They have dug their own grave and now they are being forced to lie in it. They have built an empire off the backs of others and made not an OS but a system where everything is intertwined and thus a sligt mistake in one area will have greatly adverse effects in other areas.

But on to a lighter note, yet another reason to watch Remond burn.

Just go here:

https://shipit.ubuntu.com/

And cue the well mannered debate...

It's the sound of a thousand Mac and *NIX fanbois stampeding towards the thread!

;)

System restore ? When your PC wont boot properly ? Go figure ......

Working for an ISP i dread the update as it was hell when Vista came out trying to install USB device drivers , looks like we're in for a re-run once SP1 comes out if there are already grumbles regarding driver issues with this release

ARG !!!!!!!

“So far, we've been able to determine that this problem only affects a small number of customers in unique circumstances,"

small number of customers = all Vista users

unique circumstances = those who have not upgraded to Xp or Linux

Got SP1 from MSDN on Tuesday. Works fine on my PC.

Are they sure that SP = Service Pack and not Sticking Plaster or Slightly Patched, or possibly even Stupid Phuckers.

Bill.

Give up. Bury Vista. Go back to XP until you GET IT RIGHT! COMPLETELY RIGHT!

"this problem only affects a small number of customers in unique circumstances"

This is one of those special large-company codes, isn't it? We have a gazillion customers, so X million problems can be described as a small number. And every human person is unique, so it's safe to say everyone's circumstances can be described as unique. So we'll say that and it will buy us some time.

Boot using the Vista CD then select the repair option it will eventually give you the option to use system restore. It may make numerous failed attempts to fix the problem its self though, also each of these attempts will probably involve a reboot. There may be a way to force it to try system restore first but i don't know of it.

Granted, Vista still sucks. But SP1 makes Vista suck a lot less. Vista just seems to be more responsive. Of course, SP1 doesn't fix the slow copying bug (already experienced it), the not remembering your folder preferences bug (already experienced it), and the green ribbon of death bug (already experienced it).

What does that even mean? This is the second time I've heard some spokesman come out with something like that in the last month. The other one was some broadband outage or something (can't remember).

Note to spokes, er, people, unique = 1, small number >= 1 (and in this context, >1).

I was reading the article on the RROD for the xbox 360 yesterday and another inspired Microsoft spokesperson made a comment that a 16% failure rate was insignificant (ok, that not a verbatum quote but the general gist is correct).

On this basis, it's fair to assume that microsoft have developed a system which i propose we call "happy statting" whereby major problems are instantly resolved by simply playing down their seriousness in statements to the public, who they obviously believe can't make an informed decison of their own.

This being the case, i think we should force all new environmental reports on the state of the planet / greenhouse effect / melting of ice caps / *insert other doomsday prediction here* to be reported by those lovely people at Microsoft.

I look forward to hearing in the next few weeks of the newest release by Friends of the Earth telling us that "The world is doomed, but not to worry as it will only affect a small number of users"

mine's the one with the Microsoftbrand permanent rose tinted glasses attached

You mean to tell me people actually pay money for software like this when they can have GNU/Linux for free??? This is hilarious. I gave up being fooled by M$ many years ago. When will everyone else catch on that they are being had?

I don't like Microsoft Either (just though that it was worth mentioning that up front, as now I'm going to defend them, then I'm going to tear out my own heart for having done so).

What, exactly, are you complaining about? MS have developed a piece of software, and released a beta. The beta has shown some problems, so they've cut access to it, given people a work-around, and are promising to have it fixed soon.

All sounds pretty responsible to me.

We don't live in a perfect world, and software is never right first-time, which is why we have beta programmes. They exist so that software can be tested by early-adopters in real world environments. The result is information that is used as input to a series of changes in the software.

Software is never finished, it's never defect free, and it's never going to make everyone happy. Live with it.

If you don't like Vista (personally, I hate it), don't use it (I don't).

Queue the flames

I have used the home and business versions of Vista for a long time on three machines, one of which is a high spec beast with complex device driver requirements. Not one of these PCs has ever missed a beat. When you've used Vista for a while everything else feels clunky. On your head be it if you try to use it on an old system or without checking support for your hardware before you install it.

"Working for an ISP i dread the update as it was hell when Vista came out trying to install USB device drivers"

Not working for an ISP, I'd just like to say that you wouldn't have 90% of these problems if you didn't give people those ridiculous USB modems in the first place.

Everything has ethernet drivers built in, no worries. Use them!

I like ubuntu, using it right now in fact.

But.....they arent immune to doing stupid things.

I.E. couple of weeks back it requested me to install a "linux headers update". Ran the update and rebooted and then the wireless network stopped working, worked perfectly before update, with some experimentation found out that it was only encrypted wireless networks it has a problem with (WPA, WEP).

Looking online using windows revealed I'm not the only one suffering from this problem brought on by said update, least in windows I could easily have rolled back. Instead I ended up spending my Saturday laying 40 feet of network cable to get connectivity back to the machine.

So fanboiz dont be so damned smug, linux still has too many weird "features" and too much reliance on the terminal to do things which would be much easier if built into a GUI - e.g. setting up X sensors...why should I be left with a blank screen till I use a search engine and find out that it may or may not work if I use the terminal and run "sensors-detect" (which works on one machine but not on the other)

Plus ditch the stupid "in jokes" in respect of naming programs, most of the names are lame and not at all amusing, pretty childish in fact.

"We are working to identify possible solutions and will make the update available again shortly after we address the issue."

Does that mean that M$ will soon be putting out OSX and Linux? That's the only way to cure the computer version of cancer, otherwise called Windows.

Paris because even she has more sense than anyone at Redmond.

After updating to SP1 from TechNet, other machines all went well. However *my* machine has a corrupt .NET, which semi-official blogs say require a complete reinstall since it's built in to the OS so much.

No .Net programs work, event viewer doesn't load, running sfc /scannow and ngen update doesn't do anything, system restore hasn't made a difference, and there's nothing else out there apart from a suggestion to change the path environment variable

Long live Windows XP!

just as soon as linux runs Crysis,Bioshock or Adobe CS3 or supports my 8800GT properly

<Paris because she hasn't made herself known on this issue yet>

Updates on ice... ok I'll continue to keep Vista on ice.

I've only ever used it on systems which were sold with it pre-installed by large manufacturers, so I haven't had any lack of power / lack of device support issues. I've just had crappy OS design issues. I guess your definition of never missing a beat includes incredibly slow copying of files, the inability to retain settings over time, opaque user management requiring a suck-it-and-see approach to addressing problems, and an appallingly bloated and inefficient network stack.

In which case, good luck to you.

I think I've found the current Microsoft mission statement, courtesey of Thomas J. Watson

"The way to succeed is to double your error rate."

Um, do you know how to use windows or has all that bash command line shit made you forget fundementals regarding the worlds most popular desktop operating system?

If windows won't boot, it will ask you if you want to go into safe mode. (as well as last known good config etc.) In safe mode do a system restore and voila... restored.

______________________________________________

The 530 odd clients that I manage that run Vista Enterprise (plus my own Ultimate!) have this patch applied and work fine.

Not to mention my own desktop that has SP1 on it. Not that I need it. I'm one of the many, many non-vocal users of Vista that's had no issues at all with it.

Lord B: The problem isn't overinflated expectations of quality in software, we've long since given up on that, but the problem at hand isn't with a buggy Beta release, it's with a faulty patch that is pushed out on Windows Update and for many users installed automatically. I can understand how it can happen and I can just as easily understand how people would be pretty tweaked if it corrupted their operating system.

I'm not sure why I feel compelled to say this regarding the recommendation to run to Linux, but here goes; I have played with Linux and here's the problem with it: The overwhelming majority of computer users are novices at best and Linux, as capable as it is and as far as it has evolved, is still not all that user friendly to the uninitiated. For the off-the-shelf computer buyer an operating system needs to be as idiot-proof and intuitive as possible. Linux, even with a GUI, is neither. Yes, for the IT crowd it's a fine choice, but it's not for the masses.

As to Vista: It's buggy in its first release? <gasp> Why is this a surprise? Do we really have that short of a memory? Every MS OS release since DOS 6.1 has been buggy as heck until they got the majority of holes patched or just abandoned it and moved on. Why the whinging about Vista? Would I dump a pile of money on it? Of course not, but I don't buy cars in their first year of production either; anything brand-new is going to have far too many bugs in it for my patience to bear. Better to let the gotta-have-it-now crowd work them out and then jump in when the product has reached maturity. I waited for SP1 to come out for XP before I tried it and I have no intention of moving to Vista at all (on those boxes of mine that still run Windows) until forced to do so.

Ah the price of impatience and short attention spans.

If the Beast of Redmond can distribute software which doesn't always work and claim it's all OK, they're working on it, can I pay with a dodgy cheque that, when it bounces, I can say "it's OK, I'm working on it"

Or is it a case of ne set of behaviour for some and another for the rest of us?

I just got a new Dell PC and put 64-bit Vista and 64-bit Service Pack 1 on it without even having a Net connection, never mind running Windows Update and everything seemed to work fine. So where this "without it, the operating system’s full service pack can’t be installed" fallacy comes from is anyone's guess.

Of course, it is possible that something could have been broken by SP1 that needs a post-SP1 Windows Update - judging by how poor Vista is (and the same "unwanted stepchild" attitude from OEMs and software vendors towards 64-bit Vista), then I'd actually *expect* SP1 to wreck something!

I'd just like to applaud MS for not distributing known buggy software. The flac they are getting here it's almost like they have released an untested bug fix as a pre-alpha unstable test and they made out like this is the main fix to a known issue, even though it knackers lots of stuff . A certain FOSS OS is rather guilty of this one... (And yes, I know you'd be an idiot to install the unstable release, but it doesn't stop FOSS Fanboys touting them as '20mins to fix X problem')

Also, I'll add my voice to the 'running vista with no problems' camp. It's Vista Ultimate 64bit, on an HP/Compaq SFF something or other, with an Athlon 4000+ (IIRC) and four gigs of ram, with a better gfx card than the one built in. I also use it to run VMs of Server 2003, Solaris and Fedora (not all at the same time.)

@fluffykins - No software company will sell you software that is garanteed to work. These days no OS just works, they all have bugs, of varying impact to the end user. Not even Apple is bug free and i seem to remember they advertise a 'it just works' or something. Besides, I'm not getting into the territory where my employer can refuse to pay me because my design/implementation of a system had bugs... Then I'd be fooked.

My unbiased view is that everyone should buy two copies of the excellent Microsoft Vista so that if you scratch the CD or change some hardware causing your license to be revoked then you can easily continue your Vista experience by using the other license! Using Vista is patriotic because it supports capitalism and allows the govournment to reduce terrorism. Conversely, using Open Source Software makes it much more difficult to hide code that sends personal information and internet usage habits to security agencies. Besides, communist countries use Open Source Software so there must be something wrong with it.

Lastly, election campaign donations will only get us so far. Therefore please, vote the monopoly-friendly Republicans back in next year, otherwise we may end up with something akin to a level playing field which would be disasterous! I have been financially benefitting from Microsoft's ability to screw the software industry and their users for years and I have become accustomed to a certain standard of living. I believe that a change in the status quo would be a breach of my human rights.

Paris Hilton icon selected because she is the embodiment of why the gap between the rich and poor should continue to widen.

These issues wouldn't matter if they were for a piece of cheap software (£50 or so), but this is for a hugely expensive OS from a company that claims they are the best, well Uncle Fester (Ballmer) does anyway.

@ Hewittt

"non-vocal"? "many many"?

hardly.

i have read your postings before, and would not describe you as "non-vocal". "shouty rabid MS partisan fanboi" is more accurate.

furthermore, if the many many ones like you out there were truly non-vocal, there would be much less FUD. unfortunately, all the ones like you tend to loudly go on, and on, and on...

and finally, pronouncements like "i haven't seen the problem on my network, therefore it is inconsequential or fictional", are indicative of solipsism, which is not a very productive attitude for a technologist. good thing you support Windows, then, which makes you easily interchangeable with any other MCSE within earshot (there always seems to be one...).

flame away.

I have no problem with a beta SP causing issues. It's a beta people. I said the same thing when Apple released beta Safari for Windows and people kept complaining it wasn't 100%.

But my question is, if it has been RTMed then will the official SP1 still have the bug? I'd say that's a lot more serious.

Paris icon because she's never done anything without really thinking it through. Oh an where's my Britney and Lindsay icons?

"I'd just like to applaud MS for not distributing known buggy software."

Oh, you mean as opposed to every other time they released anything. If you are suggesting they never release anything ever again, I agree. Unclear as to whether you work for them or not, if you do, possibly you could let them know of your excellent idea.

Just adding to the dissenters...I've been using Vista Ultimate on a fairly modest desktop with 1gb ram since RTM was first available. Great piece of software in my opinion, fulfils every function I require of a desktop operating system, and I don't have to touch a text editor.

Not that I'm a technophobe, I just like to leave my scripting and fighting technical issues in the office. Home is for 'press button', 'do stuff'.

I've really got better things to do with my time than learning my way round Linux.

Ho hum. Oh and whenever I see the phrase 'M$', a vision of an angry 14yr old, much like the ones that infest xbox live (god bless mute), springs to mind. I mean really, what is the point?

@Steven Hewitt. Wow - 530 Vista Enterprise clients & your home Vista PC worked "fine" following the patch. That's quite astounding!

This is my first post at the register. When I read your comment though, I just had to register & post my own experiences, because the "non-vocal" Vista users as you put it ARE having problems.

If you're reading this & are thinking "wow - he sounds a bit P'd off", I am. I'm P'd off at Microsoft, P'd off at people trying to defend Vista (cause their job's on the line) & P'd off at dealing with the Vista fallout. I should add that I'm usually very patient :)

I deal with smaller setups (between 5 & 20 PCs within each organisation), some of which are solely running Vista, client-side & my experience of the Vista update is pretty different from yours Steve :

1. Around 10% of clients were in disarray following this update & a subsequent 2 hour period where a rollback was needed. That's a lot of lost productivity.

@Steven Hewitt & his "system restore and voila" comment... you muppet!

2. My own home Vista Ultimate system didn't like the update & needed restored.

3. We've also had phonecalls from companies that we've never dealt with before, who are running Vista & in need of help because they've no internal IT expertise.

I really can't see a pattern to the update problem & this really bothers me. Some of the companies I deal with have identical PCs bought at the same time from the same supplier, running the same software, configured & locked-down in the same way... yet some PCs were affected & others weren't. Go figure.

I've just realised, I should really be over at Technet with this stuff :)

Closing remarks...

I rue the day that I spent £1200 on high-quality, high-performing, cherry-picked-to-be-vista-compatible hardware, just so that I could install Windows Vista Ultimate on it. It runs like poo. Such a waste of good hardware.

Looking back, dealing with Vista problems feels a bit like dealing with Windows ME problems. You kinda get the feeling its not really worth investing the time in it.

Penguin icon as I've seen the light. Darn you Linux fanboiz - I used to think you were deluded :)

/rant

"If windows won't boot, it will ask you if you want to go into safe mode."

Unless, of course, it goes into a BSOD before getting to the Safe Mode/Restore from Command Line/Smash Keyboard with Forehead menu.

Which is the usual "failure mode" (as opposed to the "normal" mode of generating a BSOD only during critical, time-consuming FEA runs) I see on systems in our Engineering department.

Other than personal assults, anything you'd like to add regarding the topic at hand?

Oh, and please refer me to the quote of "i haven't seen the problem on my network, therefore it is inconsequential or fictional" in my post. Neither Firefox on my Ubuntu box nor IE7+ on Vista can render this particular part of my statement.

And whilst you mention my previous posts, you'd probably notice that I manage XP and Vista desktops, plus a few Mac's and a mixture of Linux and Windows servers for the backend.

The reason you'll see me sometimes defending Microsoft on various occasions or at least put it into perspective is in response to comments by AC's with penguin's as the post icon spouting crap about Microsoft constantly producing buggy software. My posts normally mention that OSS is no better in terms of bugs and patches, as the vast quanity of updates I have to apply to all operating systems with verify.

If you'd like to reply with some meat in your post rather than the drivel you previously spouted, I'd be happy to go over any particular aspect of Windows, Linux or Mac with you.

So, when I get a brand new Mac Pro at work, fire it up and apply the available updates, which completely destroys the OS, thats OK right? Or when I deploy a new binary into a production Linux environment and a memory leak takes down my clusters thats fine too? As long as It's not M$ for some it is........

Aka Steve Ballmer. Best joke I've heard all month.

Reference: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057729/

Trolling you may be, but even as an anon coward linux fanboy accusing someone of working for MS because they aren't slagging them off is pretty lame.

Just to clarify - MS pulled a problem hotfix. It's unfortunate that it was released anyway, but shit happens.

Every time I have installed any OS, which has downloadable updates the first thing that happens is I download a whole bunch of updates, can anyone point me at a serious current OS that doesn't need updates? Hell, even my wii needed updates when I got it out of the box...

That a lot of the FOSS crowd are quite happy to rip into MS at every opportunity but fail to apply the same criteria when something similar happens with their beloved OS of choice. Linux has problems, OSX has problems, patches are released that cause problems because of inadequate testing so please stop touting your preferred OS as the saviour to all.

MS have done the right thing here. They have discovered a problem and postponed the release to get it fixed and yet they are still getting slated for it. If they had gone ahead with the release knowing about the problem you lot would still have been slating them and with reason, but having done the right thing you lot still aren't happy.

Even those it may come as a surprise to some of you some of us actually do LIKE MS products. They have problems, but no software company is perfect. I much prefer supporting XP to linux as I find diagnosing and fixing problems far easier and quicker.

And for those wondering, Every day at work I use and support OSX (Tiger + Leopard), Ubuntu, Madriva, Mandriva Server, XP, Vista Business x64 (which my main desktop at work runs and I too am a happy Vista user with no problems whatsoever), Windows Server 2000 + 2003 so I have a lot of exposure to OSX and Linux and am posting this from my eeePC running Xandros but yes I still prefer the MS options. it isn't a crime, and it doesn't make us idiots. It's a matter of preference and unlike a very vocal part of the OSX and Linux community, I don't try to pretend it is all things to all people.

That *all* of the ranting Linux-Fan-boys are trolls, doing it on purpose. I can find no other explanation for it.

Almost as bad, but not quite, are the smug people saying that "Linux is fine for the IT people, but is not yet usable off the shelf for the masses". This is not true.

So Windows Vista/XP, Mac OS X, and --insert-GNU/Linux-distro-of-choice--, all have problems, but Windows has the most. Case closed.

"I gave up being fooled by M$ many years ago. When will everyone else catch on that they are being had?"

As soon as the UI stops looking like something put together by a kindergarten committee and the system stops getting in the way of me getting my work done, that's when. Goes for M$ too, of course, so right now I'm working on a heavily modified XP (took an axe to most features and the eXPerience improved vastly). Not gonna change that any time soon. At least now I know what to axe off to get what I want after every reinstall. Why should I change - so that I could spend the next year wasting a ton of £100 hours on learning how to get *nix to behave? Not bloody likely...

as long as people will buy its shoddy products and kept the cash rolling in. There is a significant proportion of the IT and non-IT buying world who will buy any old crap if MS tells them to.

I'd just like to thank you all for giving me that warm glow of being oh so, so right....again! Long live XP.

Paris as a lot of people have more money than sense.

Giles:

£50 is ok to have bugs in, but not expensive software right? Well I have news for you, all software has bugs. From monolithic Unix installations through to Ubuntu, Windows and OS X. And Vista upgrades to Home Premium are £99.99. Not free, and not £50 - granted - but under £100 isn't exactly extortionate.

Morely:

A BSOD that won't let you get into safe mode is 99.98% of the the time the result of hardware. Regardless of OS (generally) if your RAM is f*ucked then you'll struggle really. And in this instance safe mode will work fine.

And the brave Anon Coward:

I am not defending this flawed update. MS f*cked up. They released a patch that has a big bug that crashes some machines. Nobody, not even a fanboy can defend that. Shit does happen though, and it's not exactly rocket science to repair. I assume you mean 2 hours to roll back your entire client base rather than per machine. If it takes you 2 hours to do a system restore then maybe look at another career?! ;-)

My point was defending Vista as a whole rather than the update. Sorry to hear about the problems with your clients. Obviously large companies have the luxury of WSUS and update testing, but I do feel your pain.

Although I do think you maybe need a screw tightening if you went out and spent money on a new system just to run Vista. It's not worth that. Run Vista when you get / need a new machine or upgrade if your hardware will run it - but don't bother buying a whole new box just to run it.

Generally speaking, Vista works. It's not "expensive", it's not unreliable and it's not buggy. Driver support from 3rd party was shit when it was first released - however this is now resolved. Any new PC today will run it without a problem. (In fact any PC in the last 2 years at least will run Vista without performance issues).

As of today, I highly recommend Vista for most people, Ubuntu for my nan or people that need just web browsing (price is the main selling point there) and XP for very old machines.

No one remembers Mac OS X and 10.1, 10.2? it took apple 3 years to release Panther, a version bug free and responsive enough to be usable.

'a lot of people have more money than sense'

Too true. They're known as Apple users

I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but I've never had a problem on an Ubuntu box, update related or otherwise*. And yet the fact that my XP laptop BSODs every time it shuts down (harmlessly, but still...) I'm expected to treat as normal. The fact that despite its dual core CPU and 3Gb of RAM it runs like it's wading through treacle despite primarily running software that ticks over fine on an old PII NT4 box (e.g. Visual Studio 6) - that's also normal and what I need is more hardware.

The box is an absolute flying machine running off an Ubuntu 7.10 Live CD and a useless toaster running XP. I'd hate to see this hardware defiled with Vista. That would be an insult too far.

--

* I tell a lie. I did have one Ubuntu box that was a little unstable occasionally. It did have a faulty motherboard though so I'm impressed it ran at all. And back in 2005-ish I had a Fedora box hang on me - but it ran fine with mem=128M (and after I replaced the RAM, with no fruity kernel options). Nice to have the use of the system despite RAM faults with a mere software option though...

--

I mean, come on, Windows users - the facts are pretty clear. You're using a vastly inferior system. It would be nice if people could be less confrontational about it - really even the most belligerent and anti-social linux 'fanboys' are just trying to help. It's not a matter of horses for courses - Windows just really does objectively suck. The only reason anyone runs it at all, in reality, is that too many game developers are still targeting it, and too many people are wasting time playing games to the detriment of their general quality of life. Get a console, and get real work out of your computer.

Excuse the rant.

@ marc

actually, one quick look at Leopard Server will show you an OS that is by NO means ready for production use, in all but a few corner cases. has far too many bugs, and if you look at Apple's own discussion groups, you'd have the same conclusion jump out and bite you in the face. i got this feedback from someone who took the class, and his opinion was unanimous for all the students in his class, as well as the instructor ("we'll stay with Tiger for at least 2 or 3 more major updates").

about 2 weeks ago, i was taking the RHCE5 exam, for which they use the release version OS, and it ran beautifully (otherwise, there would be no test - like the CCIE, it's a performance-based cert). if i tried to perform the same tasks using the OS X Server 10.5 release disks, the server would fail massively.

in this case, many of the problems seem to be coming from Apple's efforts to rewrite, refactor and rationalize Darwin's UNIX-like subsystem. they have some good ideas, but the release-version result was experimental, to put it politely. they have also put some highly compelling features in (shared CalDAV-based calendars, groupware, easy LDAP admin, lights-out management, excellent remote management and troubleshooting features, most systems integrated with LDAP and kerberized or otherwise secured by standards-based encryption, much of the feature set based on open standards and software, almost all of it transparently interoperable with most other products), but the product is not yet stable, and the response time could use some work.

Reminds me of someone's sig file on a newsgroup some years ago. (Apologies to said person).

"The day that Microsoft start building a product that doesn't suck will be the day they start building vacuum cleaners"

'nuff said.

Coat, hat

Hmmmm....bitch bitch bitch bitch.....

WAAA, my windows95 sucks wind compared to my old win3.1

WAAA, my windows98 sucks wind compared to my old win95

WAAA, my windowsME sucks wind compared to my old win98 (actually the only one that really did suck more than the predecessor)

WAAA, my windows2000 sucks wind compared to my old win98/me/95

WAAA, my windowsXP sucks wind compared to my old win2k/98/me/95...etc

Noticing a trend here?

Lots of crying because of a virtual inability to "get it" when new technology comes along. Just bitch about it because you cannot figure out how to resolve a problem. 20 years in the industry, and it is the same old broken record, just another face unwilling to actually use that damn brain and figure it out.

An acronym I heard in the past fits most suitably to this situation. Cannot Understand New Technology. Stop being one and RTFM. Anyone still have parents who cannot figure out how to set the clock on their VCR from 20 years ago? I do.

Is it any wonder that IT staff are considered rude and obnoxious to some people. After being asked the same stupid question the 100th time, patience is the first casualty in this world where the end user is too damn lazy to read that damn manual.

And of course, you have the uber-geeks touting Linux. Yep, unleash that puppy on a novice and see how far they get to actually using it for daily things beyond web surfing and email. Sorry, windows might be a security risk in some eyes (not mine, I know what I am doing), but Linux hasn't got the easy to use right out of the box for the ignorant SOB who refuses to read a manual. If you are a Linux user, you have to do a lot of reading to get the gist of how to really use that OS for its power. Security is only a footnote in comparison. At least for the most part, windows is far more intuitive than Linux currently is.

And as a final note, Vista has been working great for me. Even better than XP in some cases. And 5 minutes after I installed it, I figured out how to turn off the annoying nag screen that seemed to be the most prevalent complaint.

As a side comment, the Mac commercial that poked fun at that nag issue. The pot calling the kettle black. As many Mac users should know, this nag is almost identical to the nag the Mac OS will give when installing new things and changing things. Only the words and picture are different, the function is still the same.

Ive got it running on my hp laptop and my homebuilt with no problems whatsoever.

John Freas, I loved your comments, and I agree.

Linux is not ready for the masses...YET. With the open dev community I'm really surprised it's taken so long and we've seen so little fruit when it comes to the linux gui.

The amateurs at Apple seemed to have had little difficulty putting a front end onto a *nix core OS. Why, then, you Linux lovers, has it taken you so long? You're much smarter than the 50 or so coders at Apple.

Speaking of OSX, it's full of bugs, etc. Take a look at BugTraq. How come? It's new. Apple's never really had a place in the "real world" before, and the coders are newbies at dealing with real security issues inherent with an intel based OS.

Personally, I truly wish there were a GOOD, SIMPLE TO USE Linux distro..I'd switch from WinBlows in a heartbeat.

Perhaps by (insert stupid animal name here) 16.7 OSX will be a mature OS such as *nix is....or, dare I say, Windows XP, but, until there is software to run on an OS that the masses can operate with little or no difficulty, (2 fold problem there), we're forced to us MicroCrap OS'.

Stop with the immature "Get a REAL OS" garbage...and look at the real world around you....

believe it or not I saw one today, running Vista on a mac notebook because he could not find any XP drivers for the display and things. Vista runs fine but he has not run SP1 yet; he may dual boot with ubuntu.

I have... so I've ordered the 10 yr old an eee running xandros, though I might hack it for ubuntu 8.04 when that is released in April. School is attempting to tell them that you need M$ Word to write a letter , and that you need M$ PowerPoint to do a simple drawing. I actually had my kid crying when I showed him Office 2004 (student edition) on the Mac and Open Office on the Ubuntu 7.10 ktorrent download box, he was insisting that he had to do the same as his teacher told him.

After a bit of 1:1 teaching, he's happy using Pages on OS X, and Keynote on OSX and - you might not believe this - he's getting top marks in class for his projects (half 'cos they look so good) (mostly 'cos they look how he wants and he had the time to build the design properly) I take my work Vista Laptops home so that the kids can play the 2 or 3 new games bundled with the shiny but utterly slow cr@p, and they play the rest of time on Shiny Apples and recycled Linuxes.

I think it's important to open up the childrens perspective on computing, as lets face it, for those of us who typed pages of BASIC commands into a ZX81 in a previous life, then later learned IBM VM/CMS, whatever we do at age ten isn't how the world is going to be when we grow up . Microsoft, unless they complete their long term total world domination project, will not be around in ubiquitous computing in 15 years.

This iced Vista update is just a small part of their inevitable decline and fall. Think of the children, give them a *nix based laptop and prepare them for the future.

As IBM said. "Think!" As Apple said "Think Different!" as Microsoft said "WGA!!"

Read the whole thread...some entertaining and colorful comments for sure. I think that I might have the answer to the point that was raised re: why MS-related issues seem to get a "lot of exposure" compared to *nix-related issues. It has to do with the transaction and ownership process: when software is purchased (actually, more like rented if you get right down to the EULA) from MS, the customer's involvement is to hand over the cash, and then use the product. They depend on MS to take care of them, and have no recourse if and when things "go south" but to complain (and possibly submit an error report).

The *nix group, on the other hand, usually gets their software for nothing, and tends to be a bit more self-sufficient as they provide much of their own support via web support sites. So if and when things go south, they take action themselves and need to vocalize less, having taken more ownership of their system. The big issue with this flaky MS update is that it requires MS-users to take some action (system restore or system rebuild). Just my theory...

Yes, eight months down, no crashes, freezes, conflicts... Just happy PC using.

Go figure.

This is really confusing - apparently two of the prerequisite KB updates aren't being made available to Vista Ultimate.

Then why are they on my (Vista Ultimate) PC?

As with any new M$ Operating System there's bugs and problems - I honestly prefer Vista to XP Pro. Every time I have to go back to an XP Pro computer I spend 5 minutes remembering how to do something that would be so simple in Vista.

But I will be bulk buying some XP Pro licences in case of problems....

Oh and to all the Penguin fanboys - we have to use M$ products as that's what my company's clients require - and I'm glad.

(PS I have a life - I don't go home from work and spend the rest of the day tweaking the latest issue of fluffy bunny or what-ever-its-called-and-no-I'm-not-interested-either ubuntu so it will actually work with all my devices. If you enjoy fine - but I'll never take you seriously so don't try)

I also run XP because my employer requires me to. But only on one machine - I prefer my machines to just work, so they're running Ubuntu 7.10. Works with all my devices - some old, some obscure as hell, some bleeding edge - and required absolutely no tweaking on any of my systems.

This whole idea that people who use linux must love tweaking it, and that linux requires a lot of dicking around in the console to keep it running, is a few years out of date. My 7.10 machines require a lot less dicking around than my 'work' XP machine.

As if by magic Windows update on my Vista 64 bit machine has just offered me SP1. I am just a regular user!! Seem they are shipping early.

CJ

Is what I call anyone installing a pre-release on client machines and then moaning it isn't working.

R.I.P : Vista - the pretty but useless child of the Microsoft inbreeding program.

Step 1: format hd

Step 2: reinstall xp sp2 (or linux distro of your choice)

Step 3: enjoy a system that works

Step 4: pop vista dvd into microwave for 90 - 120 secs (@ 500w) and also enjoy a new fractal patterned ashtray (remember to tape up the hole)

... a couple of you have alluded to it, with talk of high-end hardware, 1Gb ram & so on. I'm using an old Dell Inspiron laptop with 512Mb ram, running Windows XP. So, when I finally upgrade to a high end desktop, tons of ram, all mod cons, everything should run faster, right?

Applications should load faster & open documents faster, web pages should load & render faster, games will be playable at higher resolutions & video speeds - right?

But instead, the minimum hardware requirements for the OS have gone up. Why do I need a more powerful machine to do exactly the same things on Vista, as compared to XP, at roughly the same level of performance?

So, I'm looking at Ubuntu now so that I can have options for my new machine. Former Redhat user (4.2) - a lot has changed. And yes, I expect to spend a little more time actually getting it working, but it'll be worth it, in my opinion...

To those of you like me that installed the Beta of Vista SP1, Beware!....after waiting 9 full hours while vista tried to uninstall the beta version of SP1 from my pc (required if you want to install the RTM version), and several BSOD's later, the operation failed after reaching 100% and now the machine is several hours into the backout from the "uninstall".

I have a couple of new Vista - I think they are 'Dull' XPS 2 x 2.20GHz Core2Duo laptops with 2GB ram each, came from Dell Canada, tax free, long story.

Nice shiny screen, very bright - after 5 minutes unuse the screen dims to 50%, and for a week I couldn't find how to make it bright again other than after a restart. the GUI is filled with hundreds of clickable things, most of which won't go away or do what I expect, it will NOT connect to my home 802.11n WPA Wifi using 802.11b/g compatibility, it will only try and connect to a neighbours WEP network, even when I put the Vista on top of the Wifi router. I went as far as loading the driver dvd for my Wifi. Still no connection. When I found an old 802.11g+ Wifi router and plugged in a subnet of my 802.11n then finally Vista connected. It popped up a screen, amongst many others, which mentioned that there might be problems with my Vista. of the 2 firewalls installed, both were off.

After reading the page several times I realised it might want me to do something, I downloaded a few KBxxxxxxx.exe which 'were necessary on my system', these ran and stated that 'your system does not need KBxxxxxxx', so all clear then!

And it is dog-slow. of the 2GB ram, I was informed - running only a diagnostic program that 750MB is free. Ubuntu would do the h/w justice!!! Vista Personal Ultimate is ME2. Where's the ice?

From the explanation you give it sounds like you have the same problem as most of the people complaining about Vista - You just don't know how to configure and use it. It means you now have to learn something new. And for those claiming OSX or (insert preferred linux here) is the answer, to move from xp to either of those the learning curve is just as steep - in some versions of linux MUCH steeper.

Most of the anti-Vista arguments (and quite a lot of the problems) are exactly the same as when XP was introduced (why do I need so much RAM, why doesn't this work, how do I....., bring back 98) and the same as when OSX was launched (don't like the interface, where is...., why can't I......, this doesn't work) and I have no doubt that many of the complainers have either

a) never used it

b) seen it once on somebody elses computer and decided they didn't like it

c) so anti-microsoft they won't give anything by them a chance

d) installed it, couldn't figure it out in 5 mins so removed it

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/949358

Its part of the the security updates also. So i have a Non-IT person having a problem with this.. The machine has to go back to PC world of course they dont get given the install disk.

very poor show, I cant believe you can break into the loop.

OK, so, I liked Windows Vista. I thought they made some AWESOME improvements in it, and generally, I think they are heading the right direction and with great change is coming quite a bit of pain.

I was on linux for a year. It's a great OS. It has it's pro's and con's. Then, I switched to XP, then to Vista. Loved Vista over XP (but, granted, I had to throw a lot more ram at it). It had it's quirks. SP1 fixed a lot of them for me, and I was glad to participate in the beta.

Recently, I hopped over to a mac. I had a lot of problems with Leopard until Leopard 10.5.2 came out (which fixed a lot of my issues, thanks apple!).

Windows (and linux) has a bit more burden to carry than Apple, because it allows you to install it on just about any hardware out there. I'm just grateful progress is being made and that the options all exist.