So I thought I'd give this Windows Vista thing a try, since even if I hate MS Windows, it is still worth knowing how to drive it since it's everywhere
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I don't think it's fair to blame Vista given that (obviously) Vista will install. It only needs 20GB of space to install so it's probably some other hardware issue.
I agree that I must be doing something wrong.. However, given that I /am/ a professional geek, attempting to install it onto a fresh hard drive (ie. without any other windows or linux stuff to get in the way), it seems poor that I can't get it to work! And that it doesn't even give a useful error message as to WHY.
If something is so badly designed that even a clueful geek goes WTF? and gives up during what should be a simple run-of-the-mill install, then what does that say about the product?
Another interesting Vista oddity (I don't know if this happens on all Vista installs, or just the one my colleague in the office has). He downloaded a 10MB ZIP (which probably had a few hundred files in it). Getting Vista to extract it with the built in Vista ZIP support takes approximately 3 minutes. Using Winrar to do it takes about 10 seconds.
It's hard to understand how they could release a piece of software that was that badly broken. His "Copying" dialog also has a bizarre flicker to it, that again amazes me that it passed QA.
His Vista install is a preinstalled OEM one on a brand new reasonable high spec laptop. There is the possibility that the vendor shoehorned in a load of third party crap that is getting in the way, but I didn't see anything like that when he showed it to me, and it's hard to imagine how third party stuff could introduce bugs like this.
I've heard that file access/copy in Vista is meant to be quite broken in that regards; I don't understand why - is it something to do with DRM examining every file, or some artifact of their failed attempt at the WinFS filesystem?
The reason Ubuntu just works is that years and years of Linux reviews talked about the installation process. So the Linux installation process has been honed to its simplest possible form.
Windows has gone the other way. But people don't install Windows, except geeks - it comes with their hardware. If they upgrade their Vista box to XP, they don't do it themselves, they get the computer shop to do it.
Have you ever watched the "Wow" screensaver/demo video for Vista? We have it going in the shop all the time. At one point it shows someone sitting on a hilltop using a Toshiba Tecra CDT, which is designed for Windows 95. I think a lot of their advertising is a little... ambitious. OTOH, I've never had the problem you're describing except when the hard drive had physical problems.
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Essentially - you're doing it wrong!
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If something is so badly designed that even a clueful geek goes WTF? and gives up during what should be a simple run-of-the-mill install, then what does that say about the product?
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It's strange because B has had it running on her PC for months now .. I don't think she's had any problems with it at all.
Maybe that's the difference between custom-built and pre-built. Who knows?
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It's hard to understand how they could release a piece of software that was that badly broken. His "Copying" dialog also has a bizarre flicker to it, that again amazes me that it passed QA.
His Vista install is a preinstalled OEM one on a brand new reasonable high spec laptop. There is the possibility that the vendor shoehorned in a load of third party crap that is getting in the way, but I didn't see anything like that when he showed it to me, and it's hard to imagine how third party stuff could introduce bugs like this.
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Windows has gone the other way. But people don't install Windows, except geeks - it comes with their hardware. If they upgrade their Vista box to XP, they don't do it themselves, they get the computer shop to do it.
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