If that's the case keep in mind what I installed and why I installed it.
But bottom line if you don't care about Aero glass, your HD is running okay,
then all you need to install on that box to run Vista reasonably well (it's
not obviously going to be as fast as a multicore box with a bunch of GB of
RAM--we all know that) is a relatively expensive internal and make sure it
is an internal DVD drive. And believe me you can run Vista doing that
reasonably well and have fun doing it. And as you said, you are intending
to use the old Dell as a "test box" so go for it. Get the cheap internal DVD
drive.

CH

"Ant" wrote in message
...
Hmm, I'd like to avoid installing any new hardwares for an old PC and I am
only instaling Vista once.


On 4/8/2009 8:44 AM PT, Bob Knowlden typed:

I'll agree with another poster that installing an internal DVD drive is
the sensible approach. That, unless you really want to do a lot of
messing around.

Here's an example:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16827129023

(No the cheapest, but it has free shipping at the moment, so it may have
the lowest net cost.)

support.dell.com gives you the particulars for your system (It's fairly
easy. You screw a couple of rails to the drive, and then slide/snap it in
place.)

Dell seems to like having ATAPI drives jumpered as "cable select".

"Ant" wrote in message
...
Hello.

I have an old Dell Dimension 8250 test PC that I would like to install
Vista onto. However, it has no DVD drives. I cannot even boot from
external USB drives (3.5" disk drive, external HDDs, and DVD burner
drive -- CMOS doesn't see them and found out PC doesn't support bootable
USB devices).

However, I do have enough HDD space (30 GB free on second partition) to
copy Vista DVD (or make an ISO file) onto it through network (will take
a while).

Thank you in advance.
--
"Yo mama is so poor, I saw her fighting an ant for food." --unknown
/\___/\
/ /\ /\ \ Phil/Ant @ http://antfarm.ma.cx (Personal Web Site)
| |o o| | Ant's Quality Foraged Links (AQFL): http://aqfl.net
\ _ / Nuke ANT from e-mail address: NT
( ) or
Ant is currently not listening to any songs on his home computer.

Yep Bob--

Dell default ships its optical drives jumpered as Cable Select. As you know
most optical drives have a diagram on the back as to how to cable them; some
diagrams are clear and some are pathetic.

http://i42.tinypic.com/1znqyr5.png

CH

"Bob Knowlden" wrote in message
...
I'll agree with another poster that installing an internal DVD drive is
the sensible approach. That, unless you really want to do a lot of messing
around.

Here's an example:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16827129023

(No the cheapest, but it has free shipping at the moment, so it may have
the lowest net cost.)

support.dell.com gives you the particulars for your system (It's fairly
easy. You screw a couple of rails to the drive, and then slide/snap it in
place.)

Dell seems to like having ATAPI drives jumpered as "cable select".

"Ant" wrote in message
...
Hello.

I have an old Dell Dimension 8250 test PC that I would like to install
Vista onto. However, it has no DVD drives. I cannot even boot from
external USB drives (3.5" disk drive, external HDDs, and DVD burner
drive -- CMOS doesn't see them and found out PC doesn't support bootable
USB devices).

However, I do have enough HDD space (30 GB free on second partition) to
copy Vista DVD (or make an ISO file) onto it through network (will take a
while).

Thank you in advance.
--
"Ants can lift up to 50 times their own weight. And your monitor is
missing. Time to bring out the bugspray." --BBspot's Geek Horoscopes
(2/28/2003)
/\___/\
/ /\ /\ \ Phil/Ant @ http://antfarm.ma.cx (Personal Web Site)
| |o o| | Ant's Quality Foraged Links (AQFL): http://aqfl.net
\ _ / Nuke ANT from e-mail address: NT
( ) or
Ant is currently not listening to any songs on his home computer.

Ant wrote:

Hmm, I'd like to avoid installing any new hardwares for an old PC and I
am only instaling Vista once.

It's quite probably that you will then have to uninstall it - IF it
will even install.

WHERE are you going to find Vista drivers for your existing hardware?

I found drivers that worked for peripherals, the sound card, the video card,
and the Nic cardwhen I bought a Dell Dimension 8100 in 5/01 with little
problem.. They aren't always called "Vista drivers." If he doesn't care
about Aero eye candy Glass, Peak, Shake (LOL shake is good for a late night
monologue--it just makes me laugh--I want to see a MSFT commercial from
their ad shop showing softies sitting around doing the Aero Shake LOL again)
he doesn't have to upgrade that vid card which for all I know may exhibit
Aero eye candy--either it will or it won't.

The drivers worked perfectly on Vista, and every build of Win 7 in the wild
to date although I'm using some newer peripherals now. Just because HP or
Brother or XYZ company says they aren't putting out drivers for Vista or Win
7 or Win 8-10 doesn't at all mean that their hardware won't work with
existing drivers. Sell baby is the name of the game, and sometimes these
companies pray on vulnerability that doesn't check to see if they can make
the drivers work first.

CH

"Mike Torello" wrote in message
...
Ant wrote:

Hmm, I'd like to avoid installing any new hardwares for an old PC and I
am only instaling Vista once.

It's quite probably that you will then have to uninstall it - IF it
will even install.

WHERE are you going to find Vista drivers for your existing hardware?

Win 7 All Builds run very well and is not slow at all although not as fast
as multicore boxes I'm comparing it with on a 5/1/01 Dell Dimension 8100
with 1GB RAM added, new vid card, new PSU. Vista ran just fine on it
without the new video card, but to use Aero eye candy and Aero shaky shake
LOL and Aero snappy snap LOL again, you may need to upgrade the original
video card.

BTW if anyone wants the Aero Windows 7 features to run in XP or Vista,
including Aero Shimy Shimy Shaky Shake and Shimy Shimy Aero Snap, there is a
free utility that will do it::

Make Aero Windows 7 Eye Candy including Peeky Peek, Shaky Shake, and Snappy
Snap work on Vista or XP:

http://fogelsoft.extra.hu/progs/aeropeek.zip

Dot Net 3.5
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en

CH

"Bill Sharpe" wrote in message
...
Ant wrote:
Hello.

I have an old Dell Dimension 8250 test PC that I would like to install
Vista onto. However, it has no DVD drives. I cannot even boot from
external USB drives (3.5" disk drive, external HDDs, and DVD burner
drive -- CMOS doesn't see them and found out PC doesn't support bootable
USB devices).

However, I do have enough HDD space (30 GB free on second partition) to
copy Vista DVD (or make an ISO file) onto it through network (will take a
while).

Thank you in advance.
I tried installing Win 7 beta on a five-year-old Dell laptop that I had
upgraded from 256 mb to 1 gb memory. It worked, but I got a 640 by 480
display, no Internet, and no sound. Gave up, of course.

Suspect you will be disappointed if you proceed.

Bill

If your old computer already has a Windows operating system installed then
you should be able to run the setup from within the running Windows. Just
copy the files from the disk (via your network as you mentioned) onto your
internal hard drive, or a usb memory key if you have a large enough one and
run the setup from there.

That's how I installed Windows 7 beta onto my computer. You do not need to
be able to boot from anything other than your internal hard drive.

"Ant" wrote in message
...
Hello.

I have an old Dell Dimension 8250 test PC that I would like to install
Vista onto. However, it has no DVD drives. I cannot even boot from
external USB drives (3.5" disk drive, external HDDs, and DVD burner
drive -- CMOS doesn't see them and found out PC doesn't support bootable
USB devices).

However, I do have enough HDD space (30 GB free on second partition) to
copy Vista DVD (or make an ISO file) onto it through network (will take a
while).

Thank you in advance.
--
"Ants can lift up to 50 times their own weight. And your monitor is
missing. Time to bring out the bugspray." --BBspot's Geek Horoscopes
(2/28/2003)
/\___/\
/ /\ /\ \ Phil/Ant @ http://antfarm.ma.cx (Personal Web Site)
| |o o| | Ant's Quality Foraged Links (AQFL): http://aqfl.net
\ _ / Nuke ANT from e-mail address: NT
( ) or
Ant is currently not listening to any songs on his home computer.

On 4/8/2009 10:07 PM PT, Gary M typed:

If your old computer already has a Windows operating system installed
then you should be able to run the setup from within the running
Windows. Just copy the files from the disk (via your network as you
mentioned) onto your internal hard drive, or a usb memory key if you
have a large enough one and run the setup from there.

Doesn't that only do an upgrade over the OS? I remember Vista over XP
only did upgrade and not a clean install.
--
"The ants are back Ted!" --Dougal from Father Ted TV show.
/\___/\
/ /\ /\ \ Phil/Ant @ http://antfarm.ma.cx (Personal Web Site)
| |o o| | Ant's Quality Foraged Links (AQFL): http://aqfl.net
\ _ / Nuke ANT from e-mail address: NT
( ) or
Ant is currently not listening to any songs on his home computer.

Vista needs a modern, well specified system. What you are planning is a
waste of time and money..

Microsoft claims their crap OS can run on a 800 mhz computer with 512 mb
ram!

http://support.dell.com/support/edoc...8250/specs.htm

Microprocessor type
Intel® Pentium® 4 microprocessor that runs at 2.0 GHz internally and 400 MHz
externally; or 2.26, 2.4, 2.53, 2.66, 2.8, or 3.06 GHz internally and 533
MHz externally

Vista needs a modern, well specified system. What you are planning is a
waste of time and money..

WRONG! Vista is a waste of time and money!

http://news.digitaltrends.com/news-a...adds-anti-vist

Texas has added a rider to its state budget requiring written authorization
before buying Windows Vista.

In Texas, apparently, the state government doesn't like Windows Vista. In
fact they dislike it so much that a State Senator has added a rider to the
state budget that would require any state body, with the exception of
schools, to have written authorization before buying Vista.

The rider, proposed by Juan Hinojosa, was adopted without objection, and the
budget is expected to be passed this week.

Senator Hinojosa told the San Antonio News:

"We have a lot of problems with the Vista program."

"It had a lot of bugs. It takes up a lot of memory. It's not compatible with
other equipment, and it's supposed to be an upgrade from the XP program that
is being used by state agencies, and it's not."

"Mike Hall - MVP" wrote in message
...
"Ant" wrote in message
...
Hello.

I have an old Dell Dimension 8250 test PC that I would like to install
Vista onto. However, it has no DVD drives. I cannot even boot from
external USB drives (3.5" disk drive, external HDDs, and DVD burner
drive -- CMOS doesn't see them and found out PC doesn't support bootable
USB devices).

However, I do have enough HDD space (30 GB free on second partition) to
copy Vista DVD (or make an ISO file) onto it through network (will take a
while).

Thank you in advance.
--
"Ants can lift up to 50 times their own weight. And your monitor is
missing. Time to bring out the bugspray." --BBspot's Geek Horoscopes
(2/28/2003)
/\___/\
/ /\ /\ \ Phil/Ant @ http://antfarm.ma.cx (Personal Web Site)
| |o o| | Ant's Quality Foraged Links (AQFL): http://aqfl.net
\ _ / Nuke ANT from e-mail address: NT
( ) or
Ant is currently not listening to any songs on his home computer.


Vista needs a modern, well specified system. What you are planning is a
waste of time and money..


--

Mike Hall - MVP Windows Experience
http://msmvps.com/blogs/mikehall/

I had vista 32 HP running without any significant problem on my laptop with
512MB, however, I could not use Aero till I upgraded to 1GB . And I only
did the upgrade because my son upgraded his laptop from 1GB to 2GB to better
play games.
AFAIK you can order a set of Vista installation CDs from MS as long as you
have a retail vista package and it's product key.

"Adam Albright" wrote in message
...
Vista needs a modern, well specified system. What you are planning is a
waste of time and money..

Microsoft claims their crap OS can run on a 800 mhz computer with 512 mb
ram!

http://support.dell.com/support/edoc...8250/specs.htm

Microprocessor type
Intel® Pentium® 4 microprocessor that runs at 2.0 GHz internally and 400
MHz
externally; or 2.26, 2.4, 2.53, 2.66, 2.8, or 3.06 GHz internally and 533
MHz externally

Vista needs a modern, well specified system. What you are planning is a
waste of time and money..

WRONG! Vista is a waste of time and money!

http://news.digitaltrends.com/news-a...adds-anti-vist

Texas has added a rider to its state budget requiring written
authorization
before buying Windows Vista.

In Texas, apparently, the state government doesn't like Windows Vista. In
fact they dislike it so much that a State Senator has added a rider to the
state budget that would require any state body, with the exception of
schools, to have written authorization before buying Vista.

The rider, proposed by Juan Hinojosa, was adopted without objection, and
the
budget is expected to be passed this week.

Senator Hinojosa told the San Antonio News:

"We have a lot of problems with the Vista program."

"It had a lot of bugs. It takes up a lot of memory. It's not compatible
with
other equipment, and it's supposed to be an upgrade from the XP program
that
is being used by state agencies, and it's not."

"Mike Hall - MVP" wrote in message
...
"Ant" wrote in message
...
Hello.

I have an old Dell Dimension 8250 test PC that I would like to install
Vista onto. However, it has no DVD drives. I cannot even boot from
external USB drives (3.5" disk drive, external HDDs, and DVD burner
drive -- CMOS doesn't see them and found out PC doesn't support bootable
USB devices).

However, I do have enough HDD space (30 GB free on second partition) to
copy Vista DVD (or make an ISO file) onto it through network (will take
a
while).

Thank you in advance.
--
"Ants can lift up to 50 times their own weight. And your monitor is
missing. Time to bring out the bugspray." --BBspot's Geek Horoscopes
(2/28/2003)
/\___/\
/ /\ /\ \ Phil/Ant @ http://antfarm.ma.cx (Personal Web Site)
| |o o| | Ant's Quality Foraged Links (AQFL): http://aqfl.net
\ _ / Nuke ANT from e-mail address: NT
( ) or
Ant is currently not listening to any songs on his home computer.


Vista needs a modern, well specified system. What you are planning is a
waste of time and money..


--

Mike Hall - MVP Windows Experience
http://msmvps.com/blogs/mikehall/

While Senator Hinojosa's problems were not specified, many of the problems
he referred to could be easily solved if the crackers in Texas got some help
from people who know what they're doing from the MSFT campus or from
somewhere in Austin.

This falls in the broad category of what I call Vista paranoia without
actually testing and using Vista. This whole scheme of "a lot of problems"
touted predominantly by people who don't have a minimal amount of computer
skill was very unfortunate. Part of it was propelled by 3rd party driver and
hdw manufacturers dragging their feet on drivers, predomininatly 64 bit
drivers too long after Vista RTM'd in 2007.

Another force is that since there has been about half the time between
Vista's RTM and the iminent release of Windows 7, with its release of RC1
to the public a short time away given the CPU efficiency and stability of
the Beta of Windows 7, many people, governments and medium/large enterprises
included are now electing to wait for the RTM of Windows 7.

I help a number of "friends"/and aquaintances with their boxes who have
dissed Vista without really trying it, only to find that every one of their
problems were solvable in minutes and the problems were with them not Vista
or MSFT.

This reminds me of the Mohave project.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/mojave-experiment/

CH

"Adam Albright" wrote in message
...
Vista needs a modern, well specified system. What you are planning is a
waste of time and money..

Microsoft claims their crap OS can run on a 800 mhz computer with 512 mb
ram!

http://support.dell.com/support/edoc...8250/specs.htm

Microprocessor type
Intel® Pentium® 4 microprocessor that runs at 2.0 GHz internally and 400
MHz
externally; or 2.26, 2.4, 2.53, 2.66, 2.8, or 3.06 GHz internally and 533
MHz externally

Vista needs a modern, well specified system. What you are planning is a
waste of time and money..

WRONG! Vista is a waste of time and money!

http://news.digitaltrends.com/news-a...adds-anti-vist

Texas has added a rider to its state budget requiring written
authorization
before buying Windows Vista.

In Texas, apparently, the state government doesn't like Windows Vista. In
fact they dislike it so much that a State Senator has added a rider to the
state budget that would require any state body, with the exception of
schools, to have written authorization before buying Vista.

The rider, proposed by Juan Hinojosa, was adopted without objection, and
the
budget is expected to be passed this week.

Senator Hinojosa told the San Antonio News:

"We have a lot of problems with the Vista program."

"It had a lot of bugs. It takes up a lot of memory. It's not compatible
with
other equipment, and it's supposed to be an upgrade from the XP program
that
is being used by state agencies, and it's not."

"Mike Hall - MVP" wrote in message
...
"Ant" wrote in message
...
Hello.

I have an old Dell Dimension 8250 test PC that I would like to install
Vista onto. However, it has no DVD drives. I cannot even boot from
external USB drives (3.5" disk drive, external HDDs, and DVD burner
drive -- CMOS doesn't see them and found out PC doesn't support bootable
USB devices).

However, I do have enough HDD space (30 GB free on second partition) to
copy Vista DVD (or make an ISO file) onto it through network (will take
a
while).

Thank you in advance.
--
"Ants can lift up to 50 times their own weight. And your monitor is
missing. Time to bring out the bugspray." --BBspot's Geek Horoscopes
(2/28/2003)
/\___/\
/ /\ /\ \ Phil/Ant @ http://antfarm.ma.cx (Personal Web Site)
| |o o| | Ant's Quality Foraged Links (AQFL): http://aqfl.net
\ _ / Nuke ANT from e-mail address: NT
( ) or
Ant is currently not listening to any songs on his home computer.


Vista needs a modern, well specified system. What you are planning is a
waste of time and money..


--

Mike Hall - MVP Windows Experience
http://msmvps.com/blogs/mikehall/