Windows Vista SP1 Meeting Sour Reception In Places

Stony Stevenson writes "A day after it was released for public download, Windows Vista SP1 is drawing barbs from some computer users who say the software wrecked their systems. 'I downloaded it via Windows Update, and got a bluescreen on the third part of the update,' wrote 'Iggy33' in a comment posted Wednesday on Microsoft's Vista team blog. Iggy33 was just one of dozens of posters complaining about Vista Service Pack 1's effect on their PCs. Other troubles reported by Vista SP1 users ranged from a simple inability to download the software from Microsoft's Windows Update site to sudden spikes in memory usage. To top it all off, the service pack will not install on computers that use peripheral device drivers that Microsoft has deemed incompatible."

Comments

And the problem is...?

[bigstrat2003]

So, SP1 won't install if there's an incompatible driver present (as opposed to installing and then crashing all the time, or just removing the driver)? That sounds pretty fucking sensible to me, what exactly are we supposed to find bad about that?

Obviously it'd be better if no such incompatibility existed, but if you have to deal with such a situation, this seems like the best way to do it, by far.

Re:And the problem is...?

[cerberusss]

There's such a thing as user interaction and graceful degradation. People might want to accept lesser functionality because SP1 would give them things they can't do without. They might view sound as something unnecessary and thus choose to accept a non functioning piece of hardware. Graceful degradation would mean that it's OK to install but the printer will only print in black and white.

Re:And the problem is...?

[spazdor]

Or, God forbid, we just ask the user's permission to load a potentially unsafe driver!

Re:And the problem is...?

[JaredOfEuropa]

So, SP1 won't install if there's an incompatible driver present

No. It will not install if there is a driver that is incompatible according to Microsoft, and who knows what criteria they apply? It would be good if they could accurately identify incompatible drivers, but I doubt that they can.

Re:And the problem is...?

[bigstrat2003]

Seems pretty accurate to me, or at least likely to be. Look under Cause 5. It's a handful of drivers, it's not like Microsoft is taking some sort of shotgun approach here.

Re:And the problem is...?

[ScrewMaster]

I hate to say it, but I tend to take Microsoft's side on this one. If you do that, the vast majority of people won't care and will just click OK no matter what. Just like when their firewall says, "this is a potentially unsafe Web site". They click OK anyway because they just don't care.

Re:And the problem is...?

[exley]

Microsoft even has a list of drivers that will cause the SP1 update to be unavailable for some users -- that was very handy for me in figuring out why SP1 wasn't showing up. Perusing the rest of that link shows some other reasons why users might not see the SP1 update as being available.

I had to go manually download and install two drivers. While it would have been nice for those to show up in Windows update as well it wasn't terribly painful. For anyone needing to update the Intel 965 drivers, I downloaded the ZIP file (the .EXE installer complained about the driver not being certified or some nonsense for my machine) and pointed the driver updater to the .INF file to get it installed. No issues so far...

Re:And the problem is...?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, the article also mentions that some Intel display drivers are on the incompatible list.

Meaning that some boxes that ran Vista, won't run Vista SP1. Cool thing?

Re:And the problem is...?

[griego]

I imagine their criteria is how many bluescreen reports they get from users through their online reporting tool.

Re:And the problem is...?

[vux984]

Or, God forbid, we just ask the user's permission to load a potentially unsafe driver!

I sense a double standard.

If someone loaded a driver that was known not to work with a given linux kernel and then it didn't work and caused kernel panics, what would we hear? Something like -- you're an idiot, you brought this on yourself, linux even warned you it was incompatible when you installed it, how much of a dipshit are you? What exactly did you expect?

The same thing happens on Windows and we'll hear chants of "Vista sucks because it crashes all the time" followed by a slashdot "Amen!" The fact that its crashing because the user loaded a driver Vista warned him not too? Well its still Vista's fault for some reason.

Re:And the problem is...?

[spazdor]

That's okay with me. Just warn me about the risks and get the hell out of my way. The point, to me, of those little warning boxes is not to dissuade people from accessing the sites/loading the drivers that they want. The point is just to let the user know that they're now leaving the Supported Zone and entering the shady world of Your Own Discretion.

Re:And the problem is...?

[spazdor]

Not really. If I load a Risky Driver and it makes the system go all jibbly, I got fair warning, and I take it to be my responsibility to remove or upgrade the driver. I guess it's unrealistic to ask the Windows-using public to take this attitude, but I think it's the fairest.

Re:And the problem is...?

[bigstrat2003]

That's a reasonable view, the problem is that Microsoft has to account for the fact that a lot of their customers aren't reasonable. They'll bitch and moan no matter how much Microsoft reminds them that it was unsupported... and if your customers get pissed off enough to switch to a competitor, it doesn't matter how in the wrong they were. You still lost.

Re:And the problem is...?

[jnadke]

I had an unsupported SigmaTel sound driver in my laptop. I couldn't install the much-needed SP1.

Instead I uninstalled the offending sound driver, then installed SP1. Afterward, I reinstalled the driver without a hitch. I don't see the big deal.

But I lost 4 hours of my life figuring out why SP1 wouldn't install.

I'm pissed at Microsoft for neither releasing SP1 fast enough or reliably enough. Along with probably everyone else.

However, I'm not going to go all hippie-like and say Vista isn't an upgrade. There are many things Vista has that would make XP a better operating system (I/O scheduler, UAC, Explorer error handling, 3D accelerated GUI, etc). They should really backport these features to XP and release it as a $30 upgrade. That'd be nice.

Re:And the problem is...?

[ScrewMaster]

For me personally, I feel exactly the same way you do. Most people on Slashdot who represent the more knowledgeable segment of the Vista-using population probably do too. But it's a fine balance ... either you leave the machine missing some functionality but still working, or you run a greater risk of blue-screening the thing. It's a tough call, really. Either way, the user ends up fucked but the former at least leaves him running. Given that Windows is the OS of choice for clueless people, that's probably the better way. Maybe it should just ask up front if you're dimwitted or computer-literate. If the latter, then have it do what you're saying.

Re:And the problem is...?

[vux984]

The problem isn't that it might be "your" double standard. The problem is that this double standard is extremely widespread.

When linux won't upgrade because of a package dependancy problem, there is endless help on removing the problem packages etc. When Vista won't upgrade because of an equivalent problem, we get a news article telling us dozens of people are sour on SP1.

That's some pretty serious bias.

Re:And the problem is...?

[spazdor]

That's fair. I guess I'd be satisfied if the installer refused to load initially, but suggested that you go disable the driver by hand and then try re-enabling it after the upgrade.

That would at least introduce some barriers for the newbies, without preventing the power users from trying whatever non-standard stuff they want to try.

Re:And the problem is...?

[lantastik]

Three PCs, two laptops, and two virtual machines. No problems whatsoever.

Re:And the problem is...?

[ashridah]

And word on the grapevine is that one of those drivers (the fujitsu one, iirc) happily treads on internal data structures in the kernel with hardcoded offsets.

Those offsets changed when the new kernel was built, and the data structure in question was never published directly in the first place, it should have been manipulated via a proper API.

The result? When you *move* a system with the shock-monitor driver? the entire system crashes because that data structure is now garbage. That's right. Physically move the system, and it blue-screens.

Yet the nvidia driver in linux? Doing the same thing, potentially (it doesn't even have to actually do it, the kernel developers just believe that it does, and they may or may not be right, since I haven't checked), and the kernel devs will refuse to talk to you if that driver's loaded when the kernel crashes.

Microsoft at least takes it seriously, and the manufacturer was asked to produce a new driver, which they appear to have done.

This is the price you pay for getting OEM drivers. OEMs take shortcuts and horrible hacks to get the job done. Yet you constantly hear linux users clamouring for more support from OEMs. Personally, I think linux might just be better off even if it does reduce the amount of supported hardware in the short term.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't :(

Re:And the problem is...?

[novakyu]

I sense a double standard. Yes, and that would be ... because there is a double standard of what is "unsupported" driver with, say Windows vs. Linux, the kernel.

With Windows, unsupported means that it didn't receive Microsoft Seal of Approval (regardless of whether the driver itself is in alpha, beta, or production stage, and regardless of whether it correctly uses published API).

With Linux, the kernel, something would be unsupported ... because it is impossible to support the driver (i.e. it's a binary blob with no source code available).

With Windows, having one's driver unsupported is not the vendor's fault---it's Microsoft Windows that doesn't work with the driver (assuming, the driver itself was written to some published API). With Linux, having the driver unsupported is precisely the vendor's fault, for not releasing the source code (and complying with GPLv2; although the kernel developers don't seem to mind it too much, it is a widely held opinion that writing an extension to a GPL-covered work for the sole purpose of linking to the covered work makes it a derivative work and hence subject to the terms of GPL).

As far as the users go, I don't see any double standard here. Just normal reactions. If it doesn't seem that way to you, well, prove me wrong and show me a GPL'd Linux kernel module (... that isn't marked "EXPERIMENTAL" or is in alpha stage) that a kernel developer says is unsupported and will do nothing to fix any problems with it.

Re:And the problem is...?

[ashridah]

Unfortunately, those drivers would only have shown up in WU if the manufacturer had submitted them for WHQL, which takes time and money. Some manufacturers often rely on their OEMs to do that, and that's a fairly significant trickle-down path.

(I'm STILL waiting on lenovo to ship non-broken nvidia drivers, until then, i'm sticking with the WHQL ones which don't flake out repeatedly, even if they're severely behind on 3d performance)

Re:And the problem is...?

[zen611]

The issue is not necessarily one of "unsafe". It's an issue of "unapproved". If you have a driver which doesn't toe the line on MS's DRM, woe to you... It's not that I hate MS, I hate buying hardware and/or software only to be told what I'm allowed to do with it after the fact.

Re:And the problem is...?

[ansa]

Maybe it's because they PAID for Vista... I'm sure RHEL customers will bitch a lot too with RH support if something like this happens...

Re:And the problem is...?

[RobFlynn]

It refuses to install for me but also refuses to tell me why. I don't have any of the naughty drivers/hardware on the list, either. Grrr.

Re:And the problem is...?

[JustinOpinion]

I agree with you.

However I'll note that the double standard partly arises from a "Windows vs. Linux" myth. That is, Windows is supposedly "compatible with everything" and there are "drivers for every device." According to the myth, Windows isn't supposed to have those kinds of problems; only Linux has trouble with "strange hardware."

For those of us who know that it's a myth (and that both operating systems support a plethora of devices, though obviously not every single one), it's at least interesting to see a concrete example. Windows has driver problems too. In both Windows and Linux, non-existent or buggy drivers can ruin the user experience. And in both cases, if a user loads potentially unsafe software, they must accept the consequences.

Re:And the problem is...?

[slayerking]

No it installs fine and doesn't say a thing about incompatible hardware or software. You find out when it's finished installing and reboots, the boot screen shows up for a second and off it goes comes up with an error that hardware or software has caused a problem offers you to start in safe mode up to the standard normal start but just keeps ending up at that screen

Re:And the problem is...?

[vdamiano]

It is not a problem. Windows is simply getting better and better...

Re:And the problem is...?

[Anonymous Coward]

I sense a double standard.

Umm, that's why they're called slashtards.

Re:And the problem is...?

[jnadke]

Do you own Intel integrated graphics? Even though the site says 1403 driver version, I found I couldn't install SP1 with my Windows Update-approved 1409 Intel graphics driver. I had to install the 1433 one from Intel's website before SP1 would show up.

Re:And the problem is...?

[springbox]

Graceful degradation would mean that it's OK to install but the printer will only print in black and white.

This is a nice feature sometimes but imagine trying to figure out why your friend's "new color printer" can only print in black and white. That would add a whole new dimension of frustration (since I'm imagining there would be little notification of disabled features.)

Re:And the problem is...?

[vux984]

With Windows, unsupported means that it didn't receive Microsoft Seal of Approval (regardless of whether the driver itself is in alpha, beta, or production stage, and regardless of whether it correctly uses published API).

With Linux, the kernel, something would be unsupported ... because it is impossible to support the driver (i.e. it's a binary blob with no source code available).

No. In both cases, unsupported means the VENDOR doesn't support it.

You seem to be conflating this with Microsofts driver signing inititives and testing labs but that's got nothing to do with it. You can load unsigned drivers in Vista. (although in x64 you have to jump through a hoop to make it happen, but that's beside the point.) Most of the problem drivers in question are, in fact, signed.

We're talking a list of definite blacklist outright known to be 'incompatible', not merely 'unsigned'. Microsoft has TESTED the drivers and found they didn't work with SP1, and so it 'blacklisted' them, so users computers wouldn't fail. It requires users update to newer versions before it will install SP1.

Most of the blacklisted drivers ARE Windows Logo Certified and passed previous WHQL testing. But they broke in SP1. Whether that's because Vista changed something or because the drivers were buggy all along and it just was unmasked now I can't really say. But its beside the point and doesn't really matter.

This could happen just as easily with linux. A new kernel version could uncover a flaw with an older driver even if that driver was opensource. And that older driver package would be flagged as incompatible with the new kernel, and the updaters would prevent you from mixxing them. Its not exactly as if this has never happened before.

And what happens then? Assuming the community has the time and inclination a new fixed driver will be released. In the case of windows, you have to wait for the vendor to have the time and inclination. But in either case, someone has to come up with a NEW version of the driver because the old one doesn't work.

In this particular case it sounds like new drivers ARE mostly available, so Vista is only preventing you from updating until you install those newer versions.

As far as the users go, I don't see any double standard here. Just normal reactions. If it doesn't seem that way to you, well, prove me wrong and show me a GPL'd Linux kernel module (... that isn't marked "EXPERIMENTAL" or is in alpha stage) that a kernel developer says is unsupported and will do nothing to fix any problems with it.

Whether or not they are willing to fix it is irrelevant. No amount of willingness to fix it is going to magically make the existing version compatible. The -best- they can do is release a new version that is compatible whether its a new version of the kernel or a new version of the driver -- some where a bug or design flaw has to be fixed.

But combination of that driver and that kernel are ALWAYS going to be incompatible, and the package managers by default block you from mixxing packages with known incompatibility problems.

Re:And the problem is...?

[techno-vampire]

...and if your customers get pissed off enough to switch to a competitor, it doesn't matter how in the wrong they were. You still lost.

That would be true if there were enough competition in the OS market for Microsoft to be concerned about it. For most people, if you have a PC, you use Windows because that's all that's available. It's not that they wouldn't know how to install Linux, or are afraid to try something new, they're not even aware of it. And, as long as that's true, Microsoft won't care about pissing off their customers because for all practical purposes they have a monopoly.

Re:And the problem is...?

[Anonymous Coward]

With Linux, the kernel, something would be unsupported ... because it is impossible to support the driver (i.e. it's a binary blob with no source code available). It's not quite as black-and-white as whether there's source. Many Linux drivers are effectively unsupported even though the source is part of the kernel source code distribution. The availability of driver source does not equate to the continuous availability of one or more developers who have time to work on the driver plus access to the hardware.

Many drivers just float along with the kernel source tree and intermittently break because no real maintenance is going on. Drivers can sometimes continue working OK in this state, because Linux kernel programmers who alter driver interfaces often do make an effort to go through and update drivers, even those they can't test. If the driver is cleanly written and the interface change is not too intrusive there's a decent chance of such a blind update working. This, however, is not something you as an end user really want to rely on, and (in my opinion) does not count as support.

(It's also less necessary in the commercial world, because closed OS vendors tend to keep driver interfaces much more stable. The Linux philosophy is to change the interface wholesale if there's some value in it. The commercial philosophy is that interface stability is a value which trumps almost everything else. Vista SP1 is actually a bit unusual for a Microsoft OS in that it apparently really dislikes some old drivers.)

Re:And the problem is...?

[RobFlynn]

Nope, no integrated video. Just an AGP Nvidia 7600GS. There is an integrated sound card in this system that's listing itself as SoundMax. I'm trying to investigate that now. Other than that, I've got no clue. None of the other cases fit my situation.

Re:And the problem is...?

[ILuvRamen]

My former crazy old printer didn't have a fully functional XP driver but the 2000 or 98 one or something worked well enough to print stuff (no scanning though). So if they did this on XP, I'm not uninstalling my printer and I'm not buying a new one. I did finally buy a new one cuz I was sick of it printing sheets of printese jibberish every time it ran out of paper or I tried to cancel a job though. But anyway, that's the kind of case people are making. If the hardware kinda works, what's the big deal? Especially since just about nothing works with Vista lol.
P.S. for everyone who said "wait to upgrade to Vista until SP1 comes out," yeah, great call on that one.

Re:And the problem is...?

[vux984]

If you have a driver which doesn't toe the line on MS's DRM...

Yes, that must be why they blocked a fingerprinter reader; not toeing the line on DRM.

Re:And the problem is...?

[salmonmoose]

My problem was that I have an ASUS laptop, and it has Chinese, and Japansese languages installed by default. After spending half a day removing these, as they could only be done one at a time, I was able to update.

Re:And the problem is...?

[Necrotica]

The problem is, it doesn't give you any feedback as to [i]why[/i] it's not installing. It simply says, "Installation failed. Reverting to previous setup."

Plus, use your head for a second. It's not like these devices are brand spanking new. I have a DESIGNED FOR WINDOWS VISTA HP notebook with a Sigmatel sound card that the SP won't install on. So is the machine designed for Vista or isn't it? If it works now, why won't it work after the application of the SP? Why doesn't Microsoft give me any feedback as to why the installation is failing?

Make sure you know the facts about the problems people are experiencing before you jump on a soapbox. We're not all as dumb as you think we are.

Re:And the problem is...?

[Naughty Bob]

They click OK anyway because they just don't care.

Oh, but they cared the first few hundred times an apocalyptic warning message popped up.

A clear-cut case of MSFT-induced compassion fatigue.

Re:And the problem is...?

[RobFlynn]

Wow, that's ridiculous!

Re:And the problem is...?

[bigstrat2003]

Lack of feedback is a very legitimate complaint, but that wasn't the complaint in TFA (and TFS), now was it? The complaint was simply that it didn't install. Not that it didn't give feedback as to why.

So no, you aren't all dumb, but at least one person out there is, because they were complaining that SP1 didn't install. If they'd complained about the lack of feedback, I wouldn't have taken issue with it.

Re:And the problem is...?

[exley]

Umm, that's why they're called slashtards.

I personally prefer the term Slashholes.

Re:And the problem is...?

[griffjon]

I blame users for a lot of problems with MS in general. But there's something to be said for a system that manages that careful balance between providing security and not bugging the user so much about potential security threats that they get numbed into clicking OK over and over again. Vista, straight up, is crap. I'm a unfortunately expert Windows user and find Vista more frustrating than I can easily [You're writing negative thing about Windows Vista, allow or cancel?] express in writing. [Using punctuation in slashdot can be dangerous, allow or cancel?]

I'm sorry, no user should be harassed as much about security as Vista does, and no OS should crash so thoroughly and often as Vista does with just OEM-installed software installed.

Ubuntu's not perfect. 2008 will again not be the year of Linux on the desktop. When things break on Ubuntu they can get hairy to fix -- but there's an active community to help, built-in tools, effective logging, and materials to support debugging and tracing the problem to the underlying situation.

Mac does a good job. I just recommend everyone who's not into Linux move to Apple. It works, it's simple, it's pretty. Sure it's more expensive, but subtract the man hours you and/or your geeky nephew spend, anti-virus/adware subscriptions, and geeksquad visits and you're even.

Re:And the problem is...?

[bigstrat2003]

I'm sorry, no user should be harassed as much about security as Vista does, and no OS should crash so thoroughly and often as Vista does with just OEM-installed software installed. I call bullshit. The security harassment, sure, that's a legitimate complaint... even if it makes me wonder why the hell you didn't turn UAC off. Crashing, though? No way. I've been running Vista for a year, and have yet to have it crash once. If your Vista install is crashing all the time, it's almost certainly due to some POS driver or third-party software you're using.

More likely, of course, is that you're just mud-slinging, and quite possibly even have no first-hand experience with Vista. Wouldn't be the first time someone on the internet was hating on something by reputation alone.

Re:And the problem is...?

[Anonymous Coward]

Naturally. There might be porn there.

Re:And the problem is...?

[wayward_son]

This is exactly why I own a Mac.

Re:And the problem is...?

[Anonymous Coward]

Keep the old kernel and drivers (modules) and install all the other
updates anyways. Not an option with this SP I gather. How does
Vista load drivers by the way? Can I click Start > Run > modprobe
flakydriver-pci? Can I modprobe -r brokedick-snd? Do I have to
reboot every time? I'm starting to want to dip my marblebagger
in chocolate syrup and then teabag the ant mound in the back
yard.

Re:And the problem is...?

[v1]

From the thread following the article: eg Dell Dimension 9200 stock box came with Vista Home Premium preinstalled. No upgrade because of onboard sound.

Kinda stinks if you can't just unplug it eh? How about if you are using onboard video and vista doesn't like your chipset? guess you have to go buy a new video card. Some of us don't have a video card slot because we have a micro board and use onboard video. Vista should be called Visa, now it's time to start getting out the plastic to pay for all the trouble it's going to cause.

Then we can get into the argument that a flakey driver should not be able to send your OS packing in fear.

Re:And the problem is...?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

If you do that, the vast majority of people won't care and will just click OK no matter what. Just like when their firewall says, "this is a potentially unsafe Web site".

Or the developers at Microsoft could read one of dozens of user interface design texts that will tell them if they ever provide as uninformative of button as "OK" then they've already failed. Particularly if you make users click needlessly through hundreds of them until they have been operant conditioned to click it.

They click OK anyway because they just don't care.

They click "OK" because most of the time they are being given useless or cryptic information and are often asked to click "OK" when not even being presented with any other option. Sorry, but MS absolutely should be blamed for ignoring decades of UI research and insisting on perpetuating the monstrosity that is the "OK/Cancel" dialogue box.

Re:And the problem is...?

[wayward_son]

I hate to sound like a fanboy, but this is exactly why I own a Mac.

Seriously. Most of the problems I've run into with both Linux and Windows are device driver related. Windows gets a bad reputation because some obscure Taiwanese company makes a crappy driver. With Linux, I spend the better part of a weekend trying to figure out how to get the pre-alpha version of a reverse engineered driver for the component made by the obscure Taiwanese company working.

With a Mac, It. Just. Works. Apple provides the hardware, Apple provides the software, you call Apple when things go wrong. Apple even provides the Windows drivers for Boot Camp.

Re:And the problem is...?

[bigstrat2003]

When the hell did I say that the solution was to take out the hardware which was causing the problem? You're fighting me on something which I didn't say at all.

Re:And the problem is...?

[vux984]

I think one of the reasons 'cancel or allow' is such a beast is that MS was stuck between a rock and a hard place in a way that OSX and Linux weren't. Neither OSX or Linux have a MASSIVE legacy of software that assumes its running as administrator.

If I were to write a program that ran under linux and tried to do something it shouldn't need to do it would just fail. That would be perfectly acceptable on OSX or Linux, because software shouldn't be doing that. Obviously microsoft couldn't have that though, because it would break so much legacy software.

On the otherhand, MS couldn't just allow it, because that's what's gotten us into the security morass we're in. So they erected this annoying cancel or allow barrier. Presumably as Vista matures and the legacy applications gradually get replaced we'll see a lot less prompts.

That said, vista could use some improvement too. And I expect we'll see some of its more egregious cancel or allow scenarios get cleaned up over time. I shouldn't have to re-elevate each time if I'm deleting cruft out of the program folders. Trouble is, if they made it simple, people would just setup explorer to run with elevation, elevate once after login, and then malware would ride on all these computers running with an elevated explorer by default. Its a tough balance to make, and Vista errs on the side of caution; which is probably good given the amount of malware it needs to resist.

Re:And the problem is...?

[griffjon]

I set up my COO's home vista ultimate box. It has exciting peripherals installed like a printer and a USB hard drive, and software like Firefox. The rest was OEM provided/installed hardware/software. Now, perhaps something on this brand spanking new, insanely overpowered machine can't "handle" vista or has a buggy driver; but my frustration with Vista is beyond caring about it, and I've told them to use their support contract instead of me from now on.

Re:And the problem is...?

[WilyCoder]

Warnings of unsafe drivers in linux come from other users.

Windows gives you a warning about a driver simply because the creator of the driver didn't cough up money to MS.

Re:And the problem is...?

[ColdWetDog]

With a Mac, It. Just. Works. Apple provides the hardware, Apple provides the software

and the patches when it doesn't work. Come on now. Get real.

Re:And the problem is...?

[Anonymous Coward]

Superficially Microsoft's strategy makes sense (i.e. don't allow the system to upgrade to SP1 if something monumentally bad will happen). However, there is a problem with how Microsoft has executed this strategy. For instance, my computer doesn't see the SP1 update on Microsoft Update. I understand that this means that I've got a problem on my system. But what problem??? I've read the stuff on various MS web sites and related blogs but can't see anything that obviously applies to my system. So how do I fix a problem that I can't see? It would be really nice if Windows Update gave me a message telling me that driver xxx for device yyy is a problem. Maybe we'll see this from Windows Update in the not too distant future.

Generally I like Microsoft software (I work as a developer using it day in and day out) but I think they could do better here.

Re:And the problem is...?

[NotWallaceStevens]

Newer Intel motherboard, uses Sigmatel audio, SP1 is not compatible with the latest drivers available through Intel. SP1 has been available for compatibility testing for how long, and Microsoft and Intel can't come up with a compatible sound driver? That seems like a great sign to me that Vista really is dead, the new Millennium Edition is upon us.

Re:And the problem is...?

[bigstrat2003]

Writing a driver is Intel's responsibility, not Microsoft's.

Re:And the problem is...?

[heteromonomer]

I installed SP1 just now. There is no visible difference. The performance appears to have improved, especially launch times of IE8 and Windows explorer (now they launch literally instantaneously). But it was a beast to download at 435 MB size, and took over 1.5 hours to install, rebooting three times (when I almost was wondering if my system is about to become unstable and go rebooting for ever). I also have Ubuntu 7.10 and OpenSUSE 10.2 on this same laptop. They all run just fine, openSUSE being the slightly lesser friendly one (compiz does not work saying my nVidia card does not support acceleration, where as Ubuntu runs with compiz). Quite frankly, in my 12 years of experience with linux, all distros have come a long way. Ubuntu is the coolest. But come on, things still break in linux, and they break badly. And they break fairly often still. With Windows, barring one recent case with Vista, I have NEVER had problems since Windows 2000 days. But the whiners complaining about Windows are the loudest. As far as the reviewers, I still remember reading reviews that XP is a useless upgrade from 2000, so I stopped taking them too seriously a while ago.

Re:And the problem is...?

[dpastern]

What I think (and rightfully so imho) is that people are not happy that the service pack is not installed at all, if one of the problematic drivers are found. Surely, Microsoft could make their service pack update more modular, and install everything else other than the problematic driver related software?

Microsoft has made vista so god damn complicated, that it makes things worse than it should be. Try setting up a dialup connection on Vista - what a nightmare! On XP it's relatively easy and straight forward, on Vista, you have to click on a bunch of tiny links that are not exactly well worded or have used a bit of common sense in the UI design...

It always amazes me that people bash KDE for supposedly bad UI, but my God, Vista's UI is just dreadful...

Dave

Re:And the problem is...?

[PitaBred]

OEM's are EQUIPMENT manufacturers. If you bring up the "winmodem" argument where most of the actual hardware is in software, well, tough. That's where the "damned if you don't" part comes in, when they're trying to cut the bottom line and rather than make actual hardware, they offload everything to the CPU.

Linux users want more OEM support, but if OEM's want us to buy their stuff, they have to start opening up their source so it actually works with our systems. No, the kernel devs won't even look at the issue because there's no way they can dig down TO the issue when the kernel loads binary blobs.

And it is possible... Intel has lots of fully-programmable CPU's, a nice open-source compatible GPU with full 3D acceleration (not bleeding-edge gaming, but not bad) and pretty damn nice wireless cards, too. They seem to be doing alright.

Re:And the problem is...?

[Scruffy Dan]

Thats what happened to me (I think).

I installed it, and at some point during the install it crapped out, and undid all the changes it had made, and popped up a 0x80071A90 error. Every thing runs as it used to, so kudos to MS for not hosing my system. Now all I need is to figure out what the hell 0x80071A90 means.

Re:And the problem is...?

[spirit of reason]

Problem is... if everyone went the Mac route, you'd have a monopsony of sorts and the computer hardware industry would falter (and Apple would eventually feel the pain too).

Though, that might happen anyway... There seems to be some real fear that if we don't figure out how to make parallel architectures go fast, the industry will just get sales for replacements. There is little instruction-level parallelism left to exploit and power/heat issues are making it difficult to just throw transistors at a problem. Hopefully the guys at ParLab (and me too, if I can help, haha) can figure things out.

Re:And the problem is...?

[sjames]

I would guess the problem is introducing EVEN MORE incompatabilities on top of the ones Vista already has. The service pack is supposed to IMPROVE things for the user, not render even more of their system useless.

Re:And the problem is...?

[R4nneko]

Or it doesn't work at all because there is no provided driver and you either need to wait until the next version of OS X or next time you get a mac to have hope of getting a proper driver from Apple and instead you have to search around to find the various scripts and the like for the mostly unsupported hardware and use a much less pleasant manual hacky type approach. For instance my phone is not one of the ones supported off the bat by Leopard, so instead I had to find the modem scripts for it online, the right plug in for iSync and then look up the correct details for connecting to Telstra via it. Or on windows I use the disc that came with the phone/install the software from the manufacturers website, connect the phone, select Telstra from the list of phone companies and hit connect and it works.

Re:And the problem is...?

[microbee]

So basically, Vista wouldn't suck it you got it for free?

Re:And the problem is...?

[Mistshadow2k4]

That's a reasonable view, the problem is that Microsoft has to account for the fact that a lot of their customers aren't reasonable. They'll bitch and moan no matter how much Microsoft reminds them that it was unsupported

I must have missed something over the years. I had problems with Windows once, back in 2001. It was my first computer and it ran, you guessed it, Windows ME. Did Microsoft help me? No. Would they even listen to my pleas for help? No. Did they offer to replace my copy of ME with a version of Windows that did work? Hell, no. So why is it when something like this happens I hear all this about Microsoft having to take care of their clueless customers, essentially protecting them from their own ignorance and holding their hands to work our these problems? I know this must sound like a troll, but I've never seen this helpful, supportive side of Microsoft.

Re:And the problem is...?

[adolf]

This could happen just as easily with linux. A new kernel version could uncover a flaw with an older driver even if that driver was opensource. And that older driver package would be flagged as incompatible with the new kernel, and the updaters would prevent you from mixxing them. Its not exactly as if this has never happened before.

That's not entirely likely to be true. What seems to happen over here in reality, is this:

Kernel (or X) update shows up, and the user is prompted to install it.
After installing it, the system doesn't fucking work anymore, because nothing ever checked to see if the update would break with the installed hardware.

One of two things then occurs:
If the user has another computer handy they get to research and attempt to solve the problem in the comfort of a web browser.
If the user does not have another computer handy, they get to try to puzzle it out themselves using arcane command line tools that they've never seen before, with text-mode documentation they've never had to find before. If they're really clever, and can get to the network, they might install and use Links and be able to search forums for help, but chances are they've never used that before either.

In both cases, after pissing away several hours or evenings trying to make it work, they either succeed and their computer again works just as well as it did last week, or they get frustrated and abandon Linux altogether. (Maybe they'll try it again some day, maybe not.)

Re:And the problem is...?

[Allador]

That exists. Its called the standalone installer.

The standalone doesnt care if you have incompatible drivers. You're assumed to have figured it out and accept the risks if you install it that way.

So if you want to risk it, use the standalone installer. If you dont, use windows update.

Re:And the problem is...?

[Allador]

I shouldn't have to re-elevate each time if I'm deleting cruft out of the program folders. Trouble is, if they made it simple, people would just setup explorer to run with elevation, elevate once after login, and then malware would ride on all these computers running with an elevated explorer by default. If you're doing something like this, launch a new explorer.exe as admin, or launch cmd.exe as admin, and do your stuff from there.

You're actually protected from malware crossing from the non-admin explorer.exe to the admin explorer.exe. There are significant protections in Vista to block exactly that scenario. You cant do message or IPC from a lower priv'd window to a higher priv'd one.

Re:And the problem is...?

[Allador]

How do you figure?

If you mean whether a driver is signed or not, then yes, there is a small amount of money ($200) to purchase a code-signing cert. But that money doesnt go to MS, it goes to Verisign, Thawte, Comodo, etc.

There are some programs, like the WHQL that do require (iirc) payment for certification.

But even that isnt paying microsoft, its paying one of several other companies to do the certification.

Re:And the problem is...?

[weicco]

Yes. Typical answer from person who actually knows something about computers. I was once working as software engineer in a company which made and sold mobile VPN software. There were some steps in installation where user could screw up the whole machine to unbootable state. I said "well let them, just put a warning sticker in user's manual". Need I say that our support and sales managers wanted strangle me?

Re:And the problem is...?

[blind monkey 3]

Sensible... let me see, I have Vista installed right now, all devices are working fine, if I upgrade some devices won't work.... there is support for more devices I hear..... but if you have some devices installed, that are working right now - you will not be able to update because they are not supported anymore.
from microsoft:
Windows Update will recognize PCs with known problematic drivers and postpone downloading Windows Vista SP1 until the PC has updated drivers or other applicable updates. Using Windows Update will help ensure you have the most trouble-free update experience possible
How come devices that were supported before are not now? Is there a way to find out what devices?
Auto update is on by default (no, I switched mine off but lots of people do not know how to) and the only way to hear about issues is to be part of a users group or forum or wait till you get a message that it couldn't install. Yes, real sensible.
From the Microsoft site again:
Some Windows Vista users may encounter an issue with a small set of hardware devices that may not function properly after updating a Windows Vista PC to Windows Vista SP1. This is an issue with the way the device drivers were re-installed during the Windows Vista SP1 update process, not with the drivers themselves--these drivers worked on Windows Vista RTM and they work on Windows Vista SP1. This problem is typically corrected by simply uninstalling and reinstalling the driver. We are working with the manufacturers of these devices to get the known problematic drivers and their install programs updated, and also on other solutions we can use to ensure a smooth customer experience when updating to Windows Vista SP1 using Windows Update. For new PCs provisioned with Windows Vista SP1, this is not an issue.
Sounds like I'll wait a while (provided Microsoft doesn't try and update regardless of my wishes) and wait to see if it smells of roses or fertilizer. Bugger, been hoping for the file transfer thing to be fixed.

Re:And the problem is...?

[Allador]

You do understand that there's no problem with any of the hardware listed and SP1, right?

The problem is with older versions of the drivers.

Just scan your machine for all of the files listed in the KB article, then check the version on each. If any are too old, get the newer versions.

There are reportedly some of these that arent supported or updated by the OEMs anymore, but there's not much MS can do about this. At least some of these blocked drivers are doing terrible, terrible things like accessing and modifying in-memory kernel data structures. These data structures are changed in sp1, and MS gives strong and specific guidance to never, never do that.

Then we can get into the argument that a flakey driver should not be able to send your OS packing in fear. This is true of any kernel level driver on all mainstream operating systems. They all have direct access to kernel memory structures.

Re:And the problem is...?

[Allador]

Surely, Microsoft could make their service pack update more modular, and install everything else other than the problematic driver related software? I dont think you understand the situation.

The problem is not, at least in some of these cases, with windows. The problem is that the driver software relies on a specific and exact in-memory kernel data structures. It assumes that they're always in the exact same place.

These structures and layout change in sp1, so some of these drivers would literally instantly and completely clobber the OS.

In a situation like this, the driver software is basically broken malware, written by shoddy developers. MS cant do anything in that case except block the drivers.

Re:And the problem is...?

[Idaho]

Or, God forbid, we just ask the user's permission to load a potentially unsafe driver!

Yes, you see, this often used to be Microsofts approach to such matters. It doesn't work well (so I'm glad they figured that out). Some of the reasons have already been explained by others in this thread. I'd like to add that basically, the system would be asking a question to which there is no correct answer. "Using this driver may affect your systems stability or not work at all. Continue regardless yes/no?" is a question that I, as a user, should never have to answer.

I mean, how should I know!? Maybe I'll say yes, and my system may not boot the next time because the driver crashes. Then again, if I say no, the system may not boot the next time, because it might have been the video driver, and without one there's not much one can do in Windows.

Adding such a dialog would only make matters worse.

Re:And the problem is...?

[ansa]

It would suck but you wouldn't bitch about it

Re:And the problem is...?

[stupidflanders]

SP1 works for me!

I install Vista more and more every day as we phase out our XP machines. I have run test installs of SP1 on many different machines with different hardware. No errors.

My thoughts for the peanut gallery:

The promised file-copy speed improvement works.
Outlook 2007, which in some cases used to go abysmally slow, now runs like the wind.

I'm happy, my users are happy. Moving on.

Re:And the problem is...?

[Alarindris]

Not incompatible driver, driver that Microsoft has deemed incompatible... in other words doesn't want you to use, not that you necessarily technically couldn't.

Re:And the problem is...?

[upside]

OEMs take shortcuts and horrible hacks to get the job done. Yet you constantly hear linux users clamouring for more support from OEMs.

Sorry to nitpick, but OEM doesn't necessarily mean closed source. Neither Linux kernel developers nor users are interested in binary only kernel modules, precisely because they are not supportable as in your nVidia example. Proper OEM support in Linux means that the drivers are integrated into the mainline kernel. Intel and Broadcom do this with their NICs and qLogic with FiberChannel HBA drivers to name a few examples.

Re:And the problem is...?

[ArAgost]

People might want to accept lesser functionality ...and that's why they have Vista.

Re:And the problem is...?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh but I thought Vista/XP/NT was a microkernel? Oops, sorry, "microkernel-ish" in Microsoft-speak. You shouldn't be able to use "unpublished data structures" like that anyway.

Re:And the problem is...?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, SP1 won't install if there's an incompatible driver present

Thats very easy for MS to deem a driver incompatible. But what if this incompatibility occurred because MS kept changing their standards several times, perhaps even in the SP1 update itself?

So I have to disagree with a passion, its not sensible. If you give out specs to developers so that they can produce software which can run on your hardware and then later suddenly realize that you can't update your software anymore because it would render drivers incompatible then I'd have to conclude that you either:

• Wrote a very crappy piece of software.
• Produced a very crappy update.
• Setup or maintained some very crappy standards.
• All of the above.

And as said before; this doesn't look too sensible to me. More like as yet another failure to organize things properly.

Re:And the problem is...?

[cronot]

I agree with you, but that's just you, me, and maybe some of the /. crowd that isn't a *nix zealot always ready to throw stones for everything Microsoft does.

The way it'd happen with the average user though is that he would see a dialog warning him that the driver he's trying to load isn't safe, click "Yes" anyway (probably without even reading the warning up close), and then when the system started to barf, they would still blame Microsoft anyway.

Get the picture? Then you'd have thousands of people going at Microsoft with troches and pitchforks, and Microsoft would have to bend over. Actually, that's not really too different than what is happening now, I guess Microsoft just had to choose the lesser of two evils.

Not that I don't think Microsoft aren't an evil company btw - I just try to keep some sense of perspective.

Re:And the problem is...?

[Anonymous Coward]

I wouldn't worry - it's probably all FUD.

We're haven't seen a single issue at any of our clients.

Re:And the problem is...?

[aj50]

Or even more likely, the kernel update comes out including all the new driver modules compiled for it.

Let us take the situation that some driver distributed as part of the kernel is broken in a way that makes it break catastrophically when used in the new kernel. This assumes that no-one used the driver in testing before the kernel was released. If it gets released as part of a large distro, then no-one on the testing team for that distro used the driver either. Hence, the driver is probably not very widely used. For the few people it does impact, the quick workaround is the select the older kernel from the bootloader menu and everything works as it did before the update.

Third party drivers usually have to be re-installed after a kernel update anyway. In the best case you reinstall the driver and it works. In the worst case you have to go back to the old kernel until the driver is fixed.

Re:And the problem is...?

[Anonymous Coward]

..And the problem is... that this goes for any driver that MICROSOFT is CLAIMING is "not compatible" examples:

A) If a driver is not 'windows certified' it will be considered incompatible, even if it is actually 100% OK.

B) If the driver is 100% compatible with the officially published specs, but a bug in the OS causes problems, then the driver will be labeled as 'incompatible' even though it's the OS at fault, and the OS which needs fixed. In these cases MS historically expects the driver to be re-written to work around OS bugs instead of patching the OS.

C) If the hardware manufacturer makes drivers that work with competing OS's like Linux, etc. There has (at least in the past) been a tendency for MS to rate their windows drivers 'incompatible' until they drop the support for competing OS's. This is one of the largest reasons that Linux has had such 'problems' with hardware support-- the hardware makers are afraid to release Linux drivers of their own due to fear of having their windows drivers labeled as 'uncompatible' or simply failing to pass official certification.

As several other posters pointed out, there are many situations where the drivers will still function, but in a limited capacity. The user should be able to make a choice as to whether or not to take the risk-- especially since SP1 is not yet being pushed automatically. Your average 'idiot' user is not going to go get it on their own anyhow.

Re:And the problem is...?

[penguin_dance]

So what were all the issues we read about after Leopard came out? And Mac has even LESS excuses because your using their hardware. Windows has a lot more configurations to deal with. And with most major Linux distros you can find a list of known hardware that works and which ones are known not to work. With Windows you're best bet is when you're computer is outfitted with the latest, brand name hardware. In Linux, you're best off with a computer that's a year or more older to have a chance that someone's updated the drivers.

Re:And the problem is...?

[Just Some Guy]

Maybe it should just ask up front if you're dimwitted or computer-literate. If the latter, then have it do what you're saying.

I know computers. I done programmed that comet cursor from the aol onto mine.

Re:And the problem is...?

[Creepy]

I've had non-fatal driver crashes several dozen times, but only one hard crash requiring a forced reboot.

the video driver crashes were mostly caused by this:
KB940105

the hard crash I'm not sure about, but because I'm pretty sure the kernel was hosed (graphics went to garbage, sound in repeating loop, no way to change apps). I'm 99% sure it was video driver related in some way (I was watching full screen video at the time with several apps including VS2008 and Firefox running in the background). That is exactly 1 more hard crash than my oldest XP box has had in 5 years (which is to say I've never hard crashed that XP box, though my dual boot Linux/XP had a bunch of BSODs when a memory chip went bad). OTOH, my mom and dad can crash XP and Vista daily, and third party software has a lot to do with it. When you throttle your system with background crap like Weatherbug and 15 million similar apps you're bound to have some conflicts (they had over 100 items in their system tray when I cleaned it last - wtf?).

Re:And the problem is...?

[dpastern]

Ah I understand - in that case Microsoft has done the right thing. I misunderstood the basis of the problem as being driver related, but by omitting Microsoft updates that might access the problematic driver, it could be resolved. Now I see that the mere presence of the driver will cause SP1 to have issues and crash the system.

Of course, Microsoft can't remove the problematic driver, and it can't force the customer to update it, so it's a lose-lose situation for both Microsoft and the customer, and a "we don't give a stuff" attitude from the driver vendor.

This again proves why open source development methods are better - you're not locked into one vendor providing a driver and saying "stuff you".

Dave

Re:And the problem is...?

[nametaken]

I'm confused about why this has anything to do with linux at all. As someone asked earlier, the question is, "has MS REMOVED driver support in a service pack?" If so, that's very odd, at least in that the SP was supposed to help address the shortcomings of vista in this regard.

I'm a linux user and a windows user (not vista anymore). But what linux distros do is irrelevant, in that their package management systems all have their own problems we could bitch about all night... starting with maintaining package repositories of "supported" software in the first place, all the way through the notorious hardware support issues. This is about Vista, and why MS apparently did something so odd.

Re:And the problem is...?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe it should just ask up front if you're dimwitted or computer-literate.

Did you ever think that maybe you should take that snobby fucking attitude and shove it up your ass? I resent being considered dimwitted by assholes, like you, simply because I don't have the time to learn how to write my own drivers for my home computer.

Now, you ignorant fuck, I'll leave it up to you to guess which profession I am in:

1) I am the mechanic that fixes your car. Yeah, the the one you're too fucking stupid to know how to fix yourself. All you know how to do is drive it around.
2) I am the accountant who does your taxes. Yeah, you know, because you're too stupid to realize all of the deductions your entitled to.
3) I am the surgeon who fixed your carpel-tunnel syndrome. Because you're so fucking dumb, if you did the surgery yourself, you'd wind up with gangrene and wind up losing your whole hand.
4) I am the construction worker who replaced the roof on your house. Because you don't have enough brains to make it watertight.
5) I am the repairman who installed your new water-heater. I don't know why you never took the time to learn how to do this yourself. I mean, it's not that hard, you fucking ignoramus.

What may be a simple task for you is not necessarily a simple task for everyone else. That doesn't make the rest of the world dimwitted. We all have to defer to experts for something.

Re:And the problem is...?

[griffjon]

I'd argue that the only real way for Windows to fix this is to pull the equivalent of OS9->OSX -- drop legacy support except via a virtualized (and locked down/firewalled/etc.) XP machine. They'd have to work with and be nice to a lot of hardware and software writers and help people through the transition, but it's the only way Windows can get beyond their security problems. They're probably worried that such a massive shift and lack of legacy support would allow people to re-evaluate other systems on a more equal basis, which is true, but could be mitigated with a well-thought-out deployment, testing, and virtualized-legacy-support method.

I think MS is too addicted to legacy support as a hook to keep people using Windows (and the software industry and users are too complacent to expect the latest windows to run their win3.1 application perfectly). I'm sure the entire userbase would moan and groan, but eventually upgrade, and (if done well) everyone would end up being much happier with a more stable, faster, and secure system.

But I don't think MS could actually pull that off. They keep trying, halfheartedly.

Re:And the problem is...?

[Allador]

This again proves why open source development methods are better - you're not locked into one vendor providing a driver and saying "stuff you". This is definitely a case where open source model works much better in practice.

The open-source drivers tend to be simple, stable, and tend to work for many products. And they get updated (mostly) with kernel updates.

There is a flip side though, in that generally the open source drivers work well for the common functionality, but dont work for some of the advanced features. Printers and scanners particularly, less so for some sound cards with fancy features.

Some hardware vendors have started getting smart about this. Intel and Nvidia have a small number of drivers that work across many of their products. HP even has universal printer drivers that work (at least with base functionality) across a great deal of their printer lines.

Re:And the problem is...?

[Allador]

What specific legacy problems are you referring to?

I'm not aware of any significant ones still remaining.

MS has really made the break with past legacy security issues on Vista, and almost completely on x64 versions of Vista and server 2008. Thats where MS has chosen to draw the line to a degree.

'Shatter' style of attacks are no fixed as an entire category of attack. Kernel data structures are now hardened and locked down to a degree (though of course kernel level drivers can access these in nearly all operating systems, including windows). You cant control, message, or inject from a lower privileged window to a higher privileged window, even if they're operating on the same real or virtual desktop.

Services can now run MAC (Mandatory Access Control) style, where the service is only allowed to modify/access very restricted parts of the file system and registry.

There arent alot of big holes left, at least that I'm aware of.

The vast, vast majority of successful attacks on windows nowadays are either run by the user (ie, convinced to install that new code to view that porn) or off unpatched vulns (usually by people who have chosen not to patch).

Re:And the problem is...?

[badass fish]

i ran update early and have had 0 issues it took a lonng time a longtime but i just let it roll with no prompts and no errors no glitches

Re:And the problem is...?

[dpastern]

True, very true. I do honestly think that most of open source driver's ills are due to lack of technical information being provided to the developers. I bet my parents that if the open source driver developers had full access to all of the necessary technical information, they'd develop drivers that are leaner, faster, more reliable, more secure and with the full spectrum of features of their proprietary developed cousins.

I find the modern software industry amusing, in its stupidity. Development is based on back stabbing and non-co-operation, despite the fact showing that all modern scientific developments have resulted from co-operation amongst scientists. Open source software still works this way, but if proprietary software has its own way, it'll do its damn best to kill open source software, at least on the North American continent (which makes sense, since the VAST majority of proprietary software developers are US owned and based, to the detriment of the rest of the world imho).

Dave

Time to disable auto install of updates

[cjmnews]

For those of you that do this to your parents and relatives for easier support.

Re:Time to disable auto install of updates

[sleigher]

Hopefully those of you who do support friends and family weren't cruel enough to put Vista on their machines.

Re:Time to disable auto install of updates

[Anonymous Coward]

My friend has a Toshiba laptop with Vista. I said "Don't get Vista, get XP if you need Windows". No luck for me -- her computer minded friend. She's quite willing to pay to get XP but a quick check made it seem that putting a fresh install of XP on it would screw up the computer. Any ideas?

Re:Time to disable auto install of updates

[JSBiff]

"a quick check made it seem that putting a fresh install of XP on it would screw up the computer. Any ideas?"

I'm not positive on this, but I would presume that in order to install XP, you would need to format the drive and do a clean install of XP. So if by "screw up the computer" you mean, "Lose any data which wasn't backed up to another medium or another computer), yes. The only other thing I'd be slightly worried about is just verifying that all the hardware in the laptop is supported by XP - but that is pretty likely to be the case. Still, it's not guaranteed, so it might be worth taking a few minutes to check.

You may also want to download the XP drivers to a CD-Rom or something, so that, if e.g. you can't get on your network right away after installing XP, you can install the network driver from the CD. You might also want to put video drivers on the CD, so you can install the latest driver first thing, to get XP out of "VGA" mode, and into a more usable video mode right away.

Re:Time to disable auto install of updates

[Joe The Dragon]

or just add them to the install disk
http://driverpacks.net/

Re:Time to disable auto install of updates

[Hatta]

Sure, tell her: "I don't use windows, so I'm not going to be able to help when things go wrong. If you want to try this shiny new Ubuntu thing though, I'd be more than happy to help you out."

Re:Time to disable auto install of updates

[Anonymous Coward]

Hopefully those of you who do support friends and family weren't masochistic enough to put Vista on their machines.

Fixed.

Re:Time to disable auto install of updates

[symbolset]

Managed services.

Your parents can buy a contract to have somebody take care of their PC with 24/7 monitoring, patch management, device prefailure notification and instant tech support. It's like extending your NOC to support aunt Sally.

It doesn't cost anywhere near as much as you might think.

Re:Time to disable auto install of updates

[Anonymous Coward]

Hopefully those of you who do support friends and family weren't cruel enough to put Vista on their machines

Have you ever met my girlfriends Mother ?

Re:Time to disable auto install of updates

[jonaskoelker]

Hopefully those of you who do support friends and family weren't cruel enough to yourself to put Vista on their machines. Fixed.

Re:Time to disable auto install of updates

[roc97007]

> Hopefully those of you who do support friends and family weren't cruel enough to put Vista on their machines.

Not an issue of cruelty (or lack thereof) but one of self-preservation. Had I put Vista on friends and family's machines, I'd have had to support it. Decided to wait until SP1. Now uncertain whether to wait for next SP or Windows 7. (But then, when Windows 7 came out, would end up waiting for SP1...)

Yeah, XP works fine for now...

Re:Time to disable auto install of updates

[ashridah]

Uh. is this the point where someone chimes in to mention Windows Live OneCare?

Re:Time to disable auto install of updates

[Anonymous Coward]

>> I'm not positive on this, but I would presume that in order to install XP, you would need to format the drive and do a clean install of XP.

you can just use a bootdisk then rename the documents, program files, and windows folders then do a clean install

Re:Time to disable auto install of updates

[rediguana]

Only on the mother-in-laws ;)

Re:Time to disable auto install of updates

[symbolset]

WLOC doesn't include onsite support. Some of them do. Making aunt Sally pay the extra is preferable to blowing my holiday weekends on such nonsense if she can afford it.

Unless I'm not seeing the old bird nearly enough. That's different.

Also a bad answer if uncle Lester might wind up in the press shortly after the tech shows up.

A bad thing?

[Drakin020]

To top it all off, the service pack will not install on computers that use peripheral device drivers that Microsoft has deemed incompatible."

And that's a bad thing? The way I see it, this prevents even more problems. Honestly though I have heard great things about the upgrade from many users. Also Engadget was running a story and most of the people that commented had good things to say.

It's know that anytime an update is released there will always be some problems. http://www.engadget.com/2008/03/19/some-vista-sp1-early-adopters-reporting-problems-how-about-you/#comments

Re:A bad thing?

[Damocles the Elder]

It seems like a great thing, but we don't know how they deem things incompatible. MS, in theory, has a big list of compatible hardware (which seems to be down atm, but providing an article with a link for completeness); however, for all we know it's one of those "Pay us and we'll 'certify' your software as Windows Compat, wink wink", just like the Nintendo Seal of Approval from all those years ago. Are these actually incompatible peripherals, or has the company making the hardware just not coughed up enough in fees to be deemed compatible?

Re:A bad thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

They're not really "incompatible". Something in SP1 broke a handful of old drivers (mostly for audio chips), so the SP1 installer won't continue until the user upgrades to the fixed drivers.

Re:A bad thing?

[toleraen]

As explained here, and detailed in this knowledge base, MS actually had a halfway decent reason behind it.

Re:A bad thing?

[Your.Master]

I'm sure they deem things incompatible by ouija board.

You can check the complete list of incompatible drivers here (under "Method for Cause 5"):

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=948343

This isn't a for-pay whitelist, they are blacklisting software that conflicts in some manner with SP1 causing system instability or more general malfunction. There's a word for that. Incompatible. This "pay us and we'll certify you" fantasy is a wild conspiracy theory.

You can download and install SP1 from microsoft.com yourself, along with installing said drivers, if you want to verify this.

Re:A bad thing?

[FutureDomain]

Honestly though I have heard great things about the upgrade from many users. Also Engadget was running a story and most of the people that commented had good things to say.

And I am not one of them. I attempted to install SP1 from the installer and it corrupted some of my system files (aspi.sys to be exact). I was able to use system restore to roll it back, but it looks like I'm not upgrading until I have a lot of free time to spare working with it. Too bad, I was looking forward to the faster file copy speeds.

FutureDomain

quick breath

[Anonymous Coward]

Khaaaaaaaan-

uh, I mean,

Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaates!!!

Re:quick breath

[Hymer]

Nope... he left the building... I wonder why nobody really want to realize that ?

The correct name is:

Baaaaaallmer!!!

Can anyone please explain

[TBerben]

How this is any different from any other installation of Windows [insert version] + [insert servicepack]? That's a joke, btw..

I've had no problems

[jwsmith00]

I'm very happy with SP1. I've been very critical of Vista. But now I can say that I wouldn't go back to XP.

Re:I've had no problems

[Sicily1918]

Same here... I installed it on a P4, a Core Duo, and the 64-bit version on a Q6600 machine -- no problems on any of them.

Re:I've had no problems

[Anonymous Coward]

I was lambasted last time I made a PRO Vista/SP1 comment.

SP1 has met and exceeded my expectations. I haven't tried it in an Enterprise environment BUT, as a person would has worked in large corporate enterprises, it wouldn't be an authorized patch until it passed QA.

So what's the problem? As I see it - General Microsoft woes.

Apple's updates also cause instability and incompatibilities.

Prepare, Backup and Install - a good practice.

Re:I've had no problems

[queezle]

I was having a few pains with Vista and my laptop just felt sluggish, I installed SP1 last night and my laptop feels a lot more responsive now. The improvement to accelerated graphics is amazing, flip 3d and switcher are now incredibly fast. Hopefully the desktop will go just a smoothly.

Re:I've had no problems

[Tony Hoyle]

SP1 hugely improves the memory footprint it seems... whereas on the old one it'd be in swap half the time on a 2gb laptop the new one is a lot better.

It's *almost* at the point where I'd be prepared to support it if a friend/relative installed it, but Vista is banned by corporate policy at work and I sure as hell aren't going to cripple my perfectly functional mbp with it, so maybe not.

Re:I've had no problems

[Anonymous Coward]

I've felt like Vista wasn't as bad as people made it out, but it did have a lot of little annoying bugs. I've noticed simply no difference with SP1. At all.

Before SP1, I felt Vista certainly wasn't bad (except on principle due to the high priority given to DRM and other "features" users don't need) but needed a lot of little bugs with Bluetooth and other things fixed. SP1 quite literally fixed none of the issues I was having, so my opinion of Vista pretty much remains the same: it's not as bad as some people make it out if you turn Aero off, but there's still no reason to rush out and replace XP with it if you're happy with XP.

12 blog comments = news ?

[urbanriot]

12 blog commentors claim to have had problems installing SP1 and that's newsworthy? I'd be curious to see their system configuration, as I'm so far nine for nine successful installs on various system configurations with no issues whatsoever (in fact, some systems had issues corrected).

Re:12 blog comments = news ?

[avandesande]

I wouldn't be surprized if their systems had been heavily customized (super users). Not making execuses but probably not a very good example of an average user. Regular j6p's don't usually install service packs and then blog about how well they worked.

Re:12 blog comments = news ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think you understand. You see, Microsoft is teh suxx0rz. We all knew there would be problems with SP1, it's just a matter of hunting hard enough for them!

Re:12 blog comments = news ?

[lyml]

12 blog comments!? That's 12 times as many as there are linux users. Microsoft will have hell to pay!

Re:12 blog comments = news ?

[Anonymous Coward]

For all we know it could just be that idiots who think other OSes are the greatest are making shit up. Note that the previous sentence does NOT mean that all people who like other OSes are idiots. It just means some idiots possibly like other OSes.

Re:12 blog comments = news ?

[Lost Engineer]

And I'm 0 for 1, 3 hours later.

Re:12 blog comments = news ?

[Dude McDude]

12 blog commentors claim to have had problems installing SP1 and that's newsworthy?

That doesn't surprise me. What does surprise me is the fact that Zonk managed to post it before kdawson!

Re:12 blog comments = news ?

[Loibisch]

Well, here's me, stupid, with a brand new machine (Q6600, P5K-E, 4GB DDR2), having a brand new installation of Vista (besides an installation of Gentoo and Windows XP) with all the latest updates (well, except for two which it won't let me install) and having downloaded the offline SP1 update.

So what's happening here?
"An internal error occurred while installing the service pack"

And I have about zero things installed on this Vista install, it's a brand new Business Edition. Glad I got this through a student MSDNAA instead of paying for it. Else it would go back to the store...new installation (less than a week old) and already fucked up, must be a new world record here.

Oh, and searching for the Error code it throws (80073712) gives me posts on forums up to about 6 months back with none of the solutions even applicable on my machine. Well, there's one thing that's supposed to work: do a repair install over the "broken" Vista...and it's supposed to take a lot of time and in some cases not even boot the system anymore. The corresponding Microsoft KB article has since been deleted and no reference of the error can be found on their webpage. Nice, eh?

So I suppose I'm part of those individuals those "12 blog comments" are talking about.

Re:12 blog comments = news ?

[dbcad7]

You know... I have no problem with the whole blog thing, and there is a "possibility" of finding some news at some of them I suppose.. but this blog has a whopping 182 comments on the SP1 release.. of which there were the "dozen" problems.. This isn't any gage of anything.. and to top it off.. the blog is not at the link in the Slashdot submission.. it's at.... http://windowsvistablog.com/blogs/windowsvista/default.aspx

Re:12 blog comments = news ?

[zimtmaxl]

I can only confirm: sp1 installation worked like charm for me! The only thing that made problems was the trend micro internet security: the "new" version 16.1 (which should be sp1 compatible) does not accept my license code anymore...

Re:12 blog comments = news ?

[urbanriot]

So have you diagnosed which Asus driver was causing your issue?

Vocal Minority, as Usual

[ThinkFr33ly]

Dozens? Seriously? So that represents, what, about .0005% of users installing SP1?

Why is it news that a few dozen people have issues with a service pack installation? Oh, that's right... this is Slashdot.

Slashdot should just get it over with and change their slogan to "News for people who hate Microsoft. Stuff that we made up."

Re:Vocal Minority, as Usual

[cliffski]

well said. I kicked off my sp1 install and went to lunch. Came back to a machine needing 1 reboot, and then back into my work. Later found I needed to reinstall my monitor driver which was apparently not certified. Took 5 mins.
the fact that a few people might be moaning wildly does not mean the service pack met with a bad reception. This is the only place where it is vaguely an issue.

Re:Vocal Minority, as Usual

[ScrewMaster]

Dozens? Seriously? So that represents, what, about .0005% of users installing SP1?

Well, if for the sake of argument we assume that by "dozens" you mean, say, 6 dozen (72 users) that would make the entire base of users installing SP1 to be, what, 144,000?

Sounds about right. But hey, who's counting.

Re:Vocal Minority, as Usual

[Anonymous Coward]

Or maybe about 14.4 million? See that little "%" after the number? Means percent, as in "of one hundred."

Re:Vocal Minority, as Usual

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, if for the sake of argument we assume that by "dozens" you mean, say, 6 dozen (72 users) that would make the entire base of users installing SP1 to be, what, 144,000?

Sounds about right. But hey, who's counting. Obviously not you, friend. 72 is .0005% of 14.4 million, not 144,000. Seriously, that's grade school math.

Re:Vocal Minority, as Usual

[ScrewMaster]

Yeah, well, sorry. Couple of beers and see what happens.

Re:Vocal Minority, as Usual

[Esther Schindler]

My coworker wrote a blog entry at CIO.com, Should Microsoft Throw Away Vista? reporting on this issue.

Re:Vocal Minority, as Usual

[Anonymous Coward]

Right, we should wait for a couple million blogs before declaring it news.

In other news, SP1 has received no acceptance from users (I haven't yet seen even one million blogs saying SP1 is good)

Re:Vocal Minority, as Usual

[gladish]

It's not as much made up as it is blown out of proportion. I "switched" to vista a few months back after buying a new PC. I made an inverse switch from Macs which I migrated to from Linux. I've been threating my wife that I'm gonna just put linux on our PC, but I keep hearing "How do I get the red-eye out again ?" in my sleep. I installed sp1 last night and no problems thus far. My "COM surrogate" -- whatever that is -- crashes pretty much every day. Hopefully windows doesn't need it for anything too important. The system seems to work regardless. I was actually hoping the SP1 install would fail miserably so that I that I'd have an excuse (mostly for myself) to install fedora.

Re:Vocal Minority, as Usual

[Keyper7]

Agreed. This is about as impressive as a headline saying that dozens of people died today in the entire world. I'm a long-time Linux user and I had unpleasant experiences with Vista, but it's not like every single user that did an update to Ubuntu Gutsy from Feisty lasy year had a smooth transition...

That said, your slogan suggestion is unfair because TFA technically has no lies. A more accurate second half to that alternate slogan would be "Stuff that we overreact to." :)

Re:Vocal Minority, as Usual

[strangel]

I had problems with "COM Surrogate" crashing often when I first installed Vista.
Mine was related to video codecs - one of the codecs I had installed (not sure which) wasn't compatible with the way Vista generates video thumbnails in explorer. Yours may or may not be related - but installing versions that specifically say they work with vista fixed my issues.

Re:Vocal Minority, as Usual

[Anonymous Coward]

What would a MS version of Slashdot be called?

http://ccolon.org/ ?? (no site at this address at time of writing)

Re:Vocal Minority, as Usual

[DigitAl56K]

As much as I can agree that there is perhaps some unnecessary bashing taking place, what has the world come to when you have to re-install a monitor driver just because it isn't certified?

You're no longer in control of your own PC, Microsoft is.

Re:Vocal Minority, as Usual

[call-me-kenneth]

And you are here WHY, exactly? To get a +5 Insightful for pointing out that Slashdot doesn't like Microsoft? If you don't like it, fuck off back to live.com or wherever the fast diminishing community of Windows fanbois hang out. We here is HATERS boy.

Re:Vocal Minority, as Usual

[Anonymous Coward]

Or ... you could change your name to dumbfuck M$ damage control wanker. What do you think? You like it?

Re:Vocal Minority, as Usual

[Anonymous Coward]

So you still need to reboot in 2008? That's so 1990s...

Re:Vocal Minority, as Usual

[sashapup]

Well, we know that one blog post equals a billion people. So there's over 12 billion people experiencing this problem!

Ahhhh Family Guy. You've taught us well.

Re:Vocal Minority, as Usual

[ThinkFr33ly]

I'm sorry to disturb your twisted view of reality with a little dose of skepticism.

I'll never do it again.

Re:Vocal Minority, as Usual

[heffrey]

Read the comments. It seems that the editors are the haters but the readers and commenters seem to be a little more balanced. Perhaps the editors should take notice of the slew of comments berating their bias everytime they print FUD concerning MS and become a little more rational.

there is something I dont get...

[Bartas]

It saids: 'I downloaded it via Windows Update, and got a bluescreen on the third part of the update,' but isnt it supposed to be on Windows Update next month?

Re:there is something I dont get...

[nbannerman]

You can manually search for new updates now and it'll appear and can be manually installed - however the phased process (3 updates total I think) will automatically occur next month.

Re:there is something I dont get...

[Anonymous Coward]

You have to apply the registry change to get it on WU. It's not on WU for people who didn't apply the change and I believe it will not do the incompatible driver check if you do apply the change.

Re:there is something I dont get...

[joeytmann]

No registry change is needed. Just start up WU and tell it to check for new updates. Its an optional update at the moment, but in a month it will be mandatory, probably gives MS some time to tweak as reports of certain incompatiabilities are reported to them.

How about ...

[khasim]

Install and just disable the device?

Or rather, how about installing the parts that CAN be installed and skipping anything else?

This is about getting PATCHES in place. Not whether you have an unsupported CD-ROM and, therefore, you will not be allowed to apply the OTHER patches.

Re:How about ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Because device drivers never had a negative effect on a new kernel, right?

Re:How about ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Those users affected by this problem should be able to uninstall the drivers themselves, instead of finding that their Keyboard or mouse driver has been uninstalled without informing them properly and no way back but a new/re-installation of windows..

Re:How about ...

[Your.Master]

Install and just disable the device? Are you serious? You'd rather Windows Update disable a bunch of devices by default than leave your computer functioning as it used to, albeit with somewhat slow file copies? If you want that, download it from microsoft.com yourself.

This is about a kernel change, which isn't necessarily trivial to distribute piecemeal (not to mention the fact that all of these drivers would then have to be tested on every possible combination of partial-SP1 updates). There are other patches, too, which can be downloaded separately anyway.

Seems to me that installing the parts that can be installed and skipping anything else is exactly what they're doing.

Re:How about ...

[bigstrat2003]

Are you kidding? Disabling the device would have users furious, and rightly so. And it may not be possible to skip the parts which are incompatible... but only Microsoft can tell us that one.

Re:How about ...

[Anonymous Coward]

should be able to uninstall the drivers themselves

With emphasis on should, given Microsoft's history on error messages (my document failed to print!) the message probably says something along the lines of "You have incompatible hardware and we cannot install this service pack, have a nice next three days disabling drivers one at a time trying to figure out which one it is"

Re:How about ...

[Jugalator]

Or rather, how about installing the parts that CAN be installed and skipping anything else? That will give support hell for Microsoft though, and I wouldn't like to be in their shoes if a third party driver (note, this is not about Microsoft hardware) was among those rare exceptions and gave some user some sort of "incomplete Vista SP1".

- What product do you own?
- Uhh, well, it installed the components it could... Uh, do we still call this SP1?

No, this sounds like the best option to me.

I think it's even important that the user need to uninstall said driver first manually, because only then will he/she be aware of the problem. If it just silently disables something while updating to SP1, then you can be sure there'll be users confused about that instead and not knowing where to go next or maybe not even what exactly happened.

Re:How about ...

[Captain Splendid]

That will give support hell for Microsoft

Uhh, that's what you get for pioneering and dominating the market for an OS that's supposed to run on thousands of hardware configurations?

Or, to put it another way, maybe those guys over at Apple aren't so crazy after all ;)

Re:How about ...

[ashridah]

The problem there is that Microsoft never had a chance to lock people into hardware in the first place (and probably never wanted to, but i don't know anything about their motives back in the early days).

The people most responsible for the extreme number of hardware variations for the PC today? IBM. they allowed people to clone their architecture (not without a token fight, though, if I recall). Now we have two major cpu manufacturers, 3 major motherboard chipset manufacturers, 3 major video card manufacturers, millions of extra peripheral devices, and the end result is an impossibly large number of hardware configurations.

The main problem i've seen so far with SP1 has been it backing out after a good chunk of the installation process because some third party tool or driver (which is hard to identify) is holding onto a handle to something that windows update needs to update, but can't because there's an open handle.

At least it does the sane thing and backs out cleanly. Bummer to hear that it's failing for a few people, but you know, it's entirely likely that some third party software has snuck in where it was least expected.

Personally, I've never assumed that a service pack will apply cleanly on a machine that's been in use for some time. I tend to install them immediately after installing the O/S or service, and go from there. I'd do the same for going from RHEL 5.0 -> 5.1, or anything else. Takes away potential headaches.

Pity OEM installs of vista make that a pain, since the recovery image often contains a mountain of extra junk :(.

Re:How about ...

[UnxMully]

Are you kidding? Disabling the device would have users furious, and rightly so. And it may not be possible to skip the parts which are incompatible... but only Microsoft can tell us that one.

I'm confused, or perhaps it's the Magners. But why is it that a device that was supported under Vista isn't supported under Vista SP1?

Agreed, disabling devices would be bad and refusing to install on a working machine is good but did Microsoft take a red pen to the supported devices list in SP1?

Re:How about ...

[webmaster404]

Seriously, why can't MS include drivers in the Vista install CD? Ubuntu which doesn't have the billions of dollars can usually detect more hardware then Vista and Im sure it will be the same way with Ubuntu 7.10 (which came out in October of 2007) will detect more hardware then Vista SP1 which came out now in March of 08. Now that says something if a community distro which is very restrictive of any proprietary software can detect more hardware then a company that employs way more programmers, has a long deadline in which to come up with an OS (Ubuntu has about 6 months from each "service pack" release) and yet still needs an OEM CD to detect most hardware.

Re:How about ...

[DAldredge]

The Vista install CD includes drivers for thousands of different devices.

Re:How about ...

[MMC Monster]

Disabling a device during a patch is definitely uncool. As for installing part of an update, it doesn't sound like a particularly safe thing to do. Then again, for all I know SP1 could be a set of totally unrelated patches that can be installed or uninstalled peicemeal.

Re:How about ...

[ashridah]

And SP1 added a truckload more, including updated ones (hence the size of the standalone update).

Particularly for 64bit, which was almost twice the size of the 32bit update.

Sounds like progress to me. Note that the SP will only have included drivers that got updated *AND* passed the WHQL process, and of course, windows doesn't have the scatter-shot advantage of one-driver-fits-all that linux has (some chipsets under windows have a general driver for multiple oems, but often that's not the case)

Re:How about ...

[ashridah]

Kernel data structure changes.

The problem with giving people just enough rope to hang themselves is that they want a little slack so that it's not uncomfortable when they're tying the noose and getting on the chair, and get it by taping on their own rope with duct tape.

See this for an example of this. It's a really painful thing, and really makes me feel sorry for people like Raymond Chen who has to deal with these kinds of issues for pay. (His book's kinda interesting tho)

Admittedly, a lot of the benefits to the linux driver model is that they *don't* get a lot of third party drivers, which helps eliminate a lot of this kind of problem. It still exists however. Just ask anyone who's trying to debug a kernel with the nvidia driver installed.

Re:How about ...

[TW Atwater]

"Particularly for 64bit, which was almost twice the size of the 32bit update."

Well, let's see. 64/32 = 2. Yup, twice the size sounds about right.

Re:How about ...

[syousef]

The people most responsible for the extreme number of hardware variations for the PC today? IBM. they allowed people to clone their architecture (not without a token fight, though, if I recall). Now we have two major cpu manufacturers, 3 major motherboard chipset manufacturers, 3 major video card manufacturers, millions of extra peripheral devices, and the end result is an impossibly large number of hardware configurations.

It's also the reason that PCs became so affordable - competition. You can't have it both ways. I for one am glad we have a variety of hardware to choose from. I wish we had such variety in the operating systems.

As for the complexity, we have standards to deal with that....or at least they should.

Re:How about ...

[Frizzle Fry]

It would also make the manufacturer of the peripheral furious (and probably litigious) when customers got furious with them for their device no longer working.

Re:How about ...

[noidentity]

During installation, some drivers were found incompatible and were disabled. Among those were:

• Video driver
• USB driver
• Ethernet driver

Download updates for these drivers from the manufacturer's website."

Re:How about ...

[Anonymous Coward]

I wouldn't consider those numbers an "extreme variation" of hardware. Only 2 major cpu and 3 mobo manufacturers? It could be much worse.

Competition is good. Imagine if Intel is the sole major CPU maker. They'd control prices, developments etc. Might still be good, but it's better with competition around.

Re:How about ...

[theurge14]

These rogue 3rd party devices all sport the "Designed for Windows" sticker on the box, do they not?

Re:How about ...

[Scruffy Dan]

did you also get a 0x80071A90 error? and if so how did you get SP1 to install.

Re:How about ...

[Chaos Incarnate]

IBM "allowed people to clone their architecture"? Hardly. They tried tooth and nail to have the reverse-engineered BIOSes declared illegal and pulled from the market. Fortunately, they failed, establishing the principle (in the court of law, if not of engineering) of black-box reverse engineering.

Re:How about ...

[ashridah]

Sorry, seen, not had.

I don't have any tips for diagnosis yet. Unfortunately, the word on the technet blogs is that the patch basically waits for some service to release a handle to something it needs to update, gives up on waiting, and backs out.

I don't know what would cause that. Look for any services that've been added that aren't part of the windows services perhaps? disable anything that's snuck into one of the 5 billion different ways of launching a program on startup?

The service pack probably can't risk shutting down services it doesn't know about, after all, they could actually be necessary hardware services. A lot more drivers and applications install services than you'd expect.

Personally, I've done one install against a clean system (I got sp1 from where I work a while ago) and one install on a regularly used laptop, and both have gone well, but it's like comparing one wavelength of an entire spectrum when you consider everything that could be around (including spyware, viruses, etc)

I'd just bite the bullet, and make a clean start. Backup your stuff, install the o/s, install the service pack, reinstall apps, restore data. I can remember friends being bitten by this same problem with the first windows 2000 service pack, some random thing they'd install broke the service pack's installation. It sucks, but I'd take the exact same process when upgrading redhat or even debian. (my personal machines, I'll update, production systems, I'll build up from scratch)

It gives me a chance to refresh my rebuild scripts, eliminate weirdness, clean cruft, etc.

Re:How about ...

[Scruffy Dan]

I am not ready to do that yet. It appears that SP1 and the creative audigy drivers don't like vista SP1 so that may be the issue. Of course the update refused to install even when I had removed the offending drivers so who knows.

Thanks for you help though.

Re:How about ...

[Allador]

But why is it that a device that was supported under Vista isn't supported under Vista SP1? Because of any number of things:

1. The driver writer was doing something that was specifically not supported in windows, but for some reason didnt actually fail in the RTM version, but did fail in the SP1 version, as things are tightened up. The driver writer did something wrong, should MS continue to support broken drivers?

2. The driver writer was relying on an implementation bug in Vista RTM, which was fixed in SP1.

3. The driver writer was directly modifying kernel data structures in memory. These data structures can change with new service packs. If allowed to continue, they would basically clobber other random memory structures.

It just goes on like that. This is software business 101 stuff, that Microsoft has been dealing with for over a decade.

The reality is, most driver authors (and most ISVs in general) are utterly and completely incompetent. They dont read or follow the guidance MS puts out on how to make an application or driver function correctly in windows. They dont follow best practices.

In the bad old days, MS used to put hacks and special cases in their operating systems to support buggy applications. With Vista, and especially with the x64 version of Vista, they've been alot less lenient.

This is good in the long run because it forces IHVs and ISVs to clean up their act. But it can cause some pain in the short run.

Re:How about ...

[ozphx]

Probably the usual deal.

Microsoft to Realtek:
"Heres the driver API!"

Realtek:
"Argh this is hard. Fortunately I'm clever and can use this undocumented function."

(time passes)

Realtek:
"Ack, fuck. What happened to my fucking undocumented function?"

Re:How about ...

[waferbuster]

Back in the windows 98SE era, I purchased a very nice scanner (Visioneer 7600USB) which used that newfangled USB connector. Shortly thereafter, I upgraded to Windows 2000. Foolish me, I went to the manufacturers website looking for the upgraded drivers. I found out that in order to get drivers for Windows 2000, I had to send them money. I did so, and I still have the physical CD they snailmailed to me. Of course, that does me no good now that I'm using XP on my main PC.

The moral of this story is that Microsoft isn't responsible for all of the driver ills encountered during an OS upgrade. The manufacturers share the burden of providing working drivers for reasonably recent hardware. Granted providing XP drivers for a device from the '90s is unrealistic, but a charging a fee for a driver upgrade from 98SE to W2K seemed rather mercenary.

I don't recall how much it was, but I do recall being irritated about not being able to download a free driver upgrade.

I haven't tried hooking the 7600USB scanner to the Ubuntu box, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it'll 'Just Work.' The more I play with Linux, the more impressed I get.

Re:How about ...

[Anonymous Coward]

after all, that's one of the things people say is wrong with Linux and that for linux to work mainstream, they MUST have a stable ABI for drivers.

Looky here. Windows does that too.

Re:How about ...

[CmdrGravy]

I hear with Vista it was more like this

Microsoft-to-Realtek: Here's the API
Realtek: Thanks man, lets get this driver done
Microsoft-to-Realtek: The API changed, here's a new one
Realtek: Damn, back to the drawing board
Microsoft-to-Realtek: We've just improved the API, it's different now
Realtek: Double damn, this is getting irritating but nevertheless lets solider on
Microsoft-to-Realtek: Here's another API
Realtek: Fuck this

Re:How about ...

[Matey-O]

Posh. You make it sound so hard! You just go to the System log, look for errorcode 0x80000000fc, find the filename in question (EBVIA235C.dll), search the registry for the 3rd occurance of that file name, write down the GUID {23301203-12-3-1-2451-2-231-123122312-23), search for _that_, open the file in a editor, search for strings to find the vendor name and search for it on Google.

Easy peasy!

Re:How about ...

[flappinbooger]

I'd rather stay with XP, thanks.

Re:How about ...

[plague3106]

Or rather, how about installing the parts that CAN be installed and skipping anything else?

The idea of a SP is to get all machines with it to the same baseline. That way as a developer I can say you need SP1 for my program to function correctly because there's a bug in the RTM version. The other alternative is trying to explain you need these seven patches, go download them yourself. Not quite a great end user experience.

Re:How about ...

[Blakey Rat]

Interestingly, this is Raymond Chen's argument against open source: that developers would then dig into the Windows source code looking for undocumented side-effects, data structures and other crap, use them on production programs, then Microsoft would never, ever be able to change or fix them in the future. I don't know how (or even if) the Linux community solves this problem, but it's a pretty sensible concern from my point of view. It's better for programmers to follow the prescribed methods, which leaves room for the OS maker to improve whatever they want internally.

http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2003/12/23/45481.aspx#45759 (There's a better link where he explains it in more detail, but I can't seem to find it right now.)

Re:How about ...

[TheLinuxSRC]

While I realize your comment was meant to be funny (and it is) it is also informative/insightful. I have had some horrible problems with Windows drivers in the past and troubleshooting these problems made me want to stick bamboo shoots under my fingernails.

Not long ago I thought I would give Vista a look. I then found out that my Soundblaster Live! 5.1 had no official drivers available. Well, that card works fine with the several other OS's on that machine so I saw no point in replacing the card. I did find some converted XP drivers, but Vista uninstalled them upon reboot (every time you rebooted). OK, enough about that, I used an unsupported card, my bad. Same machine, same Vista install, a totally unrelated hard drive fails (happened to be the one with my XP partition on it). Now Vista won't boot at all. In fact it does nothing... spits out a couple errors and reboots. Screw Vista.

I fail to see how this is "easier" than dealing with hardware under Linux. At least with Linux you have a couple of very handy tools that will get you pointed in the correct direction. First off, you can lspci and lsmod to see what hardware is recognized and what drivers are loaded. You can also look at dmesg and /var/log/messages to see if there are any errors. Also, if there is an error, usually there is a nice descriptive error message that many times even suggests what your problem might be.

Re:How about ...

[ashridah]

Hrm. I'm using creative's audigy 1 drivers on my 64bit system at home. I haven't looked at the version numbers, but installing the service pack wasn't a problem for me.

(finding and installing the right audigy drivers on the other hand.... *shakes fist at creative*)

Re:How about ...

[ashridah]

Well, there's no question that that isn't possible, and from what I hear from a few friends inside redhat's support departments, oracle might just be fond of that particular game.

And we certainly do get the occasional clash over drivers poking where they don't belong (or more often, using the so called "GPL only" function calls when they aren't themselves GPLed)

That said, he's right. There's nothing stopping it, except that the driving force behind the driver tends to be someone who's interested in linux, not someone who works for the third party. The motives between the two isn't necessarily different (but not necessarily better, either, there are plenty of half-finished drivers that I've run into in the past)

Of course, I'm on the fence on the issue. Having OEM support for the drivers can be good... or it can be completely sucky, halfassed, and lag behind updates of other kernel components. It also works better when the driver APIs are declared stable and don't change over time. That's an entire debate on it's own however.

The reality is, some OEMs don't have a choice, however. Investing in linux support, particularly for consumer devices may quite simply not be justifiable to their operating costs, as far as they can see. Or they might be tied up in patent, licensed code or technology agreements.

Or they might just be arseholes.

Re:How about ...

[mpe]

This is about getting PATCHES in place. Not whether you have an unsupported CD-ROM and, therefore, you will not be allowed to apply the OTHER patches.

Or maybe Microsoft are trying to claim that Vista is "The least modular version of Windows yet".

Re:How about ...

[ttapper04]

I read the first sentence of your second paragraph as "Not long ago the absolute value of thought would give Vista a look."

I stoped to think whether a quantity of thought could have a negative value and decided it could :)

Re:How about ...

[eXonyte]

According to Brandon LeBlanc on the Vista Blog, "SP1 doesn't deliver any new drivers within the service pack itself." This stands true for both the 32 bit and the 64 bit versions.

For bonus amusement, look on the page for the inane threats from one "drqc terry".

Re:How about ...

[ashridah]

Heh, yeah, I saw those threats. Highly entertaining.

That said, I'm clearly misreading something else then. I had thought I'd seen them mention that they had updated and added support for N more drivers, but perhaps that wasn't in the service pack itself, just the general process of adding drivers since vista went RTM last year.

Re:How about ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Or, how about doing the intelligent thing, and fixing the problem and THEN installing the service pack?

You shouldn't expect MS to jump through hoops because your machine sucks. Try buying reliable hardware next time, d00d- you're lucky they game your POS rig even this level of consideration.

good

[frakir]

One day I hope to enter a store, pick up a brand new hot game and find a sticker on it:
"WINE COMPATIBLE"

Re:good

[snowraver1]

... and all the muggles will think that means that just like cheese, this game goes well with wine.

"Ooohh, How thoughtful, this game goes with Merlot. Honey! We need to stop at the liquer store"

Re:good

[|Cozmo|]

All my games are wine compatible (except online-only games that you can't pause). I just have to be careful not to spill it in my lap.

Re:good

[AndyCR]

Or, even better, "Linux Native".

Re:good

[Chris Burke]

Well I have yet to find a game that isn't "wine compatible" in that sense, so there should be no problems!

Re:good

[Svartalf]

In the same breath... One should carefully consider that while it's "compatible" with most activities involving computing,
the Merlot (Or perhaps a good Shiraz, Cabernet, or perhaps maybe a Riesling...mmm...now you have me wanting to crack open
a bottle when I get home from work...) probably doesn't mix well with E-mail, Web Surfing, or things like them...

Re:good

[Anonymous Coward]

"muggles"? wtf? what kind of faggot shit is that?

Re:good

[Anonymous Coward]

If they start having compatibility labels like that I am leaving.

I am NOT drinking any fucking Merlot.

Re:good

[Hymer]

Shouldn't it be a "Yes, it runs on Linux" sticker ?

Re:good

[Just Some Guy]

Never played Contra 4 DS, huh? That game goes best with a nice relaxing hit of crack.

Bermuda Triangle

[explosivejared]

"It exiled all my Nvidia drivers to the Bermuda Triangle."

I always thought the Bermuda Triangle was caused by Satan or some paranormal magnetic field, but being a magical disturbance from a portal that Microsoft malevolently banishes things to makes much a lot of sense.

Re:Bermuda Triangle

[techno-vampire]

It's a bit off-topic, but a friend of mine pointed out that as all of the Bermuda Triangle is inside the Bermuda Triangle, shouldn't it make itself vanish?

Reasons SP1 doesn't appear in Windows Update

[jrronimo]

There are 8 reasons SP1 may not appear if you check WU: 1. You are already running Windows Vista SP1. 2. Windows Vista SP1 has not been released for the language of the language pack that you have installed. 3. Windows Service Pack Blocker Tool is used to block the delivery of Windows Vista SP1 from Automatic Updates or from Windows Update. 4. You tried to install Windows Vista SP1, and the installation failed with a known inconsistency in the file or registry structure. 5. A hardware device driver or device software was problematic when you updated to Windows Vista SP1. The Windows Update service can detect the small set of device drivers and software that falls into this category. The Windows Update service will not offer Windows Vista SP1 until an update for the hardware device driver or the device software has been installed. 6. You have installed a prerelease version of Windows Vista SP1, and you must uninstall the prerelease version, or start with a new installation of Windows Vista. 7.You used the third-party program vLite to configure the system, and you may have removed required system components that have to be available for Windows Vista SP1 to be installed. 8. You see one or more updates for Windows Vista when you run Windows Update. However, you do not see Windows Vista SP1 listed. At that website are further causes for those 8 reasons, but the specifically mentioned drivers that block SP1 are: Audio drivers Realtek AC'97 For x86-based computers: Alcxwdm.sys - version 6.0.1.6242 or earlier For x64-based computers: Alcwdm64.sys - version 6.0.1.6242 or earlier SigmaTel For x86-based computers: Sthda.sys - version 5.10.5762.0 or earlier For x64-based computers: Sthda64.sys - version 5.10.5762.0 or earlier SigmaTel For x86-based computers: Stwrt.sys - version 6.10.5511.0 or earlier For x64-based computers: Stwrt64.sys - version 6.10.5511.0 or earlier Creative Audigy For x86-based and x64-based computers: Ctaud2k.sys - version 6.0.1.1242 or earlier For x86-based computers: P17.sys all versions (This was originally a Windows XP-based driver.) Conexant HD Audio For x86-based computers: Chdart.sys - version 4.32.0.0 or earlier For x64-based computers: Chdart64.sys - version 4.32.0.0 or earlier Biometric (Fingerprint) Sensors AuthenTec Fingerprint Sensor with the Atswpdrv.sys driver file version 7.7.1.7 or earlier UPEK Fingerprint Sensor with the Tcusb.sys driver file version 1.9.2.99 or earlier Display drivers Intel Display For x86-based computers: Igdkmd32.sys versions between and including driver 7.14.10.1322 and 7.14.10.1403 For x64-based computers: Igdkmd64.sys versions between and including driver 7.14.10.1322 and 7.14.10.1403 Other drivers Texas Instruments Smart Card Controller with the GTIPCI21.sys driver file version 1.0.1.19 or earlier Sierra Wireless AirCard 580 with the Watcher.exe application version 3.4.0.9 or earlier (This application is located in the AirCard 580 Program Files folder.) Symantec software driver for Symantec Endpoint Protection and for Symantec Network Access Control clients] For x86-based computers: Wgx.sys versions 11.0.1000.1091 or earlier For x64-based computers: Wgx64.sys versions 11.0.1000.1091 or earlier

Re:Reasons SP1 doesn't appear in Windows Update

[jrronimo]

There are 8 reasons SP1 may not appear if you check WU:
1. You are already running Windows Vista SP1.
2. Windows Vista SP1 has not been released for the language of the language pack that you have installed.
3. Windows Service Pack Blocker Tool is used to block the delivery of Windows Vista SP1 from Automatic Updates or from Windows Update.
4. You tried to install Windows Vista SP1, and the installation failed with a known inconsistency in the file or registry structure.
5. A hardware device driver or device software was problematic when you updated to Windows Vista SP1. The Windows Update service can detect the small set of device drivers and software that falls into this category. The Windows Update service will not offer Windows Vista SP1 until an update for the hardware device driver or the device software has been installed.
6. You have installed a prerelease version of Windows Vista SP1, and you must uninstall the prerelease version, or start with a new installation of Windows Vista.
7.You used the third-party program vLite to configure the system, and you may have removed required system components that have to be available for Windows Vista SP1 to be installed.
8. You see one or more updates for Windows Vista when you run Windows Update. However, you do not see Windows Vista SP1 listed.


At that website are further causes for those 8 reasons, but the specifically mentioned drivers that block SP1 are:

Audio drivers
Realtek AC'97
For x86-based computers: Alcxwdm.sys - version 6.0.1.6242 or earlier
For x64-based computers: Alcwdm64.sys - version 6.0.1.6242 or earlier

SigmaTel
For x86-based computers: Sthda.sys - version 5.10.5762.0 or earlier
For x64-based computers: Sthda64.sys - version 5.10.5762.0 or earlier

SigmaTel
For x86-based computers: Stwrt.sys - version 6.10.5511.0 or earlier
For x64-based computers: Stwrt64.sys - version 6.10.5511.0 or earlier

Creative Audigy
For x86-based and x64-based computers: Ctaud2k.sys - version 6.0.1.1242 or earlier
For x86-based computers: P17.sys all versions (This was originally a Windows XP-based driver.)

Conexant HD Audio
For x86-based computers: Chdart.sys - version 4.32.0.0 or earlier
For x64-based computers: Chdart64.sys - version 4.32.0.0 or earlier

Biometric (Fingerprint) Sensors
AuthenTec Fingerprint Sensor with the Atswpdrv.sys driver file version 7.7.1.7 or earlier
UPEK Fingerprint Sensor with the Tcusb.sys driver file version 1.9.2.99 or earlier

Display drivers
Intel Display
For x86-based computers: Igdkmd32.sys versions between and including driver 7.14.10.1322 and 7.14.10.1403
For x64-based computers: Igdkmd64.sys versions between and including driver 7.14.10.1322 and 7.14.10.1403

Other drivers
Texas Instruments Smart Card Controller with the GTIPCI21.sys driver file version 1.0.1.19 or earlier
Sierra Wireless AirCard 580 with the Watcher.exe application version 3.4.0.9 or earlier (This application is located in the AirCard 580 Program Files folder.) Symantec software driver for Symantec Endpoint Protection and for Symantec Network Access Control clients]
For x86-based computers: Wgx.sys versions 11.0.1000.1091 or earlier
For x64-based computers: Wgx64.sys versions 11.0.1000.1091 or earlier

Re:Reasons SP1 doesn't appear in Windows Update

[Anonymous Coward]

For generic stuff like the Conexant and Realtek sound card drivers you should stick to the Alsa driver rather than installing other ones, as compiling things is sometimes tricky. Are you using wrappers round windows drivers for the wireless? That can lead to problems.

Re:Reasons SP1 doesn't appear in Windows Update

[amiga3D]

Sounds like Vista isn't ready for the desktop yet. :) I know it's trolling.....but I couldn't stop myself.

Re:Reasons SP1 doesn't appear in Windows Update

[westlake]

This is off-topic, I suppose. But does anyone else think that in 2008 it is lame for a web forum to require HTML code for casual formatting?

Re:Reasons SP1 doesn't appear in Windows Update

[nschubach]

Well, what I find interesting is the double standard. Your sibling poster pasted a whole group of hardware that prohibits Windows Update from updating. Now, if it were Linux/Apple/other the world would be in an uproar on how such and such software doesn't work with their hardware. In the case of Microsoft, the user blames the hardware for being incompatible. How do you win that?

Re:Reasons SP1 doesn't appear in Windows Update

[i.of.the.storm]

This is slashdot, not some wussy web forum. Learn basic html or get out ;)

Hmm, I'm curious what the plain text method will post as. This should be on a second line, but we'll see..

Re:Reasons SP1 doesn't appear in Windows Update

[cbhacking]

Good to know.

I knew SP1 was out, but it wasn't appearing in Microsoft Update. I downloaded the standalone installer, set it to run and restart automatically, and went to dinner. When I came back I found it was working perfectly, but that there was no audio. At the time I was a little surprised but I guess that must have been the problem.

I connected to MS Update again, and sure enough there was an audio driver listed - installing it took a few seconds, no reboot needed, configuration was correct on install. As a matter of fact, that update had been there for a while, but I'd never installed it before - it was marked optional, and I'd gone with a "don't fix what's not broken" approach.

No other issues whatsoever. On the other hand, if I hadn't known to look for the service pack on the web, I'd probably have thought that it wasn't released yet.

Re:Reasons SP1 doesn't appear in Windows Update

[jonaskoelker]

does anyone else think that in 2008 it is lame for a web forum to require HTML code [...]? And the options for this particular poll are:

• yes, definitely
  
• no, not at all
  
• CowboyNeal
  

</tongue-in-cheek>

Re:Reasons SP1 doesn't appear in Windows Update

[Allador]

It doesnt.

Post as plain text, and it comes out fine (like this post).

You can even use simle HTML codes in plain old text posting, like Microsoft.

Re:Reasons SP1 doesn't appear in Windows Update

[Allador]

Cant anyone bother to read what they're posting about?

There are NO problems with ANY hardware.

There are certain OLDER versions of drivers for certain hardware that if present, will stop sp1 from installing, to prevent bluescreens and the like from shoddy drivers.

Re:Reasons SP1 doesn't appear in Windows Update

[Anonymous Coward]

Got news for ya. Some of the drivers that it's failing on are Microsoft's very own sound drivers. So now what?

Re:Reasons SP1 doesn't appear in Windows Update

[Allador]

And what drivers for what hardware are those, Mr. Coward?

I've looked at the list of specifically blacklisted drivers, and there are no MS drivers listed there.

The company has admitted it's still not perfect.

[iminplaya]

If you think it's beta, but it'snot, it's MS...

Let the FUD Wagon Roll

[Toreo asesino]

Iggy33 was just one of dozens of posters complaining about Vista Service Pack 1's effect on their PCs Whole 'Dozens' of machines break under SP1. Quick, someone tell Bill to pull the plug!

There are specific drivers versions that the update will not work with (and will prevent installation until they're updated), and specific application versions that break too. Shocking, it's true.

Someone remind me how many binary proprietary drivers break in Linux when you upgrade the kernel? All the nvidia drivers come to mind...but I digress.

This isn't a troll, these are facts...maybe it sucks that drivers are binary proprietary blobs that get shipped with Windows, but because they are, I'd say "dozens" isn't a bad percentage. I've been running SP1 just fine for weeks btw...

Perhaps the real news here is Vista should've shipped only when SP1 came out? Win2k8 did.

Problem exists between keyboard and chair.

[Sitnalta]

I installed SP1 on my desktop, laptop and several machines at work. There wasn't a single problem. My desktop had an "incompatible driver" and so I had to download SP1 from the MS website, but it installed fine and the driver is also working fine.

This sort of thing is normal with major OS updates. Even OS 10.5 had some major problems when users upgraded. And, honestly, unless you're like me and testing the service pack for work-related reasons... why are you installing it the day it was released? That's just dumb. At least wait a week.

My only real beef is you can't slipstream the new service pack into the install disk. That's going to be a pain in the ass next time I install Vista.

Re:Problem exists between keyboard and chair.

[petermgreen]

A bit of googling seems to show that while MS doesn't officially support slipstreaming it yourself people have found methods that work.

Also afaict there are official images with it built in though if you don't have MSDN, aren't using volume licensing and don't plan to buy any new copies you may have to resort to pirate sources to get your hands on it.

Re:Problem exists between keyboard and chair.

[GuldKalle]

And, honestly, unless you're like me and testing the service pack for work-related reasons... why are you installing it the day it was released? That's just dumb. At least wait a week. Yeah, everybody knows you've gotta wait until SP1 SP1 comes along - at least.

Re:Problem exists between keyboard and chair.

[urbanriot]

Also a beef of mine, however you can easily download an SP1 sku to replace your non-SP1 disc from various sources. Or wait for a friend to buy a new computer - most OEM's should now be selling Windows Vista SP1 with the system as the discs have been released to the channel.

My only real beef is you can't slipstream the new service pack into the install disk. That's going to be a pain in the ass next time I install Vista.

Re:Problem exists between keyboard and chair.

[Sitnalta]

I'll probably scrounge up a slipstreamed disk sooner or later... but, see, I shouldn't have to.

One of the touted features of Vista was a super simplified slipstreaming process. Simply copy the install disk to a folder, drag and drop the service pack into a folder marked "Update", and burn it all to disk. Yet, here we are, service pack one and they couldn't get that process to work. And the official word from MS is "shit out of luck, cheesemos. Buy a new disk!"

Re:Problem exists between keyboard and chair.

[leegaard]

I installed SP1 a few hours ago The download and install took about 45 minutes in total (with lots of long pauses in the download that took nearly 25 minutes for the 65 Mb) Windows UI seem snappier. The UAC screen pops up and goes away faster World of Warcraft now has improved framerates (about double or more)

Re:Problem exists between keyboard and chair.

[jd3nn1s]

Vista discs with SP1 included are available for download on MSDN.

Re:Problem exists between keyboard and chair.

[Sitnalta]

...if you pay a $700 subscription fee.

Something is wrong!

[failedlogic]

Something is clearly wrong. There are not supposed to be any BSODs in Vista - its supposed to be an RSOD. Perhaps these dozen people installed XP SP1??!!

Re:Something is wrong!

[Anonymous Coward]

RSOD is a graphics related error.
BSOD is still for kernel panics.

Re:Something is wrong!

[failedlogic]

Sheesh, I was kidding. Too many serious geeks here.

Re:Something is wrong!

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually the RSOD comes from the new bootloader, but I haven't seen any of those since very early in development. The BSOD is used for all unrecoverable kernel mode errors (which almost always means a crappy driver or failing hardware).

Dozens?

[Weaselmancer]

'I downloaded it via Windows Update, and got a bluescreen on the third part of the update,' wrote 'Iggy33' in a comment posted Wednesday on Microsoft's Vista team blog. Iggy33 was just one of dozens of posters complaining about Vista Service Pack 1's effect on their PCs.

Not that I'm backing Microsoft, but if they only have dozens of complaints on something with an installed base that large - then I'd consider the release a rather large success.

More people had problems downloading the NIN album.

Re:Dozens?

[Anonymous Coward]

More people had problems downloading the NIN album.

It's probably not a coincidence that both make me want to stick a red hot poker up my nose and scramble my brains!

Re:Dozens?

[PinkyDead]

When you look at the blog you see that there are 169 posts (probably more by now).

The first half of the blog basically consists of individuals congratulating Microsoft for getting the service pack out - no indication of how successful they were at installation. Then there are a couple of posts regarding success and then more and more complaints of failures - interspersed with flaming for not reporting to support (response: why should I pay $60 for support for a bug fix?).

So dozens (say 36) out of 90 posts, is not an outstanding success. If that pans out across the entire installation (and remember a lot of these are (a) early adopters and (b) technically proficient enough to post on the blog), that does not bode well at all.

Of course, that's just playing with statistics. I'm sure it will all be fine...

Re:Dozens?

[treeves]

My intuition tells me that people who didn't have have any problems and/or were happy with the installation are much (and I mean ) less likely to go a blog about it and make a comment than people who had a problem. YMMV.

Re:Dozens?

[Allador]

why should I pay $60 for support for a bug fix? So you read enough to get that, but not the immediately followed response from the MS guy that SP1 support calls are FREE. There is no charge to get SP1 install support from MS.

nd remember a lot of these are (a) early adopters and (b) technically proficient enough to post on the blog Are you kidding? How could you read those posts and think any of them (including the MS guy) are technically proficient. They're almost all idiots, at least based on their postings.

Thus far...

[michrech]

...I have not had any issues with the update. I installed it yesterday, on a mostly fresh install of Vista Enterprise, onto a Dell OptiPlex 745 with 2gb RAM and a C2D 6600.

I've got our trouble tracking software running (DKHelpDesk), SMS Admin Console (been using it heavily today), Visual Studio 2008, and Office 2007 installed (well, along with Firefox, JavaRE, Adobe Reader, etc).

'Course, this particular machine is used for business uses and not gaming, but, at least I'm one person without issues (so far). :)

I seriously never saw this one coming!

[erroneus]

The reason for that, of course, is that I'm taking the "head in the sand" approach to Vista. I deny its existence whenever and wherever possible. And when/where I cannot, I exclaim that it's not compatible with our core software tools (AutoCAD 2005 doesn't work well with Vista) and that there is actually no business case for installing Vista... and there's not. What 'requires' Vista?

(I also take a similar stand on Office 2007. Fortunately, Microsoft has helped us out by giving out the 2007 format utility to install on users machines so they can open *.docx files when they come to us.)

Re:I seriously never saw this one coming!

[tepples]

What 'requires' Vista? Purchase of a new PC (other than a Mac) in a retail store, for one thing. Developing software and testing it on Windows Vista, for another.

Re:I seriously never saw this one coming!

[erroneus]

Yup! I'm in the clear for quite a while! We're not buying OEM Windows on machines any longer and we don't develop software.

Re:I seriously never saw this one coming!

[MrSteve007]

Says the person who's using an edition of AutoCAD that Autodesk retired all support and discounts for last week. Yeah, that's Vista's fault that you use a software suite that's nearly 4 generations old.

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?siteID=123112&id=7176852

We recently upgraded to AutoCAD 2008, and 40% of our workstations are Vista. Zero problems here.

Vista's slogan...

[BUL2294]

"The (w) ow is now!"

-1, Flamebait

[xstonedogx]

The article is schizophrenic. Rather than presenting a balanced view of SP1, it leads with unsubstantiated complaints as if that is the story, then talks about some facts (which are mostly positive) with some more complaints mixed in. Does it suck or not? This article says yes, but doesn't make a very good case for it.

"Dozens" of users of unknown levels of technical knowledge (out of millions of users) issued anecdotal complaints.

"Bikkja" said that "after installing SP1 things seem to go really slow, even though my computer shouldn't have any problems."

Firstly, is 'seem' a technical term? How do we know whether it went slower or not? Secondly a little reading would have told this guy that SuperFetch was basically rebooted by the install, which will make things slower for those using it until it catches back up.

Other troubles reported by Vista SP1 users ranged from a simple inability to download the software from Microsoft's Windows Update site...

There are several reasons for this, the most important that a previous update allows Windows to scan for drivers incompatible with SP1 and prevent download so as not to break the system (which TFA mentions).

...to sudden spikes in memory usage. "Went from using 650 MB RAM idle to 1 Gig... I'll be switching back," said "Kurrier."

So? What is with this obsession with memory usage? Idle RAM has a slightly negative value - it does nothing while still consuming a non-zero amount of energy. How RAM is used is much more important than whether or not it is used. Now, it may be that this guy only has 1 GB of RAM. It could be that this is the result of a problem. But who knows? Not the author.

Some had 'insightful' comments complaining about increased memory usage. Memory usage is a worthless metric! How memory is usage is more important than how much - and really, would you rather have that RAM in use making your system respond faster, or would you rather have it sit there doing nothing? There's some give and take here, but complaining about memory usage without context is meaningless.

The feature was plagued by false alarms that flagged thousands of legitimate Vista users as software pirates.

A legitimate (if unsubstantiated by the article) complaint, but well known before SP1 and really even before Vista.

Re:-1, Flamebait

[cdrudge]

...to sudden spikes in memory usage. "Went from using 650 MB RAM idle to 1 Gig... I'll be switching back," said "Kurrier."

So? What is with this obsession with memory usage? Idle RAM has a slightly negative value - it does nothing while still consuming a non-zero amount of energy. How RAM is used is much more important than whether or not it is used. Now, it may be that this guy only has 1 GB of RAM. It could be that this is the result of a problem. But who knows? Not the author.

On both of my machines that run Vista, "free" memory always is somewhere around 0. Anything left over gets used for cache like it should. As long as the cache becomes available quickly when an application needs it, who cares if the "idle" usage is 650MB or 1GB.

Re:-1, Flamebait

[sabt-pestnu]

So? What is with this obsession with memory usage? Idle RAM has a slightly negative value - it does nothing while still consuming a non-zero amount of energy. How RAM is used is much more important than whether or not it is used. Now, it may be that this guy only has 1 GB of RAM. It could be that this is the result of a problem. But who knows? Not the author.

Some had 'insightful' comments complaining about increased memory usage. Memory usage is a worthless metric! How memory is usage is more important than how much - and really, would you rather have that RAM in use making your system respond faster, or would you rather have it sit there doing nothing? There's some give and take here, but complaining about memory usage without context is meaningless. I find this unhelpful. You seem to assume that the memory not in use right now is wasted, and that consuming it preemptively makes the computer run faster somehow. 'T ain't necessarily so.

Any memory the OS consumes is memory not available to a running application, current or future. If the OS allows some of the memory it uses to swap out to disk, either it wasn't in use (IE not speeding up the system in the way you're talking about), or is actively slowing the system by causing swapping.

If instead, it causes your application to use disk-based VM, then your application is slower. Wherein lies the speed increase there?

You mention "maybe he only had 1GB of RAM". If so, then yes, he had a big problem. ANYTHING he does is going to be invoking non-RAM virtual memory. 2GB? You're going from having 1.6GB to 1.0GB for applications - losing about 40% of what space you had available. 4GB? about 20%. You make that up by swapping *something* to disk. And the more you're relying on the disk, the more thrashing you're going to do.

So tell me again about how much faster my computer is going to be. I need the laugh.

Re:-1, Flamebait

[drsmithy]

I find this unhelpful. You seem to assume that the memory not in use right now is wasted, and that consuming it preemptively makes the computer run faster somehow. 'T ain't necessarily so.

Yes, it is.

Any memory the OS consumes is memory not available to a running application, current or future.

False. The cache is simply shrunk when necessary.

If the OS allows some of the memory it uses to swap out to disk, either it wasn't in use (IE not speeding up the system in the way you're talking about), or is actively slowing the system by causing swapping.

"Swapping" only slows down the system if it's thrashing. Swapping when the machine is otherwise idle does not. Further, pre-emptively swapping out idle processes will improve overall performance if those processes genuinely need to be swapped out at some point - because it's already happened.

If instead, it causes your application to use disk-based VM, then your application is slower. Wherein lies the speed increase there?

What makes you think it will use swap when loads of "free" memory (being used for cache) exists ?

You mention "maybe he only had 1GB of RAM". If so, then yes, he had a big problem. ANYTHING he does is going to be invoking non-RAM virtual memory. 2GB? You're going from having 1.6GB to 1.0GB for applications - losing about 40% of what space you had available. 4GB? about 20%. You make that up by swapping *something* to disk. And the more you're relying on the disk, the more thrashing you're going to do.

Blindly stabbing in the dark at memory usage figures is meaningless, just like saying "Windows uses X amount of memory straight after boot". You have no idea how much memory the OS "needs" just on its own.

Incidentally, Linux (along with any other current OS) does all of the above as well - because it's a good thing. So if you think Windows sucks, you think the same about all its alternatives.

Free RAM is wasted RAM.

Re:-1, Flamebait

[sabt-pestnu]

I find this unhelpful. You seem to assume that the memory not in use right now is wasted, and that consuming it preemptively makes the computer run faster somehow. 'T ain't necessarily so.

Yes, it is.

M: Oh look, this isn't an argument.
A: Yes it is.
M: No it isn't. It's just contradiction. "Swapping" only slows down the system if it's thrashing. Swapping when the machine is otherwise idle does not. Further, pre-emptively swapping out idle processes will improve overall performance if those processes genuinely need to be swapped out at some point - because it's already happened.

You're assuming that the extra "400k consumed" was all "speed up cache". You're further assuming that it will all be either swapped out (as idle) or returned to the system dynamically. Would you be kind enough to point out where you find a basis for these assumptions?

Blindly stabbing in the dark at memory usage figures is meaningless, just like saying "Windows uses X amount of memory straight after boot". You have no idea how much memory the OS "needs" just on its own.

You're quite right, I don't know how much memory the OS "needs" just on its own. That's why I look at memory while it is under load. Many popular online video games are not particularly good at conserving memory. Performance of these applications shows a correlation to available memory. Specifically, when the application has asked for all available memory +30%, whatever is required by the OS is... required and unavailable to your app. This is the test I had in mind particularly.

You may have seen Windows' Task Manager's "Physical Memory Available" statistic, and "Commit Charge - total". These numbers, too, provide useful gauges to the OS's "Needs". Again, under load.

Again, you seem under informed opinion that this additional memory required by the OS is entirely refunded or swapped out under load. Would you please educate me by showing me your sources? Otherwise, we might as well be in that skit I quoted earlier.

Biased?

[rickmus]

Most of us have to use Microsoft products in one way or another. It would be nice if SlashDot wasn't so blatantly negative and biased towards them. Or can some one recommend a technology news site that gives me a fair assessment of cool stuff?

Re:Biased?

[Alioth]

Slashdot is overtly *nix-type OS oriented; it was never supposed to be a Windows fansite and never will be. If you want to have a similar site for Windows, you ought to go and start Cee Colon Backslash Greaterthan.

Re:Biased?

[heffrey]

I don't actually think the original poster was suggesting that Slashdot should be a MS fansite. What he said was that Slashdot would be better if it had a bit more balanced reporting.

Re:Biased?

[drsmithy]

Most of us have to use Microsoft products in one way or another. It would be nice if SlashDot wasn't so blatantly negative and biased towards them. Or can some one recommend a technology news site that gives me a fair assessment of cool stuff?

Ars Technica is probably one of - if not the - most objective tech news site out there.

Yep.

[ScrewMaster]

Service Pack 1 is all it's cracked up to be, all right.

Shocking..

[DanWS6]

Well I for am *install linux* shocked to *install linux* see this kind of *install linux* article on *install linux* slashdot. Look at the thousands of upset customers... wait.. hundreds... er tens? Of course the majority of reports you'll hear about SP1 is its problems and not successes. People only seem to bitch when something doesn't work and they don't say much when it does work right.

This just in...

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows user's PC Crashes after OS update. News at ten.

How do I spell "debacle"?

[clang_jangle]

V-I-S-T-A, debacle!

If Microsoft offered it, people would.

[khasim]

If you want that, download it from microsoft.com yourself.

And if Microsoft offered that option, people would.

You seem to believe that the service packs are nothing more than a "roll-up" of the other patches.

Here's news for you, they aren't.

Re:If Microsoft offered it, people would.

[Your.Master]

Right here buddy: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=B0C7136D-5EBB-413B-89C9-CB3D06D12674&displaylang=en

I don't at all have the idea that an SP is a roll-up, the GP did. I was disabusing him of that notion.

Everyone's still waiting for SP1 to go to Vista???

[BUL2294]

Hah! Looks like corporations and end-users like me should wait for SP2 or maybe even SP3!

Interesting

[dedazo]

The article on Digg about SP1 didn't have a single comment about any problems. Neither did I notice any on the reddit ones.

Not to say that there aren't any, but of course as usual the negatives have to be amplified and exaggerated in the name of freedom and ad impressions.

Vista Pirates?????

[newnerdyuser]

SP1 will also remove from Vista the so-called Kill Switch -- a feature that deactivated key components of the OS if Microsoft detected users were not running a properly licensed copy of Vista.
The feature was plagued by false alarms that flagged thousands of legitimate Vista users as software pirates. I'm shocked! Do people really pirate Vista?

That IS the service pack.

[khasim]

Here, let me quote that page for you. :D

SP1 addresses specific reliability and performance issues, supports new types of hardware, and adds support for several emerging standards.

Unless you have an unsupported device on your computer in which case this update will not be applied.

The question remains, why did Microsoft choose to do it that way rather than any of the other MORE PREFERABLE TO THE END USER ways that have been mentioned. :D

Re:That IS the service pack.

[Anonymous Coward]

like more preferable ways? to let it break shit and hope that people can sort it out on their own? what do you think this is? linux?

Re:That IS the service pack.

[Spy der Mann]

The question remains, why did Microsoft choose to do it that way rather than any of the other MORE PREFERABLE TO THE END USER ways that have been mentioned.

User: It doesn't install just because I don't have compatible hardware? This is madness!
Microsoft: Madness? ...
This...
is...
MICROSOFT!! *Throws user into sinkhole of support*

Re:That IS the service pack.

[The_Dougster]

I was shopping for laptops around November. They all had Vista installed. I asked the geek at Best Buy how they ran with XP installed instead and he replied "You can't install XP on these because there aren't any device drivers for this new hardware."

That did it, I bought a used XP laptop on Ebay for $200. Heck it even plays World of Warcraft. Runs linux too! Of course I spent about $200 more upgrading the thing's RAM, HDD, and Wifi, and then a couple weeks screwing around with it. Nice ultra-portable though.

Vista, ROFL! I'll be getting that in about 3 years probably, after it actually works somewhat half-assed decent.

Re:That IS the service pack.

[bhtooefr]

And, that's actually true for HPaqs.

Heck, I tried to download the drivers for VISTA for an HPaq I was working on, and they weren't on the HP site either! If you wiped the drive, the only way to get all the drivers was to pay for a restore CD!

But, I'll note that you can still get a ThinkPad or a Dell with XP.

Re:That IS the service pack.

[DrSkwid]

Was there a point in there somewhere?

Re:That IS the service pack.

[IWantMoreSpamPlease]

Technically this is correct, but I have installed XP on a number of "vista only" laptops and gotten full driver support. The trick is to find out the hardware ID, and then find a driver, which may not be from the same maker of the laptop. The biggest hurdle is typically in the video card. You have to force the installation of the driver, put up with all kinds of dire warnings from XP, and yet is runs fine.

A typical installation is from 2-3 hours, but in the end, you have a fully working XP laptop.

Re:That IS the service pack.

[DarthStrydre]

Was that intended to be a Beowulf reference? If so... it does not meet the /. form and should be rejected.

Speaking of which - Why hasn't anyone come up with a Beowulf Cluster Bomb?

Re:That IS the service pack.

[PachmanP]

+# Funny!? This comment should be +5 Insightful!

The Mods must be crazy!

Re:That IS the service pack.

[mpe]

The trick is to find out the hardware ID
A Knoppix or SystemRescue disk can be very useful here.

Re:That IS the service pack.

[Afrosheen]

That was from 300. Say hello to that friendly grub worm that lives under your rock with you.

Re:That IS the service pack.

[Afrosheen]

You forgot to throw in the extra 1+ hours for all 90+ of Microsoft update patches since XP SP3 still hasn't been released. I should know, I do XP Pro installs just about every day. No, I don't do them the integrate-everything-into-an-install-CD way, it won't fit and I'm too lazy. Caching proxy FTW!

Re:That IS the service pack.

[Anonymous Coward]

and follows up with a chair down the hole for good measure...

(Sorry couldn't help it)

Re:That IS the service pack.

[GameboyRMH]

No, I don't do them the integrate-everything-into-an-install-CD way, it won't fit and I'm too lazy. Caching proxy FTW! Slipstreaming is a good bit of work, but in my experience it's the only surefire way to update Windows with major service packs, and it saves a lot of work and time in the long run. Also there are these cool new things called "DVDs" that hold nearly 5 gigs, you should try them, they're not that expensive.

Re:That IS the service pack.

[Afrosheen]

True. However, if I wait around for another week or two, hopefully SP3 will finally get released. It includes some new Vista interop stuff so it's not like I could just slipstream 90+ KB's into a disc and have an equivalent.

Re:That IS the service pack.

[steve-o25]

so seriously though... after another year or 2 goes by, will Vista not improve enough to become the next/new dominant OS? I mean it can't totally suck forever can it? Eventually Microsoft will get their ducks in a row and get Vista opperating at the level we all expected it to be at right? IDK, just my thoughts... what do you think???

Sp1!

[BinLadder]

Sp1 works fine, no problem with it! it goes against my slacking religion though...dont want my system to reboot....

Newflash!

[Itchyeyes]

This just in: somewhere, someone on the Internet complains about something. More at 11.

Well SP1 saved me some crucial time this morning..

[funkdancer]

.. by suggesting that the 4gb memory stick would operate a lot faster if I put it into a high speed plug which was available on my Dell 2407wfp rather than in the top tray of the Antec 900 case. I hadn't figured that one out myself for some reason.

Had to transfer files (photos) from my D70s memory card to my wife's USB stick so she could bring some shots to her work. Estimated time before I moved the stick was 15-20 minutes; just moving the stick to the monitor it took 2-3.

In effect it was saying, hey you got a high speed usb stick, why plug it into a slow connector when you have a fast one available for use.

I for one thought that was sweet, especially as I just dodged the worst Melbourne morning traffic by not having to stay home another 15 minutes.

I agree

[tkrotchko]

I agree.

That's why when I want an even-handed tech assessment, I always go here first:

        http://www.microsoftisawesome.com/

Idle RAM

[tepples]

Idle RAM has a slightly negative value - it does nothing while still consuming a non-zero amount of energy. It takes time and energy to spin a hard drive to save and load the contents of RAM whenever I hibernate or otherwise power cycle a PC.

Memory usage is a worthless metric! How memory is usage is more important than how much - and really, would you rather have that RAM in use making your system respond faster, or would you rather have it sit there doing nothing? The perception is that memory managers in Windows brand operating systems have tended to manage memory less efficiently than operating systems using a Linux kernel, especially on a system that's within a few percent of thrashing because I'm trying to squeeze the last year of use out of a PC that already has 75 percent or more of the RAM that its motherboard is designed to hold.

Re:Idle RAM

[ThurstonMoore]

The amount of memory Windows is using when you hibernate has nothing to do with the size of the hibernation file. Hiberfil.sys is always the same size, equal to the amount of RAM installed.

Re:Idle RAM

[Dogun]

Comparing the efficiency of memory managers is hard. Care to explain this perception?

Re:Everyone's still waiting for SP1 to go to Vista

[Teran9]

Sort of like the Winnt 3.x and 4.0 days. You never rolled out the new version before the 2nd service pack.

Ubuntu can do it.

[khasim]

It always amazes me how people can be so defensive about such simple operations.

Almost every Linux distribution can manage this without any problem. Many of them doing it for free (as in beer).

And yet you're saying that Microsoft could not. Whatever.

Re:Ubuntu can do it.

[bigstrat2003]

No, I'm saying Microsoft MAY NOT be able to. Huge difference there. I don't know if they can or can't, neither do you. The only people who know are the programmers at Microsoft who coded this service pack up, they're the ones who could tell us if the conflicting parts of the service pack can just be cut out or not.

That's the important thing here, and whether or not Ubuntu, or any other OS on earth, can manage it is 100% irrelevant. The fact that it's possible in another setting doesn't prove it's possible in this one.

Re:Ubuntu can do it.

[DaveWick79]

The difference is when a Linux update goes haywire, the user is blamed.
When a Windows update goes haywire, Microsoft is blamed.

Re:Ubuntu can do it.

[Kangburra]

That could be because Microsoft expect money for their product. Anything else I buy has to work as advertised. Car analogies spring to mind but hey you know what I mean.

Re:Ubuntu can do it.

[bersl2]

When you automate it to the degree MS has, there is no choice but to blame them.

You'd have to be more concrete about Linux "updating", since there are so many options.

Re:Ubuntu can do it.

[techno-vampire]

Almost every Linux distribution can manage this without any problem. Many of them doing it for free (as in beer).

I don't know about Ubuntu, as I've never used it. I do, however, know that it works just fine on Fedora, and why. On Fedora, the updater only selects the packages you need for the software (including drivers) you have installed, and installs them one-by-one. If one doesn't work, it goes on to the next, and lets you know at the end what issues it had. I'm only guessing, of course, but the new SP1 for Windows iCandy may well be a monolithic block that's shoved in "all or nothing" fashion, and if any part of it can't go, the whole process aborts. It's just a guess, of course, but it would explain why there's so many problems reported.

Re:Ubuntu can do it.

[DAldredge]

without problem? Have you every used a linux distro?

Re:Ubuntu can do it.

[ozmanjusri]

when a Linux update goes haywire, the user is blamed.

Why is this modded insightful? MS marketing got mod points again?

When has any Linux vendor blamed their users for a failed upgrade?

Most often when an error occurs, there's a mea culpa from those responsible and the community collectively learns from it.

Re:Ubuntu can do it.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not defensive. You should read Julia Cameron book "The artists way" (which contains many very insightful
comments about the psychology of creativity). Our friend Mr Bigstrat is what is known as a "crazymaker". Until I knew this word people who exude a negative, nitpicking, attitude would frustrate me, but once you recognise the personality trait you start to see them everywhere, and know how to deal with them.

Crazymakers always have a very rational sounding reason why something is bad and can't be fixed. They actively enjoy finding problems and putting them in the way of other peoples progress. When crazymakers say, "It can't be done", they are really saying "I don't want it to be done, bacause that success would detract from my all knowing lifestance".

Sorry to pick you out on this Bigstrat, but the truth is you are just trying to defend your product bias for Windows. The truth seems to be that it's dying. The developers are in a hole and don't know when to stop digging and it's downfall can be explained by pride, arrogance, greed and ineptitude. Coming up with crazymaker rationales why it's broken is just wasting your time, nothing can save it now except for MS realising they over-reached themselves, throwing it all away and writing a real OS from scratch that serves the user not the corporate puppetmasters.

Re:Ubuntu can do it.

[saleenS281]

Ford also expects money for their products. If you never change the oil and the engine blows up, that's ford's problem? That's pretty sad if that is the best reasoning you can come up with.

Re:Ubuntu can do it.

[westlake]

That could be because Microsoft expect money for their product. Anything else I buy has to work as advertised.

More likely it is because Linux remains "the geek's OS." You are expected to dig yourself out of whatever hole you've dug yourself into.

The geek maintains the distinction between the computer and the operating system only when it is convenient.

The Windows PC has no standard configuration.

It can be customized endlessly by a billion end-users who have no understanding of the underlying technology.

The modem is rented from a cable service. The video card purchased from the bargain bin at Tiger Direct. The RAM from eBay.

But, according to the geek, Microsoft is expected to tie all this together and make it work 100% of the time.

Re:Ubuntu can do it.

[prockcore]

I definitely remember kernel upgrades that were incompatible with nvidia drivers. A simple kernel upgrade broke my X11 totally and completely. My choices were to either modify my xorg.conf by hand to switch to VESA, or to switch back to an old kernel.

Re:Ubuntu can do it.

[Wo1ke]

Who said anything about venders? I thought he was talking about fanboys and trolls.

Re:Ubuntu can do it.

[Kumiorava]

Well, shouldn't you go through your analogy a bit better? In case my car engine blows up when I'm having the required 12,000 mile oil change I wouldn't be happy.

Re:Ubuntu can do it.

[bemo56]

Almost every Linux distribution can manage this without any problem.

Not wanting to sound like flamebait, but my last PC ran Debian for some time (no ubuntu then) had a few no-too-well-supported components on it, so i had to hack a few .prefs files to get it working.

I changed the update list so i could download the latest version of a piece of software i NEEDED, then hell broke loose in the form of an unexpected update (more of a service pack, it'd been that long :P). Several components no-longer worked on my machine and all my .prefs files had been reset.

I was able to get it all working again, but its proof that it can happen on a Linux box. You cannot expect the average "M$" user to be able to do something like this with their windows system. So refusing to give a service pack to users that cannot run without hacking might just be the best thing to do sometimes.

Re:Ubuntu can do it.

[3vi1]

That's because nVidia doesn't provide an open driver. If a new kernel version is out, but your vendor hasn't updated their nVidia packages, just don't update - unless want to spend the few minutes it takes to recompile nVidia's shim yourself.

"or to switch back to an old kernel": You mean, "press arrow-down and select the last kernel from the boot menu until your vendor updates their nVidia packages in a day or two". That seems relatively painless.

Re:Ubuntu can do it.

[0100010001010011]

Ubuntu can NOT do it. I can think of a very specific example that affected me recently.

I have an IT8212 RAID card that I use as an additional IDE controller. When I upgraded to 2.6.24 I suddenly lost 1/2 my drives and the ones I did have were running at like 5 MB/s (instead of of 50).

I spent an entire day playing around with variations of enabling and disabling things in the kernel before I found the magic set of keywords that lead me to an Ubuntu thread. It had to do with the switch from 'old' style devices to libata. Apparently Ubuntu just rolled this into one of the last updates and didn't check with IT8212 users because they were all having the same problems.

The fix was easy but it took me about a day and I had slow/missing hard drives until then.

I wrote it all out here on my "random debian notes" blog.

Re:Ubuntu can do it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Almost every Linux distribution can manage this without any problem. Many of them doing it for free (as in beer).

Um! Excuse me. Sir?

Well over a dozen users blogged about Feisty Fawn or Ditzy Dog or whatever the latest major release of Ubuntu was that broke my (and many other users) HP tablet's ability to use the stylus without warning us before hand or giving us the option to not update whatever component it is that broke it.

Where the fuck is our front page article? Slashdot runs an article anytime MS Word spellcheck is wrong or an office of 4 people switches to Linux. Where is the article showing that yes, Virginia, Linux has it's short comings too and isn't the saviour of the human race like so many lemmings on Slashdot proclaim. And where the fuck is this distro that is supposedly ready for desktop and able to skip components that breaks the functionality of other incompatible hardware?

Feel free to make excuses. Ubuntu no longer plagues my tablet regardless of whatever lame doublespeak you come up with.

Whoever modded you up is little more than another goosestepping fanboi because these issues exist in Linux just as much as they do in Windows. Stop acting like a moron about it.

Re:Ubuntu can do it.

[meimeiriver]

Ford also expects money for their products. If you never change the oil and the engine blows up, that's ford's problem? That's pretty sad if that is the best reasoning you can come up with.

No, silly, I expect to be able to change the oil without my car breaking down! It's pretty sad if that's too much asking.

Re:Ubuntu can do it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well over a dozen users blogged about Feisty Fawn or Ditzy Dog or whatever the latest major release of Ubuntu was that broke my (and many other users) HP tablet's ability to use the stylus without warning us before hand or giving us the option to not update whatever component it is that broke it.

This happens with Linux updates when no developer has access to the hardware in question to regression test the new driver. The only way to guarantee it won't happen is to test on EVERY variant of the device supported by said driver. This would require the resources of a multi billion dollar company. Driver regressions like this are considered extremely critical by these developers and they will bend over backwards to work with these users to fix the problem.

There is no excuse for a Windows update to break hardware that worked before; between Microsoft and the vendor, all the information and resources to regression test these changes on EVERY device are available.

If this happens to you, report it first to your distro's bug tracker, if they are slow to fix it, report it on linux-kernel. You'd be surprised how helpful people will be.

Re:Ubuntu can do it.

[RAMMS EIN]

``The difference is when a Linux update goes haywire, the user is blamed.''

By some. Others might blame it on the system. Yet others may give the user advice on how to do better. Some may ask the user exactly what steps they performed and what exactly went wrong. The problem can then be investigated, which will result in one of (1) nothing (2) the user getting told they shouldn't have done it that way, but rather ..., (3) the software getting fixed,(4) both (2) and (3). Last but not least, the user might do the investigation himself, up to and including fixing any software flaws.

All this will happen out in the open.

By contrast, with Microsoft, (1) development and issue resolution happens mostly behind closed doors, (2) users pay for and use Microsoft software because they want it to Just Work, (3) if it doesn't do what you want, you are powerless, and (4) updates _frequently_ break things that were working before.

So, first of all, the expectations are different. Believe it or not, most Microsoft users _expect_ things to Just Work. When they don't, there is outrage. Secondly, you don't get to see how these issues are dealt with. So all you get to see is the outrage at Microsoft.

Ah, and let's not forget: bashing Microsoft is fashionable. It's not just on Slashdot anymore.

Re:Ubuntu can do it.

[Nulifier]

But the problem that most people have is that they change the oil, and polish their car everyday and it still blows up in their face with "upgrades"

Re:Ubuntu can do it.

[Allador]

I'm not real clear on your statements.

Are you saying that Ubuntu can have 'part' of the kernel at 2.6.12 and 'part' of the kernel at 2.6.14? (I'm just making up numbers, but the point stands)

Somehow I doubt if that is actually possible.

Re:Ubuntu can do it.

[Anonymous Coward]

You have it wrong, in this case you would be changing the oil with Ford supplied oil and the car breaking down.

Re:Ubuntu can do it.

[rizzo320]

Perhaps Microsoft Sync caused the explosion. Zing!

It doesn't surprise me at all that Ford and Microsoft paired up with each other. As if Ford automobiles didn't have enough issues... :-)

Re:Ubuntu can do it.

[dilipm]

The point is how many people use Linux on the desktop. Let me count, #1 - Me, #2 - Probably you #3 - a few other geeks who know how to "sudo" around the Operating System.
I mean it just don't make sense to me, if something is free (free as in beer as you put it) and works so well better than paid stuff like MS or apple then why is that less than 1% of the population uses it on the desktop??
I use Ubuntu X64 for my desktop along with Win Vista X64. I've read so many things on Ubuntu forums to do one simple thing, calibrate my monitor's colour profile to sRGB.
I still have not found simple steps like as in widnows, a couple of clicks and then your're done.
Unless linux coders realize desktop users are not geeks, linux would not get to the desktop in ages. MS and Apple will continue to beat the shit out of linux on the desktop.

Re:Ubuntu can do it.

[solprovider]

"Ford also expects money for their products. If you never change the oil and the engine blows up, that's ford's problem? That's pretty sad if that is the best reasoning you can come up with."

The problem is more like having the dealership's mechanics change the oil using oil and parts supplied by Ford, then having the car blow up while still in the dealer's parking lot. Microsoft's Service Packs are designed for Microsoft products by Microsoft programmers and installed using Microsoft's preferred delivery mechanism. Consumers have the reasonable expectation that the computer will still boot after completing the process. The company cannot blame the consumer for having changed the windshield wiper blades, adding an air freshener, and plugging a cell phone charger into the lighter socket. The car should still move under its own power.

Re:Ubuntu can do it.

[rhade]

I agree If I bought a brand new ford and found numerous problems with it but could not take it back because they were 'undocumented features' but was then told, a year later, that I COULD take it back because these features had been recategorised as 'documented abnormalities' and then in the process of fixing it was told that I would have to upgrade my back seat, I would be on the phone to johnny law.

Re:Ubuntu can do it.

[MadMidnightBomber]

No, it's always the user's fault. Unless that user is me, when it's the fault of Microsoft/Ubuntu/RedHat.

Re:Ubuntu can do it.

[The_Dougster]

Hehe, wow! All I can say, is that after having switched from Debian to Gentoo about five years ago, I don't ever recall having a smooth upgrade. Some of them have been pretty darned rough.

Thats the price I pay for having a completely custom operating system though. Oh, I'll do trivial upgrades all the time, but when something like glibc or gcc has a new version out, time to sit it out a bit. At least with Linux in general you can log into some irc chat box on freenode and ask questions and reasonably expect some kind of knowledgeable answer if you stick it out.

I've gone into windows chat boxes and asked for help and got nothing. I knew more than anybody else there. Like a lot more. There were no experts around, just a bunch of clueless dweebs mostly. They knew nothing about how Windows boots or anything of that nature.

Particularly, my wife's computer got messed up. She had all her stuff on an NTFS filesystem in Windows XP. We had all the recovery discs and everything. Full serials, all that crap.

In the end, I had to back up my wife's NTFS system to a Linux ext3 filesystem on another HDD, then COMPLETELY WIPE the original HDD and reinstall from the cdrom. The supposed "Recovery System" was an abject failure. I tried every possible recovery thing and it failed miserably. Windows could not fix its boot sector, it could not fix anything. FIXBOOT failed, CHKDSK failed, it all FAILED FAILED FAILED. So I spent a valuable week of my life restoring her system from scratch from a backup because none of Microsoft's supposed recovery tools worked.

She's lucky I was around, otherwise she would have most certainly lost everything. I was able to bootstrap the system from a USB stick to Linux, and backup her non-bootable NTFS filesystem to a linux drive. After the wipe and reformat we put it all back. NOT fun.

Thanks again Microsoft. I just have all this extra time to be doing this crap which we paid you for. I don't mind working on Linux because it was gratis, but when I have to pay for stuff, I get angry when it causes me personal grief.

Re:Ubuntu can do it.

[Anonymous Coward]

I mean it just don't make sense to me, if something is free (free as in beer as you put it) and works so well better than paid stuff like MS or apple then why is that less than 1% of the population uses it on the desktop??

Pointing out the bleedin' obvious: because Windows comes pre-installed on *nearly* every PC, with mostly no option of any alternative, and MAC OS comes preinstalled with no alternative on every MAC?
In the interests of competition, at the very least Windows should be itemized as an optional item for every PC purchase (yes, you can still have it preinstalled, here is the cost, or you can have no OS) - retailers would be free to (but not forced to) offer further alternatives if they wanted to. They could give you a selection of free OSs with a clear statement of 'no software support', etc.

Re:Ubuntu can do it.

[dwandy]

Let me count, #1 - Me, #2 - Probably you #3 - a few other geeks who know how to "sudo" around the Operating System.

yes, me, but also my in-laws who know nothing about computers. It boots. They open Firefox (occasionally) to browse the 'net, and Thunderbird to get e-mail. They play some simply card games and such. They never administer the system except to let it auto-update. They have no idea what sudo is.

While I will agree that X is a mess the myth of the difficulties of linux are (today) greatly exaggerated.

imho, the real reason linux is at 1% is due to a few issues:

• MS anti-competitive practices makes it difficult for anyone else to play (think OS/2)
• Most people have no idea that they have a choice (windows is included with every PC they've ever bought, there is no distinction between 'computer' and 'windows')
• Most people are afraid of change, and would rather dance with the devil they know
• Linux has no marketing presence, look at how well FireFox did after marketing itself.
• The oft-repeated difficulties of using linux, many of which are no longer true, or were never true. This line also ignores or discounts the difficulties of using Windows. There is a trade-off, but it seems that people have accepted windows short-falls as 'normal', but expect linux to be 'perfect'.

Re:Ubuntu can do it.

[dilipm]

MS anti-competitive practices makes it difficult for anyone else to play (think OS/2)

Thats a standard requirement for all players in the market. Price differentiates since everybody does the same thing, just a different approach. This however does not apply to LINUX because LINUX IS FREE AS IN BEER, so how can you price something better than free? Your argument is good for Anti - Mac pricing but where is price a factor in linux? Linux is free(as in beer) according to every Linux fan boy, including a newbie fan boy like myself but then reality kind of is uneasy.

Most people have no idea that they have a choice (windows is included with every PC they've ever bought, there is no distinction between 'computer' and 'windows')

Dell, HP, Lenovo, ASUS, Toshiba and every other major brand of PC maker/OEM sells Linux based servers/desktops and notebooks. They even sell Machines plain without any OS, just with drivers CD that come with drivers for every possible OS like Windows 9X, Linux, Vista etc., So this point does not apply too. I live in a third world country called "India". I'm buying a Notebook next month without an OS, i opted out and saved like 75$ on OEM Vista because i already own Vista in retail but i decided to Install Ubuntu X64 on my notebook, purely to take is as a challenge to learn and live with Linux despite problems i run into everyday.

there is no distinction between 'computer' and 'windows'

You said it like nobody said it, perfect. When Linux consumes so less resources, so more secure and so more robust and so more easier to use (shakes head in disbelief) why is that despite being like 10 - 15 years on the desktop now it still cant penetrate even like 5% of the market? The answer is simple, user experience. Rather like microsoft puts it, Out of the Box experience. You can click your way through to find where is what in windows, Linux is never like this. Ubuntu does it sort of somewhere along those lines but Mac and Windows Master this trade.

Most people are afraid of change, and would rather dance with the devil they know

Correct, because the unknown angel Linux wants your to type "Sudo" commands all the way through for basic operations. I can install Automatix for Ubuntu for automatically getting new apps but then i need to command prompt for getting automatix, something like sudo -getinstall automatix kind of a thing, i don't remember well, sorry. But certainly along those lines...

Linux has no marketing presence, look at how well FireFox did after marketing itself.

Everybody bashes windows, there is not one person who does not bitch Microsoft. Considering the fact that its a known fact (line as in universal truth) that Unix/Linux is more secure than Windows, Linus still does not get all the marketing it already seems to have. This is plainly because Linux does NOT care about user experience.

The oft-repeated difficulties of using Linux, many of which are no longer true, or were never true. This line also ignores or discounts the difficulties of using Windows. There is a trade-off, but it seems that people have accepted windows short-falls as 'normal', but expect Linux to be 'perfect'.

Nope, Windows simply is easy and a child's play for any one around the block. Guessing is a way of doing things in Windows. For example you delete a file, there is a simple animation that throws something to the trash. This is common sense to most people that they are getting rid of something they have.
I agree Linux has improved, from the days (approx 7 years back) when i used to install Redhat Linux v7 using disk druid to partition disks and configuring LILO etc., Ubuntu has made it a child's play to install Linux compared to what it was or used to be but still Linux cannot do things a normal user would want to do specifically to his domain. For example, in Linux there is NO equivalent app like Light

Re:Ubuntu can do it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Interestingly most people installing Linux expects it to work on 100% of the time too.
At least with Microsoft most Windows installations have a OEM customized version that is supposed to work...

Re:Ubuntu can do it.

[NightWhistler]

I've heard this story on Slashdot quite often... and it's completely true: it just misses some points.

Yes, Linux is fine for the completely computer-illiterate user that just surfs a bit, reads some mails and looks at pictures... I've tried this myself by installing Ubuntu on my mom's old PC. She was completely happy with it, since she was used to using Firefox and Thunderbird already, and once she knew where to find the icons everything was OK again. I even got a very proud call a while after saying she'd installed Supertux and loved it :)

So, yes... in that scenario Linux works fine. On the other end of the spectrum we have the code-loving geeks such as myself, that love to have control of their system and know how to fix the mess they've created.... Linux shines there too.

The problem however is with the semi-experienced user. The one who likes to install programs and mess with settings... download stuff, watch movies and probably plug some el-cheapo, weird-ass USB devices in too... These folks very soon find themselves deep down in a hole they can't get out of anymore. For us geeks, that's the point where we start to poke around to see how stuff works and how we can fix it... for these users this is the point where the computer learns some new swear-words or gets a crash-course in physical violence...

Windows has a strong focus on explorative learning... it may be patronizing to geeks, but for most other people it works. It allows them to at least click around in search of an answer or in the worst case restore the system to an earlier configuration.

Re:Ubuntu can do it.

[Creepy]

you forgot some things

• Windows is often a corporate standard (meaning every user has at least 1 Windows box
• MS Office is exclusive to Windows and often a corporate standard
• freeware is seen as less valuable than something you pay for

The last one was definitely true - there were definitely problems with using Linux:
for example
1) installing Linux - need to understand partitioning, drives and obscure notations - specifically hd (IDE disk) vs sd (originally SCSI, but now also SATA disks). Dual or triple boot requires even more knowledge (like knowing to install Windows first).
2) obscure program names - xmms means/does what? Compare to Windows Media Player or iTunes - at least I have a clue what they may do.
3) installing hardware accelerated graphics (which required compiling the driver for a while).
4) Data files with no relations to applications - this is fixed, but used to be a problem - double click a .txt file and it should open so you can read and/or edit it in some default application. I'm hoping metadata will improve this more (identifying the exact app to use and fallbacks, for instance).

Re:Ubuntu can do it.

[dwandy]

installing Linux - need to understand partitioning, drives and obscure notations -

[k]ubuntu doesn't require me to do any manual partitioning. I can if I want to but don't have to. Windows also asks you how/if you want to partition. I fail to see a difference here.

Dual or triple boot requires even more knowledge

The users we're talking about don't do this. If you're tech-savvy enough to do this, then you can't complain about the complexity.

obscure program names

These are "branding" issues which in general I agree with you on. Marketing and branding are real issues for Linux. However, various distro's hide this via menu that calls "xmms" 'Media Player' , or similar.

Data files with no relations to applications

Behaves exactly the same on Windows are in Kubuntu for me. There are some defaults included, when a program installs itself via apt-get they know which extensions they want to open.

All in all, it seems to me that your complaints fall into my final point: oft repeated things that either were never true, or are no longer true.

Re:Ubuntu can do it.

[Wowsers]

... Linux remains "the geek's OS." You are expected to dig yourself out of whatever hole you've dug yourself into. True, but as I currently beta test Mandriva [cooker] before it's release, myself and others filing bug reports do it so at least newbies don't dig themselves into any holes, I know what that felt like as a Linux newbie a few years ago to dig a hole and need a complete reinstall of Linux. Only that /home is not messed around with so most applications work as before (if you remember what you installed).

The Windows PC has no standard configuration. It can be customized endlessly by a billion end-users who have no understanding of the underlying technology. True again, but have you used a KDE desktop, now that's configuration... It can get daunting for a new person to Linux. Windows in comparison has not much to configure.

Re:Ubuntu can do it.

[spectre_240sx]

You're drastically overstating the difficulty that is presented. Don't forget, that while all of those parts may come from completely different places and vendors, they're all manufactured according to standardized specifications. I'm not saying that there aren't some inherent problems when you get a large number of manufacturers involved, but don't go overboard with it.

Re:Ubuntu can do it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Better question would be what does Rhythmbox mean and that makes at least as much sense as iTunes.

Re:Ubuntu can do it.

[mpe]

installing Linux - need to understand partitioning, drives and obscure notations - specifically hd (IDE disk) vs sd (originally SCSI, but now also SATA disks). Dual or triple boot requires even more knowledge (like knowing to install Windows first).

Knowing to (or even how to) "install Windows first" is hardly the fault of Linux. Anyway all the bits about understanding partitioning, drives and even obscure notations apply to Windows installs. IME Windows is more likely to require user input at random points midway through an install. Many Linux installers gather all the required information at the start.

obscure program names - xmms means/does what? Compare to Windows Media Player or iTunes - at least I have a clue what they may do.

In what language is it obvious that "Excel" means "spreadsheet"; "PowerPoint" means "presentations" as opposed to "electrical socket"; "Access" means "database" or that "Outlook" has anything to do with email?

Re:Ubuntu can do it.

[Hooya]

> The Windows PC has no standard configuration.

As opposed to the Linux PC that has a standard configuration? The only stickers I see are "Vista Capable". Never knew there was a "Linux Capable" stickers going around.

> The modem is rented from a cable service.

I didn't know there was any other way to get a different modem for Linux.

> The video card purchased from the bargain bin at Tiger Direct.

That sounds more like the linux boxes. Windows mostly comes pre-packaged from BestBuy/CircuitCity/Dell. With the "certified" parts.

> The RAM from eBay.

Are you sure you're not confusing Windows with Linux? Windows is the OS that comes from OEMs with everything bundled together with "certified" parts. Linux is the one you have to install on hardware that probably was "designed" for another OS.

I'd never thought I'd see the day when people defended windows for having to deal with random components. Shoe on other foot?

Re:Ubuntu can do it.

[tprime]

I think that you are being way too simplistic with your car analogy in terms of the items you change on the car... It would be more equated to a car company no longer supporting your warranty if you decided to replace the car's computer chip with one that doesn't regulate torque as much and then blew the transmission.

It's funny that I hear people talk about recopiling the drivers with the different version headers and then in the same sentence claim that the general public should give up on MS and move to Linux. Are you crazy? Do you really think that anyone non technical would have a CLUE about how to do that in what is frequently considered the most user friendly distro, (k)ubuntu? I am not a MS fan, but we have to be reasonable here; they have their place until things get better on that front. I am perfectly OK with the upgrade not occurring with drivers that will fail, as long as they tell me which drivers are the ones that screwed it up.

Re:Ubuntu can do it.

[pyrr]

But, according to the geek, Microsoft is expected to tie all this together and make it work 100% of the time.

Not really. Microsoft is supposed to provide a medium that each piece of hardware can plug into with manufacturer-supplied drivers, except the core hardware architecture, which Microsoft is responsible for making its product work on. Beyond the core architecture, Microsoft is basically just responsible to keep its own products working. The problems occur when Microsoft can't even manage that-- NT SP6 and Win2k SP3 would be good examples of how Microsoft's upgrades broke its own products, and there was no hardware at fault. And those were just two of the major examples of this.

Who knows what went wrong with Vista SP1, maybe Microsoft did something at the last minute that broke those drivers. Maybe they didn't even know there was a problem, because the special cool kids who have access to the limited betas (MSDN/Technet/corporate customers) didn't happen to suffer them and there just wasn't enough time to correct the problem in a meaningful way when it was discovered when the pre-release fixes went public beta, so they just blacklisted some hardware instead. Maybe the hardware vendors were unresponsive or didn't have enough time when changes were made to overhaul their drivers. Whatever the case, there's failure involved.

Re:Ubuntu can do it.

[Creepy]

I was trying to explain why it was hard to do in the past.

    Many of these issues are no longer true or not as bad as in the past. Some like Ubuntu are definitely targeting the end user experience and trying to remove a lot of the complexity. Are they there yet? I'd say no, but getting there. KUbuntu 10 was a lot easier for me than Mandrake 9/10. I'm currently on SuSE 9 again (due to work), but plan to move back to Ubuntu soon.

Windows and Ubuntu use the default drive as the preferred partition, but SuSE 7/8 and even Mandrake 10 showed the default as /dev/hd0 and I always thought that would be very confusing to an end user, though since most people would just click through it may not be a huge problem. I consider myself fairly seasoned in UNIX, but I remember being confused by the SATA/SCSI drive IDs (I had both, but the SCSI disks were much smaller and older).

Dual Boot is how I've set up every copy of Linux the first time - most users are not willing to completely separate from Windows, mostly due to Office :(

The move to calling programs Media Player (aliasing) and the like is recent; again, I was referring to problems that mainly are in the past, where most would have a category called Media Players, but that category contained programs as named, so you may have xmms, divx, etc. and you would have to learn what each did. I remember seeing one distribution that had a Graphics folder and it contained applications like GIMP and X display configuration tools (the next release I believe separated them in a submenu - I think that was Mandrake, but I'm not positive).

Re:Ubuntu can do it.

[saleenS281]

Guess what. When the car blows up right after the ford oil change because you installed your own Turbocharger and voided your warranty, ford will tell you to take a hike. Third party drivers breaking SP1 != Microsoft's fault, sorry.

Whats wrong with you folks???

[cyberzephyr]

I have just finished installing SP1 on my standalone machine and have been dreading every darn thing i have heard about it off of /. Blue and purple screens of death and the whole nine yards.

It pisses me off that there are people who for some reason forget to RTFM! I bet most of the folks who got SP1 that failed did not RTFM and downloaded the version that MS or M$ if you want, warned you that it would give you the problems that you, who did not RTFM probably got because you think you know more so you don't RTFM!

On me, I have ZERO problems at all and i will be waiting because you who have been slamming SP1 had me scared and now i'm simply not anymore... Only hesitant.

Thanks for the FUD!

Re:Whats wrong with you folks???

[Anonymous Coward]

It pisses me off that there are people who for some reason forget to RTFM! I bet most of the folks who got SP1 that failed did not RTFM and downloaded the version that MS or M$ if you want, warned you that it would give you the problems that you, who did not RTFM probably got because you think you know more so you don't RTFM!

Haha. It's genuinely funny that the time has come where linux users can be smug about how linux just works, whereas window users blame users for not RTFM. :]

You may have been lucky, but I've seen alot of cases where vista makes the user curse he ever upgraded to it.

Funny times indeed. :)

Re:Well SP1 saved me some crucial time this mornin

[bigstrat2003]

Was this not in Vista SP0? I'd be astonished if it wasn't, because that was in Windows XP.

Ancient Chinese Secret

[Chas]

Upgrade to XP.

Modern Chinese Secret

Only apply SP1 to a VERY fresh (preferrably newly installed) Vista install. It's sounding like SP1 is HIGHLY intolerant of "crufty" installs (see: installs that have actually been used for more than 5 seconds by a real end-user).

Re:Ancient Chinese Secret

[Tatsh]

I'm imagining that so many of the failed installs are installations filled with crapware (spyware, adware, and bloatware (iTunes anyone?)). Microsoft's operating systems are hard to manage because of how easy it is to get software (including bad software), and how hard it often is to remove. There is no standard method of deployment (think apt or Portage), and there is no standard method of removal. It has been this way ever since DOS (just copy EXE's all you want to wherever and run wherever), but Linux and BSD distros always wanted a standard method deployment and removal (and generally bins are not linked to libs that are in the same directory). Even Apple has no real standard of deployment and removal (although the defacto standard seems to be make a DMG file and have it launch a simple programme where the user drags the programme folder to his Applications folder), but at the least they do not make it easy to trash the system (even Mac OS pre-X was better at managing software, just put it in the bin when you do not want it anymore, and that has not even changed in OS X).

Microsoft makes it way too easy to "trash" a system. Most tasks in Vista do not even ask for a password if they prompt you to check what your doing. I could have a system "dirty" within minutes and I know users could easily do that, however they would not even know. When any programme says it wants to add a service to Windows (one that will run in the background, slow down things possibly) or even a quick-starter, a user just thinks "whatever" it seems. I prefer to have my Windows light as possible (many disabled services and startup processes), but that is because I know how and know how to do it correctly. I think a lot of other people would prefer this if they had the knowledge and knew how to do it correctly. It is surprising Windows Defender has a piece where it handles startup entries, but users will generally have no idea what to disable and what is good to keep enabled. How do you teach this? Microsoft definitely does not want to get involved, unless it involves money (think Microsoft's certifications and A+, etc).

These "trashed" systems are exactly the ones that receive the BSODs or RSODs upon such a big update like SP1. But in a sense, I cannot blame the users entirely. They are having a bad OS forced down their throats as always and no real simple easy-to-read manual (that explains EVERYTHING) to come with it (and how many will go to the computer store? Next to 0? Then you guessed right).

I hate to say it

[GlL]

but the OS actually works now.

After installing the service pack certain things are incredibly faster.
1) startup: Before installing the service pack it took my computer (Hell laptop with 1.6ghz dual core AMD processor, 4GB RAM) 20 minutes to become usable. Now I can use my computer within 2 minutes of logging in to my domain. It seems like the indexing that happens actually runs in the backgroung and doesn't interfere with apps that you want to run in the foreground.
2) Browsing the domain network. Before installing the service pack, I could double-click on Network and watch the green bar slowly crawl across the top until finally after 5 minutes computers would appear. Now it is instantaneous.
3) Outlook 07 (probably related to the indexing changes). Before installing the service pack it took 5 minutes for Outlook to become usable and half the time it would tell me the local file closed incorrectly and it would now "repair" the file. Now Outlook takes abetween 20 and 40 seconds to be usable and downloading e-mail is much quicker. I haven't gotten the Incorrect file closure message yet either, and I have been opening and closing Outlook all day.

The new remote desktop removed the stupid login window.

The only thing I need to check on is if you still can't change IP settings when you first sign on. It used to take 5 minutes to be able to change IP settings.

The only complaint I have is that installing the Service Pack took alittle over 4 hours.

Re:I hate to say it

[El_Oscuro]

startup: Before installing the service pack it took my computer (Hell laptop with 1.6ghz dual core AMD processor, 4GB RAM) 20 minutes to become usable. Now I can use my computer within 2 minutes of logging in to my domain.

The only complaint I have is that installing the Service Pack took alittle over 4 hours.

Is is just me, or does anyone else find a anything wrong with the above statements? BTW, I have a 5 year old 1.6 AMD with 384m RAM. It is now in use for my Arcade cabinet using the latest version of Lincard/Gentoo. The GUI desktop is ready to play games in about 10-15 seconds of hitting the switch.

Re:I hate to say it

[GlL]

I find nothing "wrong" with the statements. Sarcastic .....nyeah could be Doc could be, wrong no.

Re:I hate to say it

[Shados]

My work machine (on Vista, with -1- gig of RAM...more than your arcade cabinet, but its still what everyone says to be "unusable" with Vista, or "bare minimum" is usuable within 45 seconds of the switch. Sure its no trimmed Gentoo, but its better than the post stated.

In general, rediculous boot time on Vista is due to only half-compatible anti-virus...and virtually all of em fit in that category. A very popular culprit is AVG, for example.

I said "Ubuntu can do it".

[khasim]

No, I'm saying Microsoft MAY NOT be able to. Huge difference there.

And I said that Ubuntu could do it.

And that most Linux distributions can. For free (as in beer).

But feel free to claim that a company with BILLIONS of dollars and hundreds of programmers at their disposal MAY NOT be able to duplicate that feat.

And that's the best you have? :D

Re:I said "Ubuntu can do it".

[bigstrat2003]

For starters, throwing more money at a problem doesn't automatically produce a better solution, so budget is largely irrelevant here.

And yes, "may not be able" is the best I have because it's the truth. We don't know how exactly what the service pack's code structure looks like, so we can't make an actual judgement as to whether or not the offending portion can just be cut out. Anything's possible with the proper amount of time and effort, but there's a huge difference between "just don't install that part", versus "not installing that part would require a total rewrite of the service pack". Both are possible scenarios, and without having looked at the code ourselves, we simply don't know what's the truth here!

Re:I said "Ubuntu can do it".

[MrNaz]

I'm a Slashdotter, and I like Linux as much as any other. It earns me my bread. But seriously, dude, if you think that Linux distro's "Just Work", and all updates never cause dependency or conflict issues, then you're dreaming. Not even Ubuntu's upgrades always go smoothly, especially when you have exotic server hardware thrown into the mix, or obscure or complex packages running.

Re:I said "Ubuntu can do it".

[seifried]

Red Hat's do. I know Mandriva also does a pretty good job. Oddly enough the commercial Linux vendors do make sure stuff upgrades without breaking. Which is perhaps why they get paid.

Re:I said "Ubuntu can do it".

[ozmanjusri]

Not even Ubuntu's upgrades always go smoothly, especially when you have exotic server hardware thrown into the mix

Can you give an example of where they have failed on this scale?

Re:I said "Ubuntu can do it".

[Anonymous Coward]

Yo. I'm a windows guy. I love windows as much as the next guy. I work with it for a living. But seriously, if the experience I get with it is on par or worse even than the one I get from a free OS, I think it's time to rethink some things. Wouldn't you?

Re:I said "Ubuntu can do it".

[MrNaz]

Sure, right after you give me an example of where Ubuntu has been deployed on this scale and among this widely varied a set of hardware configurations.

Re:I said "Ubuntu can do it".

[MrNaz]

If you honestly think that the experience you get with Windows is on par with the experience you get with Linux, then your experience with Linux obviously doesn't include providing technical support for 100 office workers who use it on their office machines and laptops.

Re:I said "Ubuntu can do it".

[MrNaz]

Try either distro with the latest Creative sound card and nVidia graphics card, and if you can get both working with full functionality without the need for a text editor, I shall retract my statement.

Re:I said "Ubuntu can do it".

[billcopc]

Red Hat ?

RPM-based Red Hat ?

You, sir, are full of shit. Sure, Red Hat tends to be stable when you stick to the base packages. The reason everything is 18 months out of date is because they test the living shit out of their builds, and that's fine. We used to call that Debian, btw.

Now, install something non-standard on Red Hat, and you almost have to unless you're doing something extremely simple, and you'll quickly find yourself at the mercy of disjointed updates, and the beloved hassle of virtual packages. This is true of any package management system, but RPM seems to make it just a little more painful than average, being bound to archaic build routines and an intentional lack of "cheating" abilities.

I use Red Hat, but all my mission-critical apps are built from source and kept far far away from the package manager.

Re:I said "Ubuntu can do it".

[Anonymous Coward]

If you honestly think that the experience you get with Windows is on par with the experience you get with Linux, then your experience with Linux obviously doesn't include providing technical support for 100 office workers who use it on their office machines and laptops.

That's odd. I would love to hear how linux is _worse_ than windows in such an environment, in your experience.

Re:I said "Ubuntu can do it".

[Anonymous Coward]

Very true, but with Linux when an update causes some problems you can be fairly confident that the new problem will be fixed in a very short period of time.

Re:I said "Ubuntu can do it".

[cHiphead]

I think you miss the obvious difference. Run a version of Ubuntu LTS and your updates tend to be reliable and not much differing than Windows XP updates with the occasional snafu. 'Upgrading' by a full version number in Ubuntu can be likegoing from Windows 2000 to XP. Microsoft simply does not have the fast and lose ability or desire to regularly implement full version updates, too much management involved and too much product lifecycle to wring out a few more profits from.

Cheers.

Re:I said "Ubuntu can do it".

[mgkimsal2]

Why does scale matter? I've gone from Dapper to Edgy to Feisty, and every time something didn't work. The wireless network card *never* worked without having to futz with ndiswrapper. And guess what? When you do that, the next upgrade breaks the working config you've got and you have to start over. And just because other people say it doesn't happen to them doesn't mean it didn't happen to me (or others I know). The only scale I care about is something working for me, and it *never* goes 100% smoothly.

Re:I said "Ubuntu can do it".

[Neil Hodges]

Installing OSSv4 (not the deprecated v3) got my SoundBlaster X-Fi working under Linux without editing any text files. Of course, Creative's ALSA driver for the X-Fi is completely broken, so that offsets it a bit.

Re:I said "Ubuntu can do it".

[Jason Earl]

You've inadvertently highlighted the reason that Microsoft is having problems with this service pack. Microsoft has a problem with this service pack because it doesn't write all (or even most) of the drivers for Vista. Instead it created an set of APIs that allows Windows to load random binary drivers that may or may not be very good (or even completely compliant). So when Microsoft makes a major change things break.

Interestingly enough in your case Ubuntu fails because it is doing the same thing. ndiswrapper is nothing more than a tool to allow you to run binary-only Windows drivers on Linux. There's no way that the Linux developers or the Ubuntu packagers can know what those drivers are going to do when you update the kernel (and most parts of userspace). When you think about it carefully you'll realize that it is amazing that the drivers work at all, much less that the work after upgrading the Linux kernel.

I think that you would find that Linux works much better with hardware that is supported natively.

Re:I said "Ubuntu can do it".

[edwdig]

I haven't used Red Hat, but every time I update Fedora, package dependencies get messed up. Maybe RHEL is better, but then again, last time I checked (admittedly a while ago), they recommended reinstalls rather than upgrades, so I'm not holding out hope there.

I gave up on Mandrake right before it became Mandriva due to each upgrade messing up the hardware config. Not only did I have to reconfigure my SoundBlaster Live and my TV card with every point release, but it decided to create new icons for the devices on the desktop with different names, making it more confusing. I wasn't able to find a way to permanently remove the old ones, so it built up quite a collection of icons after a few upgrades.

Re:I said "Ubuntu can do it".

[oatworm]

I've had problems with Ubuntu as well, especially upgrading from Feisty to Gutsy on my laptop. Heck, there's an entire thread on the subject of HP laptops and Gutsy on the Ubuntu Support forums. Granted, laptops and Linux are a rather interesting combination, to put it mildly, so I don't hold it against Ubuntu or anything. That said, claiming that Linux updates are completely flawless and that there are never hardware compatibility problems is absolutely ridiculous.

Re:I said "Ubuntu can do it".

[Brian Gordon]

How is the graphical interface better than a text editor?

Re:I said "Ubuntu can do it".

[Brian Gordon]

You're obviously giving them root access. Don't. And while you're at it, give them thin clients and make them connect to a central server, you never have to leave your office.

Re:I said "Ubuntu can do it".

[MrNaz]

Been there, done that. We called it VT100.

Re:I said "Ubuntu can do it".

[Anonymous Coward]

This has nothing to do with Linux updates. The X-Fi has *never* worked under Linux because Creative only released the docs needed to write a proper open source driver last month. The Creative driver and the OSSV4 driver cannot be legally installed OOTB due to incompatible licensing.

This issue is 100% Creative's fault. Fortunately a real driver is in the works.

Re:I said "Ubuntu can do it".

[msromike]

Probably easier for Ubuntu since it doesn't support nearly as much hardware as Windows in the first place. There are at least thee devices on this laptop that will not function under Linux that work fine under Vista and XP. Whatever.

Re:I said "Ubuntu can do it".

[MrNaz]

Well done on missing the point totally.

Re:I said "Ubuntu can do it".

[Jafar00]

Creative Audigy and Nvidia Geforce 9600GT all working fine here without editing a single text file here. Ubuntu 7.10. May I see some retraction? :)

Re:I said "Ubuntu can do it".

[dholwerda]

are we still banging on about package dependency problems?? RTFM - thats why people get paid to produce documentation.

Re:I said "Ubuntu can do it".

[Anonymous Coward]

"Ubuntu could do it."

Like hell it could.

Vanilla install of 2007.4 last year. Installed software via the package manager.

When it came to the 2007.10 update, I thought "yay, time to upgrade". It failed every time, it didn't say what was causing the problem, just "couldn't do it, wahhhh!".

Ubuntu - Welcome to Windows 98 style wipe and reinstalls - now twice yearly!

Never had these problems 10 years ago when I was using Linux then. With each year that goes by, Linux becomes more and more like Microsoft's software, rather than more and more like Apple's. I don't understand why!

Re:I said "Ubuntu can do it".

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably easier for Ubuntu since it doesn't support nearly as much hardware as Windows in the first place.

Do you have any evidence for this? It's probably fair to say that Ubuntu (or general Linux support) for very recent hardware is not as good or comprehensive as Windows Vista; but Windows Vista doesn't support lots of older hardware (e.g. my six-year old Cannon Scanner) whereas Linux does. Do you have some sort of figures for 'total device models supported' for Vista vs latest release of Ubuntu? I'm not even sure it's possible to produce meaningful figures for this.

Re:I said "Ubuntu can do it".

[cloakable]

Ironic you say that... I setup a dualboot laptop for a friend. Under Kubuntu, everything was detected and worked fine. I even got 3D right out of the box!

Under Windows, I got a bunch of nice yellow question marks in Device Manager, including the graphics (expected), the wifi (expected), but bizarrely, the onboard wired network connection. I mean, wired ethernet is... basic. What the hell is XP doing not supporting it out of the box?

True, some driver downloads solved the problems under Windows, but that isn't Windows supporting the hardware - it's the hardware manufacturers. Windows hardware support isn't as good as you think it is.

Re:I said "Ubuntu can do it".

[xtracto]

at Ubuntu could do it

As other people said, you my friend are smoking something really overkill.

I have Ubuntu on my laptop, I installed 7.04 and made it work as fine as I could (i had to buy a separate wireless card because the one that came with the laptop did not work... that did not happen in Windows).

When I upgraded to 7.10, the 3D graphics acceleration which was working with the free x.org drivers in 7.04 just broke up. There is no freaking way in hell to make it work. And I spent two weekends (saturdays AND sundays) trying to make it work, including asking in the oh so good ubuntu forums. My questions just get ignored.

So yeah, Ubuntu could do it, Microsoft could do it to, and better than Ubuntu or any Linux distro. But it does not happens.

Now, please pass that shit you are smoking, it really seems to be good stuff.

Re:I said "Ubuntu can do it".

[Simon Brooke]

If you honestly think that the experience you get with Windows is on par with the experience you get with Linux, then your experience with Linux obviously doesn't include providing technical support for 100 office workers who use it on their office machines and laptops.

If you think Ubuntu would be harder than Windows to provide support for in a heterogenous office environment then I suggest you don't have experience of both.

Re:I said "Ubuntu can do it".

[hey!]

Well, Ubuntu isn't exactly great when it comes to things common laptop sound cards, or certain popular USB wi-fi adapters. If you're lucky, it just works, but the same goes for Vista. But Ubuntu is not particularly good among Linux ditros when it comes to hardware support. I can attest this from personal experience.

Vista's problem appears to be that drivers often don't exist for "legacy" devices -- that is to say devices that aren't currently being sold but were being sold last week. Ubuntu's problem is that they ship drivers that don't work with their kernel modifications. The solution to most device problems seems to be either to get source for an updated driver and compile it against the Ubuntu headers, or to replace the Ubuntu kernel with a stock Debian kernel. That is, that is the solution if you are lucky.

I hardly think Ubuntu deserves to be held up as an example of hardware compatibility, if they ship drivers with their distro that doesn't work with their kernel modifications. Microsoft, at least, can justly claim they don't have access to the driver source.

If you have a couple of different problems with Ubuntu and hardware, and search the net for solutions, you hear the same stories over and over again. The Ubuntu upgrade broke some piece of hardware, but some people had good luck getting the source and compiling it against Ubuntu's headers; others have luck replacing the Ubuntu kernel with the stock Debian kernel. Then you have a smattering of things that people tried and worked for some reason they can't fathom, then there are instructions of the jump-down-turn-around-pick-a-bale-of-cotton variety which might work but nobody real expects them to. Then you have a few lonely voices saying they tried every suggestion and nothing and worked, and does anybody please, please have any ideas of what to try next? Sometimes they get an answer, which is that this sort of thing should be much less common in the next major release, contrary to experience with every prior release since the project's inception.

Still, I'm using Ubuntu, not because it's perfect, but because it's better for what I need it for. I use virtual machines extensively, and they run more smoothly under Ubuntu X86_64 than under Ubuntu 32 bit or Vista. I can live without sound, although I miss playing music while I work.

Next time around I'm definitely going back to Debian. They may be slow to get the latest versions of everything out, but when they do it works better. I'd go back to Debian now, but I've spent way more than my budgeted time screwing around with the operating system, and its well past the "educational" stage where you do things like read the ACPI specs to figure out how things work, and into the stage of being a plain old PITA.

Clearly, Linux is a better operating system in this sense: given that it's mere fantasy that "things just work", it's better to have a single device fail than to have the entire OS unusable. Not that a bad device driver can't cause a kernel panic, but when the source to a driver is available, it's much less likely to make it into a distribution doing something that will bring the entire system down. It might not work -- that takes having the actual hardware in question available for testing.

I'm not saying Ubuntu is a bad distro. It'd be a great distro if it didn't fiddle with the kernel, then ship that kernel with drivers that don't work with its changes. If there is somebody else taking care of this for you, fine. I think Dell sells machines with Ubuntu preinstalled. But I certainly wouldn't recommend it to anybody who didn't have somebody supporting them who was comfortable doing things like installing custom kernels and the like.

Re:I said "Ubuntu can do it".

[Anonymous Coward]

So, to sum up your responses: You claim Linux will have problems when it encounters unsupported hardware (Very true on any OS), yet somehow Linux is not on par with windows (You give no reasons as to why you make such a claim) and thus you imply windows has some value worth the money it costs over Linux (Either that, or you completely missed the original poster's point when he put the price tag of both in the equation).
 
Am I missing something?

Re:I said "Ubuntu can do it".

[Lincolnshire Poacher]

> We don't know how exactly what the service pack's code structure
> looks like

Correct. But the code structure itself is a reflection of the
company's competency or otherwise. If they created such an
umanageable mess that they cannot perform modular upgrades, then
this ultimately reflects on their design compentency.

You appear to be willing to give them a pass on this because OS
Upgrades Are Difficult. Yes, they are. But to a company such as
Microsoft, Difficult should not equate to Impossible.

Re:I said "Ubuntu can do it".

[Evil Kerek]

Right. Thank you for the usual 'linux is perfect' BS. Linux has never had to deal with a million customers demanding that some old piece of software from 1990 still function on new relases of the OS. Why? Because linux doesn't HAVE a million desktop users. (pulling the numbers out of my butt - but you get the point).

In fact, it's usually the opposite 'oh, that doesn't work on this new rev? Better break out a text editor and fix it'. It's actually kind of amazing how many pieces of extemely old, crappily written software you can still fire up on XP. Was it a good idea? Hell no. But when you pretty much own the desktop, you do what you gotta do to keep it. I don't use Vista - I am NOT here to defend Vista - I think it sucks - but most of you guys aren't being remotely fair. Of course, this is slashdot and this is not suprising. Sort of like expecting CNN (Communist News Network) to give a republican candidate a fair shake. Not going to happen.

So whatever on 'Ubuntu can do it'. So what. When Ubuntu has 80%+ of the desktop market, then you can compare it. When Ubuntu has ANYWHERE near the amount of software available, then you can compare it. Until then, you may as we be saying 'MY car can start'. It's irrelevant.
As pointed out by the first poster (you beat me to it) the new story itself is obviously biased as well.

EK

Re:I said "Ubuntu can do it".

[MrNaz]

You'll forgive me for not believing you :P I chose the Audigy specifically because I know there is no Linux driver that supports its full feature set :P

Re:I said "Ubuntu can do it".

[strabes]

You are such a troll; stop spamming your anti-linux trash. You have so many comments on this thread it's ridiculous.

Re:I said "Ubuntu can do it".

[MrNaz]

Am I missing something?

Yes. My point. Completely.

I was not implying that Windows > Linux. I was not implying that Linux is not on par with Windows. I was not implying just about anything that you seem to think I was implying. It's to be expected here on Slashdot that anyone who says anything other than "M$ iz teh sux0r!" and "Linux 1z d4h b3st!" gets barraged with belligerence from tards like you.

My original post said simply that Linux cannot magically do what Windows cannot, and thinking that it is some magic bullet that makes all IT issues disappear is naive at best. Linux does not just do everything Vista cannot, although there are many things that it does do far better Many (but not all) of Vista's problems are just the result of the fact that making software work for all people on all combinations of hardware given wildly varying usage environments is just damn hard. Reading any more into what I said is putting words into my mouth. But as I said, if you don't tow the "Linux Rulez!!@!" line around here you get yappy-mouthed twits following you around and badgering you like a bunch of underage groupies at a Snoop Dogg concert.

Re:I said "Ubuntu can do it".

[Anonymous Coward]

The question is what have you been smoking to believe that 7.10 is a service pack to 7.04?

Re:I said "Ubuntu can do it".

[abaddononion]

This seems like a really pointless line of reasoning, and not at all parallel to the Microsoft situation at hand. I use Fedora, and update via yum every time the new core drops (about once every 6 months). I have a Nvidia vid card, and an Audigy. You say "Things dont go smoothly without text editor!", yet I never have to touch a text editor to get either my sound OR my video working. They always come up 100% perfect, since about Fedora Core 5. You then CHANGE your argument to say, "Well your Audigy doesnt have full features! HA!" This has NOTHING to do with your original "running smoothly" argument. My OS still runs smoothly, WITH sound, after an update. The fact that Linux doesnt have a driver that gets full Audigy support is an aside argument. In addition, I have had *no* problems with my Audigy card ever. I dont even know which "features" Im missing, because I dont particularly care, because it already does everything perfectly for my needs.

Your entire argument is rambling bunk. The fact is, Ubuntu and Fedora Core both DO still do OS updates more smoothly than this Vista SP1 has gone over. There hasnt been a Fedora upgrade issue this rough since going from FC1 to FC2. And as someone else pointed out, Microsoft is such a large, "professional" company, with so many "talented" programmers on staff, that they should easily be able to make this AS smooth as the competition.

If you'd like to change your argument now, perhaps to suggest that the only reason Microsoft has so much trouble is because they have a much larger install base than the Linux distros (something that is probably true), then go ahead. But it wont change the fact that your last round of arguments were still pointless.

Re:I said "Ubuntu can do it".

[Anonymous Coward]

For starters, throwing more money at a problem doesn't automatically produce a better solution, so budget is largely irrelevant here.

$Money < $Good_Practices < $Good_Practices + $Money

I believe that's a logical argument, which disproves your above statement that "money is irreverently". Those are "greater than" and not "greater than or equal to" signs. Making $Money = 0 in this case breaks the equation/logic, thus, money IS relevant, but is not more important than good practices (such as we see from the open source communities), which I think is what you are really trying to say since "problems" are not limited to those who have money, nor only good practices.

Re:I said "Ubuntu can do it".

[darkpixel2k]

The only people who know are the programmers at Microsoft who coded this service pack up, they're the ones who could tell us if the conflicting parts of the service pack can just be cut out or not.

Oh yeah--it can totally be cut up and installed piecemail. Just like you can cut IE out of Windows, or get Outlook to not install MSN Messenger...

Re:I said "Ubuntu can do it".

[InsaneProcessor]

Don't even go there.
Every kernel upgrade breaks a lot of our software. We have commercial (as in lots of $$$) software that runs on Linux as well as our own and nearly everything breaks whenever we do an upgrade. Not only that but, GCC, Perl and many other things break as well. Linux upgrades are a major headache in our mostly Linux shop. My Windows XP installation has migrated through three machines and is still ticking away. Not that Windows is any better, but to say Linux as pain free on the upgrades is like saying that it is free (man hours to do upgrades and fixes are very expensive).

Re:I said "Ubuntu can do it".

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry if I misunderstood, I was a bit thrown off by this comment:

If you honestly think that the experience you get with Windows is on par with the experience you get with Linux, then your experience with Linux obviously doesn't include providing technical support for 100 office workers who use it on their office machines and laptops.

That one looked mysteriously like saying linux is not on par with windows in such an evironment. So I'll just dismiss it as a line where you try to gain credibility stating your experience with linux. Good for you :]

Yes. My point. Completely.

I was not implying that Windows > Linux. I was not implying that Linux is not on par with Windows. I was not implying just about anything that you seem to think I was implying. It's to be expected here on Slashdot that anyone who says anything other than "M$ iz teh sux0r!" and "Linux 1z d4h b3st!" gets barraged with belligerence from tards like you.

Stereotyping and Name-calling.

But as I said, if you don't tow the "Linux Rulez!!@!" line around here you get yappy-mouthed twits following you around and badgering you like a bunch of underage groupies at a Snoop Dogg concert.

Stereotyping and Name-calling.

My original post said simply that Linux cannot magically do what Windows cannot, and thinking that it is some magic bullet that makes all IT issues disappear is naive at best. Linux does not just do everything Vista cannot, although there are many things that it does do far better Many (but not all) of Vista's problems are just the result of the fact that making software work for all people on all combinations of hardware given wildly varying usage environments is just damn hard. Reading any more into what I said is putting words into my mouth.

Ok, then take a look at what the original poster was saying: linux handles similar cases more gracefully than windows does with a lower price tag: free. To that you responded, Linux is no magic bullet. Of course it's not and the OP wasn't saying it is actually. :] If you give people the chance to clarify what they mean, instead of quickly categorizing them, maybe you'll get an interesting answer.

Re:I said "Ubuntu can do it".

[mpe]

And I said that Ubuntu could do it.
And that most Linux distributions can. For free (as in beer).
But feel free to claim that a company with BILLIONS of dollars and hundreds of programmers at their disposal MAY NOT be able to duplicate that feat.

If anything the task should be easier with Windows. Since Windows is entirely the product of one entity. Ubuntu is a collection of software written by hundreds (possibly thousands) of people. Many of whom have no connection with "Ubuntu" at all. Far from being subcontractors of Ubuntu some of the developers may work for "rivals", such as Novell, IBM, Redhat, etc.

Re:I said "Ubuntu can do it".

[edwdig]

I'd love to get paid to produce documentation that doesn't actually provide any help. Where do I sign up?

Re:I said "Ubuntu can do it".

[bdjacobson]

So, I have an 8800GT, and what I did in Ubuntu 8.04 Alpha 6 was select "Restricted Drivers" from the menu, then "Turn On" for my Nvidia graphics card, and it downloaded the Nvidia drivers and installed them for me and then had me reboot, and then they worked.

So then I went to the Desktop Effects/Compositing menu item (can't remember the specific name for these sorry) and turned everything on. Then I downloaded the Compiz Configuration Manager from Synaptic and was able to add in cool stuff like Expose (aka "Slide" in Compiz), rain on my desktop (Why? Why not is more like it!). Also the cool desktop rotating cube, among other things.

It's all gotten so good, that after it worked without more than one hitch on my laptop (I have the dreaded software wireless broadcomm 4318 chipset, which I fixed by basically toggling the restricted drivers on and off again, and installing bcm43xx-fwcutter over and over again until it worked) from the partition I had set it up on, I wiped the whole harddrive of my Windows XP (after backing up the documents of course) and installed it again. Now Ubuntu is the only OS on my laptop. 3D Compiz works on it too with the integrated mobile ATI x200/200m/whatever.

Re:I said "Ubuntu can do it".

[angus_rg]

Calm down everyone. It will be a non-issue as soon as they release SP1 for SP1.

Re:I said "Ubuntu can do it".

[Anonymous Coward]

What the hell is XP doing not supporting it out of the box? XP was released 7 years ago. You expect that it should have included drivers for hardware not even designed at the time?

Find a network adapter that was in use at the time XP was released that doesnt work out of the box and you'll actually have a point.

Re:I said "Ubuntu can do it".

[Magada]

Lemme guess... Intel video (i915, most likely). Yup. Doesn't work. It's a known kernel bug and the Ubuntu guys either decided it didn't matter that much in the grand scheme of things (shiny new kernel, woo!) or didn't know about it. So... malicious or incompetent, take your pick. I did find it riling that no-one is doing anything about it - it seems for the kernel video card driver devs, if it can do VESA, it's shippable.

Re:I said "Ubuntu can do it".

[delt0r]

Real Linux distros need you to use a text editor before they even start to install ;)

Joking aside, IMO the package systems that are in Linux are pretty broken. When they don't work your are really stuffed. And When they do there can still be plenty of things that stop working. Add to the fact that updating one tiny thing can results in gigabytes of downloads and simply don't work at all with a air gap, and I would say linux and windows are almost == here. Windows even has a leg up since the updates are usually easy to apply with a air gap.

Not everyone has fast inexpensive internet. Most current linux distro don't cater to well for that.

Re:I said "Ubuntu can do it".

[Jason Earl]

Your problem was basically the same as the one above. You can't blame Ubuntu or or Linux for the fact that Broadcom doesn't want to play nicely with its wireless chipsets. In fact, the real problem was that Ubuntu tried to support these basically unsupportable devices in the first place. If you would have purchased a laptop with a well supported wireless chipset then you wouldn't have these problems.

My actual point isn't that Linux is infallible, but rather that Microsoft's basic model makes it impossible for it to really do any serious quality control. Microsoft doesn't write the bulk of the drivers that people actually use. Instead it relies on the hardware manufacturers to provide binary-only drivers, and it has to hope that these drivers are well written. It shouldn't surprise anyone that when Linux vendors like Ubuntu try to follow a similar route they end up with similar problems.

The moral of the story for Linux users is that they need to buy hardware that is supported by Free Software drivers.

Re:I said "Ubuntu can do it".

[Pharmboy]

I think you are full of BS or just choosing your words poorly. Linux supports MANY times more hardware devices than Vista. There is NO contest on this. Ubuntu or any other distro will recognize older hardware that Vista is not aware of, and will RUN on this hardware. Perhaps some of the newer hardware *might* get support on Vista before Ubuntu, but you can still run several different versions of Linux (including the most current versions) on old Pentium I machines, all the way up to mainframe systems and clusters.

More people have problems running Vista than Linux on new machines. No one has a problem running Vista on older machines, because it simply won't install. That isn't exactly a testiment on how great the OS is, only on how narrow yet bloated it is.

Re:I said "Ubuntu can do it".

[oatworm]

My problem wasn't with the wireless chipset - the problem I had when I attempted to install it was that it wouldn't boot. My understanding is that certain Compaq laptops, especially the AMD-based ones like mine, play some very interesting games with their BIOSes that Linux and BSD don't generally handle very well. Consequently, it can be hit-or-miss whether the OS can see the hardware well enough to even load drivers, even if you use the right boot flags. Though I have had a few issues with my wireless card, they've been pretty mellow and little that Ndiswrapper can't handle. I would like to move up from Feisty, though - it'd be nice to have NetworkManager properly handle WPA and actually be able to hot-swap video cables from my laptop without rebooting or restarting the GDI services. That said, I certainly don't blame a server operating system for not being particularly laptop-friendly.

Considering the way Microsoft writes its software, I'm somewhat relieved that it doesn't write most of the drivers. That said, as long as manufacturers like Broadcom refuse to release the specifications of their hardware, there's not a whole lot that anybody can do about binary blobs. Let's face it - most people don't care about how drivers are written, they just want whatever hardware they buy to work. As long as some hardware manufacturers insist on requiring people to use binary blobs to make their hardware work, and as long as people are willing to buy hardware that requires binary blob drivers, we're going to have binary blob drivers.

Re:I said "Ubuntu can do it".

[Kazoo the Clown]

For starters, throwing more money at a problem doesn't automatically produce a better solution, so budget is largely irrelevant here.

Actually, throwing chairs at the problem is the Microsoft way. Microsoft didn't get rich by throwing money at problems...

Re:I said "Ubuntu can do it".

[MrNaz]

Dude, you have, like, totally missed my point. So far that I can't even say it flew over your head, as that would imply you were standing in the right spot, just that it was aimed too high for you. That's not the case. Perhaps a better way of putting it would be thusly: I've got my point, it's a dart, and I'm throwing it at a dartboard in a bar somewhere in Los Angeles. You're wandering around somewhere in Arizona.

My point is, and always was, that Linux doesn't just automagically solve any and all install and update issues, and anyone who claims that it does for them is either a liar or has a trivial use case. As I said, I like Linux, I use it all the time. But it's not some magical panacea to everything IT.

Re:I said "Ubuntu can do it".

[MrNaz]

Stereotyping and Name-calling.

Dodging the content of what I said, both times. But I guess I can see how it would be convenient to do so, given your level of comprehension.

Ok, then take a look at what the original poster was saying: linux handles similar cases more gracefully than windows does

And that's my point: It doesn't. Linux has as many issues as Vista does in this regard, probably more due to the smaller pool of devs working on drivers, but that's the reality of the situation. I'm getting sick of the "Vista suxorz and Linux rulez" camp, I know that Vista has serious issues, but pretending that Linux doesn't suffer from some of the same issues as well as some others is foolish. And no, I don't, and never will, use Vista. I do however, and have been for a long time, use Linux. Overall Linux suits me better than Vista. But hey, I said something defending Vista and pointing out that Linux isn't perfect either, therefore I'm a MS shill and need to be beaten with the Slashdot stick.

Re:I said "Ubuntu can do it".

[DarkEmpath]

I had a similar experience. After all the hype I've been reading about Ubuntu, I finally thought I'd give it a try.

I tried installing Ubuntu 7.10. The display died part way into the initial boot. The CD kept spinning, and the system was obviously doing stuff in the background, but I couldn't see anything. The video drivers are crap, and keep dying (though without taking the rest of the system with it).

Bugger that. I'm sticking to Vista and PC-BSD. They actually work.

Re:I said "Ubuntu can do it".

[Anonymous Coward]

Dodging the content of what I said, both times. But I guess I can see how it would be convenient to do so, given your level of comprehension.

No content in those quotes whatsoever, other than stating that Slashdot is the home of open source fanatics and dismissing me as such. You're even wrong on this. If you take a moment and actually read comments, you'll also see windows fanatics blindly backing their OS of choice for reasons that are damn wrong and getting +5's in the process. And since you need to think in 'camps', consider yourself in the I-know-better-than-you-and-am-not-afraid-to-rant-blindly camp. You may enjoy calling people tards, but I would hardly say that's content not worth dodging. Congrats on pointing out the obvious: that any OS is not a magic bullet. You really need a high level of comprehension to realize that. True story. Just for the history, OP was talking about how linux distributes updates and how its way is more fine grained than Vista service pack's approach. Question was: why not update around the driver incompatibility as linux would? But I guess you were spot on in telling him that linux isn't flawless, the audigy driver isn't 100% feature enabled or that updating in linux breaks in some obscure instances. You really countered his argument ...

Re:I said "Ubuntu can do it".

[Jafar00]

I know a screenshot isn't much to go on since seeing and hearing is believing but... ahem :D http://img518.imageshack.us/img518/1701/screenshot1pv3.png

dozens of posters

[bwf93]

"Iggy33 was just one of dozens of posters" either vista has a lower adoption rate than I thought or its going pretty well.

Windows is a sinkhole

[wardk]

where the world stores it's wasted time, energy and money.

but windows 7 will make up for it.

until then, just enjoy the experience

and remember, "no one on the Internet knows you are running Windows VIsta SP1"

I can't hold it in!

[NordicPC]

This is killing me. Doesn't anyone remember XP before SP2?!?! BSOD's all the time. It took 4 years to get that OS right. Or, for you "Linux is perfect" people, how about the 2.6.0 kernel? That didn't have any issues at all, did it? Maybe you want to say Ubuntu is great, but I still can't play TF2 on it after a solid two nights of hacking away (and I'm not exactly a n00b). Maybe Mac OS 10.5 is perfect? Of course not! Customers are constantly bitching to me about Mail that can't send, Finder moving icons around randomly, etc. etc. Windows Vista worked on the most hardware out the gate of ANY OS I've ever used. Now, Microsoft would like you to run Windows Update and upgrade your drivers before you install SP1, and we're upset?!?! WTF guys, look a little deeper before your "Microsoft Sucks" beeper goes off. And thank you for the other intelligent people above who actually use the OS, installed the Service Pack and then made up their mind.

Windows XP SP2: remembering anyone

[kapoios]

Same story as the Windows XP SP2.
Many people were refusing to install it, since many other were complaining about problems that was supposed to create.
Finally, all we will use it... or not

Re:Well SP1 saved me some crucial time this mornin

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, Windows warns you if you plug a USB 2.0 device into a 1.1 socket. That's been in there since Windows XP, and I think even pre-SP2. I doubt that had anything to do with SP1 for Vista.

Re:Well SP1 saved me some crucial time this mornin

[Lewrker]

And that is why you paid several hundred dollars for it.

Wow...

[ChinggisK]

...the vast majority of these comments are not bashing Microsoft. Who are you people, and what have you done with the regular Slashdot community?

Re:Wow...

[El_Oscuro]

TFA has a poll:

Will you wait until Vista SP1 is released before upgrading to Vista?

Yes 12%

No 2%

I have already upgraded to Vista 17%

I have no plans to use Vista 69%

Re:Wow...

[Blakey Rat]

When the bullshit gets TOO thick there's pushback. We've been hearing nothing but lies and FUD about Vista from day one on this site, and people (now that they've actually used it awhile and saw the lies for what they were) are sick of it. Even on Slashdot.

But how much is written to?

[tepples]

The amount of memory Windows is using when you hibernate has nothing to do with the size of the hibernation file. Hiberfil.sys is always the same size, equal to the amount of RAM installed. True, preallocating disk space saves time when hibernating a machine. But does Windows write to the whole hiberfil when hibernating a machine with lots of idle RAM?

Re:Well SP1 saved me some crucial time this mornin

[MP3Chuck]

XP has done that for a while, at least for the machines I've used.

Re:Well SP1 saved me some crucial time this mornin

[RockWolf]

I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but XP SP2 does this, doesn't it? That's not to say it isn't handy, though.

Re:Well SP1 saved me some crucial time this mornin

[RealSurreal]

XP has been telling me to use a USB2 port for years, sometimes even when a device is already in a USB2 port.

Seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not only is SP1 breaking my computer...but I can't even install SP1 my computer because Microsoft thinks it might break my computer!

Yeah, you want to be your own judge on what might break the computer, but from what I've gathered most of the issues have to do with drivers...which Microsoft is already trying to prevent by not letting it be installed when there is a known issue.

Re:Well SP1 saved me some crucial time this mornin

[Penguinisto]

XP does that too... my wife's ancient Dell Inspiron 800 laptop warns her of this every time she sticks a USB 2.0 device into the USB 1.1 ports... (and she wonders why I have to suppress a laugh every time she mentions it to me).

/P

Re:Well SP1 saved me some crucial time this mornin

[Anonymous Coward]

XP does this, too, except it doesn't care whether you have a higher speed port or not. It just says, "Hey, you're putting a fast device in a slow port." Is Vista smarter about this, or does it just give you the same message and leave it up to you to figure out if you actually have a faster port or not?

Re:Well SP1 saved me some crucial time this mornin

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm quite sure that this feature has been in Vista since its RTM. No idea why you're attributing this to SP1... Also, if the port on top of your case isn't providing USB 2.0 speeds it hasn't been wired up very well. It's connected to a USB 2.0 header on your motherboard.

Omminous screen saver

[edwardpickman]

Maybe the new Flying Brick screen saver should have been a sign.

Thought of the day.

[Anonymous Coward]

Would it be inconcievable for a company of Microsoft's resources to hire a large pool of marketing shills? What would it take for Microsoft to have a pool of 100 astroturf accounts on each major tech site? Maybe 20-50 people with a plethora of sockpuppets and mod points. A fairly cheap investment for major damage control, you'd be mad not to.

Judging from the moderation and vocal protests about recent Vista stories, I think this is more than likely. Astroturfers you have given the game away: your modding is too heavy handed, especially in this story.

Re:Well SP1 saved me some crucial time this mornin

[rorted]

This was a feature of XP, I guess either it was pulled from Vista SP0 or else there's something interesting going on there.

Oh wait, you're from Melbourne? Scrap that second idea.

Re:Well SP1 saved me some crucial time this mornin

[SuperMog2002]

That warning's been in there as long as Windows XP has had USB 2 support, which I'm pretty sure it had at RTM.

Re:Wow... or why SP1 means SP2 is lamer

[WillAffleckUW]

...the vast majority of these comments are not bashing Microsoft. Who are you people, and what have you done with the regular Slashdot community?

Why bother?

We all knew Vista was a turkey anyway, and everyone pretty much suspected the SP1 patch would just make the turkey even lamer, so why bother posting?

Now, go away, and let us read The Onion parody of someone asking for change ...

I don't think these experiences are accurate

[wicka]

I just installed SP1 personally on four machines (Ultimate 64, Ultimate 32, and two Premium 32) and had zero problems; in fact, many areas of the OS seem improved i.e. file copying. In addition, all the comments I read on Engadget and and Gizmodo were pretty positive as far as people who actually installed it. I can't say I didn't expect Slashdot to post an article bashing SP1, but I guess I always like to hope that one day they will take a non-biased point of view on SOMETHING in regards to Microsoft.

Re:I don't think these experiences are accurate

[wicka]

Flamebait? Are you kidding me? Look at the tag Slashdot has so tactfully chosen: "haha." The Slashdot post is flamebait, not mine.

Bias via experience and disappointment

[dbIII]

This site grew out of a theme site for the Enlightenment window manager for X Windows on *nix operating systems so I don't really know what you are expecting. Also a large number of people here are computer or other technical professionals that work on a wide range on platforms and like to complain about the weakest link. That experience gives you the bias. In a comparison between Vista and WinME the newer product will win every time but it is not so clear cut between Vista and Win2k let alone comparisons between Vista and other systems. The three or four years of "Longhorn is better than everything else" coming out of Redmond also generated a bit of a backlash when the result was so disappointing it didn't even have complete support for the Pentium Pro and later processors. A 2GB memory ceiling is ridiculous for the sort of applications even home users want to run in these days of digital video and audio.

Re:Too many broken computers.

[Anonymous Coward]

Stick with infantile one liner first posts if you want to get out of karma hell, trollboy. You should not be allowed to write more than one paragraph about anything. Witness the results here.

Oh and BTW, I love the new sig.

Son't even start me on Linux

[Joce640k]

I can't remember the Linux patch which didn't break the webcam driver, etc.

Foreign Languages with SP1

[Anonymous Coward]

My experience with SP1 has been fairly pleasant so far, except for one thing.
I had the Korean language pack installed on vista ultimate, and SP1 setup refused to run because I had a language installed that wasn't designed for the SP (only french spanish japanese german and english or something like that), even though I had english as my primary... So I had to totally uninstall the korean language pack and restart before it'd let me install SP1. -_-. Other than that it's fine though!

Likewise

[dreamchaser]

It's working just fine for me. Many minor performance nuisances have vanished on more than one machine.

Re:Well SP1 saved me some crucial time this mornin

[syousef]

Am I missing something here? Windows XP (I pretty much only run SP2 now) gives me the same warning - Something like "This device could operate faster"...when I plug something USB 2 into a USB 1.1 port.

Re:Well SP1 saved me some crucial time this mornin

[glitch23]

In effect it was saying, hey you got a high speed usb stick, why plug it into a slow connector when you have a fast one available for use.

XP already has that feature. I have to wonder why Vista has it in a SP. Can anyone who has used both OSes explain the difference, if there is one?

Re:Too many broken computers.

[Anonymous Coward]

You are an idiot who makes all advocates of alternatives to MS software look bad with your rabid drivel. I encourage people to look up your other posts and decide for themselves the degree of your idiocy.

From a vista user's perspective

[Kahless2k]

I've been using Vista for a while now (I need to know it for work) and have followed the SP1 saga for some time - and from a lot of the posts above, I seem to be one of very few...

There are a handful of drivers (there is a list on technet I believe, but Im too lazy to dig a link up, but check one of the first posts in the last SP1 post on slashdot) which for one reason or another install themselves in such a way as SP1 makes them inoperable. The solution is to reinstall the drivers after SP1. Microsoft is trying to make this smooth - with Vista's reputation, what do you think would happen when Joe Public installs an update and their sound driver goes bad? Simple solution or not it is only going to hurt the reputation further.

It is very good to see that at least SP1 backs out cleanly when it sees it cannot complete the update, and from what I have read and heard from customers (mainly Joe Public types) that SP1 is installing without real issue for the majority of people. Personally, I installed last night without any issues - I actually noticed that my machine feels more responsive in a number of areas.

With that said, it is a service pack.. sometimes there are compatibility issues, look at XP SP2 when it came out but nobody bitches about that anymore; if the negative impact is minimized, then good for them.

Put away your pitchforks for once.. I've had enough updates on my Linux boxes go wrong that I find the "Evil Microsoft, Linux perfect" comments being hypocritical - but then, this IS slashdot..

(I know I'll be modded into oblivion because of that last comment, but I had to say it)

Improved (relatively of course)

[Anonymous Coward]

Installed a month ago (MSDN), work (Dell) and at home (Custom). No problems. File copying has improved a good bit (thank god). Start menu (or whatever it is called now) seems a little snappier. The "Save As" dialog still tends to list visited web sites. For example, Notepad, file save|as, first option (the default) is Desktop, second is http://www.msnbc.com/ WTF? Still tends to treat some folders as "media folders" (ratings columns and the like), so some annoyances fixed, others not.

Debian does it.

[DrYak]

all updates never cause dependency or conflict issues, then you're dreaming

Debian works in that way. It's their definition of "stable" release and packages in the "update" repository for said release.
Updates that might work in a slightly different way go into "volatile" and "volatile-sloppy". It also correctly handles services so the newer version of daemons is started, without breaking connection to current daemon.

OpenSuse in my experience achieves also nice similar results sa long as you don't throw too much weird repositories in the mix. (and the latest versions of suse still manage to stay simple even when using a couple of special repositories).

The only thing that aren't s smooth are kernel updates : On all distro, those updates require a reboot. In-place kernel patching does exist in Linux but I haven't heard about it being used on distros (there are solutions that use some parts of the module-load procedure to be able to load and patch parts in a running kernel, so the admin can post-pone the actual reboot to a later moment, but still have some protection from the bug fixes).

Meanwhile Windows' upgrade still requires reboots every time a blue car drive on your street, may break compatibility with 3rd party software, and only fixes bugs in Windows XP/Vista, or eventually a couple of other Microsoft softwares (if MicrosoftUpdate is used instead of WindowsUpdate).
The centralised management for install and upgrade and the extensive tests done by distribution makers are real god-send in Linux that is often underestimated by Windows users.

Funny,

[npoczynek]

I haven't seen any news stories yet that focus on the numerous Vista users, myself included, who are happy with SP1.

You can download slipstreamed ISO!

[zerofoo]

Microsoft has a slipstreamed DVD ISO available from the eopen website for volume license customers.

-ted

Vista Glazz not compatible

[Billly Gates]

For those who hate the default look of aero this might be important.

Other than that everything works fine on my end.

Re:Well SP1 saved me some crucial time this mornin

[Cromac]

Well SP1 saved me some crucial time this morning.... by suggesting that the 4gb memory stick would operate a lot faster if I put it into a high speed plug which was available on my Dell 2407wfp rather than in the top tray of the Antec 900 case. I hadn't figured that one out myself for some reason.

That's old functionality, XP has done that for years. I guess it's good to see that it only took until SP1 for Vista to catch up to XP in this area.

Re:Oh, me too!

[Anonymous Coward]

Start with the journal

Better to start here. Or here. There are thousands.

lots of them have been accepted as stories worth reading

Considering this is Slashdot, that's not saying much.

Re:Well SP1 saved me some crucial time this mornin

[nri]

Try working in Sydney. I moved to Melbourne 2 yrs ago, no traffic at all. Good roads, good trains. Melbourne is unreal for traffic. Never had to travel below 50km/h on a freeway, and man, the freeways, they are sometimes 4 lanes each way.

Don't know why Melbourne people complain about traffic. there is none.

btw, eastern freeway for me from Donvale to chandler highway.

As a gamer...

[defyg3]

I installed SP1 last night. Played Call of Duty 4 for a few hours. Play a little WOW, then played some World in Conflict before I went to bed.

No issues came up. Like others have pointed out, the fact that dozens had issues, I would consider this release a major success.

Now time to go play some COD4.

No problems here

[gravis777]

to sudden spikes in memory usage After installing, and logging in, I saw a MAJOR spike in memory usage. I pulled up task manager, and realized that it was still installing something. After about 10 minutes, it finished, and memory usage took a MAJOR dive. I am seeing about 100 meg LESS memory usage than before. Oh, and stuff that was broke started working again - the Sidebar came back, putting my laptop to sleep no longer crashes the video driver, and after defraging (one thing I learned from XP - always defrag after installing a service pack), just general responsiveness seems to better. I installed it on my work laptop first (I work in IT, and yes, I do have a backup, but point is, I needed to evaulate it), as I was having issues with it, and every issue I have had has gone away. Now I am about to go install it on my home computer, which the only issues I have had with it is the Host Process crashing on me, so hopefully SP1 will fix that issue.

And likewise, before installing any major update, make sure you have a backup.

My Only Issue

[scubamage]

So far my only real issue is that *something* is running in the background on my machine - it could be indexing, I'm not sure. You know how if you let your machine sit idle the hard drive light will slow from a constant solid light to mostly dim with an occasional blink of activity? I installed yesterday and its been going nonstop... and the machine has been rebooted a few times since as well. That can't be good for my hard disk. Its not really a real issue, more a slight concern as to why its doing it.

ROFL

[Anonymous Coward]

More /. biased nonsense.

SP1 works fine.
Not installing on systems with incompatible drivers is a sensible thing to do (and would be praised if Apple was doing it or if some Linux distro did that).
Vista is good, get over it. Most people bashing it don't even know why they are other than it's "in" to do it. Here's an example, complaining about UAC... when it's just doing what OS X/*NIX ALREADY DO.

I must be a Microsoft fanboi!!!

Oh wait. I'm typing this up on a Linux machine omg.

Contrary Experience

[Skythe]

SP1 actually fixed an ongoing no sound problem (for which i had reinstalled the proper drives several times to no avail). I can now browse my network files from my laptop as if they are native to the computer (as opposed to a 3~second delay in changing files previously) and windows explorer no longer locks up when i hit my shortcut to network/sharing center after just logging in. FYI i believe the no sound issue was actually caused by an automatic windows update.

When next OS comes out

[holywarrior21c]

Microsoft should release first version of OS for free as a trial. something like "Retarded OS BETA" or "Mac ripp off Trial" would fit. and then sell patched version or the service pack for charge. The number of version of windows increases each time it increases. what's going to be next? version for extreme pop up viewers(r)? maximum viral os version? slashdot enabled os?

Works fine for me

[Fearney]

I already installed SP1 and have had no issues. It has slowed my boot time a few seconds, but my applications are opening much faster now. Outlook 2003 comes up instantly, vs. the 5 or 6 seconds it took before. Ctrl+Alt+Del is WAY faster! It's instant as well, when previously it took about 10 seconds or so to load the menu. Yes, I'm aware that it's one of the enhancements MS said would be included in SP1. Moral of the story, you should probably have good well-known hardware to run Vista in the first place. Tomorrow I will attempt to update my BIOS to see if I can get my MB to recognize 4GB of Corsair memory. I did it prior but Vista would not boot at that point, and it had nothing to do with the boot.ini. Feel free to try it out, but there is always a risk when installing a service pack. I hope others have as much luck as I did.

Re:Oh, me too!

[cliffski]

Did Microsoft turn you down for a job? Its pretty sad when you devote so much energy to bashing someone else's product you don't even compete with. I'm glad i bought a vista PC, and its far better than XP.

Say hi and bye

[theolein]

I work on XP all day at work, but I support a company that is 80% Apple. We tested Vista on various machines late last year, on a Mac Mini, a Mac Pro tower and had a recent Lenovo T61 (".4GHz Core 2 Duo with 2GB RAM). For some or other reason, Vista ran fairly well on the Mac Pro tower and was pretty usable on the Mac mini, but it runs like a ball of thick shit on the Lenovo T61. While Vista definitely seems to be more stable than XP, it is also much more restrictive in what can and will run and, via the UAC makes it even more difficult to troubleshoot various software issues.

Also, the few in our company who do use Windows use it for CAD, and most CAD software (no, 3ds max is not CAD) uses OpenGL, which Microsoft, in a fit of Embrace and Extend has made a 2nd class citizen on Vista. It uses slow software rendering by default, and it needs a so-called installable client driver from the graphic card manufacturer, and the drivers can not use Aero, so you have your expensive CAD software which cannot use the transparent glass windows and looks like shit on Windows. Both Nvidia and ATi have said that this is a political decision from Microsoft to kill of OpenGL so that they can, once a-fucking-gain control some critical part of the PC system so that they can treat customers like their personal slaves and kill off any possible attempt by customers to migrate to Linux or Apple ("oh, this graphic card only supports DX, oops, I'm fucked").

Needless to say, we're sticvking with XP and putting more pressure on the CAD people to make Mac ports.

Fuck you Microsoft. You are your own worst enemy and enema.

Re:Say hi and bye

[Blakey Rat]

Hi,

I must have missed where you started talking about Service Pack 1. Or were you just posting an off-topic, pointless rant?

Bye!

Re:Say hi and bye

[DCMonkey]

Hardware acceleration of OpenGL on Windows has always been done via an ICD (well, there was an MCD model too but I don't think anyone uses that now). Legacy ICDs on Vista don't support the DWM so, no you don't get your fancy glass when running OpenGL apps on these drivers. But there is a ICD API version for Vista that does support running with the DWM enabled. So maybe you should see if your graphics card vendors support it.

I used to be a geek

[The_Dougster]

until I became a wizard! I can fix problems with linux upgrades, but its dicey with Microsoft operating systems. I'd rather have a non-booting linux system any day than the Windows equivalent. You are correct in that MS gets blamed when their system isn't compatible with all that hardware out there, but in the end, they were the ones who brought that all upon themselves. When they gave IBM the finger and started whoring around with every other fly by night computer vendor on the planet they set this whole fiasco in motion.

Linux supports *a lot* more hardware than Vista does. Think about it.

Re:I used to be a geek

[westlake]

When they gave IBM the finger and started whoring around with every other fly by night computer vendor on the planet they set this whole fiasco in motion.

The fiasco being that the dual core desktop PC with 2 GB RAM, a 500 GB HDD and a serviceable video card for PC gaming can be built for around $700.

Linux supports *a lot* more hardware than Vista does. Think about it.

I try not to.

In the consumer market the buyer is interested in the OEM install on a new PC with all the latest bells and whistles.

If he chooses the desktop he will most likely bundle in the wide screen monitor and the multifunction color printer-scanner. That will be the last significant hardware purchase he will make in the next three to five years.

And what's stopping you

[microbee]

from uninstalling the driver and disabling the device yourself?

Re:And what's stopping you

[cerberusss]

AFAIK the SP1 update won't install when it finds an incompatible device -- period. So yes, you can disable the driver itself but that still doesn't make SP1 install.

That would settle it then

[microbee]

You need to pass WGA to post on slashdot

Shrug

[SpinyUK]

Works fine here.

I guess I got lucky

[LM741N]

I downloaded the package from MS at 600kb/s which helps when the file is 450 some Mb. Then I backed up the computer to DVD and made a restore point. Then clicked on the update with Admin Privlleges and went out and did all sorts of stuff. The entire process took 6 hours. But when I got home I noticed that it appeared that that the laptop had locked up. So I did a hard power down and rebooted into Vista. Vista reported a successful Vista install. What I think really happened is that since Grub on my laptop has FreeBSD as the default booting OS, Vista did an automatic reboot when it was done and the computer booted up FreeBSD which after updating to 7.0-stable is having random lockups and crashes.

Might want to keep track of all those SP1 articles

[unityofsaints]

Is it just me or shouldn't at least some of these earlier slashdot articles be included in the related articles section? http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/17/0354211 http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/02/23/1730251 http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/02/21/1526225 http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/02/15/1536256 http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/02/12/0013229 http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/02/11/1316209 http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/02/07/1911213 http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/02/04/1958212 http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/02/05/1635221 http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/01/27/0145223 http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/01/05/1723202 Including all of them may be overkill, but surely the uninitiated should get a taste of /.'s extensive "unbiased" SP1 coverage ;)

Re:Well SP1 saved me some crucial time this mornin

[kbahey]

That is not unique to Vista. I have seen this on Windows XP on a Dell. The Dell had USB ports in the keyboard and front and back USB once. The front ones are under a cover and very hard to reach when the PC is on the floor. When the USB stick was plugged into the keyboard, it said this is USB 1.1 blah blah. But it was far more convenient to not lean down and fiddle with the cover and have the USB ports facing down.

So, is Vista SP1 superior because it is doing something that XP did all along? I don't see that as an advantage.

Poor users

[Anonymous Coward]

*sigh*

Windows Vista seems to be so sucky, that I just want MS to get it right out of pity for their users...

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

I will say...

[xaoslaad]

If you are using Parallels with a Windows Vista Boot Camp install, do NOT try to install the service pack while running Windows Vista in Parallels. The install took 2-1/2 hours, failed at 100% of stage 3, took 2-1/2 hours to rollback the changes, and then things just went from bad to worse. Windows Vista complained that the trusted store had been tampered with, that my computer had been compromised, would not reactive, and stated that Windows would need to be reinstalled. I wasn't even able to boot Windows via Boot Camp before I uninstalled the Parallels software because it would blue screen. I did some reading, and there is apparently a known potential issue with installing the service pack from within Parallels while using a Boot Camp partition, though they didn't have any more information that specifically identified a situation like mine.

I had nothing overly important on the install, and really only use it because I purchased Office and Photoshop for my wife; figured since I have them I may as well be able to install and use them myself, since they allow for multiple computers. I guess it was almost a good thing in my case, because I use Windows so rarely I was considering converting it to a full VM and removing the Boot Camp partition, as it was basically a lot of wasted space, but I can see where this would really screw someone else over if they had something important on their Boot Camp partition. I'll reinstall it all later next week when I'm not so annoyed.

On the plus side the service pack did install on my wifes laptop without a hitch, and seems slightly more responsive at that...

Re:Well SP1 saved me some crucial time this mornin

[tmalone]

Yeah, my Mac does that too when I plug in my iPod, except my Mac doesn't have any USB2 ports, so they're just rubbing salt in the wound.

MS LOL

[Alari]

Anyone know if SP1 fixes the bug in notepad? (The 'Unicode bug' is barely a bug, and that's not the one I'm talking about)

And in other news...

[ilitirit]

... some people somewhere are not happy with some things.

only some?

[sepiroth]

> ... barbs from some computer users who say the software wrecked their systems.

Yeah, some got their systems wrecked and the others got their systems wrecked as well to the point they could not get to slashdot to report it.

Re:... get a MAC... you'll feel better... ;)

[Just Some Guy]

Its flubs like this that are key in driving up MAC ownership (or licensing depending on your point of view).

Most Vista PCs will already have network cards.

Re:Oh, me too!

[Anonymous Coward]

I would no more work for Microsoft than I'd work for Communist China. Some things are worth more than money.

Re:Because Spaghetti Code Sucks Life.

[Anonymous Coward]

One step forward, two steps back, eh troll?

Strange How Slashdot Ignores This

[BSDetector]

Security update breaks printer drivers, Instant Hijack component http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=1437

Vista Service Pack

[solprovider]

"I think that you are being way too simplistic with your car analogy in terms of the items you change on the car."

Did you read the list of drivers that stop Vista SP1 from installing?

• Intel display drivers (Probably came with the computer. Equivalent to floor mats or the dealer's license plate holder -- standard equipment from the retailer.)
• Many sound drivers, including Creative Audigy (May have come with the computer, but also common add-on. Equivalent to a CD changer in the trunk.)
• Logitech QuickCam (Equivalent to the wiper blades or air freshener -- something anybody would expect not to cause problems.)

More exotic items are on the list, but some are standard. Some shallow research found the Intel driver is used for the 945 and 965 chipsets used in laptops (Asus Z62F, Lenovo T60, Samsung Q35 XIC-5500), by many motherboard manufacturers (Intel, ASRock, Asus, Biostar, FixConn, Gigabyte, MSI), and Dell used the chipset in the Lattitude and XPS lines.

--
I am surprised by the reports of the BSOD. I had believed Microsoft had eliminated the BSOD in XP by forcing an immediate reboot rather than display the BSOD. Was the BSOD reverted for XP? Or is the BSOD one of Vista's new features?

--
Slashdot Bug Alert: Previewing a post reverts the Subject. The submitted subject shows in the Preview section, but the Subject field contains the auto-generated text. My last post and this one should have the subject "Vista Service Pack".

Re:... get a MAC... you'll feel better... ;)

[Just Some Guy]

MAC is short for Media Access Control. The Apple computer is spelled "Mac".

VIsta is nothing but problems

[Anonymous Coward]

Cant play games, cant use good software....
o well i guess i should just go buy a xbox cause its more of a PC then a PC running vista...