I cannot get games to run on Vista

[Lotus49]

Thats your first mistake

Thanks

Thats your second mistake

Thanks

Thats your third mistake.

Do you have any idea how much you are draining your system by doing needless things?

Thanks

You have the ability to disable alot of the eye candy and features to save resources. However having to load 2 anti-virus programs one of them being one of the most demanding on system resources doesnt help.

Thanks, bye.


edit: the game won't work. My point stands. Vista is not perfect in this regard. Peace out, yo.

 

[Ghost Ranger]

Well, you already basically trashed your system by installing McAfee. It is so bad that it causes errors when installing ATi drivers that can only be fixed by a reinstall of the OS. Also, McAfee is the worst for games since it can not be disabled. For virus protection this should do.

 

[GrandAdmiral]

Your hardware is fine. The hd will make it a little slower but it shouldn't be a big deal. I'm running two operating systems simultaneously on lesser hardware - Vista Home Premium with Fedora 8 on a virtual machine and its fast. In your case you have done a really bad job configuring your machine.

Anway the reason 'the crap' is still on there, is because I don't feel I know Vista well enough to FULLY remove it.

Thats understandable, just don't expect great performance until this task is finished.

Plus I'm sort of trusting that Dell is actually putting this stuff on there for a reason... you know... important updates, etc.

Yes they are putting it on there for a reason. The reason is a third party paid them to put it on there. Your computer is a billboard and the money Dell gets paid to install junk is supposedly used to lower the price of your hardware. Computer makers also like to brand the software and use in house stuff. The only thing I would worry about is the software for your multimedia buttons. You can do a clean install of Vista, install the software for your multimedia buttons and you're good.

As for anti-virus & spyware/malware, I believe in having multiple-redundant protection.

You came to complain about performance and blamed it on Vista when you purposefully broke your own system. Multiple anti-virus programs will bring your system to a crawl and they won't work properly therefor rendering your reason for using 2 of them obsolete.

I also have 2 firewalls... the one that comes w/ Vista plus McAfee. Windows SAYS 'there could be potential conflicts', but in practice whenever a known/trusted progam needs clearance through the firewall(s) I just get 2 pop-ups, one from Vista the other from McAfee, and I tell 'em both to proceed. Thus, there's no problem. By my reckoning, 2 are better than one, so long as you can get the stuff you want to work.

According to you its not working. Your system is slow and this is another reason why.

it's because Vista seems to be doing some kind of super-mega-cache operation. I dunno. If you go into system resource monitor, then actually look at what the HDD is doing/processing, it's always up to some massive operation. Like it's trying to defrag & virus scan all at the same time.

Yea running multiple firewalls, multiple anti-virus programs, crapware in conflicting configurations that nobody in their right mind would recommend. That is a massive operation.

 

[Quintillus]

Anway the reason 'the crap' is still on there, is because I don't feel I know Vista well enough to FULLY remove it. I.e., I hate it when stuff is half-assedly removed, and you wind up with footprints of junk, and misc files & folders taking up space, and you forget about them. Until I know exactly & fully what/where/why something is, and know how to wipe it out completely, I don't bother messing w/ it.

Back up your data, set the BIOS to boot from CD, put in the Vista DVD, boot up to it, choose "Install", format your hard drive, and install on the now-empty hard drive. You won't have any of the adware that came with your PC. You'll have to install a few drivers thereafter to get everything working, but it doesn't take too long - you can download them all form dell.com/support.

Program compatibility is a problem not so easily solved. Might have to upgrade to XP for that one. If you've got Business or Ultimate you can downgrade to XP Pro for free.