My Vista Upgrade eXPerience Sucked

[Guest]

I recently upgraded from Windows XP to Windows Vista Ultimate because my
laptop “passed†the Vista Advisor scan. Despite assurances from this awful
program, the results from my upgrade experience were dismal. Now, I didn’t
upgrade something that was on its last legs. I upgraded a 4 month old laptop
loaded with extras such as 2 GB RAM. To simplify things further, I use
Windows Live One Care and the Microsoft Notebook Optical Mouse 4000.

The upgrade took 4 hours. Afterwards, my troubles began.

1. I couldn’t access the Internet or my LAN. During the upgrade, Vista
prompted me to upgrade Windows Live One Care and I did. Big mistake. This
worthless program failed to add firewall entries for DNS ports! I disabled
this worthless app and started the built-in Windows Vista firewall and that
got things working. I even called tech support and the coconut on the other
end didn’t know how to fix the problem so I hung up while was on hold.

2. All my iTunes songs were de-authorized. I had to dig around Apple’s
website to find a patch to re-authorize my music. I’m not a conspiracy nut,
but clearly Microsoft knew this would happen and failed to produce a warning.
I know they want to sell a bunch of Zune boxes, but they don’t have to screw
with their existing customers.

3. My sound card didn't work. Vista failed to update my sound drivers. I
had to get new drivers from Gateway.

4. My Cisco VPN client stopped working. I had to upgrade it.

5. My t-mobile client doesn’t work anymore. I have to wait for a new
release from the vendor.

6. About a week after upgrading, my mouse stopped working. Go figure. A
Vista pop-up message asked if I wanted to check for newer drivers and I did.
This was the strangest post-upgrade event as my mouse was working and then
abruptly stopped working. What’s going on at Microsoft?

What’s wrong with Internet Explorer? IE7 is crap. In XP, it would abruptly
close and ask me to send a report to Microsoft. In Vista, it does the same
thing. This problem is not exclusive to my laptop – I have the same problem
at work, too. I’m not an open source fan, but Microsoft is forcing its
customers away. Now I use Firefox because it doesn’t close on me.

 

[Joe]

DO NOT UPGRADE. Do fresh install. I had many problems upgrading; whereas
fresh install was great.

 

[John Barnes]

While I generally like IE7, it does close down periodically and restart. I
think the most annoying thing is it then tells me that I should do an update
and takes me to a page that doesn't have an update for Vista. Go figure.

I agree generally with Joe about upgrading. At least make a complete backup
before doing one. Worth a try for some, but NEVER count on a happy
conclusion. Be prepared.

 

[Guest]

:

1. I couldn’t access the Internet or my LAN. During the upgrade, Vista
prompted me to upgrade Windows Live One Care and I did. Big mistake. This
worthless program failed to add firewall entries for DNS ports! I disabled
this worthless app and started the built-in Windows Vista firewall and that
got things working. I even called tech support and the coconut on the other
end didn’t know how to fix the problem so I hung up while was on hold.

I had the problem (which I believe is the same you had) where when I upgraded
to Vista Ultimate and I turned the Windows Live OneCare firewall ON I lost
all connectivity. When I turned the firewall OFF I got it back again.

So, while I was passing e-mails to OneCare about this problem, I was using
the Vista firewall instead along with all other OneCare features to remain
reasonably safe. OneCare advised me to uninstall OneCare and reinstall after
reboot. I did this and turned the OneCare firewall ON and again lost my
Internet connection.

But wait, I had a thought! I did have the Vista firewall on and did not
turn it OFF when I uninstalled OneCare's firewall and reinstalled it. So,
this time I uninstalled OneCare again, TURNED OFF the Vista firewall,
rebooted my computer, and reinstalled OneCare. When I turned the OneCare
firewall ON it WORKED! No lost connectivity.

So, be aware that Vista has its own firewall, which I believe is on by
default. Just turning it off and turning OneCare's on doesn't work - Vista's
firewall has to be OFF during installation of Windows Live OneCare.

And I'm sorry you feel that OneCare is crap - I don't! It's a great service
for very little money compared to other vendors. I have 3 computers running
it here at home on ONE subscription.