Windows Vista forum: Windows Vista Bugs

Windows 3.0 & 3.1 Great operating system even though (maybe especially because) it ran on a DOS platform.
Windows 3.11 - not so much
Windows 95 ho-hum
Windows 98 same thing
Windows 98 second edition was terrific once the bugs got squashed.
Win ME and Win2000 failed experiments in combining Windows NT with Windows 98 interface. What an abortion!
Win XP is the only operating system I've liked that came out of Microsoft since Win98SE.

I've only just upgraded to XP (it's been out for - how long now?) and I'm pleased with it. I'll upgrade to Vista shortly after the next operating system goes into Beta testing.

'till then, I'll keep reading the posts.

Yes, yes, I know. If no one upgraded to the latest and greatest, there would be no incentive to push the new operating system to market possibly resulting in Microsoft (yes, yes, I know, it's the vendors) actually testing their operating system with the vendors software to ensure backward compatability. You've all heard of backward compatability, haven't you?

Have a nice day

I've read nearly all of the 231 posts in this thread, and to be honest, the n00b's don't understand how computers work and screw things up. The pros won't post here because they at least try to figure things out. All those in between probably can't walk down the street and chew gum at the same time.

Microsoft provided a tool to see if Vista would run on your machine. Why didn't you try it?

HP has usually been reliable about upgrading drivers for recent machines. They should be up and running in a week or so.

I am still running XP and will continue to do so for a long while, at least until an upgrade or two comes out for Vista. I ran 98SE (skipped ME--it wasn't much of an improvement) for nearly two years after XP was released. I then installed a fairly stable XP version that has run well ever since (XP Pro). I use XP Pro both at school and work with no problems.

So you wanted to be the first to use Vista? Congratulations. Next time use some common sense and don't rush out to be the first. Patience is rewarded, little one.

It is easier to blame others than to accept responsibility for our less than intelligent actions.

Well, all this talk about the problems with Vista being due to "third party" hardware and software manufacturers has convinced me. So I guess the next computer I buy will be the Microsoft Computer, not a machine from a "third party."


Where do they sell those again?

It depends on whether the OS vendor (Microsoft) intends on the OS being backward compatible or not. In the case of Vista I believe that MS made it fairly clear that much of the old model would be broken and many things that required specific hardware drivers would be iffy to work in the new Vista model.

The biggest drawback to this approach is it gives the 3rd party software and hardware vendors a excuse to not support their current or slightly older products and saying "we will only support current and future products". This leaves many of us with products that are perfectly serviceable, but useless with the Vista OS.

In my experience with another OS (IBM's MVS), it was originally released around 1974 and has gone through many changes including the jump to 64 bit capable. I have seen much code that was written on the original MVS platform (and even on the prior MVT OS) make it to the current incarnation of the MVS OS called z/OS continue to run unmodified!

The point is that IBM acknowledged a very large installed base and one of their requirements was to provide seamless backward compatibility for the majority of code.

Microsoft has taken a different approach. It appears that continuing support of installed base is not of concern and if MS says we have to move then we have to move or lose the use of whatever falls out and the vendor of that fallout says "too bad, we wanted to sell you a newer product anyway".

The way I see it is this is the real difference between a truly industrial strength OS (IBM) and a wannabe industrial OS (MS). We could also compare other areas of the 2 OS's like security, data integrity, reliability, serviceability and many other areas that make a OS a OS. Makes one wonder, there's more to a OS than a pretty face...

W3

It is interesting that Apple upgrades from OS 9 to OS X panther & tiger versions went without a hitch and even past programs are supported through the switch to another processor, without problems. Many curse Apple for their restrictiveness in third party apps and hardware but compatibility problems don't exist it seems.

Microsoft, large as it is, surely could have a copy of most every app to go with Windows and surely enough people to test and work with compatibility. Compatibility, though not required is a real nice thing to keep people coming back and upgrading without worries. I'm wondering how the folks at Microsoft would feel about Apple taunting the features of Vista and total Windows compatibility with older devices and programs? With Apple's Boot Camp and the program Parallels it seems that Apple Mac users are better compatible with Windows than Windows users that have upgraded to Vista are with their own Microsoft Products.

Compatibility to me is a feature of new software and therefore I do think Microsoft shares equal if not more blame for incompatibility issues. They sure had the people and the time and certainly the resources to work on that part. I'm beginning to think I'll stick with my Windows XP Home on my Toshiba Laptop and get an iMac. I certainly can understand long time loyal Microsoft users, as I was, doing the same. For me I'm waiting until OS X Leopard releases which I hear will be very soon now.

First of all, I have a rule of thumb. When it comes to MS software, I won't touch anything until 3.0 comes out. The reason is the history of the sofware with imperfections. The first version is inevitably buggy. The second version fixes some of the bugs, and probably makes some new ones. By the time it comes out, Version 3.0 has an opportunity of being usable for most practical purposes.

However, the big issue is compatibility. I recall that I upgraded from Office 97 to Office 2000, and my custom-made database program based on Access 97 was incompatible with 2000 causing me to lose much data. I recently bought Quickbooks 2006, and found out two months later that my Quickbooks will not be compatible unless I upgrade with 2007.

If my database will run on Linux, I would prefer to use that rather than Vista. At least I am aware of the incompatibilities in such circumstances.

Jerry Blaz

I haven't changed to Microsoft Vista OS and probably won't until at least 3 or four service packs come out to fix the holes in the programming. This is typical Microsoft programming. Put the product out when it is barely past Beta testing and let the consumers deal with the headaches. I know the other software developers may be at fault as well, but why put good water in a bucket with holes?

My advise is to stick with XP or ME until the bugs get worked out in two to three years.

I recently bought a Sony laptop that still Had Windows XP, in order to avoid this nonsense. Why should I pay to beta test the richest man in the world's latest software? I am not a technophobe as I have been using PCs since 1986. However, all programs and operating systems have flaws, therefore I will stay with XP until there is truly something better.

I was once a diehard Windows fan myself. I've recently made the switch to Mac and I couldn't be happier. Make the switch, you'll love it.

consider if you will when most of the hardware was made it was made for windows xp and earlier because companies knew of these os's so microsoft is to blame for not telling the companies years ago to design hardware for future os style to be relased and let's not forget about microsofts windows 7 they didn't want to be made public knowledge so I would say Microsoft should have written support codes for older hardware or given everybody the new vista or windows 7 for free as they have to go and buy new hardware to use these nightmare os's. So Far I have not found a capture card that is compable with Vista and it ruined the one I currently have is Microsoft going to comensate me for my lost ? well we all know a man don't make 77 billon dollars USD by fair play.

On reading the "question provocateur", I'm reminded of that event of about 40 years ago when IBM incompatibly upgraded its operating system and told its customers they would really like the new OS once they had rewritten all their applications. IBM responded to these concerns by providing extensive compatibility in all subsequent releases.

Most manufacturers have reasons imposed upon them by the competitive marketplace to see to the compatibility of existing applications with the new operating system.

Microsoft, the convicted monopolist, may not feel those competitive influences as then-monopolist IBM felt them. Microsoft may intend, as it has in the past, to use these incompatibilities to defeat niche competitors, clearing the playing field for MS products. Microsoft may feel they have no significant desktop OS competitor to which they can lose market share. Microsoft may feel, after the slap on the wrist it received in 2000, that it can act with impunity.

This event may represent an opportunity for Unix to gain desktop market share. Unix has always maintained a high level of compatibility with existing applications.

db

Well I believe it's more the software manufacture problem than MS. But like Ford with the Explorer tire problems the car maker got the blame. MS has never been one to take the blame for anything, they always seem to blame someone else.

I'm still running ME and hate it and hearing that all the software and scanner/printers I have won't work with Vista has me holding off. If HP and others are saying they won't provide the upgrades because what you have is to old, than my replacement will not be one of their products. I don't have all sorts of expendable income to upgrade everything, it's bad enough for the CPU I want.

Guess I'll wait some more....

Now every time my wife's PC freezes or I hear that dreaded Windows keyboard chord (like I just did) or the blue screen of death shows up and we lose all her data, especially after a Windows update, or she gets an attempted spyware, virus or web page jack, I offer to buy a mac mini and close the home help desk permanently.

Since I switched, I basically stopped doing do it yourself help desk on my own computer.

It is a well known fact that Microsoft charges the manufacturers of other software programs a heck o'lot of money so that they can get some of the source files to make their programs compatible with Microsoft! Bill Gates is now only the second richest man in the world.Looks like he wants to be the richest man again. Most companies are happy with Windows 2000 and do not want to follow every folly Bill Gates and Steve Balmer are coming up with. Steve Balmer had to admit that the sales of Vista are presently much lower than estimated. Sorry Bill Gates,this means several millions less in your pocket! For XP they came up with 'patches' shortly after the 'new software' hit the market and after that one patch after another had to be installed; I can not count the amount of patches. I presently encounter one crash after another with Office 2007. Same spiel, as always: Have people buy faulty software and blame the crashes on the computer manufacturer, who then blames Microsoft,correctly.

I have a small home network with four PCs running either XP Home or XP Pro, plus an iBook running Mac OS X 10.2.

I upgraded one of the PCs to run Vista Home Premium and it runs well enough on its own, but even with applying the necessary patches to get XP machines to see the Vista box, and to get the Vista box to see the XP machines, I cannot get machines from either side of the Vista divide to share the printers.

It has also been a pain with file sharing in that the Vista box will not let me copy files to a shared folder on any of the other machines, neither will it let me copy files from other machines to the Vista box. I have adjusted the permissions but no joy.

Now you might talk about how it is only important for other software and hardware distributors to make their packages work with Vista, but why does MS make it so darn difficult to even cooperate with XP machines?

My current solution? I've uninstalled Vista and gone back to XP - all network shares work again.

Anyone want to buy a copy of Vista with a slightly used COA sticker? (Just kidding.)