See you under your text ...

What software are you referring to that is cool?

It's not much different than XP Media Center.  Beyond TV is better
than both of them.

Havne't tried Vista's slideshow.  What is it used for -- screen saver,
or do you just get a slideshow when using a photo program?

Solitaire deluxe? ;-)

What a concept  :-)

Slick -- a waste of resources.  The 3-D navigation is a joke.  So are
thumbnails when over taskbar buttons.  I turn off the poorly designed
glass "features" and enjoy the clean look of Vista Basic.

Truly the first time I've heard Wow from a user's mouth -- usually I
just hear it from MS Marketing.

I guess I said "wow" though.  Wow, I can't believe  it works, not wow,
for the features.

Anyway, maybe I'll learn about Vista features I am not aware of, like
the cool new games.

Oh, by the way.  Your user runs Vista Premium which means it can't
accept Remote Desktop requests for computers to connect to it.

You could get Vista Business but then your user would give up Media
Center.

I agree. I like the colors as a means of personalization and a change from
the more boring black/white/grays of the past.

The pink and yellow models almost guarantee it'll never be lost.

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but only the XPS laptops like
the 13" one was actually painted.

I have nothing against colored laptops, in fact I like them (blue
would be nice).  The XPS 13" one though was actually painted, and for
some colors, when there were problems, Dell said it was because it
needed more layers of paint (I think the white ones had the problem
and needed 5 or 7 layers).

When those laptops first came out and the product manager was
describing them, he spent a disproportionate amount of time talking
about the nice paint job on the laptops.  Very funny indeed.

I had a chance to see colored XPS painted laptops and colored
Inspirons at a Dell kiosk and could barely tell the difference.

Excerpts from one web page:
http://tinyurl.com/22jpkb

"The finish on the XPS M1330 is similar to a custom paint job on a
car, but with one additional complexity—on a car, typical viewing
occurs from several feet away. With a notebook, the typical viewing
range is much closer... sometimes a foot or less. This requires a
different level of attention to detail.... There was no problem
painting hundreds at a time. But as we increased the volume, otherwise
manageable factors like dust contamination caused our successful
yields to decrease. Adding to the complexity, the Crimson Red and the
Pearl White colors require more coats of paint and more touches to
create the finished product—that means there is more opportunity for
dust contamination."
<<<<<<<<

Hmm, I wonder, since it's simlar to a car if I can get rustproofing
and paint sealant  :-)

It's not the colors that are the problem, but the actual "painting" of
them on the XPS M1330 that has had people complaining.

Yes, so what the OP needs to do is determine the manufacturers of the chipsets
in the Inspiron 1525, then go to the manufacturers' web sites to find and
download the drivers.

I admit to not having seen all the recent motherboard chipsets, especially ones
that support AMD CPUs, but all the ones I have seen do have XP drivers.   Same
with standard Intel, ATI, or nVidia video, Intel, Realtek (rarely used by Dell),
Atheros and Broadcom network, and mostly ADI 198x audio... Ben Myers