I got the bright idea of wiping the hard drive on my Gateway M275 Convertible Notebook.  Halfway into the install, it failed.  Seems my CD-Rom is idelibily scratched.  Went out to the Gateway site to order a new one, and they sent me to a MPCCorp website.  Who filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy.  Come to find out, today is their last day of operation and they haven't been able to send out any new System Recovery Disks.

However, I have an MSDN Accademic Alliance subscription, and downloaded a version of the XP Tablet software.  However, it wants a CD I don't have and don't see on the MSDN site, which I think is essential to networking.

After another internet search today, I saw where someone else had loaded Vista on theirs and it worked, so I tried that.  Sure enough, not only does Vista work but it works well.

Right now, I'm playing music off the Zune marketplace which I couldn't do before the Vista install.

Oh, and the point?  I want a portable game development machine.  I've already used this computer to develop XBox360 games, but doing so with the Zune would make it even more portable.

I do have a lead on a getting the original System Restore disk, in case anyone is interested, but I think the Vista route is the best.

Thanks as always to the Microsoft Cruise ship gang, especially AlfredTwo and Crutkas (my Microsoft Twitter gods).

UPDATE: If you have a Gateway Notebook and need the recovery software, contact me.  I think I can help, and don't think it is a problem since neither company will take responsibility and it won't work without the code on the computer.

VISTA IS a good option.  Right now, my Zune is working well,and the Zune software won't load at all running Windows XP.