Vista: 150 problems, 0 solutions

tino:

Most of the problems I have with Vista are small issues with other software on it. QuickTime, Safari or Firefox. Microsoft can't deliver a solution to these problems. I see this feature as a platform other developers can use to deliver solutions. And if they wouldn't, don't blame Microsoft.

Ahmad:

You guys are idiotic lamers!!!! You cant blame all errors of Microsoft, it must be problem with 3rd party drivers & softwares, Microsoft submits these reports to them and its their fuc***g duty to rectify!!!! This is the only OS which has such an feature built in to aggregate errors and automate suggestions,fixes delivery.. GOD Damn the idiotic *nix OSes

lynch:

who kept fighting with the fax machine?

SimonW:

If comments on this site are moderated, how on Earth does one like this get post the moderators?

Jasp3r:

dude you must be the idiot. If the program doesnt work on windows then it is windows problem. the only ones that dont work are mac software. all third party software should work. that is what microsoft was trying to do with their closed source OS. that is their problem. Listen to me im an IT guy. i atleast know what im talking about. idiot. :P

Angus Kidman:

Tino's comment is fair enough up to a point -- but in this particular instance, there are problems with Outlook, Internet Explorer, Windows Explorer, networking and several other Windows components. In other words, there's plenty going wrong that is Microsoft's responsibility to fix, not anybody else's. 

PCs sport much more divergent hardware than Macs (which is why I'm not going to bite at Danny's comments), but it does seem to me remarkable that there isn't a single solution in hand to any of these issues, especially since the machine in question came with Vista pre-installed and thus didn't have migration issues as such.

Danny Gorog:

If there isn't a better example of why Vista (and Microsoft) sucks eggs.... Seriously, do you think the actual programmers even bothered testing this feature? If they did then how did it make it past the beta stage. 

This is the perfect example of how sloppy MS are with their products. I just feel sorry for everyone out there who thinks this is the 'Norm'.

Very sad. Poor Microsoft. 

SimonW:

>do you think the actual programmers even bothered testing
>this feature? If they did then how did it make it past the beta stage?

Forgive me, but that seems a rather silly comment. If none of the problems are ones MS has solutions to (Yet?), then they aren't; that's not the same as there being a bug in the solution reporting software.

Back to TFA; if I was the original author, I'd back up my data any maybe run something like SpinRite as soon as possible; an operating system reporting 150 HD reading sanity check failures and crashing at random are not good signs for the health of your hardware.

tin:

It's not hard disk errors. It's errors in software that Vista has detected. Like any time a program crashes. Vista saves reporting them all for later.
That HDD suggestion was the MS failsafe suggestion. MS always blame errors on hardware.

And no sane person should use tools from Steve Gibson. It's like trusting a dog to guard your steaks for the day... Completely useless.

SimonW:

>It's not hard disk errors. It's errors in software that Vista
>has detected. Like any time a program crashes. Vista
>saves reporting them all for later.

Um, no. Yes, Vista does do that; but were program crashes the problem in TFA's case? No. Read the fourth screenshot; the list of problems. The only one listed is the hard drive errors. Any errors from proggram crashes would be in that list. There aren't any. Only the hard drive.

>That HDD suggestion was the MS failsafe suggestion.

...Um, no, it isn't. You appear to be making this up as you go along. There is no "failsafe" suggestion; the hard drive error would be the result of a (or 150) failed hard disk write-read sanity check.

dutch:

150 annoying fan boys. get a life, and go back to the school yard with your bickering...

cripes:

Was this comment written by a teenager in an online forum flame war, or by an APC journalist? I can't tell.

dogged by windows vista:

my 533mhz 98 se laptop works better than 4 hours of trying to download a program that suppose to run off bundled cd software on an Acer laptop with vista LOL.
every time i ask Acer to put windows xp pro on the acer LAPTOP INSTEAD they still tell me it won't work and will void the waranty!
SO IN OTHER WORDS YOU CAN BUY THE NEW CAR BUT IT WON'T TAKE ANY PETROL BECAUSE WE HAVENT PROVIDED THE PETROL TANK AS WE HAVENT SIGNED ANYTHING WITH THE PETROL COMPANIES YET!
WHAT A JOKE MICROSOFT.
XP,98SE IS FINE BUT SORRY!

xetal:

I think real problems is usually just in user hands, that can't done even simple tasks. Or maybe it's a really old hardware, or non-compatible software.

tin:

Sadly, all reports seem to suggest that this is fairly normal for Vista. And even MS have shut up about how good it is. Anyone else get the feeling their are just hoping to pick up sales when XP dries up?

AnonKeithmous:

>GOD Damn the idiotic *nix OSes

Amen to that, bro', my f*cking *nix OS gives me nothing at all to sneeze at - not one friggin' issue. Can you say, "booring"? The latest updates even run some legacy 1986 software better than ever. Yeah, some apps will just self-quit once in a while; I don't bother reporting those, just click [ReOpen] and continue unfazed. Even software updates are non-events. I just choose some and click a button...boom, I'm back at work. After a week without reading any complaints, I click the rest of them.

Eric Meek:

Your apps suddenly quit and you continue unfazed. It is crazy that you except this from MS. You have no idea what quality is if this is the norm. Yo are forced to indure sudden quits and you think vista is good and never gives you problems? you are an example of how MS customes have come to expect things to go wrong. You just accept this. you doint think there is a reason for this quiting? something wrong with vista? crazy.just crazy.

Jesse Burroughs:

Wow... reading a post before replying can really be beneficial. Also maybe a refresher on sarcasm.

sbundy:

I agree with some of the comments but vista all and all has been fun because I actually work on it 4 to 6 hours a day. Just imagine only 150 problems out of potentially thousands if one can consider that there is no way MS could have tested Vista with every configuration of software and hardware available. And the ones that count most will be resolved through MS or the 3rd party manufacturer in time. It will take time but the fun is figuring out how to do what you need to do with what your resources will allow. You may have to give up something old for an equivalent something new. I only have firefox, quicktime and AOL (free) coming up and they all seem to work fine. No hardware issues at all and I'm knocked out loaded. Let's keep looking toward the leaders!

conquest:

MS seem to have lost the plot. Ease of use is what MS stood for, however Vista is a pain in the ass !
Call after call and problem after problem. When are MS going to learn keep it simple stupid !99% of P.C users dont want all the fancy crap. Why fix if the XP aint broken ?

Andre:

Seriously, that was the most ridicolous article I read flaming Vista. There´s a stupid anti-Vista front in internet. Well, my experience with Vista has been great (I´m using it since RCs) and don´t use crap software like Quicktime (I prefer to use codecs packs)... I´m sorry about YOUR problem, but it seems so idiot to me write about it just to blame Vista in a fashion way those days. Sad.

Johannes Rexx:

Hey Andre,

Your logic is that since your copy of Vista works for you and this writer has problem X, then it must be because of third party software. Just like that with no evidence!

It's like saying ... "well my light bulb works so yours should be working too. Since it's not let's blame the light socket vendor"

The writer reported a factual encounter with Vista and you attack the writer, putting him into a made-up category called Vista haters, and condemn him accordingly.

That's illogical, Andre. No wonder you still use MS products, you don't know better.

- Johannes Rexx

Mark M:

Heres my experience with Vista. I haven't had a problem. That doesnt mean it doesnt cause problems for other people. I have been in IT long enough(20+ years) to know that is true for all OSes.
I still use Microsoft products because they do they job i want to do. If was editing video or audio I would probably get a Mac because I wanted to use Final Cut or Pro Tools.
Most people just use tools that get the job done for them the OS is not an issue they leave the pointless arguments to the fanbois that "support" one OS or another.

R2D2:

acer laptop pacs that come with vista pre installed are beeing returned to the tecs the first day out of the box and acer blame the integrity of the vista program i know because i returned the one my company had and the other two laptops because its no use if it dont work.
Bill Gates what have you done with all that reserch the money and your consumers time? (wasted the lot)

Mr Chas:

Gosh, you guys waste a lot of time on the obvious. Yeah, Vista has its problems. Some so blantant that is makes you wonder. But if you look at this from a relative view point, which most bloggers/flamers/pumpers do not, what choices do we have? Apple? Afraid not. They are expensive ad their OS has crappy problems too. For example, try developing enterprise class software on an Apple, sans virtualization, and try running your business on it. That would be laughable. So, now we have the Linux variants (not Apple). Show me one distro that really cuts the mustard and I may actually switch from using Windows. Try running MS Office on those distros, again sans virtualization. Try running your business networks with a distro as your desktop solution. Again, laughable.

Maybe the folks we should be blaming are the so called competition and open source weenies. Maybe if they could get their heads together and decide on a "real" standard then they could make actual headway to providing a true Windows alternative. Take Ubuntu for instance, some real headway has been made here but it is still not even close to teh 3rd party driver support delivered in Windows.

While I hear and feel your frustration, maybe your talents for BS should be put to work on Apple and the Linux distributors.

chromewarrior:

Mr. Chase
Again you are attacking Linux remember Microsoft is a big business because its founder grouped a lot of people together to produce for profit MS for the DESKTOP!


Unix was a stable opposite os and mainly for SERVERS!

Linux was mainly the next step from Unix and again mainly for Servers!

Then both Microsoft / Mac / Linux borrowed / pinched idears off of each other.
Linux was a profit via the Server Industry.

Microsoft was goin to sue Linux for Paten infringement along with another.When Microsoft went to enter the Server Market the other business then dumped Microsoft and went with Linux because they could not compete with a $ billion or more company.

Then Linux sort of with VOLENTEERS to programe the various Linux os you see to day.Remember they were volenteers not multi mega companies because they wanted something they needed not bloated with or with out.

Hardware manufacturers went for Microsoft because they were mainly at the time Desktop only!
Linux was Servers only!
Now both challange us all so give up flame wars give up blaming look , read , discuss. and come to some mature understanding of what choices we have.
Oh as of this week America and others are looking at some NEW infringement of civil liberties into controlling and really tracing like a sci-fiction move all internet connections after the Englands car bombs via telephoning via Australia to set them off via evedence on their pc of what ever os was or is still on there.

You may not be able to promote free idears or insults for very much longer.

Cheers have a nice day all.

Roger:

So... you have a abnormally high number of errors - no solutions - and an indication that there is something wrong with your hard drive. Perhaps *that's* the cause? Failing hardware? Would that not explain it?

Johnny:

I´ve been using Vista since beta 2 and nothing compared to your experienced happened to me. I had a few minor problems and most of the times Problem Reports and solutions had an answer.
I happened to notice some IBM (now Lenovo) icons on your taskbar. Is it possible that those problems you mention are related with poorly built Lenovo software, this was usually the case when I used IBM or Lenovo notebooks filled with bloatware.
Regards

Robert Boyce:

I must say it is good to see someone else that is experiencing this. I have had my new system running now for about 6 weeks and it has accoumlated 89 problem reports that are being sent to Microsoft with the same reply -- "This problem is being researched"...

tom b:

"Well, my experience with Vista has been great (I´m using it since RCs) and don´t use crap software like Quicktime."

How to reduce your credibility to zero in one sentence.

Tom:

quote: "and don´t use crap software like Quicktime (I prefer to use codecs packs)... "

You know, you have become so blind and stupid you only believe in your fantasy world you live in! Quicktime is no crap. Win media player is crap for sure, using closed formats, bad encoding.... AND YES, VISTA IS CRAP. My brother bought a VISTA READY computer and he also has alot of bugs and crashes, hell even his sound wont play without a glitch. Is that the fault of the manufacturer or third party? Not at all! MS provides an OS that has been build for the last 6 years and even then, all they do is copy mac os x! If the foundation is crap, the rest wont work. I never saw such a lame OS in my life. In cae you think i am a mac fanatic..i worked with Win 98, 2000, XP and now Vista and have a mac with OS X. Guess what... keep on dreaming. You live in a small world where you think that you have the best. But the real deal is that you are afraid of using a decent OS, afraid that you may find out that OS X is far better, hell even Unix. Grow up!!!

Anonymous101:

Have you noticed people complaining about others using their one experience about Vista working fine while they do the exact same? Yes, Vista has issues. Like everything else. And it's not entirely Microsoft's fault. Companies could release vista-compatable drivers and patches for programs so that they run. Vista also works well for other things. No OS is perfect otherwise companies like Microsoft and Apple wouldn't use their time and money to make new ones. People advocating macs? Well, they have low compatability with hardware AND software and it has never been ameilorated. Then again, better safety. But that's because they don't use many programs. Macs are good for making movies and stuff like that but are horrible for running programs which in turn makes it impossible to make programs that are easy to share. Windows is good for software support and hardware support, though Vista is having trouble since people aren't releasing updates. However they aren't so good for creating movies and the like. I don't know much about Linux, but I'm sure it has it's ups and downs. To each it's own.

Johannes Rexx:

So Vista is sending MS a TON of information about your computer. The privacy imnplications are staggering! Why do people call this such a great feature? It's a freaking bandaid designed to cover up the sore that is poor systems engineering.

SimonW:

>So Vista is sending MS a TON of information about your
>computer. The privacy imnplications are staggering!

Don't be silly. If you don't want to send information to Microsoft, just don't press "Send information.

Duh.

Yeah right:

And you think not clicking that, prevents Windoze from sending your precious data? Then you really shouldn't insert a packetanalyser between your PC and the internet.

sandra_madness:

You would think that every IT problem that people has was MS fault. WAKE UP!! Microsoft does not make the 3rd Party Hardware or drivers to run them, and it does not make the 3rd party software either. Yet most of these "problems" are just that, 3rd party. It is not MS fault that some vendors cant provide the solutions. For example I recently bought a new HP laser for a client, to my suprise it was not supported by Vista, yet my older HP model (12mnths) was. On the other hand, I then ordered a new Canon laser or the client, it was supported with Vista drivers, yet my old model (3yrs) at home was not. Now in July they have a driver for my old Canon and the new HP. Both the non supported printers threw up the "problem" dialogue. In no way can anyone say this is MS fault. Manufacturers received the code a long time ago, many vendors had a full range of supporting software well before V-Day. AS from the above example it simply comes down to a vendor, in this case Canon and HP, chooses to support the end user. In this case Canon decided to allocate resources to new products while HP to older models. This is a thord party business decision and IS NOT MICROSOFTS FAULT period. Stop blaming MS for the problems and start expecting more from vendors. Shop around and deal with vendors that provide good support, stop blaming MS for everything.
MInd you, Bill Gates could do a lot for world hunger from his Bonus Saver account.

33 :

PS3 & the red ring of death, falty parts provided by d
odgy companies employed by sony owned by bills mates that can spend money on trips to outer space!HEY let me put it this way!
while your all having fun with brand new OS problems MS got you by the nuts spending more time and energy on their lack of interlectual & financial competition on the world market for OS advancement win or loose MS gain!
bottom line folks need more kids with brains to see beyond MS technologies and see through the coruption of complacency while worshiping the yanky dollar! mentallity like oxygen to lung cancered share holders that smoked all their lives!

Anonymous101:

Just a heads up, do your reasearch first. PS3 is owned by Sony and the red ring of death is from the Xbox 360.

tin:

Quick note to those suggesting it's not MS's fault that Windows is flakey....

Linux runs rock solid on the same hardware 99.9% of the time. Usually using drivers written by reverse engineering or guesswork. If these (usually) unpaid programmers can get this happening, why can't cash-filled MS do a bit of work on fixing flakey drivers too?

Martin:

Like deliberately inbuilt obsolescence, immature software = guaranteed future revenue stream to fix. Until M$ loses it's 90+% world-wide OS stranglehold and relearns humility, this will remain the accepted norm.

ScottC:

I've had Vista since early March and it hasn't been faultless. I've had problems with 2 older games (I'm not a huge gamer), and iTunes, not the earlier non-Vista versions, but a supposedly Vista compatible version. All three problems I've been able to fix, either through compatibility mode, by replacing a DLL, and, in iTunes case, by installing an updated version. I think there are two types of Vista problems, the problems had by people who use Linux and OSX and denigrate Windows to make themselves feel better (I use OSX and feel no need to knock Windows, OSX is better at some things, Windows at others, horse for courses), and those problems by people not technically proficient enough to fix them, which are partly, bt only partly, Microsoft's fault. Oh, and it strikes me as somewhat hypocritical to criticise Microsoft for using legacy code and then knocking them because old programs then don't work. And yes, Microsoft make plenty of crap software, I'm no Microsoft fanboy, IE7 sucks, but then again, office 2007 is so very good, and I have to use Office a lot, that it was worth every bit of $75 I had to pay for it and I would have paid a lot more if I had to. Nothing else gets close.

Lenni Kravix:

Are you all drunk when you compose these posts? Is English your second language? Or is it maybe just that you're American and don't know how to compose a literate response to a rhetorical argument.

The gentleman in question writing this story has obviously gone through a traumatic experience. As with all 'victims' he looks to place blame on everyone and everything around him. He purchased a vista PC and then complains. I imagine that he would blame McDonalds for force feeding him those big macs and clogging his arteries as well.

Ironically, he's not even an early adopter. With the publication date of his article he had plenty of time to form his opinion of Vista prior to purchasing his PC. Obviously, this is someone who hated M$ to begin with. Or maybe, he purchased his computer from dell... Enough said.

OO_dude:

Obviously Vista has it problems, aside from all the usual 'mystical' MS issues it is a horrible resource hog. I have it from the mouth of a pretty good source (Grady Booch) that MS has lost it way in how it rewards it engineers, They are rewarded for adding 'features' to the OS and not for creating a stable environment.

As for your comments about Americans, it is fashionable to bash us these days. Bad enough we are trapped in a horrible political atmosphere (those of us that have a bit of common sense and intelligence see this) we have to endure the ignorant quips of such 'enlightened' folks from foreign countries. Just keep in mind that UNIX was created by two American engineers at Bell Labs along with the C programming language. All MAC OS, again American products. LINUX is pretty much open source UNIX designed to run on multiple hardware platforms. So love it or hate it your OS comes from the mind of an American engineer...

suc:

Are you blind? Lookt this screenshot
http://apcmag.com/system/files/images/05.preview.jpg
Vista found 2 "New" solutions.

PaulM:

Can you please tell me why there is so much anger in here? Would you get so emotional when discussing differences between two hammers produced by different manufacturers? Vista is a TOOL. Some people like it, some don't. You choose what you prefer. There is NO BETTER system. There is BETTER SYSTEM FOR YOU. Chris prefers OS X, Mike likes Vista and John likes XP. Everybody is happy. I like XP, I am thinking about Vista but I am also considering OS X.

I am just doing research on the net to find out, which TOOL will work for me. That is all. More constructive discussions help all of us. Lets go back to the topic from the article and share your experience on Vista but be constructive. Talk about facts not emotions! Be professional.

Angus Kidman:

You'll see these two lines:

Solutions to install

_No_ solutions found.

The two items flagged with "New" are rather clearly under the heading "Information about other problems" -- that is, Vista is _not_ saying these are solutions to the problems it has catalogued, just general advice. 'This problem is being researched' is just a generic reply, as is the hard disk message (and the latter has, as the article notes, some compositional problems).

AnonymousVista:

The screen shot is two problems - not solutions.

Anonymous213123:

This article is a great example of "offer something new, try to please some people, and they will just want more and complain anyway".

I guess Microsoft could've just left out the feature & simply replaced it with a pop-up dialogue box advising you to ring tech support at $5/min.

Badger:

Why is it ok that stuff that works on my desktop running XP doesn't work/locks up/uses all cpu resources on my laptop running Vista?

Oh, and why is it a good thing that office 2007 (particularly Word and Excel) is not backward compatible?

These are not well engineered products because they can't do what their predecessors did, obviously and intuitively.

I feel like I've traded in my Toyota for a Dodge.

Desktop General:

I only had 62 lol. Many of those were Adobe Acrobat 8.1 which refused to launch period. A few others like Diablo and Diablo II aren't Vista supported so...

But my Canon Laser Printer I sorted out myself but was still be reported as an issue.

Note you can "clear" the list of problems (individually or CTRL+A to select the lot) to stop it getting huge and to remove issues you might already have solved yourself.

Daemon:

A problem cannot be addressed that easily and immediately. Microsoft won't just write tons of advices for a single problem not unless its sure that it's the right solution.

I can say eventually this feature of Windows Vista will be more helpful given an ample amount of time. The problems you've reported are accumulated and will undergo extensive analysis hopefully for future and present references. It will learn to find the most optimal solution if you just give MS a try by sending all of those reports on time and painlessly.

cheers!

Vista sucks:

The bottom line is that this OS has been in development for years and as rich and powerful as MS is this should be very very shameful to them to have sold the public a bunch of snake oil. I hope they enjoy their wealth for in the future I am sure people have learned a very valuable lesson and will not be so easily fooled by MS in the future. I wonder how long a car manufacturer would stay in business by selling cars to the public with out warranty and right after they purchased them they found out the car had many mechanical problems that they would have to have fixed before they could drive it. HUM something to think about in the future of OS but what the hell when you are worth billions who gives a shit?

Worren_P:

i purchased a pc and its got Vista as its OS and nothin pisses me off than that. At first i thought vista was it and couldnt wait to get a pc that has it but guess what i got that pc and now im pissed. I got so many problems with vista. Messanger wont work, all the permissions that vista ask, programs closin for no reason at all and what pisses me off the most is that vista runs real slow i cant have three things runnin at the same time. I regret get a pc with vista XP would have been a better buy

goingbloodycrazy:

It's Windows Millenium Edition all over again but worse. As a IT tech ME cost my countless hours.. Vistsa has cost me even more. It does my head in.

sgtBu Tane:

http://www.binaryaspects.com/2007/12/08/7-easy-steps-to-become-a-mac-fanboy/

Switch to a good OS and you wont have those issues.

rainbow bright:

hiya.. im not really up on pcs.. and from reading the forum everyone here seems to know so much ... a friend of mine has vista theres a box coming up explorer error when she tries to go online and her dvds wont work properly .. she wants to go back to xp .. has this ever happened to anyone and can u go back to xp ?? thanks all the best hope you get your probs fixed soon x

lots of problems:

my personal experience with vista has been awful. im not sure if it was all vista or if it had anything to do with the dell computer. all i know is my computer had many issues. i had bought a new dell computer with vista for college and 2 days after receiving my computer it completely crashed for no reason. i sent it back to dell and they sent me a new one right away. the second computer worked much better for a while, but soon had problems too. my c drive filled up so fast even when i wasnt downloading music or anything else to my computer. i had about 10 pictures on my computer and it was still completely full. i tried deleting the pictures temporarily just so i could print something from word and found that it had made hidden files and i couldnt delete them and they couldnt be found. it was slow and had no space on it and i could never figure out why. anytime it had problems vista wouldnt fix them either. my computer was slow and would have problems shutting down. it would take hours just shutting down. my photoshop stopped working, my internet wouldnt work half the time. it said my dell wireless card wasnt working yet my wireless worked fine, i just couldnt get rid of the box that kept coming up. i had so many problems that im not sure whether it was vista, the dell computer, or a combination of both. but either way i got fed up with them. i am getting a new computer (anything but dell), and getting the older xp version on it.

daniel white:

Iv just install a program and then it shut down and now iv got so mean problems but iv sorted most iv them. but just my wireless network not workin now. thxs daniel

moni_now:

Shame on us for not investigating... but if my husband and I had only known all the things we now know about Vista, we never would have bought it! My Christmas present was a brand new system with Vista. What a waste of time and energy!

I'm not computer savy and I don't want to so be. I would just like to be able to sit down at my computer and access sites that run properly without getting error messages or that lock up for no good reason. I can't go into great detail because quite frankly I can't. However, I will say in comparison, XP was never this lame. No one knows the frustration that I now experience because I can't get on to sites that were once easy to access or the grief of those "error" messages that make no sense.

Thankfully my husband can venture into these areas, but he too has been caught off guard with some of the quirks of Vista. Thank goodness for those who have found and posted round-about ways to make it work. But, what a lie they told when they said "It's the best!" How is something the best when it doesn't work more than half of the time. I feel like we just bought a new car that was supposed to operate and then had to figure out how to put the engine together ourselves to make it work! Now what nonsense is that?!

Again, all I wanted was a system that works when I sit down to access it. I can't even get the videos from CNN to come up in a reasonable time to view the current news... THIS IS REALLY FRUSTRATING! or I'll go to an article and it never appears. I was used to click, take a breath and there it is! At least my husband still has XP on his computer and when I can't take it anymore I go use his set up.

My good advice is "Unless you like puzzles, don't even think about getting Vista! It is not worth the trouble!"

Comanchee:

I have patiently waited and put up with vista for a year now, and 69 updates later and it still sucks. Dell forced this miserable OS down my throat when I purchased my E521 a year ago. I had hoped and prayed that someone would fix the problems. That someone being microsoft. I waited for nothing.

I contacted microsoft, and they told me if the OS came with a computer purchase, it wasn't their problem! Excuse me? If it's not the software developers problem then who's problem is it?

I contacted dell and got the answer to that question. It is my problem, because dell refuses to do what it takes to satisfy me. All I want is a computer that works and is reliable. The preloaded software that came with this computer must be constantly re-installed to keep it working.

I have allowed dell tech support people to access my computer and they can't get it to work either! Dell also sold me a video capture device that is completely incompatible with vista and the software developer has no intentions of making it work. More money down the drain!

The only help dell offers is to have me sit through hours of them trying to fix the vista problems I am having. After a year of vista, I’m all out of patience and at the end of my rope. The people at dell keep telling me that customer satisfaction is their priority, but not one of them will take the step necessary to solve my problems. I want to go back to XP, because it works and the software and hardware they sold me will work with XP. Dell told me that if I want XP, I have to buy it. Then they told me that would also void my warranty!!!

Why should I have to spend more money to make this computer work? It should have worked from day one.

Whatever happened to being able to buy something made with quality?

Whatever happened to “The customer is always right”?

Does anyone know if there are any lawsuits or complaints filed against dell or Microsoft?

RetroDoctor:

VISTA IS A RIP OFF PURE AND SIMPLE NOW, IN THE FUTURE IT SHOULD BE GREAT, MAYBE?. They never should have released it so early. I have 4 of the largest fastest hard drives running RAID STRIPPING, and the fastest & largest memory money can buy. Dual core with the best SLI mother board. 4 of the fastest graphics cards running SLI. 1400 watt PS. I got the highest performance rating on Vista. I am a PRO GAMER and have built hundreds of PCs and my friends & I have done everything in our power to get VISTA ULTIMATE 64 bit to quit friken up for a year now and we all finally gave up. We have all reinstalled XP 64 bit PRO. I purposely did not install anything in Vista towards the end & it still screws it self up all by it self. I did enough research to notice it installs certain updates and that is it, it's over, it starts fricken up in all kinds of weird ways. So bad we have to reinstall Vista new. I have installed it now around 50 times. There are so many problems and I don't see at least 80 of the ones I have found listed anywhere. I did notice one that happens everytime. Vista downloads an NVIDIA video driver MS update and during install it actually kills the PC and there is no way in hell to restart it even in safe mode or any other mode on the planet. It's funny, I don't need a video driver but it thinks I do? NVIDIA is the best and all that I use. Emagine I don't work and have spent most of everyday for the last year trying to keep Vista in my PC. We have tried everything on the planet to keep it working and finally giving up. I am not a person to give up easy so I am really depressed. There are just to many design flaws and problems to deal with & to go into. One person mentioned they released it 3 years to early and I have to say they are correct. Third party problems/drivers, no way. It screws it self up all by it self. I got it to work for email only for a few weeks before it fricked up. I really liked allot of the neet stuff it has but if a person can't use there PC, not good. Gaming, forget it. Always a problem. Even in performance mode, XP Pro is 100 times faster and always works even under EXTREME TORTURE!! Getting my $ back, NO COMMENT!!PISSED. I built this unit so all I am out is the disc price but I feel real sorry for all the poor school kids that are screwed because they bought a complete PC with Vista installed. And the stores ripping them and selling them a tiny crap storage and memory, OH YA VISTA READY AND OK, BULL. I did get NVIDIA SLI & PLATFORM drivers to install and work but there were serious problems with Vista, Not NVIDIA. One thing I don't like, you can't see the defragmenter graph working like in XP PRO. I guess they don't want you to see your hard drives up close. I had XP on a separate partition and have xp defragment VISTA and actually see what is up. Visa defragmenter does a crap job when you check it with XP and can see it. There were also some other automatic updates that screwed it up too! I did not dare set updates to automatic or huge problems. It cracked me up to hear about the above persons PC taking 1/2 to 1 hour to shut down. We had the same problem many times? And no processes running that we could find? Just to bad, all the problems with Vista. I was one of the guys that could not wait to get it installed in this powerhouse. One real bummer with vista, I have a home theater 30ft screen HD,and 7.1 surround and vista won't play out of the optic fiber out and my stereo speakers in the other room at the same time. I have two rooms running at once. XP, no problem. I sometimes run 4 monitors at the same time, Vista NO, XP yes. There were a couple of times when I had all my favorite stuff installed and everything working just great but it never lasted more than a week. Yes I did check all hardware many times and perfect, I hope so, it's all new stuff and besides that XP runs perfect on the other partition. Finally pulled out Vista for good. Vista actually caused a problem more than once where I could not even get XP to boot up and run so had to install both of them again many times. Never had a problem with my cordless keyboard, mouse, or canon 950 with Vista. I can't emagine how slow Vista must be using one hard drive without RAID STRIPPING. It's slow with 4 hard drives striped.

williamrobinsonb (New user):

some people truly believe that the xp release can compare to the vista release stating that xp had problems and it is no different with vista.
xp never died on a fresh boot by moving an icon across the desktop like in vista.
xp never nagged you endlessly as in vista.
most everything except dos aps worked in xp until service pack 2 blocked them.
vista has problems running stably doing nothing and trips over simple aps.
xp empowered the user with documented configurations.
vista hides most functions and binds them terminally to the os casing crashes if disabled.
xp kept a hidden database on you only accessible using dos if you knew where to poke around for the invisible files on a fat partition.
vista wont even run on a fat partition.
xp ran slow but could be tweaked for game performance.
vista runs slow after tweaking.
1 gig was plenty of ram for xp to rock the house.
4 gigs isn't enough to make up for the system drag in vista.
xp had security holes that could be plugged because a firewall could find them.
vista allows its own services to tunnel through its own firewall.
xp left programmers happily alone.
vista nags you that the program you just compiled isn't certified by Microsoft.
xp wont interfere when you edit a high def dvd o you legal editing software.
vista will deny you access to the proper screen resolutions and complain that you aren't authorized to see the high resolution DVD you just edited of your children.
xp had some driver conflicts but most would still run.
vista has more driver problems than I care to count.
xp brought user friendliness to a new level with the release of active x controls.
vista places an unnecessary layer between the software and thee hardware.

I have over 101 reasons to stay away from vista and they all fall under these categories.
vista is bad because,
It nags
it spies
its venerable
its slow
its hungry
its software incompatibility
its hardware incompatibility
its expensive
its ugly
its awkward
its unreconfigurability
it always tags your data with a the code number of your specific computer.
Its closed
its bloated.

but most of all it crashes the desktop mangier often
the new explorer is extremely unstable.

williamrobinsonb (New user):

In vista explorer is exactly 2.78 megabytes (2,923,520 bytes)

In XP...... explorer is exactly .98 megabytes (1,032.,192bytes)
the new explorer shows symptoms of data mining.
the old explorer could probably run on vista but vista locks the vista explorer in and wont allow you to rename it or move it.

kaelan777 (New user):

if ya need to move stuff that windows dosnt want you to then try "MoveonBoot", it works wondes in xp when i rename a txt file to an exe and it will not delete, but i can edit it perfectly...

elcasey (New user):

yes, WilliamRobinsonB, "... most of all it crashes the desktop often and new explorer is extremely unstable".
Unless, most of all, you hate that fact that multi-tasking, something Windows mastered adequately in 3.1 days, is now completely screwed up under Vista. You get to watch your cursor careen spasmodically across the screen to some new location shy of the one you wanted every time the OS gets around to polling the application you're working in.

xyrgen (New user):

come on people microsoft wont release a simple solution platform for vista how could they suck more money out of you for the problems within it. If they released any program that actually worked properly then they would never have made as much and become as famous as they have. Personally I think they should be forced to return at least a portion of what their customers have paid to their customers for selling faulty products as in other industries the company involved would be either forced out of business in this manner or forced to raise their standards to an acceptable level

xyrgen (New user):

come on people microsoft wont release a simple solution platform for vista how could they suck more money out of you for the problems within it. If they released any program that actually worked properly then they would never have made as much and become as famous as they have. Personally I think they should be forced to return at least a portion of what their customers have paid to their customers for selling faulty products as in other industries the company involved would be either forced out of business in this manner or forced to raise their standards to an acceptable level and yet microsoft is getting away with this every time by deliberately leaving problems in their programs and then saying "oh we can fix that you'll just have to buy the new improved version when we decide to release it, in the mean time though you're just stuck with it because we think people should be buying everything related to IT solely off us regardless of whether or not someone else comes up with a better option"

theduke (New user):

Once upon a time, a long time ago and far, far away there were a bunch of programmers rejoicing because the standard clock speed had been successfully increased from 2Mhz to 3.5Mhz.. Something called the ComLink was unreliable and the internet was yet to be perfected. Instead, we used something called the sneakernet. Sometimes, distance was a concern and we would have to use the postalnet. Both were as dependable as each other.
With clock speeds being so limited, script errors had a devastating and obvious effect. Writing code to self eliminate and correct these errors was unthinkable with such limited hardware capacity. We wrote the code, checked the code and double checked the code. We gave it the "timex torture test" because if it could go wrong it would. (Murphy)
Then one dark and dismal day one of our own defected. Billy, took a copy of everything we were working on. He tells us it is free for all and he wants to make money on it. All the DOS was gone, or at the very least, compromised. We didn't concern ourselves too much because everything he took was not perfected and didn't work properly. So good luck to him working on it by himself. One person couldn't possibly do what hundreds of us were working on in less time than we. That was probably our first mistake. He had no plans to fix it. The sun came up and went away many times before we discovered his dastardly deed. Done dirt cheap.
Our wayward comrade had pimped himself, and more importantly all our software that didn't work, to something called BigBlue. Now we had something to reconnoiter with. What if this dastardly deed succeeds? We were too busy to think about this interloper in our objectives. Billy and BigBlue are going to figure out that the booty Billy took is no damned good any day now and we will be back on the free ride again. (OpenSource). Marketing still had some moral values attached.
The cheapest whore always gets the tricks. Big Blue was distracted or ignorant or something but Billy took the trick. We were too expensive. Beer was cheap, Kraft dinner was cheaper, GEOS was about to be released by Berkley and the barenaked ladies were getting kicked out of city hall. The software Billy took and built a wall around and pimped to big blue never did work then and it don't work now. The core is rotten. The peeks and pokes from subsequent issues of improved versions will never fix it either as Billy was always more interested in being a cheap whore to the corporate than preserving his proffessional integrity within the view of his peers.
Fast forward 30 years - What's the difference between Billy or BigBlue and a skid rowe hoe? -Answer- BnB will do anything for money!
Good luck with Vista and beyond folks......

Rano (New user):

Hi Guys,
can anybody help me with the DVD problem in the Vista...I couldn't play or eject the DVD player..

xyrgen (New user):

Is it just me or what, constantly I hear people complaining about vista and how the problems are so impossible to fix. Ok yes I agree that there are a ridiculous number of "problems" embedded within vista but doesn't anyone else see that this is exactly the same marketing ploy that was used when XP was released.

It goes like this:
First: release some new product (doesn't matter what that product is the same basis works for any product and people just seem to fall for it over and over again)

Second: make a big fuss about it within the social circles of the intended customers

Third: send some story to the local news or newspaper complaining about how you'd brought the product and not only did it not do what it claimed it would but also how it's caused some major crisis in your life because it wasn't up to scratch

Fourth: follow that up with another story stating that the company/business who created this product is aware of the problems and has a plan in action to fix this

Fifth: a couple of weeks later release either a "new model" or a little add on/extra that supposedly fixes the problem and start the whole process over again.

So then depending on how you choose to do it you either have people paying for the original product which was deliberately flawed at a minor level and then paying more for the magic piece to fix it properly or going "well that was a waste better get myself the new model because it'll work better".

The only thing microsoft has done to try and cover up this process is they have been smart enough to verify the "problems" with each version they have released and done things like use a different switching system for the visual interface.

I have no doubt that there are many people out there who disagree with me but if you don't believe me then do a bit of research into the origins of XP service pack 1 (it wouldn't hurt to keep in mind that initially microsoft wanted people to pay for this). With proper research you should find that XP service pack 1 was actually a section of XP deliberately removed from it before the commercial release of XP and that the so-called programming that supposedly went in to "fixing XP" was actually just them going right we'll release a portion of this new product and when people start complaining that it doesn't do everything we said it would, then we'll release the other section (at a price of course). This was however pointed out to the media so XP service pack 1 was very quickly made free and within weeks there was talk about XP service pack 2 being released (which they also initially tried to charge for until someone picked up on what they were trying to do and pointed it out to the media). Now days you can even get XP service pack 3 which I find rather funny because when XP service pack 2 was released the claim from microsoft was that anyone who had XP service pack 2 would never require another service pack because there was no more problems.

Anyway back to my initial point, from the moment I heard that vista was going to be released I have been saying to people not to bother buying it for atleast the first year after release because it would have these kinds of problems and at some point they would try to release either an overpriced service pack or just use it as a basis to sell their next version of windows (I unfortunately can't tell you a name for the next windows but I'm willing to bet that the advertising campaign will basically be either "microsoft windows such-and-such the windows that can do all the stuff vista could and couldn't" or "microsoft windows such-and-such all the vista without the complications". I'm also willing to bet that within the first couple of months after it's release there will once again be a media debarcle regarding the problems within it.

Microsoft is only rich because instead of people going to them and saying things like this is a faulty product I would like my money back or things like this product doesn't do what it claims it can and is therefore not up to standard so give me something that can do these things properly or even getting a group of people together and launching a false advertising case against them, they are bitching and moaning to each other in the hope that someone will just go "oh I can fix that for you"

Open your eyes people while you keep buying products from them that don't do everything they claim they can, they will keep selling you deliberately flawed products wouldn't it make more sense to turn around as a group and say to them something along the lines of "if the products are faulty then we expect our money back" or "if the products are faulty then your advertising is false, make it do what you claimed it would at your cost or we will launch a court case which will include every one of your customers we can contact as a valid and seperate witness to your faulty standards and false advertising"

You will soon find that their methods will change and their product standards will rise

Deborah Storck (New user):

Vista is with out a doubt the most unreliable useless piece of f***ing junk I have ever encountered. It crashes, it shuts off, it won't work properly with Adobe PDF, (although I have found a way around it), it won't work properly with Kodak Easyshare, or Fuji Finepix (I have both). It won't work with my previous printer which was only two years old. I AM SOOOO SORRY I GOT RID OF MY OLD COMPUTOR WITH XP. Bill Gates, you are an Arsewip, anyone else who put out such a crap product on the market would have been taken to court and put out of business. Vista should be recalled and money refunded.

xyrgen (New user):

I'm with you all the way there
infact I think microsoft should be forced to return the money they have recieved from all their products as what they are doing is not only a scam but if your "average" person tried to do the same thing with another product in most countries they would be charged with business fraud

franzdc (New user):

guys how can i solve this problem?:
i can't rename a folder? a message would say...file or folder not existed....i've tried scanning for virus but there is no virus... where is the settings on this? please help...thanks in advance

xyrgen (New user):

the first thing I'd say is get a decent virus scanner as the one that comes with windows is useless, if that doesn't work then I'd say format your drive and start from scratch

george54 (New user):

I am having a problem like you don't know that. Every time the update is down loaded and installed the computer goes back to the beginning like when you bought it. you have to reinstall the email, player,etc reset the defaults. all the things that you did when you first got the system. Does any one know what to do short of format and start again.

FedUpWithVista! (New user):

omg tht is so true tht happened to me my laptops still fricked plusss it keeps turning off on its own in a split second the internet isnt wrkin rite neither is the laptop !!! ,,, one bit of advice DONT BUY VISTA !

jaxon (New user):

I get the feeling the OS changes to create problems so we'll buy other products to fix the newly created ones. Fuels the economy, doesn't it?