100 Days with Vista

[Guest]

100 days ago ( actually a few days more) on May 18, 2007 I received my new HP
dv9500t with a 2.2 GHz Duo Centrino, 2GB of RAM and basic Intel 965 graphics
chipset. The OS is Vista Home Premium and major software is Office
Professional 2007 Academic Version (from www.directdeal.com - $164), NIS 2007
(got it as a gift) and the audio driver is from RealTek.

At first Vista was being very annoying and quite irritable, with many errors
and significant problems working with other software from third parties. UAC
was a serious pain in the buttocks, especially with my Sony SonicStage
software that came with my Sony sport MP3 player (great player, lousy
software, but I have no choice but to use it).

As with most users, file transfer was very slow and UAC would make it even
slower.

That said, with some fine tuning, turning off UAC (I know I shouldn’t, but
it just became too much) and updating drivers on a regular basis Vista has
started to work out really well.

It’s not perfect and there are still lots of programs that I can’t use on
Vista that worked great on XP, but I have been able to find equivalent (or at
least acceptable) substitutes. For instance as download managers go only
Flashget and Orbit work flawlessly, DAM or FDM have issues with .exe
failures.

Since the Reliability and Compatibility updates have been installed the file
transfer rate and just the overall speed and stability have taken a definite
turn for the better. I have not had a single crash, freeze or issue with any
software, with one exception I’ll get to later, and everything stands-to on
command. I have even noticed that programs like Outlook and Word open up
much faster; even large Word documents are scanned for viruses and opened in
just a few seconds.

I can forgive mistakes if steps are made to make remedy and it seems MS has
made some progress towards fixing the flaws.

Still, you do have to be careful with what you use on a Vista PC, for
instance if I use my HP printer’s software color management Vista has a
hissy-fit, if I turn it off printing goes flawlessly with no noticeable
degradation in print quality or speed.

I also noticed that many aspects of Vista improve as you update third party
drivers and software; video was somewhat of an issue compared to my XP PC
despite that the HP Vista has far superior hardware. Once I installed an
updated version of Intel’s graphic driver video began to pop and sparkle,
even the WEI rating went up a .1 for graphics.

Overall, I’m starting to like Vista, even if it takes some more work than it
should to get it to work just right.

The two major issues I still have, and it may not even be a Vista issue, is
Internet Explorer and Adobe Flash player. Vista seems to dislike Adobe
Flash; I have had to reinstall it 4 times already. I even installed
Silverlight from MS, or whatever it’s called, in the hopes of making Vista
happy, no dice.

IE of course just loves to crash on me when I have half a dozen tabs or so
going, but it did that with XP too. Hello FireFox?

It still needs some work, it’s too big and takes up too many resources, but
I guess that can’t be solved until Vista’s replacement. Some changes may
have seemed like a good idea on paper, but bring back the old Defrag program
for instance!

It’s starting to look to me like Vista has issues, but many of them are
caused by other software and drivers, in the end they have to comply with the
OS and when they do it makes a big difference.

P.S. – I must say that I really like Office 2007, lots of good improvements
and ideas there.







----------------
This post is a suggestion for Microsoft, and Microsoft responds to the
suggestions with the most votes. To vote for this suggestion, click the "I
Agree" button in the message pane. If you do not see the button, follow this
link to open the suggestion in the Microsoft Web-based Newsreader and then
click "I Agree" in the message pane.

http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/co...555&dg=microsoft.public.windows.vista.general

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

The two major issues I still have, and it may not even be a Vista issue,
is Internet Explorer and Adobe Flash player. Vista seems to dislike
Adobe Flash; I have had to reinstall it 4 times already. I even
installed Silverlight from MS, or whatever it’s called, in the hopes of
making Vista happy, no dice.

That's probably because Microsoft doesn't want you to use Flash. After
all, they've gone to the trouble of developing a competing standard...

Back in the early 90s, Microsofties had a favorite saying: "DOS isn't
done until Lotus won't run." The more things change, the more they stay
the same, eh?

Anyway, your review is interesting. It's encouraging that Vista hasn't
turned out to be a _total_ disaster, and you are coming up with the
workarounds you need to live with it.

Charlie

 

[Ian Semmel]

Yes, I think Vista is here to stay.

If you remember what happened with the introduction of XP, many new
computers were sold with Windows Mw for quite some time afterwards as
people found it easier to use and there were more drivers etc.

As program updates and drivers work themselves through the system, the
problems go away.

I had trouble with Nvidia drivers, but after getting more memory, updating
drivers and updating the bios, they have gone away. Not sure what fixed
it.

I like Vista, and when I go back to XP it feels a bit awkward.

 

[Carey Frisch [MVP]]

Right-click on your IE icon located on the Quick Launch toolbar,
select "Run as administrator", then visit:

http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash

to install the Adobe Flash Player.

Troubleshoot Adobe Flash Player installation for Windows:
http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=tn_19166&sliceId=1#uninstall

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows Shell/User

----------------------------------------------------------------------

:

100 days ago ( actually a few days more) on May 18, 2007 I received my new HP
dv9500t with a 2.2 GHz Duo Centrino, 2GB of RAM and basic Intel 965 graphics
chipset. The OS is Vista Home Premium and major software is Office
Professional 2007 Academic Version (from www.directdeal.com - $164), NIS 2007
(got it as a gift) and the audio driver is from RealTek.

At first Vista was being very annoying and quite irritable, with many errors
and significant problems working with other software from third parties. UAC
was a serious pain in the buttocks, especially with my Sony SonicStage
software that came with my Sony sport MP3 player (great player, lousy
software, but I have no choice but to use it).

As with most users, file transfer was very slow and UAC would make it even
slower.

That said, with some fine tuning, turning off UAC (I know I shouldn’t, but
it just became too much) and updating drivers on a regular basis Vista has
started to work out really well.

It’s not perfect and there are still lots of programs that I can’t use on
Vista that worked great on XP, but I have been able to find equivalent (or at
least acceptable) substitutes. For instance as download managers go only
Flashget and Orbit work flawlessly, DAM or FDM have issues with .exe
failures.

Since the Reliability and Compatibility updates have been installed the file
transfer rate and just the overall speed and stability have taken a definite
turn for the better. I have not had a single crash, freeze or issue with any
software, with one exception I’ll get to later, and everything stands-to on
command. I have even noticed that programs like Outlook and Word open up
much faster; even large Word documents are scanned for viruses and opened in
just a few seconds.

I can forgive mistakes if steps are made to make remedy and it seems MS has
made some progress towards fixing the flaws.

Still, you do have to be careful with what you use on a Vista PC, for
instance if I use my HP printer’s software color management Vista has a
hissy-fit, if I turn it off printing goes flawlessly with no noticeable
degradation in print quality or speed.

I also noticed that many aspects of Vista improve as you update third party
drivers and software; video was somewhat of an issue compared to my XP PC
despite that the HP Vista has far superior hardware. Once I installed an
updated version of Intel’s graphic driver video began to pop and sparkle,
even the WEI rating went up a .1 for graphics.

Overall, I’m starting to like Vista, even if it takes some more work than it
should to get it to work just right.

The two major issues I still have, and it may not even be a Vista issue, is
Internet Explorer and Adobe Flash player. Vista seems to dislike Adobe
Flash; I have had to reinstall it 4 times already. I even installed
Silverlight from MS, or whatever it’s called, in the hopes of making Vista
happy, no dice.

IE of course just loves to crash on me when I have half a dozen tabs or so
going, but it did that with XP too. Hello FireFox?

It still needs some work, it’s too big and takes up too many resources, but
I guess that can’t be solved until Vista’s replacement. Some changes may
have seemed like a good idea on paper, but bring back the old Defrag program
for instance!

It’s starting to look to me like Vista has issues, but many of them are
caused by other software and drivers, in the end they have to comply with the
OS and when they do it makes a big difference.

P.S. – I must say that I really like Office 2007, lots of good improvements
and ideas there.







----------------
This post is a suggestion for Microsoft, and Microsoft responds to the
suggestions with the most votes. To vote for this suggestion, click the "I
Agree" button in the message pane. If you do not see the button, follow this
link to open the suggestion in the Microsoft Web-based Newsreader and then
click "I Agree" in the message pane.

http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/co...555&dg=microsoft.public.windows.vista.general

 

[Mark Veldhuis]

That's probably because Microsoft doesn't want you to use Flash. After
all, they've gone to the trouble of developing a competing standard.

What exactly is the problem with Flash? Error messages, crashes, ...?
Never a problem with Flash here, on Windows Vista Ultimate 32 bit.
Maybe if you elaborate on your specific problems, someone might be able
to help.

 

[Guest]

I have the same thoughts as you. I have a Dell though and I haven't had any
issues with Vista crashing or not running things. Flash 9.x works great for
me with both IE 7 and Firefox and I design in Flash 8 so I use it a LOT for
testing. I have never had it crash with Vista.

I also turned off UAC. I am not sure "why I shouldn't". I have been a
network admin for 20 years and so far no virus/spyware at home or work so I
think my firewall structure is secure enough not to have to use UAC.

Still some things about the design of Vista that DRIVE me nuts.

1> Unlike XP, Camera Wizard won't let you select the pictures to import. It
does detect which ones it hasn't imported but often I just want to import one
to print and not the whole card.

2> Font Directory doesn't let you set file security on the tab. I might be
able to find a hack for this but I am not sure.

3> No File Types Tab - This is the WORST. I have to do registry editing
everytime I want to change something. The "default programs" Control Panel
is so limited and won't let you add a new file type or edit the Default
Command. I don't want some things to "Open" by Default. I want the "Edit" to
be the default. Especially with my vbscripting. I want the files to Edit when
I double click on them and not run.

4> No Logoff on the Start Bar. I am REALLY hoping I can find a hack for
this. That stupid little arrow is just ridiculous and I end up shutting down
or going into standbye instead of logging off.

5> Vista doesn't support XP Profiles which is going to be a REAL pain when I
try to deploy it in my network with Mandatory Roaming Profiles. Folder
Redirection just doesn't cut it as I don't want users modifying the user.dat.
It also doesn't support XP Group policies either.

There were a few more and I am sure I will find even more in trying to
deploy it to a Windows 2003/XP network.

Cheers,
Lara

 

[Guest]

Thanks!

Right-click on your IE icon located on the Quick Launch toolbar,
select "Run as administrator", then visit:

http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash

to install the Adobe Flash Player.

Troubleshoot Adobe Flash Player installation for Windows:
http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=tn_19166&sliceId=1#uninstall

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows Shell/User

----------------------------------------------------------------------

:

100 days ago ( actually a few days more) on May 18, 2007 I received my new HP
dv9500t with a 2.2 GHz Duo Centrino, 2GB of RAM and basic Intel 965 graphics
chipset. The OS is Vista Home Premium and major software is Office
Professional 2007 Academic Version (from www.directdeal.com - $164), NIS 2007
(got it as a gift) and the audio driver is from RealTek.

At first Vista was being very annoying and quite irritable, with many errors
and significant problems working with other software from third parties. UAC
was a serious pain in the buttocks, especially with my Sony SonicStage
software that came with my Sony sport MP3 player (great player, lousy
software, but I have no choice but to use it).

As with most users, file transfer was very slow and UAC would make it even
slower.

That said, with some fine tuning, turning off UAC (I know I shouldn’t, but
it just became too much) and updating drivers on a regular basis Vista has
started to work out really well.

It’s not perfect and there are still lots of programs that I can’t use on
Vista that worked great on XP, but I have been able to find equivalent (or at
least acceptable) substitutes. For instance as download managers go only
Flashget and Orbit work flawlessly, DAM or FDM have issues with .exe
failures.

Since the Reliability and Compatibility updates have been installed the file
transfer rate and just the overall speed and stability have taken a definite
turn for the better. I have not had a single crash, freeze or issue with any
software, with one exception I’ll get to later, and everything stands-to on
command. I have even noticed that programs like Outlook and Word open up
much faster; even large Word documents are scanned for viruses and opened in
just a few seconds.

I can forgive mistakes if steps are made to make remedy and it seems MS has
made some progress towards fixing the flaws.

Still, you do have to be careful with what you use on a Vista PC, for
instance if I use my HP printer’s software color management Vista has a
hissy-fit, if I turn it off printing goes flawlessly with no noticeable
degradation in print quality or speed.

I also noticed that many aspects of Vista improve as you update third party
drivers and software; video was somewhat of an issue compared to my XP PC
despite that the HP Vista has far superior hardware. Once I installed an
updated version of Intel’s graphic driver video began to pop and sparkle,
even the WEI rating went up a .1 for graphics.

Overall, I’m starting to like Vista, even if it takes some more work than it
should to get it to work just right.

The two major issues I still have, and it may not even be a Vista issue, is
Internet Explorer and Adobe Flash player. Vista seems to dislike Adobe
Flash; I have had to reinstall it 4 times already. I even installed
Silverlight from MS, or whatever it’s called, in the hopes of making Vista
happy, no dice.

IE of course just loves to crash on me when I have half a dozen tabs or so
going, but it did that with XP too. Hello FireFox?

It still needs some work, it’s too big and takes up too many resources, but
I guess that can’t be solved until Vista’s replacement. Some changes may
have seemed like a good idea on paper, but bring back the old Defrag program
for instance!

It’s starting to look to me like Vista has issues, but many of them are
caused by other software and drivers, in the end they have to comply with the
OS and when they do it makes a big difference.

P.S. – I must say that I really like Office 2007, lots of good improvements
and ideas there.







----------------
This post is a suggestion for Microsoft, and Microsoft responds to the
suggestions with the most votes. To vote for this suggestion, click the "I
Agree" button in the message pane. If you do not see the button, follow this
link to open the suggestion in the Microsoft Web-based Newsreader and then
click "I Agree" in the message pane.

http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/co...555&dg=microsoft.public.windows.vista.general

 

[Guest]

Anything with Flash simply stopped working, no Flash movies nothing. Also it
would not show up in the Program list or IE add-ons even after reinstalling.

However, I just tried Carey Frisch's suggestion and now it's back in both
lists. Hopefully my problem is solved.

 

[Not Me]

Those are a few of the reasons it isn't deployed and there are no plans to
deploy it.
We have extended the lifecycle of the nearly 200 XP machines and migrated
all the 98/ME/W2K boxes to Linux.
Unless MS makes major changes, all our machines will use a different OS.
I have Vista Ultimate on 1 machine I use regularly, but I haven't started to
like it at all.
I built the machine just for Vista, I have had no trouble with it.
It's just a pain to try to tweak it & make it look & feel the way I want.
Making it necessary to hack the system (and the browser) and/or use third
party software to make them perform as desired is an unacceptable way to
design an OS, in my opinion.
For those who like it, congrats.
To those who don't, welcome to the world of Alternative OSs.

 

[Charlie Tame]

Those are a few of the reasons it isn't deployed and there are no plans to
deploy it.
We have extended the lifecycle of the nearly 200 XP machines and migrated
all the 98/ME/W2K boxes to Linux.
Unless MS makes major changes, all our machines will use a different OS.
I have Vista Ultimate on 1 machine I use regularly, but I haven't started to
like it at all.
I built the machine just for Vista, I have had no trouble with it.
It's just a pain to try to tweak it & make it look & feel the way I want.
Making it necessary to hack the system (and the browser) and/or use third
party software to make them perform as desired is an unacceptable way to
design an OS, in my opinion.
For those who like it, congrats.
To those who don't, welcome to the world of Alternative OSs.

Quite honestly it's not Vista itself that worries me but the fact that
MS can simply shut you down at will with no questions asked and there's
no way you have any leverage to get back in business. I guess it's more
"The way things are headed" that's the problem and it looks like the
same for you. I know our IT people are concerned about it because we are
a fair sized company with serious dependencies on IT but we're way too
small to apply any leverage. I have one (Personal) machine at work and
one company machine there and despite trying to use Vista I end up every
time removing the Vista drive and putting XP Back, and I've ALWAYS used
Windows and most of the time do the IT stuff that's not related to our
actual application software (Obviously that's on a contract).

The only problem I'm having with using Debian on the company machine is
printer drivers which with ease of use and installation has been
Microsoft's forte IMHO. Seems they are intent on throwing it all away
though.

 

[Guest]

turning off UAC

you're an idiot!

Vista issue, is
Internet Explorer and Adobe Flash player. Vista seems to dislike Adobe
Flash; I have had to reinstall it 4 times already.

Flash don't work because you disabled the UAC.
You're an idiot!
With UAC on, flash works fine.

 

[Guest]

DOESN'T (not don't)

If I turn it back on will I be smart like you? It takes all kinds I guess

 

[Adam Albright]

DOESN'T (not don't)

If I turn it back on will I be smart like you? It takes all kinds I guess

The real idiot is some Bozo suggesting turning off UAC impacts on how
the Flash player runs. Total rubbish.

 

[Guest]

Huh. I disabled UAC the minute I turned on Vista. I haven't had it running
since. I have no need to use UAC at all and it is a big annoyance.

Flash works fine without UAC enabled.

Cheers,
Lara

 

[Guest]

-- I have returned. For anyone wondering why i dropped this thread it's
fairly simple. For a two month period I wasn't an Adobe employee. Now I'm
back to the fold and while I'll be focusing on live cases (and less forums) I
do need to pick up on this crashing issue.

So... consider this a reset. Most of the things I was working on back in May
have radically changed. Not all, but most.

My primary reason for returning to this thread is to discuss known crashes
in IE7.

There are several possible reasons and Engineering has been working very
actively to find and fix them (and fixes have been rolled into the updates to
the Flash Player 9 beta on lab.adobe.com). I can't document them all here,
and I'm not even certain that we've found them all.

I want to expound on that , but ideally I'd like to wait for the next
release of the beta on labs. One of the things we should see in the NEXT
player beta is a small but significant change in the way Flash Player manages
memory in the AVM. IE7 introduced a lot of changes into it's memory
management scheme and we think those are the core of the crashing problem.
And some slight changes to some found problems with garbage collection. And
we'll test those publicly when the next labs Player beta goes life (and when
it goes live i'll post to this thread). And no, I'm not sure when that will
be yet.

Now, while we wait, let's see if we can all agree. I have it from a solid
source that this specific weather.com SWF will reliably crash IE7.
http://www.weather.com/outlook/home...imation=true&zoom=7&interactiveMapLayer=radar

I'd appreciate it if the IE7 users on this thread could test that URL. All I
need to know is if you crash or not. Don't need a crash log or mdmp yet.

Now, we see IE6 crashes too. But those are different, and less consistent.
jpwrunyan, do you happen to have a case number from your previous discussion
with support? I'll do some digging to see if I can find anything related to
getURL. I seem to remember a simlar flex case coming up..

Regards,
Bentley Wolfe
Adobe Systems

 

[Guest]

I have had a on going issue with Flash and have been hunting the Adobe forums
for a fix I came upon this tonight maybe you can explain to me what he is
saying. Are they trying to fix it?
"I have returned. For anyone wondering why i dropped this thread it's fairly
simple. For a two month period I wasn't an Adobe employee. Now I'm back to
the fold and while I'll be focusing on live cases (and less forums) I do need
to pick up on this crashing issue.

So... consider this a reset. Most of the things I was working on back in May
have radically changed. Not all, but most.

My primary reason for returning to this thread is to discuss known crashes
in IE7.

There are several possible reasons and Engineering has been working very
actively to find and fix them (and fixes have been rolled into the updates to
the Flash Player 9 beta on lab.adobe.com). I can't document them all here,
and I'm not even certain that we've found them all.

I want to expound on that , but ideally I'd like to wait for the next
release of the beta on labs. One of the things we should see in the NEXT
player beta is a small but significant change in the way Flash Player manages
memory in the AVM. IE7 introduced a lot of changes into it's memory
management scheme and we think those are the core of the crashing problem.
And some slight changes to some found problems with garbage collection. And
we'll test those publicly when the next labs Player beta goes life (and when
it goes live i'll post to this thread). And no, I'm not sure when that will
be yet.

Now, while we wait, let's see if we can all agree. I have it from a solid
source that this specific weather.com SWF will reliably crash IE7
http://www.weather.com/outlook/home...imation=true&zoom=7&interactiveMapLayer=radar

I'd appreciate it if the IE7 users on this thread could test that URL. All I
need to know is if you crash or not. Don't need a crash log or mdmp yet.

Now, we see IE6 crashes too. But those are different, and less consistent.
jpwrunyan, do you happen to have a case number from your previous discussion
with support? I'll do some digging to see if I can find anything related to
getURL. I seem to remember a simlar flex case coming up.."

Regards,
Bentley Wolfe
Adobe Systems

 

[Greg Schwartz]

I have tested the weather *.swf mentioned below on my Vista Ultimate
computer with IE7 and it works fine without any problems.