Programs Cannot Be Uninstalled In Vista?

Corson writes "I am surprised that nobody seems to have mentioned this here yet. Possibly after one of the latest updates in Windows Vista, two strange things happened: first, the Uninstall option is no longer available in the Control Panel when you right-click on older programs (most likely, those installed prior to the update in question, because uninstall works fine for recently installed programs — the Uninstall button is also missing on the toolbar at the top); second, some programs are no longer shown on the applications list in Control Panel (e.g., Yahoo Messenger). A Google search returns quite a few hits on this issue (e.g., one, two, three, and four) but everybody seems to be waiting patiently for a sign from Microsoft. But the company seems to have no clue or they would have fixed it already. I am just curious how many of you are experiencing this nuisance."

Comments

This is why you turn off updates....

[Fallen Kell]

Problems like this happen all the time. This is why companies usually have a vetting process for any updates that are released and why no person should download an update for a week or more for these issues to be brought up and found/fixed. I keep automatic updates turned off ever since an update for Win2k corrupted my installation and forced a full re-install.

Re:This is why you turn off updates....

[jkrise]

companies usually have a vetting process for any updates that are released and why no person should download an update for a week or more for these issues to be brought up and found/fixed. I keep automatic updates turned off ever since an update for Win2k corrupted my installation and forced a full re-install. I'm a bit confused here. Let's say I'm a sysadmin and I have a few 100 PCs in my network, 90% of them running some flavour of Windows - mostly Win2K and WinXP, 6 new Vista PCs for testing and the rest Linux. (actually I'm no longer a sysadmin but the rest of the above scenario applies in my firm).

Should we double-guess what Microsoft tells us in their tech notes, and manually check every single patch? Every patch Tuesday, we get about 8 patches on average, how can any end user co. be expected to test out all these on their production networks? How exactly can sysadmins go about checking all these patches themselves? Does it add to their 'experience' or job value? I don't think so, and the sysads can't be bothered to verify what Microsoft ought to know.

End result - we have a WSUS server which handles all the updates, and that server is set to automatic, sothe sysads get back to their task of configuring new PCs, setting up changed environments based on changing project needs etc.

A separate vetting process and a delay of a week is insane IMO - with zero day attacks and little info. to work on - sysadmins are better off doing Automatic Updates. The other problem here in India is that there is no direct support from Microsoft even for Corporates who are willing to pay - support issues get routed to some VAR, the engineers there know little better than the sysadmins, and often merely pretend to help out. In reality they couldn't be bothered less.

Poor Vista adoption will actually accentuate his problem I guess - the smaller userbase will mean lesser bugs reported until it's too late.

Re:This is why you turn off updates....

[rbochan]

Should we double-guess what Microsoft tells us in their tech notes, and manually check every single patch?

Absolutely... just as you would with any other vendor patch to a production system.

Tuesday, we get about 8 patches on average, how can any end user co. be expected to test out all these on their production networks?

That's not an end user's job. That's the IT staff's job. End users shouldn't be applying patches. Period. End of story. That's what the IT staff is there for.

...and the sysads can't be bothered to verify what Microsoft ought to know.

Those sysads should be retrained or fired.

...we have a WSUS server which handles all the updates, and that server is set to automatic...

If you allow things like that to happen automatically, you're going to have to deal with the consequences.

...The other problem here in India is that there is no direct support from Microsoft even for Corporates who are willing to pay

Find another vendor then. No one forces Microsoft's products on you.

Re:This is why you turn off updates....

[ScrewMaster]

I keep automatic updates turned off ever since an update for Win2k corrupted my installation and forced a full re-install.

Me since Windows NT 4. I had a friend of mine who worked for large company call me and say, "don't install the latest fixes! One of them will trash your drive!" Apparently, their IT people were checking the latest hotfixes on their test system, prior to deployment, and discovered the problem. Of course, he tells me this right as I was trying to reboot after having installed them on my goddamn server and was wondering why I was getting a BSOD.

Yeah, I was pissed, and when automatic updates came around, it just seemed like a good idea to let everyone else test them first.

Re:This is why you turn off updates....

[UncleTogie]

A separate vetting process and a delay of a week is insane IMO - with zero day attacks and little info. to work on - sysadmins are better off doing Automatic Updates.
Not to criticize, but when was the last time Microsoft successfully responded to a 0-day within 24, 48, or 72 hours?

Re:This is why you turn off updates....

[MindStalker]

Of course this all assumes you have enough staff to have someones primary job being testing updates. Most places unfortunately have just enough IT staff to keep things running. Sure things will occasionally break but and someone will have to work overtime. Sure a good sysadmin should delay patch releases for a few days in case any big news comes out. But thats the about the most you can expect for the average business.

Re:This is why you turn off updates....

[HiThere]

I don't know just how often MS goofs royally, but you are presuming a kind of overhead that many companies can't afford (or won't).

I'll grant you that your scenario would be preferable for everything but short-notice attacks...and even for those if a good firewall could keep them out. It would also be more expensive most of the time. Managers notice things like that. Most are willing to tolerate "emergency action", but many of those won't tolerate normal "wasted time", even if the "wasted time" would prevent the need for "emergency action". For one thing, because the need for emergency action was prevented, it never became necessary, and thus, to the manager, was unreal.

And it's also true that sometimes applying the patch QUICKLY is important. When Debian found that someone had gotten improper access to their repositories they shut-down updating INSTANTLY. Later they examined machine by machine to see which were good, and which had to be recovered from backup. It took a week for them to get fully back to normal. Security patches were among the first repositories back on line. Sometimes quick action is necessary. AFAIK they never found that any of their repositories had actually been corrupted, but they did "the right thing". And that involved two fast actions.
1) Take down anything that might have become corrupt
2) Get the security updates back up as quickly as is safe

Usually a security update doesn't have strong urgency, merely strong importance. Sometimes it also has strong urgency. With MS updates, you only know what they're telling you, and they're only telling you what will benefit them. So you never know which updates are important, which are urgent, and which are both. And from whose point of view.

Re:This is why you turn off updates....

[Master of Transhuman]

"Most places unfortunately have just enough IT staff to keep things running."

And there are two reasons for that:

1) First, companies won't pay for proactive support and organization of their systems so they fail less. They pay for "damage control" only.

2) The IT industry produces stuff that is incredibly easy to break due to poor engineering.

Although, as to the latter, I'd say if we produced bridges that were intended to accept connections from any other device on the planet (like cameras, printers, modems, phones, blah blah), and do five million different things other than stand there and carry traffic, we'd probably have bridge collapses every day.

Humans simply aren't good at producing complex devices with multiple purposes. They can produce simple devices with multiple purposes - like a knife - and they can produce a complex device with ONE purpose - like a car (and look at how often cars break) - but they cannot produce a complex device with multiple purposes.

They could if they'd realize their limitations (the Dirty Harry Principle) and start applying computer-aided design technology to engineering computer systems themselves.

But admitting their limitations is something else humans aren't good at. That would make them "inferior" to the next guy over - and that isn't allowed by their primate brains.

Having said all that, Microsoft producing a patch that turns off program uninstallation is clearly one of the dumber things they've done lately - even if it only affects 5% of systems. What next? 5% of systems simply go BSOD on the next patch?

Whoever said that if 5% of any other device failed it would be recalled is correct. Vista was rushed out the door to meet a corporate contract deadline - after it was late by, what, three years? - and clearly it shows.

Re:This is why you turn off updates....

[HangingChad]

..and the sysads can't be bothered to verify what Microsoft ought to know.
Those sysads should be retrained or fired.

Agh! Easy for you to say. I'm not sure what experience leads you to so callously dismiss a group of people who are usually understaffed to start with, dealing with seemingly endless stupid user tricks and have to accommodate the buzzword-of-day in IT. I heard a management person say, and this a quote, "I think we should do that SOA thing, don't you?"

So, no, based on what I've seen working with companies across the size spectrum, unless you're willing to pony up for the staff resources, the poor people on the front lines have to cut corners where they can. And it would not seem unreasonable to me that MSFT should be able to get the patches right the first time.

Otherwise, what are we getting for our money? MSFT is one of the richest companies on the planet...rich from our $$$. Why don't they dip into those billions and provide those poor people in IT a little relief. Perhaps then they'd have enough time to go out at a decent hour and actually have a chance at reproducing.

Find another vendor then. No one forces Microsoft's products on you.

We agree on that. Unload your MSFT environment. Your costs will go down, your users will be happy. You will make money.

Re:This is why you turn off updates....

[Tom]

Problems like this happen all the time. In some parts of the computing world.

You would not accept a problem like that with a shrug if it were in your car, or even your television set. Why do we accept computers as inherently faulty? My guess is that a big share of the blame for that goes to Redmond.

In beta software, in Free Software or in a student's freeware project, failures like that would be acceptable. In a commercial software that is being sold for several hundred bucks, they should not be. None of us would buy a car with several thousand known bugs, some of which just might affect the lights or brakes. Few of us would buy a TV that simply breaks down every now and then. None of us would accept "but it's a complicated technology and there are so many parts" as an excuse for a plane crash.

Re:This is why you turn off updates....

[Trogre]

Except if you're a small ma and pa shop then the end user is the IT staff.

The world isn't always as black and white as we might like it to be.

Re:This is why you turn off updates....

[Kawahee]

The other problem here in India is that there is no direct support from Microsoft even for Corporates who are willing to pay

Dude, you're in India! We turn to you for support.

Re:This is why you turn off updates....

[slackmaster2000]

Actually, having just enough staff to keep things running sounds very efficient to me.

Redundant testing of MS patches for the extremely unlikely event of having a patch cause real damage is wasteful. I have had MS patches screw up systems plenty, but the cost of fixing the problem after the fact has actually been considerably less than all the work that would be required putting tests through vague tests of my own design. Consider the bug in the topic post. I wouldn't have caught it, even if I did have time to verify every single patch. What would the procedure be?

4.3.4.594393 (c) Verify that programs still have uninstall button in Add/Remove programs.

Now what I've argued here doesn't apply universally. For desktops in what I consider a typical MS environment, however, the amount of time spent fixing problems caused by patches is so low that I could never, ever justify the cost of in-house testing. I read the patch synopsis and caveats, maybe hold off on scarier ones, do a minor amount of verification, and have very few problems.

Re:This is why you turn off updates....

[Phroggy]

Having said all that, Microsoft producing a patch that turns off program uninstallation is clearly one of the dumber things they've done lately - even if it only affects 5% of systems. What next? 5% of systems simply go BSOD on the next patch?

Whoever said that if 5% of any other device failed it would be recalled is correct. Vista was rushed out the door to meet a corporate contract deadline - after it was late by, what, three years? - and clearly it shows. The difference is that in a non-software product, if 5% of the units fail, it's often because 5% of the units are actually different than the other 95%, due to shoddy manufacturing. In Microsoft's case, the 95% of copies of Vista that work and the 5% that don't are exactly the same - only the rest of the computer is different, not Microsoft's product. For your average widget, if there's a 5% failure rate, the company needs to do better quality control and maybe test each individual unit for defects or something. For software, if there's a 5% failure rate, and everything in Microsoft's QA labs happen to fall into the 95%... what are they supposed to do?

Re:This is why you turn off updates....

[EtherMonkey]

Should we double-guess what Microsoft tells us in their tech notes, and manually check every single patch?

Yes, absolutely! How manual it needs to be depends on your environment. Do you think Microsoft tests patches against Peoplesoft? SAP? Oracle? Sybase? Java? Cognos? Citrix? Etc??? What about the other non-MS apps that keep your business running? The custom ActiveX modules needed for your proprietary order booking system?

how can any end user co. be expected to test out all these on their production networks? How exactly can sysadmins go about checking all these patches themselves?

End users on production networks should be the LAST to see the patches. First, they should go through a quarantined test lab. We use VMWare for that. If that passes, we release via WSUS to our development environment. Every application has an "owner," a person ultimately responsible for the support and maintenance of a particular program, even if it is "off-the-shelf." App owners are also responsible for developing and maintaining a test script that exercises all areas of the app, and running through that script as part of the patch testing process.

After quarantine (24hrs) and app test, (target 48 hrs), we release to pilot networks using WSUS. After two days with the Pilot users without problems, we release to our production WSUS for general roll-out.

If your a publicly-traded company in the USA subject to SOX, or ISO-27002/BS7799(Part 2) or PCI-complaint, or if you deal with personally identifiable information related to financial transactions or healthcare, your generally expected to have documented test processes with evidence of control and review that the processes are being followed. Many large, multinational companies require the same standards of all their partners (consultants, development houses, outsourcing Other businesses might not be legally compelled to do this, but depending on your size and the complexity of your environment, you would be foolish to simply throw out patches to "a few 100 PC's" without a bit of due diligence.

A separate vetting process and a delay of a week is insane IMO - with zero day attacks and little info. to work on - sysadmins are better off doing Automatic Updates.

The insanity is to make sweeping changes to the fundamental foundation of your entire technology infrastructure without so much as even reading the technical notes for possible counter-indications or caveats. Zero-day attacks are mostly due to poor network security at the border. With perimeter and internal firewalls, transparent proxies, email security gateways, antivirus/antispyware, limited user rights and proper administration, the risks associated with virtually any unpatched vulnerability can be reduced to acceptable levels.

As far as I'm concerned, you are a trainwreck looking for a place to happen. I hope that your not one of my company's partners in India.

Re:This is why you turn off updates....

[TeraCo]

At a minimum, I'd make sure that the patch you're installing isn't going to BSOD every PC in your enterprise. Because if you've got more than a handful of desktops (say 50,000 like my last job) you're going to end up having a very bad day.

At a minimum, -any- sysadmin who is doing their job should be setting up a wsus server with all the patches disabled by default. On patch day, the admin then comes in and reviews/installs all the patches on his own PC. Assuming his PC isn't a paperweight by the end of the day, then you could consider opening -specific patches- up to the company at large.

Anything else is just begging to be sacked.

PS: In said last job, the people who administer our centralised deployment server let some application (not a patch, some tiny app designed to monitor net usage) slip through without adequate testing and BSOD'd 2/3rds of those 50K workstations. Now, they -were- having a very bad day.

Re:This is why you turn off updates....

[Phroggy]

Your incorrect assumption is that these third-party pieces of software do not modify how "Microsoft's product" behaves (or, more accurately, appears to behave). I did not say that Windows doesn't behave differently on different PCs, only that it isn't different on different PCs. Windows itself, the product you buy in a weird little plastic box with the funny hinge in the corner, the data on the DVD in that box, is not different. If you do a clean install of Windows on your PC, and something doesn't work, exchanging the DVD for another identical one won't solve the problem. If you buy a toaster, drop in two slices of bread and push the lever, and it doesn't make toast, you can take the toaster back to the store to exchange it for exactly the same brand and model of toaster, and the new toaster will work fine.

With software, it's like you've bought a toaster that works fine unless you're trying to toast just a single slice of Franz honey wheat berry bread. Two slices works fine, Orowheat honey wheat berry works fine, Franz whole wheat works fine, etc. Nobody has this kind of problem with toasters. That's the difference.

Re:This is why you turn off updates....

[smithcl8]

In 8 years, I have had exactly 1 server crash due to a bad patch and maybe 5 PCs. The server required me to do the Windows installation with the repair option and the PCs had to be fully reinstalled. Not the best situation, but not the end of the world either.

On the other hand, my predecessor at one company decided to "test" everything first. He would get so bogged down in other tasks that he would be way late getting the patches installed. So when Blaster hit, just after I'd taken over his position, I had every computer infected. This WAS a big problem. That was the day that I came to the realization that patching blindly is safer than not patching at all.

Here are some questions for those of you who test every patch:

1. What criteria do you use to determine if the patch is safe?
2. Do you have every possible server and PC configuration available to you to test in a non-production environment?
3. How many systems do you patch before giving the green light?
4. Which department in your company becomes the guinea pig and gets the patches first, after your initial testing says everything is okay?
5. How many days per month do you allocate to simply patching systems?

Now, if you are in a large company, I would expect that patching is at least one person's entire job and all of these questions can get answered. In a small to medium company, however, you'd be hard pressed to get the hardware, people, and time to do the patching "safely".

Nope

[thornomad]

I used my uninstall button with Windows a long time ago. No problems since then.

other tools

[Original Replica]

Does C-Cleaner still work? It's one of many tools out there to help "fix" Windows.

Technical support

[Skuld-Chan]

Me thinks you need to call technical support instead of writing articles on Slashdot and your blog. Reason? I use Vista and I have an uninstall button for all the programs I have installed - and I've installed all the latest patches.

Re:Bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering the article contains links to reports of other people encountering the same problem I wouldn't call this "bashing Vista". I suppose I could claim that you're a MS apologist (or maybe an MS employee) since you so quickly and blindly jumped to Vistas defense.

new microsoft user conversion program

[MrShaggy]

'All your base belong to us' No uninstall needed!

Is this from last patch Tuesday?

[JohnnyBGod]

I recently bought a laptop with Vista, and I've already uninstalled stuff after the last patch Tuesday. So, what the hell is the submitter talking about? P.S.: Before the flamewars start, first thing I did was install Ubuntu so I could dual boot. I use Vista only for: a) the occasional game and b) my university's wireless network, since, as of this time, I couldn't get the box to connect (authentication issues). I'll elaborate on this if someone wants me to.

Re:Is this from last patch Tuesday?

[node159]

We, as the slashdot collective request a full inquiry and subsequent marching of to the gallows, in par with the US due process.

Bashing?

[dunezone]

Whats with all the comments about switching to another OS or some smart-ass comment about not using Windows?

When I was younger my best tactic for fixing a computer issue was to format. As I got older I realized that solution is impractical. Just like switching to another OS is impractical for most of us.

Re:Bashing?

[oztiks]

When I was younger my best tactic for fixing a computer issue was to format. As I got older I realized that solution is impractical. Just like switching to another OS is impractical for most of us.

So on that train of thought switching from XP to Vista is considered impractical, you'll get no argument from me on that one.

Re:Bashing?

[Lisandro]

When I was younger my best tactic for fixing a computer issue was to format. As I got older I realized that solution is impractical.

Yeah, i guess that's why products like this aren't popular at all with Windows users. Half of our office computers at work had Windows reinstalled atleast once, from scratch. This is all too common with Windows systems, in my experience.

I know that /. is renowed for it's anti-Windows slant, but sheeze, if it's broken, fix it. An OS that requires a full disc image to get working again every once in a while has a problem.

Re:Bullshit

[Gothic_Walrus]

mine is OK. Another article bashing Vista, uh?

Yes, just because you're not having problems, that obviously means that nobody else with a different hardware configuration, different software installed, or a different version of Vista could possibly be having issues with it. That would just be silly.

Re:Bullshit

[Mundocani]

It works both ways though -- some number of users experience a problem and they think that *everyone* must be having the problem. Other users aren't having the problem and don't understand how *anyone* could be having trouble. Despite what some may think, assholes are a two-way street :)

This is only a minority problem...

[megla]

...and it's not exactly serious either.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's not annoying and I'm not suggesting it's acceptable, but for this to be on the front page of slashdot seems a bit over the top. Why?

1. There is a known workaround (re-run the installation of the application you want to uninstall - the vast majority of the time you will be propted to select from adding features, repairing features or uninstalling the application)
2. It's a pretty trivial bug which doesn't affect any critical systems or features
3. It doesn't affect that many systems - I'm running 3 Vista x64 systems and none of them have this problem

This all seems a bit knee-jerk.

Re:This is only a minority problem...

[cdrguru]

This isn't a Microsoft problem.

It is stupid application problem.

If the application screws up the uninstall - something that hasn't really changed since 1995 - then the publisher should be the one blamed and complained to.

Microsoft built a framework. If the application doesn't follow it and requires you to "reinstall to uninstall" or some such nonsense it is hardly a Microsoft problem.

UAC is the cause...

[Aphrika]

Could be some older programs are incompatible with the newer UAC security model. I've seen something similar in Windows XP whereby certain applications that required Power User or Administrator rights to uninstall had the button missing. Quicktime was a good example.

Best answer I can give; try logging in as Administrator (proper system administrator on Vista) and seeing if the uninstall buttons are there. Remember, if a program was written pre-UAC, chances are that it might misbehave and need full admin privs to remove. The other option is just to disable UAC for the duration of the uninstall, then re-enable it. I'm assuming you've researched and tried these simple fixes already though. Right?

No worse than OS X

[SanityInAnarchy]

One thing that really bothered me on OS X was its complete and total lack of an uninstall feature. This was especially annoying, as I'd hoped that the "drag to trash" was really a fancy GUI for some sort of real package manager.

I mean, sure, if your app is entirely self-contained, you can just drag it from Applications to Trash and be done with it -- at least that's no worse than Linux, where per-user preferences are left alone, but nobody really cares, since it's only a few K of disk space and doesn't affect anything else.

But what do you do about the random app that installs kernel extensions, browser extensions, and generally insinuates itself among all your stuff? You know, the cool stuff like Insomnia, the SMS-to-HID driver, or the force-any-window-to-fullscreen extension? Or even multi-desktops, or something as simple as a VPN?

Often, the uninstall instructions for these are at least as complicated and unnecessary as anything you hear people complaining about for installing software on Linux.

Oh wait, I forgot -- there's a proud Mac tradition of making you pay $20, $50, or $100 for random bits of third-party software to implement stuff that should have been in the OS to begin with. In the past, it was things like dynamic RAM allocation and swap space, and now, it's an uninstaller.

(You could complain that Windows is the same way, needing third-party stuff like anti-virus, but most of what you need on Windows is either bundled with the OS or available for free, often open source. And you don't really need anti-virus. On the Mac, it's always this truly basic functionality that I guess isn't needed by people who want it to "just work".)

In any case, mod me offtopic if you will, but maybe this proves that Apple was right not to include an uninstaller. Maybe most people just don't need to uninstall anything, ever, so it's too much work to include yet another feature that may confuse grandma, even if it makes us geeks grind our teeth at the mere thought...

Re:No worse than OS X

[Anonymous Coward]

Good job of blaming the OS for developer problems. Apple clearly states that any app which is installed via pkg should come with an easy to use uninstaller or be able to be uninstalled via the original pkg. Given the choice between having the OS force a database for all applications or having two choices for application install, dmg (etc...) for self contained-drag and drop install/uninstall and pkg (for things that require elevated privs or scripts), I'd surely take the one with multiple options.

Re:No worse than OS X

[TheSkyIsPurple]

1. Download cool app
2. Install cool app
3. Use cool app... it works, cool
4. Guess I don't need that installer anymore
5. Ya know, I don't need this, how do I uninstall it?

Yeah, it's obvious from the OS that I should go re-download the original installer and hope that it has an uninstaller.

Pushing the problem to the developer is essentially pushing it to the end user, because the end user has to manage this stuff, and Apple doesn't even trust its users to organize their own Music folders, etc. They've got these amazing frameworks for implementing common parts of most programs, but not tracking which program does what?

I hope it's just because they're trying for a revolutionary way of tracking these dependencies, or its because of patent licensing or something... and not that they don't think it's necessary

Re:No worse than OS X

[delire]

In that case perhaps OS/X has a useability issue here.

We turn on and off services and administer other aspects of OS/X using OS provided tools in most other respects, so why not manage software in the same way? Even if a package should "come with an easy to use uninstaller" perhaps this uninstaller should be exposed to a central software management facility so it can be easily found. I say this as people typically delete the installer once the application has been installed, so the idea that users should look for the original package and use it to provide the service of uninstallation makes little sense, conceptually (why should an installer uninstall?) or practically.

I've never found Fink or MacPorts to be all that usable on OS/X else I'd certainly prefer to use these apt-like systems to manage software (especially after my recent failed attempt at upgrading to Python2.4 on OS/X 10.4 and later deciding to uninstall it ..).

In my experience the task of uninstalling software is simply easier on Windows and Linux (best of all an apt-based system) than on OS/X. While Windows tends to leave files scattered around and leaves scars in the registry at least I know there is one graphical tool that is supposed to take care of the job. On OS/X I never know quite how to approach the problem - especially when I'm uninstalling software of a newer version than found in /System/Libraries/Frameworks and want to roll back.

Re:No worse than OS X

[SanityInAnarchy]

Good job of blaming the OS for developer problems.

You sound like the type who, back before OS X, when a single app could bring down the whole system because there was no memory segmentation, would say "Good job of blaming the OS for developer problems." While meanwhile I'd be sitting over on Windows or Linux or even Solaris, watching the same "developer problems" simply result in a segfault or illegal operation, crashing that one app.

Apple clearly states that any app which is installed via pkg should come with an easy to use uninstaller or be able to be uninstalled via the original pkg.

Easy to use doesn't mean standard. On Windows or Linux, I can open up a central list of installed packages and uninstall from there. Apple's encouraging the old Windows way of doing this, which is to have a separate uninstall program -- hopefully somewhere near where the app is installed -- that's developed along with the app, or licensed from a third party (InstallShield)...

You know, maybe you should think about why the pkg format exists in the first place. Why have a standard format?

Well, it's simple: When I get any OS X app, in any form, unless it's some crazy custom script, I know that to install it, I either doubleclick on the .pkg, or open the .dmg/.zip/whatever and drag the .app to Applications.

But when I uninstall, if I can uninstall at all, I have to think about where I put the .pkg (if there is one), or hunt around for an uninstaller, or drag the .app to Trash and go hunting around for whatever crap it left behind.

Compare that to Linux, or even Windows -- add/remove programs, click "uninstall". Done.

Given the choice between having the OS force a database for all applications or having two choices for application install, dmg (etc...) for self contained-drag and drop install/uninstall and pkg (for things that require elevated privs or scripts), I'd surely take the one with multiple options.

Given that no OS I know of actually enforces one option over the other, I'd say you're talking out your ass.

I'd much rather have the choice of an OS-maintained, or at least common, database of installed apps and how to uninstall them -- without having to keep the original pkg around (how retarded is it that you have to pop in the original install disc in order to uninstall? Maybe the whole REASON you want to uninstall is that you lost the disc needed to run the app?)

Re:No worse than OS X

[juuri]

So I take it you throw out media to any applications you actually purchase which come on such?

It's your fault for getting rid of the installer if that is the way the developer specifies for an uninstall. Your step 4 is a breakdown in the application cycle at the user level. What if you ever had to reinstall that app, you would download it again? What if that specific version didn't exist anymore? Or the entire app was pulled?

I do not have this issue

[sqlguy33]

I have all the latest patches, and mine works fine. Nothing to see here move along.... As a side note. I have been running Vista Ultimate since the day I could purchase it. I upgraded my primary computer from Windows XP and have yet to have it crash once. I leave it running almost 24 hours a day. I have never had an issue with Windows since I got away from the ME edition, which was the worst OS ever. My guess is most people who have computer issues also download every toolbar form the internet, and spend a lot of time trying to shoot the target, capture the monkey, and click on every pop-up that appears. Maybe I am one of the few people who have had no issues with Xp, or Vista. I also run a linux server for my home Domain, and file shares, as well as my firewall. Now I will go back to my humble cave, as I am sure I will be banned from /. for my pro windows view.

Power

[delirium of disorder]

"everybody seems to be waiting patiently for a sign from Microsoft."

This is one of the major problems with proprietary software. You're entirely dependent on the copyright holder and need to wait for them to find and fix any bugs. If you run Windows, you don't even have control over the basic functionality of your software.

Free software empowers users. We all know that if you're a coder, you can fix free software yourself, but more importantly, if you run an organization that depends on the software, you can pay someone to fix it. When university department heads and corporate IT managers start realizing how they can get what they need done, when they need it, they'll make the switch. Waiting for a monopoly to get it's shit together means billions in lost revenue. Letting several companies bid and compete to find the fastest, cheapest, and most effective solutions means a more efficient IT industry as a whole.

Re:why is this on slashdot?

[bigstrat2003]

An update in Vista breaking something rather major (the ability to uninstall shit), qualifies as both news (hasn't happened to any other version of Windows that I recall), and something that matters (plenty of people are using Vista, even if it's only because it came with their computer, so this is potentially affecting quite a few people). It quite firmly belongs on slashdot, thanks.

FUD Article

[Fanboys_Suck_Dick]

A Google search returns quite a few hits on this issue

Translation: a grand total of 5 users say they are experiencing this problem, probably including the author of this story.

After reading the posts linked in the article it seems the problem might be related to Yahoo toolbar crapware being installed on the PCs. You can use use system restore to fix the problem. Stop clicking "accept" when UAC warns you not to install crapware. Stop posting Vista FUD stories to Slashdot. Thank you.

Re:FUD Article

[RobFlynn]

I did manage to get this problem to happen on a system, but it was only when the system had a lot of applications in its original XP form and was upgraded to Vista. Most of the applications could be removed. There were a few, however, that couldn't. In fact, running the installer for those programs would either crash or would simply re-install it.

I killed the install, reinstalled only vista and haven't seen it happen since.

Re:Bullshit

[Seumas]

Your world only contains failure rates of 0% and 100%, huh?

Re:why would

[SolusSD]

hm. maybe people would take your opinions more seriously if your alias wasn't msfanboi2. personally, my computing experience has been much more enjoyable since i switched to osx/linux at home and at work. if you've found a way to spend 50% of your time on windows maintaining it-- good for you.

Re:WHO CARES

[Lehk228]

speak and spell also doesn't have patch problems, but just because it's easier to use doesn't justify replacing a professional system with a toy.

Re:Bullshit

[sid0]

The tone of TFS does. "Programs cannot Be Uninstalled In Vista?" Nice device -- just use the question mark on a smear to disclaim it if it is later found false. I think it's called the "Cavuto mark", after the guy on Fox News.

Re:I'm not experiencing this at all...

[Clete2]

No problems here. I installed all of the available updates last night. I'm using Vista Ultimate 32-bit edition (on a 64-bit processor).

Re:Bullshit

[nschubach]

Oh come on. Microsoft has claimed the problem is less than 5% of all units. Mr. Moore reminds us that it's not the problems the devices are having, it's the manner to which they repair them!

Oh wait, that's that other Microsoft product... Sorry.

Re:Bullshit

[RonnyJ]

To add to that, there's often articles about Firefox vulnerabilities on Slashdot, and many posts saying 'everything works fine here' regularly modded up to +5.

In this case, the very first post saying 'mine is OK' is modded as Redundant.

Why?

[tweedle100]

And I'm surprised how a support question ends up on a news site!

Would your "vetting" process have spotted this?

[Joce640k]

Would your "vetting" process have spotted this...?

I can see how a "vetting process" would spot major problems with a patch but would you honestly have spotted "uninstall button missing for some applications"?

To me it seems like the sort of thing people only notice weeks or months after an update.

Re:I'm not experiencing this at all...

[ToriaUru]

Add me to that group. I will continue to refuse to use it. I'm dual-booting with Linux now, and slowly learning my way around Ubuntu 7.04. That's what I'll take over Vista, any day.

Re:Solution

[TheRaven64]

My PowerBook came with OS X 10.2, and was upgraded to 10.3 then to 10.4 without any issues. Over the three years that it was my primary machine, I never re-installed the operating system. After one year, it was sent in for repair. Apple lost it and provided me with a replacement. Fortunately, before sending it in, I'd imaged the disk onto an old QuickSilver G4 (desktop), which I used in the intervening period. When I got it back, I just moved the disk contents back over. The next time I sent it in for repair, I moved the contents of the disk to a G4 Mac Mini and did the same thing. The OS install, over three years, was resident on three machines and went through three major OS versions.

The FreeBSD box under my desk has gone from 4.7 up to 6.2. At some point in the 6.x series, I moved /home onto a software RAID 1 array.

My OpenBSD box has gone from 3.7 to 4.1, again, without any problems.

Windows is the only operating system I've used where you expect upgrades to break things. Upgrading is almost always preferable to a clean install, since you keep all of your settings. If it isn't reliable, then that's a very bad thing.

The short answer is "yes, you should".

[khasim]

Should we double-guess what Microsoft tells us in their tech notes, and manually check every single patch? Every patch Tuesday, we get about 8 patches on average, how can any end user co. be expected to test out all these on their production networks?

By planning for it.

How exactly can sysadmins go about checking all these patches themselves?

By testing them.

Does it add to their 'experience' or job value?

Knowing what is on their systems is part of their job. As is maintaining those systems.

I don't think so, and the sysads can't be bothered to verify what Microsoft ought to know.

Yes, there are admins like that out there.

End result - we have a WSUS server which handles all the updates, and that server is set to automatic, sothe sysads get back to their task of configuring new PCs, setting up changed environments based on changing project needs etc.

So you automatically accept and deploy the patches Microsoft sends out ... knowing that Microsoft itself tells you that they do NOT test those patches against other company's software.

A separate vetting process and a delay of a week is insane IMO - with zero day attacks and little info. to work on - sysadmins are better off doing Automatic Updates.

My opinion is the opposite. But then, my opinion is based upon my experience with vendors releasing patches that broke systems.

Re:Bullshit

[Original Replica]

Microsoft has claimed the problem is less than 5% of all units.

Maybe the big image problem MicroSoft is having as far as bugs and quality control is a matter of people expecting more from computers as they get ever more integrated in our lives. If 5% of a new model of HD-DVD player wouldn't eject the DVD, there would be a recall. When PCs were novelties it was OK for them to be "quirky". That time has passed. MicroSoft, and much of the software world in general, need to step up and produce goods with real craftsmanship, not patched together. Yes I know modern software is all terribly complex, but if it's too hard to do well, go into a different line of work.

No worse than OS X?

[astrosmash]

No worse than OS X, huh?

I recently went through my old PC to remove the unused software it has collected over the years. Not only was this a long and painful process involving questions about shared DLLs that no end-user is even remotely qualified to answer, but nearly half of the uninstallers failed out-right. On top of that, my PC was still littered with registry settings, program files, and cache files from applications that were supposedly uninstalled successfully.

Do you think the App-Zapper people will develop a version for Windows? I'd pay $20 for that!

The reality is that most Windows uninstallers do little more than what is accomplished from dragging an application bundle to the trash. The reason it works on OS X (and NEXTSTEP) is because the program files and system configuration settings are contained entirely within the application bundle, as opposed to being scattered throughout the file system and registry. That is why Windows needs an uninstaller.

The reason the situation is better on OS X is because OS X doesn't obfuscate the file system the way Windows does. For people who are paranoid about a clean computer it's relatively trivial to go into ~/Library/Caches, ~/Library/Application Support, and ~/Library/Preferences and clear out stuff. Average users do this, and it's this simplicity that allows programs like App-zapper to exist. Writing such a tool for Windows would be practically impossible.

Given the choice between Application/Framework Bundles vs. requiring an installer/uninstaller program for even the simplest application, I'll choose bundles every time. It's a valid point that OS X could include a catalog of legitimate uninstallers for applications that do provide them, but on the other hand, I've been getting along just fine with /Library/Receipts for the two and a half years I've been using OS X. You know that you can select 'File->Show Files' from an OS X installer packages to view all files contained within the package, right? Another feature I wish Windows had.

But if that's all too much for Grandma then perhaps she should stick with Windows.

(By the way AppTrap does what App-Zapper does, and it's free and open source.)

Re:No worse than OS X?

[myowntrueself]

The reason it works on OS X (and NEXTSTEP) is because the program files and system configuration settings are contained entirely within the application bundle, as opposed to being scattered throughout the file system and registry.

Thats how it is supposed to be.

Thats not how it is, even for the Apple-produced iLife apps. Garageband is a great example. If you drop the application bundle in the trash you are still left with a few gigs of (now useless) files 'scattered' throughout the filesystem. Ok 'scattered' may be a bit extreme but the point stands that by dragging the garageband app bundle to the trash you have *not* removed all traces of the app.

Re:why is this on slashdot?

[Otter]

An update in Vista breaking something rather major ... qualifies as both news ... and something that matters ... It quite firmly belongs on slashdot, thanks.

And the fact that it's not actually true pretty much seals the deal!

Re:why would

[Frenchman113]

I can't believe I'm allowing myself to be goaded into answering an AC, but...

You'll get modded down as a troll because you are one.

1.) You can get full installs of Vista for less than full versions of MacOS X. False. MacOS X costs $130. The full version of Vista costs $400. End of story. Wrong. Most people won't need Vista "Ultimate". In fact, Ultimate is not $400 either. Further, Vista is not locked to hardware.

2.) You can run Vista (without Aero) just fine on older hardware. False. Vista requires more memory and processor speed for various background tasks not related to the excessive and useless graphics system it uses. If you don't have 512 MB of RAM and a 1 GHz processor in these days, maybe you ought to be looking for a new computer. Further, "excessive" and "useless" are purely opinions. Usually, Aero INCREASES performance since it offloads rendering to the GPU.

3.) There are quite a few FREE AV's out there that work fine. Irrelevant. You're upping the hardware requirements again, and you simply don't need AV software on other OSes. You don't need AV software on Windows either. Use common sense (run non-admin, don't install warez-crackz-pr0n.exe, and don't be a general moron).

4.) Build the computer, run Windows update. No different than any other OS with patches for the OS and applications. False. First off, Windows Update only updates Windows components. Various other OSes will update other software as well.

Secondly, Windows Update contains three "kinds" of updates, Important, Recommended, and Optional. Unfortunately almost all of them are titled "Update for Windows Vista (KB991234)", leaving you with no idea what they do and forcing you to individually decide whether or not to risk the patch. (In fact, it's probably an optional patch that broke the Programs control panel, given that not everyone who's "fully patched" is encountering the problem.)

Then go read the Knowledge Base article on X patch. That's what the KB number means. There's a description of the bug it targets, what files it changes, etc etc.

In any case, other OSes make updating a simple process which includes other software. Not so with Vista: it's only Windows software, and you have to individually select updates which aren't "important" but may be required to run Vista without it constantly crashing.

I guess Chutulu is playing Cthulu's advocate...

[benhocking]

When you say "mine is OK", are you saying that you upgraded Vista and that you can uninstall programs you installed prior to upgrading, or are you talking about something else? Your post is surprisingly short of information for a "defense" post.

Anything can be uninstalled

[Tablizer]

You just need to download the ColdMetal(tm) Uninstall Tool:

http://www.tindlescomputerrepair.com/dont%20shoot. gif

Re:I'm not experiencing this at all...

[vertinox]

Because he speaks a bit of truth. If you have supported Vista on the corporate side of things, it is a bit of the spawn of the devil in some regards. Most legacy VPN programs are hosed and countless other products had to go through a whole series of revamping and patching (heck even Outlook Web Access controls are broke on systems using Vista if you don't patch)

Of course most corporate users wouldn't notice thing since most companies are staying away from Vista like the plague but on occasion when a user calls in saying they got a new persona computer from dell and need to VPN or use OLWA or a legacy app... Well...

Office 2007 on the other hand is great, but you can run that on WinXP. No need to upgrade.

Submitter needs to read more

[omibus]

I can make an install for ANY windows machine that has no uninstall -- this has been trivial since the days of Win95.
Just because a program has an installer is NO guarantee that it will have an uninstaller. And frankly, this is not Microsoft's fault. Some programs have a legitimate reason to not be uninstallable (DirectX is a good example of a program NOT to uninstall) because it would destabilize the machine.

The problem is obvious

[Thought Police OMall]

the person is running a "user" account and the Uninstall option is disabled. Only an "Administrator" account can see the Uninstall button. Switch to an Administrator account, or if on a corporate network ask your System Administrator for access to Uninstall your software or for someone to help you uninstall them.

Vista has a lot of security features that can be turned on and off. This whole Slashdot story is a waste of time, written by a Luddite that doesn't know how security in Vista works. I think they should have been using OS/2 or eComStation instead, which are easier to use and configure than Vista will ever be.

Re:why is this on slashdot?

[the_fat_kid]

no.
The deal will not be done for at least two weeks.
A dupe is required to complete the cycle.

Re:Bullshit

[Idbar]

Perhaps people used to the previous control panel can't find the icon to "add/remove" programs anymore?

I had to install and uninstall software on at least 10 vista computers (different characteristics, different vendors, including Sony, Toshiba, Dell and Shuttle from Core Duos to Xeon Quads from 512MB to 8G RAM). Not a single one had a problem.

what are you smoking?

[boarder]

But the company seems to have no clue or they would have fixed it already.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

You do realize you are talking about a monolithic block of code for an OS from a gigantic software company and not a small, open source app, right? Things don't just change on the fly, especially not small inconveniences such as this. They've probably known about it for months and just haven't taken the time to fix it, since there are many other pressing issues out there.

Re:Bullshit

[g0dsp33d]

Well, Microsoft has a solution, buy 20 copies of the product and you'll have 19 working ones :).

Re:Bullshit

[fd0man]

Perhaps you ought to give GNU/Linux systems another try. Perhaps Ubuntu would be your forté, simply because the "esoteric command line stuff," as you put it, isn't really required. There may be some situations wherein a little bit of command line stuff might be required, but these situations are typically more rare than you would think, at least in my experience. It just seems that people that run into these situations are quite loud and rampant with it.

There are many systems that are more tailored for geeks, and then you have Ubuntu and some other systems that are really tailored to end-users. Overall, they're doing a great job with it, and it is getting to be better as time goes on.

Having run both Windows Vista (both the 32-bit and the 64-bit, beta and release versions), I must say that there really is no comparison to Ubuntu. Windows still has many problems that it hasn't really gotten over yet, mostly due to problems that still haunt them from the past, but also because when you install a retail version of Vista, the drivers that you need have to be sought and everything else. Contrasted with Ubuntu, which has drivers for everything on all of the PCs that I manage on my own personal network, and on other systems that I have installed it onto (which at this point exceeds 100). Other distributions of GNU/Linux are more lightweight, but you don't really need to be <em>that</em> lightweight on today's PCs, either: Windows Vista seems to require way more resources than an updated and heavily customized Ubuntu Feisty box running an up-to-date version of Compiz and Emerald.

Here's an experiment for you to run on your own, if you are able to do so: Take a relatively modern PC and a Windows Vista Retail disc and an Ubuntu Feisty disc. Have someone install both of them. To be fair, make sure that it is a computer that has hardware that is supported under both operating systems by either a third party driver or the operating system itself. See which one is easier (and takes less time and black magic) to get working. I'm willing to bet that the outcome will surprise you. I know for sure that the outcome will surprise you on the machine that I have as my primary workstation (a HP Pavilion Slimline s7700n PC). Ubuntu supports the hardware in this system even better than Vista does pre-installed, and runs quite a bit faster (one such example: <em>Guild Wars</em> runs like utter crud on this system under Vista, but runs perfectly under Cedega on Ubuntu. Windows XP runs it better than Vista on this PC, but not as well as I can run it under Ubuntu.

It might be pertinent to do some fact-checking before spouting off next time... but then again, this <em>is</em> Slashdot.

Re:Bullshit

[sumdumass]

Actually this isn't just specific to Vista. This has happened several times in the past. Usually When and update to the installer or instalshied I forget what it's actual name is, has an incompatability with older versions and the install process removes registry entried so it no longer shows up in the add remeove programs dialog boxes.

I think I seen this happen on windows 98 and with ME when the installer stuff was updated. I'm suspecting that this is the same and it only effects people who used the older versions of the programs with the older installer that are seeing the effect. I was told once and I don't remember were, that the incompatabilities have to do with the uninstall.ini which is generated during the instal process. It either calls something that is no longer present or the formating of it no longer works corectly. If you have been around MS computers long enough, you will eventually see it. Sometimes it crops up as cannot find uninstall.ini or something simular with it in the corect folder and there when you check. It isn't a conspiracy, probably just an old problem creeping back.

The obvious one

[benhocking]

the answer is: the obvious one.

That you don't even have Vista?

Re:Bullshit

[Tom]

I agree with you entirely. And I'd like to add one thing:

Yes I know modern software is all terribly complex, but if it's too hard to do well, go into a different line of work. Yes, computer software is complex. So are planes. So are rockets. In fact, so are modern cars. We wouldn't accept even half the failure rate in any of those.

The problem with software is the license crap. The part that makes it impossible to return it as defect, even if it contains thousands of critical bugs. We need more consumer protection there. Just like any other items, if it has more than a low number of non-critical problems, one should be able to return any software for a full refund.

Pass that as a law, include that no license, EULA or any other agreement can void that right, and within record time, software quality would go up.

Vista is garbage

[Saksi]

I begged and pleaded with one of my clients (the only one I knew it would be a problem with) not to put Vista on the network. On a whim they did. It took me days to figure out how to connect it to the domain (after of course being forced to upgrade to the ultimate version.) Then about two weeks ago my client called to say quickbooks wouldn't work, (it had been working for about a month) what had I done? After counting to 10 or 100 or whatever it took for the red to start clearing, I replied that this was why I had asked them not to get Vista. I had turned automatic updates off. Somehow they were back on. I feel pretty sure it was in the fine print of something she installed that updates would be turned on. 2 hours with quickbooks started with uninstall and reinstall and ended with "if you can't uninstall you'll have to contact the computers manufacturer." 2 hours with Sony ended with "we won't support it unless you put the original OS back on." 1 hour with M$ led to an emailed msi uninstaller program which seemed to uninstall quickbooks. It didn't and quickbooks wouldn't reinstall. Another hour with quickbooks and a link to another M$ uninstaller program and I finally got quickbooks uninstalled, reinstalled and working so far. I still have no uninstall option for about 30 out of 40 installed programs. Like the poster above only recently installed programs can be uninstalled. I have been in the computer field for 27 years, I have M$ and Novell certs. My feeling now is that Vista will be the end of my computer career. At least until I become competent with GNU Linux. Another indication of my level of disgust with M$ Vista, I have been reading /. and other forums & blogs for many many years and this is the first post I have ever made. Obviously I should remain a lurker(saksi). Anyway /. is great. Caio

Funny....

[Corson]

...that most of you reacted as if I hated Vista. You may be surprised to learn that I actually like Vista, better than XP. I have purchased my HP laptop precisely because I wanted to experience Vista. BTW, I know exactly how to uninstall programs in Windows, Vista or other (I have been using, and programming in, Windows ever since release 3.1) and I have the administrator privileges required to do that. Enough of this. Uninstall is still possible (tested) using the Windows Installer CleanUp Utility (a.k.a. msicuu2.exe). As mentioned above, what puzzles me is that the Uninstall option is no longer available for programs that I have installed a few months ago and that some programs are no longer listed, as if they had never been installed. Since I am obviously not the only one in this situation, I was hoping to get an idea of the magnitude of the problem. Should I have asked those of you who don't have a clue of what this is about to please refrain from digressing? Thank you.

Re:Bullshit

[howlingmadhowie]

as far as i'm concerned, if i'd just spent 200 dollars on the newest and best product from the largest and richest software company in the world i'd expect the thing to fucking well just work and work now.

Re:Bullshit

[FractalZone]

To add to that, there's often articles about Firefox vulnerabilities on Slashdot, and many posts saying 'everything works fine here' regularly modded up to +5
How many alleged Firefox vulnerabilities affect the integrity of non-Windows systems? For that matter how many serious problems of any sort have you, personally, ever experienced with Firefox that weren't directly related to certain Web sites that were written specifically for IE, rather than generally accepted WC3 standards? The only major problem I've noticed with Firefox that actually bothered me much was when several earlier versions suffered a significant memory leak over time under heavy use. I won't even try to list the dozens of critical issues that have existed with various versions of IE since it was first foisted upon the largely unsuspecting marketplace. I simply avoid using IE -- I don't even use MS Update, but I can get all the patches (and there are a *lot* of them...hehehe) from other sources that I trust most than I do using IE to access MS's Web site. Firefox isn't perfect, but it isn't the open invitation to malicious hackers that IE is, especially when ActiveX is enabled on the latter. If you want to give your computer away, just use IE on it to access a few pr0n or warez sites -- someone else will own it soon enough!

Re:Bullshit

[bane2571]

MMM, Car analogy.
The trouble with this one is that cars, planes etc are self contained. With software it is running on a near infinite combination of machines that are anywhere from barely capable to super charged overclocking wetdreams. Now given that a lot of windows problems could be attributed to some unexpected intolerance in the application software and/or hardware it is being run with it is very hard to know when it is faulty.

You don't need more staff

[Aqualung812]

Just use the tools you have. Using WSUS 2 or 3, you can create groups. Set all of your updates to auto-approve for your testing group. Make a group of computers that are members of the testing group, and only put a few (depending on your size, this might be 1 or 50) from EACH functional area of your company. For example, if you have 20 accounting computers, put 2 in there. 5 marketing computers? Put one in there. Make sure the systems in each group have the same software, but make the testing computer one that is less critical. This way, if you wake up Wednesday morning and find that MS-XXX conflicts with the software that Joe Redneck did for accouting, you only have two computers to repair. Those two staff can share computers with others to make sure business gets done. Much better than having ALL OF ACCOUTING down becuase Joe's software uses some backdoor that MS just fixed. If, after a couple days you have no issues, then go and approve the updates in WSUS for everyone else. You DON'T NEED A DEDICATED TESTING LAB OR STAFF in MOST envrioments.

Re:I'm not experiencing this at all...

[b100dian]

I recently bought a Dell laptop with tons of crap software installed. None of them had the Uninstall button
I solved the problem by replacing that Vista with a clean installed one.

It still puzzles me how they (Dell) did it, but haven't had the time to check it myself.

Re:I'm not experiencing this at all...

[refitman]

A handy tool for sorting out Dell PC's can be found on this website. It even has a cool name. Sorted a colleague of mine's laptop real good.

Re:I'm not experiencing this at all...

[KIFulgore]

IPSec/L2TP vpn support was broken in Vista until about February or March, accounted for a lot of calls we got at our support desk. Either a patch fixed it or our admins updated our network VPN boxes to accommodate Vista, not sure which. OWA has always worked fine (counting our blessings there).

The main problem now with VPN is the damn Norton Internet Security or McAfee Personal Firewall that comes with most new laptops. Gateway has a custom version of McAfee that, for the life of me, I cannot find a sane way to turn off (probably could if I ever actually got my hands on it).

Thankfully we have a PPTP VPN server that still does ok.