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Posted by citizen at 6/17/08 1:29 p.m.

There are lots of compatibilty issues with Vista. It's the worse OS ever.

Posted by takemeaway! at 6/17/08 1:31 p.m.

What? With help from the "experts" how many weeks/months/years before he could print out that document that was due yesterday. If I upgrade from XP, I'm going MAC. Forgetaboutit!!

Posted by Webtiger02 at 6/17/08 1:34 p.m.

Hey citizen;
Care to back that statement up with proof?
I'm running it daily on 4 different machines all networked to a Windows Server. Never had any issues with the upgrade from XPSP2. All my devices worked from Day 1 on Vista, inlcuding the release candidates I installed.

Posted by unregistered user at 6/17/08 2:32 p.m.

We probably could have done a better job here -- by 'we,' I mean the royal 'we' of the software industry -- and put a little bit more detection in there, to say the previous version is there and it would be better to remove it.

Typical Microsoft response. Downplay the problem and don't even gracefully accept blame when it is obviously due. Where would driver detection take place, if not in the OS itself?

Face it, Microsoft, your design, implementation, and quality assurance all stink.

Posted by unregistered user at 6/17/08 3:27 p.m.

@Webtige02
"Care to back that statement up with proof?"
That's a funny one, isn't the article above proof enough! What kind of proof do you want? Something as common and mundane as printing a document, required an expert from MS to sort it out, and even that took him several visits to the house! Common, that is proof that vista is very badly designed and worse implemented.

Posted by lifeOnMars at 6/17/08 3:42 p.m.

There's a flip side of the coin to consider. These were Dell drivers using a Dell installer. More often than not, third party drivers stink and their installers are even worse. They make a lot of assumptions about the system they are installed on and just work 'well enough.'

I think that Microsoft's future releases need to involve partnerships with companies like Dell, HP, and others to have them go through an independent verification process of their driver systems going back at least 5 years. Either the company creates a fix for users immediately, or MS puts in blockers to prevent these faulty drivers from being installed in the first place.

It wasn't very good security on MS's part to just quietly install non-approved software in random locations. It should have prevented the install from occurring at all.

Posted by number.61 at 6/17/08 3:50 p.m.

"There are lots of compatibilty issues with Vista. It's the worse OS ever."

Hmmm, worse than Windows ME huh? I surely wouldn't go that far Mr. citizen.

It has its problems but what new release ever goes smoothly? Apple had issues with 10 and then again when they made the jump to Intel, Microsoft had issues going from 2000 to XP.

Posted by CharlieCobra at 6/17/08 4:12 p.m.

All new OS's have issues. The larger the OS the more issues. I worked on Win 2K and we were finding fresh bugs five years into the process and less than a month before release, some of them showstoppers. There's just so much code in today's OS's. I have two boxes on Vista with no issues, one on XP and the server on Win2K Advanced. Drivers, especially thrid party drivers are always a major pain.

Posted by unregistered user at 6/17/08 4:39 p.m.

When I worked at Microsoft (too many years ago to think about), before an OS was released they held "installation fairs" for employees and their friends and families. Participants received free installations/upgrades of the new OS in return for allowing pre-release bits to be installed on their machines. These events were very successful at finding lots of these kinds of bugs. Did Microsoft not do this for the Vista release?

Posted by VinceInSeattle at 6/17/08 5:18 p.m.

For Windows 7, Microsoft should drop the 32-bit version and make it 64-bit only. It should not release any upgrade versions - all installations should be "fresh" installations, although of course there should be tools to move Favorites, data, e-mails, etc. to the new OS as there are now. Obviously, the OS should refuse to install an obsolete driver! (Can't the Geniuses in Redmond figure that one out on their own?) And it should pressure the hardware vendors to create tested, conforming, 64-bit drivers for as much hardware as possible. There, that's the path out of the Vista weeds.

Posted by unregistered user at 6/17/08 5:28 p.m.

Slow news day just got a new meaning

Posted by unregistered user at 6/17/08 5:55 p.m.

Yet another reason why I'm a Mac guy, now and forever.

Posted by Kurosawa at 6/17/08 6:31 p.m.

These events were very successful at finding lots of these kinds of bugs. Did Microsoft not do this for the Vista release?

They've found that it's a lot cheaper to just use their users as their beta testers.

The problem with installing an XP driver on Vista isn't really the problem. The problem is not being able to uninstall it, without MS' Test Manager making multiple house calls.

Posted by unregistered user at 6/18/08 5:55 a.m.

I did as search on the Dell 942 printer from their site and there is no patch in the download section!

Posted by unregistered user at 6/18/08 6:08 a.m.

Posted by husky94 at 6/17/08 9:48 p.m.
LINUX? Ha, who are you going to call. Better yet, who is going to "write" a driver for you...fool!

Actually we Debian users made the segue to 64bit almost eventlessly. All (FREE, yes all apps are FREE) apps ported to 64bit, most drivers working.

But your anxiety is understandable husky94. Linux does require an IQ north of 110.

Posted by unregistered user at 6/18/08 6:16 a.m.

Today is the last day to purchase Windows XP computers, at Dell for example. The deadline has already passed for some online stores. People need to be aware of the alternatives before they feel forced into making the purchase of Windows Vista. There are options from Apple and Ubuntu. Ubuntu costs nothing to download and run on the computer you have now, and trying it requires no modifications of your existing operating system. It may save you from purchasing an upgrade all together. Maybe Windows Vista is the best choice for some people, but, at least, consider purchasing a computer with Apple or Ubuntu pre-installed.

Posted by unregistered user at 6/18/08 6:29 a.m.

I'm a pretty seasoned user of Windows. Honestly-- I know my way around every version for the past 13 years.

I threw away my Commodore 64 and about 500 floppy disks.. the day I first met Windows 95.

And for the life of me-- in Vista, I cannot find my 'Korn MP3s' on my hard drive in less than 10 minutes.

Dead serious.

Start, Search, *Korn*.mp3-- it just doesn't work.
Change the file location from 'search indexed locations' to 'all hard drives'.

and it _STILL_ makes you check the box that says 'Include non-indexed files'

Why the ???? is it making me deal with all this indexing junk?

They try to sell us on Windows Desktop Search.. but they don't make it easy to 'INDEX ALL EXTENSIONS'.

I am a developer.

I typically use wierd file extensions like QXY or Q7T and things of that vein.

Out of 3 different brands of search.exe I cannot for the life of me-- just get Vista to index _ALL_ extensions.

If it is an obscure extension-- that makes it _MORE_ likely I will be searching for it-- not less likely.

Test SEARCH functionality in Vista today; MS-- it doesn't work.

I would have brought this up while I was working at Microsoft. But they fired me 3 times for complaining about software quality.

Dead serious.

Maybe they should test their apps-- and not fire people for complaining about bugs.

Dead serious. I should get a windfall in whistle blower suits... Instead-- MS ships cra99y products and irritates consumers yet again.

I call for Ralph Nader to become the CEO of MS.
Otherwise- they're doomed to not fix problems with their software, time and time again.

aaron_kempf@Hotmail.com

Posted by unregistered user at 6/18/08 6:31 a.m.

So basically, MS has come out with 12 new versions in the past 13 years...
and this last one is sooooo buggy..

that they think that the resolution is to give us Windows 7?

What ever happened to fixing the OS you already sold us?

Posted by nervala at 6/18/08 7:50 a.m.

I just have to say that it is getting really old with all the complaints about Windows Vista. I have been running Windows Vista for over 2 years now and It has matured into one of the finest Operating Systems in Microsoft history. Sure it has a few gliches here and there on one hand but that is consiquential in comparison to the stability, usability and overall improvements made to the 20 year old operating system. Just like in the case stated here, it is easy to blame the operating system when in fact it is the lack of quality development process taking place by the third party companies who have driven the going rate for quality developers down and down and hiring lessor experienced engineers who lack the engineering priniciples that are failing to be taught in the major universities within this country. Not including the shear amount of outsourcing being done overseas without any realy accountability.

So lets stop bashing Vista, what's the alternatives, we could all start learning linux and compiling our own applications or depending on open source communities to support the masses. Or we could just do what Apple says and all go to Macs... Oh, what business applications are supported by the Mac?

Windows Vista is here and I have heard these same complaints about every previous version of the OS.

So get over it.

That's my two cents.

Posted by unregistered user at 6/18/08 8:56 a.m.

nervala - can there please be an informed discussion on the topic, without the Microsoft fan boys screeching that everyone needs to upgrade or "shut up"? (Quote from Larry Dignan.)

Tech journalists should be getting information out about all computing alternatives and letting the informed consumer decide.

Posted by unregistered user at 6/18/08 12:53 p.m.

This kind of problem is exactly why I use Linux now. Ubuntu is very easy to use, it "just works," doesn't get in my way, and AUTOMATICALLY detects my hardware. By contrast, Vista is a royal pain that I definitely wouldn't wish on a novice user. You've got to be a l33t h4x0r to just set it up like you want!

I'm currently using Ubuntu 8.04 Long Term Support. It totally rocks. Someone else mentioned Macs, which are actually pretty good, too.

Where would this poor guy be if the Seattle PI hadn't reported it and given Microsoft bad press in their own backyard? Would that Microsoft test manager have even cared, let alone visit this guy's home multiple times? Exceedingly doubtful. Only negative press gets Microsoft Corporation to treat its users like they're actually human.

Posted by unregistered user at 6/18/08 3:00 p.m.

That's story is just unbelievable.
Sorry for the guy not printing, but who cares as they just did the same thing to the rest of their worldwide forced-to buy-windows-because-mac's-too-expensive-and-linux's-for-professional customers ?
Vista's one the worst bad-joke ever.

Posted by unregistered user at 6/18/08 4:26 p.m.

Funny how the ignorant Vista bashing continues. This is a problem that has its roots in previous versions of Windows. Those versions were the ones badly designed, not Vista.

For those giving us the eternal Linux propaganda: save it. Make a OS that does not suck, instead.

Posted by unregistered user at 6/18/08 4:37 p.m.

Why doesn't Microsoft keep the OS simple?

"..So those files were instead directed to different locations.."

Yeah, go and find them :D

Posted by unregistered user at 6/18/08 5:28 p.m.

"it is easy to blame the operating system when in fact it is the lack of quality development process taking place by the third party companies who have driven the going rate for quality developers down and down and hiring lessor experienced engineers who lack the engineering priniciples that are failing to be taught in the major universities within this country."

"Or we could just do what Apple says and all go to Macs... Oh, what business applications are supported by the Mac?"

ummmmmm,
Glass houses RULE!! You forgot to read the sign about bricks.

Posted by unregistered user at 6/18/08 6:53 p.m.

Some Vista love thing going down here I see. Mine are the rose-tinted glasses with the psychedelic rims, kind sir.

Why is it no one can say anything bad or be critical about Microsoft or their products? Even when the popular consensus is 'Vista, I'd rather have pile surgery thank you very much!'.

The truth is Microsoft made mistakes in the design of Vista. They did not test it thoroughly enough before release. Consumers do not like to be alpha/beta testers and to have to pay for the privilege.

Does not this happen at every major product launch? 'This is it! The software that will rock your world!' they proudly proclaim. Meanwhile they are just figuring out what fixes to include in the impending service pack.

Yet time and again, as I read here, people make excuses for them . Defend them why? Because people have a vested interest in keeping the status quo. They have their own agenda that needs Microsoft to be just where they are now.

Both Linux and Apple have their own proverbial can of worms. But at least they seem to treat the user with a little respect.

Posted by unregistered user at 6/18/08 7:41 p.m.

My Favorite Windows Vista Feature: Push the security of the operating system out to the user by prompting them for every single thing the computer wants to do "This operation may be insecure: are you sure you want to do it?"

Fear, uncertainty, doubt: all pushed on to the user experience. Great design! Seems all the billionaires took their loot and left the company to be run by the Kidz

Posted by unregistered user at 6/18/08 8:13 p.m.

Sigh. Vista tried too hard, but didn't see the forest for the trees. MS should have started over like Apple did with Mac OS X. There were some grumblings at first, but now Mac has a much more stable OS.
Windows? How many Vista users downgraded to XP because Vista didn't want to work or was too slow?
I work 8 hours a day with Windows. Crash. Freeze. Gack!
I come home to my Mac and life is fun again.
If I need Windows for some random program at home, I run my Windows emulator program... which, ironically, runs faster than my Windows PC at work!

Posted by unregistered user at 6/18/08 8:39 p.m.

You should see the testing that goes on over in Windows Hardware Quality Labs? I have... oh wait, I haven't. There is NO TESTING. MSFT has been and will continue to laugh all the way to the bank. Pretty sad that someone from the "Experience Group" (LOL) had to make *multiple* trips to Mr. Walling's home.

Signed,
-Former FTE Blue Badge

Posted by unregistered user at 6/18/08 9:18 p.m.

Yeah! Realy sad about the Micros#*t OSes. Thats the default answer of all Windows supporter: Did you have tried to restart your computer? Did you uninstall the Software before you installed the new?
Hey we have 2008! I don't want to think about whats installed if i install a new version of Software!
4Ever OpenSource - Take a look at the FreeBSD Port System, you don't need to think about whats installed and whats needed to run the Software after installation, the dependencies are handled by the ports tree!
Microsoft you're about to go under!!!!

Posted by unregistered user at 6/18/08 9:32 p.m.

webtiger - the fact that u have 4 vista machines working doesn't mean a thing - probablay these machines are internal microsoft machines on which the OS was tested thru the cycle. So many Vista users who are facing problems are not wrong.

Posted by conservativeliberal at 6/18/08 9:36 p.m.

what the heck is up with all of the 'unregistered user' comments in this post?

1) all OS's will have some problems for somebody.

2) Apple OS is great but still has problems and needs updates too.

The only difference that I've found though is that an Apple update actually fixes problems! I quit updating XP after SP2 because the updates broke things that were working just fine before installing the update.

Also, let's consider the extremely daunting task of writing a kernel to work with thousands of harware configurations whilst Apple has control over the few config's to run theirs.

All that being said, I've used several distros of Linux and really enjoy Ubuntu on my laptop. The latest release has excellent power features like the MacBook in dimming the screen quickly when inactive. BUT! I spend time configuring my machine, get the right packages for my hardware and all. The previous poster was merely lucky that it just 'worked' for him/her right off the bat. It is so not for everybody. Just choose a mac or a pc, or both if your needs are simply Internet & email.

Posted by unregistered user at 6/18/08 9:38 p.m.

Since the other systems either include multiple drivers of
major peripheral components or allow the user to easily
do so, how can a defensive Vista or XP clone suggest
there are no products available that work with Mac OS X?

What kind of cave has this (among other) user(s) been in?

Vista was developed in a late attempt to take the candy
Apple's latest Mac OS X versions and condense that into
a new XP replacement OS. There was more than eye
candy to the Mac OS X, from 10.3.9 on. Extensive devel-
opment has been undertaken and even though MS gets
a new Mac and latest OSX versions from Apple to play
with and reverse engineer products from, they can't get
it right. Now, Apple has shown it can make software for
non-Apple PCs and their own engineered products as well.

So, hopefully some of those enterprise and business owners
who hold stock in MS can see the Apple star rising, again...
And buy both the stock and the better product line.

Apple costs less to own -and- operate. The OS is built better;
not by accident, but by design. And there are great options.
(Plus, the Mac can run Windows software w/o windows.)

~ in a small town...

Posted by conservativeliberal at 6/18/08 10:23 p.m.

the average user is not going to figure out how to run parallels or a virtual machine to run windows app's. At this time, windows is still req'd to run a lot of 3rd party app's.

(from my iPhone)

Posted by unregistered user at 6/18/08 10:46 p.m.

We have Ubuntu in the office, and just recently purchased a Xerox workcentre 7345, which is a damn fine machine. Downloaded and pointed the Linux print install to the correct PPD file and 15 seconds later I had a working business fax/scanner/printer ready to go. Doing this in Windows, took 10-12 minutes at best.

D.

Posted by unregistered user at 6/18/08 11:39 p.m.

I've updated my laptop and desktop and I have no problems. I prefer vista over XP but it may just be a luck of the draw, hm?

Posted by Gr8 at 6/18/08 11:56 p.m.

I feel bad for anyone who needs a driver to get their printer to work. I just connect and print with the Mac I have.

Posted by unregistered user at 6/18/08 11:59 p.m.

This discussion reminds me of the old joke:
"The box said 'Windows 95 or better,' so I bought a Mac."

Posted by unregistered user at 6/19/08 12:11 a.m.

Just a thought - Microsoft Corp., has taken at least five years with a large workforce to get MS Windows Vista "finished" and out the door.

And this problem occurs on Microsoft's own doorstep, indicating that their bug-testing was far from perfect. If anything, it would argue that their Beta program's reach wasn't wide enough. That is squarely in the Microsoft court. It's nobody-but-Microsoft's fault if they flub it this badly.

Posted by humyn at 6/19/08 12:32 a.m.

Apple is a design bubble...they isolate themselves from the real world of needs, workflow and apps. I work 50/50 on both macs and pcs in my job...and honestly I can say I prefer the PCs hands down and have had LESS trouble, frustration, limitations and crashing with my Vista PC.

Posted by unregistered user at 6/19/08 12:57 a.m.

Windows Vista is an improvement over Windows XP. It's not without it's problems (see article above), but it is a serious attempt by Microsoft to do something they have not attempted to do before Windows XP SP2; Microsoft is trying to be serious about security.

Unfortunately for Microsoft Vista, this is a huge step. It is a huge step in the right direction, but many developers and users are feeling the pain of this consequence.

As a user of all three platforms, I can say this: If you are looking for the least expensive and least restrictive system available to you, go with Linux. If you want your computer to just work, and are willing to live with more expensive hardware and some limits on software, go with Macintosh. If you want the most widely used platform with cheap hardware costs, choose Windows.

Vista makes that 3rd choice a little cloudier, as (at least for now) the platform has narrowed a bit... Not all the hardware and software works correctly (again, see article above.)

In time, once everybody has jumped on this new way of developing software/drivers for Windows Vista, it will likely arrive victorious as a more secure and compatible platform. But in the meantime... Linux and Mac OS X will make inroads against their common competitor.

--Matt Ross (aka Pathway)

Posted by suomynona at 6/19/08 1:22 a.m.

I'll never understand why people have so many issues with MS operating systems. I've been a user since I rented my co-worker's computer in the fall of 1995 (if I remember correctly) when he went to Africa for six months. He had loaded the beta version of Win95 on it. I was living in Maui at the time and dialup was 14.4. Still I was in heaven. The worst operating system was by far WinMe. I currently have a home network with an XP2 machine and a Vista machine.

They work seamlessly together, and when I hook up my laptop to transfer files that I need for work (faster than doing it wirelessly), it is also seamless. I always purchase extended warranties on my machines (I buy from Gateway) and rarely do I have to call them. If I have to call them, it's because I dropped the surge protector for my laptop and I need to buy a new one.

I find the people that have the most problems are those that get their computers hijacked by getting spyware or viruses -- but they end up getting them from not being educated. Going to websites they shouldn't go to without proper protection. MS Defender is free, AVG AntiVirus is free.

Everytime I get a new computer from Gateway (I think I've bought 7 from them now) -- I end up passing them down to family members or friends when I want the latest and greatest -- I write zeroes to the drives and do a fresh install. This removes the unnecessary preloaded crap that comes from the manufactures (such as AOL or Norton/McAfee trials, etc.)

I hope someday they start teaching in grade schools/high schools that you shouldn't be connected to the internet without having a virus program that regularly updates itself. I believe a lot of people think that just having virus protection installed is good enough. It's not.

I never get viruses, spyware, etc -- and I do plenty of things on the internet that might get me into trouble.

Using Firefox, and Greasemonkey scripts to block ads on sites like MySpace and Facebook, help to protect you from accidentally clicking on links where you might get something accidentally installed on your computer that you don't want.

I'm sure most of the commenters/readers of this thread are already aware of all of this, and can testify as to how many people they know that didn't know about the things I just typed about -- where they've told them to do the same things.

I agree with the person who said that Linux and Macs aren't the solution. Linux is too complicated for the average computer user -- hell, this guy was installing an XP driver on a Vista machine. Are you really going to recommend Linux to him? And like someone else said, Mac hardware is just too expensive for the average computer user. I've never owned a Mac, and probably never will because I take the precautions that every average computer user should.

That said, I love my iPod and will probably never buy a Zune.

Posted by suomynona at 6/19/08 1:29 a.m.

Oh, and I find a lot of people (I know personally) that complain about XP and Vista don't have enough RAM on their computer. Once they tell me how much they have, and I point out how much is recommended to run their OS and the programs they regularly use, and how cheap RAM is, how easy it is to install -- their problems magically go away.

The issues I often have is I'll have Firefox open for days/weeks with ten+ tabs open -- and suddenly Adobe Flash and/or Java will stop working. I found out recently though by clearing the cache, it fixes the problem temporarily. Hopefully this is an issue that'll someday be addressed on a more permanent level. All of my computers do this (including the ones I've passed on) -- whether it's the laptop with 2GB of RAM, or the Vista machine at home with 4GB of RAM -- it doesn't matter. Maybe I should try adjusting the cache size in Firefox...

Posted by unregistered user at 6/19/08 1:35 a.m.

You want proof that Vista is a really bad OS? Well, Gartner has published a study where the conclusion is that "Windows is collapsing under it's own weight", that Windows needs serious refactoring etc. Can someone find that study and link to it here?

That is proof.

Posted by unregistered user at 6/19/08 1:36 a.m.

It is not uncommon to find driver issues with Vista. For a long time it was not possible to get certain (newer) HP printer drivers going with Vista because the installer refused to work and claimed you needed a hotpatch that you would have to get by contacting MS and having them ship it to you (!)

However the good news is that last month HP released drivers that don't appear to have this issue so these things do seem to be fixed.

There are also issues if you decide to go for 64 bit Vista (e.g. Dell refuse to sell a laptop with a fingerprint reader with 64 bit Vista on it because they don't yet have fingerprint software that works with it).

Posted by unregistered user at 6/19/08 1:38 a.m.

I use mac and pc 50/50 and I prefer the PC (whine, snivel). Snort, guffaw. I'll bet you a quid that every comment like this comes from a PC user (100%) who has maybe seen a photograph of a Mac and, perhaps, touched one once twenty years ago. In real world samples, of true 50/50 Mac & PC users (I program Windows apps - I consider it a penance for some serious sins in a previous life) the Mac comes out tops. Ditto PC/Linux. Linux comes out top. Windows, which is not posix, will always lose to posix in a sample of people who know what the hell they're talking about.
Whether Mac beats Linux is not a bun fight I wish to get into. In that argument I suspect that there is no real superiority - it's just a matter of which one you prefer.

Posted by unregistered user at 6/19/08 4:28 a.m.

@husky94

You said: "LINUX? Ha, who are you going to call. Better yet, who is going to "write" a driver for you...fool!"

Actually ... I recently installed Ubuntu 8.04 from a liveCD and I forgot to test my printer before installing it. So after about the third boot when I needed to print something I suddenly realised I had not set up the printer ... so I turned it on and that was the very first time when Ubuntu 8.04 was running that the printer had been on.

Ubuntu spotted the printer, loaded the correct driver, and even set the default page size correctly to A4 (as I don't live in America) ... and within less than 30 seconds I had gone from having no printer installed to being ready to print ... without having to find and put in a printer driver CD or reboot or anything like it! I could even check the ink levels before I printed!

So tell me husky94 ... exactly who looks foolish now?

Posted by unregistered user at 6/19/08 5:24 a.m.

One of the big problems with MS is that the code of the operating systems is not really optimized. I mean you need a gig of ram MINIMUM for Vista .. that's just pure bloat. At least with xp it was 256MB minimum and it ran pretty decent. I personally am running xp with 2GB of ram and it runs like a champ. I've seen Vista and played around with it. It's pretty and shiny, but pretty much worthless to me. It's just pure and utter bloat.

Posted by unregistered user at 6/19/08 6:47 a.m.

Gods...:

So lets stop bashing Vista, what's the alternatives, we could all start learning linux and compiling our own applications or depending on open source communities to support the masses. Or we could just do what Apple says and all go to Macs... Oh, what business applications are supported by the Mac?

Are you kidding? What business apps are you talking about? And Linux? "Compiling our own applications"?!? How about Ubuntu.. easier than Mac OS X almost. Vista? Works perfectly fine here, but could Microsoft not have phathomed the possibility that people would assume XP stuff will work on Vista? Does 2000 stuff not work on XP? Even OS9 stuff works on OS X. This is not that hard.

[end-of-rant]

Posted by unregistered user at 6/19/08 7:52 a.m.

Doesn't the whole explanation that Vista is more secure go out the window by the simple fact that Mr. Walling was able to install the XP driver which apparently writes files in locations it shouldn't?
So the extra 'security' didn't kick in until he tried to uninstall it.
So... install spyware in locations it shouldn't and then have Vista security prevent you from removing that as well?

Posted by unregistered user at 6/19/08 7:52 a.m.

I'm a Linux user of a couple of years. Disclaimer over. And the poster who said "you have to compile your own programs" is about a decade out of touch with Linux.

But in fairness to everybody, this isn't really a Microsoft fault. Vista was just correcting bad security practice in XP. It's not possible for Vista to say "Hey, don't install this driver, it's only for XP" - an application installer or a driver installer is just a program that copies files, it doesn't do anything magical. Vista's security feature that redirects writes to insecure places did the right thing, and not informing the user was also the correct thing to do, because Windows users already get annoyed with UAC prompts without having "file redirection" notifications pushed at them.

Not being able to automatically delete the old driver is also expected behaviour, because the written driver was redirected to a place in the user's hierarchy, not the operating system's hierarchy. Microsoft's software uninstaller is correct in not looking at or writing to the user's hierarchy; this is good security practice.

Vista had to be incompatible with XP printer drivers, because drivers for XP were all kernel-resident, meaning that there were serious security and stability issues; any badly-written or compromised driver could access anything in userspace, or could crash the whole system. Vista's printing system seperates printing (including drivers) into merely a user account, so the kernel can protect the rest of the system from any bad drivers.

It wasn't the user's fault - the user didn't know about those architectural changes. I recall trying to install an XP driver on Vista before I knew. The printing system on Linux (CUPS) doesn't have big changes in between distro versions, so I expected that XP printer drivers would work on Vista.

If blame could go anywhere, it would have to go to Dell or the printer's OEM. Why was the driver installer writing to a location in the system that is not safe for user-accessible code to be? It's a common thing with commercial software developers, when they write programs for Linux, they seem to treat the permissions system as a hinderance that they have to work around, rather than as a fantastic way of ensuring that the user's computer stays safe. Some commercial software for Linux actually requires that the user change permissions of files, or run as superuser, in order to work properly!

And the entire Mac OS platform is made up of these sort of workarounds.

It's time that 3rd-party software developers and hardware manufacturers actually took responsibility for ensuring that they don't compromise their user's safety.

Chris Lees. *Can the writer of the blog please make the language filter less prudish?

Posted by unregistered user at 6/19/08 8:20 a.m.

I agree with the "50/50 user" comments in post #140589, and am not at all surprised by the seamless Linux experience of poster #140601. Furthermore, I cannot understand how anyone who has actually, truly, compared Vista (or XP, for that matter) with either some of the Linux distributions (e.g., Ubuntu) or Apple THROUGH ACTUAL USAGE could possibly come away from the experience *honestly and objectively* touting the virtues of the output of the crooks and swindlers over on the Eastside. Once you do make the comparison, you end up doing only what you must with Winblows.

What are you Gatesians so afraid of?! The truth?!

Most of us use Windoze primarily because of its ubiquity. Their business model, which has worked quite well for them, does not translate into a good customer experience for us. Many of us don't like their products for numerous very good reasons.

As a result I also approached Linux with skepticism when I decided to sample it. However, the proof is in the latter product(s).

Perfect? no. But superior? Is it ever. Not only is Linux open source, but it is FREE. Gratis. And you can wrap any Windoesnt program you like and run it if you really must, as with Apple. But do you need to? Ultimately, no, not with the gazillion free Linux apps out there.

And when everyone figures out they're being had, they'll smash the warped Windows and finally enjoy a more robust computing experience.

DON'T take my word for it, though, Gates-keepers. I dare you to really try another...

CRY CRY CRY

Posted by unregistered user at 6/19/08 8:25 a.m.

Posted by husky94 at 6/17/08 9:48 p.m.
LINUX? Ha, who are you going to call. Better yet, who is going to "write" a driver for you...fool!

Actually we Debian users made the segue to 64bit almost eventlessly. All (FREE, yes all apps are FREE) apps ported to 64bit, most drivers working.

But your anxiety is understandable husky94. Linux does require an IQ north of 110

Ha Ha nothing is north of 110 it only goes to 90 check your map dummie.

Posted by unregistered user at 6/19/08 9:00 a.m.

Right. I have a gigantic HP Color Laserjet 4550 (125 lbs!), which is rare, and merely had to install the HPLIP Toolbox to install the printer.

With HPLIP I can remotely change all printer metrics, monitor all four toner levels by percentage, fuser, drum, transfer belt, etc life remaining, and of course control jobs. Yeah, you can do this in Winduhs, but HP gives us Linux users the same stuff these days.

And Linux + KDE is just so much more efficient. I can work at the speed of thought.

Posted by unregistered user at 6/19/08 10:29 a.m.

I have one Vista laptop and one XP desktop and I have never, ever been able to get them to talk to each other, nor use the wireless print router without some lame workaround that fixes the IP address (so any time the power goes off the IP has to be reset). It's total madness. I simply move files between my Vista and XP machine using Flash drives.

Posted by unregistered user at 6/19/08 10:33 a.m.

Well Vista is something that Microsoft should re develop and pay the customer for using it. I have so much of problem with wireless card on vista machine. Some wireless router just don't work with vista at all.

Tina
http://www.ekhichdi.com

Posted by unregistered user at 6/19/08 10:46 a.m.

I am running vista on several machines with out issue and on a cross platform network. Lets be honest here people, most of the problems with vista are operator error as they have been for decades across all versions of any O/S. People are just to damn busy or in to much of a hurry to take a few minutes to read what is printed on the box, in the manual, and on the disk. All the information is there. People need to take the time to read and understand instead of blindly going into the void. It's like the guy who put together a playhouse without using the instructions and then wonders why the darn thing falls down.

They and I echo what was written in post #140645

Posted by unregistered user at 6/19/08 10:48 a.m.

Buy a Mac instead of messing around with Vista and their problems

Posted by unregistered user at 6/19/08 10:49 a.m.

Apparently somebody ran out of things to report on.

Posted by unregistered user at 6/19/08 10:50 a.m.

This is nothing. I saw Vista literally burn up a network printer, according to HP vista by polling it inappropriately. (read "furiously") It physically overheated a circuit somewhere in the hardware. -ffft- ...no printer. HP said wait until a Vista driver comes out before trying that again. That was near a year ago, I don't know if they've made one yet but they hadn't as of several months after we replaced the printer.

Talk about "incompatibility."

Anyway, I have been an exclusive Linux (Mandriva) user for a decade, never any regrets. I install both Linux and windows several times a week and lately Linux has been much, much easier. (for instance more complete 'out of the box')

While at it, I had to shut off the wireless interface on a vista machine on a network I maintain. XP and Linux wireless clients would occasionally drop, and the Linux would be entirely unable to connect without power cycling the router. (sometimes the XP clients, too)

I analyzed the traffic on the net and saw the one Vista machine was responsible for like 60% of the total traffic, with 7-8 XP machines on the LAN. And a lot of the traffic was inappropriate, multicast invitations, media server announcements...

I finally decided Vista was somehow hijacking the wireless router, or confusing it somehow. I shut off it's wireless card (it has a wire anyway) and ever since no other client has any problem with wireless. (knock on wood, but so far so good)

Posted by unregistered user at 6/19/08 10:51 a.m.

To everyone one who's blasting Vista and running XP. If you have a second to think back to when XP came out there were a ton more issues than there is today with Vista. Remember installing and receiving like 30 updates? Just to install them and have them crash something else? To clarify I'm not a MS fan boy I mostly run Linux systems with a few XP desktops and Windows 2k3 Servers. If you don't remember the XP pain just do some digging around for reminders.
P.S. all the mac commercials make me laugh because they stretch the truth so much. I wanna say play a game besides mindsweeper or ya you have a way to boot into windows for you apps but YOUR RUNNING WINDOWS

Posted by unregistered user at 6/19/08 11:01 a.m.

"Funny how the ignorant Vista bashing continues. This is a problem that has its roots in previous versions of Windows. Those versions were the ones badly designed, not Vista.

For those giving us the eternal Linux propaganda: save it. Make a OS that does not suck, instead."
How about the fact of the resources that it takes up are more than a lot of programs that are today use, and Vista is the OS? How about the fact that it can be difficult to find files quickly? How about the fact that it can screw up a printer installation so bad that it takes an expert from MS itself several visits to correct the issue as this story says? Yes sir, that sounds like a solid OS to me.

Linux sucks? Must be why I can do everything on it that I can do on Windows, you know even play games now. You are aware that you can run Windows on Linux now with its virtual machine capabilities don't you?

Posted by unregistered user at 6/19/08 11:13 a.m.

In this case i have to say it is more dell than MS - since the two drivers were for different versions and the files therefore different, i don't see how vista is supposed to know that he is trying to install the "same" driver twice

Posted by unregistered user at 6/19/08 11:18 a.m.

I know it's fun to rag on Vista at every opportunity, but this really *was* Dell's fault. This was a poorly written installer that did things that it shouldn't have even been doing under XP (even though it was allowed to, XP being as permissive as it was).

Vista's file redirection is a great feature. Non-privileged applications that try to make changes to protected parts of the system have their requests redirected to the user's own home folder. All subsequent reads and writes to things that have been redirected wind up pointing to the new location. This lets old applications that were designed to assume that they had free reign of the system to continue working while still requiring security elevation to make actual changes to the system.

Now, you may be asking, "Why would a DRIVER INSTALLATION be treated in such a way? That is absurd!" and you are absolutely correct. Which brings me back to my first paragraph, and raises the question: what in the hell was that installer doing?

Posted by unregistered user at 6/19/08 11:25 a.m.

Some here sight the drivers as not been Microsoft's falt. That Nvidia and Ati released updates for Vista that where less than stellar in performance and stability.

Is it not also the case that Microsoft changed the actual driver model (at least for the graphics subsystem) at the last minute. This left many OEMs in the lurch.

They now charge these same OEMs for the service of digitally signed drivers.

Quality control or money grab? I'll go with the latter.

Posted by unregistered user at 6/19/08 11:36 a.m.

Quite funny to see all those people whining about Windows Vista... I bet lot of you never even tried it. And those of you, who happen to be using that OS and still whine about it...why don't you go back to XP or even change for MAC or Linux?
If you know that much about OS and that you still spend years whining about them on every forum you come across...please do yourself (and everyone else) a favor and try another OS (by that time you would have had time to try all of them). I can't believe you won't find one that fits your needs.
By the way, there is no BEST OS, it all depends on what you want and what you expect to get. So people saying "buy a mac" or "buy whatever-else-it-is", how do you know what that person needs? Buying a Mac when what you like is customizing or building your own computer isn't what I'd call a good decision (try to change pieces of harware in it...). Neither would I recommand Linux for the user that buy his first computer in a Future Shop and still wonder what the hell is the Internet. And no, I wouldn't even recommand Windows for everyone because, even though the casual user might like it for it's "ease of use", some people will prefer other OS over it.

But hey! What would be a blog without all those "I (and only I) got the absolute solution"?

Posted by unregistered user at 6/19/08 11:45 a.m.

I did go back to XP, after an aggravating week trying to upgrade to Vista. Damn right I'm going to complain after the time and money I invested and MSFT's lack of accountability.

Posted by unregistered user at 6/19/08 12:12 p.m.

I think that both Windows and Dell could be said to have been at fault in this situation. But Windows might have worked with other developers better. I seem to recall that third party developers were desperate to get a copy of Vista so they could start work, but Microsoft waited a long time.

Posted by unregistered user at 6/19/08 12:21 p.m.

I think Vista is wonderful; Microsoft is spreading Linux one Vista problem at a time.

Posted by unregistered user at 6/19/08 12:33 p.m.

I think this is an incredibly uplifting story. This brings hope to hundreds of thousands of Vista users, and puts a bit of a damper on all those who have been critical of Vista over the past year. The future is finally looking just a little bit brighter for Microsoft Vista!

Posted by unregistered user at 6/19/08 12:34 p.m.

Let's face it.. the biggest problem with Vista is all the id10t's who think they can just take old hardware that hasn't been tested on it and think it's going to run smoothly. I have a machine tested on vista and it run fine. there are a few programs that don't yet work, but let's face it. I never expected smooth sailing until SP2 or SP3 is released. People forget the amount of programming and variables that go into making an OS. If you expect the best you might get the worst, if you expect the worst, you'll wind up with the best. Everything is perception.

Posted by unregistered user at 6/19/08 12:48 p.m.

this is actually a more common problem than is being made out by seattlepi - no disrespect. Any normal IT technician would have encountered this issue several times - its what people automatically do, buy new pc...look out old disks, install software. Cant get printer to work, call tech for help

Its also rather simple to remove. You could tell the user to do a system restore if its relatively fresh, or if you have access to the computer just simply go to printers in control panel, right click on the problem printer, properties, advanced, new driver...locate unpacked driver on the system, it will install new driver (technically both xp and vista drivers will be on the system however the xp driver now deselected is defunct).

Reboot, test print, $45 please.

Posted by unregistered user at 6/19/08 12:50 p.m.

I said to heck with Microsoft and have been living happily ever since. I gave Vista my all. A REAL try. I WANTED to love it. The fact is, I didn't love it. I was more frustrated than ever and was not getting my WORK done. My computer time was spent figuring out all of the little issues, rather than being productive. I'm not a noob, and I'm not one of those "issue prone" folks. I didn't even have that many struggles with WinME, just a couple things I had to work around. Vista was fighting me every step of the way though. I couldn't work with it - I was feeling I was being stymied at every corner. Franky, I was getting more and more angry every time I had to sit down at the computer.

So. I wiped it and installed Ubuntu. I was IMMEDIATELY productive. All of my peripherals were automatically detected, drivers were installed (even WiFi!), and I was able to do everything I was doing previously in Windows XP in about an hour. ONE HOUR! I was dumbfounded. Still am.

So then I decided it was time to open my eyes. I'd been with Microsoft since DOS 2.00 and really never questioned the alternatives. So I bought a Macbook Pro (hey it'll run Windows if I get stuck, or I can always sell it because they don't seem to drop much in value). It was an eye opener -- it works as well as Ubuntu did, and it's "prettier" to boot.

It was a pretty scary switch, but I'm so incredibly happy I've made the move away from Windows. Ubuntu on my desktop, Mac OS X on my laptop. I love them both, and I'm not going back.

Posted by unregistered user at 6/19/08 12:58 p.m.

"For those giving us the eternal Linux propaganda..."

If Linux wasn't good, Ubuntu wouldn't be preloaded on notebooks being sold by large, consumer-level retailers like Walmart.

Posted by unregistered user at 6/19/08 12:59 p.m.

"Slow news day just got a new meaning"

qft

And I thought my local news was lame.