[PCWorld]

Post your comments for Angry Vista Users Vent Over SP1 Driver Issues here

[AmigaShining]

I too own a Dell inspiron 1720 that I just acquired. My wife has an identical machine. Her machine has crashed twice. My machine has had startup issues, but, only after I had downloaded other non compliant software (ie. non-Microsoft blessed software)from Mircosoft competing venders. Such as "Shockwave" and "Flash Player". So, when I restart my mashine it hangs up on the Start menu and fails to launch the Windows. So, I have to unplug the power and the Battery and restart. It goes into a Fix Windows startup screen and then requests to undo to a more "compliant" pre-down loaded Windows pure state. Then the Machine works fine. I have a sneaky suspicion that Microsoft feeling the competition of other mail and search engine software down loads that are effecting there bottom line. So, why not affect user compliance of your product by denial of service when other competing software is downloaded. The State Department may what to take a look at this software,does t complie with Antitrust reg

[bdkennedy1]

Apple should have put an update to OS X Leopard in their iTunes software update for these people.
The last time I had to deal with a problem like this was in 2002 with Windows XP.
There comes a time when you just get so sick of stuff like this that you switch.

[rgreen4]

First - It's the Justice Department that is responsible for Anti-Trust, not the State Department. Second, there has never been any OS that has been more scrutinized by any regulatory agencies than MS Vista, both by our Justice Department and the EU Commission before it's release.

Second - there are plenty of third party applications running under Vista, but almost all of them had to do some tweaks to comply with the Microsoft OS Standards that were issued some 20 years ago, but everyone (including some MS applications) ignored to one extent or another. Everyone was screaming about MS needed to do something to make Windows more secure, so MS took the extra time to completely redo Windows rather than just an update of XP. They closed all the back doors and by-passes that had been in the OS since the DOS days. The result - non-compliant software won't run, and everyone is screaming.

Adobe Flashplayer runs just fine in my three Vista machines, as does Firefox which is a bigger thorn in their side than Flash.

[BroPac]

What is so sad is that the "unsuspecting" and somewhat "innocent PC Newbies" are buying this piece of JUNK! I recommend to my customers to buy a used or refurbished, or replace the HD, whatsoever it takes to AVOID VISTA JUNK!!!

[foolishfish]

Microsoft doesn't care. The OEMs don't care. The only people who care are the users affected by issues beyond their control.

If you want your hardware to "Just Work", install XP.

Linux is a good choice as well.

[Evildave]

Many of the drivers were bent when Vista shipped. The only thing Microsoft cared about in their so-called 'testing' was Digital Rights Management. If it didn't work right, that was OK. If it sounded like crap and looked like crap, that was BY DESIGN because they didn't want anyone to have a clean analog or output signal to resample.



If it let somebody see or hear a clean image that wasn't encrypted, then it was REJECTED.



Of course, now they've gone and cut off drivers for hardware that doesn't have any support because the company 'changed hands'. Goody. You're a LOT more likely to find a valid Linux driver in that situation, because the community develops those.

[ivorycruncher]

"If you want your hardware to "Just Work", install XP.

Linux is a good choice as well."

Wow, talk about a double standard. The first statement is, for the most part, true. Pretty much any current hardware will work with XP. But that's where you go wrong. You imply that hardware configuration is as trouble-free on Linux as it is on Windows XP, and that simply is not true. Linux has come a long way, especially Ubuntu, but I can state from experience that if the initial installation of Linux does not properly detect and install drivers for all your hardware, it will cause an absolute nightmare for any average PC user. Linux doesn't really have anything like the Device Manager in Windows, and finding, installing, and configuring device drivers, especially graphics card settings, can cause headaches even for Linux gurus. Plus, Linux doesn't have near the availability of compatible drivers that Windows XP does. The bottom line is, Windows XP is a lot more likely to make your hardware "just work" than Linux is at this point.

[rgreen4]

Today, Mar 23, 5 days after the release of Vista SP1, there was the first post of a problem with SP1. The member was looking for the search feature which used to be on the right side of the start menu. Apparently it has been removed as the result of an agreement between regulators, MS and Google after google filed a complaint. They want us to use google desktop search instead.

No complaints on drivers though.

As Spock used to say - "Fascinating"

[foolishfish]

"The bottom line is, Windows XP is a lot more likely to make your hardware "just work" than Linux is at this point."

just depends. if you are an advanced user, yes xp can offer you a nice computing experience .

but, however, if you don't know how to figure out what chip is on a particular piece of hardware,and what alternative driver is likely to work,

Linux is the better choice for just "working" out of the box.

[rgreen4]

Not necessarily true. The list of unsupported devices is longer for Linux, especially for wireless adapters, than it is for Vista. If you are fortunate enough to have a machine that does not have any unsupported devices, and you have no need to exchange files with anyone with Windows, then it may just work. Open source device drivers become available when someone in the Linux community get around to writing them.

The proof is that there is almost no on in this community advocating Linux that runs Linux exclussively. All seem to run Windows in order to run certain required apps, and if so, prove that Linux is not yet ready to "replace" Windows.

[wxman]

My HP6000 laptop is only a few months old, I've installed almost no new drivers, and the update isn't there for me either. I'm not stressed, I'd like to go back to XP anyway.

[ivorycruncher]

Linux is the better choice for just "working" out of the box."

Again, not really. As I said, Linux supports FAR less hardware than any distribution of Linux at this point, and the plug-n-play technology in XP works very well these days. Besides, if Linux doesn't recognize your hardware, you still have to figure out what kind of chip it is that needs a driver, so that's not any different. And with Linux, it will be much harder to find and apply a driver, if one even exists. And even when drivers are available, they aren't always user-friendly. I tried for hours one time to get an nVidia card working with the Compiz 3D effects engine in Ubuntu. Even using nVidia's own Linux driver installer, it wouldn't install properly. I finally handed it over to a Linux/Unix guru, and it even took him a while to figure out what config file was botching up the whole thing. in Windows, installing a driver is simple, and it either works or it doesn't.

Does Linux work great as an alternative for some people? Sure. Would it work for most people? No, not at this point. It's getting there, but there's a serious lack of standardization that keeps killing its potential.

[donnyemu]

I don't care which OS you have, OSX recently had a huge security update (security holes in MacOS my oh my) that wreaked havoc on users machines who did the software update. Linux has had driver problems including unavailable drivers for sometime. The last time I installed linux and added an nVidia hardware accelerated 3d driver, when the driver compiled and installed it crashed the kernal and I had to reinstall with no ideas to why this was happening even though I supposedly was on the right release and the package manager had downloaded for me..

So please fanboys of Linux and Apple stop trying to claim that you are better. I own machines with both OSes installed and frankly you just aren't any better at all. This is something you'll have to deal with. Don't give up get some help, when you run into stuff like this. "Switching" just gets you a different set of problems..

As for Windows Vista, people with a sygmatel audio chip are complaining because their motherboard and chip doesn't work? Well if you think how many machines are out there with different motherboards and chips? If you actually look at the numbers, it would be amazing if Microsoft could test every single board and resource. It's really not their responsibility though they have safeguards in place.

So you bought from a company that used a cheap audio or model chip and the chip maker either went out or put it in the hands of the hardware seller to support. Frankly this isn't Microsoft's fault, it's the folks at Dell or HP or anywhere else to support specific features of their hardware models. I can hardly feel that Microsoft should be held responsible for a part of the OS they don't package. If the drivers come on a separate disc from the manufacturer of the hardware blame them, and remember the next time you buy hardware the problem you went through so you don't have it again.. Microsoft will do all they can and they do, but if the hardware maker goes up the river then what do you do? I have been stung by this in more than one Windows update cycle myself. I know Mac owners who had to throw out full systems because their computers weren't compatible with the OS X version of the OS..

How do I get around that, I make sure that I have a standard "supported" chipset in any machine I buy. It's simply not good enough to say I bought a "Lenovo, a Dell, or an HP"... Learn to read the hardware specs and ask questions. If they won't tell you who makes it don't buy it. I feel safe with ATI/AMD and Nvidia nforce chipsets. Hold the CPU maker responsible make them update you to something that is supportable and sustainable. A good thing to do is check the hardware specs with the list of drivers in Microsoft documentation. If all the main drivers come on the Vista installer from Microsoft then you are good.

Also don't expect your 4-5 year old machine to be completely compatible with the next version of "Windows".. It's called LEGACY hardware..

Microsoft has given driver manufacturers uprecedented early access to Vista and offered help with driver development. More than one company (third party) didn't even start their driver development before Vista shipped. Microsoft warned these folks, if they didn't start updating I'd consider it the 3rd party company's problem, like a certain big sound card maker that started sound with the PC industry.

It's best to be an educated user, back up your machine before you update anything, and be sure you have the right drivers and updates for your hardware.. It will make your life a whole lot easier.. Demand more from whoever you buy your hardware from as a consumer as well. Don't let them sell it as a "throw away" in a couple years type of sale. Above all keep your machine secure with anti-virus and malware protection.

For those looking to go back to XP? Why? you can in about 5 minutes turn off User Account Control, go back to the old look and feel (change your preference setttings) and you'll still have a much more secure OS and probably just as useable. There are several websites that are out there that will show you how to do this. In five years, I don't think you'll be looking back at this anyway. It's nice to see that XP is a great user experience that has so many people that like it though.

[rgreen4]

There are difficulties reverting back to XP in machines with the Intel 82801 controller chip. Here is a document that discusses it.

At the current time the formatting of previous documents and discussions on the community have gone haywire, so it may be a little hard to read.

The long and short of it is that the XP install discs will not recognize the SATA drives when set up in an ACHI/Raid configuration and the default on many laptops including the HP dv6x00, dv9x00 and dv2x00 series all are included, and you cannot disable it in the BIOS. The only way to install XP on these machines is to have a particular external floppy drive or go through the slipstream process to merge the drivers with the XP install process.

In short, don't waste money on the XP install disc unless you have a way to do one of these tasks first.

[rgreen4]

Very well said. I had not heard about Mac users not being able to upgrade. Hmm - and thats a case of the manufacturer of the machine and the supplier of the OS being the same entity.

[JEmlay]

Ugh, I grow tired of the OSX debate. Ignorant people telling others to
SWITCH to OSX. First off, you can't SWITCH to OSX. It requires a VERY
EXPENSIVE new hardware purchase. By doing as such you remove CHOICE in
hardware. OSX has to run on a few different pieces of hardware....THAT'S ALL
YOU GET! Of which you pay through the nose! So with that said, OSX better
work! It would be rather pathetic if it didn't.

Anywho, as for Vista, 90%+ of those that cry about it, put it on hardware it
doesn't belong on. At least, not yet and of course, if ever.

ASUS P5N32-E

Dual EVGA 8800GTX

That's the gist of my system or at least that's all that maters in the way of
drivers. With this system I've not had a single issue with Vista. Not even any
LONG file copy issues. It's a FACT that Vista works. It's a FACT that Vista
has bugs. All software has bugs. OSX has BUGS, Linux has BUGS and they ALL
have security issues.

[foolishfish]

"In short, don't waste money on the XP install disc unless you have a way to do one of these tasks first."

Mr Vista Fanboi, (rgreen4, or Steve Ballmer), Linux has supported booting from sata since '03 or '04, funny that XP sp2 disks that came out AFTER that still didn't support booting from sata.

as far as Vista goes, more drivers and programs don't work that should compaired to ANY other os.

to be completely honest, then only thing keeping a most businesses from dumping windows altogether is one program, Quickbooks.

If Intuit would get off of their collective asses and port a version to Linux, you'd see a mass migration from Windows in the SMB space.

[JEmlay]

"to be completely honest, then only thing keeping a most businesses from dumping windows altogether is one program, Quickbooks."

So....most businesses use QuickBooks? Sorry, but that's a joke in
itself.

[rgreen4]

First - you better re-read the post and the document reference. What the XP install disc does not support is the ACHI/Raid setting on the controller. Disable that and the stock XP disc installs and runs just great. The drivers for the ACHI/Raid aspect of the recent updates to the Intel 82801must be installed with XP, not afterward.
This applies to the 82801 HR/HH/HO and 82801 HEM/HBM controllers found on some HP desktops and laptops that came at one time with XP pre-loaded. These machines all came out in 2006. If the ACHI/Raid can be disabled in the BIOS, then XP loads just fine and runs as it should, with full function of the SATA drives in the machine. The problem with some manufactured machines is the limited BIOS options.
I have not tried Ubuntu 7.10 on my HP laptop with that controller, I did try it on my older zv5330, but could never get the wireless to work as there was no driver support for the wireless chip.
My posting was not meant as a complaint, just that as systems progress, it is not always easy to regress, and the generally available XP install discs are of the 2002/4 releases.
FWIW - if you install Vista with the ACHI/Raid disabled and then enable it, Vista will blue screen. The drivers are included in Vista, but Vista only loads the drivers called for by the hardware configuration. Since the ACHI/Raid is disabled, the drivers are not required and therefore not loaded to preserve disc space (lest the MS/Vista haters scream even louder). If in doubt, enable when loading Vista.