Words of wisdumb about Vista

[al2i]

If you have any thoughts or hints about Vista, stick 'em here. I may have a thought or two myself in a few days.

[N2RJ]

I don't plan to upgrade.

Next computer is going to be a mac.

[kb9rqz]

If you have any thoughts or hints about Vista, stick 'em here. I may have a thought or two myself in a few days.

I never upgrade a windows OS I might get it with a new pc

[kf0rt]

I don't plan to upgrade.

Next computer is going to be a mac.

http://www.joyoftech.com/joyoftech/joyimages/915.gif

:P :P

[N2NH]

I don't plan to upgrade.

Next computer is going to be a mac.

Same here.

[kd6nig]

Not to mention the fact that to run it, you might as well get a new computer.

I'm sure AMD and Intel won't mind THAT though :)

The scary thing is that in 20 years we'll have computers that can do so much in so little time-except they will be weighed down by the latest iteration of Windows software.

But I can't think of any better way to maintain job security than to have to buy a new computer every 4 years....

[al2i]

I am so thankful that the billions and billions of $$$ that Microsoft "earns" for its marketplace hegemony were not wasted on simple imitation technologies, but that Microsoft actually "innovates" in its marketing. Accordingly, I just ordered two 3-packs of Home Premium Vista -- one 3-pack for 64-bit and one 3-pack for 32-bit. Why make one DVD product install for either platform like most other products when a couple billion $$$ extra is to be had by making it hard for people to use the current version when they upgrade their CPU in a few years. Microsoft is an innovator.

I tried an upgrade version Vista home premium last week, and it worked nearly an hour before I saw the BSOD -- impressive, and I congratulate Microsoft for this achievement. That BSOD occurred only after I tried to update Adobe's Macromedia Flash Player over the web. Macromedia was absorbed by Adobe, and since Adobe has not yet been absorbed by Microsoft, I got exactly what I should expect from a non-Microsoft website serving non-Microsoft software. It was my fault really.

I have heard complaints that a big feature of Microsoft Vista was the "Gadgets", but that that they stole the idea of gadgets from Apple's OS-x, which in turn was taken from the true innovators in computing today, the under- or uncompensated Linux developers. This is simply untrue. Microsoft has "Gadgets" that are placed in the Vista "Sidebar" or on the desktop, but OS-x has "Widgets" on the desktop or "Dashboard". "Widgets" does not equal "Gadgets", and "Sidebar" does not equal "Dashboard". (Besides, I remember when Borland made the "Sidekick" for DOS, but I am old.)

The windows of the "Premium" version of Vista appear to be partially translucent like various versions of Gnome and KDE desktops have been doing for some time, but Gnome and KDE were developed by really stupid people. Microsoft will earn billions for the same thing that those guys did for free. Now who is the real innovator here?! Obviously it is Microsoft, and my hat is off to them. They deserve every dollar they earn!

I noticed that there was a neat video editor and so forth bundled with Vista, and I have heard that this is a copy of what Macintosh has had for some time, but you know, I really doubt that Microsoft copied anything from other people, as that is just not the Microsoft way. If my computer had kept working, I could tell you more about this. Stupid Adobe.

Finally, as a chess player, I was pleasantly surprised that Microsoft bundled a visually appealing 3-d chess game as has been done with the Mac, and as was seen in some Linux distros before that. This is not a stolen idea, as chess has been around for ages. Microsoft is not copying anyone!!!!!!

These little look and feel things are not all that important really. Where Microsoft really, really blows the competition away is in their innovation of copy-protective and bootleg-protective features. Never has anyone been so good at activation requirements and so forth. I should note that after my first install but before my first BSOD, I had to reinstall Vista from scratch because it disabled itself over some sort of date conflict when I set the BIOS date on the computer. That was pretty cool, and you can see how it keeps the money flowing to Redmond in major new innovative ways. There are other features of Vista that I have not yet had a chance to explore as it did not run very long, but I will let you know of any cool new innovations created by the billions and billions of dollars Microsoft spent on Vista, if I can get it to run.

[al2i]

I decided to post the above on QRZ as well, as I feel strongly about the Microsoft innovations.

[kf0rt]

I suspect I'll be learning more about Vista in the upcoming weeks and months (vicariously, I hope).

The software shop where I work just realized that none of our products have even been tested on Vista and that we'll still be supporting XP for years. So, the march is on to get some hardware in to run it. The 3GHz P4's we bought 2.5 years ago apparently won't hack it -- not enough RAM and something about the video not being right. But, I switched to doing embedded stuff about two years ago, so can sit back and watch. New computer and OS? Nah... don't need it.

Got the XYL's new WoW machine runnin' and funnin' and get to keep her old 2.2GHz P4 box as my door prize. It's got a Gig of RAM and a pretty high-end graphics card, but the hard drive was dying. Put a new 320 Gig drive in it for $85, and it's now running Kubuntu Linux. Haven't played with that much yet and other than making it run with the nVidia card, the install went easier than any install I've EVER done with Windoze. Weird as hell... I plugged the network cable in, fired up Firefox and it was on the web without asking me a thing!

[kd6nig]

I decided to post the above on QRZ as well, as I feel strongly about the Microsoft innovations.

Only took an hour for a BSOD, eh? I haven't seen one of those on XP, yet. I'm sure I could fire up an old 98 box and produce one quickly.

I guess Vista was coded by nostalgic people. They missed those screens.

[N2RJ]

Not to mention the fact that to run it, you might as well get a new computer.

I'm sure AMD and Intel won't mind THAT though :)

The scary thing is that in 20 years we'll have computers that can do so much in so little time-except they will be weighed down by the latest iteration of Windows software.

But I can't think of any better way to maintain job security than to have to buy a new computer every 4 years....

Well actually you are not far off from the truth...

Most people don't buy Windows. They buy computers. The computers just happen to come with Windows preinstalled.

So most of Microsoft's vista sales are going to be OEM sales from people buying new computers. It was the same with xp. Both of my copies of xp are OEM, one from DELL, one from IBM, and the xyl's PC has OEM xp from DELL too.

I hardly know anyone who bought an upgrade.

Last upgrade I bought was win 95 (from 3.1). Never again.

[N2NH]

I have a friend who's an IT tech. He installed Vista late Beta, then upgraded to Vista's Top of the line pro O/S. Apparently, somebody had the hack for Vista. They've found a hole and his bandwidth got trashed. When he called the cable company, they said he was transmitting and that it was using up most of his bandwidth (+95%). When he did diagnostics, apparently the bot went dormant, but a test of his firewall showed that it had been disabled.

Um Vista? No thanks. I'll wait for the movie.

[al2i]

That is Worrisome John. I am going live with Vista in about an hour: turning it over to customer trashing.

[kd6nig]

That is Worrisome John. I am going live with Vista in about an hour: turning it over to customer trashing.

Provided you get paid for every customer created service call, you should be making lots of money over the next few weeks :)

[KE7DLG]

I decided to post the above on QRZ as well, as I feel strongly about the Microsoft innovations.

Only took an hour for a BSOD, eh? I haven't seen one of those on XP, yet. I'm sure I could fire up an old 98 box and produce one quickly.

I guess Vista was coded by nostalgic people. They missed those screens.

Try certain USB wireless adapters. In particular some of the Dlink adapters. They allow you hours of fun chasing down so many different opinions of what causes the nice blue screen with a message about Bug Code USB, yadda yadda yadda. There is no real information on this error (or wasn't when I was chasing it down) other than to say it is caused by a device driver. That narrowed it down to a thousand or two possibilities. There were even suggestions about it being caused by taking advantage of Hyper Threading in the processor which ended up in a lot of tail chasing.

XP has been nothing more than a continuation of a decline in quality of product but we buy it because we feel the need to feed Microsoft's quest for world domination.

[KU4MY]

That is Worrisome John. I am going live with Vista in about an hour: turning it over to customer trashing.

Looks to be worrisome to me Dave. You haven't made it back on here yet. ;)

[al2i]

OK, that didn't work. I am back to all Windows XP machines. I spent a lot of time with the weird sound problem, but for some reason Monday wasn't as slow as usual and the shop filled with customers.

Interestingly enough, I had my first opportunity to help a customer with his Vista laptop. It was the same ol' crap that puts guys like me in demand: His computer was obviously connected to the internet as I could see the gateway and beyond that to the DNS servers, but his IE was puking. Teh poor fellow had naively run the "network troubleshooter" umpteen times but was getting nowhere. It was the el stupido proxy setting of course. I wish I had a few bucks for every time I've seen that one. Wait! I do have a few bucks for every time I've seen that one. 8)

Time for a moment of respectful silence in homage to the monetary gods of Redmond.

[N2NH]

The YL (NHE) told me last night that C-Net is advising everyone to save their money and NOT buy Vista. That's damning.

[al2i]

I am pretty busy, but Vista is running beautifully now. I still hate Microsoft, and I would even if Vista got up and made my morning coffee for me...

Still, Vista is a class act if you don't mind going crazy looking for the right VISTA-64 sound driver for your Asus A8R-MVP motherboard. Once I found that, life became bearable again. :roll:

[ke5frf]

I have Vista Home Basic on this laptop. I had some networking problems trying to establish an ad-hoc network with my desktop PC. I call Microsloth to get some help, and "of course" they ask for my product key, having the -OEM- designator, and tell me to call the laptop manufacturer for support. Golly Gee, they say for a $75 dollar fee they'll gaurantee to get the problem worked out. So, I naively call Acer, and they tell me to call Microsloth, whoopididoo. So, I lay my credit card down and get after it. The microsloth Techs are helpful, I'll give them that much, but we go 'round and 'round looking for the problem. No solutions. So, ya wanna know what I did? I got to thinking about the wifi card in the laptop. It is NOT a linksys product, so I decide to go pick up a linksys card for the laptop, as my PCI card in the desktop is a Linksys. Well, the problem didn't go away, so I thought I might take the other card back, until it dawned on me that both cards are operating at the same time. I navigate through Vista, trying to find a way to disable the OEM card...that was kind of like walking in circles, until I happened to click on "just the right icon" and low and behold, I was able to disable the OEM wifi. All of a sudden, my network started working! How about that? Turns out that all 8011g wifi products are NOT compatable with other 8011g wifi products! Lesson learned, and I also learned that Windoze XP is the best system they ever put out. They should have left well enough alone.

[al2i]

Now that I have a little Vista mileage under my belt, I can state categorically that the main technical advances by Microsoft are those that help them secure their monopoly. They are behaving as classic monopolists behave.

Oh how far America has fallen since justice can be bought.

[KU4MY]

Well you guys are still scaring the daylights out of me regarding Vista so I will stick with XP Pro. On the other hand, a local hammy who is a bit younger than I (as if everyone isn't, right? ;) ) told me he has been playing with it for a bit and it's the greatest thing since sliced bread......... what to do, what to do...... man, I sure miss Windows 3.1. :-?