I know, I know... Narg you're a glutten for punishment

But, I wanted to try this. I installed Vista Business w/SP1 and... So far, actually, it's not been that bad. The system is surprisingly zippy and nice. As expected drivers are a PAIN! But, I'm working through it.

Devices that didn't work:
- Lan, it is recognized, but the drivers don't initialize.
- Wireless
- Camera (as unknown device)
- 2 "Base system devices" not sure what these are.
- Video, but easily fixed with Intel drivers.

I downloaded the 945 chipset drivers directly from Intel, and had to do some creative searching on the internet and Dell's side for network drivers. For Intel, just download the base 945M drivers for Vista from the Intel web site. They work perfectly.

Here's where I got the network drivers:
http://support.us.dell.com/support/d...&fileid=260241
They are for the Vostro, but seem to work on the Mini just fine. At least I have network for now.

I tried a generic Broadcom wireless driver, but that has not yet worked. Anyone have ideas on the Vista driver for the wireless in the Mini?

I haven't bothered with the camera yet. It appears to be from Creative Labs, and maybe similar to most other Dell laptops so I'll try a driver for another Dell laptop first.

Anyway, the system is running so much better than I expected. It is quite zippy and easy to use. This is with only 1 gig of ram too. I did borrow and try a 2 gig ram module in my Mini and it worked, but had to give it back . I'll have to ordered one and put it in later.

More on Vista here later...

I'm itching to try Linux next, but want to get this as close to or at 100% first, then make a Ghost image. I'd much prefer to have Dell's install of Ubuntu with applications and all, but it looks like I won't be able to do that.

Hi all,

Here's some updates if you want to try this yourself.

I found wireless drivers here:
http://support.us.dell.com/support/d...&fileid=236511
They need to be manually installed by updating the device from the device manager, and work perfectly.

Synaptics drivers can be downloaded from here:
http://support.us.dell.com/support/d...&fileid=236693

It seems a lot of these drivers match what is available for the Vostro 1200, if you are interested in researching or keeping up with the drivers. The Vostro is based on the 965 chipset though, so keep in mind the device you're updating and make sure it matches perfectly. I downloaded the audio for the Vostro 1200 too and they matched perfectly. These were not needed, but did add some functionality that was not there without them.

There was a driver that Vista pointed me to via the "solve problems" dialog, it pointed me to a web site where I downloaded and installed a battery controller. Seems like a great idea for this small device so I installed it.

Also, as you can see from the picture attached, Aero works perfectly. I'm sure Aero slows it down, but not enough to bother me yet.

Overall, it works. It is slower than XP in some ways, faster in others. If you must have Vista (I'm almost that way, after using Vista for so long using XP is almost a pain...) then this works. Also, just OS alone, there is only 4 gig free on the 16 Gig SSD. Not good, not good at all. A 32 Gig SSD is seriously needed for Vista to be a true option here. It does pause and lag in some actions, but so did XP from time to time. I'm sure Linux will have some pauses too as it works. I think that's due to the HD speed. Linux isn't quite the small cute little OS it used to be...

BTW The Vista system performance rating numbers are:
Processor: 3.0
Memory: 4.4
Graphics: 4.1
Gaming Graphics: 2.7
Primary Hard Drive: 5.9

I'm sure the hard drive got such a high rating due to basically zero seek time. I wouldn't rate it that high at all. But the numbers do look quite good.

I plan on loading Vista Business on mine, and take out everything that I won't be needing for space concerns.. Already have my 2g DDR2 and a 16g Sandisk Extreme III SDHC card (that cost a damn pretty penny too). Now I just need the darn lappy .

I am curious if vlite / nlite would be appropriate in this case. 2 more weeks until mine arrives.

From my initial test, I think vlite would be very appropriate here. I haven't tried it, but I'm thinking about it...