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Vista

wgnoyes
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wgnoyes Finally read the FAQs

wgnoyes

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Not that I've found yet. I think they have widgets now (those ghostly mini-apps that float on the right side of the desktop that I promptly turned off) instead of powertoys. I hope I'm wrong; I"ll certainly miss my "Open Command Window Here" and "Resize Pictures" powertoys if they're really gone.

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wgnoyes Finally read the FAQs

wgnoyes

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Anyone know if there a "PowerToys" app for Vista like there is with XP that lets you revert to the old Winders UI? I *may* do the $399 disposable Wintel laptop ... unless Merlin already bought them all. :o

Thanks!

http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/e...cfa85b1033.mspx

MS procedures to goto the previous interface and look. I've not tried it.

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wgnoyes Finally read the FAQs

wgnoyes

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OK...It wins. How do I access the startup folder and zap the crap I don't need at bootup? <_<

Yeah, tread REAL lightly! "Crap that you [think you] don't need" may actually be critical to the stability of the operating system! (That advice applies to ANY operating system, not just Vista.) It's also why I don't trust any of the "registry cleaners", because they almost always flag and want to whack stuff that you really need!

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  • 2 months later...
AikiDale Calls Shots

AikiDale

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You may now count me in the I hate Vista camp. Today I have a new 'feature.'

"Windows Explorer is not working."

followed by

"Windows Explorer is restarting."

followed by

"Windows Explorer is not working."

followed by

"Windows Explorer is restarting."

followed by

"Windows Explorer is not working."

followed by

"Windows Explorer is restarting."

followed by

"Windows Explorer is not working."

followed by

"Windows Explorer is restarting."

followed by..... :angry2:

This message sent from another XP box.

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xdrocker Looks for Match

xdrocker

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And the hate list continues to grow. Every time I turn my printer on Vista tries to reinstall it, not to mention it takes this stupid box 7 minutes to boot up!!!!!! Screw it, gonna wipe the hard drive clean and put XP back on it. Glad I have a second drive to back my data up.

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EricW Calls Shots

EricW

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I gave up on Vista and Dell. I'm on a Mac Notebook now and love it. I had heard "Once you go Mac you won't go back" and it's true for me!

I keep reading/hearing about this phenomena. I chuckle every time. :cheers:

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Paul B Finally read the FAQs

Paul B

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Vista is a subject that brings a lot of dread for me. I actually have a copy and did not install it on a new computer I just built because of all the really, really bad things I've heard on various forums. The latest is the Windows Genuine Advantage add-on that continually and I mean continually checks on your software to be sure it is genuine. This is even after you have entered the right key to begin with. Every 30 days or so it checks again and if it doesn't read it as genuine you get shut off. Apparantly, in addition to the normal mistakes a sytem like this can make, about 12,000 copies of Vista were shut off by mistake recently. Vista SP1 is supposed to fix some of this but you will still get "checked" at least every 30 days. This has been a big problem with Dell as Dell and Microsoft are engaged in the hardware - software wars leaving customers without a way to run/fix their computers.

Then there are the tremendously high number of devices and software that simply won't work with Vista, the long boot up time and worse of all it won't play a lot of games which removes a lot of true computer geeks from the customer rolls. Nobody I know who knows anything about computers wants Vista right now. Maybe after all the kinks are worked out.

I've heard a few computer gurus touting the advantages of Vista, but I think they are afraid to cross big Bill.

There was some of this when XP rolled out but not to this extent.

By the way XP SP3 is supposed to be released next year and will be blazing fast compared to Vista - or so I'm told.

Edited by Paul B
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AZ38super Looks for Range

AZ38super

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I really do not understand people and the big deal with Vista, Now I heard all the bad talk and stuff up front and had decided I didn’t want Vista before I had even tried it just like everyone else.

Then a buddies PC died and he picked up an HP desktop with Vista on it, I did the search for weeks looking for XP drivers to revert it back and could not locate all of them at the time so we left Vista on it and I set it up for him from there. He is running it just fine as a basic PC user and even uses a dialup because of his location.

Then my own home built PC being almost 6 years old (I quit trying to build the best every year) started to act up getting ready to die out so I began the search for building a new box. After pricing out my options to get a high level box but watching cost I came across a great deal on a another HP desktop with a 22” flat panel for less than buying my parts alone so I picked it up. This box had Vista on it as well.

Now I have had no problems with it, it boots very fast and flies thru work with an AMD dual 5000 and 3 gigs of ram. I have even installed and ran software on Vista that is not supposed to run on Vista.

I added a second 300GB SATA drive and installed XP on it (without needing xtra sata drivers) just to run as my web development setup to be sure software works while I test them on Vista.

Now I started using computer on the Commodores back in the early 80’s and have used MS products back from the DOS days through all versions of Windows desktop and servers. I even ran ME without problems. I had XP before it was released and I spent years as a Microsoft Partner so maybe it is just me but I don’t see the problems everyone else seems to have.

Sorry for the long post everyone….

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Flatland Shooter Beyond it All

Flatland Shooter

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I added a second 300GB SATA drive and installed XP on it (without needing xtra sata drivers) just to run as my web development setup to be sure software works while I test them on Vista.

With the second drive, you can run XP as the operating system? I have some necessary software that is not Vista compatible and, per the writer, never will be.

Is it as simple as installing a second drive and loading XP? Do you boot from a bootable disk for the system to run XP? (I'm asking because I asked the local guru if we could do this on a new machine and was advised a big "negative".)

Thanks.

Bill

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AZ38super Looks for Range

AZ38super

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Bill,

There are multiple ways to do a dual boot, I tested a third party boot manager (can't think of the name right now) and it had troubles with the XP booting right.

You can add the boot info to the existing drive depending on which OS it has Vista or XP the instructions are not the same. I have detailed info at home.

I wanted to keep them each seperate so I change drives during bootup when I want to run the XP. I just hit the key for setup and select the XP drive to boot first and the whole process only takes a few seconds.

This way each OS runs by itself with no conflicts but I can read each drive for files if I need to do so.

I ran multiple boot systems in the past and this works really sweet.

Let me know if you need more help and I will see what I can do.

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AikiDale Calls Shots

AikiDale

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I wonder if Vista might be the reason Bill Gates retired as CEO. I'm sure I wouldn't want my name associated with some thing that is the butt of Apple commercials.

I don't know about Bill, but I would have retired the very first year Forbes named me the richest man in the world.

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SiG Lady Calls Shots

SiG Lady

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The Apple TV commercials are a riot! What's really funny about them is that the little "Apple person" looks suspiciously like a guy I used to work with who WAS an Apple specialist...! LOL! On the other hand, the "PC person" has made some regular appearances on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (until the writers went on strike) as a somewhat regular guest humorist. Totally different shtick. :)

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raz-0 Finally read the FAQs

raz-0

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THe main issue with vista is printer drivers and sound drivers. The sound system works vastly differently than on previous versions of windows, and they don't feel like spending the time to update earlier drivers to work with vista. If you have the very common integrated sounds solutions, you should be good, as they need to support those on new systems as well. For printers, the manufacturers are essentially in the ink selling business. They don't care how bad a driver is, and if you don't like it, buy another printer they aren't making money on. It's a bad attitude, but printer drivers for $1000+ office printers are unsurprisingly just fine. As far as drivers go, 32 bit vista is going to give you less driver problems than 64 bit XP based on my experience. 64-bit vista probably isn't a good idea yet.

I use vista every day, and the only thing that is truly stupid about it is that they arbitrarily renamed a lot of things in control panel for no reason making it harder to find stuff that is essentially unchanged other than the name. What bugs it does have (like mishandling network file transfers) is mostly taken care of by the patches rolled up into SP1. XP could go about 60 days before getting cranky and needing a reboot. Vista is about 25-30, but that is running stuff that hasn't been recompiled for vista.

If you think macs are the answer.. they aren't. I use them too. With vista, you get nagged a little on all installs. With OSX you get nagged a WHOLE lot more, just not on every install, and upgrading to the latest version of OSX has some very non-intuitive gotchas waiting to snag the unsuspecting.

As for vista and games.. I haven't run into anything on it that is sketchy that wasn't an issue with XP as well. Just like with XP, you have to know how to ocnfigure the touchy programs to launch in the right mode.

I also would not put it on old hardware. The older you hardware, the more likely you are to have driver compatibility issues.

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