Is Vista a Trap?

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.'"

Comments

Re:Does Vista have anything we need?

[mastershake_phd]

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.

My Vista Install

[Rycross]

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.

Re:My Vista Install

[LWATCDR]

And people survived trench warfare but that is no reason to throw a mustard gas party.

The simple truth is that right now most people will get zero benefit from Vista. And for some people they will actually loose functionality that they currently have.

Bastards

[jernejk]

Vista won't recognise my C64 tape drive either! Those MS bastards! It's a conspiracy, I tell you!

Re:throwing up my hands

[mikelieman]

So, it's like moving to Linux but with the additional pleasures of both paying $200.00 and still not getting any useful bundled applications?

And this is news how?

[MarcoAtWork]

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?

Re:No.

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

Microsoft isn't completely blameless here. If Microsoft had adopted the same strategy for drivers as the OpenBSD project has (accepting either fully open drivers or no drivers), then somebody (even Microsoft) could make the drivers work on Vista.

This is yet another why open drivers built from publicly-available hardware documentation are better than binary-blob drivers.

Re:this was expected

[Smidge204]

also, by that logic, linux is a trap

At least you get the satisfaction of spending a whole day (or more) putting the elaborate, Rube Goldberg-esque trap together yourself first.

=Smidge=

Re:A Trap for Idiots

[SDF-7]

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.

Re:Does Vista have anything we need?

[koan]

Yes unfortunately I tend to forget how different /. is when it comes to vague posts or ranting.
I have used Vista, I do not like it, it's intrusive and annoying to me (yes I do want to run that exe), I personally don't care about eye candy, I am into performance which vista does not have unless you are running a state of the art proc, 4 gig's of RAM and a high end graphics card (which none have decent drivers as of yet)
I'm not going to get into the DRM portion of Vista.
You're a sucker to buy it and a fool to run it.

Re:throwing up my hands

[omicronish]

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.

Conditioned Response

[TheNinjaroach]

I'm not sure what lies you've been reading about UAC, but it conditions users to always say "Yes" to security prompts. This is a very terrible idea and in this situation the criticism is well deserved.
"You are about to open the Control Panel -- allow or deny?"
"You are about to open the Program Files folder -- allow or deny?"
"You are about to modify user preferences -- allow or deny?
"You are about to open attachment pzxyTrojan.exe -- allow or deny?"
Allow.. allow.. allow.. allow.. allow..

Re:Does Vista have anything we need?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not supporting DX9 makes no business sense. DX10-only games will be games by Microsoft, or games for which Microsoft paid the developer their expected DX9 profits to be DX10-only.

Re:Does Vista have anything we need?

[ShieldW0lf]

I was reading an article recently where people were looking for ways to explain what the problems are with digital rights management technology to non technically minded people.

Examples given tended to be along the lines of "I can't watch foreign released films, they were never released locally so I have no legal option, and I need this for my book report." and "You shouldn't have to pay for that song again, you already paid for it."

These are, quite frankly, not the most pressing examples I could think of.

Here's some examples you can show your mom and dad:

1) Broadcast news will be all be digitally signed by the big media companies.

The same technology used to cause your saved version of American Idol to self-destruct can be used after the fact to erase news right off your home electronics. It will also prevent it from being transferred to unprotected permanent media, or played back from any backup.

2) Medical software and data will all be digitally signed by the rights owners.

The same technology used to stop software piracy could be used after the fact to switch off hospitals and clinics that don't pay their bills. There is massive financial incentive to design this to happen automatically. Anyone who doubts the realism of this scenario need only look as far as the behavior of the existing drug companies.

3) Company files will all be digitally signed.

If you are being screwed over by your employer or any company you have business dealings with, they will be able to ensure that you don't make anyone else aware of it.

Anyone who thinks this technology is about protecting Britney Spears from Bluebeard the Pirate is missing the point. This is about totalitarianism.