God I hate VISTA, need a re-install/recovery disc

[Joe Bob]

Spent 3 hours with Microsoft support. Somehow I lost the ability to add a background pic on my desktop. I can change colors, change icon size...everything but desktop background.

I had a phantom on my antivirus and to get rid of it, the antivirus people used a search and destroy program that got rid of the alert but killed my background pic ability.

SO, Microsoft says my only option is a re-install. Since I have a licensed copy all I need is a generic Vista recovery disc. Anyone have one I can borrow?

If it matters, it's a business edition.

[masraum]

Just a thought, these days many computers don't come with the disks, but they do have a small partition that you can use. Are you sure you don't have that? Or do you know that you had the disks and now you don't?

Weird about the AV screwing up the ability to change wallpaper.

It's too bad they took the Active Desktop out. That was an alternative way of having wallpaper in XP.

[Joe Bob]

Yeah, I believe I DID have discs but the divorce, move and another move.....all I have NOW are discs for XP that are for the kid's PCs.

Anyways.....I need a 32 bit disc....

I'm gonna call the AV people on Monday and rip into them.....I may just live w/o a background. The laptop is over 5 years old and may be getting close to EOL. I just can't afford it right now.

[TGTIW]

I very well may have one. I had a 32bit Vista, not sure if it was Business though..
I'll check this evening.

[Joe Bob]

Thanks....I just got an email from Microlimp and as long as it's 32 bit....I'm fine.

Funny, If I checked business AND personal user I get support for free. Business and using it for business, $49/hour......yikes.

[cstreit]

HP segments a small D: drive as a recovery segment. ...some other mfg's do this to.. Any chance you have one of those?

[techweenie]

An ad in Craigslist might turn up someone local who can help.

[Rick V]

I just had to do a full recovery on my sons laptop and everything went fine except the wifi was not included in the drivers so I had to hardwire to go to Dell's site to download them. I like Vista but not a Dell fan

[island911]

Save yourself a day+ of installation headache (and subsequent problems) and install XP or windows 7.

...I recently made the mistake of trying OE Vista on an older machine --thinking the updates must, by now, make it not suck so badly. I was wrong. ...HOURS of updates, followed by hours of updates . . .and then it's a memory & CPU pig.

[id10t]

Unless something is tying you strongly to MS on that laptop, make your life really easy adn just put Ubuntu or Mint on it.

[Two Rivers]

That Ubuntu looks kinda interesting. Where do they make there dead presidents?
Will it screw up my computer and will I have to reinstall XP in the end?
Anyone use it for the long hall? I like free but am skeptical.

[stomachmonkey]

Originally Posted by Two Rivers

That Ubuntu looks kinda interesting. Where do they make there dead presidents?
Will it screw up my computer and will I have to reinstall XP in the end?
Anyone use it for the long hall? I like free but am skeptical.

You can run it off a disk or thumbdrive to try it out. You can also install it alongside Vista, it will make a partition for itself.

I did just that a week ago. Was visiting family in FL and my SIL's laptop was running so slow it was unusable My brother had taken it into work for his IT guy to look at. Paid him $50 and the guy turns around and tells him the hardware is toast.

I ran Malwarebytes and it took 24 hours to complete then crashed while trying to remove what it found.

So I put Ubuntu on alongside Vista and under Ubuntu it worked flawlessly. Was my last day there so told my brother to find his Vista disk and do a clean install or just wipe it and reinstall Ubuntu.

[RWebb]

Microsoft has support?

[Joe Bob]

Yep, online....surprised the heck outta me. Indian guy....outta Cleveland, at least the caller ID said it was.

Didn't fix it but the speed of boot up and other functions are a lot better. I don't really miss the background pic, with my luck the only one that would load would be the ex......geez, her mug staring at me.....shudder.....

[id10t]

Originally Posted by Two Rivers

That Ubuntu looks kinda interesting. Where do they make there dead presidents?
Will it screw up my computer and will I have to reinstall XP in the end?
Anyone use it for the long hall? I like free but am skeptical.

Canocial makes their $ off commercial and enterprise support, training, certification, etc.

[TGTIW]

I'm sorry, I checked everywhere. I must have tossed the recovery disk when my Vista machine's motherboard died.

[89911]

I think I have a few laying around. All my computers are either windows 7 or xp and I've upgraded all the old vistas but still may have the disks. If you need one and I can find them, send me your address and I'll throw it in the mail.

[willtel]

I have a legal copy of Vista Ultimate my company gave me in a drawing. It is yours if you want it. You may also want to ask MS if they will give you a good upgrade price for Windows 7, it is a much better OS.

[Joeaksa]

Originally Posted by island911

Save yourself a day+ of installation headache (and subsequent problems) and install XP or windows 7.

...I recently made the mistake of trying OE Vista on an older machine --thinking the updates must, by now, make it not suck so badly. I was wrong. ...HOURS of updates, followed by hours of updates . . .and then it's a memory & CPU pig.

Get the hell away from frigging Vista and go with W7. Worlds better and then you will have the disks.

[RedBaron]

You can legally download a torrent of the Vista version you have and enter in the product key from the sticker on your computer.

The recovery software that comes with dell, HP, etc is crap. It's loaded with garbage and bloatware.