Disabling the Aero interface was the first thing I did, literally. Not to improve efficiency but I couldn't even tolerate the standard XP theme; I had to use "Windows Classic" on XP. And I'm doing the same on Vista. The fact that I can do that on Vista is not a downside to me; in fact, if I couldn't do it then I'd almost definitely have abandoned Vista from the very beginning.

So what I have now is a new laptop that looks like XP and mostly feels like XP but runs slower and Internet seems to randomly disappear. I'm pretty sure I'll be installing XP this week when my RAM and HD come in. I don't doubt that 2GB (the most this laptop can handle) will help the speed (which isn't *terrible* as it is, just slightly annoying), but the big question mark is this Internet problem. I've connected now to my access point with a wired connection to try to determine if the problem is just a general networking problem or specific to wireless access.

Regardless, I need it to work wirelessly so this is mostly just an exercise to help me find the right keywords to search for a webpage that can help me solve the problem.

Of course it might be all moot. I have my data on the Vista laptop now, but I'm only beginning to install my applications and tools. It remains to be seen how problematic that is.

Regards,
Craig Steiner