6 months of hell with Vista

[Marc Glasby]

Microsoft Vista is without doubt the worst operating system release ever to come out of Microsoft.

The idea seems to be to release the operating system before it has been properly tested and use us as guinea pigs and free testers to find all the problems.

If, like me, you are unlucky enough to not have regular access to the internet, you will not have been able to get regular updates. I have had 6 months of pure hell trying to get the c**p operating system to function.

It is only since I finally managed to get on to the net for a couple of weeks and get the latest updates that some of the problems I have been having have started to dissapear.

I worte to Microsoft regarding the problems I was having but they referred me to Acer who completely ignored me.

Rotten operating system, rotten service!

Below is a catalogue of the foul ups Vista provided me with that I sent to Microsoft. Sadly I can't post all the screen captures that go with it.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Attention MS Vista technical support

Problems encountered attempting to use Microsoft Vista

From the number and complexity of problems we have encountered with MS Vista it appears as though the first release is nothing more than a Beta test copy.

DETAILS OF O/S & HARDWARE

Operating system:
Vista Home Basic Operating System. 6.0.6000.16386 Build 6000
Windows NT Version 6.0 Build: 6000
Product (0x2): Windows Vista (TM) Home Basic
Edition: HomeBasic
BuildString: 6000.16386.x86fre.vista_rtm.061101-2205
Flavor: Multiprocessor Free
Architecture: X86
LCID: 1033

Computer System:
Acer Aspire SA90
Intel Celeron 3.46ghz
Phoenix Tech BIOS R01-BO 17/3/2007
SMBIOS Ver 2.4
Physical memory 446.94mb
Sis Mirage 3 graphics 64mb
Installed Drivers SISGRUMD.dll,SiSClone.dll,SiSFunc.dll,SiSKrl.dll
Driver Version 7,14,10,5013

Purchased from:
Retra-Vision Karratha
Western Australia
On: May 18th 2007

DETAILS OF PROBLEMS ENCOUNTERED TO DATE

1. Unable to run most MS-Dos based programs that all ran correctly under XP. Games aren’t important but Cookdisk contains valuable data. Examples: (to name but a few)
a. Cookdisk (finally managed to get this to work using DosBox)
b. Battlecruiser Millennium
c. Dink Smallwood
d. Elder Scrolls 1: Arena
e. Flight of the Amazon Queen
f. Ground Control
g. King's Quest 1
h. King's Quest 2
i. One Must Fall: 2097
j. Starsiege: Tribes
k. Steel Panthers 1 & 2 (cannot install)

2. Error encountered when using Windows Explorer to view MPG files. This error repeats over and over.

Note: We had originally thought this was a problem with the software supplied with the cam-corder but have recently found there are also problems with MPG files that worked perfectly with Windows XP !

3. Unable to run a large number of programs that ran correctly in XP; Examples:
a. Medieval Total War / Shogun Total War both Activision and Sega versions crash constantly.
b. Rollercoaster Tycoon – will not save
c. Medieval Total War II – demo shield crashes
d. Rome MTW Gold – problems with video display

4. Cannot install drivers for various devices that ran under Xp. Examples
a. Cannon S520 printer drivers
b. HP external DVD writer drivers
c. Cannon ImageCLASS MPC190

5. Unable to restore data backed up using Veritas backup/restore software.

6. Cannot import video into Windows Movie Maker direct from Hitachi DZ-GX5060SW digital video camera.

7. Files created by Hitachi DZ-GX5060SW digital video camera cannot be paused and do not respond properly in MS Media Player.

8. Windows Movie Maker does not read MP3 files created by DZ-GX5060SW digital video camera. (‘Unspecified error’).

9. Windows startup repair continually executes when there appears to be no reason for doing so. Examples:

a. 15/Sep/2007 system failed to start and went into system repair. Previous shut down had been normal.
b. 16/Sep/2007. Same problem as yesterday.
c. 21/Sep/2007. PC failed to start but on re-start startup repair did not activate.
d. 23/Sep/2007. PC failed to start but on re-start startup repair did not activate.
e. 25/Sep/2007. PC failed to start but on re-start startup repair did not activate.3
f. 28/Sep/2007. BSOD. PC failed to start and went into system repair. Previous shut down had been normal.
g. 1/Oct/2007. PC failed to start and went into system repair. Previous shut down had been normal.
h. 2/Oct/2007. PC failed to start and went into system repair. Previous shut down had been normal.
i. 13/Oct/2007. BSOD. Elected not to run system repair. System started on second attempt.
j. 14/Oct/2007. Failed to start. Elected not to run startup repair. Details as follows:
Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: BlueScreen
OS Version: 6.0.6000.2.0.0.768.2
Locale ID: 3081

Additional information about the problem:
BCCode: d1
BCP1: 00010008
BCP2: 00000002
BCP3: 00000001
BCP4: 872ECF42
OS Version: 6_0_6000
Service Pack: 0_0
Product: 768_1
k. 19/Oct/2007. BSOD. Elected not to run system repair but system still failed. On next boot tried to run system repair but still got BSOD. Had to re-boot twice more before system repair would start and system functionality was restored.
l. 28/Oct/2007. BSOD. Elected not to run system repair. System started on second attempt.
m. 31/Oct/2007. BSOD. Elected not to run system repair. System started on second attempt.
n. 3/Nov/2007. BSOD etc…….
o. 8/Nov/2007. BSOD. System failed to start 4 times before it was finally successful.
Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: BlueScreen
OS Version: 6.0.6000.2.0.0.768.2
Locale ID: 3081

Additional information about the problem:
BCCode: d1
BCP1: 1B695250
BCP2: 00000002
BCP3: 00000000
BCP4: 87AA2FBF
OS Version: 6_0_6000
Service Pack: 0_0
Product: 768_1
p. 10/Nov/2007. BSOD. Again. Startup repair.
q. 12/Nov/2007. Machine failed to boot. Had to try 3 times before it managed to start. Statup repair did not activate.
r. 14/Nov/2007. Computer failed to boot. Re-booted and was asked for a product activation key – THIS HAS ALREADY BEEN DONE! Re-booted and the message did not re-appear.
s. 16/Nov/07. Failed to boot yet again. Had to re-start twice before startup repair would function.
t. 17/Nov/07. Failed to boot 3 times.
u. 18/Nov/07. Daily BSOD on startup – elected not to run startup repair.
v. 19/Nov/07. BSOD. Startup repair. Had to re-boot several times before the system would initiate repair properly.
w. There is no longer any point in continuing to record this problem as it happens each day on start up.

10. Image Mixer 3 video editing software crashes during editing or saving of video footage.

11. Despite having supervisor access to the PC there are continual privilege based access problems when deleting items. Problem is intermittent and am unable to find a likely cause.

Another example, attempting to delete a shortcut from the desktop:

12. New indexing system makes copying far too slow and has to be turned off.

13. Deletion of large files or of a large number of small files takes too long because of the unnecessary time calculation. This was not present in XP and is a complete waste of time.

14. Versions of Install Shield that worked under XP now report missing files and terminate.

15. MS internet explorer refused at one stage to link to MPG files. It initially treats the MPG file as if it was an HTML page and then on subsequent attempts ignores it all together. It now does the same thing with WMV files. Both used to work ok. Appears to also interfere with IE’s history settings. Still able to get these files to play by double clicking in MS Windows Explorer so Media Player still recognises them. Restored IE defaults but problem persists. Problem eventually went away on its own ????

16. IE defaults cause problems with offline web site development. Why are security settings for active X controls affecting OFF LINE web pages ??? This is stupid! All this has to be turned off under advanced options in order to work on site development. Surely it is possible for the system to detect if a site is local or on the internet?? This problem was initially introduced with service pack 2 of Windows XP. The only solution is to manually turn off features in IE.

17. Viewing defaults in Windows Explorer are not being ‘remembered’ by the system even though the option to remember them has been selected. Changes include files displaying as ‘details’, ‘small icons’ or ‘thumbnails’ without any changes being made by the operator. System seems to be defaulting to ‘details’ all the time.

18. Windows Media Player crashed while viewing MPG file:

19. Cannot install MICROSOFT game Rise of Nations Gold Edition as system will not release control of DVD drive in order to insert 2nd disk as instructed. System refuses to eject disc 1. The system required a re-start to get the disc out!

20. Windows media player is incorrectly calculating track lengths and then proceeds to foul up the playback (fast – slow etc.) Can’t find any way to correct the times once Media Player screws them up. Example shows several tracks with 36:38 which is quite incorrect. In some instances no length reading is given at all!

21. After deleting a large number of files and or sub-directories and then clearing the files from the ‘recycle bin’ the message box shows far fewer files to be deleted than actually were. Ie. Deleted 14 sub-directories containing WAV many files. Recycle bin asked if I wanted to delete the 4! Files it contained ??????

22. It appears to be impossible to customise detail settings for a folder (Ie. Select only Artist, Album, Length and Size for a music folder) and then have these settings made the same for all sub-folders despite the fact that there appears to be a check box that is supposed to do just that. Selecting one of the default music folder detail settings works but using a customised one does not.

23. NTI CD/DVD maker crashes when trying to create a VCD photo disk.

24. Image Mixer VCD2 does not recognise the presence of a CD/DVD writer.

25. VCD created with Power Producer works with Power DVD but causes Windows Media Player to crash. Web help is no use to someone without internet access.

26. Switched over to Telstra NextG Samsung phone but software provided with the phone will not install – I am hardly surprised any more!

After managing to get this software to install by changing the compatibility mode it still will not run properly or recognise the phone:

After exiting the program we then get yet more stupid error messages.

Got latest software upgrade from the net but it still does not work. Reports server busy.

27. 31/Oct/2007. System crashed when using IE Explorer offline– screen just went blank and then got message about system not shutting down correctly. System re-started.

28. Ulead Movie Factory does not work:

29. Windows Movie Maker crashed for no apparent reason. 12/Nov/07

30. Following error message appeared after re-boot when system failed to start:

'DVD+RW Drive/Disc compatability setting has stopped working'

31. Windows media player continually screws up album information and put the wrong artwork on albums as well as putting tracks from several albumbs into the wrong places.

END OF FILE
=========================================================