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. 
--
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