Oh god don't do that. ME was by far the worst version of Windows. Vista actually runs very nicely if you have the machine for it. If you have less than 1GB of ram or a slow processor don't bother though. ExtremeTech has a great article on tweaks you can do to speed vista up. I can say from experience with my dad's laptop that adding more RAM has a huge increase on vista's performance, moreso than with XP.

Oh with the battery I read an article awhile back that there was something with vista and USB drivers that caused it to drain the battery much faster if anything was plugged into USB. Not sure if that's fixed yet.

 

Like the Wiki says,
I try to leave the laptop battery out most of the time with the charge level around 50-70%.

Besides buying a new laptop battery,
these guys can rebuild many battery packs with superior cells.
They started doing mostly Ham radio battery packs but now can
do nearly anything...laptops, power tools, RC hobby, etc:

http://www.primecell.com/index.html

Here's another company that claims to do similar:

http://stores.ebay.com/Battery-Pack-Rebuilders-LLC

If you want to try to rebuild battery packs yourself
here's a handy trick:
Get a fairly large magnifying glass and take it and the bad battery pack out into bright sunshine.

Make a concentrated spot with the magnifying glass on the battery pack at the seam where it is glued together, but keep moving the spot back and forth to keep from melting the plastic...you just want to heat it so the glue will allow the seam joint to pop loose.

Pry at the heated seam with a knife or screw driver gently. Take your time. Usually if you are patient you can get the battery pack to come apart in near perfect condition.

These two companies will sell you replacement cells:

http://www.mouser.com/index.cfm?handler=home

http://www.digikey.com/

 

With most new batteries and laptops it will stop charging once full. I have yahoo widgets on my laptop and there is a meter on my desktop. My hp laptop, the one they show on tv, will only last about 1:30 just sitting there. Watching a movie, about 45 min. I am going to get a 12 cell battery, which should increase it greatly. My laptop is always plugged in and it will stop charging once full. You can tell when it stops by weather or not there is a lighting bolt over the plug over the battery in the bar at the bottom right.

 

yeah, when you first get a laptop, you're supposed to charge it to full, then use it on battery until it's discharged; I believe (depending on the laptop battery) you're supposed to do that 2-3 times to get the battery cycled completely and ready for use.

PS, windows ME. Trust me, being a computer tech, WindowsME was a disaster. I too agree that if you're going to jump back that far you might as well go to 98. But honestly Windows XP is a very stable version of windows and would be perfect for your new laptop.

 

when i was given a Dell notebook. it had WindowsME on it...only lasted about 2 startups before it crashed...and even before that it yea...if u dont want Vista or XP then at least Windows 2000 pro. but if u do anything with photos then u want XP.

 

My previous Toshiba laptops' battery would last for a few hours, but my newer and over twice as powerful Toshiba laptop eats the battery very quickly and even on the power conserving setting I'm lucky to get 1 to 1 1/2 hours out of it fully charged.