****ing vista mini rant...
Discussion
Finally had enough
My laptop that I purchased with Vista Home Premium edition has now been rebuilt with my retail copy of XP.
What pisses me off the most is that Microshite will not even admit there is a fault, despite thousands of users experiencing similar problems.
Amoung the many problems...
Windows automatic search indexer (supposed to be a background function for a couple of weeks while it indexes for faster searching) went into overdrive causing the machine to hang. Microsoft denied there is a problem but told me to turn it off as there is not a fix for it yet
Network data taking 50 times longer to transfer across the network than with Vista, even with all firewalling, antivirus etc turned off.
Machine taking 10 minutes to come out of standby mode, hard drive churning away doing nothing
Wireless connection dropping off at random, only way to bring it up is with a reboot, not even disabling / enabling the device or switching it off and on again had any effect
Media Sharing software preinstalled causes the machine to hang every 2 seconds - once removed the machine ran much much bettter!
It was like this straight out the box, and only after hours of fixing the faults to get it up to a reasonable standard did I manage to put up with it for the last 6 months.
Microsoft deny all the above problems, but claim that they will be fixed in the upcoming service pack
I don't know whose fault it is that the vista build for Dell Insprion 6400 laptops was not tested but I am certainly not buying one again...
How the f
k can a large company bring out a product for an industry standard machine that has so many many many problems I will never know 
My laptop that I purchased with Vista Home Premium edition has now been rebuilt with my retail copy of XP.
What pisses me off the most is that Microshite will not even admit there is a fault, despite thousands of users experiencing similar problems.
Amoung the many problems...
Windows automatic search indexer (supposed to be a background function for a couple of weeks while it indexes for faster searching) went into overdrive causing the machine to hang. Microsoft denied there is a problem but told me to turn it off as there is not a fix for it yet
Network data taking 50 times longer to transfer across the network than with Vista, even with all firewalling, antivirus etc turned off.
Machine taking 10 minutes to come out of standby mode, hard drive churning away doing nothing
Wireless connection dropping off at random, only way to bring it up is with a reboot, not even disabling / enabling the device or switching it off and on again had any effect
Media Sharing software preinstalled causes the machine to hang every 2 seconds - once removed the machine ran much much bettter!
It was like this straight out the box, and only after hours of fixing the faults to get it up to a reasonable standard did I manage to put up with it for the last 6 months.
Microsoft deny all the above problems, but claim that they will be fixed in the upcoming service pack
I don't know whose fault it is that the vista build for Dell Insprion 6400 laptops was not tested but I am certainly not buying one again...
How the f
k can a large company bring out a product for an industry standard machine that has so many many many problems I will never know TheGriffalo said:
And to provide some yang to your ying, I love my Vista Business lappy. Never takes more than about ten seconds from opening the lid to being fully logged on.
HP 6800 here and I have to say it's the best computing experience I've ever had.
Agreed I purchased and deployed a Toshiba laptop with Vista on it, and its fine. I still cannot believe they released a verson of vista that was pretty much incompatible with the target laptop it was designed to go on...HP 6800 here and I have to say it's the best computing experience I've ever had.
TheCarpetCleaner said:
...
I don't know whose fault it is that the vista build for Dell Insprion 6400 laptops was not tested but I am certainly not buying one again...
I have an Inspiron 6400 in a box below my desk awaiting configuration, with Vista Home Premium on it... I might just have to put a copy of XP on instead if its really that bad. Except it's a pressie for my FIL for Christmas...I don't know whose fault it is that the vista build for Dell Insprion 6400 laptops was not tested but I am certainly not buying one again...
Sorry to hear about that, but maybe apart from the first problem, the others are NOT the fault of Vista.
This is due to out of date network card drivers or using XP ones. It's basically due to how the drivers handle "chucks" of data, and older/XP drivers aren't "tuned" for Vista
What you should've done is removed all the pre-installed software before thinking about reformatting with XP.
TheCarpetCleaner said:
Windows automatic search indexer (supposed to be a background function for a couple of weeks while it indexes for faster searching) went into overdrive causing the machine to hang. Microsoft denied there is a problem but told me to turn it off as there is not a fix for it yet
Have to admit, I Don't know about this problem.TheCarpetCleaner said:
Network data taking 50 times longer to transfer across the network than with Vista, even with all firewalling, antivirus etc turned off.
This is due to out of date network card drivers or using XP ones. It's basically due to how the drivers handle "chucks" of data, and older/XP drivers aren't "tuned" for Vista
TheCarpetCleaner said:
Machine taking 10 minutes to come out of standby mode, hard drive churning away doing nothing
By design (cos of Superfetch) there is supposed to be a bit of HD activity but in your case it sounds like buggy software which isn't handling memory well.TheCarpetCleaner said:
Wireless connection dropping off at random, only way to bring it up is with a reboot, not even disabling / enabling the device or switching it off and on again had any effect
Again this sounds like a driver issue.TheCarpetCleaner said:
Media Sharing software preinstalled causes the machine to hang every 2 seconds - once removed the machine ran much much bettter!
That's the fault of the software, not Vista.What you should've done is removed all the pre-installed software before thinking about reformatting with XP.
Toshiba A200GE laptop and vista business
apart from the interface hiding all the things I'm looking for the only issues I have so far
1) driver related - The ATI graphics driver has stopped responding
2) It can randomly take an age to decide how long it will take to copy a file
Number 1 - can happen once which blanks the screen for a second (no biggy) or get caught in a loop every 5 seconds which needs a reboot to cure and is soooo annoying. On an identical machine on the next desk it does both of these but also occasionally blue screens which is amusing as mine hasn't done it yet! Scrolling in firefox seems to provoke it more than anything else but it can happen just sitting by itself on the desktop. ATI have not released an update - I'm on the latest and they were supplied with the machine so I have to put up with it so far. Might turn of aero and see if that improves its reliability
Number 2 - I'd rather it just told me how much data had already been copied and left the obviously tricky maths to me to figure out when it would be finished.
other than that so far it hasn't been the nightmare I was expecting.
Its funny hearing all the same complaints again
95 = its huge/slow/rattles the disk/has no driver/crashes/etc
2000 = its huge/slow/rattles the disk/has no driver/crashes/etc
xp = its huge/slow/rattles the disk/has no driver/crashes/etc
vista = its huge/slow/rattles the disk/has no driver/crashes/etc
apart from the interface hiding all the things I'm looking for the only issues I have so far
1) driver related - The ATI graphics driver has stopped responding
2) It can randomly take an age to decide how long it will take to copy a file
Number 1 - can happen once which blanks the screen for a second (no biggy) or get caught in a loop every 5 seconds which needs a reboot to cure and is soooo annoying. On an identical machine on the next desk it does both of these but also occasionally blue screens which is amusing as mine hasn't done it yet! Scrolling in firefox seems to provoke it more than anything else but it can happen just sitting by itself on the desktop. ATI have not released an update - I'm on the latest and they were supplied with the machine so I have to put up with it so far. Might turn of aero and see if that improves its reliability
Number 2 - I'd rather it just told me how much data had already been copied and left the obviously tricky maths to me to figure out when it would be finished.
other than that so far it hasn't been the nightmare I was expecting.
Its funny hearing all the same complaints again
95 = its huge/slow/rattles the disk/has no driver/crashes/etc
2000 = its huge/slow/rattles the disk/has no driver/crashes/etc
xp = its huge/slow/rattles the disk/has no driver/crashes/etc
vista = its huge/slow/rattles the disk/has no driver/crashes/etc
countryboy said:
Sorry to hear about that, but maybe apart from the first problem, the others are NOT the fault of Vista.
Have a look around google, its quite common. Symptoms are that the harddrive light in perminantly on and a task called windows indexer shows about 100% at all times.
This is due to out of date network card drivers or using XP ones. It's basically due to how the drivers handle "chucks" of data, and older/XP drivers aren't "tuned" for Vista
Latest drivers installed from the Dell website, then installed from the manufactures websites in case. As said this is a preinstalled version of vista built for this Dell machine so there should be no XP based drivers on here
Superfetch disabled as causing too long to boot up, all Dell bundled crap removed, windows indexer disabled. Disabling hybrid hybernation mode sped it up slightly. Xp comes up in 6 seconds.... bit of a difference for a new improved OS!!
Latest Intel Proset driver installed, BIOS firmware updated - in Windows XP it now works fine. Again - preinstalled Dell system to begin with, nobody tested this???
What you should've done is removed all the pre-installed software before thinking about reformatting with XP.
Was one of the first things I did, and I consider it the fault of Vista and Dell as the two companies must have spoken to each other before building the release that came with this laptop!
TheCarpetCleaner said:
Windows automatic search indexer (supposed to be a background function for a couple of weeks while it indexes for faster searching) went into overdrive causing the machine to hang. Microsoft denied there is a problem but told me to turn it off as there is not a fix for it yet
Have to admit, I Don't know about this problem.Have a look around google, its quite common. Symptoms are that the harddrive light in perminantly on and a task called windows indexer shows about 100% at all times.
TheCarpetCleaner said:
Network data taking 50 times longer to transfer across the network than with Vista, even with all firewalling, antivirus etc turned off.
This is due to out of date network card drivers or using XP ones. It's basically due to how the drivers handle "chucks" of data, and older/XP drivers aren't "tuned" for Vista
Latest drivers installed from the Dell website, then installed from the manufactures websites in case. As said this is a preinstalled version of vista built for this Dell machine so there should be no XP based drivers on here
TheCarpetCleaner said:
Machine taking 10 minutes to come out of standby mode, hard drive churning away doing nothing
By design (cos of Superfetch) there is supposed to be a bit of HD activity but in your case it sounds like buggy software which isn't handling memory well.Superfetch disabled as causing too long to boot up, all Dell bundled crap removed, windows indexer disabled. Disabling hybrid hybernation mode sped it up slightly. Xp comes up in 6 seconds.... bit of a difference for a new improved OS!!
TheCarpetCleaner said:
Wireless connection dropping off at random, only way to bring it up is with a reboot, not even disabling / enabling the device or switching it off and on again had any effect
Again this sounds like a driver issue.Latest Intel Proset driver installed, BIOS firmware updated - in Windows XP it now works fine. Again - preinstalled Dell system to begin with, nobody tested this???
TheCarpetCleaner said:
Media Sharing software preinstalled causes the machine to hang every 2 seconds - once removed the machine ran much much bettter!
That's the fault of the software, not Vista.What you should've done is removed all the pre-installed software before thinking about reformatting with XP.
Was one of the first things I did, and I consider it the fault of Vista and Dell as the two companies must have spoken to each other before building the release that came with this laptop!
Size Nine Elm said:
TheCarpetCleaner said:
...
I don't know whose fault it is that the vista build for Dell Insprion 6400 laptops was not tested but I am certainly not buying one again...
I have an Inspiron 6400 in a box below my desk awaiting configuration, with Vista Home Premium on it... I might just have to put a copy of XP on instead if its really that bad. Except it's a pressie for my FIL for Christmas...I don't know whose fault it is that the vista build for Dell Insprion 6400 laptops was not tested but I am certainly not buying one again...
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