Posted on 04/14/2008 6:23:53 AM PDT by Red Badger
Not quite. While it is racism and bitterness that have caused my rejection of Vista, it's my homophobia that keeps me away from Macs. (just kidding) ;-)
Big Blue was convicted? I thought the Nazgul beat that rap.
It seemed to me that everything I wanted to do on the PC directed me back to MS to buy more software from them.
Also, all the bonus software packaged with my new laptop, was no more that a sales gimmick to get me to buy software.
I’m talking about planned obsolescence everyone is talking about. The 350 was around for 35 years in actual vehicle production and is still being produced for replacements. You can mix and match just about anything on the gas version for just about every year out there.
The biggest problem with laptops with Vista is the crapware that is installed on it at the point of sale. The aggravation is a cost that I was willing to bear. It just requires the time to uninstall these unnecessary programs but they defray the costs of the new computer so it is an acceptable trade-off. Otherwise the new computers would cost much more.
The average computer user is not capable of removing these programs and I suggest leaving them alone unless you really know what you are doing. Those DLLs can easily cause major problems requiring a reinstallation of necessary programs. Probably the easiest thing to do is simply to delete the desktop shortcuts and forget about them. If the programs can be found on the startup menu they can simply be disabled. The hard drives today are so large, now in the Terabyte range that they pose no real problem.
There is no problem with adding additional RAM and it won’t void any warranties. These computers are designed for upgrades or they would have sealed the insides.
I’ve already commented on the hyped non problem of Vista but I would also suggest something that is free, free, free and works well with Vista. Instead of upgrading to Office 2007 which I did, merely download Open Office. It will read Word and Excel and is surprisingly easy to use. Frankly I should have saved my money, although Office 2007, Home and student edition allows up to installation on three computers. I found it to be encumbered with a lot of unnecessary bells and whistles. Open Office seemed to be much more intuitive.
Google also offers its own spreadsheet software free that can read Excel files. I prefer Open Office myself.
But to restate what I said about Vista, it is just fine. A computer that is properly equipped will run it with no problems. I have not had a single lock-up in six months with any of my three computers. I used to have to shell out of XP many, many times. No so with Vista.
I visited the computer store to check out Vista’s performance, using the Windows Task Manager to monitor resources as I opened Office, played video, etc. Even a dual core pentium would occasionally max out at 100% CPU time. The only computer that ran everything snappy with power to spare was a quad core. Now, imagine running XP on that same quad!
In my part of the country, we have a lot of independents. All American, all the way.
Though some of the majors are indeed in alliance with the Saudi's and some M/E governments, if we "tweak" their collective noses we'd be even worse off. Certainly I'd like to see us get much more of our fossil fuel needs met with US/North American sources. However, I'm a realist and understand it's not going to happen when government and environmentalists team up to make more domestic production practically impossible. Going after the oil companies for so-called "obscene" profits is not going to make our life any easier.
You can’t install XP on a Vista Machine and dual boot without major registry surgury: Not recommended.
You can Install XP first and then Vista over it for a duel boot scenario but it means wiping the drive.
Best bet, if you don’t want to wipe Vista, is to install MS Virtual Machine (Free) and instll XP there. XP will then run in a seperate window under Vista. I run Rockwell software that hasn’t caught up to Vista yet so it has to run in XP. When MS stopped selling XP on new systems (the first time) I came up with the Virtual Machine option. It works (as long as you don’t install the Virtual Machine add-ons).
I have a question for the Linux experts out there. Microsoft’s arrogance and crappy software is driving me to find another OS. Before going with Apple, I have been trying several different Linux flavors such as Knoppix, Mepis and now Ubuntu. The main problem I have with all of them is the inability to print. I have tried several low-end HP USB Laserjet models without success. For example, Ubuntu immediately recognized the model and installed the driver, but when I tried to print a test page from setup, it went through the motions of printing, but nothing came out. I am completely stymied. I researched a website that lists compatible/incompatible linux printers at http://openprinting.org/printer_list.cgi and discovered there are quite a few printers that are not fully Linux compatible, to varying degrees. Some of the discontinued and/or expensive laser printers might work, but I have none of those to try. I’ve never seen a printer that wouldn’t print in Windows. I hope Apple is easier to configure than this! Any suggestions how to make Linux print?
I’m not much help. I have an HP ink jet, 7150. When I turned it on, it installed the drivers and printed immediately.
Ya know, I thought ME was the Microsoft tribute to Edsel. However, Perhaps ME is MS equivalent of the AMC Pacer (dating myself a bit, there) and Vista is the Edsel of OS’s......
Apples and oranges....
Thanks for the conversion story...this is exactly what I'm doing, hopefully in the next week or so! The IT guys are preparing my shiny new Mac Book Pro as I write.
For virtualization, I'm going to try the freeware VirtualBox. I've used both the windows and linux versions, and like it very much.
A few months ago I bought a new laptop with Vista on it. With the hardware it had, it should have been reasonably peppy (with XP at least). It was a pig, a hog, and took forever to boot up, to shut down, to do anything. I sold it quick.
Since we have been using XP for 6 years without any problems, in the last two months we have bought three new XP machines from Dell Outlet at significant discounts, two desktops and one laptop. We are good to go through at least 2014. And when computer replacement time comes up again, if M-soft’s latest is another piece of crap, then we are finished with Gates and company. At that time, we would move to Mac, or Linux, or?
But we figured the wise thing now, since XP does everything we need it to do, was to hardware-up for some years to come, which we have done.
Not completely true -- true for some models, but not for others. For example, Inspiron 530 Desktops are on the Home side, and are still available with XP.
You bought the wrong laptop! I am a computer professional and I own a HP with a dual Intel chip and dual boot it to both XP and Vista. It runs 50% to 100% faster with Vista and starts up and shuts down within 10-15 seconds. I am so tired of people that make bad computing choices or who don’t know what they are doing badmouthing Vista. It is a very good operating system and it is not getting a fair shake. FYI I do not work for Microsoft or make any money from them.
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