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Four Hours with Vista

Apr 2, 2007

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:

1. 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.

2. 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.
3. 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.

4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. 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.
8. 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.
9. 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.
10. 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.
11. On trying to reboot again, I accidentally put the computer into hibernate mode.
12. 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

13. 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