Got a new HP laptop today - came with Vista Home Premium. Right now, I'm trying to figure out how to uninstall all the crap that came with it. Won't let me remove MS works or the office trial. I can't resize the icons on the desktop and have the resolution as high as it will go. I thought this was supposed to be a user friendly OS. It's a royal pain in the ass.

Hate is a strong word.

You can turn off Aero and go back to the XP "old" theme and it will pretty much look and feel just like XP, except for all the new underpinnings etc.

I found Vista to be piggish though I understand the reason why it uses RAM the way it does etc. It just at the moment doesn't offer a compelling reason to move to it. Eventually we will all be running it or OSX or some Linux distro, but since XP is supported till 2014, I'll sit tight.

To change the size of your desktop icons, just select something on your desktop hold down the Ctrl key and scroll the wheel on your mouse.

Any idea on how to add it to my home network? I can't find a way to name the workgroup or configure IPs. Using Home Premium.

as far as the workgroup:

right click my computer, select properties, under computer name, domain, and workgroup select change settings. When the system properties pops up, click the "change" button on the Computer Name tab. Change the workgroup/domain. click ok, restart computer.

don't know what you mean by configure IP's. but if it is what I am thinking of. You need to go into network and sharing center then click on manage network connections and from there you can go into each network device.

Holy crap - that's wicked pissa!
Maybe we should have a Vista Tips/Techniques thread (or if someone knows a good place for that type of info, please post a link)

This is the kind of stuff that reveals itself over time, and a few years from now we could be looking at XP as primative. As a tech, I saw no advantages to XP over Win2k at first, but now if I have to work on a Win2k box I find it restrictive. For example, you can't just turn on remote access and take over a win2k box, you need PC Anywhere, VNC, etc. With XP, it's build right in. Right now I find Vista a struggle because it's so different. Hopefully over time "different" will turn into "better".

A few days ago I set up a Vista PC for an end user for the first time. I was able to enlarge the fonts for the old geyser, but wish I had known about the little trick mentioned above so his icons will match. Time to make a phone call I guess.

I have read through a few tip sites:

http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=499870

http://www.howtogeek.com/tag/windows-vista/

Ugh - Vista supports resolution independence. Change his DPI, not his font and icon sizes!

I've had to test our software (for the company I work for) on it and I've not been impressed at all. Yes its pretty but pretty isn't worth an upgrade to me yet. Maybe in a year or so when some of the issues are corrected that have been reported I might update.

Actually, I did change the DPI, not font size.
Doh - Incorrect terminology used in my original post!