Vista

[straycat]

Originally Posted by Lee Bartholomew

Have been running it for aile now and only 1 crash. Seems to run a hell of alot quicker than Xp ever did.

I can understand how some people dont like it as it's differnent to xp (I only got my mum off win 98 and to XP a few months back because "she didn't like it'!) but it really is worth sticking with.

I don't mind many of the differences between Vista and XP. Very few of the cosmetic / UI changes make my life any worse, and a few are noticeable improvements - but that having been said, there's nothing in it that I miss when I switch back to XP (my ageing machine at home)

So what do I object to?
1) It is running slower for me than XP did. Despite the fact that I'm running it on a much faster, more modern machine with more RAM.
2) Miscellaneous annoyances. From the overly obtrusive security 'features', to the mind-bogglingly stupid and irritating procedure for shutting down / restarting when you have apps with unsaved data. There's loads of these, without enough corresponding improvements.
3) For such a long-awaited upgrade - I've yet to see a single improvement which makes it worth the upgrade price / hassle.

What MS simply don't seem to have done is to sit down and say 'How do we make this OS into a system that helps people to do what they want / need to with the minimum of hassle, and the maximum efficiency?'

I like Apple because they clearly do pose such questions. They don't always get it right in their solutions, but they're making the effort, and they take a lot of steps in the right direction.

Originally Posted by Lee Bartholomew

Alot of the backlash against it is purely because it is a MS product. They could release the most perfect os ever imaginable (I doubt it) and people would still moan.

Wrong way around. I'm not that idiotic that I slam a product purely because I don't like the company that made it. But I'll happily slam the company for doing such a poor job on their products.

If MS were to release the most perfect OS ever imaginable (a job that I don't believe anyone has come close to as yet), I'd be jumping for joy - and I'd happily make the switch from Apple.

[Lee Bartholomew]

Just had my second crash . Caused by Facebook (which seems to crash others machines quite abit too)

[straycat]

Originally Posted by Lee Bartholomew

Just had my second crash . Caused by Facebook (which seems to crash others machines quite abit too)

Which browser?

[Lee Bartholomew]

Originally Posted by straycat264

Which browser?

using IE at mo but is known to happen alot in firefox.

[ducasi]

Originally Posted by Lee Bartholomew

using IE at mo but is known to happen alot in firefox.

Firefox can crash Vista more than IE? That's not good.

From what I've seen around the Internet, it's the people who are especially adept with computers who haven't had such a bad time with Vista. It's the folks who find it difficult to adapt, who have a problem.

[Lee Bartholomew]

[quote=ducasi;447662]Firefox can crash Vista more than IE? That's not good.

[quote]

I ment that it happens alot with Facebook crashing both Ie and Firefox.

[Lee Bartholomew]

Actually been thinking of trying Linux out. The thing that is putting me off at mo is the 2 tonnes of distros out there.

I want to run beryl which is like Vista cube which I am loving at the mo and would struggle without.

[ducasi]

Originally Posted by Lee Bartholomew

Actually been thinking of trying Linux out. The thing that is putting me off at mo is the 2 tonnes of distros out there.

I want to run beryl which is like Vista cube which I am loving at the mo and would struggle without.

Well it sounds like you want to try Ubuntu (or Kubuntu) which ships with Compiz Fusion, a fusion of Compiz and Beryl.

As Linux distros go, Ubuntu is one of the best. (I'm more familiar with Kubuntu though, which uses KDE instead of Gnome.)

[bigdjiver]

Originally Posted by Lee Bartholomew

Have been running it for aile now and only 1 crash. Seems to run a hell of alot quicker than Xp ever did...

Is that with the same processor and amount of memory?

[DavidB]

18 months ago my laptop was completely trashed after installing too many beta versions of software. I had a major project to start, so decided to reinstall everything from scratch. I spent an evening finding and downloading the latest XP drivers - not always easy for a laptop because you never quite know what is in it.

But before I did the install, I thought I'd give the beta (at that time) of Vista a try. I wasn't expecting much, because the laptop was already over 2 years old, and wasn't exactly the top spec when I got it. Vista installed perfectly first time. It was the easiest operating system I'd ever installed. (I've done every Microsoft OS since MSDOS 6, and a couple of Unix installations. Nothing ever came close for ease of installation). It had all the drivers, found and connected to my network, configured the internet access. It just worked.

It seemed just as quick as XP for what I do (Visual Studio, SQL Server and complex spreadsheets) I kept the beta on there instead of XP, and installed the full version when it came out. The only change I have made since was to add more memory (to 2GB). I like the Aero graphics, but it was taking memory from SQL Server.

Since then I've installed it on my desktop - again it worked first time. I also used it to check everything on my server was ok after building it and before installing Windows Server 2003.

I wouldn't even think of installing anything else now. (The only exception would be if I was building a PC to play the latest games, such as Crysis.)

David

[straycat]

Here's why-I-sometimes-HATE-Vista example. Happened about an hour ago.

I'm doing some web development work and testing the site (very script-heavy) in Firefox. I have my development environment open (Eclipse), Photoshop and various other programs. All is going well, until suddenly the machine stops responding to mouse clicks (except Firefox, which responds in a limited way)

I try various methods for getting out of this - alt-tab to change programs (it works, but still nothing responds to mouse clicks) closing Firefox (doesn't close, but suddenly it's Eclipse that's the only thing responding to clicks) and various others - then give up, and hit the power button to restart (since the Start menu isn't responding)

So it tries to close the first program, and it doesn't respond and won't close. So I get the completely daft Shutdown screen showing up which tells me X is preventing shutdown, and giving me two options - shutdown or cancel. Keyboard shortcuts do not work. Mouse does not work. The only option now is to hold down the power button to power the thing off - NOT the ideal way to turn off any system, and generally a bad idea unless you've exhausted all other options.

As a one off, this wouldn't be too bad. But it's fairly typical of my Vista experience. And yes - I'm quite aware that problems like this are more usually attributable to 3rd party software - but there's nothing on the machine that I don't need, and I don't install extensions / 'fun toys' willy-nilly on it (a bad idea on any system)

As an aside, a friend at work just sent me this link... a way of slimming down Vista and removing a lot of the bloat. I'm very much minded to try it.

[Barry Shnikov]

Originally Posted by straycat264

Here's why-I-sometimes-HATE-Vista example. Happened about an hour ago.{snip problem details}

I had something very similar, when everything just slowed down to a crawl, and I had to Restore the system to before I allowed Windows Update to do its thing. It really was so slow that the only thing I could do was force a hard restart.

The best that you can say about Vista is that it is an unstable platform. OK, some people have no problems with it; but since other people do then that is definitive.

I am not a developer, don't do programming, and have no MS qualifications. Nevertheless I have built my own computers and installed almost anything I wanted to since 1990. I once caught a virus which forced me to reinstall Win95 from scratch, but otherwise I've only had minor problems. There are a lot of reported Vista problems I've not encountered - I saw screenshots on Wired where Vista was estimating several centuries to copy a few hundred files from one directory to another - but the real problem is that you want and need to be able to rely on your OS. Perhaps years ago I should have bought a Mac, but I didn't, and now the costs of transferring to the Mac are just too prohibitive.

I like Vista, but there are niggles. Why, for example, can logging on to some web sites make Vista announce that it is turning off Aero? Why can't I get a patch from Canon so that Vista can display thumbnails of Canon RAW files on Vista 64 bit?

One wonders exactly what Microsoft were doing, in the 8 years or so since XP was first delivered. I suspect something went drastically wrong, they found themselves all the way up a creek with no option but to abandon everything and start again. This doesn't feel like an OS that has had 8 years of development put into it by the largest software deveoper on the planet.

And don't get me started on the ribbon in Office 2007!!!!!!!!

[straycat]

Originally Posted by Barry Shnikov

One wonders exactly what Microsoft were doing, in the 8 years or so since XP was first delivered. I suspect something went drastically wrong, they found themselves all the way up a creek with no option but to abandon everything and start again. This doesn't feel like an OS that has had 8 years of development put into it by the largest software deveoper on the planet.

I actually suspect that the problem MS had was that they didn't abandon everything and start again.

It happens, time and time again with large-scale software projects that they become more and more complex and bloated as time goes on, and as they are loaded with more and more features which were never envisaged when they were first designed. No matter how good that initial design was, there comes a point when you are constantly being stimmied by past design decisions and all the things that have been done to get around them... to me, this is where Vista appears to be at.

In this respect, Apple were in exactly the same position as Microsoft a few years back - they'd been working on Copeland - their latest, greatest OS, for years, and it was very much overdue... for exactly these reasons. Ultimately, they decided to scrap it, which was a very risky business decision, given how anticipated it was, and how much they'd invested in its development. But they started again from semi-scratch (not quite from scratch, as this time they used a different OS as a starting point...) and luckily for them, they pulled it off...

[Missy D]

We hate Vista here and have had so many problems. I am going crazy looking at the blue circle and not getting onto the sites that I want to. Is there a way that I can remove Vista and put XP on laptop?

[Clueless]

I've been using a vista machine since I got my own PC and to be honest no complaints (except from the amount of patches needed for Games (Quake 4 and Unreal Tournament) and the security questions) but apart form that, smooth, fast enough and lets me know if anything goes wrong with it (which is few and far between).

[Barry Shnikov]

Oh, another problem I forgot about.

Vista randomly starts up in 1600x1200 mode, which is frustrating since I have a 22" monitor set to 1920 x 1440.

I worked out a work-around which was to do a hard re-set on the system unit and it would then start up in the proper mode. This prevented the useless bloody OS from moving all my icons around on the desktop so that I have to set them out again after resetting the resolution.

This time, it didn't work, and now Vista refuses to recognise my monitor and won't let me set to any resolution higher than 1600 x 1200.

So now I have to waste god knows how much time finding out wha**** is going on and sort it out. Instead of doing what I want to do. It would be like having to muck about under the bonnet of your car every third time you want to drive the damn thing.

[Barry Shnikov]

Solved the last problem. You have to click the box that prevents Vista from showing any but authorised monitor resolutions. You then get dozens of unauthorised resolutions - pick one, any one - and full steam ahead.

But here's another one.

I have my Task Bar at the left of the screen. It has about 30 or so Quick Start icons, and is about 5 icons wide; I have it set to Autohide, so that there is a two pixel strip at the left and when I mouse over the strip the Taskbar expands to the right; I can start a program, switch to one that's already open, look at the System tray, etc., but once I've finished, the Taskbar rolls up to the left and I get my whole screen back. Have my windows system set up like this for years, since W98 if not earlier. At work too.

Vista, for some reason, from time to time, stops autohiding the taskbar so it lays on top of all open windows. This is the worst of both worldsl; not only do I lose 10% of my screen real-estate, but I can't see the bit that's hidden under the Taskbar.

There's a workaround (set the taskbar autohide OFF, then set it back ON again, but it won't function properly until I reboot.

Another Redmond reliability issue.

[Barry Shnikov]

And Vista doesn't support Windows Help Files, so if you want to use any Windows legacy program, the help file is useless.

There can't be any good reason for that, it's just buggerishness or couldn't care less from Microsoft.

[Mr Darcy]

[quote=Barry Shnikov;453279]And Vista doesn't support Windows Help Files, so if you want to use any Windows legacy program, the help file is useless.[quote]

See this one for the good reasons:

The Windows Help (WinHlp32.exe) program is no longer included in Windows operating systems starting with Windows Vista

And this one for the workaround:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en

[Barry Shnikov]

[quote=Mr Darcy;453332][quote=Barry Shnikov;453279]And Vista doesn't support Windows Help Files, so if you want to use any Windows legacy program, the help file is useless.

See this one for the good reasons:

The Windows Help (WinHlp32.exe) program is no longer included in Windows operating systems starting with Windows Vista

What - "it no longer meets Microsoft standards"? That, when I was a small boy and being asked to explain my actions, was the sort of thing that would result in my Dad telling me it wasn't a reason, it was just an excuse. The fact of the matter is they couldn't be arsed to work out a way to enable their customers - you know, the people who buy $billions worth of software off them - to access Help files for programs the upgrades for which they might have no way of affording, or even for which there is no upgrade. It's just contempt for the customer, and sooner or later that spells disaster even for the largest companies.

And this one for the workaround:

Download details: WinHlp32.exe for Windows Vista

Thanks!! I'll have a look for that over the weekend.