[PCWorld]

Post your comments for 10 Fixes for Vista's Worst Features here

[BAMT]

"Don't give up hope"
If the OS itself needs fixes to work out of the box, you should lose hope.

[backpack]

I agree with BAMT:

If Vista needs major fixes right out of the box then; Vista is not really all that is cracked up to be. Again another fine example of MS pushing out crappy OSes without really putting effort to develop a true working OS with minimual flaws out of the box.

[piyushsingh]

backpack said:

I agree with BAMT:

If Vista needs major fixes right out of the box then; Vista is not really all that is cracked up to be. Again another fine example of MS pushing out crappy OSes without really putting effort to develop a true working OS with minimual flaws out of the box.

The article compares some of the new features in vista with other 3rd party utilities. Most of these are not even present in xp. What i was not able to understand why these have been named as the worst features ???

[Northlite]

>>If the OS itself needs fixes to work out of the box, you should lose hope.<<
Think of these features mentioned as tweaks rather then fixes or flaws. All the Vista machines I have set up since it came out worked right out of the box. It's more part of having Windows your way that these suggestions are for. I personally didn't find any of them helpful for me but that maybe because I have other ways of doing them or don't need those features at all.
>>Again another fine example of MS pushing out crappy OSes without really putting effort to develop a true working OS with minimal flaws out of the box.<<
I don't find that this OS version was put out with out effort, there are a lot of features in Vista that I find new or improved over XP.
It does seem that more people who don't use Vista complain about it then the people who actually are using it daily with out any problems.
In the end though it is more important for anyone to use the operating system that works for them. For me I was ready for a change of computer to dual cores and a new operating system as 7 years with XP was long enough for me.

[dennis105]

hello all. sorry but i only have one answer for the comment about it not working vista out of the box ..hit then were it hurts and send it back were it came from .. go back to xp.. prity safe nowadays.

al best denn.:0

[jmjohnson]

UAC - should have mentioned 'Elevate without Prompting' for Admin accounts.

Backup - not ALL image backups only do full image restores. Look at Acronis True Image Home. Sometimes you NEED a full image restore. But if all you need is a file or 20, mount the image as a drive and copy just the files you need. Image and file backup/restore in one package. Oh yeah, you can skip files or folders to backup based on selection masks too. I store complete DVDs on my notebook hard drive for convenience. The DVDs are on the shelf, so I never back them up.

[SandMan]

One of PC World's fix's for the firewall is to; "Click Start and type firewall". Just WHERE would you like me to type 'firewall'? In 'Run" ... NOT! In 'Search' .... NOT! I ain't a dummy, but I don't 'read between the lines' either. Next time, please include a crystal ball.

[DAVIDSADE]

I AM SORRY TO TELL YOU THAT YOUR SUGGESTION TO EMPLOY COMODO FIREWALL IS A VERY BAD ONE.

1. IT CONSTANTLY DISRUPTS NORMAL WORK BY ENDLESSLY PROMPTING FOR USER APPROVALS. THIS IS NOT THE WAY IT SUPPOSE TO WORK (ZoneAlarm does it much better, alas not for Vista). + IT REMOVED (TURNED OFF) MY FLASH PLAYER,M WITHOUT WHICH THE INTERNET IS PARACTICALLY DEAD...



2. COMODO FIREWALL AFTER UNISTALLING IT DIDN'T TURN BACK FLASH PLAYER AND IT TOKK A SOLID WEEK'S WORK TO FIND THE REMEDY. IT WOULD HAVE BEEN "ELEGANT" FROM PC WORLD TO WARN USERS ABOUT THIS NEAGATIVE FEATURE.

[TimothyJMcGowan]

@SandMan:

The instructions are correct. In Windows Vista (but not in XP or earlier), you can simply click the Start orb (or press Ctrl+Esc) and start typing part of the name of the shortcut you're looking for. You can also simply click the Start orb and type the name of the executable you want to run, such as MSConfig.exe. No need to go from Start to Run or Start to Search. Just Start and start typing. Try it, and you'll see how very handy a feature it is.

-- Tim McGowan

[SandMan]

Your (AND PC World's) suggestion does NOT work. Let me repat / say again, does NOT work!. 'Click' that Start 'orb' , and on the very FIRST letter I type (f) the 'search' highlights, I can type a MILLION letters and still the search highlights. I run Vista Ultimate / 32 bit/ with ALL the latest updates. Try it, you'll see it DOESN'T work! Now, give me an alternative ...IF you can.

[TimothyJMcGowan]

@Sandman:

What Windows features have you disabled? Searching the Start menu requires that you leave Windows Indexing Service enabled, for fairly obvious reasons.

When you do have Windows Indexing enabled, you can use this search feature in Control Panel, Windows Explorer, and other areas as well. I cursed the multiple layers in Control Panel until I learned to just start typing the name of the feature I was interested in. When you do that, Control Panel shows you items keyed to the words you type.

For instance, I work heavily from the keyboard and shun the mouse. Ctrl+Esc clicks the Start orb, control plus Enter starts Control Panel, and key brings up plenty of items that are not grouped as I'd have grouped them, but they're plainly visible now. Typing task shows you items related to Task Manager and the Taskbar and Start Menu; type task man or taskbar to narrow down what you're looking for.

And contrary to what I've heard often repeated but never actually demonstrated, Windows Indexing doesn't slow down the system appreciably in my case, at least. And I'm running Vista Home Premium SP1 on a $450 (U.S.) laptop. There is a hit while it indexes your system for the first time, but after that, the index is updated only when saving files. I couldn't tell the difference in speed when Search was enabled versus when it was disabled, so I've left it on.

[Northlite]

>>Your (AND PC World's)
suggestion does NOT work. Let me repat / say again, does NOT work!.
'Click' that Start 'orb' , and on the very FIRST letter I type (f) the
'search' highlights, I can type a MILLION letters and still the search
highlights. I run Vista Ultimate / 32 bit/ with ALL the latest updates.
Try it, you'll see it DOESN'T work! Now, give me an alternative ...IF
you can.<<

I must be missing something here but this is how it works for me - I click on the "Start Orb" - there is a box that comes up right above this orb that has the curser flashing in and dimmed out it says Start Search and has a magnifing glass the the other side of the box - there is where I typed in F - for me it then immediatly lists all the programs that start with F in a list then under that it lists all the the Favorites and History that begins with F. Unless you have some how disabled Search from the Start Menu I am not sure why you are not seeing it this way? Of course I am only running the lowly Vista Home Premium with no updates and that may also have something to do with it.

[BAMT]

dennis105 said:

hello all. sorry but i only have one answer for the comment about it not working vista out of the box ..hit then were it hurts and send it back were it came from .. go back to xp.. prity safe nowadays.


al best denn.:0

That's exactly what I did. I ordered a copy of XP which I should get this Wednesday.

[GOED]

Your statemnt regarding Vista's Firewall.

Please be more constructive and detal, by stating to turn off (block) outgoing communications on all 3 profiles in the advance Firewall Settings.

You are basically breaking the user's pc since all communications are block.

You did not bother to explain how to allowed a progrram to the firewall for those users who do not know.

In addition you did not warn people that if something has been changed in the Services of the OS, either by people experimenting with settings in reading stories about turning off services that only take up resources.

That the firewall may not pop-up a message indicating
Application such and such want's to access the internet, Do you want allow or deny.

Under this kind of conditions, users will be in dark and your advise becomes useless.

Your comment about Vista Screen Shots not being able to capture DROP DOWN MENUS.

I did, just click Alt-Prnt Scrn.

Or again were you trying to communicate something other then the poor explanation you gave regarding this option.

I rather you break down your storties and explain everything better, then to read 5 pages of poor given advise.

Thanks,
Geo

[mmm111]

The Vista Search feature is definitely one of it's 5 worst features. If you are looking for something not indexed by Vista, it can take anywhere from 20 minutes to several hours to complete the search.

Like many of Vista's features, the concept has merit but MS either did not have the brain power, the pride or the determination to make it work.

It just blows me away how a company like MS could put out such a poor product and then whine about why people aren't buying more.

[rgreen4]

Most of my data is on an NAS, and thus not indexed. Searching for a file on that drive has never taken even 5 minutes, much less 20. And the 100 Mb/s ethernet connection is no where as fast as the internal connection. You may have other problems with the system.

Are you by chance running one of the notorious security suites that are notorious for slowing down all systems?

[LindaA]

You geeks tend to refer to Vista's "features." I call them Vista's gimmicks myself.

Look, whenever I see that PC-Mac TV commercial in which the guy representing PC talks about his soothing herbal teas to alleviate Vista-related tension, I get to thinking -- You don't need herbal teas, just switch back to XP!

[oregonnerd]

"Fixes out of the box..." like Win 95 and 98 [ME a botched abortion] and the drivers for XP and Vista at first? I don't much sympathize with MShaft (the new enlargement tool), but a heads-up to manufacturers as far as driver requirements...is an advertisement to the same pleasing folks who bring us exploitware.
--Glenn

[oregonnerd]

Yeah. You've got it. Disable most of the fancy features in Vista and it runs pretty well. Free Explorer rather than Windows Explorer (which has steadily progressed downhill since 3.11)--and has a drive sync function--Cobian (free backup prog)...pull Process Explorer from Sysinternals as you pull their "really cool" features and watch CPU usage go down. Defragsetup 10 is also amazing in speed and accuracy (I used PowerDesk before Vista).

Mind you, countless studies have shown that we feeb humans oddly enough feel more comfortable with something familiar that works. I wonder what's wrong with us.
--Glenn
(I really was a psych major, not psycho)
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