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Vista Updates, BASTARDS!

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HarveyH42

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March 12, 2009, MicroSUX, updated my computer for me overnight. Got up to find my mouse and keyboard no longer worked. Spent several hours trying to figure out how to fix it. The PS/2 mouse and keyboard worked on my XP, but not such luck using the XP mouse and keyboard on the Vista machine. Thought of hardware failure, and about to rip the cover off (almost literally), and check it out, but remembered I had a USB optical mouse stuffed in a drawer, that I never got around to using. Plugged it in, and worked fine. So, messed around, with the diagnostics, downloading new drivers and such. Still no keyboard, which makes it kind of tough to navigate. Rolled back two days, to the reset point before the updates, and the PS/2 stuff worked again, but kind slow, because Windows was busy with the hard drive, trying re-install the updates, which again disabled the keyboard. Went to Walmart and bought a cheap, $9.98 USB keyboard, problem solved, until the next update.

Was wondering if anybody else got the same gift from Microsoft, or if there might be some other conflict. My free subscription to Norton Anti-Virus expired months ago, but its been pestering me to fix. They want 50 bucks to upgrade, since my version is no longer supported. Wondering, if they are foul enough to send me a little late night incentive to renew my interest in their over-priced product. Spybot and Windows Defender both say my computer is clean...

Just needed to blow off some steam, wasted half a day on this thing.
 
Anti Virus software is by large and far a scam, it both slows down system performance and provides absolutely no protection whatsoever from 0 day virii or security vulnerabilities and have themselves been linked to several virii which specifically target anti-virus software =P Windows Defender works just fine as a first and only defense as long as you're smart enough to make sure the files you're loading on your machine aren't actually exectuables from sketchy sources, and NEVER trust your friends attachments ever, ALWAYS scan.

I haven't had any problems with any of Vista's automated updates, it seems really strange a PS2 keyboard and mouse would suddenly stop working like that though, and since issues like that never happen to only 1 user there has to be some information out there or will be soon about it.

It sucks that so many people have had trouble with Vista, and I do feel your pain as I've had similiar issues with older hardware and software having bizzare 'functionality' associated with it =) But never any trouble with Vista. Since SP2 when I got it it's been perfectly stable for me. I have had only 2 system crashes and they were related to the stock drivers for my video card having an overly conservative fan setting on it so it was over heating. I have a quad core processor which has more than enough horsepower to spare for Vista to completly bog down 2 processors 100% and have all my applications till run at 100% speed, and a DX10 capable video card. The only issues I've had with vista are the 64 bit version which has some nasty software incompatabilities. My wife's new machine came with 64 Vista, horrible mistake. If I truly need a 64 bit Os for something I'll pop Linux on there and run XP or Vista in a virtual machine.
 
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Vista is the Windows ME of the past 5 years. There was no reason for it, and no excuse for it. There is nothing useful offered by Vista which XP didn't do better, and many things which it does worse or not at all.

One frightening thing is that the open-source Samba networking suite does Windows networking better than Vista does.

This laptop came with Vista. After a couple of months of agony (and I've been using, configuring, and troubleshooting MS OSes since DOS 3.3) I sent Vista to the bit bucket. I might give Windows 7 a look when it comes out, but honestly there's nothing I need to do on a regular basis which Linux can't handle easily. For games or music studio software I have my trusty XP desktop.


Torben
 
I think Vista was written by a bunch of gay, left coast, interior decorators!
 
Service Pack3 for Windows XP stopped my pc.
Microsoft gave me a little program that stops Service Pack3 from being installed.
 
Anti Virus software is by large and far a scam, it both slows down system performance and provides absolutely no protection whatsoever from 0 day virii or security vulnerabilities and have themselves been linked to several virii which specifically target anti-virus software ....

This I have no doubt of... Each time Norton was about to expire in the past, I had been warned of virii/trojans where none had been found throughout the protected period....
 
Actually Vista offers the Aero interface, but from someone that uses it, it's not that impressive. I do say though that it's going to be easier to go from Vista to Windows 7 than it would have been to go from XP straight to 7 if they'd just continued to bloatvelope Vista. At least they're adjusting to user demand.

The big problem is half the machines (or better) that Vista was originally released on and many current PC's aren't capable of running all of Vista's features particularly Aero which requires a DX10 capable card. There's still a lawsuit going on about that whole deal, not sure if it's gained class action status yet but I don't think so.

I was VERY careful when I picked this machine out to make sure that all the hardware on it was more than enough to run everything Vista required. Works fine for me it came installed and I've had no troubles with it so I haven't bothered putting XP back on it, just no reason. I do have a few applications that don't work on Vista but I run my old copy of XP (legally) on a VM using Sun's Xvm virtual box (free) It's more a problem with how Vista was marketed not with vista itself, and the company that sold you the machine that you're having problems with is just as much at fault as Microsoft. Buyer beware after all. It happens with pretty much every product the human race consumes, why should OS's be any different?
 
This I have no doubt of... Each time Norton was about to expire in the past, I had been warned of virii/trojans where none had been found throughout the protected period....

I got off the Norton extortion racket several years ago, Avast offers a good free product with active updates. Systems boots a lot faster too ;)

Lefty
 
Actually Vista offers the Aero interface, but from someone that uses it, it's not that impressive. I do say though that it's going to be easier to go from Vista to Windows 7 than it would have been to go from XP straight to 7 if they'd just continued to bloatvelope Vista. At least they're adjusting to user demand.

The big problem is half the machines (or better) that Vista was originally released on and many current PC's aren't capable of running all of Vista's features particularly Aero which requires a DX10 capable card. There's still a lawsuit going on about that whole deal, not sure if it's gained class action status yet but I don't think so.

I was VERY careful when I picked this machine out to make sure that all the hardware on it was more than enough to run everything Vista required. Works fine for me it came installed and I've had no troubles with it so I haven't bothered putting XP back on it, just no reason. I do have a few applications that don't work on Vista but I run my old copy of XP (legally) on a VM using Sun's Xvm virtual box (free) It's more a problem with how Vista was marketed not with vista itself, and the company that sold you the machine that you're having problems with is just as much at fault as Microsoft. Buyer beware after all. It happens with pretty much every product the human race consumes, why should OS's be any different?

Hm. . .well, if an OS can't copy more than, say, 500MB of data over a LAN without crashing, then it's most certainly a problem with the OS. If it furthermore has a habit of installing useless language packs, and offering no way of uninstalling them, that's also a problem. And if it then proceeds to drop wireless connections for no particular reason then that's a problem as well. I understand that SP2 helped with some issues but not all. Vista is IMHO unmitigated junk and it was not worth waiting for the service packs--I had work to get done and Vista just got in the way.

Happily I got a nice laptop, but I wish I could have gotten it without paying the MS tax for a useless product.

Aero was also a disappointment. All this talk about this wonderful whiz-bang interface, and it looks like it was designed by design school dropouts and performs like it was programmed by stoned monkeys. It might look neat if the user has never seen anything halfway decent before.


Just my $0.02. Highly biased, of course. :) Vista should have met the same fate as MS Bob and WinME, both of which were actually *less* annoying.


Torben
 
I think Vista was written by a bunch of gay, left coast, interior decorators!

They would have done a much better job. This thing was clearly written by a bunch of conservatives who voted for Bush and think the universe popped into existence during "creation week".
 
They would have done a much better job. This thing was clearly written by a bunch of conservatives who voted for Bush and think the universe popped into existence during "creation week".

At least it would have looked good.


Torben
 
Torben, what were the FULL (and I do mean FULL) system specs on the Vista machines you've had trouble with? My Vista machine looks good and runs great. But I knew what I was getting into with Vista before I got it. It was marketed at first on machines that couldn't REALLY run it properly. Microsofts fault for advertising it that way, vendors fault for believing them even though they knew better (and they did) there are even official complaints from hardware makers. Users fault for believing someone is going to sell you somethign and tell you all the catches. Buyer beware.

Also if you really hate Vista for it's bloatwareness, you can get an installation disk maker at **broken link removed** that will make a custom Vista installation disk with whatever drivers an bit you want available.
 
Torben, what were the FULL (and I do mean FULL) system specs on the Vista machines you've had trouble with? My Vista machine looks good and runs great. But I knew what I was getting into with Vista before I got it. It was marketed at first on machines that couldn't REALLY run it properly. Microsofts fault for advertising it that way, vendors fault for believing them even though they knew better (and they did) there are even official complaints from hardware makers. Users fault for believing someone is going to sell you somethign and tell you all the catches. Buyer beware.

Let's see. . .160GB hdd; Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.2GHz; 2GB RAM; etc. It's an ASUS G1S gaming rig; more than capable of handling Vista's requirements with everything turned on. Vista's own hardware checker passed it with flying colours (not that I trust it).

I'm capable of determining what should be required for an OS to run. Vista's problems were in no way related to being hardware-bound; I can run Compiz with all effect turned up to 11, several simultaneous videos, WinXP in VMWare workstation with 3D editing applications running, all simultaneously. Vista's performance was OK (if more sluggish than it should have been); games etc. ran just fine (if they ran at all, and if the language pack keyboard combos didn't kick me into Korean during a pitched firefight).

The problems were, again, not related to an underpowered machine (although Vista did take more resources than it should have). Network file copies: not processor or memory-bound; not the issue (somewhat related to the fact that Vista moronically wanted to calculate the transfer sizes before beginning, using a retarded algorithm which would block for up to 5 minutes before the first copied bytes hit the wire). Language pack issues: not processor or memory-bound; not the issue. Ugly interface: not processor or memory-bound, just damned bad design and drawing skills.

Also if you really hate Vista for it's bloatwareness, you can get an installation disk maker at **broken link removed** that will make a custom Vista installation disk with whatever drivers an bit you want available.

The problem isn't with bloatedness; it's with the fact that Vista offers nothing which is worth putting up with its drawbacks. I am aware of the Vista Lite offerings; I just can't think of a single thing which Vista offers which I want, or which would make it worth the effort. WinXP did everything I needed, with less effort, fewer resources, and anything it couldn't handle, Linux could. Now I find that Linux and WinXP in a VM gives me everything I need.


I'm a rookie with electronics. I am not a rookie with computers.


Torben
 
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The big problem is half the machines (or better) that Vista was originally released on and many current PC's aren't capable of running all of Vista's features particularly Aero which requires a DX10 capable card. There's still a lawsuit going on about that whole deal, not sure if it's gained class action status yet but I don't think so.
Vista does not require a dx10 capable card, but it does require a card better than some of the most basic integrated graphics solutions can handle.

The file copy issue was resolved quite a while ago. Well, not totally resolved. I think XP still has a marginally faster copy.

I would agree that Vista offers very little. With 4gigs and 64bit, I'm pretty pleased with the performance enhancement from Superfetch, though.
 
Well, I'm back on the XP machine. The Vista started dropping my wireless internet connection, progressively getting more frequent, until I couldn't connect at all. The WiFi adapter is working fine on the XP (using it now). Decided to go through and remove all the crap off the Vista machine I didn't use, expired, or basically worthless. It's been uninstalling Norton, for a little over two hours now... Task Manager and Resource Monitor show lots of activity, CPU around 64%, HD light stays on and flickers occasionally. Really hate this, feels like Norton is beating the hell out of my system on it's way out. Not too sure what to do, figure probably better off letting run. There is no Cancel button, interrupting might create a much bigger mess.

The strange thing, is that I haven't had any major problems with Vista, been using that computer daily for about 8 months. Pretty damn sure it's a software problem, and related to the recent updates. Have to figure out how to roll it back again, but block the updates from re-installing. Just stick with the XP machine for a while, wasted too much time this weekend on Vista.
 
I stand corrected, it requires a DX9 card, and I wouldn't use a slow one.
 
Well I just bought my son a laptop for school and the only vendor who would sell me a laptop with XP Pro on was our local computer guy who works from home. I was a bit peeved that he wouldn't give a xp disk instead he did apartition to do a full re-install not if but when it's needed. Fair enough it wasn't the latest power hungry laptop but just a celery based one and @ $800 Oz with a gig of ram I seem to think it was a decent deal.

When I was looking in one of the biggest retailers in Oz the sales ****** was trying to tell a gal vista was the only OS to work on these newer computers. When I told that ****** how about I bring in a live CD with linux on and show how much of a bullcrap artist you are, he said try that and I'll ring the cops. Needless to say that gal asked me outside the shop and I sent her to my local computer guy who sold her a top of the range laptop with XP pro on. The reason she needed xp was where she worked they refused to support or use vista.

What this world needs is one huge class action that will bankrupt microshyte and the world will be a better place for it. Afterall wasnt it a crooked deal that got that geek going in the first place.
 
Great idea bankrupt a company so they can't support software that almost 90% of home, and 50% of servers PC's use. If someone else had that kind of market share they'd be screwing something else up just as bad or worse. Not being able to get XP on 'lower end' machines is really stupid though. Ehh, you should be wishing Microsoft screws more stuff up, people will use something else at some point.
 
Last xmas I bought my wife an EEE PC at Best Buy. They are no longer pushing Vista on all systems. The system came with XP.
 
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