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