Ugh ... Vista (Full Version)

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PolarBear -> Ugh ... Vista (6/19/2008 10:44:56 AM)

So I got my realtor wife a new laptop, with Vista. I was hoping to get her to use Linux, but I sort of caved. (She has few problems with my Kubuntu box, but still thought she needed Windows, and the local realtor board site seems to require IE.)

It arrived and I set it up. First, although we have our own WiFi, it connected to our neighbor's unsecured WiFi and started downloading Windows updates without asking me!!!! How stupid is that?

Also got some 18 zillion windows popping up for various things while I was just trying to get it set up.

The laptop has 2GB RAM and the disk thrashes for quite some time after Vista starts.

How utterly annoying. I'm seriously unimpressed with Vista! Linux simply works way better IMHO.

Now, just a quick "best practice" security question, since I don't use Windows and don't know that much. Is it really necessary to buy some subscription based protection, or can she be reasonably safe by taking some precautions like using Firefox instead of IE (I'm insisting that she do that for all sites that don't require IE), and being careful what kinds of files she shares and opens?

Thanks!

I do plan to install Fedora 9 alongside it in a dual-boot, and who knows, maybe I'll get her on Linux yet ...



Miss Giggles -> RE: Ugh ... Vista (6/19/2008 10:48:24 AM)

Yes I'd use some kind of firewall and antivirus or combined program . many are free.
I use avast, its free. zone alarm has a free version of their firewall program.

Upgrade the RAM to the max the system will take, but Vista is known to be a memory hog

Or if you have a licensed copy of xp throw that on there

I use firefox, less annoying popups and virtually every website works on it now.



GVfan -> RE: Ugh ... Vista (6/19/2008 1:17:04 PM)

Yes, she definitely needs virus and firewall protection!

I got Vista last Fall and I hate it![:@]



stellaluna -> RE: Ugh ... Vista (6/19/2008 2:43:05 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: PolarBear
Now, just a quick "best practice" security question, since I don't use Windows and don't know that much. Is it really necessary to buy some subscription based protection, or can she be reasonably safe by taking some precautions like using Firefox instead of IE (I'm insisting that she do that for all sites that don't require IE), and being careful what kinds of files she shares and opens?

I don't have a subscription-based program and in fact, I have made it a habit to uninstall any of those programs that come with a computer. They are far more annoying than they are helpful and you can get the same protection for free from other companies. I also use Firefox, pay attention to what gets downloaded, do regular scans and I'm fine. I've been a Windows user since '95. [:D]



PolarBear -> RE: Ugh ... Vista (6/19/2008 5:30:56 PM)

Ok, guess I better check out AVG or something. I don't see how anyone stays sane with that operating system. All these annoyances and virus/malware threats are completely foreign to me as a Linux user!



stellaluna -> RE: Ugh ... Vista (6/19/2008 5:40:03 PM)

Actually, I'm on XP and holding tight. My husband just bought a laptop with Vista and we bought a book to go with it that made it a lot more user friendly. I'll find out what it is when I get home and post it for you. He hasn't had any trouble since he made the changes the book suggested. Also, we're both using AVG--just upgraded to 8.0.



JonCo54 -> RE: Ugh ... Vista (6/19/2008 5:55:45 PM)

The first thing you want to do when buying systems with ms products pre-loaded is visit here. http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file/fid,67264-page,1-c,systemresourcestuneup/description.html
The next thing you want to do is install a good AV program. AVG or Avast comes to mind. And remember Do Not install more than one of each type of program. A personal firewall is good some are free.

Seeing as your wife uses her laptop for work, a USB drive with encryption would also be a good choice to save important files to. This way if anything happens to the llappy her work will be protected.



JonCo54 -> RE: Ugh ... Vista (6/19/2008 6:04:04 PM)

BTW PolarBear I also noticed you use Kubuntu basically it's Ubuntu with the KDE desktop. If you like KDE give PCLinuxOS 2007 a try. It's polished, fast, and just works. You won't be disappointed.



Technophile -> RE: Ugh ... Vista (6/19/2008 6:52:05 PM)

if you're using firefox, i recommend getting the addon called NoScript. it prevents ads on websites, and other scripts and site code that auto-run things and install files on your computer. it makes for very safe web browsing.

http://noscript.net/

for someone who doesnt know computers very well (i'm assuming your wife doesn't have the know-how that you do), a virus protection program would be a good idea. i'm running windows xp right now, and i dont have virus software at all. i just dont visit 'shady' sites, or download tons of junk off P2P programs, and firefox+noscript works for me.



bzirk -> RE: Ugh ... Vista (6/19/2008 8:01:27 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Miss Giggles

Yes I'd use some kind of firewall and antivirus or combined program . many are free.
I use avast, its free. zone alarm has a free version of their firewall program.

Upgrade the RAM to the max the system will take, but Vista is known to be a memory hog



All that idiot proofing takes up a lot of room. [:D]

quote:



Or if you have a licensed copy of xp throw that on there


After the hue and cry over Vista, Dell has actually gone to back to offering some systems with XP.

quote:

I use firefox, less annoying popups and virtually every website works on it now.


That's what I use mostly and it works well. I've also found that I'm drifting more and more toward Mac's. We have two mac laptops now, and I love those compared to the IBM compatible.



stellaluna -> RE: Ugh ... Vista (6/19/2008 8:34:38 PM)

The book I was talking about earlier is Windows Vista Tips & Tricks. We bought it at Barnes & Noble.



Miss Giggles -> RE: Ugh ... Vista (6/19/2008 9:49:53 PM)

I am considering a mac as my next pc although I cant give up windows until I get out of the it field [:D] Just a better design and they have some good ideas in their software that eventually get copied to windows.


but vista is a mess.



semperfidelis -> RE: Ugh ... Vista (6/19/2008 10:06:13 PM)

Rule number one that was overlooked with ANY Windows laptop: ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS format and re-install Windows.

I don't care what version of the OS you are using, ALL major brand laptops come with garbageware installed that slows down the laptop.


quote:

It arrived and I set it up. First, although we have our own WiFi, it connected to our neighbor's unsecured WiFi and started downloading Windows updates without asking me!!!! How stupid is that?

That's the manufacturer's mistake, not Vista. Do a proper install from scratch and it will ask if you want to. At least, mine did.



JonCo54 -> RE: Ugh ... Vista (6/19/2008 10:17:39 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: semperfidelis


I don't care what version of the OS you are using, ALL major brand laptops come with garbageware installed that slows down the laptop.



That is why you need this program. http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file/fid,67264-page,1-c,systemresourcestuneup/description.html



semperfidelis -> RE: Ugh ... Vista (6/19/2008 11:31:45 PM)

True, but ever since "SystemCleaner" came out in the good old days of Windows 98, I haven't really ever trusted programs like that.

Nothin' better than a good ol' 
format /P:1 C



bzirk -> RE: Ugh ... Vista (6/19/2008 11:46:55 PM)

I agree that manfacturers install a bunch of garbate, but Vista itself is too proprietary no matter the laptop manufacturer.



JonCo54 -> RE: Ugh ... Vista (6/19/2008 11:53:08 PM)

First, I can't imagine PC World a reputable publication in the industry for many years, recommending a "bad" piece if software.

Second, most people reinstall from disks their computer came with. The same bloatware will be reinstalled. These same people usually have never installed windows or formated a hard drive. They just want to get their computer working. That is why utility programs are made available.



bzirk -> RE: Ugh ... Vista (6/20/2008 12:38:01 AM)

Hmm. If I'm not mistaken, PCWorld isn't raving about Vista. Quite the reverse. It was a big disappointment, and SP1 is also a disappointment. Here's part of the hypothetical letter PCWorld proposed sending MS:

quote:


March 19, 2008

Dearest Microsoft,

We need to talk. We, the people of the PC World forums and the Vista user base, waited patiently for Vista to finally come out. We believed you when you said Service Pack 1 would fix most of Vista's shortcomings. Then we waited patiently again for SP1 to arrive.

And now, well, we're sick and tired of waiting--not just for Vista to get better, but for our Vista PC to finish booting up. And after waiting that out, we're fed up with having to "allow" various things to happen by clicking pop-up screens.



<snip>

and it doesn't get any better as you read on:

quote:

Don't get us wrong. We love Vista. In fact, we love parts of Vista. Senior Editor Yardena Arar, for example, loves the pop-up previews of pages in the taskbar and the seamless way Vista syncs with her Windows Mobile devices. Senior Writer Darren Gladstone loves Vista's integration with his Xbox 360. Working as a Media Center Extender, it tracks sports stats while he watches a game--though he longs for better native video codec support over his Xbox 360 for viewing AVI files.

Vista just isn't what we want it to be after buying a system with enough RAM, battery life, and processing power to run it.

Basically, we want XP back. We liked XP. Can you hook us up?


You can read the rest here:

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/143608-4/test_results_does_sp1_fix_vista.html


In addition, financial analysts have lowered revenue expectations for MS for the rest of 2008 and all of 2009, and have cited the disappointment with Vista as the primary reason.



JonCo54 -> RE: Ugh ... Vista (6/20/2008 2:53:45 AM)

If you had read my posts in other threads you will know I'm not a fan of Vista or any MS products. However I do dual boot with XP Pro and PCLinuxOS. PCLinusOS is the main OS while XP is used strictly for gaming. XP is not allowed on the internet. All updates and downloading is done with Firefox or Ktorrent and Thunderbird is used for mail. If you google Vista you will find many articles some of which I've given links to in other threads about the pitfalls of MS and Vista. You will have to do a search though. It seems that all but a few MS shills and fanboys don't like Vista. There is a lot to read out there. It's a matter of becoming informed. There is a better way it is called Linux. I do have to thank MS for one thing though. If they hadn't brought out Vista, I wouldn't have found out about the wonderful world of Linux.



bzirk -> RE: Ugh ... Vista (6/20/2008 2:56:27 AM)

It seems we're on the same page. [:D], and you are so right about Vista opening up Linux -- for a lot of people.



PolarBear -> RE: Ugh ... Vista (6/20/2008 4:33:31 PM)

Installing Vista from scratch sounds like a good idea, but it didn't come with a Vista DVD, and I don't even see anything about system recovery. I'm sure not going to buy another copy -- I'll force her to use Linux before I do that! [:D]

Even if I had media (maybe bittorrent?) there would likely be activation hell.

That's another extremely aggravating thing about Windows. Every other operating system including Mac OS X allows you to re-install without licensing fuss when needed.



bzirk -> RE: Ugh ... Vista (6/20/2008 4:41:12 PM)

MS has got Vista so hamstrung, it's more difficult to reinstall without it possibly looking like an expansion of the license. Good luck.



humbleinspirit -> RE: Ugh ... Vista (6/21/2008 2:22:52 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: PolarBear

So I got my realtor wife a new laptop, with Vista. I was hoping to get her to use Linux, but I sort of caved. (She has few problems with my Kubuntu box, but still thought she needed Windows, and the local realtor board site seems to require IE.)

It arrived and I set it up. First, although we have our own WiFi, it connected to our neighbor's unsecured WiFi and started downloading Windows updates without asking me!!!! How stupid is that?

Also got some 18 zillion windows popping up for various things while I was just trying to get it set up.

The laptop has 2GB RAM and the disk thrashes for quite some time after Vista starts.

How utterly annoying. I'm seriously unimpressed with Vista! Linux simply works way better IMHO.

Now, just a quick "best practice" security question, since I don't use Windows and don't know that much. Is it really necessary to buy some subscription based protection, or can she be reasonably safe by taking some precautions like using Firefox instead of IE (I'm insisting that she do that for all sites that don't require IE), and being careful what kinds of files she shares and opens?

Thanks!

I do plan to install Fedora 9 alongside it in a dual-boot, and who knows, maybe I'll get her on Linux yet ...


Yeah, I get very frustrated with Vista as well! You can shut off the automatic updates though, something I did not figure out until late yesterday evening.



rlj -> RE: Ugh ... Vista (6/29/2008 5:42:42 PM)

As much as I hate MS and I have hated them since December 28, 1993 when I purchased a computer with 4mb of RAM and a game that needed 700k of expanded memory for sound that I could not for the life of me tweak until I learned to edit my config.sys/autoexec.bat because memmaker screwed up and didn't give me the 4k of XMS I needed for sound- Vista isn't that bad.

Do your own install from scratch and put nothing on it that you don't want. Make sure you have 2 gigs of RAM minimum and a video card- (not the lousy shared memory garbage you get in most systems today) with 256mb, dx 10 if you can even the cheap 2400 ATI series. If you can get a 64 bit upgrade figure out what hardware and software you are going to lose and if it isn't important upgrade it.

I built my rig which is an AMD 3000+ socket 754, 2 gigs of RAM and a 7800GS AGP video card a year and a half ago put XP MCE on it and got my Vista Upgrade. This computer reboots on patch day- Norton or Windows. It takes a long time to boot up but once it's up I don't have to reboot it. Ever. I think it goes back to installing everything yourself. : /

My only Vista complaints are about the parental controls on the kids' comp. I can't get Norton to do a virus scan without oking every single little step. :X

quote:

It arrived and I set it up. First, although we have our own WiFi, it connected to our neighbor's unsecured WiFi and started downloading Windows updates without asking me!!!! How stupid is that?


Stupid on the part of your neighbor but not on MS' part. When XP first shipped there were so many holes in it. If you could get a hold of a copy of XP pre sp 1, a couple of old boxes and put in a couple of wireless network cards you can have a two man bot squad sending spam, virus', etc. in no time all on your neighbors' IP number. [sm=icon_smile_evil.gif] I still remember the rigs that I helped install pre sp 1 XP on and how on cable they would get spammed with those windows messenger porn advertisements.

quote:

MS has got Vista so hamstrung, it's more difficult to reinstall without it possibly looking like an expansion of the license. Good luck.


You do have to watch that closely now. We made sure we got Vista home premium because it gives you unlimited re-installs. The couple of times we've had problems with their licensing though it was very easy to deal with. I unwittingly hit the 5 times on my xp copy and they went ahead and gave me a new number for it.

The cool thing about some of the new Linux distro's though are when someone has an old computer and wants to use it you can just use a bootable linux distro and let them try it out. If you use something like google mail they can even send e-mail that way. There are very few things that most people do with their computers anyway.



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