My impressions of Vista after 4 months

[Charlie Tame]

Well, for example, there's what I mentioned further down but you snipped:

"Do you have the 'black-screen-with-mouse-pointer' problem? Basically what
happens every ever so often (such as _right now_, which is why I'm typing
this on my Mac...) when I boot Vista I get perfectly normal behaviour all the
way to the password entry screen. I enter my password, and get the 'welcome'
screen with the spinning circle. That sits there for a while, as usual, and
then the screen goes black, again as usual... except that usually when it
does, it shows the mouse pointer and the spinning circle, and it almost
immediately starts loading the Vista desktop. About one third of the time,
instead of that, I just get the mouse pointer in a perfectly black screen.
There's disk activity. There's sound effects. Just nothing visible except the
mouse pointer. Clicking, left or right, does _nothing_. Most of the time,
hitting control-alt-delete brings up the task manager and I can log out and
log back in... and this time everything is just fine. Sometimes
control-alt-delete does _nothing_, and the only cure is a power-switch
shutdown and reboot. If I'm in a hurry, it's faster to move to the Mac than
to fiddle with Vista..."

That problem is Windows Explorer going tits-up on startup.

In addition, there's this other common problem, which I mentioned a little
below that:

"Every ever so often the Vista desktop crashes and I get a little note about
a problem with the drivers. I have most current drivers installed. I tried
rolling back; things got worse. I have a NVIDI GeForce 6200 video card; not
exactly top of the line, to be sure, but still a fairly good card."



The black screen on startup doesn't show as an error in the PRS. The crashing
desktop shows as either Video Hardware Error or Could Not Find Driver
Software.

Given that the same hardware worked fine with XP and works fine _most_ of the
time with Vista, I suspect that there's more to it. The fact that the black
screen is not reported as an error makes me wonder what on Earth is going on.

My guess is (if other things are working at the time) the video hardware
is displaying but not on the right "Screen", e.g. you have 2 monitors
but the display is on #3 - for want if a simple explanation. This would
explain why there's no error message and it "thinks" everything's fine.

It sounds like a hardware problem / driver problem or a memory (On the
video card) problem. If you have say an NVidia based motherboard there
are drivers for things like the PCI bus so check those for your MB maker
since if PCI is not being driven properly then a PCI, PCIE or even maybe
AGP device could be getting a valid but useless address...

I am a long way from being a hardware expert but I have seen a few very
odd "Random" effects over the years that eventually come down to some
timing error between devices, and it not always video - video driver
trouble, it could be something else - even the BIOS picking the wrong
default video device.

 

[hielan' laddie]

My guess is (if other things are working at the time) the video hardware
is displaying but not on the right "Screen", e.g. you have 2 monitors
but the display is on #3 - for want if a simple explanation. This would
explain why there's no error message and it "thinks" everything's fine.

Nope. I only have one video card and one monitor.

It sounds like a hardware problem / driver problem or a memory (On the
video card) problem. If you have say an NVidia based motherboard there
are drivers for things like the PCI bus so check those for your MB maker
since if PCI is not being driven properly then a PCI, PCIE or even maybe
AGP device could be getting a valid but useless address...

It's an AGP card.

I am a long way from being a hardware expert but I have seen a few very
odd "Random" effects over the years that eventually come down to some
timing error between devices, and it not always video - video driver
trouble, it could be something else - even the BIOS picking the wrong
default video device.

The problem is that this _only_ happens in Vista. I have XP Home, XP Pro, and
the student version of Server 2003 in different partitions on the same
machine, and I used to have Ubuntu 5, and then Ubuntu 6 on that machine. They
never show this error or anything remotely like it. I really doubt that this
is a hardware problem. Especially as if I log out and log back in the problem
goes away.

 

[occam]

UAC is such a PITA that it's permanently swiched off now - with UAC switched
off Vista is no less secure than XP (which doesn't have UAC & I have 2 PCs,
one with XP Home & one with Vista Home Premium).

I don't understand "with UAC switched off Vista is no less secure than XP"

the whole point of Vista (and its headaches) is that it is supposed to
be MORE secure. Are you saying taht with UAC switched off, it is not
/more/ secure than XP?

 

[Jupiter Jones [MVP]]

Denlyn;
(is that a nick name or your real name)

"perhaps the final release date wasn't enough time for all these
companies!"

That can and has been debated nearly forever.
Those same companies had the necessary information to start
development years before the release of Windows Vista.
How much is "enough time"?

During the Beta testers submitted hardware bugs and that information
was forwarded by Microsoft to the specific hardware manufacturer.
Additionally it was also suggested testers forward information
directly to the specific hardware manufacturer.
The manufacturers had specific information from users and Microsoft.
What they chose to do with that information is partially evident by
what hardware was ready for Windows Vista as well as when and if it
was available.

Some manufacturers started work immediately and some of those have
decent drivers now and some had them at the release of Windows Vista.

Many waited for the release of Windows Vista before starting so as not
to spend resources with the possibility of needing to change something
later.
they came out with drivers soon to several months later.

Still others waited to see how many of their customers had a need,
these may be coming available in the last few months.

Still others decided not to support their customers desires with their
products, these products are often useless in windows Vista.

The manufacturers already wait for the operating system, if Microsoft
then wait for the manufacturers, it is unlikely an operating system
would ever be released.