Windows Vista Forum / Main Lounge / Off-Topic General Discussion / Why so many problems / Latest Posts

RE: Why so many problems

WAW8 — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 07:55:21 GMT

Please don't post problems in the Main Lounge -- this is for general discussion.

Please post your questions in the Technical Support forum.

RE: Why so many problems

dylanschlabaugh — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 12:14:29 GMT

Hey guys, I'm dylan. I'm sixteen and recently just got a vista desktop. And the weirdest thing happens. I get the blue screen of death. Now, thats not the amazing part. I get it everyday, and i never have to dump my computer. But i get it, every single day, same time. But I don't have to do anything but restart my computer.

Whats the deal?

RE: Why so many problems

Assassinate666 — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 17:43:04 GMT

[quote][b]kingofnexus (2/19/2008)[/b][hr][quote][b]Assassinate666 (2/19/2008)[/b][hr]I can honestly say since i have got my computer about 4 months before christmas I have had no problems at all with Vista! I think it runs perfectly and alot of my programs run better than they did on my old XP computer! Can't wait for SP1 so everyone who isnt sure about Vista will get it and see how amazing it is :)[/quote]

I agree. Before vista was released, itfor some reason became 'cool' to think vista was rubbish. The truth is its alot better than XP, an improvement in all aspects, including performance on high (now medium) spec machines by utilising the power that modern day computers have. I for one like how in the extremely rare event that a program freezes you can still use vista. When a game freezes, its so much easier ot have the ability to ctrl-shift-esc and task kill, instead of in win XP having to reset the computer.[/quote]

Yeah thats one thing I love if a program messes up it is so much easier in Vista to end it rather than having to wait for about half an hour in XP to end it lol. I agree that most of the problems people get in Vista is with drivers and such as people install old XP drivers and expect them to work with Vista. Most problems are usually easily fixed except the Windows Updates ones, as I stated I have had no pronlems with Vista but I installed an optional update for my graphics card which made my screen XP size icons and stuff I just had to mess around with the resolution till I found the right one! Thats the only update related problem I've had and it wasnt with an important update either

RE: Why so many problems

WAW8 — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 14:35:45 GMT

King:

Actually, I just finished reading another forum where LOTS of people who installed some or all of SP 1 fromMSDN/Technet official sources have suddenly found their machine completely disabled!! The machine boots, and reboots, and reboots ...

Only ones that have been able to get a working machine back have been those folks with a restore point back before the installation of ANY of the three SP1-related updates.

So, maybe #4 will be the "Vista killer" after all!!

RE: Why so many problems

kingofnexus — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 12:14:18 GMT

[quote][b]WAW8 (2/19/2008)[/b][hr]4) Too many basic problems, apparently caused by Windows Updates, way too late in the OS deployment timeframe. As time goes by, we see MORE reports of machines suddenly being crippled via Windows Update -- including the need to repair Windows Update itself. I could be wrong, my memory is not the best these days, but I don't recall XP having so many "things don't work anymore" kind of problems over a year after its introduction.[/quote]

I agree with you on this one the most. There are hundreds of topics where the root cause is windows updates.

RE: Why so many problems

WAW8 — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 12:00:33 GMT

The original topic appeared to ask not if people had problems, but why there are so many problems with Vista. Let me try to answer that my way ...

1) Too many basic (i.e., infrastructure) changes too quickly. While I understand MS's goal to adopt totally new models for video and audio, disabling the old models right away made two presumptions (both of which proved to be faulty): First, that hardware vendors would be quick to step in with new drivers written for the new models, and second, that not only would the new driver work flawlessly, but they would provide even more functionality than the XP drivers. In far too many cases, both of these presumptions were proven wrong. It took too many MONTHS for video and audio drivers to stabilize. This is closely related to the second problem ...

2) Vendors not stepping up to the demands of Vista in a timely manner. Still having beta Nvidia and ATI drivers months after Vista release was ridiculous! For several months, there was no sound card on the market that had full functionality under Vista. Far too many people bought Vista-capable machines from vendors that failed to emphasize that one or more of the major marketing features of Vista was not ever going to be available on certain machines.

3) Too many, way too many, false "positives" with WGA. Even by MS's own count, literally millions of legitimate customers found their machines disabled through bugs in WGA implementation. You can see by the fact that they've disabled the "kill switch" in SP 1 that they STILL have not figured out how to make this work correctly.

4) Too many basic problems, apparently caused by Windows Updates, way too late in the OS deployment timeframe. As time goes by, we see MORE reports of machines suddenly being crippled via Windows Update -- including the need to repair Windows Update itself. I could be wrong, my memory is not the best these days, but I don't recall XP having so many "things don't work anymore" kind of problems over a year after its introduction.

5) And ... last but not least ... fielding a product that was clearly not ready for prime time. If you buy a new car, and a week later, the transmission craps out, you don't want the dealer whining about how that product was outsourced so it's not realy "their" problem -- you just want it fixed!! Same is true of Vista. MS had an obligation to confirm that their partner network was in place to support Vista from day one -- not with "beta" versions of drivers, but with field-tested, final, fully functional versions. MS had an obligation to err on the side of the customer when WGA suspected a problem -- to tell the customer their product "might" be invalid, and provide a notice -- not to disable their machine and force them to make a phone call to India to get it fixed. And, if they couldn't get WGA to work flawlessly, push out an update that disabled WGA until they could. MS also had an obligation to establish default settings with Vista that prevent system corruption, not virtually guarantee it -- by having Windows Update for drivers turned OFF by default.

So, my feeling is that there are so many Vista-related problems because MS and it's partners put profit ahead of quality -- they dropped the ball.

RE: Why so many problems

kingofnexus — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 11:45:56 GMT

[quote][b]Assassinate666 (2/19/2008)[/b][hr]I can honestly say since i have got my computer about 4 months before christmas I have had no problems at all with Vista! I think it runs perfectly and alot of my programs run better than they did on my old XP computer! Can't wait for SP1 so everyone who isnt sure about Vista will get it and see how amazing it is :)[/quote]

I agree. Before vista was released, it for some reason became 'cool' to think vista was rubbish. The truth is its alot better than XP, an improvement in all aspects, including performance on high (now medium) spec machines by utilising the power that modern day computers have. I for one like how in the extremely rare event that a program freezes you can still use vista. When a game freezes, its so much easier ot have the ability to ctrl-shift-esc and task kill, instead of in win XP having to reset the computer.

RE: Why so many problems

Assassinate666 — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 11:12:32 GMT

I can honestly say since i have got my computer about 4 months before christmas I have had no problems at all with Vista! I think it runs perfectly and alot of my programs run better than they did on my old XP computer! Can't wait for SP1 so everyone who isnt sure about Vista will get it and see how amazing it is :)

RE: Why so many problems

blackhat — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 04:24:54 GMT

4/5 hardware compatibility problems are because people try to install xp drivers
they don't know they can download it from the internet

another thing is that people just don't understand why vista isn't running on their 1995 system (or on their powerpc mac from 1997:rolleyes: )

I can understand people aren't interested in computers but some things are just plain STUPID

RE: Why so many problems

lolsonjr — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 11:06:32 GMT

I always say I have to change but, I never do. I have managed to mess up one piece of the Vista installation. Internet Explorer barely works. The problem playing with the registery and no back up. Well at least not a proper one. So the question is? Can one uninstall Internet Explorer in Vista? If so, how is that accomplished???????

RE: Why so many problems

cyclic — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 01:50:19 GMT

Don't get me wrong, it's how I started to learn, I made mistakes so had to find out how to fix them, that got me interested in learning more, I was already a graduate Engineer and have always enjoyed learning new things, since I've become physically less able in fact I depend on daily research into a number of topics, computing and others, to keep my tiny mind amused.

1st mistake, Win 95 looking through files find one called system.ini, rational thought, 'well now it's initialised it wont need that again' so I removed it, of course 95 let you do that sort of thing so I then had to find out, having had the thing 2 days how to reinstall it all.

:hehe:

RE: Why so many problems

lolsonjr — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 14:29:00 GMT

Very good points. Ah I can't help myself as I love to tincker but, it does cause problems certainly because luck does run out sometimes. Eye Candy depending on what it is of course, I assume can leave you with some nasty problems. I love the stuff from Stardock but, it does not always like me I guess. Have a good Thanksgiving All Of You Here, I know I will!!!!!

RE: Why so many problems

cyclic — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 12:43:36 GMT

The vast majority of these less serious problems happen because your average user decides to fiddle with things they don't understand, they download allsorts of tweaking tools and follow quite arbitry advice on how to make things better which of course they don't. Most if not all of these can be avoided by one of two methods, if your a user and don't know what goes on inside, fine keep it that way and don't dabble and if you must, because that's how you learn sometimes, ensure you have read all the information about what you are doing and all the things that will go wrong and how to correct them.

Always the easiest way to avoid problems is back up your data regurlarly, it's amazing how many people still don't until they have a major data loss and even when you do know what you are doing make a restore point before making any changes so you can always revert back. I've been fixing PC's for years and the very first thing I do is to attach external drive cables to the main hard drive so I can make an image of it's contents before even booting an unknown PC, I am probably tempting providence but I have yet to loose or corrupt a single byte of someone elses data\files.

RE: Why so many problems

lolsonjr — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 12:18:34 GMT

Good point!!!! And which do you trust??????????? Let's see I either Premium Booster or Vista Manager. Actually where is there good info on shall we say what so called hidden settings in Vista should either be on or off??????? Also I assume (pretty well know) that one should use custom settings in Vista as far as memory both physical and disk is concerned. That one may well have gotten me last time.

RE: Why so many problems

kingofnexus — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 11:46:30 GMT

99% of registry fixers are just plant virus's in your registry or wreck it more. Only ever use trusted ones.

RE: Why so many problems

lolsonjr — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 11:39:27 GMT

Well my problem is always too big a hurry and not enough patience to do it right the first time including documenting what I have done right in the first place. And for that matter keeping better records. Thats never been me. But, on the other hand I am going to have to start doing it now. After all nothing went very well about getting things back together this time. And sure it's equipment also, as I running a 7 year old computer with a bunch of stuff that is far newer thats been added since I got it.

I have one problem that I can not get rid of and it appears to be erroneous too boot. I have an 80 gig. internal Maxstor that gives me a 1720 error which is disk is about to fail. It works fine and I rechecked the cable, the power cable, and the jumper settings. All are correct. The big deal occurs when Windows Home Premium backup comes up all the time and says I need a backup because the disk is about to fail. I have yet to find out how to remedy that particular problem. And then again it may well be the problem is that (what do call it????) two of the drives are very new and have I believe you call it hardware control while the Maxstor does not.

One thing I have been learning about is do not nessessarily allow any program that fixes problems with your registery to do everything it says it needs to do. For instance I ran one and it came up with something say like 500 problems it needs to fix. Great, except thats a rather big number and in looking at it closely it well might reveal that by doing that you may have a big deal in rebooting or shall we say getting your computer to run again.

One other problem that I am famous for is eye candy and for that matter trying everything out there. Again great but, I can suffer in the end for doing this simply because I can cause big problems in the end. So I guess in the end for me anyway, it's hardware, software, and me in this mess together. I would also say, pardon the smile but; I would not want it any other way. Too old to change just yet.

RE: Why so many problems

Jason — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 10:56:52 GMT

I want to say it has something to do w/ the incredibly large after market for computer parts and accessories. The large mix of manufacturers and part combinations makes for a large variety of computers systems. With such a large variety of systems their is bound to be compatibility problems. Add in the choices of software packages and you have a real mix to deal with. It's very hard for MS to program in compatibility for such a wide selection of combinations which is why I believe there are odd problems here and there.

Then again a lot users (non-enthusiasts) do not do clean installs, rather an upgrade which I believe is asking for compatibility problems.

Just my .02

Jason

Why so many problems

MrMagic — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 10:15:46 GMT

After having been a member for several months I've watched almost everything that comes across the board and I'm completely mystified by why so many people have so many odd-ball problems with Vista when I have had virtually none.

I installed Vista HP the day it was released and installed it on my 2 year old HP Pavailion, a 3ghz P4 machine with 2gb mem and a 250gb disk and it worked perfectly from the first install and still is.

I then did a full build on a brand new machine as shown below. Again I installed Vista HP on it and it has worked perfectly from day one.

True enough, I've run into a few minor problems with some program incompatibilities but nothing major. Never once in all this time has either machine running Vista HP crashed, done anything stupid or come up with any of these wierd problems that people seem to have.

My most recent purchase was an HP Laptop that had Home Prem loaded and it worked perfectly out of the box and continues to run without a single glitch, so thats 3 machines running Vista that have not given me any more problems than XP did when it first came out, or 2000 for that matter.

As a matter of satisfying my curiosity, why are people having these problems that I don't have and have never seen happen. Any opinions? Since this is the main lounge I thought I'd ask what other people think about this. I couldn't be happier with Vista and wouldn't trade it back for XP for anything.