Actually, I did immediately forward your gesture to Ken... the onus isn't on me at this point. :)

And I'm not sure "annoying" would be the word I'd use, but I suppose if you choose to define the word as "talking about how Windows isn't as hot as I once thought it was" then I guess, yeah... I'm annoying. :)

This isn't a classic Mac vs PC debate, Charlie - and you know that as well as I do.

Agree I do....

Being a Windows user since 1992, (give or take a year) I felt somewhat let down by Microsoft when Vista was released. When I first used the interface I was excited. I really liked the new interface.

Trying to use the internet is when I ran into an problem. My network card wasn't supported by Microsoft. I couldn't get online. I was also having issues with my sound card.

Running the compatibly tool from Microsoft.. Gave me the illusion everything was going to be fine. When in fact it wasn't.. sigh*

Once I had my hardware issues straightened out.. Downloading beta drivers from another machine. Things seemed to be going smoother. I proceeded to install Norton Antivirus on my system when I was prompted.. “This version of Norton isn't compatible with your operating system..”

I was shocked.. The software I had just recently purchased wasn't designed to run on Vista...

Since these issues and a few others, almost one year later, Vista has become slightly bearable.. With much needed improvement..

With this I have come to an even sadder realization that Windows is only good for playing DirectX compatible games. I have recently purchased an iMac from Apple. It does everything I need it to do. It never crashes or randomly reboots. Doesn't get infected with spyware or viruses. Has a ton of great productivity software available for purchase and free (open source). I believe if OS X had the ability to launch DirectX compatible games. It would be game over for Microsoft.

Now I am not knocking Microsoft.. I do believe Microsoft they have great company. They have solid products like Windows Server 2003 and the Xbox 360 just to name a few. I just feel the users deserve better. I know we are stuck with an operating system when we by a new computer. Why not make it a great operating system Microsoft. Not just a sub-par OS trying to get by...

Wirelesspacket
wirelesspacket@gmail.com

*I do believe Microsoft is a great company. - typographical error

I have had so much trouble with Vista/Media Center its not even funny (On the 3rd motherboard and 2nd GFX card now) And I have already written 3 or 4 utility applications to make it somewhat usable (EPG update fails sometimes so I have to force it to sleep, soundcard forgets it is supposed to use spdif out so I have to change it on every cold boot etc.) Currently, NVIDIA has no hardware support at all for Video so I can not even play DVD without stuttering (This is a Core2 machine, you needed about 400mhz for software playback back in the day IIRC) Live TV also stutters (Hauppauge PVR-150) I have reinstalled windows more than 10 times now, I have flashed the BIOS (Basically anything in my power) and it still only good for playing music (Even that has some slight stuttering) so if there is anything you can do to help me I would love to hear it Charlie

Charles - with all respect

Windows 32bit/64bit environments are just confusing for the average consumer. Consumers just want things to work. Your average consumer shouldn't have to be concerned that there 64bit version of XP or Vista isn't going to run there software because there is some type of computability issue. It should just run there software..

Try explaining to my parents the difference between Windows 32bit and 64bit. Then sit down and tell them they may need to use optimized versions of there software. Knowing sometimes that software isn't even written yet in a 64bit version. Then installing installing there 32-bit software knowing there might be some kind of compatibly issue. They try to explain to them about spyware and viruses. Its a crap shoot. It is more complicated then it needs to be. It makes users frustrated.

My parents are in there late 60s. They are afraid of the computer. Me trying to explain this to them would scare them even more. This is why I purchased them a Mac.

Things should just work..




<Reply>

The version of Vista Business Edition was shipped directly from Redmond, Washington.

The computer I had installed Vista on was previously running Windows XP Professional.

When I installed XP Professional everything worked great. I didn't have to install any drivers onto my system. Everything just seem to work perfectly. Installing Vista I was shorted my network adapter and sound drivers. Like I said sometimes "its a crap shoot"

Your average user who isn't tech savey may have problems with this. I was not about to spend 2 hours of my time siting on the phone with some Level 1 tech support specialist. Waiting for them to come up with a solution to my problem. Then most likely hearing them say "well sir you need to talk to the hardware manufacturer.."

I deal with complex problems on a daily basis. This was nothing new to me. I always have to come up with my own solutions to problems. My occupation does not allow me to sit on the phone with tech support.

Charlie, I am not trying to bash Microsoft here.. That was never my intention.. I do like the company..



Respectfully,

Charlie,

Colloquy is an open source project taking donations to keep there project up and running. They do not have company throwing millions of dollers into project to make them work.

Microsoft on the other hand is charging $160 for Windows Home Pemium - $399.99 Windows Vista Untimate. Charlie for those prices I would expect this operating system to work flawlessly.

Vista in my opinion "personally" as a consumer. It is unstable and unreliable. That is my opinion.

I am sure if you google "Vista issues" you will find others who feel the same way.

As for my homebrew computer.. It simple.. Intel parts.. Along with a Creative sound board.. Should work on a Windows Platform.. Period..

If you want to push the blame on me for not doing my homework.. Thats just fine..

But for your average Microsoft customer who is spending quarter to half of there paycheck to purchase an operating system. Sir, if you were to tell them that, they would have to right to tell you "It isn't my there job.." Its Microsoft obligation to the customer to create a compatible, stable and secure operating system. That is what they are getting paid to do. Bottom line.

Yes Charlie, home built (Not sure why that would matter) I have tried XP Media Center 2005 (UR2) and what works flawlessly. I guess the main problem is that if you have a Nvidia card, you can forget about running Vista and watching video (The thing is, I'm already on my 2nd gfx card, not gonna spend any more money even if ATI might work better (I have ATI cards on two other machines and I'm not a big fan of their drivers))

I can't remember the exact specs of the top of my head but:
Intel Core 2 (Duo? somethingsomething)
Now currently on a Ausus(Intel) motherboard (Switched from MSI(VIA) because of http://forum.msi.com.tw/index.php?topic=107394.0 (Cold boot driver issues(the bcedit hack doesnt seem to work, and there is no BIOS update for my card (MSI/VIA P4M890M) that will fix it)) )
Nvidia Geforce 7xxx something
2 gigs of ram
400gb samsung spinpoint (SATA2)
Hauppauge PVR-150 Tv card
Vista HomePremuim
(Using spdif out on motherboard, so no 3rd party soundcard)

Basically, a machine that should not have any problems at all playing back DVD's and watching plain old analog tv

If you have any suggestions, please speak up, I am willing to try anything at this point

Charlie,

For what it's worth, I agree with you about Chris Pirillo.

I deleted him from my RSS feed list long before his Vista
rants began, because he seems to share one key characteristic
with other high-profile bloggers: in reviewing any piece of
Microsoft software, anything about the user interface that isn't
100% to their liking, no matter how trivial, results in a
"THIS TOTALLY SUCKS!" For example, although I use Thunderbird for
home use (primarily because I don't want to pay for an email
client), I use Outlook 2003 at work and I think it's fantastic.
I've recently convinced a couple of my coworkers to switch to it
(from Netscape mail), and they like it too. There are certainly
some things that could use improvement, but I'm able to look past
those issues to see the power of what Outlook brings to the table.

About a month ago, I purchased my first Vista PC. It's a Dell
Inspiron 530S with a Core 2 Duo 4300 with 2GB of RAM, and an
ATI Radeon X1300 graphics card. In the weeks leading up to the
purchase, I'll admit that the numerous screeds against Vista had
me more than a bit leery about my purchase. However, a month after
getting my machine.....I love it. I have had virtually no problems
at all.

Now, I will freely admit that compared to most readers of your blog,
I am no power user. However, I do use a fair amount of shareware / freeware.
With one exception (pdfCreator didn't work; I'm using CutePDF instead),
everything works flawlessly.

I don't think I'm isolated in this regard either. Two other people I know
have recently purchased a Vista PC and have had no problems at all with it.
Again, neither of these is a power user, and both purchased standard machines
from a reasonably reliable manufacturer (Dell and HP, in this case) rather
than trying to upgrade older machines.

Anyway, I just thought I'd throw my two cents in, since people who have good
experiences are typically underrepresented in Blog comments.

Sorry for taking a while to respond...

Things seems to be working a bit better now, but first off, I was wondering if you/MS could somehow get on MSI's back and ask them to put out a BIOS fix since the problem is known.

The board is MSI P4M890M (All boards from every manufacturer with that VIA chipset has this problem as far as I can tell from forum threads, and the bcdedit hack doesnt work)

See:
http://forums.viaarena.com/messageview.aspx?catid=70&threadid=78000&enterthread=y
http://forum.msi.com.tw/index.php?topic=107394.0
http://www.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups/en-us/default.aspx?dg=microsoft.public.windows.vista.hardware_devices&tid=3635a9ee-bf47-4b49-990d-1b333e12437c&cat=en_US_9CA88DDB-D18D-FA0E-A366-6E527B0FBA67&lang=en&cr=US&sloc=en-us&m=1&p=1
http://www.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups/en-us/default.aspx?dg=microsoft.public.windows.vista.music_pictures_video&tid=2436e682-44e2-4020-b831-7cf4bdd5bf63&p=1
(Several other threads on other forums, but I hope this is enough)


Now on to my current(new) setup:
Intel Core2 (18?? Mhz x2, I'm away from the computer now and I forgot to write it down, sorry)
ASUS P5B-VM DO (Socket 775)
Nvidia Geforce 7600 GS (PCI-E) (HDMI+DVI+S-Video out)
2 gigs of DDR2 RAM
Hauppauge PVR-150 Tv card (Analog Tuner+FM Radio)(Reported as "WinTV PVR PCI II (26xx)" in Device manager)
Samsung Spinpoint 500Gb SATA2 (Not using IDE emulation)
Onboard sound (using spdif out)
Vista HomePremium
MCE wireless kbd+remote

Fully updated+Latest NVidia BETA GFX driver. It is connected to the TV (CRT) via S-Video (1024x768), and the display is cloned to HDMI aswell since I am using spdif>HDMI to connect to my reciever. After playing with it for 20min I can say that the stutter on DVD and music is gone as far as I can tell. With Live TV (Analog) there is still a bit of stutter, mostly after a channel change(HD seems to be working alot). I am using the Hauppauge driver from windows update, I did not try the one from their website since I have had 0 luck with it in the past and I don't feel like reinstalling again ATM. But this new ASUS card seems to be working ok.

So the remaining issues are:
>NVidia has no video hardware acceleration support on Vista
>Hauppauge driver and utils could be better, the WinTV app that comes with it doesnt work at all
>The MSI motherboard, I have given up on it as it is unusable with that coldboot driver issue, but I still hope you can get the ball rolling.

And one more thing, I have a USB thumb drive connected and I think it might be stopping the EPG update from going back to sleep (With media center running, I put it to sleep, so I'm guessing when it auto resumes to update, the Removable device dialog in media center comes up, and blocks the sleep maybe (There are only text documents and zip files and drivers on it, but it keeps on asking me if I want to import media from it))

I will report back if I still have EPG/Sleep problems (Going to test with and without thumbdrive over a couple of days (How come I can't set the update time, the XPMCE util someone wrote doesnt work, Vista just overwrites its new value))

(I have several complaints&suggestions about how media center works, but I am not gonna bother you with those right now)

and in closing, thanks for helping/listening to me Charlie!

I have several complaints&suggestions about how media center works, but I am not gonna bother you with those right now