I've been running Vista on one of my two center PCs since the July CTP, and it was reasonable as a server. Oh, sure, every month when you got an upgrade, you had to completely re-setup your channels and your tuner (including at RTM). Thanks! But at least it recorded TV. Except when it didn't. Things got pretty good by RC2 - it only occasionally had a "tuner is busy" error that required a reboot. Other than that, things seemed OK. Of course, I didn't use it day to day.
So I got Vista mania last night, and in a fit of "hey, it's shipped, let's get upgrading" installed the RTM version on both my Media Center PCs, my Dell XPS laptop from last year, and my main machine (my Alienware ALX kick-butt machine from Christmas). Emboldened, I even installed the RTM version of Office 2007 on my main machine.
How do I describe the experience? Well, I think with a lot of "Thanks!"
After setup grinding for 15 minutes to tell me that Roxio is a problem and I have to uninstall it, setup then exits and then makes me start it over, so it can grind for another 15 minutes again. Thanks!
User Account Control is the first thing you get smacked between the eyes with after the multi-hour install process is over. How to describe it? Hmmm. How about like lines of dialogue:
- Craig: double click on some software. Vista: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! YOU CLICKED ON SOMETHING!!!!!!!!! DID YOU MEAN IT???
- Craig: run something from the control panel. Vista: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! YOU CLICKED ON SOMETHING!!!!!!!!! DID YOU MEAN IT???
- Craig: try to turn off user account control. Vista: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! YOU CLICKED ON SOMETHING!!!!!!!!! DID YOU MEAN IT???
And as an added bonus once you turn off the AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! feature, you have your desktop going AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! YOU TURNED OFF THE AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! feature every time you reboot. And you are in a constant state of "RED" for security problems for not having the AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! feature turned on.
Double thanks!
Then there's hardware:
- Printing? Nahhh, all my network printers magically don't work any more. Go hunt for some drivers and re-install, Chester. Good luck to you. Who needs to print, anyway? Just memorize whatever you need, you lazy bum. Thanks!
- Sound card support? Nahhh. No one buys Soundblasters any more. Especially a card from almost a year ago. Besides, I'm not visually impaired, so why would I need audio, too? Thanks!
Then there's software. Let's start with Microsoft software, shall we? After all, it's their OS, their software. Oh, right, good freakin' luck.
- Microsoft Word 2007, crashes on start. Over and over. I'm uninstalling Office 2007 as I type this. Thanks!
- Microsoft Visual Studio 2005, tons of issues. Really cool, since the November RTM is for corporate customers. Just not corporations with IT shops. Thanks!
- Microsoft Shell/IE: Try to get to an FTP site. Go on, try. First, do a "run" of ftp://ftp.foo.com. Vista launches IE, which then tells you you can't display the web page. Yeah, that ftp:// is super confusing to parse, I understand. Same thing if you type it into the address bar of IE. This has worked since what, Windows 95 or 98? Oh wait, it turns out that if you go to "View" you see "Open FTP site in Windows explorer". So IE even KNOWS its an FTP site, it just does the wrong thing anyway. Thanks!
My blogging software, RocketPost, can't open a post or create a new post any more. So I'm typing this entry in Notepad. Thanks!
And this is after only 5 hours.
Thanks!!
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