs offered on Linux are open source, the stability can be a question mark. Also the one computer I used Linux on had some compatibility issues where I had to seek online answers constantly, I finally had to revert to Windows XP. I could not get it the secure code to my router to agree to match and communicate. I have an investment also with some Windows programs and thought that I should not cast them aside so easily. As far as performance issues, I do not think they are noticeable between the two operating systems. My AAO is the first dedicated Windows XP machine I have had in a few years. I love it and highly recommend it for travel or regular use. BTW, I use mine for net and email, but also for photo processing since that is what I work with mainly. Enjoy and take it one step at a time and ask questions.