I bought 2 slimlines for my daughters. Both shipped with Vista Home, NO downgrade kit to XP.
After 1 year, first pc still running but terribly slow.
After 5 months 2nd pc started playing 'hide the window' or 'I dont want to close any windows'.
Slowly the functions began to stop one by one.
As I couldnt install Office 2000 pro, I was forced either to buy again (no thank you) or load Open Office which we did.
I still have a full set of Office 2000 pro licenses unused (since the originating pc's were cleaned up before disposal.
I took the 2nd pc to the shop who sold it, "sorry has to go to service department", some time later, about 1 month, pc returned, not fixed. I apparently invalidated warranty by not using recommended software or removing time trial Norton, substituting with much stronger protection.
So I find a nice guy in a computer shop and ask if he can help and load xp. 3 dats later - 'No we cant, the bios is locked only to Vista', but installed new disk with fresh Vista, which allows IE6, to run but not Firefox (considerably more safe), he managed to install Open Office, but it will not install anything else ("Windows found a problem"), oh how Microsoft and HP have ganged up on us lately.
I have posted my experience on our internal website, warning people NOT to buy HP products or to ensure they have a downgrade kit.
I am looking for a replacement mini motherboard to fit in the case that has an upgradeable bios and not Intel/Microsoft dependent.
Strangley I bought 3 hp netbooks in the last year and 2 are in use constantly and are perfect (both running xp).
From my own sources (sorry cant name as they would get flooded), I understand that the original slimline had xp running fine (influencing my decision to buy these lemns), but they seemingly didnt do much to upgrade the hardware to satisfy the demands of Vista.
I went to another pc shop afterwards and they were consoling by saying they havent sold 1 vista pc this year, all customers are refusing to take them, or insist on choosing pcs that are downgradable.
If XP is so much poorer than Visat, why is that all business software demand XP Pro? All business laptops are running XP pro, so why (retoric question to HP/Compaq and any other "muppet" computer manufacturer) go that route because of uncle Bill's 'I have a dream' of ruining everyones experience on pc's while charging a fortune for the privelage?
My French colleague who runs a Mac notebook laughs at the antics, and I have to say its looking pretty smart to go that route myself.
Over the years I have influenced the purchase of severeal Compaq server (clusters and standalones) and insisted on myself in the last 15 years to buy only Compaq (at one time having a cluster of 5 networked at home) . Sorry to say but since the merger with HP its gone teats up, quality has declined below that of Dell, who I previously thought of being the US equivelent of Amstrad.
Now I understand that HP will ship with windows 7. Oh what glee, had I bought all the Vista software I would have the pleasure of spending even more on the next bag of tricks.
Like Microsoft, HP has lost the plot, and my vote with it, maybe not something tt cry over, but I hasten to add I have access to over 100, 000 users.
Wake up HP, some of us home users are also people in management in our day jobs...