Actual problems

[Richard Urban]

In case you hadn't noticed, aside from the constant bickering, there are
damn few actual problems and questions posted in the Vista newsgroups.

This is amazing, seeing as how well over 5 million technically savvy, early
adopters have downloaded and installed the operating system. These are
people with the intelligence (for the most part) to find these newsgroups
should they have any problems.

This indicates to me the following:

1. The operating system is actually quite stable and secure

2. The operating must be a lot more intuitive that many people are
claiming

3. It must be installed and running on a huge amount of different
hardware

4. People are largely pleased with the operating system

5. 32 bit drivers may not be the problem everyone thought they would be

6. The majority of legacy software is running just fine

7. The majority of people are pleased with what they are experiencing



Sorry to burst your bubble Microfox and Chad Harris.



--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

 

[Dale]

You want complaints? I got complaints!

Why doesn't the thumbnail that comes up from the taskbar stay up and let you
click it? That's the natural response when you choose from a popup: put
the mouse on it and click. And where's the UP button in Explorer?

Hmmmm.. If those are the biggest issues I have, then you must be right.

 

[Gary]

I bet chicken little AKA Microfox post his "Brace yourselves .. a tsunami is
coming" in under 4 minutes.

 

[Richard Urban]

I bet chicken little AKA Microfox post his "Brace yourselves .. a tsunami
is coming" in under 4 minutes.

You mean, the world as we know it is coming to an end because of Vista,
Microdork?

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

 

[Jane C]

I haven't had any real problems with Vista, x86 and x64, from build 5384
upwards. Any minor stuff, I soon sorted out by using my vacationing
braincell ;-)

 

[formerprof]

That's well-observed, Richard. I do agree with Dale that taking the "up"
button from explorer was a design error (although I'm starting to get used
to ALT-<up-arrow>. I also think that the index and search functions are
kerflugety (that's a technical term from the early days of computing). They
seem best designed to find files by functional category (e.g., music,
pictures, porn, whatever) rather than by file name. If trouble develops
(programX can't find X.dll) it seems much harder to search the whole machine
& be sure that all locations are covered -- even with the "everywhere"
search, which has failed several times for me.

Other than those little problems the only trouble I've had is with a couple
of old programs which seem not to like virtual registry writes. Quicken is
one of them. Presumably Intuit will have that fixed by the time the next
operating system is out. Certainly the volume of troubles which I -- and
many others had -- when XP first emerged isn't present here.

All good wishes.

formerprof

 

[Jeff Gaines]

6. The majority of legacy software is running just fine

Not for me - and the things that don't run are going to cost to upgrade :-(

I think this may be one of the biggest issues once it's available retail.

Perhaps we should put our accumulated knowledge together on a web page
somewhere?

 

[Dale]

Can your braincell vacation in Oklahoma soon? I could use some help.

Dale

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

Wikipedia has gobs of stuff about Vista compatibility. We should all
contribute there.

 

[Richard Urban]

You can have Jane's brain cell. I want what most men want and she can
deliver it in person - a home cooked meal.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

 

[Dale]

I think the search functionality represents part of what I keep referring to
as the "new paradigm" that Vista represents.

This began with XP, actually. In XP if you search for specific text in a
..cs file (a C# programming language code file for those who don't know what
a .cs file is), by default, it won't find a thing. To be honest, I don't
remember exactly why - that .cs files weren't indexed by the indexing
service or was it because of something in the file extension association.
All I know is that I had to find a fix on the Internet years ago and apply
it to my XP machines in order to search my code files. The search in Vista
just carries that thinking a little further.

Microsoft is trying to get away from the idea of files with a specific path
and name on a hard disk. They are trying to get more toward documents and
document types and special folders like Music, User, Documents. While I
like the old way - I'm a nuts and bolts kind of guy - it doesn't make it the
only way. It just takes a whole new way of thinking about how we use our
computers and access our data. I'm willing to try to learn and accept the
new paradigm; maybe it will turn out just great.

Dale

 

[John Barnes]

You are, of course, going to cover her expenses over from and back to
Australia.

 

[John Barnes]

My big problem also. Roughly $1000 of software will not run. Not sure what
a web page will do. One problem is a number of very functional programs are
from companies who have been merged and many products orphaned. No joy
there.

 

[xfile]

Count me in as one is not very satisfied with Vista.

I do recognize its improvement but there are some usability issues are
unnecessary complicated and can be implemented much better.

So as of today, I've done my learning (also from this newsgroup) and
evaluation on personal use.

Sorry - I won' upgrade and I won't comprise with WGA N.

Thanks to those who care to share.

I will keep learning and may change the decision in the future.

See you guys and enjoy your ride.

Merry Christmas.

 

[Mike Hall - MS MVP Windows Shell/User]

Agreed on all counts..

 

[Robert Blacher]

Hang on, hang on ... I'll post a real problem. LOL

HP m7580n AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ )see HP site for full specs) *still* dies
if I let it go into sleep mode. With Vista x64 Build 5744, this "error" was
"being researched." I guess the research failed. Vista RTM 6000 still dies
in its sleep on this system (albeit a slightly different death -- it reboots
when you come out of sleep mode and tells you it didn't shut down properly.
Better than the BSOD of Build 5744 but not fixed).

It is, ahem, still being researched. I *love* the new Vista sleep mode on
my laptop where it works like it is supposed to.

 

[Dale]

Ok, since others are breaking the ice, I will re-post my real problem for
about the 4th time - the one that caused me to find this group in the first
place.

On my home network (workgroup, not a domain) I have two Windows 2003
servers. One box, I connect to from Vista with mapped drives with Vista
remembering the passwords. They work like a charm.

The other Windows 2003 Server (installed on my laptop), I connect to from
Vista with mapped drives but I tell Windows Vista to not remember the
password. Any time I restart Vista, even though it doesn't know the
password to Windows 2003 on my laptop and without prompting for that
un-remembered password, it tries to connect the mapped drive any time I open
Windows Explorer and it keeps trying to connect without prompting for a
password until it has locked out my administrative account on the laptop.
Of course all of this is split second. This is a reproducible problem and
others have reported it as well.

Vista is not perfect and, in fact, I consider this a major bug. Even so, I
am sure it will be fixed. It's not a missing feature or a poorly designed
usability trait, those may never be, but this bug will get fixed eventually.
I am just trying to be patient until it is.

Dale

 

[Jane C]

LMAO ;-)

 

[Saucy]

For the time being I think one can just click the button as the thumbnail
only appears while the mouse pointer is over the button itself. That's
plenty really. The thumbnail plays the role of an enhanced tooltip.

You don't need an Up button as much as before. Notice that you can click
directly on the folder name you want to go to in the address bar to the
right of the Back and Forward buttons.

Saucy

 

[Dale]

I agree and I agree but...

The natural reaction, and I've been using Vista for about a month now, is
still to click the popup tooltip. Over time, I'll adjust. Even so, it
would be a good enhancement to make them clickable.

As for the up button, that's a bigger issue. The bread crumbs path in the
address bar is of varying length depending on the content. That means you
don't click the same spot each click even in successive clicks. Secondly,
they require that you move your visual focus up to that line and read the
line, consider the data that is there, and figure out which segment to click
on. The simplicity of the up button is just sooooo much easier. I'll
really miss the up button. Removing the up button is probably, at least
from how I use Windows, the biggest mistake in the Vista UI.

That said, I guess it must be pretty good overall if that's the worst thing
I find wrong - not counting WMP 11. WMP 11 is a completely different topic
for a completely different news group.

Dale