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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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With your new, shrunken, Vista ISO at hand, the next task is to get the files within it on a flash device. I recommend WinRar for this, as it's free and easy to use. With WinRar installed, simply right click the ISO and choose one of the Extract to context menu options - the easiest being to simply point the extraction at the USB stick or SD card. That done, you'll want to insert the memory device into your netbook and turn it on.

Depending on which system you have you'll need to mash a different button at this point, labelled at the BIOS prompt (the screen you fist see on powering the netbook on) as Boot Menu or something similar. This will give you a list of options, from which you want to choose the particular storage medium that Vista is sitting on.

From here on out you can simply follow the Vista install prompts, bearing in mind that on some Eee PCs, one of the SSD partitions is only 4GB and won't cope with a full Vista install. Eventually you'll find yourself sitting at the Windows desktop and that's where the fun starts. At this point you'll want to go to your netbook manufacturer's website and download the supplied Windows XP drivers. Don't worry, these work on Vista as well and once you have everything up and running, Vista's Automatic Update function will offer up any more appropriate driver revisions anyway.

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Having gone to all this trouble, then, the question is: was it worth it? The answer, unfortunately, isn't that simple. On the MSI wind, I found that Vista ran quite a lot less smoothly than XP. Even just opening folders took half a second or so, which isn't bad per se, but can become frustrating over time.

Running our usual set of benchmarks proved a fruitless exercise because half the tests in PC Mark Vantage simply failed to complete. Our unofficial benchmark, Trackmania, also failed to run at more than single-figure FPS most of the time - at the very lowest detail settings.

Installing Office 2003 was likewise, a disappointing affair, with both Word and Excel taking a good minute or so to start up and general use being a bit sluggish every now and again. For casual users the operating speed would likely be okay, but casual users won't want to bother installing Vista on their netbook in the first place.

The fact that Atom can run Vista at all is an impressive feat, almost certainly helped by the reintroduction of Hyper-threading. However, the operating system just isn't designed for such low end hardware. Time after time we've reiterated that you simply need 2GB of RAM to let Vista tick along smoothly.

Yes it's just about usable, yes it's kind of cool in a geeky way, but given the choice between Vista, Linux or XP on my netbook, the latter two would win out every time.

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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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