Windows Vista

You're right, I do like experimenting. I'll give the next build of Ubuntu a go when it's been around a while!

In the meantime, thankyou for a civilized and reasoned debate :)

Ferk.. I've created a monster with this 'un...

Is it all agreed then that Vista is shit?

The only crap thing mentioned in this thread is the Maxtor hard drive. Two of mine have failed and my other two, non-Maxtor work perfectly for the past two years.

The Maxtor does have a CD with it, but that's a heap of crap as well.

> Is it all agreed then that Vista is shit?

As I said at the start: No, it isn't.

I'm running Vista by choice as my main OS, would I do this if it were "shit"?

If I were an end user I might wait a while for the dust to settle, and the vendors to wake up - say Service Pack 1. For them, XP SP2 would be my recommended platform for the next few months at least.

The problem with Vista is that you might end up breaking a few things. If you're willing to run Vista then you might as well give the other operating systems a chance. After all, a MacBook has more compatibility with a PC running XP than a PC running Vista does. Or if you're braver you can try Linux with e.g. Wine.

And in return for breaking a few things, Vista doesn't give you anything over and above the rest.

l2k2: It does give you one or two things - for example the new TCP/IP stack makes internet browsing noticeably faster than it was under XP. Things like IE run low privs, and can't write to sensitive areas - so it's also far harder for malware to take hold. It is an improvement - that's why I'm using it.

As an aside, everything that I used previously under XP seems to work fine under Vista. I haven't had any driver issues, and all the apps I run are happy too.

Unfortunately IE7's user interface is designed by a madman and I'm forced to stick with Mozilla, which also runs under low privs.

Vista's long goodbye
Deleting files can take forever
By Dan Goodin in San Francisco
Published Monday 26th March 2007 23:57 GMT

Windows Vista suffers from a bug that causes many machines to stall while deleting, copying and moving files, a flaw that has provoked consternation in online forums.

"I've seen this bug in action, and trust me, it's as if you're copying over a 64k link using only 256mb of RAM," one Reg reader complained. "To add to the problem, you can't cancel or anything."
Click here to find out more!

According to a thread on Microsoft's TechNet site, Microsoft has issued a hotfix for the problem, but it has failed to quell the outrage. For one thing, individual users must get Microsoft's approval before the fix can be downloaded, according to our tipster. And for another, hotfixes are more of a pain to install than patches.

We've contacted a Microsoft spokeswoman, who promised to see if a patch for the problem in the works. Meanwhile, Vista users continue to grumble.

"I simply can not believe that I updated to a new computer and put windows Vista on it to find that it's not even capable of moving and deleting files in an efficient manner," one disaffected user posted in the Microsoft forum. "Microsoft must be kidding! The most basic of features that I use all the time is a slow train wreck."

AFAIK that bug only applies to files on a network share, not local ones.

If you can't get a handle on the new IE7 UI, a useful tip is press the Alt key - that brings up the old menus, where everything's in a very similar place to IE6.

There's no problem installing hotfixes either, if you can get them - getting them, as with all previous versions can sometimes be an adventure though...

Incidentally, one of the other reasons I like Vista is that my Firewire card reader is much faster - and disconnection seems to work properly, it was never quite there under XP. It's a Lexar FW019.

Oh and power management seems better too. I actually risk using sleep occasionally now ;)