Decision ‘08

Windows Vista Round 2

Well, a couple of people weren’t too happy with my crapping all over Vista yesterday, so I thought I’d post an update.

One reader commented that I should check my hardware, as it sounded like I had one or more bad drivers - and it’s true, I was having great difficulty in loading the proper video card drivers for Vista.

I got those drivers loaded now, and the system does, initially, seem more stable. However, I am still getting little error messages on routine tasks - for example, I chose to look at online help when my attempt to refresh my Performance Rating failed - and I immediately got a message declaring “Online help has quit functioning”. Apropos of nothing, I got another one of those “Host process for Windows services has stopped working” messages - and another one just this very instant as I was typing this.

So, I draw two morals: one is well known, but it deserves reiteration - update your drivers, pronto!

The second: I don’t see this product as being ready for release, proper drivers or not. I appreciate the fact that I’m getting less Blue Screens of Death - at least for now (though even one is, of course, too man!) - but there are still numerous flaws that don’t seem to me to be driver related.

End rant…

UPDATE 7:36 p.m.: Okay, is there anything positive I can say about Vista? Yes, as a matter of fact, there is.

One, it loads very, very quickly (makes those sudden reboots less painful!). This is a vast improvement over any previous Windows version.

Two, the new Aero graphics are nice, though they are prone to inexplicably quit working (imagine that!) and revert back to basic XP-type settings.

Finally, a tip for anyone who has purchased Vista - Computer Associates is offering a one-year free trial for their anti-virus software for Vista users…

2 Responses to “Windows Vista Round 2”

1 Spencer Says:
February 2nd, 2007 at 12:35 am
heh, I’d look into vista’s firewall settings, from what I’ve read if you got screwed up while they were initially being set up, there’s tons of stuff that’s VITAL to vista that wont get access.

Googling any errors, word for word, in “”s (save for memory addresses of course…) can usually reveal what the problem is.

Course, these headaches SHOULDN’T exist, but they’re not normally unfixable. Sorry to read about the hack.

NOTE: I’m not a Microsoft Fanboy, but i definably appreciate the work and effort the companies put into doing vista “right”. The fact that normal end users got ahold of the OS so early (coming on, what, 9 months before release date) says wonders, and means there are LOADS of home-made exeprince-made experts at fixing the problems out there already.

But of course, anyone that dosn’t HATE Microsoft is normally shunned by the tech community, so I’m a bit of an outcast.
2 Mark Says:
February 2nd, 2007 at 8:34 am
Well, I’m not a Microsoft hater - their Office division keeps hitting the ball out of the park and I love the XBox and the XBox 360. Vista has been a lot of headaches for me, but the more I read (and hear from people like yourself), the more I think that I have a driver conflict somewhere that I’ve got to tease out. Thanks again for the help, I should have more time to troubleshoot this weekend (latest BSOD was PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA)…