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Is Vista a Trap?

Posted by Zonk on from the please-keep-ackbar-quotes-to-a-minimum dept.

logube writes "BBC has up an article about the trap of installing Vista in your existing desktop. Written by Tim Weber, a self-confessed 'sucker for technology,' this article is a good introduction to the pain and extra money required to get going with the newest version of Windows. See how you can spend an extra 130 british pounds, and still have no working webcam! Says Weber, 'It took me one day to get online. The detail is tedious and highly technical: reinstalling drivers and router firmware didn't work, but after many trial and error tweaks to Vista's TCP/IP settings, I had internet access. Once online, Creative's website told me that my sound card was a write-off. No Vista support would be forthcoming.'"

10 of 559 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Does Vista have anything we need? by mastershake_phd · · Score: 5, Informative

    Directx 10. They could have put out an XP version. (of course that doesnt sell CDs) You will need DX10 for upcoming games. Security updates (there still must be holes). Besides that I say wait as long as you can.

    --
    Libertarian Leaning Political Discussion Forum.
  2. My Vista Install by Rycross · · Score: 5, Informative

    Burn the MSDN image, grab RAID drivers for my onboard RAID, put the drivers on my USB key, then boot the Vista install disk. Go through the usual setup with the drivers. Reboot. All hardware is auto-detected and drivers installed except for my Creative Audigy 2 sound card. Pull the drivers from their site and install. Update nVidia drivers while I'm at it. Works great, no problems.

  3. And this is news how? by MarcoAtWork · · Score: 5, Informative

    win98 -> 2000, lots of problems with lack of drivers for older hardware
    2000 -> XP still problems with lack of drivers for older hardware (although maybe not as many)
    XP -> Vista well, what do you think?

    --
    -- the cake is a lie
  4. Re:throwing up my hands by ivan256 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Except that Linux has had practically universal network and soundcard support for years. Even if the network hardware only has Windows 2000 binary drivers, you could load them with the NDIS module...

    It used to be that if you wanted all of your hardware to work, you ran Windows. Looks like the tables have turned.

  5. Re:A Trap for Idiots by SDF-7 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Wow, completely missed the section of the article where he clearly says he *ran* said Upgrade adviser (which is what led to a Graphics card update among a few other things) but that he later still had problems with unsupported/non-functional hardware the adviser didn't give a peep about, huh? Give you a hint... second part of the article after "A blunt message"... starts with "But this was probably not enough, so I downloaded Microsoft's Vista Upgrade Advisor."

    Sheesh.

  6. Re:Starting to annoy... by FunWithKnives · · Score: 4, Informative

    ... doesn't have a single decent image-browser ...

    Gwenview, Picasa...

    ... dc++ client ...

    Is in production. Check the CVS for latest builds.

    ... office suite ...

    I really don't understand why you included this. OpenOffice.org, KOffice, AbiWord; all more than comparable to MS Word.

    ... Not to mention decent looking fonts ...

    In Debian based distros, sudo apt-get install msttcorefonts. Rather simple. Other distros have packages of their own.

    In short, I'm under the impression that you haven't really tried to use a modern Linux distro for more than the five minutes it took you to stereotype it, say, "This sucks because it's not what I'm used to!", and go back to Windows.

    --
    "We may face a scorched and lifeless earth, but they're accountable to their shareholders first."
  7. Re:throwing up my hands by omicronish · · Score: 5, Informative

    Every time there is news like this the fanboys shout 'you shoulda known' and 'get new hardware'. I have a better idea. Let's call Vista not an upgrade but a wholesale replacement of your computer and many of your applications. Most of your data will work in the new system but that's about it.

    No - Vista is barely less of an upgrade than switching from XP to a Mac.

    Sure, so what hardware and software did you have to replace?

    Amount I've had to spend in addition to purchasing Vista: $0. I built my AMD Athlon 2700+, 1 GB RAM, Radeon 9800 Pro in 2003 (hardly new). All my software and scenarios work, including:

    • Visual Studio 2005, including debugging without UAC prompts
    • Subversion, TortoiseSVN
    • Foxit Reader
    • Paint.NET
    • Nasa's World Wind
    • ffdshow, Xvid codecs
    • VLC
    • Civilization 1 (for Windows 3.1), 2, and 4 (I don't have 3), Quake 1 through 4, Guild Wars, Baldur's Gate 1 and 2, SimTower, SimCity 200, SimCity 4, Age of Empires 2, WarCraft 3, Diablo 1 and 2, and others. In fact, I don't recall a game that doesn't work.
    • I've captured video from my camcorder, edited it, and performed video encoding without problems. No DRM invovled.
    • I've ripped CDs at lossless rates (the builtin WMP supports WMA, WMA lossless, MP3 up to 320 kbps, and WAV), and burnt it. Again, no DRM involved.
    • Was able to watch DVDs on my 1920x1200 monitor.
    • Can access file shares on XP fine.
    • Printing to both local and networked printers work; while typing this I connected to my brother's XP machine downstairs and printed to his printer. Setup was a couple mouse clicks.

    I'd love to hear other people's experiences, but please include details.

  8. PEBKAC? by lostboy2 · · Score: 4, Informative
    I've never seen or used Vista, or the author's system, and I may just be a little grumpy this morning. But, based on his descriptions, the author sounds like someone who thinks he knows more about computers than he really does.

    From the article:

    Now here is the dirty little secret of all the expensive PC helpers out there. Upgrading hardware is really easy... it's usually just a case of carefully lifting out the old and slotting in the new piece of kit.
    Uhm, no it isn't, not really. As the author later discovers (but still doesn't realize), getting hardware to work often involves hardware, drivers and OS (and sometimes other software). While we all wish it were that easy, us "expensive PC helpers" have the skills to deal with those cases when it isn't.

    For example:

    ...even after a full day of tinkering with various network wizards
    Wizards? This suggests that the author does not know how to get to the properties of whatever network protocol (I'm assuming TCP/IP) he's using and configure them directly.

    But which mysterious "PCI input device" was lacking a driver? And what was the "unknown device" flagged up by Vista?
    You can find out by following the instructions at
    http://support.microsoft.com/kb/298837.

    I'm not defending Vista, but I also bristle when people devalue and disrespect people in IT/IS. We make things look easy because we're good at what we do. :P

  9. Re:throwing up my hands by PitaBred · · Score: 4, Informative

    For every anecdote, there's a counter anecdote:

    802.11 works fine for me. Try network-manager/knetworkmanager. All clicky-clicky, and even better than XP's network support IMHO

    Volume controls? You mean like the Fn+F6/F7 on my laptop that actually change the volume of my machine? Automatically, with no configuration, in Linux, on my laptop?

    Bluetooth seems to work fine for me, too.

    Video drives, I just did apt-get install nvidia-glx, and they've worked since then. With Beryl, I get 3D screensavers, everything I could want.

    --
    My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
  10. Re:Does Vista have anything we need? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    FPSs, MMORPGs and RTSs all suck on consoles. Considering that I'm only interested in those genres and that online play with a fast control scheme (ie. keyboard and mouse) is a requirement for me to even consider playing, I think I'll stick with my PC.