It's official - Vista sucks

[[AK]Clay]

I picked up a laptap PC that came with this program. I'm not a big fan of Vista already, since it seems to be change for the sake of change. Rather than wipe it and run with XP (which I suspect would mean losing the tablet features of the laptop), I'm trying to make Vista work. I have to say, I really hate it.

When trying to update drivers and the like, I frequently encounter helpful messages such as : "Windows Host Process (Rundll32) has stopped working". I haven't encountered such a buggy OS since Win95. Installing my printer drivers earned a steady stream of error messages. Updating my video driver and it crashed half way through the update - always encouraging.

[[AK]Squidly]

I picked up a laptap PC that came with this program. I'm not a big fan of Vista already, since it seems to be change for the sake of change

Exactly.

That and change for the sake of taking in a whole lot of money.

[[AK]Bribo]

Vista is evil. Stay with XP or better yet buy a Mac.

[[AK]Clay]

Speaking of the evilness - with WinXP there was a program called something like XP-cleaner that you could run to clean out some of the more onerous "features" of WinXP (like the information tracking, messaging crap, etc). Is there anything similar to that which I can run for Vista?

My research also reveals that one can download the trial versions of Office Vista direct from MS, and then run a keygen to avoid further financial support to the evil empire. I get nervous running random executables from underworld sources - is there one that folks recommend?

[[AK]Bribo]

Better yet run Open Office. http://download.openoffice.org/2.3.1/index.html

[[AK]Swae]

Yup, I use Open Office and love it. It is compatible with pretty much everything and is damned near identical to MS Office.

[[AK]Hylander]

The only small 'hope' you might have is Vista SP1 next month - but don't hold your breath. If you load the SP1 - the "fixed" versions of Office you are referring to may not run any longer (rumor).

If you would like a copy of Office 2003 (full version)... let me know as I can assist you in "obtaining" a copy.

I still use XP, and DirecX10 is definitely NOT worth upgrading to VISTA for. After SP1 is out, I'll probably buy VISTA and install it on a removeable HD just to play with it and see how it goes. I'd love to switch to Mac at some point myself.

I like to use OS software, and Open Office is a very good ap - but it's annoying when you have a ton of Office documents that just aren't formatted right or are incompatible in one way or another (which is Microsoft's fault, not OO)... but it's still annoying. That's why I still use Office 2003.

[[AK]Ozzred]

I suspect Vista will have a similar life span and outcome as Windows ME.

Kinda sad since the "Idea" and "Theory" behind the new OS is good. It just missed some very fundamental things like drivers, and real-world user acceptance.

[[AK]Palooka]

Microsoft's bull-headed decision to make DX10 a Vista exclusive will only hurt PC gaming. I have a few new, unopened games that I would like to play, but because I can't experience them in their full glory (DX10) without polluting my machine with Vista, I haven't bothered playing them. Also, I need a new laptop, but because I don't want to bother with Vista or XP (a seven year-old OS), I'm going with a MacBook Pro. I would just run Linux on a new laptop PC, but I need Photoshop, so that's out. I never thought I'd buy a Mac. It's a dark day, indeed.

[[AK]Bribo]

I never thought I'd buy a Mac. It's a dark day, indeed.

Just convince yourself you are really buying an over-priced UNIX machine.

[[AK]Squidly]

Microsoft's bull-headed decision to make DX10 a Vista exclusive will only hurt PC gaming. I have a few new, unopened games that I would like to play, but because I can't experience them in their full glory (DX10) without polluting my machine with Vista, I haven't bothered playing them.

I put Vista on the Windows partition of my Mac Pro. All my XP licenses were tied up. To make matters worse, i had to buy the full blown version as all my XPs were upgrades. :P

Still, I'm not in it much at all now that I'm back into WOW.

[[AK]Hylander]

now that I'm back into WOW.

Weak, 'Quitter' quitter.... You're the Lindsay Lohan of AK!

[[AK]Mydrial]

I will say this about Vista though.....it is the first OS my wife has not been able to totally hose with viruses, adware and trojans in a matter of weeks. With the controls on installs and the constant verifications.....just the pure hassle of installing her silly little programs has kept her computer clean and running well despite her best efforts to the contrary.

So....my vote is that Vista is for the computer illiterate. It should be a mandatory upgrade for all those that think its cute to install free smiley icons and funny animated icons that came free in their email.

[[AK]Nuts]

Vista may be slow on the implementation but it's here to stay. With a lot of shared code with Server 2008, Vista has the legs to stay around for years. The big problem is that companies weren't motivated enough to upgrade; but that's changing. My company is going to be rolling out 60k+ Vista workstations next year alone. SP1 will help with a lot of the problems but having played with Vista for the past week (My new Levono came with it) I'd have to say that most of the annoyance are just my inability to find what I'm used to finding. They hid things that shouldn't have been hidden thus making common tasks more difficult. This may be more of a retraining issue, at least for me.

[[AK]Clay]

I hate to disagree regarding it being simply an interface issue. This week I have experienced more operating system failures and windows explorer resets than I can count.

One program I'm going to try to help turn off some of the "features" is:
http://www.woodclanland.co.uk/module...rticle&sid=457
I've used this in XP w/ satisfaction. It is updated to work for Vista as well, and I'm going to try it out.