Buzz Out Loud Lounge: Silent Vista-loving majority?

Since Minute 1

The Vista release at Midnight reminded me of the last time I waited in line into the wee hours to obtain a Microsoft OS. It was Windows 95. The departure from Windows 3.11 was to be the end all of computing.

It took 3 days to get Windows 95 up and running and I loved every minute of it. I think I slept about 4 hours over that 3 day period. But there it was in all its shining glory. I didn't get up from my home office chair for a week.

Vista was released in much the same way. There I was at 10:00pm standing in line at Best Buy with 30 or 40 other first release hopefuls. Only this time there were free cheeseburgers and hotdogs on the grill, sodas and a DJ spinning some tunes. There were Microsoft reps giving away those neoprene can cozies and other branded swag. Enough hoopla to keep the excitement from waning as the witching hour approached.

As the doors opened just past 10:00pm we were let in one at a time in single file and we were handed a USB thumbdrive (more MS branded swag) and a flyer with specials. Each store was to give away a top of the line HP laptop in a drawing, so my first stop was to fill out the entry form and drop it in the box.

I perused the newest 'Vista ready' laptops and found a laptop attached to a big screen plasma in the back of the store. It was online and running Vista. With no one around to tell me to go away, I sat down and started going over the features like I was sitting in my own living room.

Best Buy announced that you could purchase your copy of Vista prior to midnight, and have it waiting for you so you could leave as soon as the release was authorized by the in-store Microsoft reps. I bought Vista Ultimate upgrade since I already own XP. It came with both 32 and 64 bit versions on two separate DVD's.

Gathering all my swag I waited patiently for the laptop drawing, which ended up going to the guy sitting next to me. Always the bridesmaid and never the bride...damn. So I went to the customer service desk, picked up my prepaid and bagged copy of Ultimate and headed home for another Microsoft OS all nighter.

Now this was not my first 'upgrade' experience so I faithfully had my original XP disc on standby as I formatted my hard drive and prepared for a fresh installation of Vista Ultimate. The excitement was building as I stared at the clean slate before me waiting for new life to be breathed into it. I plunked the 64 bit disc into the DVD tray and rebooted, anxious to unleash the 64 bit power of my AMD Athlon 64 bit processor.

It booted into a familiar MS installation sequence and I was on my way. I went through the installation options, entered the lengthy serial number and then it happened. "You must install this version from within Windows". The upgrade process no longer required previous ownership validation by popping the original installation disc from your previous OS into the CD tray. Vista 'upgrade' would only install from an already existing, validated XP installation. Damit!

So I spent hours reinstalling XP, just so I could upgrade it. Not a happy camper at this point. The clock is ticking and I'm already tired.

I start the upgrade from within XP and it says in order to format the drive for a clean install, I need to boot from the disc. So I did. Re-entered all the info again and lo and behold I get the same message "You must install this version from within Windows". Apparently you cannot do a fresh install with the upgrade at all. Now I'm really mad.

I boot back into XP, start the upgrade process and follow the prompts until hours later I finally boot into Vista Ultimate. The first problem I had was it would not detect my network card so I had no Internet to get updates and drivers. It was a standard Linksys card and Vista was blind to it. Ugghh.

I used my laptop, found some drivers and transferred them via the new thumbdrive Microsoft gave me. Now I see the logic in that giveaway.

Things get a little better from here, other than to say 64 bit drivers are virtually non-existent and this point. I get by with help from forum blogs packed with people offering problems and some solutions.

I ended up dumping 64 bit and reinstalling 32 bit. It has been running faithfully side by side with my XP machine on the same network. I stayed with it through all the slamming, insults and general hate mongering. I took time to get to know it and all its quirks.

I don't like the search feature, preferring the old method of file searching but it has been very stable and as my favorite programs became updated to accommodate Vista, my computing life normalized under the new Vista banner.

With the release of Vista SP1, I found many minor annoyances have disappeared and it seems to be running like clockwork. Now it seems that every program I look at, or piece of hardware I covet are now Vista compatible. The long walk through the desert of loneliness has ended and I am better for having endured it. I have seen the face of Vista, and it is good.

Ken Wilson
San Diego CA