My work laptop is now running like it should. I found its driver CD contained XP drivers as well as Vista ones. Strangely the hardware actually in my laptop is nothing like what its manufacturer’s website says it should contain. For example the Advent website says it contains an Intel wifi card, but it really contains a USB Ralink based card-thing.

It’d be great if the manufacturer of a piece of hardware could actually tell its owners what’s in it.

Now I can give it back to the technicians so they can attach it to their network and install my profile.

My work laptop has been de-vistaified and now has XP on it. Unfortunately, because this is a cheap laptop made for dribbling goons, the only drivers we can download are for Vista. This isn’t so helpful when it needs to run XP Pro to talk to our Windows Domain and Exchange Server; things Vista Home won’t do, thankyou Microsoft.

SYMPTOMS

If a computer is running Windows Vista Home Premium, you cannot join the computer to a domain.

CAUSE

This behavior occurs because Windows Vista Home Premium does not support a scenario where you join a computer to a domain. Windows Vista Home Premium is designed as the foundation for a home entertainment system.

STATUS

This behavior is by design.

I’m now having an enjoyable afternoon printing out student work while trying to find said drivers. I have found many that don’t work, but nothing that my laptop actually wants to use. I will look on the CDs it came with when I get home. If that doesn’t work it’ll have to be upgraded to the version of Vista this place uses.