Miri Posted May 7, 2008 Posted May 7, 2008 No no, that's not what I meant, haha. I just felt the need to mention my install of Vista always seems to have a particular trouble with installing them properly. I remember trying to install drivers so I could connect my cell phone up to my laptop via Bluetooth. Vista went through it's whole "searching for device drivers" sequence, ended up not finding any, had to search my C:\ drive for them, etc. And when it had finally successfully installed about three of them, it told me my device was ready to use. I set my phone on discoverable and waited about 5 minutes just to be greeted with the fact that I needed to install more drivers. Joyous. Wash, rinse, repeat. When I could finally connect my phone, I had wasted a good 30 minutes of my time =/ It's also amusing to think that I took about 10 minutes to install the drivers for my Microsoft Optical Mouse the first time I set it up with my Vista install, whereas it worked seamlessly upon plugging it in under Kubuntu.
Pangloss Posted May 7, 2008 Posted May 7, 2008 Ah yes, I quite agree. One of the areas where this has been particularly problematic is installers that predate Vista not recognizing User Account Control. So they don't cut to the gray screen and prompt you to click, and just go ahead and try to install. But of course that's not permitted under Vista, so the installer appears to work when in fact it hasn't done its job at all. This one has frustrated everyone from users to Microsoft product managers (note the recent publicity about the leaked emails). It's a very good point, and industry analysts suspect that these proplems lie at the heart of Microsoft's recent announcement of a moving-up of its timetable to replace Vista as early as late 2009.
Softix Posted May 11, 2008 Posted May 11, 2008 Agreed with other ubuntu might be the way to go also i have seen system speed test and since it doesnt milk resources like vista or xp you will see your computer run alot faster
bascule Posted May 14, 2008 Posted May 14, 2008 I received a new laptop today! Along with my coworkers. It's preloaded with Vista... One of my coworkers bluescreened his about 10 minutes after receiving it (note: these are Dell laptops, not some generic crap). My experience wasn't that bad but... Ugh, the stupid spinning circle... Vista sure makes my brand new dual core 2.8GHz laptop with 3GB RAM feel like a 100MHz Pentium. YES VISTA, YOU MAY MOLEST MY COMPUTER. Can I do anything without it prompting me that it might be potentially dangerous? And it's not like I'm installing a bunch of crappily written 3rd party applications... this is just to use the things that came preloaded. Why is my computer constantly using ~50% of its CPU when I don't have any applications? What's it doing? Compositing windows? I guess it's running a bunch of crappy Dell-provided shovelware. That said... bye bye Vista, I'm installing Ubuntu Hardy as I type this...
ecoli Posted May 14, 2008 Author Posted May 14, 2008 I went with mandriva, at least for now. I'm having some problems with the audio, but otherwise, everything seems to be working fine. Actually, I wound up making the switch because one of my hard drives got damaged, rather than any specific problem with vista itself.
Pangloss Posted May 14, 2008 Posted May 14, 2008 Was it the Dell Latitude series? I have a 630 and it's been in for repairs more times than I can count. In my 9-person department, all with the same unit, we've had 14 bad hard drives, 4 bad screens, 2 bad keyboards, 1 bad battery, and various other problems ranging from bad wireless cards to outright motherboard replacements. I've replaced my hard drive twice and gone in three more times for reformatting due to Vista-related problems (clashes between UAC, drivers, and the ridiculous mandatory company profile and required policies my benevolent corporate dictators use). Mostly the little monster sits unused in my laptop case and I drag it around campus and ignore it, because it's just not worth putting anything important on there.
bascule Posted May 14, 2008 Posted May 14, 2008 It's an Inspiron 1526, and to be fair Hardy didn't support a lot of the hardware (WiFi, Ethernet, the USB host controller)
antimatter Posted May 21, 2008 Posted May 21, 2008 My sister has an old Inspiron, but it barely runs, I think I'm going to have to re-install teh O.S. I have used Vista a few times, but I didn't really like it mostly because I felt like it was meant for aesthetics, rather than plain old reliability. Keep in mind this is just from a few uses at friends houses.
ecoli Posted May 21, 2008 Author Posted May 21, 2008 It's an Inspiron 1526, and to be fair Hardy didn't support a lot of the hardware (WiFi, Ethernet, the USB host controller) I'm booting Hardy now on my laptop. There's some problems with the sound and headphone support. I think it's fixable however (I'm just not sure how yet).
Softix Posted May 23, 2008 Posted May 23, 2008 I'll stay with XP rather than use Vista. even though Vista is the latest Windows OS but I love to use XP - user friendly. Vista - if you got low spec rig, you'll problem, loading at startup totally slow. please upgrade your ram, processor and graphic to make sure your pc/laptop can run Vista smoothly.
antimatter Posted May 23, 2008 Posted May 23, 2008 I'll stay with XP rather than use Vista. even though Vista is the latest Windows OS but I love to use XP - user friendly. Vista - if you got low spec rig, you'll problem, loading at startup totally slow. please upgrade your ram, processor and graphic to make sure your pc/laptop can run Vista smoothly. I'm not entirely sure why anyone would really want Vista, yes, I know, it's the latest piece of eye-candy to be released by the Microsoft monolith, but it's really just the new Mac OS. It's aesthetically appealing and easy to use, but other than that it's no good. XP is at least slightly reliable, not to mention more efficient, practical, and familiar. Forgot to mention the toll Vista takes on your RAM...quite disturbing...
Pangloss Posted May 25, 2008 Posted May 25, 2008 I'll buy more. I believe all three major operating systems need to be supported by the professional and scientific computer base (power users, developers, etc). What's useful is to have these three entities (Apple, Microsoft and Linux) playing off one another with all these interface improvements. Apple's not operating in an intellectual vacuum, you know. They're watching Microsoft and Microsoft is watching them (and they're both watching KDE/Gnome, but they seem to be lagging behind). So while it's certainly true that many improvements in Vista are based on OSX, the reverse is also the case, and OSX wouldn't look as good as it does without that competition. Incidentally, if you ignore the ridiculous driver issues and and interface slip-ups, and look solely at the mechanical underpinnings (kernel changes), Vista is a far better operating system than XP. It manages memory far better than XP, for example. No way I would switch from Vista to XP. Vista to Linux, Vista to OSX, you bet. But Vista to XP? That's a big step back.
Softix Posted May 28, 2008 Posted May 28, 2008 I'll buy more. I believe all three major operating systems need to be supported by the professional and scientific computer base (power users, developers, etc). What's useful is to have these three entities (Apple, Microsoft and Linux) playing off one another with all these interface improvements. Apple's not operating in an intellectual vacuum, you know. They're watching Microsoft and Microsoft is watching them (and they're both watching KDE/Gnome, but they seem to be lagging behind). So while it's certainly true that many improvements in Vista are based on OSX, the reverse is also the case, and OSX wouldn't look as good as it does without that competition. Incidentally, if you ignore the ridiculous driver issues and and interface slip-ups, and look solely at the mechanical underpinnings (kernel changes), Vista is a far better operating system than XP. It manages memory far better than XP, for example. No way I would switch from Vista to XP. Vista to Linux, Vista to OSX, you bet. But Vista to XP? That's a big step back. I got your point here. Vista is upgrade/update for XP (but totally different). So why everyone look behind and proud with it (XP). Anyway, I'll stick with XP before change to Linux or Apple platform soon.
Pangloss Posted May 28, 2008 Posted May 28, 2008 By the way, I think the recent shift from PC gaming to console gaming (often reported as the "death of PC gaming", though that's way extreme IMO) is, I believe, having a major impact on the surge of alternate operating systems. The 7th-gen consoles (XBox 360, Wii and Playstation 3) are amazingly successful, and game developers have been abandoning PC gaming because of all the benefits of consoles (almost no piracy, for example). There will be a resurgence of PC gaming (especially with some interesting new titles coming out this year), but there's a definite window there for Apple and the Linux folks to grab, and they've been grabbing it with both hands. There was a story last week reporting that Apple now commands 67% of the PC market over $1,000. Of course most PCs sell for less than that mark, but that's still quite a feat, and shows how far Apple has come.
Sayonara Posted May 28, 2008 Posted May 28, 2008 I'm booting Hardy now on my laptop. There's some problems with the sound and headphone support. I think it's fixable however (I'm just not sure how yet). Mandriva Spring 2008 is rather tasty. I have had terrible problems getting various Ubuntu builds to work with my hardware, but Mandriva seems to be magically charmed by the compatibility elves.
ecoli Posted May 28, 2008 Author Posted May 28, 2008 Mandriva Spring 2008 is rather tasty. I have had terrible problems getting various Ubuntu builds to work with my hardware, but Mandriva seems to be magically charmed by the compatibility elves. I was using mandriva 2008.0. I wasn't a fan.
Softix Posted May 29, 2008 Posted May 29, 2008 I was using mandriva 2008.0. I wasn't a fan. tell me your experience using mandriva 2008. if you wasnt a fan, why you choose mandriva as your platfrom? :rolleyes:
ecoli Posted May 30, 2008 Author Posted May 30, 2008 tell me your experience using mandriva 2008. if you wasnt a fan, why you choose mandriva as your platfrom? :rolleyes: just the layout could have been improved... (hardy heron is much sexier). Also, I had some sound and video issues on Mandriva, that I thoguht would be fixed with Ubuntu. Well, the video was fixed, but the sound problems have been even harder to get rid of. I don't feel like changing back now. Also, I choose Mandriva first because my brother happened to have the install CD at hand.
swansont Posted May 30, 2008 Posted May 30, 2008 Anyone notice that with Dell you can now order a computer with a Vista license but have XP installed instead? It's called a downgrade license. Microsoft still gets to book it as a Vista sale. http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/145145/dell_to_offer_windows_xp_beyond_june_30_cutoff.html
MrTizzay Posted May 30, 2008 Posted May 30, 2008 Well, of course they're gonna count it as a Vista sale. They need all the Vista sales they can get.
antimatter Posted June 4, 2008 Posted June 4, 2008 Apparently they aren't getting too many because I just read an article about how Microsoft is extending the life of XP.
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now