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Installing Windows Vista On The MSI Wind

Author	Hugo Jobling
Published	13th Jul 2008

Installing Windows Vista On The MSI Wind

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We've become nigh-on oversaturated with netbooks in the TrustedReviews office recently. No matter which way I turn at the moment it seems I'm confronted with an Eee PC of some variety, an Acer Aspire One or an MSI Wind. Obviously I'm not complaining about this situation - we all love netbooks, you can't not - but it does make it much harder for me to resist the temptation to do something heathen with them - like install Windows Vista.

While many of my colleagues can't seem to fathom why anyone would want to do this, I decided that consequences be damned, I was going to do it anyway. And because I think, contrary to popular opinion here, that I'm not the only one wanting to persuade Vista to run on a netbook, I'm going to tell you all how to do it, and whether it's worth the effort.

Before you get started trying to install Vista on netbook you'll need a few things.

A netbook
This one's pretty obvious. I just so happened to use the MSI Wind as the base for installing Vista, but an Eee PC or Aspire One will work just as well.

Windows Vista
Obviously you can't install Vista if you don't have it. Preferably you'll have a disc with Service Pack 1 pre-installed, but that's not entirely necessary - as I'll explain shortly.

Flash storage device
None of the netbooks currently available to buy have disc drives, so you'll be installing from an SD card or USB stick. You'll need a 2GB model at least.

vLite
You'll need to download a program called vLite. I'll explain why in a few moments.

Having acquired all of the above ingredients, all that remain is to get started. So, let's find out whether Vista on a netbook really is a viable proposition, or whether our MSI Wind will be brought to its knees.

Latest 4 of 19 Comments

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Gavin Hamer said on 15th July 2008

That RAM upgrade info is awesome. Vista on a 2GB Wind might be a little more interesting.

Ajibee said on 15th July 2008

Wind, Schmind - no wonder you're suffering with Wind trying to stuff Vista down a 1GB gullet!

I got an eee 1000H from ebuyer.com last Friday, along with a 2GB SO-DIMM and a 320GB Western Digital 2.5" drive... and then upgraded the eee (an extra £100 on the price, but hey, if you're going to do a job properly...!).

Upgrading the Eee 1000H was straightforward - loosen two captive screws and open the hatch in the base (there is a small eee sticker on one corner, but it doesn't say anything about voiding the warranty on it - and, with a bit of care, the half stuck to the case came away cleanly with the hatch cover and went back just as easily).

Inside you can then swap out the 1GB SO-DIMM and change the 2.5" hard drive (your review of the 1000H is wrong by the way - it's not a 1.8" drive). The original Seagate drive has 80GB spread over two sides of one platter - the 320GB of the WD drive is spread across four sides of two platters - so packs the data twice as densely, and is thus faster at retrieving it).

Then install Vista. I used the 32-bit version - I read at Tweaktown that x64 won't install on a 1000H even if it apparently should. More to the point, x64 is really on worth if if you have over 3.2GB of memory or some other special need. I didn't bother with vlite - it's not as if I'm anywhere near short of space.

Then install the drivers - grab the chipset and video drivers from the Intel site, and the rest from the XP downloads at Asus (leaving out the Asus function key stuff - it doesn't like the audio driver or video driver on Vista, not yet anyway).

And the result? It all works wonderfully well - very smooth in fact - and very welcome for a die-hard XP luddite like me who has come to appreciate the charms of Vista after a year of struggling with it :-)

For comparison purposes, The Windows Experience Index figures on my Eee 1000H are now:

- Processor: 3.0
- Memory: 4.4
- Desktop Graphics: 4.1
- Gaming Graphics: 2.7
- Primary HDD: 5.4

- all very reasonable. For comparison purposes, a 1.8GHz Core 2 Duo Dell Vostro 1510 with 3GB of RAM, 250GB HDD and built-in Intel graphics returns 4.8, 4.8, 3.4, 3.5 and 5.1.

All things considered, an Eee 1000H with 2GB of RAM runs Vista very acceptably, and is utterly portable in comparison to full-size laptops.

I hope this is helpful to others considering these machines.

P.S. I chose the Eee 1000H over the wind because:

- it can take a 2.5" drive (the Wind HDD really is 1.8" I believe);
- it comes with a six-cell battery included (for the same price as a Wind with 3-cells);
- it has a better trackpad;
- it's the 3rd generation of Eee in coamparison to the Wind 1.0...

Wind, Schmind - no wonder you're suffering with Wind trying to stuff Vista down a 1GB gullet!

I got an eee 1000H from ebuyer.com last Friday, along with a 2GB S... more

667theneighbour said on 7th August 2008

The Wind uses a 2,5" HDD. :-)

xbrumster said on 22nd September 2008

God almighty love you guys! almost in a sexual way...
this article is certainly intriguing, though hopelessly. But definitely encourages me to try something naughty with my ... more

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