So I recently started a new job. You know: new people, new experiences,
new levels of pain. Well, so far I have been able to minimize that last
point, that is, until the following question was posed to me:
Hey Mike, we don’t have your computer yet. Would you like to try this
Vista Laptop
My interactions with the Windows operating system have been for a
few years quite limited, save for the occasional specific bug fix and/or
availability of nothing else. However, I thought that this opportunity
might allow me to see what all of the hype was about. I therefore gladly
received my temporary work laptop and booted up. First of all, I have to
admit that the new fangled GUI is pretty and runs reasonably fast. That
being said, it was not enough to motivate me from wiping the disc and
installing
FC6 4 hours
later. My experiences with Vista can thus be summarized as follows:
-
Of course I had to install my set of essential Windows apps (a post for
the future) and on reboot I feel into the
quagmire
that is the
shutdown/sleep/restart/hibernate/poo
menu system derided by
Joel. Why is
it that the Vista GUI provides a button analogous to a power button, but
on pushing it the power isn’t even cycled; instead the machine is either
locked or hibernated (wasn’t sure which). Weird.
-
On installing the
VMWare
Player, I was prompted to reboot which I happily did. However, upon
reboot I launched the application and was prompted if I should allow it
to access the netwrok port. Of course, I like to allow my VMs to access
the internet as well, so I chose yes… which to my dismay required
another reboot.
-
I always carry an Ubuntu VM around with me burned on DVD, so I popped in
the disc and attempted to copy over the required files. Sadly, Vista
complained about the format of the disc whereapon Windows Explorer
promptly crashed. I tried again, and this time Explorer crashed the
whole system when I tried to eject the DVD via the GUI interface.
Another reboot was therefore required. Bear in mind, I have used the
same disc numerous times on such diverse systems as OSX, multiple
flavors of Linux, and even XP without fail. When the reboot returned I
decided to try the disc again… again Explorer locked the system. Another
reboot required.
-
Luckily for me Cygwin was installed prior to my start, and I thought it
might be better to
scp
the DVD files from a co-worker’s computer (Linux-based) to the Vista
machine… and after a few minutes was actually successful. Therefore, I
thought I was on my way to virtual Ubuntu glory. Alas, it was not to be
as VMWare Player was blocked from accessing the internet, which
prevented the installation of essential packages. Oh well, at least it
ran… so I thought I could return to that problem again.
-
To this point, I had been using Internet Explorer to get all of my
essential applications, and the time had come to get one of the kings of
the lot: Firefox.
The download took only a few moments, however the installation bore
rotten fruit. That is, once again I was prompted if I should allow
Firefox to access the internet, which I of course allowed. Unfortunately
for me, this act of choosing yes crashed the system and required another
reboot. Sigh.
-
On returning to Windows I fired up Firefox, but to my dismay found it to
be blocked from accessing the internet. Firefox is a great application,
but it loses a bit of its luster when it is not able to access the
internets. Sigh. Sigh.
-
After searching around a bit I came across a GUI that listed the
applications that were able to access the net. Although the GUI was
quite counter-intuitive, I noticed that one of the items listed was
Cygwin, so I thought that was my ticket to glory. I therefore added both
Firefox and VMWare Player to the list and eagerly went to try them out.
-
They both failed to access the internets. At this point I was at my wits
end, but felt that perhaps a reboot would help since Vista seemed to
enjoy that very much.
-
After a reboot I found once again that the applications were again not
allowed to access the net. I then double-checked the access GUI and
noted that they were both on the allowable list. Go figure. This for me
was the final straw, and I quickly downloaded the FC6 DVD iso.
-
After burning the disc, I was ready to kiss Vista goodbye and rebooted
without guilt. I waited and waited, but to my horror Vista came back!
There was never a prompt to boot from the disc or any such indication
that the computer viewed my disc with anything but contempt. Before
trying again I looked at the disc in Windows Explorer and verified that
the contents were as I expected.
-
On trying to reboot again, I accidentally put the computer into
hibernate mode.
-
Again, a reboot came back to Windows after never asking or even
indicating that a FC6 boot disc was in the drive. At this point I was
ready to put on my tin foil hat and deride M$ for hijacking my computer.
However, cooler heads prevailed and I instead attempted to loo at the
disc in my co-workers computer. Wouldn’t you know it; the disc was
not
in any format that Linux could read… yet Vista read it fine. The
foil hat was once again firmly planted on my melon
-
So my solution was to once again scp… this time it was the FC6 iso going
to my co-worker’s Linux box. He happily burned a disc for me, but by
this time I was sure that I had worn out my welcome with him.
Thankfully, the newly minted disc worked and I was on my way to saying
goodbye the Vista… forever.
Overall, I was very disappointed with Vista and I didn’t even mention
the way that Vista assaults you with Firewall notifications seemingly
every second. Somehow, they have managed to release an OS that is
virtually unuseable and far less stable than XP. This seems amazing to
me. I can’t imagine ever going back to that pain willingly, but who
knows… I will keep up with the buzz on Vista and see if some of this
nonsense gets worked out.
The verdict. HATED IT.
-m