Currently playing: ES Posthumous – Unearthed: Ebla
So I’m finally fed up with Vista. A few of my major complaints:
- I have to confirm everything at least twice. Click a button, confirm. Click another button, confirm again. Sure this might be good from a security angle, but what’s the point on my home system? This crap should be disabled by default unless my computer is joined to a domain and a high security mode is enabled.
- This one is great. I don’t intentionally open it, but when Windows forces me to use Internet Explorer (read: Internet Exploder) I do for a short minute. The Windows Sidebar has some fairly interesting news once in a while, and instead of launching a default browser as configurable by the user, Windows Sidebar (AND Yahoo! Messenger, strangely enough) launches Internet Explorer. I guess Microsoft is afraid of people getting fed up with their shitty, non-standards-compliant browser. I HATE IE, but get this: when I go to close that pile of flaming shit, it crashes. So what does Vista do? It’s like the paperclip: it tries to ‘help you’. By this I mean it scrolls a pretty graphic animation for a couple seconds, then decides to ever so helpfully relaunch the application for you. WTF? I was trying to close it!! BLAH!
- Wanna do a simple release/renew on your network card? Not gonna happen. Repair has been replaced with “Diagnose”. I guess “Diagnose” really means “Test my patience”, because all it does is test a connection to Microsoft.Com, determine if an nslookup worked to check your DNS settings, then offer to restart the device. No shit, that’s what I wanted to do in the first place. Mind you, the aforementioned process takes about 45 seconds. Oh! You mean I can just go to the command prompt and type “ipconfig /release” and then “ipconfig /renew”?? Start button -> cmd -> enter. Cool, that still works quickly. So…”ipconfig /release”, then enter. C:UsersMatt>ipconfig /release – The requested operation requires elevation. WTF? Vista, you’ve screwed me again. So generally as a workaround I click “Disable” on my network adapter. This takes all of NINE clicks: 3 clicks to bring up the “Manage Network Connections” window, 3 more to select the adapter and disable it (UAC crap in action), then 3 more to enable it. Microsoft’s interface developers should be shot (or at least slapped).
- Anyone else remember the nice “Add/Remove software” icon in the Control Panel? Me too. Well Microsoft hasn’t. Apparently they’ve completely forgotten about it in my installed version of Vista. It’s definitely not in Control Panel->Administrative Tools (see below for what happened when I tried to confirm this). This for me, was the breaking point a few days ago. Why bother with this crap when I can just type “yum remove
“. - This just happened while trying to find “Add/Remove software”: I clicked “Administrative Tools” and for some reason I was taken to “My Documents”. Neat feature, Microsoft! Guess I didn’t really want to perform any administrative functions anyway, maybe I’ll just look at that video of the squirrel on water skis in My Docs instead. Brilliant!
- At least it looks pretty.
First step: find a freeware program that burns ISO files … done.
Google “iso file burn freeware”. First result was snapfiles, which had CDBurnerXP (lame name) at the top. Looks fairly lightweight (2MB download) and has 4 stars after 41 reviews. Not bad. (Somewhat) Direct download from here.
Painless install, pretty icon. Doesn’t list Vista as compatible, but I’m about to find that out … seems to work so far. The initial screen instantly made me think it was a bit cluttered, but lucky for me, I already had an Explorer window open with the ISO I wanted. Click and drag the ISO file into the CDBurnerXP window, and all that nasty clutter went away and the Burn DVD prompt came up. Looks good … selected Disc-at-once and away it goes! 20 minutes later, it’s done. Easy.
So I’ve spent a bit of time listing all the things I hate about Vista. Now it’s time to install Fedora Core 8 from the DVD I just burned (downloaded with BitTorrent from the Fedora Project’s official site).
As a last goodbye to Vista, I’ll gather some stats on boot time and compare that to my new install of Fedora Core 8 to compare. Later, of course … it’s 9PM on a Friday night, can’t be too much of a dork.
alison
Ok, I didn’t understand half of that (didn’t really try though) but I just wanted to say that I hate Vista too! Sooo….stupid!! And I can’t believe they moved the add/remove thing too. Arghh. I want to throw my laptop sometimes!!!!
Russoue
Did you overwrite Vista or go for a dual boot?
matt
Actually I just overwrote completely. I had World of Warcraft running for a bit but can’t seem to get it and Compiz for desktop effects running at the same time. Crossover Office was a bit disappointing …
Alayna
I just purchased a computer Dell Inspiron 531 with Fedora OS on it and I have no idea how to use the computer. I don’t even have a password to get into Fedora,..it loads and then asks for password….Duhhhhhh
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Simplyperfect
I am fairly new to the world of PC’s on the internet. I have spent most of a year just trying to get my Dell Inspiron 531 to just run. DVD – failed. Graphics – failed. The Mother Board has been replaced (they tried to get me to replace it myself – OMG)and still i cannot watch video on the net. Dell tech support has sent me in endless circles thru their Chat tech support trying to avoid making warranty covered repairs. They have admitted that the Dell inspiron 531 does not come with enough ram to do more than run vista. I am fed up! Iam angry! When this PC fail.. AND IT WILL..I will never never be enslaved to another Dell product!!!!
matt
Good luck … I’m guessing that Dell, along with the other big computer manufacturers, often get their parts from the lowest bidder. This can lead to the problems you’ve experienced: failing hardware, underpowered systems, etc.
Unfortunately to those not as geeky as myself, building a computer isn’t really an option. I’ve been building my own for about 8 years now and I’ve had systems that ran for 5 years at a time without any major issues (outside of those I caused myself by pushing them too hard).
In writing this I realized that I didn’t really have any useful advice for you. lol
Dell support has generally been good to me, though, in my dealings with their higher end servers. As long as the companies’ I’ve worked for had the appropriate service plan, parts have come quickly and without much incident. The worst part is explaining to the service tech that I know what I’m talking about and have already tried the first things on their default steps (i.e. is it plugged into the wall and such questions).
Best of luck … feel free to post questions if you have any. I’m always happy to help.