Vista observations and opinions

[Humus]

From my experience with vista, UAC is really, really stupid. It asks for you to click a little box when you want to do almost anything. Though in Linux I actually have to enter my password, the sheer number of times UAC bugs me is absolutely incredible. So yeah, I'd say that Windows Vista handles this sort of thing much, much worse than Linux.

I don't find myself doing stuff that kicks up UAC very often. Not at home anyway. At work UAC had to go pretty much right away since it's not unusual that I install drivers and stuff several times a day. It's also a bit unfortunate for UAC that it's when you first set up your computer that you'll find UAC popping up all the time, so chances are you'll get fed up with it on your first days with Vista, while if you're able to live through that period you'd probably not find it very annoying in the long run.

I like the idea in general though, and I would have left it on at home if it wasn't for the fact that it somehow causes MSVC 2005 not to access drag'n'drop files or double-clicking solution files. Don't ask me how it could possibly have that effect, but that's just too annoying for me to live with. I end up having to use the Browse dialog for everything, which is just not the way I work normally.

 

[aaaaa00]

Well, sure. But the problem is that when I want to do something, I typically want to do quite a lot at once.

If you want to do a lot at one, then launch an elevated command prompt and do it from there.

Most of the control panels and management consoles (mmc.exe and *.msc) can be launched from the command line.

 

[aaaaa00]

I'm sort of wondering if there are some kinfd of blocks in vista to generating a dialog box identical or similar to UAC's.

If you somehow manage to slip a malware program onto a vista box it hsould be an absolute doddle for a decent programmer to take a snapshot of the screenand darken it down and show it as an always on top-style fullscreen borderless window and throw up an "type in your user account and password" request..

If you're an administrator, elevation (by default) doesn't require you to type your credentials in.

If you're a regular user, elevation requires you to type in the password for an admin account. The elevation dialog shows the login icon of the admin user, which the evil application can't know becaue it is running as you. So if the icon doesn't match, that should tip you off that the dialog is a fake.

 

[aaaaa00]

Well, yes, but in Linux it works. And what is the point of making things as secure as they are when by default the local administrator doesn't have a password? Give me 15 minutes, and I've written a program to take advantage of that.

The local admin account is *disabled* by default.

 

[RobertR1]

At work, I'm running Vista 64 and at home XP Pro 32bit. I'm much more happy with my Vista machine than I am my XP one. It's a lot faster and no matter what I to do it, it doesn't lag. Here I am on my XP machine and I can feel it wanting a reboot. Things are getting sluggish.

I have no rebooted my Vista machine at work for quite some time now and this includes installing/uninstalling quite a few things.

The one issue I'm having at work though if someone can help. I have a Cisco wifi setup with security policies being sent to the local machines of if they have wifi, they'll get enrolled automatically. This feature does not work on any of the Vista laptops. Any clues?

 

[Blazkowicz]

Well I actually do have a newer machine. A Dell Inspiron 9300 that's only 2.5 yrs old now. Heh. But I didn't want to put Vista on that machine because it's for work and I don't want Vista as a primary OS yet. The A64 is an old eMachines M6805 that is basically just a web browsing/remote desktop/storage/XBMC file store/etc. The upgrades were ~$120, off ebay. Generic RAM (it works!!) and a used HDD.

stuff that you can do comfurtably under XP with 256MB ram (unless firefox uses 300MB)

I don't understand you people dissing that laptop, that was the best CPU back then and it's still powerful. I run an XP2400+ in my main desktop (with 512MB 'cos I'm lazy and spend the money elsewhere) and I've yet to feel the need for a faster CPU in my non game tasks.
I could drop a 1GB stick and that should be a Vista capable machine but there are some little downsides (279 euros, I can manage to live a month on that ; and my OS partition is 4GB. duh!)

 

[Rainbow Man]

So if the icon doesn't match, that should tip you off that the dialog is a fake.

And how many users do you think are aware of that - or even think of that there are icons shown in the window?

People generally are like, "*sigh* oh no now I have to type in this shit again" and they do it quickly just to get rid of the window.

Peace.

 

[aaaaa00]

And how many users do you think are aware of that - or even think of that there are icons shown in the window?

People generally are like, "*sigh* oh no now I have to type in this shit again" and they do it quickly just to get rid of the window.

Ya, but at least there's some indication there.

 

[Frank]

Another thing that irks me severely: without running the indexing service, browsing large drives with large directories bogs the computer down severely, just as with XP. And that seems to be, because all subdirectories are scanned because someone might want to know their size.

Then again, if you leave that indexing services enabled, even on a dual core machine, the computer becomes really unresponsive when doing something like playing a game. Fps measured in the minutes for a few frames. STALKER also crashes when that happens.

Bottom line: you have to turn off all the "goodies" to be able to "enjoy" Vista, unless you only use apps like IE and Office.

 

[Frank]

Then again: it seems indexing services are already turned off! What can cause that severe and prolonged harddisk trashing? Defragging?

Playing games is impossible without fixing this.

 

[Sazar]

This isn't new to Vista, I've been using to under XP for 3-4 years now (and yeah it is very nice!).

It doesn't work under Linux though on the same hardware, while we're on the subject of ranting about bug-ridden, unfinished operating systems that can't do what the competition has been doing for years. </runs away>...

I am not insinuating it is a new feature.

I am saying it is done CORRECTLY in Vista

Much like the new Media Center being an absolute joy with my Hauppauge 1600

Yes, there are many things that have existed before, but while I wouldn't consider touching sleep under XP with a 6-foot pole, I always use the sleep function under the Vista environment

 

[Sazar]

Then again: it seems indexing services are already turned off! What can cause that severe and prolonged harddisk trashing? Defragging?

Playing games is impossible without fixing this.

Has this been happening since day 1?

I haven't seen this issue affect me and I am working with some pretty big files (a few gigs worth) for video editing and converting.

Seems odd, I think I've heard other people mention something similar but I am not sure what the deal is.

 

[KimB]

I've noticed some hard drive thrashing myself. It doesn't happen often, but every once in a while, sometimes when playing a game (I presume I just don't notice it otherwise), suddenly the OS thrashes the hard drive really hard for a number of minutes. This doesn't impact my playing, except when loading new levels. But I've been unable to find the process that's causing it, as I never see anything else that's using up CPU cycles while this is happening.

Anybody know what's causing this periodic thrashing? My first guess was the indexing service, an I'm not entirely certain how to check whether or not this is the case.

 

[Geo]

Anybody know what's causing this periodic thrashing? My first guess was the indexing service, an I'm not entirely certain how to check whether or not this is the case.

Could be. Don't know if you're on 32-bit or 64-bit. I had trouble with indexing on 32-bit for some reason. But there's an "Indexing options" in the Control panel, and if you click on that you can see if it's currently doing indexing.

 

[KimB]

Could be. Don't know if you're on 32-bit or 64-bit. I had trouble with indexing on 32-bit for some reason. But there's an "Indexing options" in the Control panel, and if you click on that you can see if it's currently doing indexing.

32-bit. I'll give it a look when I get back home.

 

[John Reynolds]

Just installed Ultimate x64 tonight. Installed the latest drivers for my 8800 and X-Fi add-in cards without issue. Also ran the latest inf installer from Intel since it's newer than what would've been included in Vista's HCL, but aside from that the OS's installation found everything else. 22 updates and a few reboots so far. A performance score of 5.6, with the CPU (X6800) and memory both scoring 5.6 and the hard drive and graphics card both scoring 5.9.

All in all, pretty quick and painless so far.

 

[Geo]

How much memory do you have?

My x-fi is still fucked with 4GB installed.

 

[willardjuice]

How much memory do you have?

My x-fi is still fucked with 4GB installed.

Either use the previous driver or the one before that. I know one of them works with 4GB.

 

[Arwin]

We just found out that the scanner (Epson Perfection 1200 Photo) isn't going to get drivers until January, apparently. Fortunately we still have other machines to do that with if necessary (like my laptop). Still, it makes you wonder why they (STILL) couldn't manage a universal scanner driver like you have on Linux? Odd.

Other than that though, Vista is pretty decent. The sleep function is indeed much improved.

 

[John Reynolds]

I'm running with 2GB of memory. Still haven't installed a single game to see how sound works. Also found out after posting that my HP 1020 has no Vista drivers and no support for x64 versions of XP or 2003 either.

That new WD Raptor I ordered came in the mail yesterday, so I'm basically just flipping the boot order in the BIOS for which OS I want to use. Wife says the lack of a printer is a show-stopper for her.