Vista Qualms

[ssl]

Recent posting activity has brought up many people saying that Vista (still) sucks.

Maybe I can help alleviate those opinions?

Post your issue with Vista, and I will see if I can do/find any information as to what options/settings you can change to make it more manageable.

I wish I had time to work with Windows 7. That would be badass. Do one of these threads for it too.

Hmm.

I seem to like Microsoft's stuff more than I remember. :willy_nilly:

edit(s): Tips to questions/suggestions listed below this post.

User Account Control
Start (button) -> Control Panel (menu item) -> User Accounts (icon, double click) -> "Turn User Account Control on or off." (requires security clearance to turn it off; sign in as an administrator to complete).

If you do not like it, or you may be experiencing problems installing programs. Turning it off for normal use is OK, but you will lose a minute degree of control over what executes or not. You may also have to install your programs in administrator mode with UAC off (or on) depending on the software you are using. I had a little *fun* with installing Microsoft's Visual Basic 6.0 on Vista, but it works.

Network Speeds
If using a narrow-band connection (such as dial-up) and you feel it is slower than usual, Vista may be downloading something in the background, such as Windows updates.

To configure Windows Updates to check for updates but not download and install them:

Start (button) -> Control Panel (menu item) -> Windows Update (icon) -> Change settings (menu item, left-hand side) -> Select 'Check for updates but let me choose whether to download and install them.' (option)

Selecting this option will allow Windows Update to perform it's basic function (getting a list of updates available for your Vista installation. It also reduces bandwidth used on your narrow-band connection, as it will not automatically download them.

 

[retro]

I really like Vista, with a few notable issues... I hate UAC, and even when it's disabled, things don't always work/install correctly. Secondly, though probably most importantly, file transfers take absolutely forever in comparison to XP or Windows 7. Performance in terms of gaming is substantially below XP and 7.

Fortunately though, all of those issues seem to be solved in Windows 7... In moving to the Windows 7 64bit RC from Vista 64bit, I noticed a nearly 30-40% gaming performance increase over Vista with the same drivers and settings, file transfers take at least half the time that they did in Vista. I'm really looking forward for Windows 7 being released... it might be the first Microsoft OS that I migrate completely to even before the first SP is out.

 

[ssl]

I really like Vista, with a few notable issues... I hate UAC, and even when it's disabled, things don't always work/install correctly. Secondly, though probably most importantly, file transfers take absolutely forever in comparison to XP or Windows 7. Performance in terms of gaming is substantially below XP and 7.

Fortunately though, all of those issues seem to be solved in Windows 7... In moving to the Windows 7 64bit RC from Vista 64bit, I noticed a nearly 30-40% gaming performance increase over Vista with the same drivers and settings, file transfers take at least half the time that they did in Vista. I'm really looking forward for Windows 7 being released... it might be the first Microsoft OS that I migrate completely to even before the first SP is out.

User Account Control
Start (button) -> Control Panel (menu item) -> User Accounts (icon, double click) -> "Turn User Account Control on or off." (requires security clearance -- lol -- to turn it off; sign in as an administrator to complete).

I would turn it on to install stuff (may be the cause for the issues when installing programs with UAC off), then turn it off afterward.

File Transfers
I only know that Vista calculates the total before going into the actual transfer. It also depends on your hardware (which, if you used XP on the same hardware you are using Vista on, then you have a relatively good benchmark for your setup). I do not know if there is an option to just start transferring the files or not.

I think that Vista is similar to ME, in the fact that it throws a lot of 'features' at once into the home-based Windows product line, while 2000 -> XP was not a difficult transition for those with 2000, because most of those features are present. XP combined the strengths of 2000 and the 9x (including ME) into one "line" (albeit multiple editions). I further postulate that Windows 7 will amount to a similar product as XP.

More thourgoh testing and making sure expected features work well, will do good for Microsoft's next operating system release.

 

[retro]

User Account Control
Start (button) -> Control Panel (menu item) -> User Accounts (icon, double click) -> "Turn User Account Control on or off." (requires security clearance -- lol -- to turn it off; sign in as an administrator to complete).

I would turn it on to install stuff (may be the cause for the issues when installing programs with UAC off), then turn it off afterward.

Yes, I know perfectly well how to turn UAC off and on, and it still doesn't solve some permissions issues when installing older applications.

File Transfers
I only know that Vista calculates the total before going into the actual transfer. It also depends on your hardware (which, if you used XP on the same hardware you are using Vista on, then you have a relatively good benchmark for your setup). I do not know if there is an option to just start transferring the files or not.

That is somewhat correct, but there's no reason that XP and Windows 7 should transfer faster than Vista, and I've had all three OS's installed with the same hardware.

I think that Vista is similar to ME, in the fact that it throws a lot of 'features' at once into the home-based Windows product line, while 2000 -> XP was not a difficult transition for those with 2000, because most of those features are present. XP combined the strengths of 2000 and the 9x (including ME) into one "line" (albeit multiple editions). I further postulate that Windows 7 will amount to a similar product as XP.

More thourgoh testing and making sure expected features work well, will do good for Microsoft's next operating system release.

Vista is more like XP pre-SP1 than it is Me... because it is a pretty good OS, it just has a lot of issues with it and a lot of added "features" that weren't fully tested before release. Windows 7 is going to be a transition similar to 2000 --> XP, because the framework is very much the same, but 7 has a much smoother and better tested implementation, along with some other new features.

 

[Margene]

Recent posting activity has brought up many people saying that Vista (still) sucks.

Maybe I can help alleviate those opinions?

Post your issue with Vista, and I will see if I can do/find any information as to what options/settings you can change to make it more manageable.

I wish I had time to work with Windows 7. That would be badass. Do one of these threads for it too.

Hmm.

I seem to like Microsoft's stuff more than I remember. :willy_nilly:

My brother is the only person I know with a Vista operating system. Even so far beyond its release date, he has problems with it interfacing with his online schooling site as have many of his classmates and professors. That was enough to warn me off it.

I need a to replace one of my computers. I'm holding out for Windows 7 to come with the next one.

 

[skyblue]

now that i'm used to it i dont mind vista

 

[KpAtch3s]

I installed Vista Business on my machine which was originally intended for XP, and although UAC was annoying it didn't actually cause problems. I knew immediately as well that UAC was intended for those that were less knowledgable with computers. Once turned off, I never saw it again.

Anyway, installed it on my machine with a 5 year old video card at the time with only 512mb of ram and it ran smoothly and faster than xp. Still though not able to run Aero, so installed an extra gig of ram and 100 bucks for a video card and it ran perfectly. Never a single crash or hardware issues except for those where manufactures slacked on releasing updated drivers, which by the is not MS fault yet they still got the blame for it. Vista was a vast improvement over XP.

Now I've got windows 7 and it's a vast improvement over Vista. I'll be doing a clean install when 7 is released to MSDN.

 

[ssl]

Yes, I know perfectly well how to turn UAC off and on, and it still doesn't solve some permissions issues when installing older applications.

Remember, this thread is for help for everyone. I was not insinuating you do not know. :thumbup

That is somewhat correct, but there's no reason that XP and Windows 7 should transfer faster than Vista, and I've had all three OS's installed with the same hardware.

So, if I ran a macro that was available for Excel 2000, 2003, and 2007, they should all run at the (relatively) exact same speed? There should not be any issues at all, as 2007 and 2003 are generally backwards compatible with 2000 macros; considering there are much more security concerns in the latter two versions. To be honest, I am surprised you stated that there should be no difference in speed. Vista is a major code shift from the XP base (I am reading up on it, it was shifted from XP to Server 2003 code bases), and the Windows 7 is the evolution of that new code shift; of course the speeds are going to increase.

Vista is more like XP pre-SP1 than it is Me... because it is a pretty good OS, it just has a lot of issues with it and a lot of added "features" that weren't fully tested before release. Windows 7 is going to be a transition similar to 2000 --> XP, because the framework is very much the same, but 7 has a much smoother and better tested implementation, along with some other new features.

And I bet 98 pre=SE was quite similar, in the relative release window.

It is not a Vista-only situation here, and people need to know, understand, and get used to that fact. With such a huge software system with many hundreds if not thousands of people working on it, there are bound to be some issues in the system that cannot be resolved "right away" before the scheduled release.

 

[RedRyder]

I have Vista..... and dial up..... S L O W...........

Oh wait.... probably the dial up. Nevermind.

 

[ssl]

I have Vista..... and dial up..... S L O W...........

Oh wait.... probably the dial up. Nevermind.

Network Speeds
If using a narrow-band connection (such as dial-up) and you feel it is slower than usual, Vista may be downloading something in the background, such as Windows updates.

To configure Windows Updates to check for updates but not download and install them:

Start (button) -> Control Panel (menu item) -> Windows Update (icon) -> Change settings (menu item, left-hand side) -> Select 'Check for updates but let me choose whether to download and install them.' (option)

Selecting this option will allow Windows Update to perform it's basic function (getting a list of updates available for your Vista installation. It also reduces bandwidth used on your narrow-band connection, as it will not automatically download them.

 

[RedRyder]

Network Speeds
If using a narrow-band connection (such as dial-up) and you feel it is slower than usual, Vista may be downloading something in the background, such as Windows updates.

To configure Windows Updates to check for updates but not download and install them:

Start (button) -> Control Panel (menu item) -> Windows Update (icon) -> Change settings (menu item, left-hand side) -> Select 'Check for updates but let me choose whether to download and install them.' (option)

Selecting this option will allow Windows Update to perform it's basic function (getting a list of updates available for your Vista installation. It also reduces bandwidth used on your narrow-band connection, as it will not automatically download them.

Wow! You rock! I'm gonna give that a try. Who'da known? Thankx.....

.... might find a little something special in your stocking come Christmas time...... I look really good in red.... just sayin'.....

 

[ssl]

Indexing and Partition Formatting
If you are "crusading" against your files (moving them off a drive|partition) and then you try to format that drive or partition, and Vista's format says the drive is still in use (even though there are no files on the drive), you have two options:

- Force the format, as in click the yes button when Vista tells you the drive is in use.

or

- Tell the Indexing Service to quit snooping the drive. Try this one first (less chance of complete and utter failure):

Start (button) -> Control Panel (menu item) -> Indexing Options (icon) -> Modify (button) -> Show All Locations (button, requires security clearance (UAC)) -> Clear the mark next to the drive you are trying to format.

Try the format again. If not, let me know; I ran into this about 3 minutes ago, and decided I should put this up too.

 

[sierrabravo]

i was pretty much forced into using vista when my old system kept crashing and MS wouldn't let me install xp anymore. I really dont mind it that much, except for the admin pop-up box thing (continue/cancel) for file transfers. I move a 5kb file and it pops up that box.

 

[ssl]

i was pretty much forced into using vista when my old system kept crashing and MS wouldn't let me install xp anymore. I really dont mind it that much, except for the admin pop-up box thing (continue/cancel) for file transfers. I move a 5kb file and it pops up that box.

Depending on where you transfer from/to it will pop-up.

I was transferring shit loads of data today (from my dataXP partition, over 50 G's) into my personal folder (the C:\Users\<name>\ folder) and I only had to deal with the UAC box when I was deleting files.

Transfer sucks for large number of files (my second major transfer of 260 thousand files for 172 MB) took about an hour.

The other (first) transfer was about 25.2 GB and that was about 10 minutes. Mostly large files, so faster.

 

[Omega]

Vista actually isn't too bad once you tune it up. Download.com has lots of ways to tune it up well.

Recommended that you disabled DEP:
Run the command line as an admin (so that the base is system32) then put in the following command:

bcdedit.exe /set {current} nx AlwaysOff

Also, disable UAC:
Click run and run 'MSCONFIG' (without the quotes) and in the tools tab, choose disable UAC.

@redrider - Dial-up is naturally very slow. Also be sure to disable any 3rd party updates, such as apple, google, and adobe. The worst is adobe reader, since it is very slow and there's no way to disable it. If you seem to be going slow, check the task bar (the bottom right corner, with the clock and all the icons) hovering over each one to see if it says 'updating'. You may need to click the arrow to see more icons. Also, try an internet accelerator. Most are meant for broadband, but there are some nice dial-up ones. For speeding up downloads, try the FDM (free download manager) at freedownloadmanager.org it is the best download manager, as it will allow you to pause downloads, resume, and schedule very well. It should also give you slightly faster downloads. (I normally get 3 kb/sec on my dial-up, but I can average 5kb/sec on FDM, very slow, but still faster).

I'm also available to answer technical questions concerning Vista, lots of software, most web browsers, the web, and a good array of other topics. Just PM me instead, so that I don't miss the question!

 

[ssl]

Vista actually isn't too bad once you tune it up. Download.com has lots of ways to tune it up well.

Recommended that you disabled DEP:
Run the command line as an admin (so that the base is system32) then put in the following command:

bcdedit.exe /set {current} nx AlwaysOff

Also, disable UAC:
Click run and run 'MSCONFIG' (without the quotes) and in the tools tab, choose disable UAC.

@redrider - Dial-up is naturally very slow. Also be sure to disable any 3rd party updates, such as apple, google, and adobe. The worst is adobe reader, since it is very slow and there's no way to disable it. If you seem to be going slow, check the task bar (the bottom right corner, with the clock and all the icons) hovering over each one to see if it says 'updating'. You may need to click the arrow to see more icons. Also, try an internet accelerator. Most are meant for broadband, but there are some nice dial-up ones. For speeding up downloads, try the FDM (free download manager) at freedownloadmanager.org it is the best download manager, as it will allow you to pause downloads, resume, and schedule very well. It should also give you slightly faster downloads. (I normally get 3 kb/sec on my dial-up, but I can average 5kb/sec on FDM, very slow, but still faster).

I'm also available to answer technical questions concerning Vista, lots of software, most web browsers, the web, and a good array of other topics. Just PM me instead, so that I don't miss the question!

Why would you disable both of those features/bugs/whatever ?

If you can't take the secure heat, get a different kitchen computer.

:shrug:

 

[Omega]

The features are useless. I went with EVERY pre-installed so-called 'security' feature in vista disabled for over a year by now. With just one free anti-virus, and a free Firewall with system defense. I've never had a virus, and all programs are automatically scanned in a background process. DEP is just a pain in the ass when doing localhost web testing (127.0.0.1) in PHP.

UAC causes more problems than it solves. I've never had a virus, and now the only annoying thing that pops up is those COMODO messages asking for permission, and hey, they beat Vista, and actually HAVE blocked a few attempts.

I recommend Avast anti-virus to every PC user!

*as for disabling UAC, mine is just a faster method than yours that needs a little more experience, but allows more changes as well. There's also a regestry method, but I don't want to promote people changing the regestry unless they know what they're doing, because one little mistake and...

 

[Staci]

i have vista in my laptop and i hate it!!! IJS

 

[ssl]

The features are useless. I went with EVERY pre-installed so-called 'security' feature in vista disabled for over a year by now. With just one free anti-virus, and a free Firewall with system defense. I've never had a virus, and all programs are automatically scanned in a background process. DEP is just a pain in the ass when doing localhost web testing (127.0.0.1) in PHP.

UAC causes more problems than it solves. I've never had a virus, and now the only annoying thing that pops up is those COMODO messages asking for permission, and hey, they beat Vista, and actually HAVE blocked a few attempts.

I recommend Avast anti-virus to every PC user!

*as for disabling UAC, mine is just a faster method than yours that needs a little more experience, but allows more changes as well. There's also a regestry method, but I don't want to promote people changing the regestry unless they know what they're doing, because one little mistake and...

Well, it seems you've more experience than I with Vista and the intricacies with it.

I personally do not run AV or AS or FW (FW is on the router... or hopefully is)... although I am thinking of doing such.

UAC is not bothersome to me; and it fires off every time I want to open the VB6 IDE -- about 20 times a day.

Then of course, permissions to delete files... went through a bunch of those.

I had no issues whatsoever with it. Gives me that additional nanosecond to rethink the decision... and I have pressed Cancel or Deny many times... as more important things come up (I would be distracted otherwise).

But, each to their own. :thumbup

 

[Omega]

An alternative for when deleting files if you don't want to turn the UAC off is to make sure you have proper permissions. You will get a UAC alert of course when changing permissions (unless you turn it off!). TO change permissions, right click any folder, choose properties > security. Then click the 'edit' button, choose your user name ie:

Your Name (COMPUTERNAME\DigitalRank)

Check the full control box. You may wish to do so for other users as well. This may include regestry keys (which you'd see as a string of numbers), the computer itself, and trusted installers (such as an installer that needs to modify your files, as in some updates).

This is very handy when copying and pasting files into the program files folder of the computer. While I have been unable to set this for the entire program files folder, I can get the individual folders that I may need (only a couple). For example, if you use Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 (one of the few MS programs that can be fairly well relied on!) then set the security for that folder. This was handy for me when I had a program in my program files folder that I was scripting. I had to copy a number of XMLs into this folder numerous times. By setting security, you can edit these files without getting a permissions error.