Archive for Vista
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Sit with me, picture this scenario if you will.
You go into a store, pick up a copy of software, and take it home, putting it on your PC, hoping it will work.
Note that I do say hoping, because, God only knows WHAT kind of crap can cause problems and conflicts with software any more. I had this case with NWN2 and Microsoft Windows Vista a few months back. Went in, picked up the thing, found “Oh, it doesn’t work”. WTF?
Reading the receipt for the product, I discovered something very very cruel. Even IF the software doesn’t work on my PC, I don’t get a refund. So, essentially, I just wasted $40 on software I’ll NEVER be able to use, never be able to install on a PC, because Windows XP is last year’s OS. Target has specifically stated “no refunds on opened software”. Umm, what?
Well, Microsoft, the big blue giant that it is, has taken this one step further. They’ve said “Sure, you can use our software, but NOT if you change your hardware”.
Anyone that knows me knows I’m a hardware buff. I wear the shit out of my hardware, I admit it. Hard drives? Typically gone within a year. Processor? 2 max. Motherboard? Yeah, maybe 1-2.
For 5 years, I played with XP, moved it between systems (all on ONE system mind you, never concurrent, never running on two pc’s consecutively). After a year of this, I had to call Microsoft’s support every time I had to reinstall the OS (average 2-3 months).
With Vista, I’d hoped they’d learned their lesson and had some way to track hardware usage. Unfortunately, such is not the case. Sit back, and I’ll tell you the tale of my beast and Vista.
When I got back from vacation (June’ish), I picked up a digital copy of vista (legally) off of e-bay. I paid for it, have the records to prove it. Great stuff. It activated well enough, had no problems whatsoever and ran just dandy .
Upon seeing this, a month or so later, I upgraded said version to Ultimate (to the tune of about $150). This was (again) a digital upgrade. Software DVD’s and CD’s are sooooo yesterday.
Here’s the catch, and (almost) amusing part of this whole scenario.
In order to install the software, I have to follow three steps:
Firstly, I have to install Vista on my pc (basic version).
Once that’s installed, I have to use the download (or dvd I burned) to upgrade from basic to the middle of the line package.
Once that’s upgraded, and validated, I have to then use the software Microsoft sent me (a registry key methinx) to upgrade to ultimate.
That’s all well and good, until you run into the “windows genuine advantage” bullshit. Who is this an “advantage” for? Customers? Not so, says I, ESPECIALLY when you’re dealing with having to activate, validate twice now (instead of once, which it should be).
But, I digress.
Up until last week, the software ran just fine, no hitches, no glitches, it said “Hi, Tom, I recognize you as the “owner” of me”. That is, until my first almost major HD failure.
The drive was RMA’d back to Western Dig (I still need to run up to UPS to ship it back), but Microsoft keyed in on the new drive and said “Wait, you have new hardware, I no longer recognize you as my owner”. WHAT THE FUCK?
I could see if Microsoft had said “You changed your motherboard”, or “You changed your CPU”, but seriously folks, I’ve changed TWO things on this PC since the time I had bought Vista
A> Upgraded video card (shouldn’t affect licensing at all)
B> Replaced faulty hard drive (again, shouldn’t affect licensing one iota).
These two separate items mean I have to (now) call Microsoft, not ONCE, but TWICE in order to get my shit activated . That’s “customer service” for you. The best part?
The second time I called (last time), I got stuck arguing with this (surprisingly Indian) guy who said “You need a key to activate Windows Vista, what is your key”. When he couldn’t understand that I had bought a DIGITAL download (I told him 3 times) and no key was given, he hung up on my ass. Yes, folks, this is quality service from big blue, right there!
The problem is that there’s no other alternative, seriously!
Linux won’t run Windows crap
Macs are Macs, they’re not built for “hardware enthusiasts”, and they’re certainly not going to handle every Windows software that comes out.
Businesses build for what’s popular. That’s not Mac or Linux, that’s Windows, for the home user.
Whoever declared Microsoft was NOT a monopoly seriously (and I mean seriously) screwed up here. One giant manipulates every company selling PC’s to sell THEIR software as an “OS”, yet this isn’t a “monopoly”? If Microsoft doesn’t have full fucking control of the environment, who the hell does?
“Genuine advantage”? Yeah, advantage Microsoft!
Earlier this year I stumbled upon a (admittedly hacked) copy of Microsoft’s Vista, codenamed Longhorn. I was far from impressed with it, though, I realized that this was alpha software, and immediately removed the crap from my machine. Why? Because I couldn’t stand even the LOOK of it, and , well, quite frankly, it just was too slow.
This weekend, upon discovering that the beta had moved to PUBLIC beta , and , as a MSDN member, I was qualified to actually test it, I thought “what the hell”. The result? Good and bad, in kind of a mixed scenario. Since this is the “future” of OS software, I’m going to try to keep this up as much as possible. While it’s not exactly my ONLY OS (I do have a legal copy of XP installed as a failsafe in case something happens, and will happily revert back to it if necessary), Vista is beta, and it’s not exactly 100% stable. That said, on with the first part in what may (hopefully) be a reasonably decent length review/commentary/etc of Vista. Least to say, it got it’s own category, for now.
The first MAJOR change up for review? The start menu. I’m undecided whether it’s good or bad right now, but you can judge for yourself with the following screenshots.
Please note:
As this is beta software, I’m not even going to comment on the look (ie: skin) of things. This will likely change over time. My goal? Introduction and functionality reviews.
The start menu is a classic. This is something that didn’t change too much from 95 to XP (though, admittedly XP changed it a bit). This is something that should be left alone as much as possible, except (maybe) for aesthetic purposes.
The changes in Vista are both good and bad. Good, because you can stop fussing with the “sort by name” option. It’s automagically DONE for you. Yes, that’s right, it’s DONE, which is a VERY good thing. I can’t count the times I have to go searching through my XP Start Menu for crap, until finally I just organize it. This is ESPECIALLY bad right after reload, when I’ve got dozens of application folders everywhere.
The changes in Vista (to the start menu) are bad, because of how it’s designed. The user is used to highlighting on “all programs” and having the list pop up to the right of the menu with the program list, sortable, right?? Not so here. As you can see in the images, the programs are now embedded into the start menu, in the main content area, after the user clicks the “All Programs” link. Perhaps it’s just me, being used to the old way of doing things, but hey, it just doesn’t look right to me. Give me a week, and I may just think different, as I reserve the right (always) to change my opinion.
“Computer” (formerly my computer) got a HUGE (and very welcome, to me) upgrade to thingshere. There are a number of ways to “sort” your data, and the default shows how much of your drives/partitions are used, how much is free. It just looks very professional and good. See for yourself in the following image. You can store various things in there, I’m sure (such as you can with XP), like the Fonts Folder, Administrative stuff, Control Panel, etc.
Anyways, that’s enough for now. My goal is to continue to use this until such time as I can not do so, rather than use the other partition. Thankfully, I can (and do) load/save everything to a backup drive, for work. For example, mail, crt, etc, settings are saved off to a backup drive every day, so it’s not too much of a pain to go back to XP (simple reboot is all it takes) if it’s necessary to do so.
Enjoy the review, please, feel free to post your thoughts/comments on Vista in here,
-=T=-
