http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/14/te...erland&emc=rss

December 14, 2006
State Of The Art
Vista Wins on Looks. As for Lacks ...
By DAVID POGUE

"After five years of starts, stops, executive shuffling, feature rethinks
and delays, Windows Vista is finally complete. It's available to
corporations already, and starting Jan. 30, it's what you'll get on any new
PC. Its programmers, who probably haven't seen their families in months,
will have an especially merry Christmas this year.

So after five years, how is Windows Vista? Microsoft's description, which
you'll soon be seeing in millions of dollars' worth of advertising, is
"Clear, Confident, Connected." But a more truthful motto would be "Looks,
Locks, Lacks."

Looks

Windows Vista is beautiful. Microsoft has never taken elegance so seriously
before. Discreet eye candy is partly responsible. Windows and menus cast
subtle shadows. A new typeface gives the whole affair a fresh, modern
feeling. Subtle animations liven up the proceedings.

If the description so far makes Vista sound a lot like the Macintosh, well,
you're right. You get the feeling that Microsoft's managers put Mac OS X on
an easel and told the programmers, "Copy that."

Here are some of the grace notes that will remind you of similar ones on the
Mac: A list of favorite PC locations appears at the left side of every
Explorer window, which you can customize just by dragging folders in or out.
You now expand or collapse lists of folders by clicking little flippy
triangles. When you're dragging icons to copy them, a cursor "badge" appears
that indicates how many you're moving. The Minimize, Maximize and Close
buttons glow when your cursor passes over them. There's now a keystroke
(Alt+up arrow) to open the current folder's parent window, the one that
contains it.

Some of the big-ticket Vista features and programs are eerily familiar, too.
The biggest one is Instant Search, a text box at the bottom of the Start
menu. As you type here, the Start menu turns into a list of every file,
folder, program and e-mail message that contains your search phrase,
regardless of names or folder locations. It's a powerful, routine-changing
tool, especially when you seek a program that would otherwise require
burrowing through nested folders in the All Programs menu.

A similar Search box appears at the top of every desktop (Explorer) window,
for ease in plucking some document out of that more limited haystack.

New programs include the Sidebar, a floating layer of single-purpose
programs called gadgets ( Apple called them widgets) like a weather
reporter, stock tracker, currency converter, and so on; Photo Gallery, a
deliciously simple shoebox for digital photos; the bare-bones DVD Maker, for
designing scene-selection menus for home-burned video DVDs; and Chess
Titans, whose photorealistic board can be rotated in three-dimensional
space.

Flip 3-D, which presents all open windows in all programs as cards in a
floating deck, seems to be modeled on Mac OS X's Exposé feature - minus the
ability to see all the windows simultaneously. You have to flip through the
"cards" to find the one you want.

Now, before the hate-mail tsunami begins, it's important to note that Apple
has itself borrowed feature ideas on occasion, even from Windows. But never
this broadly, boldly or blatantly. There must be enough steam coming out of
Apple executives' ears to power the Polar Express.

Even so, brazen as it was, the heist was largely successful. Vista is
infinitely more pleasant to use than its predecessors. There's more logic to
its folder structure and naming scheme. Things are easier to find. Fewer
steps are required to perform common tasks, especially when it comes to
networking.

And besides, not all of the new goodies fell from the Apple tree. The new
grouping, stacking and filtering options give you efficient new ways to
parse the masses of files in a window. If you have a spare U.S.B. flash
drive, your PC can use it as extra main memory for a tiny speed boost.
Windows Speech Recognition isn't as accurate as, say, Dragon
NaturallySpeaking, but it's beautifully designed and much better than
previous Microsoft attempts.

Laptop luggers will love the clever new Sleep mode. It combines the best of
the old Standby mode (everything stays in memory so it's ready to go when
you reopen the lid) and the old Hibernate mode (after several hours, Windows
commits all this to the hard drive to save battery power).

And then there's Presentation Mode, the answer to a million PowerPoint
pitchers' prayers: it prevents your laptop from doing anything embarrassing
during your boardroom presentation. It won't go to sleep, display a screen
saver, pop up dialog boxes or play any beeps. It can even automatically
change your desktop wallpaper to something uncontroversial, so your bosses
won't unexpectedly glimpse the HotBikiniBabes.com photo that you usually
use.

Locks

The visual and feature upgrades are nice, but for Microsoft, security was an
even more important goal. As well it should be; Internet nastiness like
viruses and spyware were sapping the fun out of Windows PCs.

The list of internal fortifications could fill a stack of white papers (and
does), and the technical language could put the Energizer bunny to sleep.
But examples include Service Hardening, which prevents background programs
from tampering with essential system files, and address-space randomization,
which makes it impossible for viruses to find important software bits in
predictable places.

Other security-suite components are more visible. The much improved Internet
Explorer 7 (also available for Windows XP) alerts you when you're visiting
one of those fake bank or eBay Web sites (called phishing scams). Windows
Defender protects your PC from spyware. Parental Controls lets you, the
saintly parent, dictate what Web sites your children can visit, which people
they correspond with online, and even what times of day they can use the
machine.

Then there's User Account Control, an intrusive dialog box that pops up
whenever you try to install a program or adjust a PC-wide setting,
requesting that you confirm the change by entering your password. This will
strike most people as an unnecessary nuisance, and you can turn it off. But
it's actually one of Vista's most important new protection features; when
the day comes that a virus is making changes to your PC, and not you, you'll
know about it.

Lacks

Various Microsoft divisions split up the duties of writing the 50 million
lines of Vista code, and they didn't always share the same vision. The most
visible areas received the most attention, but many darker, less visited
corners weren't visited by the Microsoft Makeover fairy at all.

As a result, Vista has something of a multiple-personality disorder. Links
for common tasks sometimes appear at the left side of a window, sometimes
the right and sometimes across the top. In wizards (step-by-step "interview"
screens), the Back button is sometimes at the lower-left corner of the
dialog box, sometimes at the upper-left. Microsoft has hidden the
traditional menu bar in some programs (you can summon it by tapping the Alt
key), but not in others.

Here and there, you'll find some jaw-dropping misfires, too. For example,
Photo Gallery can play slide shows - but if you want music too, Microsoft
cheerfully suggests that you first switch into another program and start
some music playing there.

Windows finally comes with a prominent backup program. That's great, except
that you can specify only which categories of things to back up (pictures,
e-mail, and so on), not which specific files or folders.

And then there's that Sidebar, the floating layer of mini-programs. If you
close one of the gadgets, you lose its contents forever: your notes in the
Post-it Notes gadget, your stock portfolio in the Stocks gadget, and so on.
You couldn't save them if you wanted to. How could Microsoft have missed
that one?

Some useful XP features have simply been removed. NetMeeting, a program for
collaborating across a network, has been replaced by a Vista-only program
called Meeting Space - which lacks its predecessor's voice- and video-chat
features.

And WordPad, the built-in word processor, can no longer open Microsoft Word
files. That, evidently, is a ham-handed attempt to force you into buying
Microsoft Office. (Let's hope the masses realize that they have a free
alternative at docs.google.com.)

What to Do

Windows Vista is not, as the Web's chorus of caustic critics claim, little
more than a warmed-over Windows XP. Its more intelligent navigation and more
powerful file-manipulation tools provide you with greater efficiency from
Day 1. And while the more secure plumbing doesn't guarantee a virus-free
future, it will certainly make life more difficult for the sociopaths of the
Internet.

That's not to say, however, that Vista is worth standing in line for on Jan.
30. Moving to Vista means hunting for updated drivers for your printer,
audio card and so on, not to mention troubleshooting incompatible programs.
It also means some relearning, thanks to features that Microsoft has moved,
removed or rejiggered.

Microsoft isn't helping the confusion issue by releasing Vista in five
versions, each with different features: Home Basic, Home Premium, Business,
Enterprise and Ultimate. For example, the latter three offer Complete PC, a
feature that backs up your entire computer, programs and all; Home Premium
and Ultimate offer Media Center, which plays music, videos and photos on
your TV. You practically need an operating system just to choose an
operating system.

The prices range from $100 (for an upgrade version of Home Basic) to $400
(for the full version of Ultimate). Most people will probably wind up paying
$160, the price to upgrade to the Home Premium edition from an earlier
version of Windows. (Avoid Home Basic, which is too stripped-down to be
worthwhile.) For a fee, you'll be able to upgrade from one edition to
another.

Of course, none of this factors in the price of the new PC you'll probably
need. Vista requires a fairly modern PC, and unless you have a powerful
graphics card, some of its most useful new features turn themselves off. You
can download the free Vista Upgrade Advisor from Microsoft's Web site to see
if your PC will be able to handle Vista.

According to a SoftChoice survey, in fact, only 6 percent of existing
corporate PCs have enough muscle to run all of Vista's goodies. No wonder
Microsoft expects that only about 5 percent of PC users will upgrade their
existing computers to Vista.

Online, there's much talk of Vista's place in the universe. Is it too
little, too late? Does the Mac's uptick in market share threaten the
dominance of Windows? Does Web-based software make operating systems
obsolete?

None of the above. Windows isn't going anywhere, the landscape won't be
changing anytime soon, and the corporate world will still buy it 500 copies
at a time.

In other words, it doesn't matter what you (or tech reviewers) think of
Windows Vista; sooner or later, it's what most people will have on their
PCs. In that light, it's fortunate that Vista is better looking, better
designed and better insulated against the annoyances of the Internet. At the
very least, it's well equipped to pull the world's PCs along for the next
five years - or whenever the next version of Windows drops down the
chimney."

VistaMe


"Chad Harris" <msftneedstogetoutvistainfo.net> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/14/te...erland&emc=rss
>
> December 14, 2006
> State Of The Art
> Vista Wins on Looks. As for Lacks ...
> By DAVID POGUE
>
> "After five years of starts, stops, executive shuffling, feature rethinks
> and delays, Windows Vista is finally complete. It's available to
> corporations already, and starting Jan. 30, it's what you'll get on any
> new PC. Its programmers, who probably haven't seen their families in
> months, will have an especially merry Christmas this year.
>
> So after five years, how is Windows Vista? Microsoft's description, which
> you'll soon be seeing in millions of dollars' worth of advertising, is
> "Clear, Confident, Connected." But a more truthful motto would be "Looks,
> Locks, Lacks."
>
> Looks
>
> Windows Vista is beautiful. Microsoft has never taken elegance so
> seriously before. Discreet eye candy is partly responsible. Windows and
> menus cast subtle shadows. A new typeface gives the whole affair a fresh,
> modern feeling. Subtle animations liven up the proceedings.
>
> If the description so far makes Vista sound a lot like the Macintosh,
> well, you're right. You get the feeling that Microsoft's managers put Mac
> OS X on an easel and told the programmers, "Copy that."
>
> Here are some of the grace notes that will remind you of similar ones on
> the Mac: A list of favorite PC locations appears at the left side of every
> Explorer window, which you can customize just by dragging folders in or
> out. You now expand or collapse lists of folders by clicking little flippy
> triangles. When you're dragging icons to copy them, a cursor "badge"
> appears that indicates how many you're moving. The Minimize, Maximize and
> Close buttons glow when your cursor passes over them. There's now a
> keystroke (Alt+up arrow) to open the current folder's parent window, the
> one that contains it.
>
> Some of the big-ticket Vista features and programs are eerily familiar,
> too. The biggest one is Instant Search, a text box at the bottom of the
> Start menu. As you type here, the Start menu turns into a list of every
> file, folder, program and e-mail message that contains your search phrase,
> regardless of names or folder locations. It's a powerful, routine-changing
> tool, especially when you seek a program that would otherwise require
> burrowing through nested folders in the All Programs menu.
>
> A similar Search box appears at the top of every desktop (Explorer)
> window, for ease in plucking some document out of that more limited
> haystack.
>
> New programs include the Sidebar, a floating layer of single-purpose
> programs called gadgets ( Apple called them widgets) like a weather
> reporter, stock tracker, currency converter, and so on; Photo Gallery, a
> deliciously simple shoebox for digital photos; the bare-bones DVD Maker,
> for designing scene-selection menus for home-burned video DVDs; and Chess
> Titans, whose photorealistic board can be rotated in three-dimensional
> space.
>
> Flip 3-D, which presents all open windows in all programs as cards in a
> floating deck, seems to be modeled on Mac OS X's Exposé feature - minus
> the ability to see all the windows simultaneously. You have to flip
> through the "cards" to find the one you want.
>
> Now, before the hate-mail tsunami begins, it's important to note that
> Apple has itself borrowed feature ideas on occasion, even from Windows.
> But never this broadly, boldly or blatantly. There must be enough steam
> coming out of Apple executives' ears to power the Polar Express.
>
> Even so, brazen as it was, the heist was largely successful. Vista is
> infinitely more pleasant to use than its predecessors. There's more logic
> to its folder structure and naming scheme. Things are easier to find.
> Fewer steps are required to perform common tasks, especially when it comes
> to networking.
>
> And besides, not all of the new goodies fell from the Apple tree. The new
> grouping, stacking and filtering options give you efficient new ways to
> parse the masses of files in a window. If you have a spare U.S.B. flash
> drive, your PC can use it as extra main memory for a tiny speed boost.
> Windows Speech Recognition isn't as accurate as, say, Dragon
> NaturallySpeaking, but it's beautifully designed and much better than
> previous Microsoft attempts.
>
> Laptop luggers will love the clever new Sleep mode. It combines the best
> of the old Standby mode (everything stays in memory so it's ready to go
> when you reopen the lid) and the old Hibernate mode (after several hours,
> Windows commits all this to the hard drive to save battery power).
>
> And then there's Presentation Mode, the answer to a million PowerPoint
> pitchers' prayers: it prevents your laptop from doing anything
> embarrassing during your boardroom presentation. It won't go to sleep,
> display a screen saver, pop up dialog boxes or play any beeps. It can even
> automatically change your desktop wallpaper to something uncontroversial,
> so your bosses won't unexpectedly glimpse the HotBikiniBabes.com photo
> that you usually use.
>
> Locks
>
> The visual and feature upgrades are nice, but for Microsoft, security was
> an even more important goal. As well it should be; Internet nastiness like
> viruses and spyware were sapping the fun out of Windows PCs.
>
> The list of internal fortifications could fill a stack of white papers
> (and does), and the technical language could put the Energizer bunny to
> sleep. But examples include Service Hardening, which prevents background
> programs from tampering with essential system files, and address-space
> randomization, which makes it impossible for viruses to find important
> software bits in predictable places.
>
> Other security-suite components are more visible. The much improved
> Internet Explorer 7 (also available for Windows XP) alerts you when you're
> visiting one of those fake bank or eBay Web sites (called phishing scams).
> Windows Defender protects your PC from spyware. Parental Controls lets
> you, the saintly parent, dictate what Web sites your children can visit,
> which people they correspond with online, and even what times of day they
> can use the machine.
>
> Then there's User Account Control, an intrusive dialog box that pops up
> whenever you try to install a program or adjust a PC-wide setting,
> requesting that you confirm the change by entering your password. This
> will strike most people as an unnecessary nuisance, and you can turn it
> off. But it's actually one of Vista's most important new protection
> features; when the day comes that a virus is making changes to your PC,
> and not you, you'll know about it.
>
> Lacks
>
> Various Microsoft divisions split up the duties of writing the 50 million
> lines of Vista code, and they didn't always share the same vision. The
> most visible areas received the most attention, but many darker, less
> visited corners weren't visited by the Microsoft Makeover fairy at all.
>
> As a result, Vista has something of a multiple-personality disorder. Links
> for common tasks sometimes appear at the left side of a window, sometimes
> the right and sometimes across the top. In wizards (step-by-step
> "interview" screens), the Back button is sometimes at the lower-left
> corner of the dialog box, sometimes at the upper-left. Microsoft has
> hidden the traditional menu bar in some programs (you can summon it by
> tapping the Alt key), but not in others.
>
> Here and there, you'll find some jaw-dropping misfires, too. For example,
> Photo Gallery can play slide shows - but if you want music too, Microsoft
> cheerfully suggests that you first switch into another program and start
> some music playing there.
>
> Windows finally comes with a prominent backup program. That's great,
> except that you can specify only which categories of things to back up
> (pictures, e-mail, and so on), not which specific files or folders.
>
> And then there's that Sidebar, the floating layer of mini-programs. If you
> close one of the gadgets, you lose its contents forever: your notes in the
> Post-it Notes gadget, your stock portfolio in the Stocks gadget, and so
> on. You couldn't save them if you wanted to. How could Microsoft have
> missed that one?
>
> Some useful XP features have simply been removed. NetMeeting, a program
> for collaborating across a network, has been replaced by a Vista-only
> program called Meeting Space - which lacks its predecessor's voice- and
> video-chat features.
>
> And WordPad, the built-in word processor, can no longer open Microsoft
> Word files. That, evidently, is a ham-handed attempt to force you into
> buying Microsoft Office. (Let's hope the masses realize that they have a
> free alternative at docs.google.com.)
>
> What to Do
>
> Windows Vista is not, as the Web's chorus of caustic critics claim, little
> more than a warmed-over Windows XP. Its more intelligent navigation and
> more powerful file-manipulation tools provide you with greater efficiency
> from Day 1. And while the more secure plumbing doesn't guarantee a
> virus-free future, it will certainly make life more difficult for the
> sociopaths of the Internet.
>
> That's not to say, however, that Vista is worth standing in line for on
> Jan. 30. Moving to Vista means hunting for updated drivers for your
> printer, audio card and so on, not to mention troubleshooting incompatible
> programs. It also means some relearning, thanks to features that Microsoft
> has moved, removed or rejiggered.
>
> Microsoft isn't helping the confusion issue by releasing Vista in five
> versions, each with different features: Home Basic, Home Premium,
> Business, Enterprise and Ultimate. For example, the latter three offer
> Complete PC, a feature that backs up your entire computer, programs and
> all; Home Premium and Ultimate offer Media Center, which plays music,
> videos and photos on your TV. You practically need an operating system
> just to choose an operating system.
>
> The prices range from $100 (for an upgrade version of Home Basic) to $400
> (for the full version of Ultimate). Most people will probably wind up
> paying $160, the price to upgrade to the Home Premium edition from an
> earlier version of Windows. (Avoid Home Basic, which is too stripped-down
> to be worthwhile.) For a fee, you'll be able to upgrade from one edition
> to another.
>
> Of course, none of this factors in the price of the new PC you'll probably
> need. Vista requires a fairly modern PC, and unless you have a powerful
> graphics card, some of its most useful new features turn themselves off.
> You can download the free Vista Upgrade Advisor from Microsoft's Web site
> to see if your PC will be able to handle Vista.
>
> According to a SoftChoice survey, in fact, only 6 percent of existing
> corporate PCs have enough muscle to run all of Vista's goodies. No wonder
> Microsoft expects that only about 5 percent of PC users will upgrade their
> existing computers to Vista.
>
> Online, there's much talk of Vista's place in the universe. Is it too
> little, too late? Does the Mac's uptick in market share threaten the
> dominance of Windows? Does Web-based software make operating systems
> obsolete?
>
> None of the above. Windows isn't going anywhere, the landscape won't be
> changing anytime soon, and the corporate world will still buy it 500
> copies at a time.
>
> In other words, it doesn't matter what you (or tech reviewers) think of
> Windows Vista; sooner or later, it's what most people will have on their
> PCs. In that light, it's fortunate that Vista is better looking, better
> designed and better insulated against the annoyances of the Internet. At
> the very least, it's well equipped to pull the world's PCs along for the
> next five years - or whenever the next version of Windows drops down the
> chimney."
>

BChad Harris" <msftneedstogetoutvistainfo.net> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> That's not to say, however, that Vista is worth standing in line for on
> Jan. 30. Moving to Vista means hunting for updated drivers for your
> printer, audio card and so on, not to mention troubleshooting incompatible
> programs.

No, it *might* mean hunting for updated drivers, and *perhaps*
troubleshooting *some* incompatible programs. Both of my HP printers work
fine - a LaserJet 4+ and a DeskJet 970 inkjet. All of my other hardware
works also - ATI X800 XT video, both network cards, etc.

Otherwise a good review, but the above gives the impression that nothing
works.

Mike

"NewFox" <-> wrote in message
news:%(E-Mail Removed)...
> VistaMe

I've already been Vista'd. No one wants to Vista you.

Mike

The situation with many printer drivers is that XP drivers work if you use
Virtual Ports. The Vista print team lied to a group of us who went to them
and asked them to change the default to help facilitate printers working.

It's always great to hear when one peson says "all my drivers work all my
peripherals work well; my hardware works great in Vista." We all want that.
But stay tuned, because I predict about March that MSFT is going to be
overwhelmed with problems with Vista way beyond the number that there have
been in XP at the same time period in its circulation/adoption to the
general public.

If you go to http://support.microsoft.com and do a search on Windows Vista
there are over 200 MSKBs. It's positive that they are finally getting
around to doing some more--for 15 months that number was low--but if you
read ***many of them they are just plain bugs they shipped with, they
refused to fix when reported to them, and they could have their own subset
called "tin ear." They say "we know the bug is there and we don't have a
fix." I haven't counted how many there are like this, but I will soon. I
can add at least 100 bugs to that list. What they don't say is that "we
knew it was there in the fall of 2005 and we elected not to try to fix it or
we couldn't fix it."

The fact that MSFT who is supporting Vista by phone now (they can't tell if
you were part of the so called CPP which was really an ad campaign or not
anyway):

Phone Number: 866-425-0593 "English only" support The version of English
that their India Convergys PSS speaks is unintelligible. They aren't going
to understand you either, if you speak English.

I think it's fascinating that they say it's "English only" because what is
spoken (not by Indians at large) but by the Indians who man the PSS phone
lines as Convergys of Ohio the company who contracts to do MSFT Support for
the public (MSFT doesn't do support for the public via phone--don't be
fooled) can't speak intelligible English nor do they know anything that has
clinical efficacy on the ground towards fixing Windows or Office nor have
they for over ten years.

I could find tons of things we fix routinely hear that those bozos can't
fix. MSFT should have kicked Convergys of Ohio to the curb long ago, but
they're dirt cheap and it's outta sight outta mind for MSFT with public
support. It's interesting that Dell alleges they paid $100 million to
improve support, because Dell uses the same crappy Indian support that is
just as bad most of the time with hardware support as MSFT is with their
oursourced contract for public support. MSFT outsources it to Convergys and
conergys outsources it to India for the highest percentage of their call
volume.

One of several subjects you'll never see a MSFTie come in this group or
anywhere else and discuss is the eggrigious quality of their support. They
don't want to know about it.

If anyone has a printer not working, you might try right clicking the
printer in the printers folder (get to it by going though the Control Panel
or Device Manager)>Ports tab>and selecting USB Virtual port.

Brother is telling people that they have given drivers to MSFT and they have
given some drivers--My Printer worked in every build of Vista until RTM, but
that the drivers may be less functionality than their finally released Vista
driver which doesn't make a lot of sense, although they might mean they'll
update it for Vista.

David Pogue is a very good author--he probably leans towards Apple products,
but he writes O'Reilly missing manuals for XP and soon for Vista and you
should catch his columns at www.nytimes.com/circuits or in the print edition
of the NYT.

I should have included an aritcle on Vista from Wall Street Journal's Walter
Mossberg. It can be read here under the Nove 2 category:

http://ptech.wsj.com/archive.html

CH

"Mike" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:20CA80BA-20AC-4199-811B-(E-Mail Removed)...
> BChad Harris" <msftneedstogetoutvistainfo.net> wrote in message
> news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>> That's not to say, however, that Vista is worth standing in line for on
>> Jan. 30. Moving to Vista means hunting for updated drivers for your
>> printer, audio card and so on, not to mention troubleshooting
>> incompatible programs.
>
> No, it *might* mean hunting for updated drivers, and *perhaps*
> troubleshooting *some* incompatible programs. Both of my HP printers
> work fine - a LaserJet 4+ and a DeskJet 970 inkjet. All of my other
> hardware works also - ATI X800 XT video, both network cards, etc.
>
> Otherwise a good review, but the above gives the impression that nothing
> works.
>
> Mike
>
>
>

"Chad Harris" <msftneedstogetoutvistainfo.net> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> The situation with many printer drivers is that XP drivers work if you
> use Virtual Ports. The Vista print team lied to a group of us who went to
> them and asked them to change the default to help facilitate printers
> working.

I've seen this mentioned before. What exactly is a "virtual port"? How do
you set it up?

My DeskJet is running off the parallel port. The LaserJet 4+ is in IP
device, and is plugged into my network hub. Both have drivers included with
Vista.

Mike

"Chad Harris" <msftneedstogetoutvistainfo.net> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> It's always great to hear when one peson says "all my drivers work all my
> peripherals work well; my hardware works great in Vista." We all want
> that.

I must be one ot those lucky b@stards. Because all my drivers work all my
peripherals work well; my hardware works great in Vista.

--
Alexander Suhovey

"The Vista print team lied..."
You have said that before.
BUT when asked for a reference, you ignore the request.
Can you backup that statement?
If not, the statement is inappropriate and may even be illegal.

"I predict about March..."
You have stated this hogwash before except now you have conveniently moved
from January to March.
You seem to ignore the reality that with the final public release of Vista
more will be using Vista.
With larger numbers come more issues, both perceived and real.
This would happen with ant software from any manufacturer and yet you seem
to focus only on the gloom.
Those that have success dilute this myth of yours so you often find a weak
excuse to dismiss the successes.

"for 15 months that number was low..."
Pretty meaningless since Microsoft avoids articles about Beta products.

I did not read further as it was obviously simply a rant.

--
Jupiter Jones [MVP]
http://www3.telus.net/dandemar
http://www.dts-l.org


"Chad Harris" <msftneedstogetoutvistainfo.net> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> The situation with many printer drivers is that XP drivers work if you
> use Virtual Ports. The Vista print team lied to a group of us who went to
> them and asked them to change the default to help facilitate printers
> working.
>
> It's always great to hear when one peson says "all my drivers work all my
> peripherals work well; my hardware works great in Vista." We all want
> that. But stay tuned, because I predict about March that MSFT is going to
> be overwhelmed with problems with Vista way beyond the number that there
> have been in XP at the same time period in its circulation/adoption to the
> general public.
>
> If you go to http://support.microsoft.com and do a search on Windows Vista
> there are over 200 MSKBs. It's positive that they are finally getting
> around to doing some more--for 15 months that number was low--but if you
> read ***many of them they are just plain bugs they shipped with, they
> refused to fix when reported to them, and they could have their own subset
> called "tin ear." They say "we know the bug is there and we don't have a
> fix." I haven't counted how many there are like this, but I will soon.
> I can add at least 100 bugs to that list. What they don't say is that "we
> knew it was there in the fall of 2005 and we elected not to try to fix it
> or we couldn't fix it."
>
> The fact that MSFT who is supporting Vista by phone now (they can't tell
> if you were part of the so called CPP which was really an ad campaign or
> not anyway):
>
> Phone Number: 866-425-0593 "English only" support The version of
> English that their India Convergys PSS speaks is unintelligible. They
> aren't going to understand you either, if you speak English.
>
> I think it's fascinating that they say it's "English only" because what is
> spoken (not by Indians at large) but by the Indians who man the PSS phone
> lines as Convergys of Ohio the company who contracts to do MSFT Support
> for the public (MSFT doesn't do support for the public via phone--don't be
> fooled) can't speak intelligible English nor do they know anything that
> has clinical efficacy on the ground towards fixing Windows or Office nor
> have they for over ten years.
>
> I could find tons of things we fix routinely hear that those bozos can't
> fix. MSFT should have kicked Convergys of Ohio to the curb long ago, but
> they're dirt cheap and it's outta sight outta mind for MSFT with public
> support. It's interesting that Dell alleges they paid $100 million to
> improve support, because Dell uses the same crappy Indian support that is
> just as bad most of the time with hardware support as MSFT is with their
> oursourced contract for public support. MSFT outsources it to Convergys
> and conergys outsources it to India for the highest percentage of their
> call volume.
>
> One of several subjects you'll never see a MSFTie come in this group or
> anywhere else and discuss is the eggrigious quality of their support.
> They don't want to know about it.
>
> If anyone has a printer not working, you might try right clicking the
> printer in the printers folder (get to it by going though the Control
> Panel or Device Manager)>Ports tab>and selecting USB Virtual port.
>
> Brother is telling people that they have given drivers to MSFT and they
> have given some drivers--My Printer worked in every build of Vista until
> RTM, but that the drivers may be less functionality than their finally
> released Vista driver which doesn't make a lot of sense, although they
> might mean they'll update it for Vista.
>
> David Pogue is a very good author--he probably leans towards Apple
> products, but he writes O'Reilly missing manuals for XP and soon for Vista
> and you should catch his columns at www.nytimes.com/circuits or in the
> print edition of the NYT.
>
> I should have included an aritcle on Vista from Wall Street Journal's
> Walter Mossberg. It can be read here under the Nove 2 category:
>
> http://ptech.wsj.com/archive.html
>
> CH
>
> "Mike" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:20CA80BA-20AC-4199-811B-(E-Mail Removed)...
>> BChad Harris" <msftneedstogetoutvistainfo.net> wrote in message
>> news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>>> That's not to say, however, that Vista is worth standing in line for on
>>> Jan. 30. Moving to Vista means hunting for updated drivers for your
>>> printer, audio card and so on, not to mention troubleshooting
>>> incompatible programs.
>>
>> No, it *might* mean hunting for updated drivers, and *perhaps*
>> troubleshooting *some* incompatible programs. Both of my HP printers
>> work fine - a LaserJet 4+ and a DeskJet 970 inkjet. All of my other
>> hardware works also - ATI X800 XT video, both network cards, etc.
>>
>> Otherwise a good review, but the above gives the impression that nothing
>> works.
>>
>> Mike
>>
>>
>>
>

Jupiter, Remember "Those who don't know talk. Those who know don't talk."

So just let this nonsense evaporate.


Jupiter Jones [MVP] wrote:
> "The Vista print team lied..."
> You have said that before.
> BUT when asked for a reference, you ignore the request.
> Can you backup that statement?
> If not, the statement is inappropriate and may even be illegal.
>
> "I predict about March..."
> You have stated this hogwash before except now you have conveniently
> moved from January to March.
> You seem to ignore the reality that with the final public release of
> Vista more will be using Vista.
> With larger numbers come more issues, both perceived and real.
> This would happen with ant software from any manufacturer and yet you
> seem to focus only on the gloom.
> Those that have success dilute this myth of yours so you often find a
> weak excuse to dismiss the successes.
>
> "for 15 months that number was low..."
> Pretty meaningless since Microsoft avoids articles about Beta products.
>
> I did not read further as it was obviously simply a rant.
>

Whioh lol is why there are so many stubbythe stub help posts on these
newsgroups of course. Good post Stubbo.

"Any moron can make posts that detract."

George Bush 43 Dover Coffin Maker Extrordinaire to Apathetic Americans

LOL

CH


"Stubby" <William.Plummer-NOSPAM-@alum.mit.edu> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> Jupiter, Remember "Those who don't know talk. Those who know don't
> talk."
>
> So just let this nonsense evaporate.
>
>
> Jupiter Jones [MVP] wrote:
>> "The Vista print team lied..."
>> You have said that before.
>> BUT when asked for a reference, you ignore the request.
>> Can you backup that statement?
>> If not, the statement is inappropriate and may even be illegal.
>>
>> "I predict about March..."
>> You have stated this hogwash before except now you have conveniently
>> moved from January to March.
>> You seem to ignore the reality that with the final public release of
>> Vista more will be using Vista.
>> With larger numbers come more issues, both perceived and real.
>> This would happen with ant software from any manufacturer and yet you
>> seem to focus only on the gloom.
>> Those that have success dilute this myth of yours so you often find a
>> weak excuse to dismiss the successes.
>>
>> "for 15 months that number was low..."
>> Pretty meaningless since Microsoft avoids articles about Beta products.
>>
>> I did not read further as it was obviously simply a rant.
>>