Windows Vista Bugs

Windows Vista doesn't even come with IE 6 it comes with IE 7. How is it tightly integrated with IE 6? I hate when people post and have no idea what they are talking about....

I hate to tell you this but MY computer came with Vista and IE6 so YOU are the one who makes no sense. IE7, as mentioned, was not usable with Vista, the error message announced the non-compatibility.

You are wrong.... IE6 DOES NOT come with Vista, You must have a hacked copy... or a Vista Transformation pack on top of XP sold as Vista.

ALL copies of vista from Home Basic to Ultimate come with IE7.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/editions/choose.mspx

Really do some research before posting crap...

I blame Microsoft, and I hope the software and hardware manufacturers stick to their guns and continue to do nothing about the incompatibilities.

Y'all know, there IS Linux, and I guess that from the sound of it, when I can no longer use Windows XP, I will finally make the switch.

In addition to Vista, tehre are problems with IE 7. For instance, some HP printers can't print from it. My good HP printer happens to be one of them.

My brother in law, who works for IBM, was involved in helping state agencies to switch to Linux, after Microsoft pulled that stunt with forcing companies to relicense Windows every year. I believe that Microsoft finally stopped that particular piece of nonsense.

Yours,
Dora Smith
Austin, TX

Of course MS is to blame. They should not have released vista without making sure that the third party vendors were all up to speed. Maybe those HP printers are never going to work with vista. MS at the very least should have given people of list of what problems were looming if they upgraded, what would work, what would not. But that's not the way MS works, never has, never will. Their way or the highway.

Switch to MAC! The new mac's will probably also run vista if you are ever foolish enough to go back.

I started with MAC and since 1990, everybody has argued and convinced me to go PC. Truth is a PC has NEVER held a candle to the MAC for ease of use, trouble-free uptime, and seamless uptime. Not even close. Now MAC does just about everything PC's do, even running a Microsoft os almost as fast as a native machine. It's time to jump ship!! Why VISTA when you can OS-X

AHH its starting again MS upgrades the OS and if you wanna play then YOU need new harware!!Is it MS fault did they give out codes to 3rd parties early enough?Or did the 3rd party decide to blame MS and not put in the patches so you would BUY new hardware??Because they knew you wouldnt wait too long going without.
Lets see for VI$TA you need $$$$
You need more memory go buy it
" " " faster processor " " "'
" " " video card go buy it
You need better computer go buy it
You need better peripherals _________
sounds like VISTA is a MONEY MAKER for EVERYONE but US!!!

Hi All,
this is a lively discussion. I just finished reading the news letter and though I better put my 2c in.

I have been in sales and service of PC's since the days of D.O.S. and can remember when MS was a Godsend. With w95 I developed a love hate relationship with M$. With each new OS release That relationship became more hate than love.

Since 98SE I have always offered the advice to clients wanting to upgrade to Wait and not be the first with the new OS at least on production machines. Stay with what is working. Why? Because if it is not broke don't fix it. (best policy)

So, Why is M$ to blame and not the 3rd party software providers or even the hardware providers? Maybe, it is because MS as usual uses proprietary protocols and then does not release specs or source code so that the 3rd party and Hardware providers can develop for that platform. I believe that ultimately this will be to Bill's demise and the end of Windowz.


My roll has changed over the years and I no longer am in the PC sales/service arena and staying current with the leading edge technology & software are secondary to reliability/usability. Computers and software are still a big part of my business and now that I am on the other side of the fence so to speak, finding technology / software solutions becomes more an issue of stability and compatibility than having the latest OS...

I see a few of you have mentioned open-source solutions like Linux...
Although Linux and other open-source projects are getting much closer to providing a desktop OS/environment solution many of us are getting OLDER (God forbid) and adapting (learning) to change from what we are used to is not as easy as it use to be. For those of you who learn much faster trying the desktop ready Linux distros, such Ubunto and MEPIS will pay off big time by allowing you to break free of the MS Bonds.

In conclusion I don't Blame M$ for being the capitalist they are or the others for looking bad in their wake. No, I blame our educational system. That is right. What ever happed to the "teach a person how to fish vs giving a fish attitude". If the leaders in our education system were not so apathetic and greedy to spend yours and my money on the easy way out M$ would not be what it is today and we would not be in bondage to the consumer mentality that is plaguing our society.

Take a stand demand your local educational system quit squandering your hard earned tax dollars on technology that traps us into the "consumer mentality" and start using technology that teaches our children to be innovators.

When I went to school calculators were not allowed to be used to solve math problems. Too bad you say, What a convenience they are. Yes I agree they are a convenience, but when the battery is dead or one is not handy I can still solve problems and be innovative. Do you Think the students who always relied on the calculator to solve their math problems can do anything but consume? Yes/No

If you said yes, WRONG!!! No, all production will stop until a calculator is provided. Hence, going to purchase a calculator in order to solve a problem and continue production. I see this consumer mentality every day.

Back in the day (school) I learned to solve problems and innovate solutions to make the hardware technology useful.

What do you think windows or MAC PC's for that matter are doing right now? Keeping us in the bondage of consuming not to mention thinking for us so we don't have to.

What do you think would happen if our schools switched to open-source for their software solutions? First they would save $$... that could be used improve other aspects of education that are being neglected. Choose your (topic/category)and lets discuss it in a new forum. Secondly the life of hardware would be extended saving even more $$$... Most importantly eventual freedom from M$ and the "consumer mindset".

Place the blame where it really belongs, then help become part of the solution. That is my motto. However, it is and always will still be OK to go on HATING m$.

I work for a rapidly growing ISV and I know the Vista issues first hand. We wanted to start working on retooling things so that we could support Vista back in July. Every year we pay over $50K to Microsoft to buy support and all of their development tools, etc as part of their MS Dev line of products and services. We were flat out DENIED access, even if we were to sign iron-clad NDA's which would let Microsoft crush our little company with their legal minions. The only way we could get a copy of Vista was to order a computer from Dell with it on it and wait until it was released to get it. There wasn't even any "heads up" info on their subscription only MS Dev website regarding what common items "could" be an issue with Vista.

On the other hand, we do hear people criticize Windows stability. We run multiple ASP's using our code running on a Windows Server platform and these servers are rather low maintenance and have uptimes of months on end (after which we update our code to add features, etc). Too many companies slam Microsoft for the wrong things. What they should criticize them over is their blatant lack of regard for all of the companies who develop apps, tools, and drivers for their OS which makes it much more desireable. Vista shows that Microsoft is insecure and wishes that they were Apple, so they're trying the "not play ball with anyone" approach. Pretty sad.

Greetings:

Gee, here's a novel concept...how about we stop blaming Microsoft and the third-party vendors for these problems and instead point our crooked fingers at ourselves for making the voluntary CHOICE to upgrade to Vista? Wow. Wouldn't it be a breath of fresh air for us to actually accept some ownership for our own decisions and their consequences, rather than always finding somebody else to be our software villain?

Stiffen up your quivering lower lips, quit whining, and move along. Sheesh.

After Feb. 1 2007 almost all PCs were being sold with Vista. People believed the hype and are not to be blamed. One need proceed to the privately owned store that make in-house PC's in ordr to get the old operating system. Keep in mind that it will not take long for Microsoft to make the former operating system scarce.

it seems as if Microsoft made no effort toward compatibility, and in its arrogance and surety that folks would flock to Vista neglected to realize that not everyone has a clue as to why they can't run most of their old favorites, not everyone has the kind of money to replace their old drivers with spiffy new ones, not everyone wants to.

Its one thing to sell Vista to someone who is buying their first computer. Its another to sell it to someone who is upgrading from Xp or ME or something else.

In a way its like buying a brand new car and discovering that your old favorite gasoline won't work in it. You need the New Car Gas, and batteries from the New Car company, since Delco and Sears aren't compatible. You cant even buy replacement wiper blades because all the specs are changed.

They got ya, and its the old company store all over again.

Do you want Bill Gates to bring the DVD to your house, too?

And yep, new cars did have "new car gas" a few years back. They made the fuel inputs smaller so that only unleaded gas nozzles would fit.

And a DVD is not the same as a CD, EVEN THOUGH THEY LOOK THE SAME. What's up with THAT!

How come all my digital cameras have different memory cards???? Wah, wah, wah.

the point I was making was that ONE company is attempting to force everyone to use their products, and making it as difficult as possible to use anyone else's. Not that theirs are any better, but if you don't have the competitors out there, and can't USE something else for comparison, then you'll never know, will you.

Up until now Microsoft has been fairly backwards compatible, and allowed nearly anything you wanted to put on the machine. I have ME and XP on the same machine, and while ME is seven years old and no longer supported by MS, I can still run XP on the same machine, with the same printer, drivers, video card, sound card. I did not have to buy several thousand dollars worth of new approved peripherals when I switched over.

The programs I was using in ME were easily transferred over. THIS is the point. can you do that with Vista?

IF Bill Gates brought DVD to my gate-it probably wouldn't work anyway!
He's probably forgotten how to install his own basic software - after all these years.
No let him stick to his charity work. He's safer there! At least we know what he's doing.
davidjd
victoria
australia

Vista's specs have not been "readily available" in every case. At least one security software firm (McAfee, if I recall correctly) sued Microsoft saying it didn't have the code information it needed to revise its software. The European Union sued to prevent Vista's release altogether for similar if less specific reasons. So, no, Microsoft is not blameless. As usual, it's helped to gum things up. My own situation is that I was forced to upgrade to a Vista PC when my Win2000 Pro system died. It's not ready for prime time, as is always the case with a new Windows release. My third party hardware and software (USB keychains, optical drives, webcams, scan software, voice recognitionware, securityware, you name it) are now broken and the tally for upgrading them -- where upgrades are at this point available -- runs into four figures. Absurd! Why don't they all just kidnap your computer gear and demand money to return them safely? It'd be simpler.

Oh, and also: The vendor websites where you can check FAQs and contact customer service on these problems are, at the moment, iffy at best. Mail isn't delivered, or gets answered with a non sequitur or there are ambiguous "solutions" aboard.

And Mickeysoft isn't much better. I've already discovered that Vista "Help and Support" sometimes supplies the wrong answers.

Plenty of grist for this mill all around, but it's Microsoft's game and thus the blame should fall mainly there.

It's only about Vista x64 and PatchGuard. It's a good thing when MS stops "security" firms from patching the kernel. And in fact this was an issue with XP x64 as well. But MS did deliver APIs.

I really don't care whose fault it is. I just went from a HP 7960 w/ ME to a HP s7700n w/ Vista so maybe I could watch clips off the internet, and hopefully not lock up 4-6 times daily. Now I get to toss a perfectly good printer and scanner. Now I can't see certain web pages like my online banking. I expected to thow away the printer & scanner as they wouldn't even work on XP if I upgraded to it. I however didn't think I would lose my online banking to messages directing me to something about java not being supported. Of course, like always, there was a link to a page on which I understood nothing. There wasn't a link to download anything and I have quit following useless to me links to more of the same until I forget what simple thing it was I started out trying to do. (Like typing in the url for my online banking and actually having the page load)

Those of you who can make computers work enjoy the pissing contest avout Microsoft. Meanwhile the rest of us will apparently give up or keep thowing money ar it until we give up or just accept that we will never enjoy the wonders of computering and the internet that we see advertised and talked about constantly. What I won't do is give a crap about whose fault it is!

But to address the question, it's all about the money, making it everyone's fault. Operating system problems enable new operating systems to be sold, no new drivers enable new hardware sales. And I suspect that before long a solution to my java problem and the others I haven't encountered yet, will be available to download for only a small licensing fee. Maybe they will make it available in only so many EASY PAYMENTS OF $19.95!

Yes the folks at the hallowed halls of the computer industry are just another version of greed going with making a buck the easiest way rather than making it by actually solving problems or actually enhancing someone's life.

Hi,

I'm sorry you seem to be having so much trouble. Perhaps you should have purchased a computer a week earlier with Windows XP Media Center Edition with a free upgrade to Vista and simply left Vista on the shelf.

On the other hand, how were you to know that?

To help with your online banking: Download Mozilla Firefox and you'll likely be able to browse to your bank's website. If not - then it's definitely your bank's fault for hiring a design agency who makes non-standards-compliant websites.

DOWNLOAD MOZILLA FIREFOX: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/

There is another browser that can pretend to be the older versions of IE so that stupid websites that demand IE6 can still be viewed. This browser I'm talking about is Opera.

DOWNLOAD OPERA: http://www.opera.com/

If both of these browsers don't help you at all you're screwed... and I hate to tell you this but your bank's judgement sucks balls. Essentially they hired an old-school (read that as ********) web developer to make the website and they made it inacessible.

Make a call to your bank's main headquarters or something and perhaps if enough people do this in a polite, yet insistant way they'll fix it.

I'm sure they've already had an earfull and are fixing it as we speak.

Just so you know - there's very little wrong with Internet Explorer 7 that comes with Windows Vista and it's NOT VISTA'S FAULT YOUR BANK WEBSITE DOESN'T WORK. It's the fault of the people who made the site. Period.

Have a nice day!

I had to go to Firefox to read this thread because it wouldn't load with Opera, my favorite and default browser.

SHAME ON C/NET FOR NOT SUPPORTING OPERA.

I'm writing this using Opera Version-8.51; Build-7712.
And it works perfect.
Looks like you are another one, who blames everybody around for your own lack of knowledge.

Read the post again; this user needs Java, NOT (multi-flawed) Firefox and (funky) Opera.

Umm... I suspect the user is complaining about ActiveX.

These forums keep crashing in IE7 and its irritating me.

I bank with Citibank, the biggest bank in the world. In fact I retired from there a couple of years ago. Now when I go on there with Firefox and Linux I get a message saying I have to use Firefox. I am using Firefox. What I have to do is hit an extra page that says continue and then I can see the bank balance just as if it were on Windows/Firefox.

Question is on Vista does this same option come up? I wouldn't know since the very thought of the WGA tells me that I don't want to upgrade from XP to Vista. As a result I went to Linux and saved myself an hour or so every couple of days in not having to run spyware detectors and security programs. From what I have seen in comments on Vista the people having problems are having these same messages that I get and I just have to click through on them with Linux. I guess Vista does not trust the people who bought it enough to let them through.

for putting a non compliant browser out in the wilds IE of all flavors suck it is a totally non compliant POS and pretty much always has been!!

I bought a new computer at Christmas and it has Windows XP Media Center. HP notified me that I could upgrade free to Vista. I am afraid to do it since Vista is so new, I expect there will be many problems beyond my limited technical abilities to deal with. Any suggestions as to whether I should take the upgrade?

Several years ago, Sun Microsystems sued the h*ll out of Microsoft regarding Sun's (defective) product Java. Part of the settlement was that Microsoft could no longer distribute their version of Java (which was faster and smaller), and thus this would ensure that all end users would have to visit Sun's www.java.com Web site to download Java. (The suit was about the time of XP SP1, and Microsoft had to release XP SP1a to remove their Java from circulation.) By forcing users to visit their site, Sun could negotiate a way to get money from Google to distribute Google software.

Sun has done a lot with the Java franchise: the most notable is releasing FIVE security patches for their one runtime library in the last seven months. They're not done yet, since if you visit the update history site they're still working on flaws reported in 2005.

So visit the Sun web site, download the latest version and your banking site will work. What won't work is your control over the patching of Sun's flaws. They will load an updater on your PC that runs constantly so it can check once a month to see if the latest batch of flaw fixes are ready.

Sun sued because Microsoft was rewriting code they didn't own to lock out competing browsers and software and to make web sites that wouldn't work with any browser except explorer,that is what the law suit was about and in typical Microsoft thieving fashion they didn't stop using someone else's code until the courts forced them!

PS If Microsoft really wants to find the biggest pirates in computerland all they have to do is look in the mirror!!!

Microsoft licensed Java, then "extended" it to improve the performance on Windows by allowing it to integrate with standard Windows services, and Sun didn't like that. Suns claims they pulled the license because Microsoft wouldn't adhere to the (ficticious) 'write one time, run anywhere' philosophy, which they say broke the license agreement. That's the context of the suit. There was no theft involved, just license terms disagreement.

(Sun also got a lot of Microsoft money in the settlement, which they have squandered.)

However, Java is a lousy environment for running and writing desktop applications, and now it's confined largely to the back office. In the meantime, Microsoft developed C#, which is a clone of Java, and is having great success with it, at both the desktop and back office levels. As a full .Net language there is a wonderful IDE and great secure performance. The CLR has only been patched a few times in its history for any reason, as opposed to the JRE which is patched constantly.

Sun has been forced to make Java OpenSource (sort of) to keep it alive. They are still trying to force their will on other software companies, so Apple has its own Java, and several clean room clones also were developed by others like IBM.

So which company has a better record for writing desktop application software? And please don't even begin to suggest that it's Sun and OpenOffice, the resouce hog of all time.