Is it just me or is Windows Vista the most useless piece of crap? I'm going back to XP forthwith!

[MyCatIsABiggerBastardThanYours]

Should probably have put this in chat, but am hoping that someone can tell me the wonders of Vista or should I just go back to XP.

It is the most non intuitive rubbish. I can't find anything, everything changes when I don't want it to, to do different actions you need to constantly click into different tabs. I've been using it for over 3 mths now, regularly, and still can't get my head around it!

All in all it is driving me bloody mad!

GAH!!!

It really is the most useless bit of crap.

You would think that after over a decade of making operating systems, Microsoft would be able to make one that does simple things like copy and paste or turning on without going into a fucking sulk. GRRRRRRR. Getting angry just thining about it

Widows 7 beta is out now. I have heard it is much better.

If not, I'll finally get round to learning to use Linux.

Bluebump - I have pictures in folders in folders on my vista laptop - I haven't noticed any difference - you just open the pictures folder, right click on a blank bit of the page & choose New Folder, give it a name and drag the pictures you want into it. You can hold down control as you click to select several pictures or to select a lot of consecutive pictures hold down shift & click on the first & last.

If you don't like the way the pictures are organised you can change it by clicking on the Organise menu in Explorer (which you can get to easily by right clicking on the start button & choosing Explore) It sounds like your pictures are on 'group by date' - try changing it to Sort by date or by name to get them in one sequence.

I do think a lot of Vista problems have been caused by MS saying it's possible to run it with 512Mb or 1Gb of RAM - you really need at least 2Gb for it to run properly.

Thanks for that link, Snorbs. Handy for next time someone gets stuck!

Rusty - I have to agree about the 2GB thing. DH's spare office laptop is only 1GB and it is useless compared to my 2GB. It makes a marked difference imo. I have never had any of the troubles a lot of people are talking about.

bluebump - I have disordered folders of photos all over the place - no problems making folders here.

I go into the bottom left hand corner and press that windows icon button whose proper name I don't know and then click on 'document' on the right hand side of that box. You can cut or copy and paste between files easily that way.

(Sorry if that is exactly what Rusty was talking about - no idea of the proper lingo)

Niecie - might be worth getting a (cheap/free) copy of XP for the spare laptop, or even linux (sorry, I'm not really a linux zealot... grins, ducks and runs!)

windows logo = 'Start' button

(also available hitting the key between control and alt - the one with the logo on!)

One problem for me (when I am trying to sort someone's machine out, eg clear a virus, or whatever) is that many people have the default for internet downloads as the 'desktop' so they have dozens of icons all over the desktop.

I have under 20 icons (and most of the time the browser windows hide the desktop anyway) but that's probably the only part of my life which seems 'tidy'

Yes, that's another way of opening Explorer (assuming that is actually what it's called in Vista, it was always called Windows Explorer in previous systems) Microsoft usually have several ways of doing the same thing!

Linux is great - Ubuntu is probably the best one for the desktop - www.ubuntulinux.org/. Both my daughters (12 and 13yrs) use linux laptops with Open Office/Lotus Symphony and use it for all the usual teenage stuff (facebook, instant messaging, homework etc), and we've had no real problems with it at all. It's much faster than windows to boot up, and there are lots of free software applications around to download. I also use Ubuntu on my laptop - for work, browsing, picasa for pictures etc. So worth taking a look at..

Start button - of course! What a numpty! (me that is )

Networkguy - thanks for the advice. Where would one go for a free copy of XP or indeed a cheap one? I am amazed there is such a thing.

And what, excuse my ignorance, is Linux?

Linux is a free operating system, which can be used as an alternative to Windows. If you don't already have a Windows licence, then buying a new one can be quite expensive.

There are a number of different Linux systems around - and Ubuntu has a good user interface, and is easy to install and use. There are lots of support forums on the internet if you need help.

I fucking hate Vista. When my landlord gets back, I'm going to get him to put XP on this machine I am so fucking sick of Vista!

It will NOT install updates, namely a service pack.

It shuts down to install it, over and over, fails and then does this repair thing it never fixes out.

Niecie - depends on how strictly legal you want to be, if you want XP... What I'm getting at is that there are copies on the 'net, but if your other half works in a number of professions, not just the police, he might be sniffy about hunting for it on a file sharing service as it would not be a strictly 'supported' copy, iyswim... a 'cheap' one might be the sort of thing you may find in the small ads of a local newspaper...

There have also been a few PC sellers on Ebay who supply a desktop PC with XP Pro installed, along with an XP CD (and when I've bought new machines in the past, running XP, none has come with an XP CD, which I considered a swindle, but learned from it).

As a software designer, I should be very hot on any copyright infringement, but I see it more from a consumer's viewpoint and my major criticism is that some things cost far too much - MS Windows 7 was listed the other day on a big IT website at 200 pounds plus. So, while I have legal copies of XP (came with new PCs) and don't use MS Office myself, I would only consider reporting someone using illegal copies if they were doing it for their own profits (selling copies at car boots, week in, week out) or on a major scale (price list of software, 100s of items).

In the current economic climate, MickeySoft could probably afford to give it away free for 6 to 12 months, to help (a) encourage people to use it, and (b) help businesses save on upgrade costs, without it really dreadfully denting the profits at MS.

They decided on a $50 version of XP for Thailand {just to stop there being hardly any sales as pirate copies were being sold in markets for a few dollars each}.

Also there's a problem with PCs having Windows - you cannot transfer the licence to someone else, legally, so even if you wanted to donate a bunch of PCs to some charity or childcare group (seeing that might be topical) they would be unable to legally use Windows - they're duty bound to either get a new licence with a CD from some shop, or scrub Windows.

RustyBear - I think if you can remember back to Windows 3.1 and 3.0, it was called the File Manager

OK, Windows back then (early 90s, before Windows 95 came out) was pretty poor, and seems like it may have been 640x480 screen (I mostly remember the icons being massive, and people at Job Club were scared of the mouse and 'messing up the PC', so it ended up with me typing most of their CVs for them.)

I remember 3.0/3.1 mainly from DH whinging about it - he's still a DOS man at heart & clung on to that far longer than you'd think possible.... . He still refers to folders as directories.

He's also one who likes a clear desktop; in fact he normally has no icons at all on there.

Cosette - interested (and pleased) to read about your daughters both using linux.

Lots of the netbooks have come out with Win XP (I read somewhere that a deal was struck with MickeySoft to allow XP on them, so long as the CPU wasn't above some certain speed, and a max of 1GB of RAM) but only because some people have been requesting it (and a few keen ones decided to install it anyway from CDs).

One of the Asus EEE boxes had a small (8 GB) solid state drive (no HD, no moving part, very robust, fast to boot) and ran Linux but users kept asking about XP and now they do the same model but have a 160 GB HD and XP - so not quite so robust if dropped, and a little easier to get a virus {not claiming impossible on linux, but generally less likely}.

I have a few nachines running Linspire, and have tried Knoppix and will be trying CentOS (because I rent space on a server in the USA running CentOS, so want to learn a bit more). I have used BSD 4.3 unix, and of course my iMac has a linux interface too, hidden behind all the graphics, it's handy for the unix networking tools alone.

Have not tried Ubuntu yet - might give it a go on an old XP box which won't boot... would be good if it can fire up the wi-fi hardware!

Incidentally, there was a firm called Lindows which was hoping to get a contract for 300,000 machines for school pupils in one of the States over in the USA. Not sure how things went, because someone else took over Lindows (now called Linspire as they were taken to court in countries worldwide by MickeySoft, claiming it was too 'soundalike' vs Windows - Lindows won cases but it was too costly to keep defending their name... typical bully-boy tactics from MS).

LOL but folders are directories!

I only say 'folders' to some of my clients. A few have PC experience running from 1984, like me. As for MS-DOS - I was using a DOS windows an hour ago, as there are some utilities (such as 'nslookup' to do DNS checks) that don't have a graphical interface in XP. I spent years working with MS-DOS batch scripts, and one client still calls me up to fix problems and make changes for new tasks...

Not sure when the Commodore PET and Apple II came out, we had them at work, along with RM (Research Machines) hardware with 8" floppy disks... I was the only one with small enough fingers to use the Commodore as the keyboard was like a pocket calculator - small keys, no offset from row to row... One job was on a PC with floppy drives, a tape unit for backups and a 12 MB hard drive. It cost them 1000 for a 20 MB drive. Now we can download a 200 MB film clip in a short time off the net...

I am very glad I'm the age I am, having seen the developments from the day of the ZX80, ZX81 and Spectrum etc up to todays pretty wonderful, and relatively cheap, PCs.

Well, my first computer experience was playing Hammurabi on a mainframe terminal in the Maths department at Exeter University (DH was Maths, I was a historian, so we didn't have much to do with computers.) And something called (I think) 'Life' that printed out loads of asterisks that would breed or die of loneliness or overcrowding according to how many asterisks were near them - DH & his friends used to set it going overnight & pick up the printouts in the morning - the kind of game you play on your phone in seconds now.

Our first home computer was a ZX81 which had some kind of add-on pack that used to disconnect whenever a lorry went past outside, a very dodgy keyboard and games that loaded from tapes & took longer to load than to play.

Then we upgraded to the first of a series of BBC computers - fond memories of DH racking up millions of points at Chuckie Egg while I sat & watched, heavily pregnant with DS. If there's anything in pre-natal conditioning, DS is probably imprinted with that tune & the sound of little piles of seed being collected....

I have vista on my new lap top. It is spectacularly shit and does my head in. Instead of producing a new, shiny version of windows with a few tweaks I think they just started from scratch to confuse everyone .

I've been considering vista as I can't get SP2 on my system and therrefore the camera won't upload

have to use card reader which I HATE

but when I tried to get vista it wouldn't let me do that either. Stuffed

re Cymbeline and problem getting SP2...

Any error messages to go on?

I think (sorry, only spotted it the other day in a pile of stuff from when I moved) I may have a CD with SP2 on it... think it had been on the front of a PC magazine a while (!) back.

(Yes, bit of a hoarder, but in that case it was because I remember seeing warnings at the time about some software not being compatible with SP2.)

But also saw a torrent (file sharing - not a legal copy of XP) which included SP2... maybe there's a way I could post you a CD with it on, if you cannot download it, if that would help you.

Meglet - worst thing is that people no longer have the choice... and in the not too distant future lots more will get Vista on PCs as they will be dumping them 'cheaply' when the new Windows 7 PCs are being stocked.

Networkguy how kind of you

Well I couldn't download it when I tried from MS site, because they said basically STOP, unless you are a network, this is far too large for your system, here is a smaller and more apt download for you

My dad's has SP3 and the camera works fine on it

NetworkGuy - your a star and very very helpful, thank you. I'm saving this thread because you've put loads of useful stuff on it.

Snorbs - thanks for that link. I shall look at it and make changes forthwith.

I've never looked at linux but my uncle who worked at Cambridge Uni (I believe) said it was v good. What makes it better (or not) than Windows?

RustyBear & Niecie thanks for the photo advice!

I still don't seem to be able to get to get a new folder in my photos by right clicking or anything. I create a folder on the desktop, put my photos in and then go back to my photos click 'file' and then 'include a folder' and that works!

Cymbeline - are you on Virgin Media or ADSL (hardly anyone is on dial-up these days, but it's not impossible)...

I have come across a few websites which still show the time it would take if you use a 28.8 kbps modem (which goes back to the latter half of the 90s, because I remember being given someone's 28.8 when they got a 56k modem in the office).

Is there an estimate of the size of the download? It should be relatively easy to d/l (but I remember they offered some service packs on CDs for a fee, because it could take 'a while' to d/l (best leave it to last thing before bed, because weekdays 1600 to midnight is 'peak' time for home internet use, and other people would slow your d/l down.

Another thing to check is whether you are on an account with a limited quota - some accounts only allow 1 GB a month (and either charge actual cash for extra traffic, or stop it completely).

It might be Microsoft just being a bit 'careful' but I'd hate to say "download it, it'll be alright" and then find you get charged money for going over quota (Three charges about 10p a MB - 100 quid per GB, and O2 is going to charge twice that, so would be a very expensive download).

The only other thing that could be a sticking point is if you've filled up your hard drive - I've got about 30 GB left from 3 disk drives which have a total of 300 GB (and other PCs are similarly full!)

So - do you have lots of space on your "C" drive? Did the Microsoft site report how big the download would be?

It may work, but unless you have no problem about big downloads (ISP account) then I'd err on the side of caution...