More Vista nonsense

Bozo

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Can XP & Vista use the same swap file? If not, if individual swap files are defined, does one OS mess the swap file of the other? IF nobody knows, I'll probably post the answers in a few weeks. :-D

The swap file is over written by the current operating system.

Bozo :joker:
 

CougTek

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I've spent more time testing Vista today. Vista isn't bad...Vista is a disaster! A waste of otherwise useful space on a hard drive. It is, as an operating system, what Bush is as a U.S. President. Awful. Horrible. Distasteful. Shameful. An utter and complete failure. A state of the art piece of programming shit!

Add and/or Remove Programs has been replaced, for no good reason, by Programs and Features. Add/Remove Windows Components is nowhere to be found. The only option I have is to toogle on/off the "features" I don't want. But be sure they continue to eat space on my hard drive. Tabarnack! Oh and toogling on/off these "features" (these are nothing more than Windows services) took almost ten minutes to apply. That's on a Core 2 Duo with 2GB of 800MHz DDR2 RAM! Ten freaking minutes to turn off four or five services! What the Hell is going on behind the scene with this Unoperating system?

Microsoft should pay people to use Vista, not the reverse. Vista can turn a speed bomb into an anemic slug.

By the way, what's "Windows Meeting space"? There's no detail about it when I hover the cursor above this "feature". It must be another memory hug no one not insane wants to be turned on.

Is there a way to remove (not simply turn off) Windows components, like those stupid gadgets showing a fat analog clock and a bonified meteo report?
 

CougTek

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And switching keyboard layout doesn't change the keys when you're changing the name of system files. It works (sometimes) inside applications, but not always. What a bunch of stupid morons can screw up something as basic as keyboard layouts, especially when it used to work flawless in previous versions of their OS?
 

Santilli

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I have not gone through the entire thread. Can you turn off all the Vista nonsense, and make it look like 2000, XP, or 2003?

GS
 

Bozo

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From my senior memory: Go to control panel, change it to classic style. In the programs folder, if you right click on the program to be removed, you will see the 'remove' instruction. I think.

Bozo :joker:
 

Fushigi

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Security Center is always red because I have UAC turned off. I may set up a user-level account later and turn it back on just to experience life as a non-admin. More to see how it'll be when we roll it out at work than anything else as I trust my computing habits (maybe I shouldn't?).

Even if I turn UAC on I'll still be a perpetual yellow as I've set Windows Update to download & notify v. auto-install. To me the color for Windows Update should only change from green if there are outstanding updates ready to apply.


I noticed Defrag wasn't running even though Vista auto-schedules it for a weekly pass. No messages as to why so I went hunting. In Event Viewer I found an apparent file system error so I scheduled CHKDSK to run at the next boot. That cost me several hours of lost Folding time with Vista booting, getting partway through the CHKDSK, and then rebooting again. And again. Safe Mode, including w/Network Support worked. So I backed up my files to the network before proceeding on the off chance the CHKDSK would 'fix' my filesystem by deleting everything.

But CHKDSK continually rebooted at what appeared to be the same point. Eventually I left it running with it's reboot cycle while the wife & I did some errands. Apparently it eventually fixed the issue as when we got back I was at the log in screen.

I've not yet checked to see if there are any outstanding issues with either CHKDSK or Defrag. I'm a little wary.

This brings to mind the caution: Disk redundancy via RAID is not the same as backup.
 

Bozo

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During the testing of Vista, I ran O&O Defrag and analyzed the hard drive. Then I ran the Vista defrag program. It ran for about an hour on a 120GB hard drive. When I checked again with O&O, there was very little changed. The hard drive was just as fragmented after running Vista defrag as before it started.
If chkdsk ran that long and rebooted that often, I think I would run a disk analyzer program to check for bad clusters. Posibly a tool from the hard drive manufacturer.

Bozo :joker:
 

Fushigi

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I've got a DisKeeper license to transfer from my old PC one of these days.

This morning's AVG update prompted a reboot and for some reason the CHKDSK-at-boot flag hadn't been cleared. It appears the problem isn't fully resolved as it went through the CHKDSK/reboot thing several times (*5 or 6) before making it all the way. I don't have time to troubleshoot right now. It's up and running OK so I'll defer working on it for another evening or this weekend.

This shouldn't be happening on a clean install.
 

CougTek

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There are no such things as a Vista clean install. All Vista installations end up being dirty. Vista had more updates since its launch day then XP during the same period.

I'm pretty sure the CHKDSK mess has nothing to do with the health of the drive. Fushi probably just found bug #124327 of Vista original RTM.
 

Fushigi

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With mirrored disks I'd think bad clusters wouldn't be an issue.

Clean installs shouldn't have file system errors.
 

Santilli

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Hi
Any idea WHY Vista is such a dog, speedwise?

From what I gather, you can turn it back to XP, pretty much, so, what keeps it running so slow?

Thanks

Dr. Greg
 

ddrueding

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In my experience, it isn't. With the following caveats.

1. You need modern hardware.
a. 2GB+ RAM
b. 3D accelerated video card with significant ram
c. At least a modern 7200RPM hard drive

2. You need to disable the crap
a. System Restore
b. Indexing
c. Windows Defender
d. Transition-effect eye candy (obviously takes time)

With these changes made, it is faster than my OSX and Ubuntu machines. Granted, none are as quick as a performance-tuned XP install, but running Windows 98 would be quicker still. There is a reason we don't.
 

Santilli

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David:
I may be my eternity/eternally grateful for that 5 lic. 2003 Webserver OS.
I just installed it on my server box, and, with tweaks, I forgot how quick an OS could be. It allows the memory tweaks from 2000 Pro, which give it an edge on XP, I think.

Is Vista as tweakable as 2000 Pro/2003?

Greg
 

sechs

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In my experience, it isn't. With the following caveats.

1. You need modern hardware.
a. 2GB+ RAM
b. 3D accelerated video card with significant ram
c. At least a modern 7200RPM hard drive
Increasing the minimum requirements is not a caveat... if you ran XP (or, better yet, 2k3) on this hardware, it'd be faster.
 

ddrueding

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...if you ran XP (or, better yet, 2k3) on this hardware, it'd be faster.

...and of you ran Windows 2000, it would be faster still! Where are my DOS disks...

The people whining and delaying switching to Vista did the same before going to XP and 2000.
 

Santilli

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I don't. I've noticed a REAL big jump in speed with a Raid 0 dual drive boot. I suspected that maybe the new minimum for Vista? ;-)

Dr. G
 

Tannin

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Too bloody right we did, Dave. We waited until fools like you helped Microsoft actually get the damn thing working properly, ~ two years after the first release, and waited until the hardware was so incredibly fast that even the then-current-release Microsoft product couldn't bring it to its knees.

Everybody knows Vista has been a disaster, even the usual Microsoft lackeys are saying it now: Acer, A-Open, Dell, Lenovo, they are all complaining that Vista is a dissapointment.

Best advice is to run XP or 2000 until Windows 7 arrives, which won't be all that long now. Microsoft know they have a lemon, so they are rushing Windows 7 development, same as they rushed along a replacement for their last mega-lemon: ME.
 

e_dawg

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I didn't mind Vista until Photoshop CS3 did not want to install. That pissed me off. No problem. I'll just install XP. Or so I thought. I can't find my legit and paid for license key for the life of me, so I used a different copy that was from a... how shall I put this? ... volume license pack... and lo and behold, Microsoft nixed that key and I can't get any updates.

Now my scanner hasn't worked properly since Windows 2000 either, but even new drivers can't make it work with either XP or Vista. If it wasn't for the lack of ClearType and my desire for massive fonts, MSFT's decision to stop supporting it with updates, and what seems like decreasing compatibility with various new applications and periperherals, I would be using W2k right now.

Sigh... What happened to the good old days of VIA chipsets, ATI video cards, and Win 98/ME and W2k? LOL...
 

e_dawg

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Forgot to mention that XP hosed a few data folders when it invoked CHKDSK on startup and didn't like (I am presuming) how it was structured by Vista's implementation of NTFS. Good thing I made a backup copy on an external HD that was formatted by XP. I am terrified that it will hose my backup copy now.

Maybe it's time to go all the way back to W2k...
 

timwhit

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Forgot to mention that XP hosed a few data folders when it invoked CHKDSK on startup and didn't like (I am presuming) how it was structured by Vista's implementation of NTFS. Good thing I made a backup copy on an external HD that was formatted by XP. I am terrified that it will hose my backup copy now.

Maybe it's time to go all the way back to W2k...

Try Windows 2003 Server. I'm sure you have read the threads about it.
 

Santilli

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Forgot to mention that XP hosed a few data folders when it invoked CHKDSK on startup and didn't like (I am presuming) how it was structured by Vista's implementation of NTFS. Good thing I made a backup copy on an external HD that was formatted by XP. I am terrified that it will hose my backup copy now.

Maybe it's time to go all the way back to W2k...

WOW:
That's really bad. So far, the only program I can't install on
2003 server is Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia. It wants to change a system file, and, 2003 won't let it, so it deinstalls.
I can live with that, considering what I paid for it, and, that the updates have set on the disk, as well.

For some reason, the hack for 2003 has allowed me to install any games I've wanted to on the game machine.

That was an issue with just 2003 server.

Dr Greg
 

mubs

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Try Windows 2003 Server. I'm sure you have read the threads about it.

I wanted to, Tim, but it's horribly expensive. Being the Luddite I am, I moved from W2k to XP in June of 2006. Tannin forgets that though MS is "rushing" Win 7, it'll be 2013 before it's released. By then Vista SP2 will be a fairly good OS. So going by past trends, I'll be moving to Vista SP2 in 2012, right before Win 7 is released. :king:
 
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