I enjoy suggesting that the success of Vista may provide some insight into whether people truly care about security or not, given the significant advances. Alas, I’ll have to slow down on that front. I can state with certainty that on a Sony Vaio VGN-TXN/27N with 2GB of RAM and an Intel Core Solo Processor U1500 (I believe the fastest processor Sony uses for its ultraportables), as shipped, Vista is a DOG!
It is only barely tolerable with all the "look and feel" options turned off. And I am still trying to get to the bottom of whether an ongoing skipped-key problem is because of the physical keyboard or the system (it appears to get better/worse based on CPU usage). Or because of my fingers 
Hey,
I think you’re being unfair to Vista. Just because Sony sold the laptop with Vista on it, doesn’t mean you should expect Vista to run well. You purchased a laptop with a 1.33Ghz processor and shared video memory, how do you expect Vista to run? It’s common knowledge that you need an “adequate” video card to run Vista’s fancy look and feel and 1.33Ghz is slow by any standard these days. You sacrificed computing power for a compact laptop and you are suffering. Blame Sony. This is why Apple does so well, they are the only hardware vendor… so they ensure that the proper specs are in place. Microsoft can’t do that since they are only a software vendor, so you have to trust the vendor you deal with to provide appropriate hardware… in your case I wouldn’t even enjoy running XP… 1.33 Ghz… That’s not even as fast as your average P4… We’re almost talking Pentium 3 here. Place the blame where it should go… and try Vista on a real PC that is designed to handle it.
@Tyler -
I did wonder about that, and certainly part of the “blame” should be squarely on my shoulders. In any case, I suspect Sony is being “highly encouraged” to put Vista on their laptops as well. And the laptop has the Windows Vista logo on it, which I believe means Microsoft thinks it should be able to run Vista.
I’ve run XP on my previous Vaio ultraportable at 1.2GHz and 1GB ram with no problem for (I think) about two years.
Getting back to “blame” – I don’t care whose fault it is, really. I believe I am accurately reporting my experience w/ my hardware config and the Vista OS — where Vista is a dog.
@Pete,
Which Vista logo is on it?
There are different logos.. ‘Vista Capable’ (silver) and ‘Vista Certified’ (gold) and they do have different requirements. I suspect that a lot of vendors pressured for the Vista Capable one by stating that they were indeed capable of running Vista… If your system is ‘Vista Capable’ then it is living up to it’s requirements… if it’s Vista Certified… then I’d say you definitely have a valid gripe.
I bought the exact same model and am considering a downgrade to XP. Have been searching all over the net to see if someone else has done something similar.
I may take the plunge if I can find all the necessary drivers…Sony is no help.
@Linus -
I got it working to an acceptable level. Turned off search/index (and installed X1, go figure). Uninstalled Office 207 and am using Office 2003 successfully.
Still have a “sluggish” keyboard at times but it doesn’t appear to be the hardware and only happens sporadically so I’ll live with it…
good luck.
We’re also struggling to get the same VGN-TXN27 (1.33GHZ, 2GB RAM) to perform. It’s crawling out of the box. I also just about to install XP, but want to do just a bit more research first.
@Quyen -
Just to reiterate – It is working much better now. I even turned the look/feel stuff back on. I believe the performance problem was due to search/index (still off, replaced with X1) and/or Office 2007 (downgraded to old Office Pro 2003).
I do think IE Protected Mode has a problem with the keyboard driver – it loses characters that I type.
ftp://ftp.vaio-link.com/pub/OS/
Downgrade to XP.
ftp://ftp.vaio-link.com/pub/OS/
All the drivers you need
Also, use Sony Programmable I/O and Notebook Control, and SmartWi from the TXN15 or 17 series from sony support site, and you’re good to go. I havent found the Sprint card drivers.. but everything else seems to work well.
Hi,
I have VAIO VGN-TXN27N and I’m having the missing key stroke problem. It’s missing key strokes even as I’m typing this.
Do you have any solutions to this? I downgraded to XP but it didn’t work as I’d hoped. So I’ve reloaded the original factory settings (Vista) and the problem is back.
Any help appreciated!
@James -
I believe now that the typing issue is associated with IE 7. Try downloading Firefox and see if it goes away. (Can’t remember if Office 2007 was a problem as well, since I reverted to Office 2003 in order to get other performance gains.)
Good luck,
Pete
hello
I own an sony vaio VGN-FE890 and I would like to make downgrate from Vista to Xp … i’ve tryed some drivers, fro internet, but many things were not working … can you please help me?
10x