Slashdot Mirror


Prescription Meds For Vista Sleep Disorder

Arnold O'Connor writes "NeoSmart Technologies has compiled a list of hotfixes and patches provided by Microsoft for Windows Vista that address a large number of issues related to waking/resuming a Vista PC (both x86 and x64) from sleep or hibernation. Sleep-related disorders have plagued Vista since its release, though they were not present in earlier betas. Most of these fixes are due to be included in Windows Vista SP1 — codenamed Fiji."

144 comments

  1. Ah! by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · · Score: 5, Funny

    And you thought saying "Windoze" was a stale joke...

    --
    "A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
    1. Re:Ah! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, but doesn't this article have anything to do with "windows" "dozing" ??

  2. I'm not going to be an early-adopter lemming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Most of the fixes? How about all of them please!

    I'm not even considering jumping ship to Vista until the first SP is out (XP works beautifully for me).

    I just think that's the smart way to play it. And I'll happily dual-boot for my Linux lovin.

    1. Re:I'm not going to be an early-adopter lemming by suv4x4 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I'm not even considering jumping ship to Vista until the first SP is out (XP works beautifully for me).

      Exactly the same. Especially since IE7 is more or less the same for me as a webdev, I can test all of my stuff on XP.

      And we gotta realize: early adotpers always get stuffed with higher prices and lower quality. It's just the way things are, even if the product is developed under most stringent quality requirements, a bunch of undetected defects will be known soon after a wide launch.

      The only thing that bothers me here is that on many consumer offers, companies FORCE you to get OEM Vista with a new PC. This early after launch, and with so many known flaws, how could you possibly require your customers to buy Vista PC when XP is much better right now?!

      Do you have such experiences yourself? How easy it is to get a "downgrade" and in which hardware vendors it's easiest to do so?

    2. Re:I'm not going to be an early-adopter lemming by Yvanhoe · · Score: 1, Insightful

      2000 used to work beautifully for me, I never considered to jump the ship to XP. Then I had to buy a laptop (from Dell)... Your turn will come. I installed a debian on it but still, somewhere in the price, I have bought XP somewhere.

      --
      The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
    3. Re:I'm not going to be an early-adopter lemming by Phantombrain · · Score: 1

      I'm one of those people who bought a laptop with Vista preloaded and I haven't had any problems. At all.
      I haven't had any sleep issues, a couple programs I use aren't compatible, but nothing big. The only time I have seen a BSOD is in my screensaver.

      I'm not Microsoft fanboy, but it seems pretty stable for my use.

      --
      echo YOUR_OPINION > /dev/null
    4. Re:I'm not going to be an early-adopter lemming by bendodge · · Score: 1

      Buy from Newegg. They have prebuilt PC's with XP.

      --
      The government can't save you.
    5. Re:I'm not going to be an early-adopter lemming by McFadden · · Score: 1

      I'd never seen that screensaver before. It's nice to see Microsoft has a sense of humor about such things.

    6. Re:I'm not going to be an early-adopter lemming by cerberusss · · Score: 1

      The only thing that bothers me here is that on many consumer offers, companies FORCE you to get OEM Vista with a new PC.
      Then don't buy a consumer offering. When visiting for example Dell's site, pick 'small business' and the first option for a Dimension is either XP or Vista.
      --
      8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
    7. Re:I'm not going to be an early-adopter lemming by Morlark · · Score: 1

      It's worth noting that that screensaver was actually produced by Sysinternals, prior to their acquisition by Microsoft last year. So any sense of humour that Microsoft does have was purely purchased.

      --
      Santa's suicide mission go!
  3. Problems? by TomOfWight · · Score: 1, Informative

    I've been using Vista on 3 very different pcs for quite some time now, a desktop, a new laptop and an 18 month old laptop, and I've yet to have any problems with putting any of them into sleep mode and then waking them up again. Now I may have been exceptionally lucky, but I doubt it. Vista FUD is already getting old.

    1. Re:Problems? by sirf · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I've never been in a car accident and neither have any of my friends as far as I know, but I still don't doubt their existence. Requiring seat belts is pure FUD.

    2. Re:Problems? by dreamchaser · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Bad analogy. A better one would be a comparison to car recalls. There are two pending for mine but I haven't had the problem (they are minor ones, nothing saftey related)so I keep putting it off. That doesn't mean the design problem doesn't exist; just that it hasn't affected me.

    3. Re:Problems? by eli+pabst · · Score: 2, Interesting

      How is it FUD if Microsoft is issuing patches for it?

    4. Re:Problems? by TomOfWight · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The implication is that it's a far more widespread problem than it is.

    5. Re:Problems? by TomOfWight · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I'm not doubting the existence of a problem, I'm doubting its prevalence.

    6. Re:Problems? by jrockway · · Score: 0, Troll

      > doesn't mean the design problem doesn't exist; just that it hasn't affected me.

      Hey, I think I see you outside -- in a body bag.

      --
      My other car is first.
    7. Re:Problems? by dreamchaser · · Score: 1

      I guess you missed the part about them not being safety related. One is for the seat heater, the other the rear door lock, and neither problem is present in my car. Nice try, better luck next time!

    8. Re:Problems? by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      Well if you were running Vista, I dare say right now, you would have a certain measure of fear in using sleep, as a result of the uncertainty of your machine resuming and being in doubt as to whether unsaved open documents would be available upon your return, there you go, FUD, is just the natural of using any Windows (P)OS, made even worse if you read the warranty ;-))).

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    9. Re:Problems? by suv4x4 · · Score: 1

      I've been using Vista on 3 very different pcs for quite some time now, a desktop, a new laptop and an 18 month old laptop, and I've yet to have any problems with putting any of them into sleep mode and then waking them up again. Now I may have been exceptionally lucky, but I doubt it. Vista FUD is already getting old.

      This is the difference between anecdotal evidence and sampling all your customers. Noone is claiming Vista's sleep modes don't work anywhere, in fact, you can bet they were tested and confirmed working on lots of hardware.

      For your new laptop, also the hardware vendor tested and it and confirmed it working before shipping laptops with Vista preinstalled. Vista's not locked to a few preselected hardware configs (as is Apple for example), so it's normal to find hardware not working fine with it.

      I'd be surprised if it wasn't the case. Sleep modes are really complex beasts, and require perfect cooperation from all hardware devices and their drivers, or your PC will wake up in an non-equivalent and very likely unstable state.

    10. Re:Problems? by Ucklak · · Score: 1

      First of all, I listen to FUD but never really pay attention to it.
      Secondly, I hold the Mac and it's awake from sleep mode in less than 2 seconds as the pinnacle of what it should be.
      Third, I've read that Vista does this in it's RTM version.
      Fourth, It's a blatant lie from Microsoft or whatever review junket that spewed the lie as I've had the displeasure of having to turn off the sleep function on an 2 week old Dell as 3 and a half minutes is way too long to awake from sleep.

      I already know Microsoft is crap. Normal consumers have already been past the 'fool me twice' yet Microsoft can still get away with peddling crap so they continue to do it.

      --
      if you steal from one source, that is plagiarism, if you steal from many, well, that's just research.
    11. Re:Problems? by Wingsy · · Score: 1

      "...so it's normal to find hardware not working fine with it"

      Couldn't help but to comment on this.

      That one sentence is a prime example of a major difference between Windows and Mac users. It is seldom one finds a Mac user who expects stuff not to work properly, whereas I see many Windows users who have this same expectation of performance. I don't understand how one can just casually expect their OS to not work.

      --
      If I didn't have absolutely NOTHING to do, I wouldn't be here.
    12. Re:Problems? by suv4x4 · · Score: 1

      How about you reread the post you replied to, where I addressed how Apple can pull this off (and why it's a non-achievement).

    13. Re:Problems? by Simulant · · Score: 1

      Well.... On 3 out of 4 desktop systems I've tried, power management, especially standby, is horribly broken. Standby worked fine under XP on all 4 systems.

    14. Re:Problems? by mangu · · Score: 1

      I'm not doubting the existence of a problem, I'm doubting its prevalence.

      Based on how many samples? If a smoker lives to his nineties, and some of them do, will that prove there are no links between smoking and cancer?

    15. Re:Problems? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I have never met a Windows user who expects their OS not to work. I have not seen a BSOD, encountered a critical show-stopping error, or had any significant negative experiences in the entire time I have owned the computer that I am writing this article on. The same can be said of my work PC. Strangely, the same can not be said of my co-workers Mac, which has crashed without warning twice in the past year and once randomly switched to network boot mode without provocation. Either way, it doesn't matter. In spite of what the PC vs Mac ads (and any Mac fanboy) might have you believe, PCs don't crash every other day and in spite of what any rabid anti-Apple user might tell you, Macs can be a very enjoyable tool to use. That's why we have competitiors! So you, the consumer, can make your own decision!

    16. Re:Problems? by VertigoAce · · Score: 1

      I used to run Linux on my laptop (an IBM T40). When every distro I tried (Ubuntu, Fedora, Gentoo) had a kernel panic upon resuming from sleep, I gave up. From everything I read about this problem, power management is pretty delicate. Even if it works on one person's hardware it might have problems on a nearly identical computer. Apple has a huge advantage over Microsoft and the Linux community in that their testing can cover every hardware configuration that consumers can buy.

      As for your problem with a slow wake-up from sleep mode (mine is in the 1-2 seconds range on Vista), did you check to see if Vista was reporting driver or software issues that were causing problems?

      From the Performance Information and Tools screen (the one with the Windows Experience Index scores), click on Advanced Tools on the left. At the top of the screen you may see a list of performance issues that Windows has detected. For more detailed information, try the "View performance details in the Event Log" tool. Glancing through the list, there's information on high disk usage, processes with larger than normal working sets, devices or drivers that are delaying boot/shutdown/sleep/resume operations, etc.

    17. Re:Problems? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Just because there is a reason why doesn't really address the much lower consumer expectations of those who buy windows. There's not many areas in our lives where we're willing to continue to shell out good money for broken features. Have they fixed the activation issues yet?

    18. Re:Problems? by osu-neko · · Score: 1

      Given that I'm the center of the universe, anything that isn't obvious from my personal experience... well, I'll allow that it might exist, but it obviously can't be very prevalent. ;)

      --
      "Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
    19. Re:Problems? by compgenius3 · · Score: 1

      My laptop has intermittent problems with going to sleep and then re-enabling the bluetooth card on wake-up. I suspect the bluetooth drivers. But it seems to be getting worse as time goes bye.

      --
      Sexual intercourse is kicking death in the ass while singing. ~Charles Bukowski
    20. Re:Problems? by suv4x4 · · Score: 1

      Just because there is a reason why doesn't really address the much lower consumer expectations of those who buy windows.

      Can you define "much lower expectations"? We're talking about installing Windows on a possibly unsupported/untested configuration. Noone expects your laptop with preinstalled Vista by the manifacturer to hang.

      What happens if you try to install OSX on a random self-assembled hardware? Oh yea, it won't even install, license restrictions. Hurray for the much higher expectations.

    21. Re:Problems? by binaryspiral · · Score: 1

      Vista FUD is already getting old.

      I can confirm this is not FUD and yes, you have been somewhat lucky. Lenovo/IBM ThinkPad R5x and T6x both exhibit problems with Vista sleep disorders. Even with the latest patches and bios updates the OS is very unstable after wake up from hibernation or sleep.

      Lenovo has hinted that further Microsoft updates will be needed to Vista to make sleep/hibernation fully usable again.

      I'm interested to know what kind of hardware are you using?

    22. Re:Problems? by jonadab · · Score: 1

      > I don't understand how one can just casually expect their OS to not work.

      Spend some more time around end users, and you will begin to understand it.

      Tech geeks expect to be able to *fix* things when they go wrong, so that they *do* work. End users have no such expectation. They live in constant fear that if they click the wrong thing, their whole computer experience will become totally messed up. The reason they live in fear of this is because most of them have had it happen at one point or another. (Response when it does happen varies. Some people know a geek they can maybe get to take a look at it, so they try to get by for a few days or weeks until they can do this. Some don't, so they either try to live with the problem indefinitely, or they get desparate and try to fix it themselves, sometimes creating much worse problems in the process. Others try taking the computer into a store that sells computers, in hopes that the nice people there can fix it. A few computer stores actually *do* offer this service, but then again sometimes the user ends up buying a new computer, either on the spot when the store guys recommend that solution, or eventually when they can't find a place that'll fix the old one.)

      A good example of this is the taskbar in Windows 95 and 98. Windows XP has it locked in place by default, but on Windows 95 and 98, it's not: you can just grab it and drag it to a different edge of the screen, or grab the edge and resize it so that it has a different amount of task list space. For power users, this is a useful thing. For end users, it is unexpected, disorienting, and even frightening. The problem is that while power users who inadvertently drag the thing to a different location will be able to figure out what they did, end users typically cannot. I've seen this happen to them on a number of occasions, and usually they fervently believe that all they did was some innocuous operation they've done a thousand times before (e.g., "All I did was click on Start"), only this time on a whim the system decided to redesign the UI on them. (I suspect that's why it's locked by default on XP. Power users can still unlock it and then move it, of course. On a side note, the difference between clicking and dragging is somewhat hazy to a lot of users, and many also don't understand that a specific portion of the mouse pointer is the part that actually matters, position-wise, so if at least half (any half) of the little arrow is over something for at least half the time the button is down, they think they're clicking on it. I'm not sure what UI designers could do about this, short of going to a one-pixel mouse pointer, and that's a cure worse than the disease by far.)

      Granted, if the sleep mode in the OS just plain doesn't work right with certain hardware, that may be something the user can't really fix, so it's a slightly different thing from having things go wrong and repairing them. Nonetheless, if you've screwed up computers so that they don't work and been unable to fix them a few times, it's easy to imagine that you'd get used to expecting computers to just not work right sometimes.

      --
      Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
    23. Re:Problems? by Xenographic · · Score: 1

      Well, people evaluate the likelihood of things based on their experience, and you haven't seen this happen.
      I, for one, haven't seen a *working* Vista computer yet, so I naturally have a different take on things.

      Also, if I were to guess, laptops are more likely to have trouble with hibernate than desktops, although one of the Vista PCs I helped repair (as much as possible, at least) was certainly having some odd issue with shutting down. In fact, it seemed like the system didn't want to do a proper shutdown (i.e. full power off) at all, for some reason. Go figure?

    24. Re:Problems? by Phisbut · · Score: 1

      I guess you missed the part about them not being safety related. One is for the seat heater, the other the rear door lock, and neither problem is present in my car. Nice try, better luck next time!

      And when your seat heater malfunctions and the seat catches fire, and then you can't leave the car because the rear door lock won't open... what will you do then?

      --
      After 3 days without programming, life becomes meaningless
      - The Tao of Programming
    25. Re:Problems? by croddy · · Score: 1

      Jesus -- you have an incomprehensibly low opinion of most end-users.

    26. Re:Problems? by Rycross · · Score: 1

      My experience is that it works properly and quickly (2-3 seconds to come out of sleep). Another drop in the anecdote bucket.

    27. Re:Problems? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My office has 5 people. 2 of them, the boss and his wife, are exactly as described above, and are often stumped by the fact that our computer stations have 2 monitors on them snd are somehow unable to locate windows on the other monitor inches from their face. Often times, when they have a problem, I go over to their desk and find that have 3 instances of Outlook open. Or else they have typed "Steven Berg" (just a made up example) and is unsuccessful effort at finding "Stephen Borg" and claims, in a loud voice, that the administrative assistant has not input this guy into our database. Inability to follow instructions such as going to a specific folder (they often come up one folder short despite being told exactly which folder it is), and an inability to solve small problems on their own (the folder they need is staring them in the face and they just need to double click there) results in cries of "It isn't there!" or "Where is it?" constantly. Double clicking and waiting for an application to load appears to be a hard concept to grasp, and more often you will get quadruple clicks times infinity in an attempt to speed things up, resulting in multiple instances of the same program attempting to load at the same time.

    28. Re:Problems? by ReverseGeek · · Score: 1

      Another drop, Sleep and Hibernate work fine on both my 3 year old Dell D600, and my bootcamped Apple MacBook Pro 17in, as well as my co-worker's D620.

      --
      Insert Signature here, or not.
    29. Re:Problems? by jonadab · · Score: 1

      > you have an incomprehensibly low opinion of most end-users.

      If you were to perhaps spend some *time* around end users -- people who don't have a computer geek in their immediate family -- you might comprehend better. A lot of computer geeks could really stand to pay a bit more attention to end users and their needs. UI designers are getting better at this, but you still catch people like Gerv Markham making inane comments like "Really? Do people type out entire URLs because copy and paste is beyond them?" in usenet threads about UI design. I don't think 30% of the population around here knows how to copy and paste, and a lot of people who theoretically know how (like my mom -- because I keep showing it to her) usually don't, because it would take longer to stop and remember how than to just retype the thing. (This latter category only applies to people old enough to have learned to type on something other than a computer, so the phenomenon will probably disappear altogether when that generation dies out; but, there will still be people who copy and paste and people who don't. I think we'll always have that.)

      And it isn't about having a low opinion of people as such. It's about understanding the implications of the fact that most people's priorities don't place a high value on learning about computers. (Some people's priorities *do* place a higher value on that, of course. I call those people "power users", "technical users", or "developers", depending what level they're at.)

      --
      Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
  4. I know a good way how to fix this! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Switch from XP to Vista when it is necessary.

    But since you already know that, I guess only early adopters who suffer from brand loyalty and, maybe, the urge to impress colleagues who must still work with the hopelessly outdated XP, have these problems.

  5. How widespread? by Marbleless · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'd be interested to know how widespread these sleeping disorders are.

    Our next generation of software is being tested under Vista and we have a number of dedicated test machines and dual boot development machines of different vintages. None of them have any problems at all with suspend or hibernate.

    Just because there is a cure it doesn't mean that the problem affects everybody ... although I have had hypochondriac computers in the past ;)

    --
    --I thought I was wrong once, but I was mistaken.
    1. Re:How widespread? by eplawless · · Score: 0

      I've got two computers running Vista Business with this problem. They used to hibernate fine, and boot back up in seconds... then arbitrarily one day they started taking 2 minutes to wake up, and were slow enough once they had that I was forced to just disable hibernation entirely. I know at least one other person who's had this happen. I don't know how widespread it is but it's happened to me twice and it's annoying as hell.

    2. Re:How widespread? by T.E.D. · · Score: 1

      I don't know if this is one of the known "sleeping disorders", but the second monitor of my Vista rig doesn't like to come back from sleep. Both monitors are identical and were even bought at the same time. When the system wakes, the left monitor shows half my desktop just like normal, but the right stays black.

      I found I can fix it fairly easily by "testing out" a new desktop resolution. When it switches resolution, the other screen comes back. I then tell it I don't want the new resolution, and everything works fine.

    3. Re:How widespread? by neerolyte · · Score: 1

      This isn't any decent comment on how widespread this is, but my dad has had vista for a while (MS certified company, lots of spare licences ... blah blah).

      I've used it on one desktop that failed to start up after sleeping with the default action when the power button was pressed.
      My laptop (Compaq Presario V4214TU) failed to wake up from hibernation (well sometimes... sometimes it would just work fine, seemed to be if it was asleep for a day or more it was more likely to fail), but HP already has a BIOS fix for the problem entitled something like "Fix required to make your computer vista compatible".
      I've also used it on 3 other PCs with differing hardware and have experienced no problems only one of these came with vista already loaded.

      So out of 5 different hardware setups I've only seen 2 problems with sleeping and 1 was easily fixed (the other one probably was too but it never gets turned off so I just set the power button to "do nothing").

  6. Re:x64? by the+linux+geek · · Score: 1

    x64 is Microsoft's term for the similar, and mostly compatible, 64-bit extensions in AMD and Intel processors. In this case, the usage is completely correct.

  7. Re:x64? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Yes, that's a typo. It should be c64.

  8. When will they learn. by jellomizer · · Score: 5, Insightful

    When will they learn that Microsoft has a very bad Beta Testing Routine.

    First they have people pay them to be Beta Testers (for the privilege of being able to use the OS before the general public, and being those jerks who put 3 years of MS Vista experience on their resume). This doesn't attract people who want to thoroughly test the product, this only attracts people who think it is still the 1990s and wants to inflate their resume. So if they did report any bugs or problems it was probably for more minor things or the most major things. Sleep Problems are kinda in the middle annoying but not enough to put a bug report on.

    Second poor response from my when bug testers do report a bug. Either they state that it isn't important or the conditions to get it are to off. In contrast I remember putting a bug in for Mozilla years back for an obscure problem on sizing the app across multiple displays of different resolutions. They weren't able to fix it quickly but they kept track of it until it was fixed.

    Third Beta Testing is not used as much for Bug Testing but for product evaluation. It is used to see if the product is liked by the general population not as a method of fixing problems. This creates the problem 2 ways because Microsoft Beta Testers are of the following.
    1. Love MS so much that they like everything that it does no matter how crappy it is, or make excuses for it problems (Don't get me wrong there are these type of people for every OS)

    2. Wants to keep their Resume up to spec to keep in demand of stupid employers so they can have 3 years of Vista Experience. They don't want to report bugs or difficult to use problems because it gives them the advantage over people who just started using production Vista.

    3. College Students/Professors mostly because they have extra time during the day to research these things. This group is most likely to report problems and give feedback. But that is only one segment of of the user base. And most college students and professors don't use the sleep options as much because they are on Campus which pays their electricity bills.

    --
    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    1. Re:When will they learn. by Breakfast+Pants · · Score: 1

      Fiji is an end-all fix to every problem anyone might have. Just keep the dream of Fiji alive and it will blur out the dull Vista experience, and somehow in the process make it bearable. Just as it did for Truman in The Truman Show.

      --

      --

      WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?
    2. Re:When will they learn. by cerberusss · · Score: 1

      those jerks who put 3 years of MS Vista experience on their resume
      Instead, they should leave it off?
      --
      8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
  9. Another MS OS, Commence Stream of Patches by curmudgeon99 · · Score: 0

    Doesn't this sound familiar? 1.) Microsoft releases "thorougly" QA'd OS. 2.) The Stready stream of patches, fixes, burps and other nonsense begins. 3.) Linux/Mac anyone?

    1. Re:Another MS OS, Commence Stream of Patches by peragrin · · Score: 1

      While you can try to pry my powerbook away from me, Apple releases a steady stream of patches as well. Linux is constantly being updated as well.

      The advantage to those, if you just need to update say your web browser, or music app, or other random file tool you don't have to reboot.

      --
      i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
  10. Vista And The Hype by Sukhbir · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Frankly speaking I still can't understand the hype behind Vista. I mean its OK. Nothing out of this world and definitely not WOW.

    1. Re:Vista And The Hype by balthan · · Score: 1

      Nothing out of this world and definitely not WOW.

      You need the 64-bit version for that.

    2. Re:Vista And The Hype by benzapp · · Score: 1

      Frankly, I can't understand why any blithering idiot moderated you post "Insightful" when it is not only entirely off topic, but completely inane. Please, if you are going to waste the time to post something, try to use at least 10 multi-syllable words.

      --
      I don't read or respond to AC posts
  11. Re:x64? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    x64 is a widely used abbreviation by both user and technology companies. It has essentially become the official way to refer to 64 bit software on a brandless 64 bit x86 platform. You should get used to it. (Unless, of course, you really like whining about it.)

  12. Re:x64? by cibyr · · Score: 3, Informative

    It's a useful abbreviation for x86-64. Get over it.

    --
    It's not exactly rocket surgery.
  13. Vista... by MoonSha · · Score: 1

    I was planning on updating once stories on major vista issues had subsided to an "XP" level. Any time soon?

    1. Re:Vista... by Bin · · Score: 1

      No, try again in a year ;P

      --
      Or words to that effect ...
  14. They have a codename for Vista's SP1 already by AlanS2002 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Maybe it's just me, but I'd think that I didn't do enough testing on a product that already has a codename for it's SP1 within a few months of its release.

    --
    Not all conservatives are stupid,
    but it is true that most stupid people are conservative.
    - Hume
    1. Re:They have a codename for Vista's SP1 already by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      It's just silly to call a service packs like Fiji, maybe better Somalia or Iraq

    2. Re:They have a codename for Vista's SP1 already by mqudsi · · Score: 1

      Actually.... It was codenamed even before Vista went RTM! Microsoft made the official statement a while afterwards, but within Microsoft and in the beta newsgroups, Fiji (Vista SP1/R2) was declared long before Vista hit build 6000.

    3. Re:They have a codename for Vista's SP1 already by blackest_k · · Score: 1

      Maybe it is a back handed reference to the Apple Newton
      http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/06/02/ 1523238

    4. Re:They have a codename for Vista's SP1 already by AlanS2002 · · Score: 1

      Well to me that would make it doubly obvious that I needed to do more testing before I went Gold.

      --
      Not all conservatives are stupid,
      but it is true that most stupid people are conservative.
      - Hume
    5. Re:They have a codename for Vista's SP1 already by JDHannan · · Score: 1

      ... Is that some sort of Fiji Newton joke? like Fig Newton??

    6. Re:They have a codename for Vista's SP1 already by doktor-hladnjak · · Score: 1

      Of course it was. Microsoft has released SPs for all of their large pieces of software in recent history. It would be completely stupid to pretend that one wasn't going to come out for Vista. Hence, the planning. I don't think most slashdot readers understand how difficult it is to stabilize such a large, complex piece of software like Windows. It's just not possible to hold a release until "all the bugs are fixed" if you ever want it to be released.

    7. Re:They have a codename for Vista's SP1 already by glitch23 · · Score: 0

      To MS's credit, they have to plan ahead just like any other company to determine what will and what will not make it into their next product version. As we saw, they kept dropping items from Vista to make their deadlines. Some of those may be scheduled for future Service Packs or they may not. Any bugs they knew about that weren't serious enough to be fixed before the final Vista release would be pushed off to a Service Pack and of course any bugs they didn't/don't know about will be pushed to SP1 as well. Their lead time for planning Servic Packs is just the nature of the software business, just like lead time for a magazine can be up to 3 months or more. Halfway through SP1 development they may end up starting to plan SP2. Also, the lead time for Vista's SP1 is about the same amount of time as SP1 for XP and we all know how well XP compared to previous Windows versions (most people believe XP to be pretty stable) so the fact they have a codename for Vista SP1 isn't a bad thing. It also isn't indicative of bad testing based on the 2 scenarios I mentioned above (non-serious bugs that could wait while more serious ones were addressed to meet the initial release deadline as well as bugs they knew were there but didn't flush out in time). You can never claim to fix all bugs because you can't prove there isn't just one more. But you can plan for them to be surfaced and fixed. This can also be viewed as a good thing. They are being proactive about fixing stuff. Who says they have to give you a SP as soon as possible or at all for that matter? Would you prefer to never get one? We would all prefer to not NEED them but that isn't going to happen; even OSX and Linux go through minor versions to fix things.

      --
      this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. -- Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
    8. Re:They have a codename for Vista's SP1 already by The_Face_Of_Death777 · · Score: 1

      Nice!

      --
      Soyo KT800 dragon version 2.0, AMD athlon XP 3000+ 2.6GHz, 126.4GB HDD, CD/DVD-Burner Drive, 21 inch monitor, Windows Vi
  15. Windows XP wasn't perfect either. by CCFreak2K · · Score: 1

    While I can't say for sure how bad Windows Vista's sleep mode resuming is, I can say that standby issues aren't new.

    --
    "Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master."
    1. Re:Windows XP wasn't perfect either. by driehuis · · Score: 1

      Pointing a link to the confusion^Wknowledgebase is not a very good way to argue any particular issue that afflicts Windoze users. Microsoft, despite their stranglehold on the market and their influence on hardware design, still has to play the hand they're dealt by the hardware vendors.

      And frankly, in this case, I would not be surprised to learn that Microsoft (as a key player in the development of ACPI) shot themselves in the foot by allowing, or maybe even encouraging, the atrocious complexity behind ACPI.

      The only piece of hardware I have ever owned that suspended/resumed reliably all the time was my ancient Apple PowerBook 100. I have used dozens of laptops since, from Toshiba and Dell to Compaq and HP, running various flavors of BSD and Windoze in a dual-boot configuration, and have never found a configuration that works reliably. And the more I learn about ACPI, the less likely I think this will ever be resolved.

      I'm considering buying a Mac laptop again after all. I got away with PC laptops all these years because my commute was a forty minute train ride. Now, it's two fifteen minute trainrides with a five minute layover, and despite a net gain of five minutes, my useful time to work on my laptop is reduced from 30 to a hair over 10 minutes because of the time lost in the boot/shutdown process.

      But, bottom line, I think Microsoft is not to blame for this screwup (other than allowing ACPI to mushroom the way it did, but second-system-syndrome is a far better explanation of the mess).

      --

      Bert Driehuis -- All I asked was a friggin' rotatin' chair. Throw me a bone here, people.

  16. Re:x64? by Whiney+Mac+Fanboy · · Score: 1

    There is no such thing as "x64." Please quit butchering the use of computer terminology.

    Are you retarded? x64 is the extremely important architecture from the early-mid sixties. It wasn't replaced until the x86 architecture in the mid to late 80s.

    --
    There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
  17. Turn on AHCI after installation by EdSchouten · · Score: 2, Informative

    It seems you can enable msahci.sys after you've installed Vista: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922976

  18. Re:Only one hotfix needed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    My Macbook has sleep issues, if you plug the power in or unplug it while the lid is shut, it *sometimes* gets confused about wether the lid is open or shut; when you open the lid, the login prompt comes up and you can log in but you just get stuck at a black screen, to fix it you have to shut the lid until the power light pulsates and then open it and log in again. Its not a big thing, but unlike MS, Apple don't have the excuse of unknown configurations!

  19. what hype? only hype is the /. vista-whining hype by boombaard · · Score: 0, Troll

    honestly, i hardly see any uncritical articles on vista anywhere.. where is this hype /. seems to feel the need to react against?

    Sure, Straw Men are nice and easily torched, and i don't doubt my responding to this nonsense won't do a bit of good either, since another 400 articles on vista's issues will necessarily be popping up after this one..

    But really, what's the point in writing hundreds of comments with exactly the same content over and over under every article uncritical /. editors let through, as long as it's critical of vista?

  20. How can it be FUD.... by mqudsi · · Score: 1

    ...If Microsoft has issued patches for these issues? I mean, dozens of knowledgebase entries, several hotfixes, and a SP1 on the way. Think about it, if it was FUD, would MS further engage in spreading the propaganda? It's real and MS obviously knows it - and hopefully they will fully address the issue too, because it's an important one, esp. with all the "green talk" that's going around.

    1. Re:How can it be FUD.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There is no question that it is real issue. The question is the prevalence of the issue. I have 3 Vista machines, none of which have ever had sleep problems, neither have the my work vista machines or the machines of several of my friends. Just because there is an article doesn't mean there are a lot of problems. If there are specific machine configs that cause this it only takes a very small number for a patch to be issued. There could be as low as a couple of hundred users with an issue for a KB article to be issued.

  21. Re:Only one hotfix needed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Get a Mac. How much more of this nonsense has to occur before people will finally change? Don't get me wrong - Macs are far from perfect.

    If perfection's what you want, try openBSD.

  22. Re:x64? by TheVelvetFlamebait · · Score: 1

    There's no such thing as a lot of things, yet we still the word to describe it. I for one had absolutely no trouble understanding what the poster was referring to. To put it another way: if it didn't mean that before, it does now.

    --
    You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
  23. Re:what hype? only hype is the /. vista-whining hy by AlphaLop · · Score: 1
    The point of writing hundreds of comments is that it is representational. If there are hundreds of people taking the time to write about the problems, then they must be pretty severe because I imagine only a small portion of people experiencing the problem would take the time out of their day to write about the issue, and an even smaller portion of them are reading and posting on /. so it must be a pretty common opinion that Vista is less then satisfactory....

    This really helps the consumer because in all honesty, I really wanted vista to kick butt. I wanted to upgrade my gaming machine and buying vista was going to be my motivator to do it with my upcoming tax return. However after reading all the negative comments, both here and at other sites I have decided to put off both building a new machine and buying a copy of vista.

    If there would of been only a couple of comments to this effect I would of probably already bought my copy...

    Thank you ./ posters and keep up the constructive criticism of faulty products.

    --
    It's only paranoia if your wrong...
  24. Re:what hype? only hype is the /. vista-whining hy by TheVelvetFlamebait · · Score: 1

    Have you considered that the GP might be using rather subtle irony?

    I for one thought it was mildly amusing.

    --
    You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
  25. FORMAT C: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Windows Vista deserves the Final solution:

    Format C:

    or better yet:

    http://gparted.sourceforge.net/

  26. 1995 called by eneville · · Score: 5, Funny

    ... and they want their PNP problems back

    1. Re:1995 called by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      When we can prove/disprove P = NP, Vistas bugs will be fixed- does that count?

  27. Yes! by twitter · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Zombie has new life too. These issues will never go away, will they?

    --

    Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.

    1. Re:Yes! by Macthorpe · · Score: 1

      Not while people are using computers, no.

      In other words, nice try at a pretence that the article you linked to labels Vista machines as being part of botnets - in fact, the article itself was up on Slashdot before Vista was even released.

      Lies, lies, and more lies. Tragic, really.

      --
      "It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him." - Tolkien
    2. Re:Yes! by The+Bungi · · Score: 0, Troll

      You never did answer this, did you flocktard?

    3. Re:Yes! by dedazo · · Score: 1

      Reality hurts.

      --
      Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
    4. Re:Yes! by The+Bungi · · Score: 1

      He's the most pathetic fucktard on Slashdork, and I've seen plenty.

  28. Fiji is Vista SP1? by suv4x4 · · Score: 1

    "Most of these fixes are due to be included in Windows Vista SP1 -- codenamed Fiji."

    What are your sources that Fiji is the codename of Vista SP1 anyway? For what we know, Microsoft confirmed neither of those.

    1. Re:Fiji is Vista SP1? by RobertLTux · · Score: 1

      oh lets see fi you ask the oracle of the penguins you get
      Results 1 - 100 of about 9,100 for "windows vista sp1" fiji. (0.31 seconds)
      and if you hit the first link you get this http://vistasp1.net/images/header.jpg at the tops which states
      Windows Vista SP1 codenamed Fiji preview and information center
      so i would think that Fiji = windows vista sp1 is quite probable

      --
      Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
    2. Re:Fiji is Vista SP1? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're citing http://www.vistasp1.net/ as your source for this? It's a spam-bot page. Try again when you've found a reference on www.microsoft.com. Geez.

    3. Re:Fiji is Vista SP1? by RobertLTux · · Score: 1

      okay first off as i stated there are a few THOUSAND links the link i noted was just the first "im feeling lucky" link
      second if you do the same search with site:microsoft.com you get
      http://www.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups/li st/en-us/default.aspx?dg=microsoft.public.windows. vista.general&tid=edc5e5b0-f56a-49ec-9eef-9830d983 7a18&p=1

      since a microserf would be required to dispell any errors (in fact if you read the above link a microserf does) NEXT

      --
      Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
  29. When will they fix the DRM bug? by GuyverDH · · Score: 3, Funny

    ie - create the new DRM free Vista - they could call it the "Vista PUDRMFE" - Vista Penultimate Digital Rights Management Free Edition

    Of course, they'll probably claim they can't take out the DRM because it's a crucial part of the operating system.

    Hmmm - wonder how ReactOS is doing lately....

    --
    Who is general failure, and why is he reading my hard drive?
    1. Re:When will they fix the DRM bug? by physicsnick · · Score: 1

      ReactOS 0.3.1 has been "scheduled to be released within a week" for months now. Development is apparently still progressing; maybe they're just not concentrating on making a release.

      Either way, it's unfortunately still a very long way off.

    2. Re:When will they fix the DRM bug? by Indecision+Bob · · Score: 1

      According to ReactOS, 0.3.1 was released today! http://www.reactos.org/en/news_page_34.html

    3. Re:When will they fix the DRM bug? by Ernesto+Alvarez · · Score: 1

      ie - create the new DRM free Vista - they could call it the "Vista PUDRMFE" - Vista Penultimate Digital Rights Management Free Edition


      I think you mean Windows Vista PE (pirated edition).
      It'll be available soon for download from an online distributor near you!
    4. Re:When will they fix the DRM bug? by GuyverDH · · Score: 1

      Meh - no thanks. While I abhor the idea of donating (I hate to call it purchasing, as anything MS makes is never worth what they charge, so I have to think of it as a donation) any more money to MS, I will never do that.

      --
      Who is general failure, and why is he reading my hard drive?
  30. Haha by boxxa · · Score: 1

    I remember seeing a presentation about Vista and its benefits before its release and the guy stated "Vista no longer has the sleep/suspend problems that hit some XP machines"

    --
    Bryan
  31. Implication? by twitter · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The implication is that it's a far more widespread problem than it is.

    I don't know why anyone would think a problem would be common in a monoculture OS, do you?

    You're right about it not being widespread. Vista's not selling. How's that for FUD?

    There's a massive conspiracy to not purchase Vista! It's kind of like the one I launched against SCO, the infamous Distributed Lack of Purchasing (DLoP) attack. It's all the FUDster's fault. It has nothing to do with the thing taking six years to get here and sucking on arrival. You know, people having done just fine without it for the better part of a decade thinking they don't need a DRM downgrade. No, it's just the wingnuts keeping the man down.

    --

    Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.

  32. More Disorders by pedramnavid · · Score: 2, Funny

    But what about Windows' narcolopsy problems? What will fix those?

    1. Re:More Disorders by ssintercept · · Score: 1

      Meth works wonders fer narcolepsy!

      --
      "You can kill the revolutionary, but you can't kill the revolution."-- Fred Hampton
  33. I'm so shocked by NXprime · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Deep sleep/hibernate problems? Oh wow I didn't see this coming except for the RC1 release I tried and reviewed months ago. http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=209542&cid= 17088628

    What's odd is that none of those patches or things mentioned going wrong is what I was dealing with. I was getting the click of death from my hard drives until I rebooted the computer.

    I guess I can see this as very unfinished hardware drivers but for something as serious as this, Vista should have never been released in this pitiful state.

  34. Problems with Nvidia by Nightspirit · · Score: 1

    Some of the problem seems to be with some nvidia cards. The forums are full of people with 7900s (although not all seem to be affected) having issues returning from sleep.

  35. Standy Issues by kilodelta · · Score: 1

    MS was supposed to have fixed Standby issues as of Windows XP. Nice to see where their priorities are, nothing like the Aero interface I suppose. In all honesty, I'm much more likely to move toward Ubuntu Beryl than Vista.

  36. Probably not Microsofts fault by unoengborg · · Score: 5, Interesting

    For once I'm not so sure we should blame Microsoft for all these sleep related problems. I would say hardware manufacturers is just as much to blame. They test their ACPI stuff and make sure it works in the current version of windows, and not that it follows the standard.

    When Microsoft creates a new version of windows they most likely develop it to follow the ACPI standard. By doing so, the functionality may break on non compliant boxes, and Microsoft will have to go back to add quirks to make it work.

    Being the dominant OS vender, Microsoft at usually manage to get full specs to the failing devices, and have a fair chance of compensate for the errors in the hardware and BIOS.
    Developers of other less common OSes, such as Linux may not be that lucky. So I really wish Microsoft hadn't bothered to fix this, unless of course they really are the ones that are responsible for this screw up, and left it to the hardware vendors. That way it would be easier for all OS vendors, including Microsoft, in the long run.

    --
    God is REAL! Unless explicitly declared INTEGER
  37. Historical Perspective by rueger · · Score: 1

    Yeesh - has there ever been a version of Windows that handled this well? I can't recall one that didn't have off and on problems, especially on laptops.

    Despite the many irritations that my Mac brought with it, this one thing that it does extremely well.

    1. Re:Historical Perspective by swordgeek · · Score: 1

      My thoughts exactly. Mind you, the ACPI standard still hasn't actually stabilised--the last update to it was in October (after seven years!).

      Still, I would assume backwards compatibility. No scratch that--I would expect it, but wouldn't count on it.

      --

      "People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
  38. Comatose? by wumpus188 · · Score: 1

    Maybe it's time to turn of the life support...

  39. Confirmation by skeftomai · · Score: 1

    I'm running Vista Business on a laptop from leadcomp.com (MSI-1039; 2.2GHz, 1GB RAM, 100GB HDD, 256MB RAM), and I can confirm that when I leave the computer on overnight it often locks up 99% and is basically unusable without a hard reset. Ubuntu, on the other hand, works much better, and I can leave it on for days straight :) Hopefully one of these patches will solve the lockup problem with Vista.

  40. When does the "Wow" start again? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Did they mean it like, "Wow, I can't believe they actually shipped this unfinished piece of shit!"

  41. Well, no. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    World of Warcraft is a game, after all, not an operating system, even if most people spend most of their time in that environment.

  42. It works fine! by EmbeddedJanitor · · Score: 1
    From MS's point of view anyway. Just remember what MS is trying to achieve. They are not after perfection, they are just after having something that is good enough to make a sale. It does not have to work 100%.

    MS had promised Vista in 2006 and many companies had put Vista buying in their 2006 budgets. Thus, MS had to ship something for these companies to buy in 2006. From the perspective of the customer companies, keeping the budget on track is far more of a deal than a few sleep problems. MS just had to ship something, anything, and it would be bought.

    And sleep problems etc? Well you can just blame them on "driver problems" and make the hardware vendors take the heat.

    --
    Engineering is the art of compromise.
    1. Re:It works fine! by doktor-hladnjak · · Score: 1

      From MS's point of view anyway. Just remember what MS is trying to achieve. They are not after perfection, they are just after having something that is good enough to make a sale. It does not have to work 100%.

      Any serious software project cannot achieve 100% perfection. There's simply always another feature to add or a bug to fix. It's even more true for products like Windows which are so exceedingly complex that even small changes can be destabilizing. At a certain point, you have to choose keeping the bugs you know over those you don't know. You have to cut features you'd like to have but don't have time to code, test, document, etc.

    2. Re:It works fine! by EmbeddedJanitor · · Score: 1
      True. But it is hard to believe that all the talent in MS could spend $5bn and come up with so little. It must be hard for the shareholders to think that Vista is a $5bn improvement to XP.

      The biggest sale has to be to the shareholders not the customers.

      --
      Engineering is the art of compromise.
    3. Re:It works fine! by dbIII · · Score: 1

      It's even more true for products like Windows which are so exceedingly complex that even small changes can be destabilizing

      It's a sad statement of affairs that the above is a serious and earnest comment about a few applications, a kernel and the API's to develop applications. If you step back and look at it as a system it really does not need to be exceedingly complex, and even with all the extra complexity from flawed legacy support there are engineering projects of far greater complexity which do not make excuses.

    4. Re:It works fine! by Bin · · Score: 1

      Shareholders don't care what MS does, as long as they (the shareholder) keep making money.

      Bryn

      --
      Or words to that effect ...
    5. Re:It works fine! by drsmithy · · Score: 1

      True. But it is hard to believe that all the talent in MS could spend $5bn and come up with so little.

      Vista is easily the biggest update to Windows since Windows 3.0 -> Windows 95. It's on the order of Apple's transformation of NeXTSTEP into OS X 10.2 (and took about the same amount of time). Just how much more "stuff" were you expecting ?

  43. Re:x64? by swordgeek · · Score: 1

    x64 is an industry-common term for AMD's 64-bit processor architecture extensions. Nobody, including Microsoft, refers to Intel architecture as x64.

    --

    "People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
  44. Re:x64? by the+linux+geek · · Score: 1

    Then why is Windows XP for Intel and AMD 64-bit machines called "Windows XP x64 Edition"?

  45. Mac and PC by HTH+NE1 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Well, this situation sounds ripe for lampooning in a new one of Apple's "Mac & PC" ads:

    Mac and PC in twin beds, an alarm goes off. Mac wakes up but PC was sitting up in bed twitching nervously.

    "Good morning--"

    "AH!"

    "I'm a... Mac."

    "And I'm a p-p-PC."

    "Hey, PC, haven't you been sleeping?"

    "No! No, I, uh, I-I can't sleep."

    "Really, do you need something?"

    "No, it's not that. I-I mustn't go to sleep because I'm afraid I won't wake up. There have been reports, you know, that since the release of Vista, PCs have had problems with not waking up from sleep."

    "Gee, that's too bad. Me, I have no problems waking up from sleep. I mean, within two seconds, I'm up and fully alert. That isn't true for you?"

    "..."

    "Uh, PC? PC, hello? Hey, PC, wake up!"

    "..."

    "Oh my."

    --
    Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
  46. Re:YOU DAMN IDIOT by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Eh? His/her use of the apostrophe is correct:

    "If perfection's..."

    Meaning

    "If perfection is..."

    Did you know that the apostrophe isn't solely for the possessive? You fat fuckpig.

  47. Re:x64? by |Cozmo| · · Score: 1

    Unfortunately you are wrong. MS refers to the AMD and Intel 64bit architecture with the same name. In fact they also call it amd64 since AMD did it first, despite those binaries also running in the intel 64 bit systems.

  48. Vista WON'T Sleep by aslate · · Score: 1

    When i first installed Vista it all worked great, sleep worked perfectly and i could come out fine.

    Now since i installed something (I believe my new GFX Drivers) it won't sleep. It'll turn the monitor off, but when i nudge the mouse or hit the keyboard it'll turn the monitor on and it'll be at the lock screen. According to powercfg it does support S3 sleep, strange.

  49. GO FUCKING KILL YOURSELF FUCKTARD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    nt

  50. Life imitates parody. by twitter · · Score: 1

    I said:

    There's a massive conspiracy to not purchase Vista! It's kind of like the one I launched against SCO, the infamous Distributed Lack of Purchasing (DLoP) attack. It's all the FUDster's fault.

    and SCO agreed!. How pathetic.

    --

    Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.

  51. Re:Only one hotfix needed by SeeManRun · · Score: 1

    I wonder if Apple could push out as many orders as would be required for all the people buying new PC's with Vista installed or just buying Vista itself... And I also wonder if increasing your user base by 10 fold within 6 months would uncover any issues with OSX as those millions try to plug in all their devices and play their games they used to play. Probably not.

  52. Codenamed "Fiji"? by Torodung · · Score: 1

    Jesus hopping Christ on a rusty pogo stick, are they seriously giving the *hotfixes* codenames?!

    Microsoft is in its death throes. Vista isn't an OS, it's a work in progress.

    --
    Toro

  53. Couldn't be any worse than the Mac by tuxlove · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The sleep problems that plague Macbooks take the cake. When you shut the lid, it's a crapshoot whether or not it will actually shut down at all. And you have to wait about a minute to find out, because it spends that long dumping RAM to disk for some twisted reason (I know the reason, so no flames. It's just that it's a lame reason.) I don't know how many times I've shut the lid and stuffed it in my pack, only to find that the damn thing has been running for an hour full tilt in a closed space. It's so hot it can't be touched without pain when this happens.

    This is just about the lamest thing about Macs. And it's been this way a long time. I finally had to disable the safe sleep functionality, which means you can't swap batteries w/o losing state. And they don't make it easy to do this. A small price to pay for not frying your computer, though. Does Vista do anything this lame? Probably not.

  54. Re:x64? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The same way LOL is a useful abbreviation for "I am an idiot."

  55. 3 years ago and still mad by Znale · · Score: 1

    I was using windows XP 3 years ago, and bought a Microsoft keyboard. It had a SLEEP button just above the "-" key on the numeric keypad. I tried to get it to work.. hours spent, and it always hung the system, requiring a re-boot. I then spent a couple hours seeing if it could be dissabled, not found. Microsoft out did themself, requiring only 1 button to crash their system. After accidently hitting that blue button for the 3'rd time.. I required another keyboard !

    1. Re:3 years ago and still mad by SchrodingersRoot · · Score: 1

      it's been my experience that sleep problems are often caused by hardware--much like BSOD--and when it's not hardware, it usually has to do with a lot of crapware/etc being installed. now, i've only ever had one keyboard with a sleep or power button, and those i actually popped them off of the keyboard, because i didn't like where they were placed, but i would expect that the control panel > power options > advanced > power buttons options would affect precisely what you're talking about. there's a "sleep button" choice and an option to "do nothing".

  56. That's called "defective hardware"... by Rocketship+Underpant · · Score: 1

    Dude, you're using your Mac with a Windows mentality. You clearly got a defective unit, so take it back and get it replaced for free. There's no need to grumble and pretend you have to live with it.

    Sleep has worked like an absolute charm on every Mac I've owned, including the Macbook Pro I'm typing on right now. I never had a PC where it worked.

    --
    He who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.
    1. Re:That's called "defective hardware"... by tuxlove · · Score: 1

      This is an extremely common problem, and affects everyone I know that has a Macbook Pro. It's not just a case of a single bad laptop. This happens to everyone at some time or another. Apple even issued a firmware update to help the problem, but it sure didn't make it go away. Don't believe me? Check out macfixit, macosxhints, etc.

      If you have a macbook of any kind, you have to admit that shutdown sux compared to the old powerbooks and previous models. My powerbook would sleep in about 3 seconds when the lid was shut. Now, this stupid "safe sleep" feature of apple's makes the laptop dump all of RAM to disk, which seriously slows down sleeping. You have to wait and wait while the disk and fan run like crazy before you can put it away. This is most definitely not a "bug", but a feature of all macbooks. It's completely retarded. I finally figured out that I could disable the safe sleep "feature" with a command line utility, and now it shuts down like my old powerbook. The OS still gets into a state once in a while where it won't detect the lid being shut, and stays running when you close it. This is not a bad unit either. As I said, this happens to just about everyone. It also happened a few times with my old powerbook.

      Don't know why you haven't experienced this stuff, except perhaps you don't use it heavily enough. I keep going without reboot for months sometimes (because this is a mac, after all). I constantly have 6 desktops with dozens of windows, and all RAM is consumed at all times. The OS pages quite a bit despite having 2 GB RAM. Under these conditions (which are not unreasonable, considering it's *supposed* to work this way), the OS is taxed to the limit. It could be that such heavy use makes the sleep problem more common, who knows. I do know that when you use it this hard, it exposes the extreme lameness of some of the OS problems. I have gotten the OS into a paging deadlock of sorts more than once, and the other bugs are numerous and plentiful as well. It's far better than windows, but it's not like apple's sh*t don't stink too.

    2. Re:That's called "defective hardware"... by ReverseGeek · · Score: 1

      This is true, I have had better luck with my 17in MacBook Pro sleeping in bootacamped Vista than with OS 10.4.8.

      --
      Insert Signature here, or not.
  57. A very appropriate code-name by no_sw_patents123 · · Score: 1

    Uh... Microsoft.... Fiji had **yet another** coup a few months ago, and you want to name an OS after them??? Actually, it's very appropriate - Vista works about as well as Fiji does. In other words - not at all......

  58. Vista Sleep problem? by The_Face_Of_Death777 · · Score: 1

    I'm using windows vista ultimate and I have had no problems with sleep or hiber. WTF?! Must be lucky?!? 0_0

    --
    Soyo KT800 dragon version 2.0, AMD athlon XP 3000+ 2.6GHz, 126.4GB HDD, CD/DVD-Burner Drive, 21 inch monitor, Windows Vi
  59. Downgrade info by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    Quote from internal memo:

    I just got off the phone with Microsoft regarding Vista downgrade rights, their has been some confusion regarding this.


    1) Vista clients can downgrade to XP.


    2) Microsoft will NOT supply an XP CD for clients wanting to downgrade. Clients must use one of their existing XP CD's; if the CD is a single activation CD they must call Microsoft's Activation Office at 888-571-2048 and request an activation override on the activation key. Note that not all Microsoft employees at the activation office are fully aware of this right, so cleints may have to be insistent. Microsoft is working to remedy the situation.


    3) If clients do not have an existing XP CD, they will have to buy a single upgrade license with the media.

    Whadda ya know. As if Microsoft somehow knew consumers might want to not have Vista on their brand new machines...Hummmmmmm...