Vista is a BAD KITTY!!!

microsoft.public.windows.vista.general
comp.os.linux.advocacy

Consumer Report on Vista

My XP machine died suddenly, probably a component on the
system board fried. Sad, we been thru a lot together. I
didn't have time to fool with it so I boogied over to the
store and surveyed the offerings. 100% Vista. I got a low
end machine from Dell and started the process. I expected to
grit my teeth a bit, from all I've heard, but I had no idea
it would be this bad.

The choice of computer was rather funny. Out of about 50
models in the store, only two had the simple feature that the
case, down by the touchpad, has a rounded edge. So I selected
between the two. Why would any human design a human interface
with a sharp edge?

The store clerk said they had some of these in warehouse with
XP installed. I tried to get one but it was too difficult.

Vista

Notepad is its same old buggy self. Could it possibly be that
they don't know about the EOL/word wrap bug? Are they frankly
unable to fix it?

Paint has changed tho... but not for the better. The zoom
function used to be missing a zoom level, which existed but
could only be gotten at via a tortuous path thru the menus;
now the zoom function is actuated by a slidy handle that is
hard to work from a touchpad. Good grief, how much did it
cost them to make these changes?

What could have happened to the Up icon in Windoze Explorer?
Wow, of all the useful things to delete.

Why did they delete the search binoculars? So useful, opening
a search right at the current directory.

And they goofed up the Search function. Where's the box to
type in to find files with certain contents? Yumpin' Yiminy,
who decided this?

How to turn off all these glossy "improvements"? For
instance, in a Windows Explorer, the folder pane at the left;
when I don't wave my cursor over those folders, the little
indicators that tell whether they are expanded or not all
DISAPPEAR. Who in the land of the SANE would think such a
reduction useful, valuable or virtuous?

Where you used to get a little hourglass? Now it's a circle.
How does that relate to time? The message is supposed to be
"wait while time passes". Apple uses a little wristwatch, or
they did. This little circle - what does that represent? We
keep seeing icons that must mean something in other cultures.
What cultures think of time as a rolling donut?

Probably the WORST thing about Vista is the way it constantly
changes the folders view. I'm looking into a folder using
Windows Explorer. It shows me all the files and subfolders
with all their details. Then I navigate to a different place
and the view has now turned into an array of icons. Another
folder gives me small icons. Another one gives me details
again, but this time they are different wierd details. There
used to be a menu somewhere to make all folders like the
current one... yes, it's called "Folder Options" under the
Tools menu. Going to the View tab, there's a function that
says "You can apply the view that you are using for this
folder to all folders OF THIS TYPE. There's the rub. They've
decided that my - MY - data is now classified into folders of
different types. This isn't what's going to happen. The very
next folder I navigate to must be of a different type, for
its view is all different, even tho I just told the damn
thing to make them all the same.

When I go to choose details I see a list, there must be a
thousand different details now that can be chosen. Some of
them are: Album, #, 35mm focal length, Assistant's name,
Assistant's phone (I kid you not, Assistant's phone), File
as, E-mail3, Producers, Station call sign, Meeting status,
Mood, Mileage, Reminder time, Rerun, SAP, Spouse, Slides,
Store, Suffix, Anniversary, Telex, Year - just to mention a
few. Not even a SALESMAN could have thought this up.

Just to persue that last item a tad further... what if I
surrender and concede that tags like that MIGHT be useful. As
an engineer I'd want perhaps, Release Date. Quality.
Checking. Next Assy. Dwg No. Are those most useful items on
this most exhaustive list? No.


Where's the path? - answer, found after two weeks: if you
click on the folder icon at the far left of the stupid
structure thing at the top of the explorer window it turns
into a normal path, which doesn't persist as you navigate
around, but at least it's in there (when you don't want it
to, it DOES persist)


I've set it up so when I shut the lid it goes to sleep. I
shut the lid, come back 7 minutes later and the HD light is
running like crazy. All my windows have been closed, no data
saved, and Windoze has rebooted. Only the devil knows what
it's doing, Task Manager doesn't show it doing anything.

When did we get to be a society that revels in buggy software?


There's something wierd about the way Firefox works on Vista.
You often can't save a picture. You can do that just fine on
XP, right click pulls up a menu that includes "save picture
as". Vista is able to disable that somehow. More catering to
the copyright lawyers.


My wife migrated to Vista a year ago. And every time she
goeth to print something, Vista dasheth off to the internet
to get a new copy of the printer driver and installeth it.
Then it can't figure out which copy of the driver to use -
it's got about 20 copies of the same driver installed - and
it prints nothing. My wife has learned to budget time for
"swearing" every week as part of her lesson preparation. She
doesn't know how to swear, but she calls it that.


Vista doesn't seem to handle external drives very well. I use
an external drive for backup. I want to do my weekly backup,
and there isn't room on the external drive, so I delete the
oldest backup. Vista seems to be going thru it and analyzing
every file, meticulously deleting each one individually. XP
used to take 10 seconds to do this task. Vista is taking a
LONG, LONG time to do it. And while it's doing it, it's
presenting a banner with information that's not making sense.
It says it's deleting 377 items. It's deleting 511 items.
It's deleting 27 items. It's deleting 5,492 items. There's a
progress bar but it isn't showing any progress, just a ripple
running left to right over and over. I wonder how long this
is going to take? I have other things to do besides wait for
Microsoft to get their act together.

I started the delete at about 9:20. 9:55 - still cranking.
10:02 - still cranking. I decide to go do something else... I
bought a new viola, it needs some work. 10:23 - still
cranking. At 10:35 the screen is showing a new thing; Vista
has finally realized what its task is. To delete the damn
folder! Did I really want to? Wow, what brilliance. Once I
said yes to that, it started exercising the external drive in
EARNEST. The progress bar got a green section at the left
which slowly expanded toward the right. It kept estimating
about 5 seconds left for the operation. The green par
approacheth the right end. No, now it's backed away from it.
It's approaching it again. Backing away again. Keeps doing
that. Still 5 seconds remaining. Hmmm. I'll go back to work
on restringing my fiddle. 10:42 - progress! the time estimate
has now changed to 10 seconds.

There's a function, "Properties", which I can run on the
folder (the one I want to delete) and it tells me how many
files, how many subfolders, how much data DOWN TO THE BYTE is
in that folder, and it takes all of 5 seconds to do it. Why
could they not call that function and find out how big their
task be, and show a green bar from the start, how much
percent of that number they have deleted?

I believe I know the reason: honesty. Microsoft is basically
not honest. They don't believe in being honest with their
customers, and as a consequence they aren't able to be
completely honest even in estimates made by their programs.
They are handcuffed by office politics, to the point of
IMMOBILITY.

Now the green bar is all the way over to the right, within
ONE PIXEL from completion, and there's only 5 seconds left
(it's returned to that estimate now) and yet it looks like
it's only deleted 2G of the 13 total.

10:48 - five seconds remaining. Green bar is hovering near
the right end. External drive is really chattering away.

10:59 - five seconds remaining. Green bar is hovering near
the right end. External drive is chattering away.

11:05 - green bar has now reached the absolute right end,
last white pixel has turned green. Just 5 seconds remaining!
Woops, white pixels came back. About 3 of them. Gone again.
Back again.

11:08 finished. Wow, is there anything Vista can't do? Oops,
wait, haven't begun to do the actual BACKUP yet.

Funny thing, there was only about 20G of space on the
external drive, and I have about 30G of files to backup,
that's why I deleted the 15G folder. Now that it's gone,
there is still only about 28G of free space. What's Vista up
to, is it putting "system" crap on my external drive?

So I have to delete another folder. This time, trying Shift-
delete with the folder selected - bypasses the Recycle bin.
Now, it's looking more honest, it says this is going to take
35 minutes, and the green bar is looking honest as it
progresses slowly. One problem: there was no confirmation
dialog here, it went right to work, permanently deleting
these files.

Why should it take 90 minutes to shift a few links so that
files are located in the Avail list?

11:18 - 30 minutes left. 11:29 - 19 minutes left. Wow,
accuracy!

11:36 - 14 minutes left.

11:56 - it's done, don't know when. I was out in back,
picking peas.

Now, we're ready to back up. The estimate is 10.5 hours to
copy 30G. WHAT????

I thought that the USB ports on this dumbell Dell were high-
speed USB 2.0

(Some checking reveals that they are)

1:55 - 8 hours left eta 10 pm

2:30 - 11 hours left. The external drive isn't clattering
steadily, which means that Vista is taking a lot of time
figuring out what to do next.

This isn't working out.

It looks like if the copying window isn't on top, the task
stops. It's now 3:00 and the time remaining is 11:19.

Another thing to try - switch off the wireless interface.
NOW, the backup process is proceeding by leaps and bounds.
After 2 minutes elapsed, the time remaining is 10 hours.
We've done 1:19 in 2 minutes. Now the time is down to 9:10.
To 8:44 in less than a minute. What the sam hill were they
doing, reporting to the lads in Bellingham what I'm backing
up? COPYING it to them?

The external drive shouldn't have to clatter if the data is
rolling in smoothly...

3:47 - 6:53 left (eta, 9:40)
4:34 - 4:51 left (eta, 9:20)

This thing is only running at 6 million bits per second.


Know what would be really good right now? A pause button.
There ain't none. This is Vista, remember? It's NOT the
pinnacle of experience all the way from DOS thru XP. It's the
sales dept. that designed this one, fresh from square one
again, only this time with lovely curtain looking graces.


"This folder is empty" is the helpful notice you get if you
look in an empty folder. How does this add value, wouldn't
the lack of anything there clue most people in?

Well, maybe the helpful notice is an additional confirmation
that what you're seeing is what is? No. Try moving the
folder using one explorer window while you have it open in
another. The notice now says "This folder is empty" - it's
not empty, it's gone. The helpful notice is bogus.


The icon for the Start Menu is now a great big blue ball with
a quadripartate flag in it. Problem is it's too big and it
won't resize. I like to put my quicklunch bar over to the
side instead of the bottom. I don't need text titles to
recognize the various items I have open, an icon is
sufficient, and this saves on screen area. I want to resize
the quick lunch bar/system tray smaller and it's bumping up
against the size of that big ol' Ball. Somebody thought their
corporate flagship icon more important that actual usage.
What a suite of fools!


Vista keeps trying to update itself with unknown, undescribed
patches. "You don't NEED to know what we're going to install
on your computer" is apparently the way Microsoft sees it.
During sleep or hibernation it will wake itself up and start
doing updates... I haven't given permission. Every 24 hours
it opens a window and asks me if I want to update now. I tell
it to ask again after another 24 hours. There's no more
lengthy choice. Best of all would be to turn this off
altogether. How?

How hard would it be for a hacker to pop open a window that
said Windoze Update Time, click OK, Trust Me!

Oh, finally it decided I'm just not interested in its damned
"updates" and it has stopped asking.


During hibernation it's still got an LED on, using up the
battery... not sure it's hibernating. I'm certain I
commanded it to hibernate.


DSL link has become frozen. Status shows zero data flow.
Vista thinks there's absolutely nothing wrong.

Irritations Solved:

After a week of constant use I finally found something they
improved! the plus / minus / multiply / divide signs on the
calculator are now readable. It's been what, 18 years or
something with those inscrutable little boogers?

Command Prompt can be gotten at from any directory ("open
command prompt here".) This however was available in XP, as a
separate utility (free, as I understand)

So much for Irritations Solved; back to Just Plain
Irritations.

How to get rid of the folder view at the left of the explorer
window? I don't hate it; I just don't always want it. The
helpful Micro Soft brains have decided I DO want it and I'm
going to HAVE it, they know better than me. But what if I
don't want it? XP used to have an X so I could turn it off.

OK, somewhere I found the control that would close it.
Where's the control that opens it? What would have been wrong
with a small triangle in the corner?


Can't access certain areas... can't move files to the
desktop... whose computer is this?


Closed the lid. When I opened the lid 3 minutes later,
Windoze had rebooted or something. All my open windows were
gone. I THINK I had everything saved, but I can't even
remember all the stuff I had open let alone if I saved it
all. MAN I miss the previous system.

At first I thought this computer is a piece of junk. But I
began to realize the hardware doesn't really have much wrong
with it. It's the operating system.


Accidently dropped a folder into the wrong place. Hit cancel.
Cancel took a long time. After it was done, folder was not in
the original place. I have no idea where it went.


The taskbar is now an ugly black with a grey stripe. How to
change that? - actually it's translucent, change the color of
the desktop. However, it's buggy, doesn't retain the desktop
color if a window, being maximized, covers all the desktop.
Surely somebody should have noticed that by now? But would
MicroSoft have the agility to fix it anytime soon?


There's an icon "Google Desktop" on my system tray. it won't
delete; any manipulation just opens it. Aren't Google and
Microsoft supposed to be at war? But here's Microsoft
providing platform for something of Google's. Maybe it's like
Jerry Fletcher sez: at some levels they're at war, on other
levels they are the same!

What happened to the encryption function in Compressed
Folders? It's gone. The help files are somewhat disingenuous.
They say to consult the Winzip company. Winzip sez to add
passwords you have to buy Winzip, "Compressed Folders" does
not have that function in Vista. Sounds like they might have
made Microsoft back down from using their technology or
something. Their current version has 256-bit AES encryption
tho. Previous versions had some trifling little algorithm,
which was the encryption in XP "Compressed Folders". So it's
good to find that out anyway... If you encrypt something in
XP "Compressed Folders" it will take somebody about 1 minute
to open it.


Sound recorder has been gutted. Now it only records off the
microphone. uSoft is dancing to the demands of the record
companies. Sometimes you just wish you knew some dirty words.
What if somebody wants to record something that isn't
copyrighted? I wonder if sndrec.exe, found in the system32
directory of XP, would work under Vista?

Ho, ho, yes it does. No it doesn't. When YouTube is playing,
Sound Recorder claims that another application is recording,
so it can't. DANG.


XP used to have things organized under users. Each user (of
which there was just one on my computer) had his own desktop,
"My Documents", settings, etc. Under Vista, this seems to be
goofed up, and files are scattered around, not sure WHERE all
my files are winding up; there seems to be this thing called
"Owner" but it isn't consistent. I've selected it, and the
folder view shows it has a bunch of subfolders; but the
contents window is showing blank. Sometimes it shows yak
poop.


Now, here's something novel. Paint used to work very well,
never crashed. The new version crashes. And when it does,
Vista gives you a banner that says "Paint has stopped
working." And it's "checking for a solution." Can't find one,
tho. Any competent programmer could write this over, from
scratch, bug-free. So it kills Paint, and then restarts
Paint - without my drawing. I had JUST SAVED this complex
drawing, so I didn't do what I thought of doing if it had
lost it.


After a shutdown and reboot, Vista has rearranged the
taskbar, including the order of my quick start icons.


Now, Vista has taken to pausing. I'm running a program, and I
start it doing something, like delete a section of waveform,
and I get the rotating donut. It goes for several minutes. A
check of Task Manager shows that nothing else is running. No
process is getting any time except the background idle
process. No bytes are moving over the wireless interface. And
yet, I wait. Very frustrating, to lose control of my own
computer in this way.

_____________________________

Evaluation of Vista: Three Thumbs Down. I don't see any
significant improvements; the vast majority of the changes
seem to be cosmetic (and not all that likeable) - or else
reductions of functionality.

I'm in the market for a new operating system.

I've heard that businesses are strongly hesitating to migrate
to Vista. I can well understand that. I think that if they do
migrate to it, they will suffer a 10 to 50 percent decrease
in productivity.

There's a few employees whose productivity won't be affected
- those who know nothing about computers anyway, and don't
care; all they do is go to meetings and talk about golf.

I think M$ has a bunch of those.

It's time to migrate to Linux, or maybe I'll roll my own.

What's that you say? Well, why not? What's so hard about
writing an operating system?

OK, I've solved the problem for now. A friend of mine repairs
computers for a living, and he had the installation disks for
Windows XP, same version that my previous computer (the one
that died) had. Repartioned the disk to use all of it.
(Vista had about 30% of my HD reserved for a system restore,
which DID NOT WORK by the way.) Installed XP, and fed it the
code off the bottom of the old computer, got Microsoft's
website to agree to it over the net, and I'm up and running,
legal and everything. Some of the device drivers were unknown
to XP because this computer was created after XP was; went to
the Dell website and got 'em. Two hours and the Vista problem
is SOLVED. No more Vista. Hurray!!!


Back to the little boogers of +-*/ on the calculator. I
wonder how hard it would be to find (or create) a real
calculator? Wireless works perfect. Never has a problem. No
unnamed, undescribed, daily "updates". Backups: workin' nice.
Start menu is sized nice. No sign of any 4-part flag. What
was that anyway? Wife still "swears" when she prints, but I
try not to smirk. I move files, I delete files, files are
happy. My files!

No sign of any Google Desktop fop thing, whatever it was. I
can save pics from Firefox. When I turn the antichrist off it
STAYS off. Can't hibernate yet, but usage shows that's not
all that crucial a feature. This machine boots almost as fast
as the last one would unhibernate. Path is sweetly visible.
Folder views stay where I put 'em. Time passes with a nice,
intuitive hourglass.

No wavy curtain effects, but the plus sign folder subs don't
disappear. Got the UP icon back. Got the Find binoculars
back. Can Find on file contents. Paint's back to the missing
zoom control but it never CRASHES. Notepad is still buggy.
How cute!

AND it still has a nice rounded edge on the case where my
hand rests.


One caveat, Dell's driver for the wireless card in this new
computer doesn't work with XP, it's written for Vista. So for
the present I don't have a wireless connection. Seems a bit
dumb to not be backwards compatible, with a dog like Vista as
your vehicle. Oh, well, so what. Between having the
internet AND Vista, or neither... how long do I have to
think about it?


Update: got the wireless working. Dell was very, very
helpful, and sympathetic too, even tho they have stated they
don't support backscatter to XP from Vista.

In a few years XP will no longer serve. Too many new
applications won't work on it; and at that point I'll go to
Linux, or a solution like that. I hear that MacOS never has
problems. I've heard that from more than one user. I've
decided that Microsoft is not going to get another penny of
money from me. It's just that simple.

If I write a new operating system it will be immune to
viruses, like a bulldozer is immune to gophers. And there
will be provisions to keep my company from being poisoned
by too much money.

Cheers!

Wood

On Thu, 19 Feb 2009 20:13:35 -0600, Woody Brison <>
wrote:

> Consumer Report on Vista

Whoa! Now I know why Microsoft is getting desperate. My wife is getting a
new computer. A Dell Optiplex with Vista. Before I would even consider it,
I made sure the XP drivers were available on Dell's site for her model of
computer (Optiplex 360). They are. I considered paying the extra $100 to
"downgrade" to XP, but decided that I didn't need to pay another $99 in
Microsoft tax. I'll probably just "downgrade' it myself with a Dell OEM XP
disk.

--
RonB
"There's a story there...somewhere"

Woody Brison <> wrote:

> Vista
>
> Notepad is its same old buggy self. Could it possibly be that
> they don't know about the EOL/word wrap bug? Are they frankly
> unable to fix it?

I hardly use Notepad, but I wonder if the e-mail client in Vista is
insane when it comes to wrapping pasted lines, like the horribly
frustrating spacing used for text pasted to Outlook Express in XP
and prior consumer versions of Windows.

After takin' a swig o' grog, Woody Brison belched out
this bit o' wisdom:

> Consumer Report on Vista
>
> My XP machine died suddenly, probably a component on the
> system board fried. Sad, we been thru a lot together. I
> didn't have time to fool with it so I boogied over to the
> store and surveyed the offerings. 100% Vista. I got a low
> end machine from Dell and started the process. I expected to
> grit my teeth a bit, from all I've heard, but I had no idea
> it would be this bad.
>
> <snip>

You have far more patience than I would have.

I might try Win 7 when it comes out, if the buzz is that it is a lot better
than Vista. And if they make us try it at work.

Otherwise, <cough> I like Linux.

--
The trouble with heart disease is that the first symptom is often hard to
deal with: death.
-- Michael Phelps

"RonB" <> wrote in message
news...
> On Thu, 19 Feb 2009 20:13:35 -0600, Woody Brison <>
> wrote:
>
>> Consumer Report on Vista
>
> Whoa! Now I know why Microsoft is getting desperate. My wife is getting a
> new computer. A Dell Optiplex with Vista. Before I would even consider
> it, I made sure the XP drivers were available on Dell's site for her
> model of computer (Optiplex 360). They are. I considered paying the
> extra $100 to "downgrade" to XP, but decided that I didn't need to pay
> another $99 in Microsoft tax.


> I'll probably just "downgrade' it myself with a Dell OEM XP disk.

Another "advocate" who can't even convince his own wife to use Linux.

On Feb 19, 10:48*pm, FBonWin7b1x64 <f...@gyv.ntt> wrote:

> Those of us intelligent enough to be able to properly install, configure
> and run Vista know for a fact that Vista is the very best OS available
> today.

You can have my copy

On Fri, 20 Feb 2009 17:33:45 -0600, FBonWin7b1x64 <> wrote:

> Woody Brison wrote:
>> On Feb 19, 10:48 pm, FBonWin7b1x64 <f...@gyv.ntt> wrote:
>>
>>> Those of us intelligent enough to be able to properly install,
>>> configure
>>> and run Vista know for a fact that Vista is the very best OS available
>>> today.
>> You can have my copy
>
> Going back to etch-a-sketch huh?
> Figures.

Isn't it time for you hourly reboot?

--
RonB
"There's a story there...somewhere"

On Feb 20, 8:26*am, chrisv <chr...@nospam.invalid> wrote:
> Woody Brison wrote:
> >Paint has changed tho... but not for the better. The zoom
> >function used to be missing a zoom level, which existed but
> >could only be gotten at via a tortuous path thru the menus;
> >now the zoom function is actuated by a slidy handle that is
> >hard to work from a touchpad. *Good grief, how much did it
> >cost them to make these changes?
>
> At least it **finally** will save as .jpg, instead of freaking .bmp.

Huh? I open MS Paint in XP. I size the drawing area, grab
the paintbrush, doodle a while with various colors. Now, menu
File/Save... a dialog opens, at the bottom is a pull-down menu
with 8 different choices, including .bmp, .jpg, .gif, etc. It's
been that way ever since I can remember... maybe ten years? thru
the various incarnations of Windows.

Wood

On Feb 19, 11:59 pm, Erik Funkenbusch <e...@despam-funkenbusch.com>
wrote:
> On Thu, 19 Feb 2009 18:13:35 -0800 (PST), Woody Brison wrote:
> > grit my teeth a bit, from all I've heard, but I had no idea
> > it would be this bad.
>
> Obviously, since it isn't.

It isn't as bad as it is?

> > between the two. Why would any human design a human interface
> > with a sharp edge?
>
> How is that Vista's fault?

I didn't say or hint that it was Vista's, did I

However, it is a systemic problem. It's called Stupidity. If
we are going to survive as a society, we're going to have to
find solutions to this systemic problem.

> > Notepad is its same old buggy self. Could it possibly be that
> > they don't know about the EOL/word wrap bug? Are they frankly
> > unable to fix it?
>
> I assume you mean when loading unix files into notepad. This is not a bug.
> At worst it lacks the feature of auto-converting line-feed only to cr-lf
> (which is the standard in Windows and DOS). Notepad is a simplistic
> editor, with only basic features because it's essentially just a textbox
> wrapped in an application.

No, nothing to do with Unix, and it sure as damnation is a
bug. I open Notepad (this in XP now) I type for a while.
Random letters, lots of them, with mucho spaces. Like words.
I have a long line in there, it reflows or wraps to what
looks like about six lines on the screen. Notepad is set to
wrap to the window. Now, I save the file as xyz.txt. Now, I
move the left margin of the notepad window, to resize it
narrower. Now, I save it again (just hit ctrl-S). Now, resize
it again, wider. Now, when I resize again, Notepad has broken
my long line into six short lines. Unix not involved. Text
generated within Notepad, on the keyboard, by user who's not
doing anything but typing letters and spaces on the keyboard.

> > Paint has changed tho... but not for the better. The zoom
> > function used to be missing a zoom level, which existed but
> > could only be gotten at via a tortuous path thru the menus;
> > now the zoom function is actuated by a slidy handle that is
> > hard to work from a touchpad. Good grief, how much did it
> > cost them to make these changes?
>
> It's not particularly difficult to use a slider with a touchpad. Sliders
> work like scrollbars in that you can click in the "trough" and it will move
> one "step", no need to click and hold. Or, you can click once and use the
> arrow keys.

Nice to hear. There was nothing to indicate this. User
interface with hidden features... gnarly, IOW.

> > What could have happened to the Up icon in Windoze Explorer?
> > Wow, of all the useful things to delete.
>
> The vista method works better. It allows you to move up more than one
> level if you want. clicking the breadcrumb for the next level up is the
> same as clicking up. Why do you need it to be specifically an up arrow?
> Alt-Up arrow also works.

Hmmm, maybe I should have tried every possible key
combination and see what nifty hidden up-arrow tricks would
have done other stuff, too. Let's see, alt / ctrl / shift /
fn / windows = 5, times 76 other keys is 380 key combinations
to try. Odd that I didn't immediately start hunting thru them.

> > Why did they delete the search binoculars? So useful, opening
> > a search right at the current directory.
>
> Because there's that big search text box in the upper left that does the
> same thing? Why have a button for something that is already there?

I don't remember this clearly, since deleting Vista it's sort
of receded, like a bad dream. I do remember trying that
function and being quite irritated and disappointed. I don't
believe there was any file contents search option.

> > And they goofed up the Search function. Where's the box to
> > type in to find files with certain contents? Yumpin' Yiminy,
> > who decided this?
>
> It's still there. Apart from clicking the advanced search, there's also
> the search operators. See this:
>
> http://windowsteamblog.com/blogs/win...anced-search-t...

I tried the advanced search options. And I didn't know about
windowsteamblog.com, how would I

> > Where you used to get a little hourglass? Now it's a circle.
> > How does that relate to time? The message is supposed to be
> > "wait while time passes". Apple uses a little wristwatch, or
> > they did. This little circle - what does that represent? We
> > keep seeing icons that must mean something in other cultures.
> > What cultures think of time as a rolling donut?
>
> Most cultures don't have donuts. Still, kind of a nitpicky argument, don't
> you think?

It's a deep philosophical point. Software developers
targeting a market, choose icons that mean nothing to the
people they are targeting. It's that systemic problem
again.

But let's skip the nitpicking then, and just address
significant items from here on down.

> > Probably the WORST thing about Vista is the way it constantly
> > changes the folders view.
>
> This is a known bug, that MANY people have complained about. It is
> annoying. However, it's not the fact that it changes views, the problem is
> that it often picks the wrong view and doesn't remember when you've changed
> it to something else.

I thought it was just doing what it was programmed to do.

<snip>
>... you can click in any whitespace are
> and it will show up also.

I did better than that. I erased the WHOLE DADGUM OPERATING
SYSTEM and replaced it with one that I know how to work, one
where I can work fast with little stress.

> > I've set it up so when I shut the lid it goes to sleep. I
> > shut the lid, come back 7 minutes later and the HD light is
> > running like crazy. All my windows have been closed, no data
> > saved, and Windoze has rebooted. Only the devil knows what
> > it's doing, Task Manager doesn't show it doing anything.
>
> Sounds like it installed automatic updates.

Right. After I explicitly instructed it not to do that, and
without any indication in the Task Manager. IOW, they do not
consider it a good idea to be honest with the owner of the
computer.

I once worked at a place where computer theft was defined as
any activity done on a computer without the permission of the
owner of that computer.

<snip>
> > My wife migrated to Vista a year ago. And every time she
> > goeth to print something, Vista dasheth off to the internet
> > to get a new copy of the printer driver and installeth it.
> > Then it can't figure out which copy of the driver to use -
> > it's got about 20 copies of the same driver installed - and
> > it prints nothing. My wife has learned to budget time for
> > "swearing" every week as part of her lesson preparation. She
> > doesn't know how to swear, but she calls it that.
>
> This is not a feature of Vista. Vista doesn't update drivers when you
> print. Obviouisly this is a feature of the printer driver, and obviously
> it doesn't work right. Blame the printer vendor.

That doesn't make any sense. Going out and getting a new copy
of the printer driver is not something a printer driver would
do, on any planet.

<snip>
> > Know what would be really good right now? A pause button.
> > There ain't none. This is Vista, remember? It's NOT the
> > pinnacle of experience all the way from DOS thru XP. It's the
> > sales dept. that designed this one, fresh from square one
> > again, only this time with lovely curtain looking graces.
>
> Can you name a single OS that has a pause button on the file copy GUI? No?
> So why complain that it's missing in Vista?

I often see this rhetorical construction. Asking a question
and not waiting for the answer, but supplying one (the one
you wish were the case.) It can turn out to be a bad
strategy.

Firefox has a file transfer pause button on their download
control/status window. Itunes has one on their download
control area. These work incredibly well, and they are not
exactly arcane or unknown.

> > "This folder is empty" is the helpful notice you get if you
> > look in an empty folder. How does this add value, wouldn't
> > the lack of anything there clue most people in?
>
> More nitpicking.

When you look into a milk jug and it's empty, do you need a
notice on the side that says "when this jug is empty, that
means there's nothing in it" ?

The whole Vista paradigm is completely ill. It basically
says, You The User Are Stupid, and that basic premise is
behind every vain superfluous line of code designed to fix
the users' stupidity with something stupider than the user is
supposed to be.

They've got these lacy, elegant sweeps of what look like
sheer curtains. The only thing missing is that they would
waft in the breeze. Perish the thought of their wretched OS
actually working.

> > Well, maybe the helpful notice is an additional confirmation
> > that what you're seeing is what is? No. Try moving the
> > folder using one explorer window while you have it open in
> > another. The notice now says "This folder is empty" - it's
> > not empty, it's gone. The helpful notice is bogus.
>
> Refresh issue. Not like every other OS doesn't have that problem too.

XP doesn't.

<snip>

Regarding automatic updates:

I've worked on, oh, twenty or thirty OS's. Not kidding, after
I wrote that I made a list of 24 right off the top of my head.
This is the first one I've ever seen with this particular
insanity - "we're going to install some patches to the OS,
without telling you what they are, or asking your
permission." Now that I think of it, our XP machines at work do this
also, but I think that's the IT dept.'s doing.

SOFTWARE UPGRADE in the middle of a project has torpedoed
more projects than rabbits have baby rabbits.

> > DSL link has become frozen. Status shows zero data flow.
> > Vista thinks there's absolutely nothing wrong.
>
> How precisely would it know the difference between no data being sent, and
> your connection begin frozen?

The OS offers a function titled "debug the link", if that's
invoked it could send a message to somewhere, and depending
on the response, deduce whether the link was up or not. XP on
my previous machine used to do exactly that. Or, it could
just open a banner that says, "it's all working fine, yup
yup" like Vista does.

<snip>
> > At first I thought this computer is a piece of junk. But I
> > began to realize the hardware doesn't really have much wrong
> > with it. It's the operating system.
>
> The majority of these problems are not the OS. They're either your
> unwillingness to accept change or your inability to do the same things that
> worked in XP, but you just want to complain about them in Vista.

For the last 30 years, I've been designing high-reliability
computers and peripherals for the military and for
spacecraft, where bugs and problems have to be fixed before
it's shipped. It's a little odd to see many bugs, report them,
and be told I don't know what the heck I'm talking about.

Good to see you trying, tho, to step back and scope the big
picture. Keep trying.

<snip>
> > The taskbar is now an ugly black with a grey stripe. How to
> > change that? - actually it's translucent, change the color of
> > the desktop. However, it's buggy, doesn't retain the desktop
> > color if a window, being maximized, covers all the desktop.
> > Surely somebody should have noticed that by now? But would
> > MicroSoft have the agility to fix it anytime soon?
>
> It's not buggy, it's by design.

Wow, that's like saying "we're proud of our unfixable code
swamp." Works for parents of little kids who are proud of
their finger painting, doesn't rhyme for paying customers
with a brain.

>... The idea was that if you've maximized the
> window then it should not distract you with translucency. There was a lot
> of discussion on this on the Microsoft blogs. In Windows 7 they changed it
> and frankly, it's one of the things I dislike.

Doesn't bother me in the slightest. I deleted the whole OS
and installed something else.

> > What happened to the encryption function in Compressed
> > Folders? It's gone.
>
> No, it's still there.

Nope.

Your turn. Say "yes it is" and I'll say "no it isn't. Which
one of us was the eyewitness tho.

> > The help files are somewhat disingenuous.
> > They say to consult the Winzip company. Winzip sez to add
> > passwords you have to buy Winzip, "Compressed Folders" does
> > not have that function in Vista.
>
> Sounds like they've installed something that overrides Vista's folders and
> you're using some 3rd party product.

Per the Windows help files, per Winzip Corp, and per actual
trial, it was not available in Vista. How did this mysterious
3P product modify the Windows help files ?

<snipo>
> I've never seen Paint crash. The more you talk about things, the more it
> sounds like you've got bad memory or a flaky motherboard.

So let's see here:

They changed Paint and the OS; now, Paint crashes. (One user
asserts he's never seen it crash. Data point noted)

What could a motherboard or memory problem do that would
crash Paint and nothing else?

Erasing Vista and the new Paint, installing XP and the old
Paint makes Paint work fine.

Flaky motherboard/bad memory is pretty much ruled out.

Bad memory should be caught by the OS anyway, either by
background testing or checksum interrupt; should be handled
by a message explaining the memory error, not "Paint has
stopped working." And, it's "checking for a solution." And,
"can't find one." What this means is that they saw it
crashing, therefore the message was put in place, but they
have NO IDEA why it crashes.

> > After a shutdown and reboot, Vista has rearranged the
> > taskbar, including the order of my quick start icons.
>
> This is usually the fault of some third party extension that causes Windows
> to kill explorer rather than close it when things shutdown.

Right. There are 3PE's running on my computer without my
knowledge. I want to know what they are, what they are doing,
and if I don't like them I want to hit 'em with a cattle
prod, along with whoever installed them. Are we getting this
understood? I am the owner of the computer.

> > Now, Vista has taken to pausing. I'm running a program, and I
> > start it doing something, like delete a section of waveform,
> > and I get the rotating donut. It goes for several minutes. A
> > check of Task Manager shows that nothing else is running. No
> > process is getting any time except the background idle
> > process. No bytes are moving over the wireless interface. And
> > yet, I wait. Very frustrating, to lose control of my own
> > computer in this way.
>
> Again, this is not normal behavior.

Couldn't agree with you more. You wouldn't dream of hopping
in Bill Gate's beamer and driving it wherever you feel like,
then maybe let him drive it a little when you're done.

It's well known that Task Manager doesn't work very well,
does not give an accurate report of CPU cycles. And how long
has this been known? A decade, at least. Fixed yet? Hmmm.

> > Evaluation of Vista: Three Thumbs Down. I don't see any
> > significant improvements; the vast majority of the changes
> > seem to be cosmetic (and not all that likeable) - or else
> > reductions of functionality.
>
> Actually, many of them are additional functionality, like the ability to
> move more than one level up in explorer, but you incorrectly view as
> "reduced". The old functionality is there, just accessed a different way
> and additional functionality is present.

It sort of looks to me like you've never sat in front of a
computer very much. After a year you think you understand it,
but ready to correct people who've done it for 40 years?

Don't do this in Karate.

> > (Vista had about 30% of my HD reserved for a system restore,
> > which DID NOT WORK by the way.) Installed XP, and fed it the
> > code off the bottom of the old computer, got Microsoft's
> > website to agree to it over the net, and I'm up and running,
> > legal and everything.
>
> Actually, no. It's not legal. You are not allowed to transfer an OEM copy
> of XP from one computer to another. Only retail copies have that right.
> I'm sure you don't really care, but your claim that it's "legal and
> everything" is incorrect.

No, I do care, but Microsoft authorized this, so your free
legal advice is incorrect. I beg you to be a little more
careful with your test accusations, some people don't take
libel lightly.

> Now we find the "clues" that this is a fabrication.

Why the " marks. Do you mean they aren't very real?

> > Wireless works perfect. Never has a problem.
>
> ...
>
> > One caveat, Dell's driver for the wireless card in this new
> > computer doesn't work with XP, it's written for Vista. So for
> > the present I don't have a wireless connection.
>
> How exactly does the Wireless work perfect, and then you claim you don't
> have wireless? Can't keep your stories straight?

At first, the wireless function didn't work. Then, after I
fixed it, it did. It worked, and it didn't. Both statements
are perfectly true. Altho I did get them out of order a
little. My mistake.

> You aren't by any chance Kelsey or Rasker in disguise, are you?

Never heard of 'em. Are they as astute as your question
hints?

Wood