Posted on 08/18/2007 6:28:28 PM PDT by sionnsar
MacNN caught this incredible defection and loss of faith by a former Vista booster, PC Magazine editor-in-chief Jim Louderback, as he steps down from his position.
"I've been a big proponent of the new OS over the past few months, even going so far as loading it onto most of my computers and spending hours tweaking and optimizing it. So why, nine months after launch, am I so frustrated? The litany of what doesn't work and what still frustrates me stretches on endlessly. The upshot is that even after nine months, Vista just ain't cutting it. I definitely gave Microsoft too much of a free pass on this operating system: I expected it to get the kinks worked out more quickly. Boy, was I fooled! If Microsoft can't get Vista working, I might just do the unthinkable: I might move to Linux."
The "REAL" fix, if you want to access all 4GB or more of RAM is to get a 64 bit processor, and unite it with a 64 bit OS. But then this brings up a whole NEW set of issues.
Mark
I already paid for a license. I Microsquish would credit me a Vista license for XP...
Shoot, I still have a box of IBM-issued Win 3.1 ( not 3.11 mind you- three point one ) I salvaged out of a business dumpster a few years ago. Right along with DOS 3.3 and 6.22...
You never know when you might need that old stuff...
I’m finding this thread fascinating, even though I don’t understand most of what you all are discussing, lol! Here’s my problem:
My son erased Vista from a new Acer laptop for my daughter, and installed XP and the other software she’ll need. When he was finished, he discovered the wireless card the computer came with didn’t “fire up,” and he was unable to figure out why, after trying a few things.
I know nothing about wireless cards/software( he did download the wireless software from Acer). If we bought a different wireless card, could that solve the problem? Thanks for any input, and keep it simple;-)
I now have had a chance to try Vista on a couple of machines, the latest a new laptop. I have tried ernestly to tweak it to the max, to find elusive drivers for just some peripherals, and to get balky favorite software to work with it.
I have just about had it, may wipe it soon and load XP. I do like the way it looks on screen, though and wonder if the blue spinning donut is a subliminal ad for Dunkin Donut or Krispy Kreme. I will know if I have a sudden urge to drive to the local hot spot, or maybe want to become a cop.
Check with ACER tech support to be sure which wireless card you have and which driver to install for XP. They probably won't be very eager to help you since you have installed your own OS (and you have now taken responsibility for making it work), but at least they should tell you which driver you need.
Ping for later....
And I’ve recently upgraded most of my Win98 network to XP by adding memory where I needed and purchasing teh upgrades. Works great. And the couple of machines still on Win98 meshjust great. No plans to move to Vista. None whatsoever.
It certainly seems like Microsoft couldn't have done any more to boost Apple than than they did with Vista. I'm even seeing Apple machines showing up at work (though they're not corporate machines).
“I don’t understand the Mac people. Base on some great commercial my wife bought a Mac desktop a couple of years ago. It cost much more than a similarly equipped PC and was the most unintuitive computer we have ever tried to use. After a month of frustration we gave up and got rid of it. We lost a bundle getting rid of it, but it was worth every penny as a good lesson learned.”
It can very tough on the Mac if you are trying to find your corrupted files and the missing viruses.
Some folks just develop an intuitive relationship with those things. On a Mac you don’t because you don’t have to.
(Your is about the strangest post I’ve witnessed. Your family must have lots of Windows stock.) :)
“If he’s so frustrated with Vista the Editor should go back to XP.”
If he can. I recent bought a HP Medea Center PC with Vista. Naturally, my wireless setup wouldn’t work with it, so I decided to slap XP on there. Come to find out, HP nor the mainboard manufacturer make any drivers for XP, or so they claim. Basically, MS was HP’s customer on that deal and I was just some 3rd party patsy. The PC went back to the store and I got my money back.
I hold numerous MS certifications and have worked on Microsoft products professionally since ‘98. Vista appears to have been designed for 90-year-old paranoid women. It is crap and will never be installed on any of my PCs.
“Computer journalists, in most cases, are little more than whores.”
That differs from other journalists how, exactly? ;)
Thanks! Dear sonny boy told me he checked different drivers, but he did not call Acer yet. Will try that myself, and see how far I get.
Actually I don’t nor does any of my family own stock in any computer company. I have been using computers since 1996, have built 5 for my own use and for the use of other and have had the “opportunity” to try Macs on numerous occasions (my sister has always had Macs as does my step-son). Bottom-line every one I have ever used has had a number of little counter intuitive quirks like having to input a password everytime you open a program(which sadly Vista has somewhat copied with its annoying permission requirement). Add to that that they are comparatively for what you get, very expensive and, at least in the early years, only Apple peripherals would work with them which added to the high cost of ownership. It is no mystery as to why Apple only has about 4% of the market. I have no great love for Mr. Gates and his software and would love to see someone come up with a better way, but so far no one has. Plus the hardware options that come with Windows programming lets the market work when it comes to price. Mr. Job doomed his company to also run status years ago when he refused to license his “superior” products to others.
As for viruses why would anyone want to waste their time trying to disrupt an OS that is only used by 4% of the computing public. Mac doesn’t have any magic formula for security it is just that nobody cares enough to try attacking it.
But hey if you like it that is fine with me. That’s what makes the country great you can use the computer that makes you happy and I will use the one that makes me happy.
These don't sound like upgraded machines. These sound like new machines made to (allegedly) run Vista. In fact, they kinda sound like the one I'm using right now. It's a Dell C521 with an AMD 64-bit, dual-core processor and a gig of RAM. They probably even have the same Vista sticker on the front that this one does. On this one, however, I didn't let months of frustration go by.
I left Vista (Home edition) on it for a few hours and after my computer-teacher wife and I had a good laugh at its expense, I loaded Kubuntu onto it. With Vista, the box just crawled along. Simple tasks took as long or longer than they would have under WinXP. With Kubuntu (the AMD64 version) it flies. Anytime I tried to do something useful with it, the screen ominously faded to black and Vista warned that I was about to do something dangerous. With Linux, there's no dramatics. You simply get asked for the root password before you can do something "dangerous".
Now, this isn't the first Vista box we've played with. A few weeks earlier, we bought my father-in-law a new Dell. Like our new one, this one also came pre-loaded with Vista. (BTW: These are slightly older models bought "NIB" off eBay. Had we bought straight from Dell, we wouldn't have had them loaded with Vista.) Again, we laughed at it for a bit and then loaded WinXP. After playing with the newest one for a few hours, I realized that my FIL would have blown a gasket if we'd let him use that box with Vista. We'd have been getting calls every five minutes asking what to do about the latest sinister sounding pop-up warning.
My advise: If you simply must upgrade from Win9x or a perfectly good OS like WinXP, then either learn to use Linux or buy a Mac. With Linux, you may be able to get away with using your old hardware. The only thing you'll be investing is a bit of mental sweat equity. With a Mac, you'll be spending money on new hardware, but you'll have to do that with Vista anyway. You might as well pay a hardware bill that doesn't come with free frustration.
She’s happy with it ... uses it just to print address labels for her club ... prints about five hundred of them a month.
Better to “bear those ills we have, than fly to others we know not of”?
Thank you for that visual of Linux vs Windows! It will make a lot easier to explain to non-geeks who still comprise a very large portion of population.
To answer your other big question : when you switch from BSD [cleverly disguised as OS X] to Windows using Boot Camp or Parallels on your “Intel Inside” x86 Mac, you wonder why you paid so much for a shiny new microwave.
Your son did the right thing.
It’s possible that the card you have either have hardware problems or the drivers don’t work for some reasons (could be simply bad drivers, or timing issues).
One solution would be to buy another wireless card (802.11b/g are quite cheap now) and try to see if it works. It just might if it’s using different chip set and drivers. If it also doesn’t work, it’s possible that wireless router that you are using is not communicating - then try to turn off all security protocols (WPA, WEP, IP or ARP/physical card ID blocks etc.) from both router and the card to see if that’s the problem.
Also have your son try “ARP -a” command to see all physical addresses on the network, and then set up to execute “ARP -s” command to execute at boot time to create static (not dynamic) connections that “advertise” your card to the router and other machines on the network. That should help keep network connections permanent and prevent flaky on-again/off-again Internet experience.
They ever find a removal tool for that Vista virus called DRM yet?
And yea I want an OS that tells me what hardware is acceptable or not. MS can kiss ............
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