done with Vista

[ecoli]

I can't stand it anymore...

 

Everytime I try to do something admin-y in the control panel, try to change something in the device manager, etc, it just crashes.

 

Also (and this is turning into an annoying persistent problem) whenever I'm connected to my uni's wireless network, it periodically stops working, without disconnected; it says it's a "limited connection" like I'm getting kicked off the local network without actually disconnecting from it - which could actually be my uni's fault. But, on my gf's XP computer, I can just reconnect to the network, and there's no problem.

 

On my computer, if I disconnect from the network, it gets removed from the list of wireless networks, unless I restart my computer. And, if I try to manually connect, it says that there's already a network with this name, and directs me back to the list of networks... of which my uni's network is not listed.

 

Anyway, I'm going to dual boot with mandriva really soon, (because there's some programs I have that aren't Linux friendly), on my second internal hard drive. Which I don't know how to do, but hopefully I'll figure it out. I might also consider "downgrading" Vista to XP.

 

edit: and why the hell is SFN the only site that's working for me right now?

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

edit: and why the hell is SFN the only site that's working for me right now?

 

That'd be my fault, sorry.

 

Actually, it's probably a DNS failure, and your computer has SFN's IP cached.

 

Rather than Mandriva I'd recommend Ubuntu. It's far more popular and (though I've never used Mandriva) fairly awesome. I'm using it now.

[ecoli]

That'd be my fault, sorry.

 

Actually, it's probably a DNS failure, and your computer has SFN's IP cached.

 

Rather than Mandriva I'd recommend Ubuntu. It's far more popular and (though I've never used Mandriva) fairly awesome. I'm using it now.

The only reason I would use Mandriva over Ubuntu, is b/c my brother also uses it and could be my tech support.

[bascule]

I would highly suggest MacOS X. In my not-so-humble opinion, it's the best desktop operating system available to date.

[ecoli]

I would highly suggest MacOS X. In my not-so-humble opinion, it's the best desktop operating system available to date.

 

Can you use that on a PC? At any rate, I probably could afford it.

[bascule]

Can you use that on a PC?

 

Not legally!

 

At any rate, I probably could afford it.

 

I would suggest giving it a try if you can

[5614]

Dual boot with XP!

 

When I got my laptop it came with Vista. So I immediately wiped it clean and then setup a XP/Vista dual boot, planning to use Vista as my main OS, but having XP as a backup. However my dislike of Vista very quickly grew and I now only use XP.

 

One thing I did learn: finding XP drivers for my Vista-only laptop was kinda fun (and in the annoying sense of the word!). It seems to be a lot easier now, and there's a lot on the net about how to do it, but there wasn't as much when I did it, grr!

[Pangloss]

Those sound like driver issues to me (in the OP). Obviously most Vista users are able to open the system control panel without immediately crashing. (grin) But I do empathize -- these driver issues have very much been the bane of Vista's existence and I think it's perfectly valid to chuck it in favor of a different OS if you like the hardware or don't think it's time to upgrade it, and the manufacturer isn't updating the drivers. Go for it.

 

There's a story running around the net right now about a collection of leaked Microsoft internal emails that seem to indicate that almost a third of Vista issues in 2007 were due to one particular family of nVidia graphic drivers alone -- the biggest video card maker! Yeeeeesh.

[ecoli]

Those sound like driver issues to me (in the OP). Obviously most Vista users are able to open the system control panel without immediately crashing. (grin) But I do empathize -- these driver issues have very much been the bane of Vista's existence and I think it's perfectly valid to chuck it in favor of a different OS if you like the hardware or don't think it's time to upgrade it, and the manufacturer isn't updating the drivers. Go for it.

 

There's a story running around the net right now about a collection of leaked Microsoft internal emails that seem to indicate that almost a third of Vista issues in 2007 were due to one particular family of nVidia graphic drivers alone -- the biggest video card maker! Yeeeeesh.

 

Vista came installed on my laptop, which is the only reason why I'm using it. I think this means its probably not a driver issue?

[insane_alien]

probably but not definitely. my brothers laptop came with vista sans wireless drivers. i still have no idea what wireless card it is except it works flawlessly with ubuntu.

[CaptainPanic]

I'm a n00b regarding computers, but I managed to get Ubuntu up and running smoothly with only the Ubuntuforums as a help. The installation was not super smooth, because I had some brand new hardware which was not yet supported, but even such problems were solved by me alone. The few times I needed to use a console/commandline to type some code to get something working, it was a matter of copy-paste from the forums. The rest is done by clicking stuff in menus.

 

And now 2 months later, I would never switch back to any Windows. Ubuntu is more user friendly, and the help files are written for n00bs, and by people with communication skills.

 

I haven't found anything (except some games) that isn't available in Ubuntu that I had in Windows. And I even got my network (shared with a windows pc) up and running (yay).

 

I know this doesn't really help solve your problem. But you should realize that Ubuntu even sends you an installation CD to your home address, free of costs.

[Pangloss]

Vista came installed on my laptop, which is the only reason why I'm using it. I think this means its probably not a driver issue?

 

What IA said. What else could it be? "Random crashes while doing things" are the very hallmark of driver-related issues. That's always either heat, lack of power, bad hardware, or buggy drivers.

 

I agree with the posts above -- load Ubuntu or Windows XP (whatever you've got drivers for) and see if the same computer produces the same problems. If it does, it was obviously a conflict between Vista and its drivers, and you'll already have the problem solved.

[BhavinB]

What IA said. What else could it be? "Random crashes while doing things" are the very hallmark of driver-related issues. That's always either heat, lack of power, bad hardware, or buggy drivers.

 

I agree with the posts above -- load Ubuntu or Windows XP (whatever you've got drivers for) and see if the same computer produces the same problems. If it does, it was obviously a conflict between Vista and its drivers, and you'll already have the problem solved.

 

So ironic that everyone wanted better developed, more secure drivers and now that Vista requires that, it causes its own downfall.

 

Though other than my Outlook 2007 crashing every other day, I have absolutely no issues with Vista...I actually enjoy it more than XP.

[Mr Skeptic]

probably but not definitely. my brothers laptop came with vista sans wireless drivers. i still have no idea what wireless card it is except it works flawlessly with ubuntu.

 

I've used my Ubuntu installation to find the identity of my hardware so I could get windows drivers for it Now Ubuntu has a device manager, the first gui one I've seen in linux. Not that I'm an expert.

[Pangloss]

So ironic that everyone wanted better developed, more secure drivers and now that Vista requires that, it causes its own downfall.

 

Yeah that's the rub, though -- it doesn't actually require better drivers, it only requires that they be signed. So either the WHQL process is flawed, or it isn't looking at the right stuff. I suspect that's what a lot of those internal memoes were about.

 

Though other than my Outlook 2007 crashing every other day, I have absolutely no issues with Vista...I actually enjoy it more than XP.

 

My desktop runs great, as does my classroom full of Dell Precision workstations running 64-bit Vista on Xeon. Our laptops, however, are a Lovecraftian horror story. <shudder>

[JohnB]

When I built the new system I bought Vista 64 bit.

 

Except for older games (no surprise there) I haven't had a lick of trouble. Like BhavinB I now prefer it to XP, which is loaded onto the secondary system.

 

It multi tasks easily and boots in under 40 seconds. I haven't had that since 3.11 and a lot of tweaking.

 

Particularly impressive is that the load/driver disc from my ISP for my modem (Belkin 4 port wireless) is not usable under Vista. Vista found the modem, configured itself and got online in seconds. It was easier than doing it under XP.

[ydoaPs]

But you should realize that Ubuntu even sends you an installation CD to your home address, free of costs.

 

When I got it a few years ago, they sent 5.

[Pangloss]

Boot time, and recovery from hibernate and sleep, are fantastically improved over XP. On the down side, recovery from sleep can produce more issues with peripherals than seen in XP, in my experience.

 

Microsoft has recently moved up its timeline for Windows 7 to 2009, only a year or so away. That pretty much acknowledges Vista's shortcomings.

 

On a more positive note, I haven't reinstalled the OS on this Vista box in over a year now. With XP I would have reinstalled at least twice during that same period, mainly due to slowdown from the file handles issue. Vista's memory and drive management is a vast improvement over XP.

[bascule]

Vista boot-up time was terrible on my MacBook, well over a minute compared to the ~30s that it takes Leopard to boot.

[Pangloss]

The comparison was against XP, not Leopard.

 

Sounds like a bad MacBook, though. Vista should take no more than 40 seconds if Leopard is running in 30. Check the memory -- Vista uses more of it, so it could be hitting a bad patch of it somewhere.

 

That just goes to show you how it is with laptops, though. My desktop boots Vista in 32 seconds cold. More like 10-15 coming back from standby.

[Realitycheck]

Though when you factor in the fact that you have to buy a dual core with a gigabyte of RAM and so forth, how fast would it boot up an xp then?

[Pangloss]

Slower. This box I'm typing on has a dual-core Extreme Edition processor (2-cores but acts like four cores because of hyperthreading) running at (if memory serves) almost 4 ghz. It's actually getting a bit long in the tooth (maybe close to two years old now) but I'm loathe to replace it because I'm not convinced a newer box would actually be faster.

 

(It scores a 5.2 in that Vista Experience rating, but we built some boxes at work with 2.4-ghz Dual Xeons and dual Quadra boards in SLI and they only get a 5.4 rating. I'm not convinced that rating means a whole lot, but I am pretty sure this box will render my Camasia Studio screen captures faster than those Xeon boxes.)

 

Which just goes back to my theory that computers aren't really getting faster anymore, and nobody seems to be noticing this. But I guess that's another discussion.

[Miri]

My laptop came with Vista as well, but I'm switching full-time to Linux later this year. Still experimenting with distros, though, so I haven't really decided which I'll eventually use.

 

I have the hardware to handle Vista's laggy performance, but it still irks me every single time I have to deal with installing device drivers.

[ecoli]

Im now thinking about the new Ubuntu distro... just waiting until finals are over. I procrastinate enough as it is.

[Miri]

I tried out Ubuntu 8.04 just two days ago and damn, it's pretty awesome =D