I was bound and determined to not do anymore beta testing after working on XP. I have resisted putting Vista on my desktop all of this time, but I finally have broken down and I am going to give in.

It’s just too much fun for me to get the newest thing around. In this series of articles I am going to take you with me on the journey I call “The ?? Adventure of Connie and Vista.”

I have been preparing my computer and myself for the process of installing Vista on my desktop. I had been using the onboard video on my machine so the first thing I needed was a video card. Here is where I made my first small mistake. I live in a pretty rural area of North Carolina and trying to find a video card is difficult to say the least. I wanted to avoid purchasing online to save on shipping… I know, I know, dumb.

I did get an ATI Radeon 9250 graphics card with 256MB of memory. I then went to the task of downloading the Vista .iso file. This went well with no surprises. I also covered myself by ordering a DVD from Microsoft. Lo and behold I discovered I need a DVD burner. Yes, I was still operating quite well with a CD-RW. Found a small computer shop a few miles down the road that had ONE, yes, I said ONE. Of course I raced down and purchased it. It is a nice burner that will do just about everything including LightScribe. I installed it, updated the firmware - all without a hitch.

Yesterday I burned the .iso file without any problems and inscribed the DVD. The inscribing process was the coolest part for me. I had to take a small break and walk my two boys, Bennie and Frankie. No, they are not human; they are Bichon Frises and hard to say no to. I decided to pick up the mail and there was my DVD from Microsoft. Took about a minute to stop laughing. I now have two copies of Vista.

I will end this installment by letting you know that I then ran the Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor. My advice… do this first!

Next installment coming your way soon.

[tags]vista,beta test,ati radeon,bichon frise,adventure of connie and vista,north carolina computer,dvd burn[/tags]