Windows VISTA - Do these customers have SUCKER written on their forehead?

[sld72382]

Today I did as detailed a comparison of Vista to XP as I could using a store's demo system and, honestly, the only major difference I found was in the 'pretty' factor.

There are some cool gizmos and stuff, but none that can't be duplicated with some 3rd party freeware apps, like Weatherbug and one of the better GUI-Mod programs out there, so I've decided I'm not shelling out the $400+ for Vista until they can come up with a more compelling reason than looking like they have 3rd party software already installed that I didn't find worth paying the $20 for to begin with.

You know that Weatherbug is classified as spyware, right?

[JustADude]

You know that Weatherbug is classified as spyware, right?

Not anywhere I've heard of. It's free because they put banner-ads in the frame of the 'expanded' mode, but the program itself isn't spyware.

[technical.angel]

Weatherbug miffed at Microsoft's Spyware classification

I think, at one time, it had some crap bundled with it. I don't think I've seen that recently.

[JustADude]

I think, at one time, it had some crap bundled with it. I don't think I've seen that recently.

Like I said, it has banner-ads in the GUI, but it hasn't thrown out pop-ups, tracked behavior, or anything like that since I started using it back in like '02 or '03. If I'm reading the article correctly, MS basically says that their beta-version search criteria nailed EVERY auto-download program as spy-ware and they said 'oops, our bad' and removed the signature when AWS brought it up with them.

[Dreamstalker]

You know that Weatherbug is classified as spyware, right?

Forecastfox FTW

[IlovemyGeek]

Oh what fresh hell is this. Vista doesn't work with our service and we don't support it yet. We don't have it yet, I've never worked with it. But I"m not supposed to support Vista users in trying to get it running. I didn't design Vista I can't magically make it work with our system. GAH this is killing my inner Mac user.

[sld72382]

I'll believe AWS when CounterSpy and A-squared quit finding it as threats.

[MadMike]

I really can't say much about Vista myself, as I never really used it other than the time my son and I were playing around with one of the display machines at Circuit City, but from what little bit I've seen and heard, I'm not really impressed. From what I've seen from playing around with that machine, and from what I've heard, it sounds like it's more eye candy than anything else. I have no desire to plunk down another $100 or more just for something that looks pretty, especially when XP works just fine.

Besides, I've never been one to run out and buy the newest OS. I only do it if I think it's going to offer improvement, and even then I've never bought one less than a year after it came out.

I upgraded to 95 from 3.11 because, well it was 3.11. Anyone who's used it will understand what I mean.

I didn't really see a whole lot of difference between 95 and 98, but ended up with 98 when I had someone build a new machine to replace my old POS Packard Bell (I didn't know any better when I bought that one.)

I never had ME, but saw just how buggy and unstable it was when I worked on someone else's machine. I swear, the damn thing crashed several times when I tried to reinstall it. That was enough to kill of any ideas I might have had about buying it. Besides, it didn't seem like any kind of improvement over 98 even if it did work right.

I bought XP after it had been out about 2 years, because I figured 98's life cycle was probably coming to an end. That, and I had upgraded my hardware and found that 98 runs like shit if you have too much memory. It worked fine with 256MB, but with 512 it would work OK at first, but then gradually start crawling, until you had to reboot it. With XP, it worked great, and even better when I increased to 1GB, and 2GB later.

[JustADude]

I upgraded to 95 from 3.11 because, well it was 3.11. Anyone who's used it will understand what I mean.

You mean the fact that it was a total , or the fact that it was actually a GUI shell with additional command functions that had to boot inside a DOS environment? I had to use 3.11 on the boxes my grade-school taught us comp.sci. on, and even before I turned 10 I knew they were icky. Thankfully my family had a Mac at home at the time.

I'll believe AWS when CounterSpy and A-squared quit finding it as threats.

They're blacklisting the program based simply on the scripts it uses to connect to the ad-server to download the banners and do auto-updating. Lavasoft, Aluria, Microsoft, and most other anti-spyware companies have recognized that there is no SPY in the ware since everything it does is explained up-front, so they classify it as clean software.

[HawaiianShirts]

...or the fact that it was actually a GUI shell with additional command functions that had to boot inside a DOS environment...

Since this seems to be becoming an OS thread, does anyone else here remember PreCursor? It was exactly what JustADude described Win 3.11 as (above): a GUI within DOS, only this had the same font styles as DOS and WordPerfect 5.1 had. If you've ever used the current Windows Start Menu with just your arrow keys and Enter, you'll know what PreCursor felt like. I know it wasn't very popular, but I had it on my old 8088 (first computer--just enough juice to run Duke Nukem 1), and I'm just curious if anyone else saw or used it...

[Shabo]

You can transfer the entire WoW folder to a backup device (an external Hard Drive for preference*) and chuck it back to c:\Program Files after re-install. The updater may fix a few minor files but most of your configuration data is held in .lua files within the folder


* I tried a couple of weeks ago to fit the folder on my 8GB USB key - no such luck and they've just had another 325MB patch

Best part about this is it saves all of your mods!!! Yay! (For a druid that carries around 3 full sets of gear, it is a pain to have to reconfigure my wardrobe add-on)

I am familiar with Vista, XP, and 2000. I must say that Vista is nice enough, but it takes a little getting used to. At least Vista doesn't have that stupid SVCHost error that XP is prone to. But yeah, it's pretty much eyecandy. I want to put it on my desktop, but I'll wait til I can get a free/cheap copy of it. I'm not dishing out that much money for it. I do have it on my tablet laptop, and I wish I didn't. The laptop has 1gb ram, and Vista takes up half of it running *nothing*. I'll reformat it one of these days...

But overall, Vista isn't bad. I think it's easier for people who aren't used to Windows or who aren't good with computers, but for techies that are used to fixing software or configuration problems in earlier versions of Windows, it's a pain in the rear to figure out where they moved our techie stuff around to!

Oh, and I can't stand Office 2k7. I know it's supposed to be more user friendly, but it looks so cluttered that I can't stand it. I'm shuddering right now thinking of the people that we support at my job demanding the upgrade, then asking us how it works and getting mad when we won't help them. We fix software, we don't teach it.

[technical.angel]

I've been tricked into being an early adapter of Vista here at work. (Hey, I got a new computer out of it). Dual boot of Vista and XP. I'm playing it safe and storing all my files on the XP drive.

I'm... slowly getting used to it. More software worked on it than I thought would.

Of course, of all the software that could NOT work, our work order software didn't work. So, now I have an excuse to have my work laptop up. (The one with Sims 2 installed :: evil grin :

[tendomentis]

Just FYI, for those early adopters like me who want to run Vista for other reasons but can't get work software to work on it (but worked on XP), try installing your license of XP INSIDE Vista as a Virtual Machine. You can use VirtualPC from Microsoft....it's free.

This way you get all the benefits of running Vista (don't laugh, there are some) and you can still do your work in XP without the mess of dual booting...and you can use both XP and Vista at the same time this way.

[Naaman]

Best part about this is it saves all of your mods!!! Yay! (For a druid that carries around 3 full sets of gear, it is a pain to have to reconfigure my wardrobe add-on)

Pfftt - get a Hunter. All you really need is an aggro monitor and Fizwidgets tracking tool

[Shabo]

Pfftt - get a Hunter. All you really need is an aggro monitor and Fizwidgets tracking tool

Lol, Hunters just hide behind their animals. As a Druid, I *am* the animal!!!! Muahahahaha! I have a couple of Hunter alts, just can't seem to make it past 20 with them. Working on a mage now.