I'm Actually Getting into Vista...

[cooterbrown]

 

I had the same problem with XP machines I bought for my mom and daughter; they were from an office supply store (the computers, not my mom and daughter) and came loaded with crapware. The key was getting rid of Norton and all its tentacles. Once that @#$%^ was out of there, the machines ran smooth as silk.

 

 

Geez...+1000000 to that, Craig.

That's always been task #1 whenever I've got hold of a new computer or resusitated a PC for a friend.

 

One friend: "NO WAIT!!!!....THAT'S THE ANTIVIRUS...WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!?!?!"

Me: "You'll thank me, later."

[Anderton]

 

Geez...+1000000 to that, Craig.

 

 

What REALLY upset me was that I couldn't remove Norton with the install/uninstall routine; I had to go to the Norton web site, and navigate to the end of the world (metaphorically speaking) to find a page that let me download a "tool" that would remove all traces of Norton. I downloaded it, but suspected the whole time I was downloading something that would cause my computer to explode, just out of spite for not buying a subscription to Norton's updates.

 

What's worse is someone buys a Dell computer with Windows that has the "free" version of Norton, and they immediately draw the conclusion that either Dell sucks or Windows sucks.

[Anderton]

Update: Well, one might think my initial post was due to a rush of joy at seeing Vegas save me so much time thanks to 64-bit computing. But the past few days, I've been studying how Vista works and I'm actually more impressed.

 

Maybe I'm just incredibly lucky...but I never thought the day would come that I would rather boot into Vista than XP. Maybe I'm just losing my mind from doing so much video editing...

[bbach]

A free UAC control for Vista: http://www.tweak-uac.com/home/

[bbach]

Strange thing with Vista and UAC. I have some software that I purchased that required a code for activation. When I disable UAC, the software asks for the activation code again. When I enable UAC, the software works again. Must have something to do with the software being registered when I was logged on as admin under UAC, but why would it question anything when UAC is disabled?

[Jon Doe]

 

Update: Well, one might think my initial post was due to a rush of joy at seeing Vegas save me so much time thanks to 64-bit computing. But the past few days, I've been studying how Vista works and I'm actually more impressed. Maybe I'm just incredibly lucky...but I never thought the day would come that I would rather boot into Vista than XP. Maybe I'm just losing my mind from doing so much video editing...

 

 

For what you're doing it sounds like you're happy. My problem is the same as Lee's in that I have to support corporate end-users. Corporations really don't like being sent an OS that their employees have to re-learn. I've had to "upgrade" several hundred vista machines to XP Pro. Try telling the CEO of a good sized corporation that he has to relearn computers just because MSFT says so. The same holds true in large part with the new MS Office versions.

 

Another thing to keep in mind here is that corporations are using the Vista licenses to get XP. MSFT counts these as Vista sales when they are really XP.

[Jimbroni]

 

For what you're doing it sounds like you're happy. My problem is the same as Lee's in that I have to support corporate end-users. Corporations really don't like being sent an OS that their employees have to re-learn. I've had to "upgrade" several hundred vista machines to XP Pro. Try telling the CEO of a good sized corporation that he has to relearn computers just because MSFT says so. The same holds true in large part with the new MS Office versions. Another thing to keep in mind here is that corporations are using the Vista licenses to get XP. MSFT counts these as Vista sales when they are really XP.

 

 

eh. I don't buy that. The basic office user will have zero learning curve on vista. And I'm not really a supporter of Vista, I have no intention of going to it anytime in the near or even distant future. But my limited experience with it, has basically came to I didn't any hard time running programs, downloading, installing features, finding files or setting up a quick network to transfer files. As far as I can tell, there is no learning curve for the basic user. The only people who have the learning curve are the tweakers, the IT department. And thats job security.

[Anderton]

 

The basic office user will have zero learning curve on vista.

 

 

...once they figure out how the new file system works, why search is better than drilling through folders, and that they won't find "My documents" any more. Those are significant things that need to be learned. However, it would only take 15 minutes or so IF explained coherently. And I do believe those 15 minutes would be made back, and then some, over time. The "breadcrumbs" feature is BRILLIANT - you don't have to use it, but once you know it's there, it's a real time-saver.

[Lee Flier]

 

Strange thing with Vista and UAC. I have some software that I purchased that required a code for activation. When I disable UAC, the software asks for the activation code again. When I enable UAC, the software works again. Must have something to do with the software being registered when I was logged on as admin under UAC, but why would it question anything when UAC is disabled?

 

 

Don't even get me started about Vista's Big Brother "security" garbage.

[Lee Flier]

 

For what you're doing it sounds like you're happy. My problem is the same as Lee's in that I have to support corporate end-users. Corporations really don't like being sent an OS that their employees have to re-learn. I've had to "upgrade" several hundred vista machines to XP Pro. Try telling the CEO of a good sized corporation that he has to relearn computers just because MSFT says so.

 

 

Yep... and HP says most of its corporate customers are still downgrading to XP.

 

http://www.informationweek.com/news/windows/operatingsystems/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=209800372

[slight-return]

Migration can certainly be a bitch

 

I remember good chunks of the hospitality industry running NT3.5.1 and rental car agencies running Win3.11 at the millennium turn

 

 

I guess on the flipside 8088 backward compatibility req spec gave us the wonder of the pageframed EMS/XMS memory mode

 

on a third front, I know of neuro labs that still run some of their test equipment on ][s

 

 

It ain't even limited to computers

 

Hell, the UI shift on SRAM roadbike stuff has me on "good ole Ultegra" and XTR rapid rise also ran into the "but it's different" UI issue

 

 

 

such joys wait for us in migration!

 

[not a pro-con Vista thing, don't know enough abt it - OS to me are just meta-apps... just a rant on migration difficulties in industry]

[Anderton]

Yep... and HP says most of its corporate customers are still downgrading to XP. http://www.informationweek.com/news/windows/operatingsystems/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=209800372

 

Makes sense to me. I just can't imagine that running Excel, Word, etc. would require 64-bit computing. I think virtually all standard office applications are I/O bound, not processor-bound. When I was running WordStar on a Z80 it was still faster than I could type...except for find-and-replace, which was pretty slow.

 

I'm just happy that for someone with my needs, there exists a solution that gives me more hours a day to be with my daughter

[slight-return]

FWIW - I picked up a new lappy yesterday abt 3 --

 

haven't bothered to set up a dual boot /w Ubuntu yet

 

so I've been on Vista for abt 24 hours

[Cry Logic]

"...based on comments like these and some other reading, I'm slowly coming the conclusion that -- with sufficient and absolutely up to date hardware with appropriate, truly Vista-ready hardware drivers (hardware drivers seem to have been a serious pocket of problems for whatever reason -- certainly not directly MS's fault but when one sees across the board problems one has to at least suspect that MS bollixed some angle of third party preparations) -- that maybe , just maybe we were coming to a point where Vista might actually make sense over XP and XP64...."

 

Vista Ultimate 64 bit on an 8 core mobo with at least 16 GB of ram

should do the trick.

[Etienne Rambert]

Except for the remake of MS Office 2007 GUI - which I quit using because it was so stupid -

I haven't had problems with Vista, except for its remarkable sluggishness.

 

But as to searches, I beg to differ. Vista may have improved on XP's search feature.

But it is still almost useless for my work.

 

I'm a lawyer. My work is search-intensive. I have to find files using a part of a case number, a fragment of a name.

The problem is, I think that 60% of my clients all have the same name. And 90% of my clients' names are shared

with another client. And in 15 years, I've had at least two or three thousand clients.

 

I need searches that are fast & reliable. Neither Vista nor XP was satisfactory.

XP would miss stuff in my searches. I tested it with an Indian IT guy sitting in my office one day.

An XP search missed a file we both knew was there. He couldn't figure out why. But he knew there was something wrong.

 

Anyway, Vista is almost as bad in its searches. It fails to locate what I'm searching for quite frequently.

 

SOLUTION:

 

I now use Gmail as a second backup file system. The search function in Gmail never misses. It's fantastic.

So in addition to filing cases on my notebooks & flash drives, I email them to myself in GMail. If I need to find something,

I search it in Gmail - not in Windows.

 

And the search feature in GMail has never failed me. It's amazing!

For my professional work, I have stopped searching in Vista and XP.

GMail offers a superior file search system for my law practice.

[slight-return]

One thing you can do it to use a third party application for search and other file management operations (Powerdesk is an example) -- that allows you to keep it local, reduce the overhead of having to mail, doesn't require the datamining that the gmail system has

 

I've been out of the dev game for a few , so there might be other current option

[Etienne Rambert]

I haven't tried Power Desk. It's a shame MS could not develop a search

function that was useful to me with either Vista or XP. You'd think it

would be included in the price of the OS.

 

The Yahoo mail search feature is also excellent. I have 4 computers, of which

3 are notebooks, (2 XP & 1 Vista). So keeping it local is not an advantage

when files are on different computers. That's why my first backup is

still a flash drive.

 

I only moved my searches to GMail in order to have a workable file

search option. The ads are a draw back. But there is no denying,

Google knows how to find stuff better than Microsoft.

[rasputin1963]

 

I find that many of the changes, like the way search is handled, are considerable improvements over what came before. And interestingly, the new Start menu is almost exactly how I set up XP for program selection. The self-diagnostic and repair tools are way advanced compared to previous versions of Windows. I don't think it's change for the sake of change, but I cannot fathom why Microsoft didn't put up a screen when you run Vista for the first time that says "Here's the stuff that's really different from XP, better read this or you'll want to throw your computer against the wall." Vista definitely has some frustrations, but my sense is that once they wrestle the loose ends of this code to the ground, and we live in a mostly 64-bit world, that the next version of Windows will be to Vista as XP was to 98SE.

 

 

agreed.

 

I've been on VISTA x64 for two years now. The SP1 greatly aided its perfomance.

 

I have , though, turned off all the AERO bells 'n' whistles (like the sidebar and the 3D flip thingy).

 

I do have a 4Gig Flash drive serving as a ReadyBoost. Not sure if it's doing a whole lotta good.

 

I haven't discovered the "type a few words" thing you mentioned, yet, though... What's that all about?

[rasputin1963]

 

The problem is, I think that 60% of my clients all have the same name. .

 

 

Smith? Jones? Stein? Gonzales? Martin? Van Der Merwe? Patel? Nguyen?

[blue2blue]

Vista Ultimate 64 bit on an 8 core mobo with at least 16 GB of ram should do the trick.

 

Um... you guys almost had me sipping Kool Aid, here -- but, look, I'm getting all my work done with little pain (OK, as noted, I could stand faster video rendering -- but a man's gotta watch all those Monk reruns stacking up on the DVR sometime) -- on my 2.8 gHz P4HT with 1.25 GB of RAM. Sure, I do a little more track freezing than I'd like due to my rather inopportune love of virtual instruments and CPU-guzzling plugs, but it's a minor tradeoff, in the big picture.

 

 

I'm reading Craig's comments about the file system/search and wondering if they actually did manage to slip the new SQL based file system into SP1... maybe I've been shoving my fingers in my ears and yammering, "Nah, nah, nah," so long and so loud that I've missed something really significant?

 

Being a database hack, I've longed for a day when I could serach through the many hundreds of thousands of files (maybe millions, I don't want to think about it) on my 400 GB of storage (gotta get that new 500 GB drive installed soon... I'm pretty much running 70-80+% on all three drives) using some form of boolean search.

 

 

PS... searches on my system are, indeed slow... but things get flung everywhere at times. But I don't think I've ever caught it not finding something I knew was there. And I do more than my share of search-in text searches, too. I save a lot of stuff off the web for future ref, or 'lose' documents and program files momentarily. And, I think I'm finding everything that's there. Of course, maybe some of the stuff I thought was permanently gone (doesn't happen often because I'm really reluctant to throw anything away unless it's big) is still lurking around somewhere. But, like Marcellis' Indian IT pal, I'm thinking something's broken... maybe a 'slightly' corrupted FAT or something.

 

PPS -- Marcellis, did you ever try Google's Desktop Search or whatever it's called? I've been intrigued but decidedly reluctant to put any hindrances on my file system because this machine is used for audio and video [though that seems much less the critical performance issue it once was].

[Lucky #9]

For a company which employs so many intelligent people...

 

How could MS have launched Vista in such a sorry, incomprehensible, complicated, convoluted, unacceptable state?

 

In essence: A failure. A black sheep. A dying quail.

 

Acceptance of a new operating system is governed by the simple logic it should take to operate it: Transparency, if you will.

 

Hence, Vista has not been readily accepted and has been, in fact, rejected by many.

 

Perhaps sanity will prevail in the next iteration of Windows.

But, perhaps not.

[slight-return]

 

I haven't tried Power Desk.

 

 

There are probably others options at this time (it's been a few years since the original powerdesk dev team was dissolved...they were really talented guys ) so it may behoove you to look around - you certainly aren't married to the search functions of any particular OS

 

It's a shame MS could not develop a search

function that was useful to me with either Vista or XP. You'd think it

would be included in the price of the OS.

 

 

My concern is more with getting you the tools you need w/o the overhead of a mail server

(Wife's an IP atty and I used to work in data forensics, so I dig the sensitivity thing there with data flying around)

 

3 are notebooks, (2 XP & 1 Vista). So keeping it local is not an advantage

when files are on different computers. That's why my first backup is

still a flash drive.

 

 

A flash drive is local storage

your LAN that L stands for "local"

 

going remote you got VPN options like citrix with is quasi-local (it's not truly local from an architectural standpoint, but from a security policy standpoint it's similar in that you are tunneled and aren't routing unencrypted through an external server)

 

 

 

I only moved my searches to GMail in order to have a workable file

search option. The ads are a draw back.

 

I wouldn't worry so much abt the ads, but how those ads are generated (though that can be a question of how tight you want your security)

the other part is really about streamlining and how klugey you want your solution

[Etienne Rambert]

 

Blue2Blue: PPS -- Marcellis, did you ever try Google's Desktop Search or whatever it's called? I've been intrigued but decidedly reluctant to put any hindrances on my file system because this machine is used for audio and video [though that seems much less the critical performance issue it once was].

 

 

No. I didn't know about it. If I had a desktop search that worked as well as Google's GMail search, I'd certainly use it.

I'd still back-up off-site though, just to be safe.

 

XP and Vista search functions were not reliable. Google's was. So that's where I went.

 

I've got to have workable searches. I'm not the most organized person

in the world. Therefore, it's imperative that my search function be able

to find what I can't.

 

 

slight return: " My concern is more with getting you the tools you need w/o the overhead of a mail server (Wife's an IP atty and I used to work in data forensics, so I dig the sensitivity thing there with data flying around)"

 

 

Most of what I back-up to gmail is case summaries, interviews and correspondence with agencies.

That's the stuff I need to find. I don't put sensitive client info, such as identifying numbers, etc.,

in those documents. I have no need for that sensitive information anyway. I don't want them to give it to me.

 

It's a new area for legal ethics. The New York State Bar has approved GMail as being compatible with

A/C confidentiality. I think other states will follow that lead. I don't know of any states yet that

don't allow it.

 

Nonetheless, I'm careful about what I backup in GMail.

[slight-return]

 

No. I didn't know about it. If I had a desktop search that worked as well as Google's GMail search, I'd certainly use it.

 

 

take a look at some of the 3rd party apps

 

there can be some great tools

 

 

 

 

Most of what I back-up to gmail is case summaries, interviews and correspondence with agencies.

That's the stuff I need to find. I don't put sensitive client info, such as identifying numbers, etc.,

in those documents. I have no need for that sensitive information anyway. I don't want them to give it to me.

 

 

That's cool - I'd suggest you check out the local options anyway, as you mention search accuracy is imperative there are a few advantages (such as the application being stable, a cloud app acan change at any time)

 

It's a new area for legal ethics.

 

 

yup, though I'd be less worried abt atty/client priv (though I suppose you might always have a few of those sicky states, but when don't ya) than just plain raw data security and the forensics behind show (unauthorized) access - horse out of the barn and all

 

but as you mention it's a somewhat new area (I assume being expat you mainly work New York bar)

 

 

Nonetheless, I'm careful about what I backup in GMail.

 

 

extemely wise to do so - you should also check out local search options, as you mention your search accuracy is imperative, with a cloud application you

1) don't have raw databse access

2)the app can change at ANY time

 

this isn't a knock on the google guys(or any other dev team) and that kind of search can be convenient, but if what you need is file searching, there are local options that exists outside the OS