If you’d have asked me about this a few weeks ago – I’d have been dubious about the performance – even about the viability of this. After a disk failure I was left with the decision of what operating system to put back on to the new larger disk I used to replace the faulty one.
I came across an article here http://mobilepcwiki.net/mpc/index.php?title=HP/TC1100/Windows_Vista_Installation_Notes which made me considered that there was merit in trying a clean installation now that I had a fresh disk to do it on.
So after rigging up a DVD drive through a external hard disk caddy – I booted the Vista disk and followed the simple prompts through left the install to complete.
As per the article above a number of additional items are required mainly drivers to get the specific bits of hardware working.
as the articles says – the following items do work –
Windows Vista™ Basic User interface
Buttons
Tab Tip (soft keys)
Journal (soft keys)
Screen Rotation (soft keys)(although you may find that occasionally it will switch to primary portrait, but then not switch again). My workaround has been to use the QMenu to switch from Portrait to Landscape.
QMenu
Tab
Esc
Jog dial/button
Bluetooth
External Monitor / Projector “clone” and extended desktop
Sound
Lan
Wlan
Modem
Pcmcia (SD/SDHC/CF via Pcmcia adapter card)
Battery warm-swap in sleep and hibernate.
and the following don’t
Aero Glass, Flip, 3D (Video works fine, but you do not get transparent windows, or previews in the task bar).
Mixer (link from onscreen volume control – does nothing)
Solution: Go to Control Panel > Hardware and Sound > Sound > Adjust System Volume
other solution: press “x” on keyboard after selecting volume icon
Media Center – seems to work for everything except video. I haven’t done extensive testing. Video can be made to work by using the following registry hack:
Important This article contains information about modifying the registry. Before you modify the registry, make sure to back it up and make sure that you understand how to restore the registry if a problem occurs. For information about how to back up, restore, and edit the registry, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: 256986 Description of the Microsoft Windows Registry (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/256986/)
Other than a new driver for a Netgear wireless card – nothing else was needed.
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Summary
The main improvements are that the speed is no worse that before with Xp as the OS and the handwriting recognition is way better than before. So if you find yourself having to reinstall a TC1100 and you have a decent (1.5GB) memory in it – Vista is definitely worth a thought.