BleepingComputer.com: Aaaaaaaaaaa! It's Vista!

I bought a new computer. It is faster than the old one. Has 2G RAM instead of 768M. Has an empty drive bay that I can put my brand new DVD/CD R/W in. It comes with one, but I just bought this one, so what the hell. It even has a 3.5" drive. Wireless keyboard and mouse. Easily accessible USB ports. 400G HD, with room for my 300GB drive. Much better machine except for one problem. It comes with Vista!

I tried to find something that came with XP. Of the selection I had to choose from, I was given the choice to "downgrade" to XP (I have never heard anyone refer to Vista as an upgrade), but except for speed none of the choices were equal to the machine I am using now. My reason for replacing it is simply that it is getting old. A computer is an absolute must for me - I am taking classes on-line. The last thing I need right now is a catastrophic failure of some kind that would relegate me to trying to use a computer at the public library for my classes. That just would not cut it.

So the bottom line here is that I have been stuck with what, by all accounts, is the worst boondoggle M$ has perpetrated upon the public to date. So I am sure I will have a lot of problems. The damned thing doesn't even come with the barest of manuals. If you have a problem you are supposed to connect to a M$ website. But what if the problem is an inability to connect at all !?!

I do have a few quick questions:

- Will ZoneAlarm, AVG, Spybot, SpywareBlaster and AdAware work under Vista? What about Hijack This?

- If these programs won't work, are there any alternatives that I won't have to pay through the nose for?

- I would like to be able to add at least the 300G drive I just put into the other machine. However, it appears the interface is different. My brain is still very caffeine-deficient this morning, so I am drawing a blank on the terms I want. The new machine uses what I assume is a serial interface, while the one I just bought uses the standard, flat-gray-cable parallel interface. The new machine has a connector for this style interface on the motherboard. Will I be able to connect the 300G drive and run with it, or am I in for problems?

- Is the new computer already obsolete? (Yes.)

I am sure I will run into enough problems with Vista to keep some of you entertained for weeks.

I do have the seven setup disc set for Win XP that I got out of HP for my original computer (purchased in 2000). If worst comes to worst, would I be able to just install that, or will I run into problems there, too? I am going to give Vista a shot, but I am quite skeptical about it. The only instruction I have found so far is more of a warning. After setting the machine up and turning it on, it may take twenty minutes for it to actually start to function - and don't shut the power off while this is happening. What kind of OS has a twenty-minute start-up time?!? A really bad one, I think.

Once you get used to Vista, it's not bad. People said the same thing when XP was first released

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There are versions for Vista

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If you have a spare PCI slot, you can buy an IDE controller card for the drive
Example

If you want to use your computer for multitrack mixing and recording of audio, downgrade to XP. There is a large consensus of musicians and sound engineers who prefer XP. HiJackThis on Vista has a lot of false positives, but it runs. But you can't just disable everything that HiJackThis reports or your computer won't boot.

You may or may not have troubles if you try to install XP from the spare disk you have. It depends upon your motherboard and computer manufacture's support for drivers and on your system's BIOS. The main issue is getting drivers for all the hardware, including SATA drivers for the hard drives. XP doesn't support SATA drivers in an easy way when installing, so you'll have to research this. But on the plus side, since a downgrade is available it means that there's some support for running XP on your system. Some people talk about "slipstreaming" an XP install disc with the SATA and other drivers. But this is not exactly a trivial task.

I have a Gateway and there's no support for downgrading and it looks really complicated to try and do XP on my system (GT5622). Good luck.

garmanma, on Aug 1 2008, 11:27 AM, said:

There is an ATA connector on the motherboard, so I am assuming that if I plug the drive in Windows is supposed to know what to do with it. If not, then Ill need to make Windows do what I want. Get out the rubber hoses and bright lights.

I've never had a problem with Vista on my machine. I guess I'm one of the lucky few?

Vista's been out for a while now and is remarkably stable IME. Most popular apps/drivers have been re-done to make them work with Vista.
There are still apps/drivers out there that aren't Vista compatible...
- some can be used with the Compatibility wizard
- some just flat won't work, and the manufacturer's/writer's won't fix it (my old Hauppage TV card was in this boat for the longest time).

Hi Guys
I'm A member of bleeping computer for sometime but never posted.
I switched to Vista home premium and never had any problem after installing SP1. The OS is running fast, no freezes or crushes. It takes longer to load all the applications when I start, but after everything is up, the system run's better than XP.
Thank's

I have experience with Vista.... so far I never had a problem with using this.

MattV, on Aug 1 2008, 01:12 PM, said:

I don't understand why you have such a preconceived opinion about Vista, when you haven't even used it. Most of the "problems" I have come across with Vista, are either due to "inappropriate" hardware or the users doing daft things to it, or a combination of both. Vista, of course, gets the blame. I have had Vista for one year, and haven't had even ONE single problem with it.

AVG, SpywareBlaster, Spybot and HJT are no problem with Vista. I have not used AdAware or ZoneAlarm with it. I just use Vista's own firewall, PROPERLY configured.

You probably will not be able to use install disks for a second machine. One disk set/one machine. Windows will not activate.

I ttried this the other day and no go.

Try Vista, I don't like it but I guess we have to get used to it some time. I have XPPro, and Vista Basic and Premium.

Kibou, on Aug 2 2008, 07:00 AM, said:

So far I have experienced one blue screen of death - while I was doing nothing but reading a help file. And there have been a couple of mysterious reboots - again while I was essentially doing nothing.

It hangs up occasionally, but I suspect that that may be caused by compatibility issues with some of the software I am running.

Now, onto another subject. Is Windows Defender anything but an annoyance? Every time I'd try to do something I'd get Defender warnings - so often that I finally just turned it off so that I could get something done. And if it turns out that it's something I should use, how do I make it less annoying?

gr277, on Aug 4 2008, 03:14 AM, said:

Simple - everything I read or heard about it from its' initial release had to do with it being crapola.

I have been playing with it long enough to have figured out a few things. But here's the problem. XP was severely dumbed-down but it could be worked with. Vista is dumbed-down so badly that it's hard for someone that actually knows something to work with it.

I've only had it for a couple of days - I'm sure I'll learn my way around and discover it's secrets quickly enough. I have several good utilities that let me see what's really going on in the OS.

Ther are two types of computer users - drivers and mechanics. Drivers just want to sit down at the computer and go. They don't know or care what's going on inside the OS, as long as it works. And the more the OS can protect them from their own foolishness, the better. Mechanics like to get "under the hood" of the OS. They want to know what does what, and how. They like to tinker, and see what they can make the OS do. I fall into the latter category, although I am more of a backyard mechanic, rather than a professional. It's my hobby. I can't do a lot physically, but my brain still works. Mostly.

Today's project is installing Linux and making the computer a dual-boot system. That'll keep me busy for a while.

It takes some time for people to fully understand the features and usefulness of a software like Vista. The same has happened to XP also.

It takes almost no time to realize that program you paid $50+ for won't work any longer!

I think I'll buy XP while I still can.

Vista has its strengths. Of course, those can be hijacked by baddies and used to their own ends.

When there's talk about how bad it is, I usually chime in that I don't like it, either. Sometimes, it can be quite difficult to work on, and of course, there are users who will make it more difficult.

For example - I worked on a Vista machine that suddenly decided to lose its Microsoft activation. Normally, this wouldn't be a serious problem, but I was in situ, as it were, and the user had AOL and dialup. Since he spends part of the year here and part in Arizona, he decided not to spend the money for a faster connection.

So, here's Windows offering to dial up and get the activation back, and the dialup not working because you can't sign in with AOL unless Windows is running. ::sigh::

So, to me, the real problem is: why did Vista lose its activation in the first place?

Whose idea was it that you have to tap the alt key to get the menu back? Whose brilliance decided that they'd change the location of things and the way Explorer works? Yes, you can get used to it.

I'm hoping that the next OS in the works dumbs Windows back down to XP levels.

And as usual the vendors want people to buy more computers, so they sell them cheap with 1/4 the RAM necessary to run Vista securely. (Two gig being the sweet spot) I worked on one the other day with 512mb.

I've had trouble with Spybot not being able to immunize, even when run as administrator. (So much new to learn!)

Overall, we have one computer in house with Vista and it's been trouble-free for about a half-year. It's a laptop running on only one gig of RAM and it seems to do OK, especially since Vista was designed to turn off features it doesn't think there are enough resources to handle.

Maybe I'll eventually warm up to Vista and maybe the next OS will be even stupider. I've always said that Microsoft should perfect one operating system before they move on to the next. Not much profit in that, though.

I don't usually install Zone Alarm on Vista so I can't report much experience with that, however I use Ad-Aware, Spybot, Spywareblaster, and AVG. I usually make an exclude in AVG so that the live part won't look in System Restore. I had too many hits from there and when fixing a computer I usually flush System Restore when I finish cleaning it anyway. But even after flushing System Restore I kept getting a lot of pop-ups (in XP) from System Restore. It really didn't like my "Utilities" folder, either, and since I have tons of them and don't want them damaged I had to exclude that, too.

If I had a new computer with Vista on it, I seriously doubt that I'd remove it and try to install XP. I'd be too worried that XP drivers for some of the new hardware would be difficult to find.