Hardware not supported?

To 'The other Steve', and others like him:

What do you mean by if I have problems with Vista my hardware is (probably) not supported? Come on, you must be joking. According to every MS fanboy the Microsoft operating system supports more hardware out of the box than Linux does (despite evidence to the contrary). Even Microsoft say this! Are you telling me this is not true?

And it is not tough shit if it doesn't work! It is expected to work. If certain hardware is not supported then why is it not mentioned on the box?

At the end of the day you are just making excuses for MS's poor product. So what if you have not had problems. Whoopy-do. Lots of other people have had problems so should we ignore them all because you haven't. IT'S OKAY EVERYBODY, STEVE HASN'T HAD PROBLEMS WHICH MEANS WE CAN IGNORE YOU. ONLY STEVE MATTERS.

And yes, I regard you as a shill. Why? Because you feel the need to justify your comments by pointing out that you have 3 VM based nix installs near you but still feel the need to put the foot in by stating that they are running via MS products!

Vista and why it annoys me

I had a Dell machine supplied to me by icrosoft and the OS installed by Microsoft.

First thing it couldn't do was recognise the built in wireless network card.

Checked the card with a livedisk of Ubuntu it worked, so I managed to get Vista drivers and success.

After a few months I gave in and switched off UAC. It doesn't just annoy, it stops programmes that I have commanded to work from working. No matter the admin privileges I have given it.

My wife uses it to play Lord of the Rings Online. Occasionally it won't accept inputs. Eventually when I get back into Windows mode we find some unimportant alert has sprung into action and is monopolising the hardware interrupts so that the mouse or the ESC key isn't being recognised.

Works fine on my XP Rock laptop.

One thing they got right, the search is a damn sight faster, bu the annoyances do indeed bug the bejasus out of me.

Saucerhead Tharpe

@ Mike RE: far jacob

...is that you Bill? Or is it Steve?

I just felt I had to comment...

The "I hate Microsoft" zealots need to really stop and think how silly they sound, and the "Linux never has any problems" crowd are sadly deluded.

I have Vista HP 64bit installed on my media centre, it has not blue-screened or crashed once in several months, I sleep and resume a lot, it's stable and it looks much better than XP. Yes it uses more RAM, but at <£25 per GB for DDR2 - am I bovvered? The only issues have been poor Creative driver support for my X-Fi (they work at a basic level but the applications are not Vista compatible), everything else has been fine, Nokia software, Bluetooth, TV Card, Intel chipset etc all had drivers and installed fine and are working a charm.

I have seen several other Vista machines and they have similarly worked fine, including the installation of *some* older software. But to be quite honest I don't expect all old software to always work on the newest OS, that'd be what new versions of software are for - to support the new OS and the new hardware etc etc. We all had these problems moving from DOS based 98/ME into 2000/XP - I remember everyone moaning like big girls about their old games not working.

If you're software is not Vista compatible then DON'T BUY VISTA - it's that easy!!! You're not forced to buy Vista at all, most companies will have a XP volume disk around, and I bet most of you private users have a cracked copy of XP. It's still available in retail if you are building a new PC... If you have legacy software, or old hardware, then stick to running the OS on which it was designed to run. I see so many people saying "I upgraded to Vista and now everything doesn't work" - did you even bother to check if it would before you started? It is OEM hardware manufacturers who choose to supply Vista not XP on packaged PCs, they have the option to provide XP (as some do, i.e. Dell if you buy from the business section), but most consumers are not educated and just want whatever the marketing men have told them is best between part 2 and 3 of X-Factor on Saturday night - which at the moment is Vista.

Now onto Linux, yes it's a fantastic piece of software considering it is free, but it is not without it's own issues... firstly the latest distros when installed in FULL (including window manager) are often as memory hogging as Windows, and won't run on older hardware either. Linux also has many quirks, and plenty of forums with people saying "package X doesn't work now I upgraded my kernel/libc/xxx" etc etc - there are all the same upgrade issues as Vista and "this won't work if you don't have kernel version X or better" problems.

(Incidentally before you dismiss me as a n00b, yes you, I know you are doing it now, then I run Linux on about 10 servers, Debian, Redhat based and more, an office full of XP workstations, Vista at home along with more Debian and XP, and some other Linux's for firewalls, have worked supporting OS-X etc as well.)

Bottom line: don't just expect old hardware to run new software, don't expect old software to run on your new OS - and don't blame the OS maker, blame the makers of the driverless hardware or unpatched software. Microsoft and Linux distributers provide an OS - it is up to YOU to make sure it suits your needs and works with your existing software and hardware. They aren't your carer, and if you don't have the personal expertise then that is what your local PC expert is paid for... again not MS fault you don't have the expertise.

If you buy a PC from a manufacturer pre-installed and it doesn't work then it is their fault for not doing decent quality control, it is not the OS provider's fault that people cannot implement their product properly.

Vista does work, it has its problems (but so does any OS, especially one so new) but it does work... Linux also does work, and again has many problems... Problems are fixed with driver upgrades, software upgrades and expertise to do them properly, if you lack the fix then don't just blanket blame the OS provider for what is likely a 3rd party created problem.

To get to the point...

"Many problems seem to occur on older systems or with older peripherals." Oh, you mean like every enterprise environment that I've ever worked in. God (or whatever) help us if Vista becomes the only thing available for the users I support. Keeping data-acquisition hardware and older lab equipment running on XP is hard enough for some of the stuff we have. It's not like my company is going to spend 10s-100s of thousands to upgrade controllers or software for electron microscopes, X-ray machines, data buckets and the like, just for the ill-perceived benefits of Vista. I hope the day when we have no choice is a long, long way off.

'Virtual PC'

Virtual PC is not really an M$ product. Was developed by Conectix for misguided Apple users to put bloat on the mac. M$ only acquired it for another revenue stream with all the dev work having been done. As soon as they do start 'work' on it, god help anyone who wants to use it. Me not included

rubbish

from my own experience vista is crap.. i was really looking forward to it but was so disapointed..

first the slow response when copying network files or doing anything else network related and this was on a macbook pro with proper vista drivers, but the same problem on my father inlaws dell which i decided to buy as an XP build but decieded to give vista another chance and wish i hadnt bothered as i had no end of driver issues (and this is a brand new dell which is vista ready apparently) so went back to XP and low behold everything works perfect first time.

people go on about apple fanboys but on this vista subject i cant believe how many ms fanboys are out their and blinkered by pretty graphics but the useless implementation of legacy hardware/software support

im running server 2008 which looks like vista but seems to not have any of the problems vista has with slow networking so maybe the vista programmers want to have a work with the 2008 ones and find out what theyve done wrong.

p.s whats the paris hilton angle on this story??

p.p.s buy a mac and run XP via parallels its all so much better then

@AC RE : Hardware not supported?

Wow, foam at the mouth much ?

w/r/t hardware issues, there is, in fact, such a thing as the Vista Hardware Compatibility List. Google is your friend.

Before updating your OS, it is your own responsibility to check that your hardware is on this list. Expecting a brand new MS product to work out of the box with your old stuff is just plain stupid. This has never been the case before, so why should it be now ? It isn't in the interests of any of the concerned parties, MS or the hardware or software manufacturers, because they want to sell you more stuff.

Deal with this, it's called "business". It might not be very good for consumers, but hey, if you don't like feeling the jackboot of untrammelled capitalism on your neck, vote for a socialist political party, if you can find one.

As for the MS shill slur that you just couldn't resist, monkey boy, I mention those facts because I'm happy with my WIndows systems, and I'm happy with my linux systems. Both run fine, both work together, in a friendly mixed environment. And because I knew that some sad linux fanboi would blow a gasket. Well done.

Seriously, you lot need to grow the fuck up and stop whining, these same issues occur with every release of windows and if you haven't figured out how to deal with it simply move away from windows and use one of the alternatives.

@Others w/r/t DX10 and Office upgrades.

If you are a gamer, you should be used to spending your dosh on cutting edge upgrades to play the latest stuff. If you don;t like it, find something else to do, or buy a console.

Office wise, I fully agree that the new versions don't offer much. In fact as far as I can see the only worthwhile addition to word since version 2.0 is in-line spell checking. So don't buy the new ones. Duh! Or, shock horror! Use an alternative.

You still have plenty of choices, and throwing your dummies out of your pram every time you think MS has taken some away is just a symptom of the fact that you are totally dependant on Redmond.

MS don't have to treat you nice, and you don't have to buy their stuff. Deal.

Face up to the fact that you are the M in your S&M relationship with Redmond and get some counselling or something.

To ALL the M$ "it doesnt work it must be old Hardware" FUDites...

I used a machine with all Vista spec capable hardware,

newly purchased kit for all except the ATA HDD of 40GB,

blank slate to vista, installation was quick and easy, the eyecandy was perfectly sleazy,

installation of device drivers that werent "just there" was a breeze, but where was the

sound of the sneeze?... missing audio what tot? the device driver already had bit-rot!

updating to working drivers started the crawl, into the swamp I had to fall, the OS

with the beach front view didnt say it was looking at a toxic waste swamp.

I am one user who has donned the ski mask and cold climate kit and made off to live

with the penguins and the only use of "Microsoft Tax" is to keep an old copy of XP

to live in the sandbox beside the virtualbox sun-lamp with the beach bucket and spade

Vista

Just to inform you all, we purchased three new sony laptops, spent about £7000GBP, all came with Vista preloaded, vista is incompatible with our server and set up so we had to BUY 3 Windows XP Pro discs, alas it wasnt as simple as loading and up and away, three weeks on, 17 phone calls to sony tech and still no wireless access -

Vista sucks big time, its like everything revolutionary though, give it a few years and it will be the op system of choice but right now, i wouldnt want it to run me a bath !

Re: Keeps on ticking...

"..I bill by the hour. We would all be out of jobs if everything worked right out of the box..."

You can't be getting much business. I looked up "Anonymous Coward" in the phone book and you weren't listed.

This should be an opportunity

One of our boxes got struck by lightning so we had to enter the new hardware fray. New (cheap & fast) business desktops are Vista preinstalled with maybe no XP drivers available anywhere. Things have gotten real ugly..

I cannot believe that there are no websites out there that give new hardware boxes that have XP drivers available. Take the Compaq Presario SRS5250NX in this weeks Staples advert for US$540 (before their @#$%& "easy rebates"). I should be able to plug "SRS5250NX" into a javascript and know if my XP will have video/audio/network. I did find one outfit that will make a new XP box (www.jncs.com) but there have to be hundreds. Anyone know?

Vista problems: Content protection

The wacko drivers, the slow copying, and so on are all due to the insane Premium Content Protection in Vista, which is NOT there in anything earlier. This destructive garbage and the eye candy are all that's new in Vista, and none of it is worthwhile. Visit http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html for a good time.

On the desktop, go to XP or 2k, or get a Mac, or use Linux if you can get it to print properly with your printer (printing always was X's weak spot; it's improved rapidly in Linux but still isn't quite there for a lot of hardware).

There is absolutely no reason to use Vista. Ever. For anything. With any sort of luck, Vista will be M$' version of the PS/2, which was so bad (twenty years ago) that all by itself it completely blasted IBM out of the PC hardware business -- a market which it had dominated overwhelmingly since the PC was first introduced.