Just about had it with Vista.

[andyofne]

Originally Posted by Ghanzafar

Vista is on the out. Microsoft has extended XP and will add DirectX 10 to the next SP. To get the true benifits of Vista you need the 64 bit but the problem with that is most all hardware venders are not going to waste their time making drivers for a OS that is not in Demand. Vista has alot of issues and only time will tell.
Andy for most TV cards to work they have to be certified. HP has always had issues with Media center all the way back to MCE 2004. I have a nice PCI express TV turner It is true HD ATSC http://www.avermedia.com/. You can get it at tigerdirect or newegg for less than $100.

Not my computer.

But thanks.

I eventually got it working.

Vista has a neat feature where, after you get a serious BSOD it will try to auto repair the problem.

Perhaps it was unique to my situation but...

Vista displayed a screen saying it was going to try to fix the problem.

It never told me what the problem was.

It kept the same screen on for nearly 15 minutes, though at some point the text changes to something like 'Vista is now humping your mother"... er... wait... no it was like "Repairing problem...." or something extremely vague.

Again, it never said what it was fixing.

Finally, it said something like "Sorry, I couldn't fix that would you like to restore the system using a restore point?"

I said no and shut down.

When it rebooted it was working fine again.

Nearly everything I wanted to do to the machine was so different from any previous version of windows that I needed to google just about everything.

I wanted to change the workgroup name so the machine could see other computers on the same network. But you can't simply right click on "my computer" to find the "Computer Name" tab -- because there is no "My computer" and no "Computer name" tab.

You have to hunt through the control panel and dig down a few levels to find an advanced options link.

Virtually everything was 'difficult' that way.

The guy who bought the computer ordered it with MS Office 2007 installed.

I exported his outlook express 6 data from his old machine (A WinXP Home box that had been a Win ME box -- P3 800Mhz, 512MB of PC133 RAM), but the new Office installation didn't have outlook. You now use "Windows Mail" but it kept barking at me about the old OE 6 data.

I finally figured it out after a little googling but it was sort of a PITA.

Then he asked me about his calendar stuff and I couldn't find a calendar attached to Vista's Windows Mail.

There is a calendar though, aptly named "Windows Calendar", but it wasn't obvious and doesn't launch from within "Windows Mail" (so far as I could tell).

All in all, I had figured to spend no more than 2 hours setting up the computer and migrating the old data but in the end I was there for about 6 hours.

Granted, part of the problem I'm facing with this event is the client.

He has an 8 year old HP all in one fax-copier-printer that uses a parrallel port connection. It wasn't even adaquately supported in XP and he somehow figured it would be okay with Vista. Well, the new HP box doesn't even have a parrallel port on it.

Now he wants me to find a print server device that will allow him to continue using the printer. The print server is going to be at least $50 and probably closer to $100.

I told him he could get a brand new HP all-in-one printer for under $100.

He says "But then I'll have this other printer sitting around doing nothing".

This is coming from a guy who makes something like $20K/mo. I just don't get it.