Hopefully I'll see you all again soon...

  • Thread starter Thread starter NotMe
  • Start date Start date
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NotMe

I haven't had such bad problems, even with the Beta & RC versions.
I just don't like the look & feel.
I am using it because I have to support it & know it backwards & forwards.
 
Frank - As a point of interst - at the time of your post there were a total
of 12 new pposts (did not include replies) in the Vista general newsgroup -
there were also 12 posted in the XP general newsgroup.

What dose that mean? do not know - but it would seem to indicate that
"reliability" is not a meaningful term in comparing XP and Vista.
 
Hi,
I was on Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit. I am now back on XP again and I
think maybe this time for a while or until Vista gets some real equilibrium.

I wanted to share some things here because there have been alot of
reactions, both positive and negative. I hope I can shoot through the middle
here possibly. In many ways, I really like Vista a lot and I very much
looked forward to its release and I wanted to work very badly and I still
do.

I've given Vista a good old college try and I think between my desktop and
laptop, (I have 2 genuine licenses), I've done about 7 or 8 installs of
Vista Home Premium 32-bit - some were clean and some were upgrade installs.

This last Vista install was what I would call a clean upgrade install,
meaning that at the very moment I restored my PC to Windows XP and its
original factory settings (I had to do this because of a BSOD in Vista that
would not go away), a Microsoft agent guided me and we proceeded to
uninstall EVERYTHING but the basic Microsoft programs (Works etc) in the
Add/Remove section. We then ran 'prefetch' and erased all those files; then
we ran '%temp%' and erased all those files. Then we tried many times to get
Nvidia out of Add/ Remove - it was a sticky one. Then he guided me thru a
more clean upgrade install of Vista Home Premium, fresh from a clean XP OS
with no other software involved.

I thought we had made it to the promised land. How could Vista not fly after
this? After the Upgrade, I was careful to only install Vista compatible
software, but problems slowly began to compound, like freezes, and my
keyboard not working but these were new problems. I had never seen these
before with Vista. And that brings me to my point.

Vista feels like an obstacle course, but one that continually changes.
Sometimes you can make it thru and sometimes you get blocked, but the
obstacles seem to change every time. Each install ultimately failed for
completely different reasons. Certainly there are sign posts here that we're
all learning along the way and I do believe they are helping, but it almost
feels like there is a wild card factor in Vista and one that is very hard to
pin down.

But the bottom line of why I wanted to write this is this: Microsoft's Tech
Support has been so stellar through this that they have inspired more
patience than I would have normally had and I'm already a pretty patient
guy. I have to give them credit...They inspired me to want to try again when
I may have given up. They have stayed on the phone with me for 4 hours or
more at a time to guide the install(s). I should say that not all of my
installs were guided by a MS agent - maybe only 2 or 3 were. But they've
always called me back to check and see if I was satisfied with the service.

I'll admit I've written some more critical blogs, in Cnet and Pcworld - look
for comments by 'Brightbelt'. I can't see how a OS should be released when
things like Pdf files can't be saved and much professional level software
won't work etc.

But then other reps at Best Buy and elsewhere made this one very good point:
Vista has been in beta testing for 5 years and everyone had all that time to
work out their bugs and refine and make their updates. But I can also
understand those who feel that Microsoft could have made Vista a little more
backwards compatible at least.

So hopefully down the road, Vista will really come around. I hope it does.
It's a beautiful program.

Many Thanks, Frank Bright
 
Frank Bright said:
I can't see how a OS should be released when things like Pdf files can't
be saved .....
Click to expand...

Small point, but that's not a Vista issue, is it? I think the savability of
pdfs depends on whether the person or site that originated the pdf wants
them to be saved. I've had that issue sometimes in XP and sometimes in
W2000.
I've also been able to save pdfs in Vista and sometimes not, depending on
the site where I get them.

If you're talking about the ability to CREATE pdfs, like while in Office, I
think that has more to do with Adobe's copyrights and patents.
 
Frank said:
Hi,
I was on Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit. I am now back on XP again and
I think maybe this time for a while or until Vista gets some real
equilibrium.

I wanted to share some things here because there have been alot of
reactions, both positive and negative. I hope I can shoot through the
middle
here possibly. In many ways, I really like Vista a lot and I very much
looked forward to its release and I wanted to work very badly and I still
do.

I've given Vista a good old college try and I think between my desktop and
laptop, (I have 2 genuine licenses), I've done about 7 or 8 installs of
Vista Home Premium 32-bit - some were clean and some were upgrade
installs.
Click to expand...
8 installs and still not working? Guess you can't get a silk purse from a
sows ear no matter how many times you try to reinstall it. :-)

But then other reps at Best Buy and elsewhere made this one very good
point: Vista has been in beta testing for 5 years and everyone had all
that time to work out their bugs and refine and make their updates. But I
can also understand those who feel that Microsoft could have made Vista a
little more backwards compatible at least.

So hopefully down the road, Vista will really come around. I hope it does.
It's a beautiful program.
Click to expand...
Those who are fed up with Vista and have given up waiting for Microsoft to
come up with a quality product, are moving over the newest Windoze-killer
available today - Ubuntu 7.04. Millions of users are downloading it as you
read this message.

Read this review ...

http://lunapark6.com/ubuntu-704-feisty-fawn.html

and see why.

Love and Kisses,
Doris
 
Frank Bright said:
I hope to see you all around sooner rather than later; I'll keep my eyes
on this group to learn tips and tricks if I can.
Click to expand...

Sure thing. I'm one of the lucky people who has had a pretty flawless Vista
experience, as I've said many times in various newsgroups. I'm sorry it's
not working out for you.

And I agree that PDFs are not a "small thing." I don't think I said it was.

Anyway, one question: Did you try right-clicking on the link to the PDF and
choosing "save target as"? That's assuming you got to the PDF from a link.
 
I have that problem with Adobe Acrobat 7.09 (latest version). Couldn't save
anywhere, no matter what my permissions were. It is due to the fact that
Adobe 7.09 is not fully compatible with Vista.

I have dumped Adobe 7.09 at this point. I installed the Adobe Reader 8.0. I
am now using the .pdf plug-in for Office 2007. I highlight the part of the
web page I want to save. Then I copy the highlighted portion and paste it
into a Word document. I then do a "save as" from within Word and save it as
a .pdf file. The file then immediately opens in Adobe Reader 8.0.

It is a few more steps but it works perfectly.

I hope this may help you when you decide to try Vista again.

--


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!
 
Frank Bright said:
"Small point, but that's not a Vista issue, is it?"
Click to expand...

OK, I meant that I was making a small point in your much larger post about
Vista problems. I.e., that if you agreed with the point I was making (that
Vista might not have been at fault on the PDF issue), that certainly did not
invalidate your larger argument or trivialize your substantial other
problems.

Mind posting your system specs here? They might be relevant to the
discussion.

And I guess I should post mine as well: ASUS A8NE motherboard; Athlon 64 X2
3800+ cpu, Nvidia GeForce 6600 LE video card; 2 GB of ram. And I'm using
Vista Ultimate 64-bit, which I purchased in the OEM version. I have two hard
drives and dual-boot into Vista and Windows XPx64. As I said in another post
somewhere, the number of times I boot into XPx64 is rapidly diminishing. The
computer was made by a small builder in NY state who has a great Reseller
Ratings reputation.
 
Adobe was taken totally by surprise when Microsoft released Vista. They had
no idea that this new O/S was in the works. <grin>

--


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!
 
The same stellar approach was probably dedicated to the Flash Player<g>
It took a complete removal on this machine and a download and offline
install of the prior 9.0.28 before 9.0.45 would provide a functional
install.
It works, though the Active X Download Object shows up as unknown now
instead of damaged.
..winston
 
As it happened DP, this was a simple matter of saving a Pdf file as it was
being created from a web page (actually from a receipt generated online) and
Vista would deny me "permission" to save this type of pdf file, no matter
which folder or which hard drive I chose.

I was on the phone for 4 days, for almost 4 hours every day with the
Microsoft Research Team and they could not figure this one out.

Finally a Microsoft Manager got on the phone to declare that they were
closing the issue as "solved" and I asked why. He said that Adobe was coming
out with an update that would indeed fix the problem, but that the update
was not yet available to the public.

I guess my point is, I was there with this issue and so was Microsoft, so
I'm not just running on about a subject for no reason. I've had problems
with Pdf's and XP too, but this was clearly a persistent problem inherent to
working with PDF files in the new Vista enviroment.

And I agree with you that indeed this may be Adobe's issue more than
Microsoft, but it is not a 'small point'. Pdf's are an industry, business
standard.

I hope to see you all around sooner rather than later; I'll keep my eyes on
this group to learn tips and tricks if I can.

Frank
 
I can't see how a OS should be released when things like Pdf files can't
be saved .....
Click to expand...

"Small point, but that's not a Vista issue, is it?"


DP,
I tried right-clicking; I tried making it from the adobe icon on the web
browser; I tried making it from the File/Print/PDF interface; from
right-clicking on the web page and choosing 'print'/Pdf.

I'm telling you I was on the phone with Microsoft for 4 days in a row on
this issue and for almost 4 hours a day. And not just with their Tech Dept
but their Research Team. We tried everything and MS was much more than
helpful, but I needed my life back, you know?

I was trying to be as objective as I could in my post; I didn't think I was
being unfair to Microsoft. I mentioned that it is mostly 3rd party companies
who are at fault here. But better to leave well enough alone there. I may
not get out alive!

I should mention that in terms of reliability, I'm referring to real
empirical results, but clearly from my end and on my computer. For instance,
every experience I had with Vista imploded after a while - I did have some
nice plateau's, but it seemed one little thing would eventually rock the
boat.

And I know about drivers, updating them and going to the real websites to
find them. I know about the device manager - how to uninstall or disable an
item and restart the computer etc. I can do some standard troubleshooting
and I always do System Restores before installing a new driver or new
software. Even the System Restores failed me several times on Vista. Either
they would not complete successfully or the computer would freeze on the
restart.

But everytime I needed to get back my computer and return its settings to
the factory standard, the XP recovery performed flawlessly, and I could
install all my programs on XP and not have to pick so carefully.

For the record, XP has not frozen on me or shut down unexpectedly; nor has
it required any manual restarts or system restores. It hasn't given me blue
screens or not recognized an external hard drive. It hasn't frozen my
keyboard or cursor.

But it's perhaps unfair to compare XP SP2 with its years of patches and
updates to Vista which is so brand new.

I wish I had your flawless Vista experience, DP. In truth, even though my
computer has a 'Windows Vista Capable' sticker on it, I think it might be
my realtek audio hardware or some other hardware issue that may be causing
my problem.

When every attempt you make manifests itself in so many different ways with
different failures, it can often mean there is a hardware incompatibility.

I once had what I thought was a sound card problem on an older computer with
XP. I took my computer to the shop and they tried everything. When I got
brought my computer back home, on a hunch I took out a PCI USB card I had
installed - it solved the problem hands down.

Some compatibility issues are still an inexact science. I'd rather be
running Vista than not. I've gotten spoiled from its beautiful interface.
Somehow XP seems dull after Vista.

I'll have to wait for something - I know not what - before I can give it
another go.

Many Thanks, Frank
 
Thanks Richard, I'll keep that one in mind. Yes, I was using Adobe Acrobat
7.0.9 as well. I do now own the Adobe Acrobat 8 upgrade but we're all still
waiting on their update which will make it Vista Compatible. I think Adobe
could have been faster on coming through with the Acrobat 8 update - their
statement was that the update will be out "sometime in the first 6 months of
2007".

I actually have Office 2007, but a microsoft agent warned me that it uses a
lot of resources, so upon his suggestion, I took it off my laptop and I have
thus been hesitant to try it on my desktop. But it should be ok there.

Thanks for the tip,
Frank Bright
 
My apologies DP, for mis-interpreting your post. I'll post my specs as
well.

HP Pavilion Media TV PC M7580n with XP SP2 Media Center Edition 2002. My
processor is AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4600+ 2.41 gHz, Nvidia GeForce 7300
LE Graphics card, 2 GB of ram. My computer has a DVD-RW +/- and DVD/CD-Rom
and a swapable bay 2nd hard drive.

I hope this helps someone.

Thanks, Frank
 
Frank said:
Hi,
I was on Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit. I am now back on XP again and I
think maybe this time for a while or until Vista gets some real equilibrium.

I wanted to share some things here because there have been alot of
reactions, both positive and negative. I hope I can shoot through the middle
here possibly. In many ways, I really like Vista a lot and I very much
looked forward to its release and I wanted to work very badly and I still
do.

I've given Vista a good old college try and I think between my desktop and
laptop, (I have 2 genuine licenses), I've done about 7 or 8 installs of
Vista Home Premium 32-bit - some were clean and some were upgrade installs.

This last Vista install was what I would call a clean upgrade install,
meaning that at the very moment I restored my PC to Windows XP and its
original factory settings (I had to do this because of a BSOD in Vista that
would not go away), a Microsoft agent guided me and we proceeded to
uninstall EVERYTHING but the basic Microsoft programs (Works etc) in the
Add/Remove section. We then ran 'prefetch' and erased all those files; then
we ran '%temp%' and erased all those files. Then we tried many times to get
Nvidia out of Add/ Remove - it was a sticky one. Then he guided me thru a
more clean upgrade install of Vista Home Premium, fresh from a clean XP OS
with no other software involved.

I thought we had made it to the promised land. How could Vista not fly after
this? After the Upgrade, I was careful to only install Vista compatible
software, but problems slowly began to compound, like freezes, and my
keyboard not working but these were new problems. I had never seen these
before with Vista. And that brings me to my point.

Vista feels like an obstacle course, but one that continually changes.
Sometimes you can make it thru and sometimes you get blocked, but the
obstacles seem to change every time. Each install ultimately failed for
completely different reasons. Certainly there are sign posts here that we're
all learning along the way and I do believe they are helping, but it almost
feels like there is a wild card factor in Vista and one that is very hard to
pin down.

But the bottom line of why I wanted to write this is this: Microsoft's Tech
Support has been so stellar through this that they have inspired more
patience than I would have normally had and I'm already a pretty patient
guy. I have to give them credit...They inspired me to want to try again when
I may have given up. They have stayed on the phone with me for 4 hours or
more at a time to guide the install(s). I should say that not all of my
installs were guided by a MS agent - maybe only 2 or 3 were. But they've
always called me back to check and see if I was satisfied with the service.

I'll admit I've written some more critical blogs, in Cnet and Pcworld - look
for comments by 'Brightbelt'. I can't see how a OS should be released when
things like Pdf files can't be saved and much professional level software
won't work etc.

But then other reps at Best Buy and elsewhere made this one very good point:
Vista has been in beta testing for 5 years and everyone had all that time to
work out their bugs and refine and make their updates. But I can also
understand those who feel that Microsoft could have made Vista a little more
backwards compatible at least.

So hopefully down the road, Vista will really come around. I hope it does.
It's a beautiful program.

Many Thanks, Frank Bright
Click to expand...


You forgot to thank for all the fish.
 
Give up on the Ubuntu crap already. I visted a user gropup and found just as
many (if not more people) having problems getting Unbuntu to work than Vista.
It was not uncommon to see a post be replyed by saying "That (insert program
name here) doesn't work with Linux". I also noticed a great amount of
confusion over what should be installed with what. People fighting over
Ubuntu versus Beryl, ugh this is supposed to be better than Vista? I think
not!
 
it runs on my P3-900/768MB/64MB AGP just fine! LOL
and seems to be just as fast as Vista Ultimate on my
P4-2.6/800FSB/1.5GB/256MB AGP.
Does it run all my applications, NO.
But I like it's interface as well as I do Vistas. (Not very much on either)
 
Not Me said:
it runs on my P3-900/768MB/64MB AGP just fine! LOL
and seems to be just as fast as Vista Ultimate on my
P4-2.6/800FSB/1.5GB/256MB AGP.
Does it run all my applications, NO.
But I like it's interface as well as I do Vistas. (Not very much on
either)
Click to expand...


Unless they have a server version that can do group policy and AD, Exchange,
SQL and all the other forms of enterprise level tasks, they can shut their
pie holes.

Linux belongs on specific hardware for specific functions and on geeky
desktops.

This new version of Ubudubu is a joke. It wouldn't even install on the
first P4 I attempted to install it on. It told me to get a 32bit version
and that's what I had. I downloaded and burned twice.
 
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