G
Guest
Hi,
I want to share my experience and opinion about Windows Vista (beta 2), and
I am sorry if it a too long msg, I just hope it can be useful to anyone:
1- I use an Acer TravelMate 4602WLMI laptop, Intel Pentium M740 1.73 GHz, 2
MB L2 cache, 80 GB HDD, 1 GB DDR RAM, 15.4" WXGA wide TF LCD monitor, ATI
Mobility Radeon x600 PCI express graphics card (display driver) with 64MB
VRAM, DVD/CD Dual (Support DVD RW), and running Windows XP proffisional SP2.
2- I downloaded Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor beta, and it told me I "may
not" be able to use the Aero functionality because my ATI has 64 MB memory,
and some other drivers that "may not" exist for some devices I have. I got
ready finding these drivers from the devices vendors, and also it was
important to visit the ATI site, because they have new drivers designed for
Vista beta 2.
3- I downloaded the beta 2 ISO file from the Microsoft site using my
download manager, I didn't have any troubles doing that, and it took 8 hours
at 120 kb/s.
4- I made MD5 and CRC check on the file I downloaded, because many users
reported corrupted file after downloading:
- File Size = 3.12 GB (3,355,598,848 bytes)
- CRC Value = 0x67E089E0
- MD5 Value = 0E733AB1A8E8FF9A8684FD3639332773
5- I read all the documentation online and the other users comments about
Vista installation to be aware of the problems I would face (very important
to start with that before installing any application, and specially beta's).
6- I decided (of course) to make a clean Vista installation (not wise to
upgrade on a machine I use for primary work) on a second partition so it can
dual boot the XP and Vista. I used Partition magic to divide my HD, 40GB for
the XP and all my programs (FAT32) (drive C:\), 20GB for the Vista (NTFS)
(drive D:\), 20GB for the backup files (NTFS) (drive F:\), and my DVD
remained at drive E:\.
7- Previously, I installed Microsoft Office 2007 Beta, and Internet Explorer
7 Beta 2, and they were working very wonderful on my XP (I had some problems
with them, but using Microsoft help made me solve that), and I read somewhere
a comment that I should uninstall Office 2007 before attempting to install
Windows Vista..... I think that comment was for upgrading a previous version
of windows to Vista, but I uninstalled anyway, and I discovered no relation
after that. (This is the first time in my 15 years computer using life to use
dual booting operating systems, so that was also a new experience to me).
8- I did the first easiest thing to start installing from the ISO file, I
mounted it to a Daemon tools driver under my Windows XP, and the installation
window poped up, I pointed to drive D:\ , it started to install, and it gave
me an error "at least one device driver that maybe required to boot this
system is not available......" it asked me to load the necessary boot
critical device..... the device name is D347prt SCSI controller. A search for
what this device is showed me it is the Daemon tools driver. And I couldn't
find an answer to how to bypass this, So I cancelled installing Vista this
way.
9- While Daemon tools still running, I copied all the files and folders
extracted from the ISO to the C:\ driver (I created a folder for that), then
I uninstalled Daemon tools, rebooted, and made sure this SCSI controller is
not on my device manager anymore. Under my XP again, I started the
installation from the setup.exe file.... started, drive D:\ decision, and it
finished copying and extracting the files to my computer.... then at boot
time, another error "Vista installation encountered an error and needs to
close" without specifying what that error is, and only an ok button that
ended the installation.
10- I burned the ISO image to a DVD, and started the Vista installation
under XP, and the same happened like in step 8.
11- I decided to boot from the DVD, and I made the DVD drive is the first
boot drive from the setup menu (right after starting the laptop), this time
the installation went without any single problem, installed to drive D:\ as I
wanted, became a dual boot operating system laptop, and I could REALLY see
the Vista on my computer
......... I started this step at 4:20 pm , and I
finished installing and starting the Vista at 5:34 pm (74 minutes) ... which
is not bad at all, but I think it can be faster (I don't understand what is
the reason of copying files the extracting file!! Maybe there is a reason for
this).
12- The Vista starting was easy, but it took too much time (between black
screens and restarting the computer many times).
13- Vista is a cinematic operating system, very wonderful, colorful, and
very pleasant in media playing.
14- Despite what Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor told me about Aero, I could
use it with ATI Mobility Radeon x600 with 64 MB VRAM, and the first thing I
did was installing the new ATI drivers, and it REALLY made the Aero an AERO
.... so the first lesson I learned is to find drivers for all the devices
that are designed for Vista, it's very different that those for XP (or I
think).
15- Most companies are still sleeping I guess, either no drivers update
(they stopped at XP SP2), or their programs will not run on Windows Vista
(All anti viruses, antispyware, and Yahoo messenger..... at least what is a
freeware of them, and what I trust more). So most errors in Vista are related
to device drivers being old and needs updating. What devices I found updated
online really meant better performance in Vista.
16- Internet Explorer 7 that is bundled in Vista is very strange!! I have it
installed on the XP system without problems, but in Vista each time I answer
a cookie (with yes or no) it gives me an error msg "Internet Explorer stopped
working....... Windows will close the program and notify you for solution if
available..... close program button...." then nothing is closed!! but the
behavior of the IE becomes strange after that specially if I want to download
a file, it will not download. In problem report and solutions, I found
something related to ntdll.dll ! And I am not sure what is the problem or how
to find what is causing it.
17- I choose to autohide the taskbar, and I have to press the windows button
to get it while any window is opened, not just to move the mouse pointer
down. I don't know how to get around this.
18- The tool tips are wonderful, very clear.
19- The local network connection is a breath, I found myself online without
any effort, and also windows detected all the network components (still I
have some old drivers issue but they work).
20- Windows Explorer in my opinion is a crowded mess. Comparing to any
previous version of windows, it is very hard to get around in this one, I had
to stay 2 hours to see where I am in what and how! and that small arrows to
the left of the folders are hard to be detected, I have to aim the mouse
pointer very good to be able to open a folder to see it's sub folders, or it
will open in the right pane... which is something hard for me to learn again,
or maybe I am old. And these " my contacts, my photos, my videos....etc"
takes a lot of space as if they are that important to life, for an old user
like me, they don't mean a lot, I need the drive letters, the folders in
these drives, then the files.... easy old me!
21- When I boot Vista, the Vista drive is read "C:\" and the XP drive is
"D:\" .... When I boot the XP, the XP drive is "C:\" and the Vista drive is
"D:\".... but since this is the first time for me to use 2 operating systems
on one computer, I don't know if it's right or something is wrong.
22- As I said previously, there is an antivirus crises in Vista beta 2, I
hope it will be solved, I read here
http://www.iexbeta.com/wiki/index.php/Windows_Vista_Beta_1_Software_Compatibility_List,
but it is for Vista beta 1, and I don't trust to force an installation that
could harm the operating system, so I am waiting for any news. I think the
same goes for the anti spyware programs.
23- Windows media player 11 is WONDERFUL, and as the Vista has improved
media (visual and audio), it makes it x10 times better than what you can see
in XP.
24- I am surprised that my rating is 3.... First I don't know 3 out of what,
but I thought I had a nice configuration laptop, at least to have 5 .... I
suggest to review again what resources Vista is needing, because like this
many people will be afraid to buy the new operating system. A remark from me
is that last year most companies were trying to quickly sell it's old stock
of computers at lower prices for them to make new computers for Vista, and I
guess a huge amount of people bought computers last year, so it is not likely
to buy another computer again this year. My own opinion.
25- The side bar is a meaningless disaster, and the clock there are strange,
always showing the wrong time .... besides adding weight to the system
resources, the side bar has some issues making the windows slow in shutdown.
the same about shutdown goes to Windows Defender.
26- Why winsat.exe reports critical error in the event viewer when I start
Windows? Although it works fine.
These are my remarks until now and I still didn't test Office 2007 beta and
other programs, which I will do soon and continue telling you the experiance
(if I am not boring). Final conclusions:
1- Vista is very great, but not a big difference than XP, it is just a
cinematic XP. So it is not a big jump in a future operating systems or
anything.
2- The effects can be rated 10 out of 10, the ease of use 7 out of 10, the
overall rate for the operating system is 8 out of 10.
3- I would definitely buy Windows Vista when it is out and tested, although
until now I am still in love with XP.
4- All the betas I tested from Microsoft last month (IE7, Office 2007, and
Vista) are wonderful. I say, keep working on the issues and don't listen to
someone who will tell you other products in the market are better.... I try
or tried everything out there (operating systems, office suites, and internet
browsers) and they don't reach half the distance to Microsoft products. I
hope you still can keep being the best.
I want to share my experience and opinion about Windows Vista (beta 2), and
I am sorry if it a too long msg, I just hope it can be useful to anyone:
1- I use an Acer TravelMate 4602WLMI laptop, Intel Pentium M740 1.73 GHz, 2
MB L2 cache, 80 GB HDD, 1 GB DDR RAM, 15.4" WXGA wide TF LCD monitor, ATI
Mobility Radeon x600 PCI express graphics card (display driver) with 64MB
VRAM, DVD/CD Dual (Support DVD RW), and running Windows XP proffisional SP2.
2- I downloaded Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor beta, and it told me I "may
not" be able to use the Aero functionality because my ATI has 64 MB memory,
and some other drivers that "may not" exist for some devices I have. I got
ready finding these drivers from the devices vendors, and also it was
important to visit the ATI site, because they have new drivers designed for
Vista beta 2.
3- I downloaded the beta 2 ISO file from the Microsoft site using my
download manager, I didn't have any troubles doing that, and it took 8 hours
at 120 kb/s.
4- I made MD5 and CRC check on the file I downloaded, because many users
reported corrupted file after downloading:
- File Size = 3.12 GB (3,355,598,848 bytes)
- CRC Value = 0x67E089E0
- MD5 Value = 0E733AB1A8E8FF9A8684FD3639332773
5- I read all the documentation online and the other users comments about
Vista installation to be aware of the problems I would face (very important
to start with that before installing any application, and specially beta's).
6- I decided (of course) to make a clean Vista installation (not wise to
upgrade on a machine I use for primary work) on a second partition so it can
dual boot the XP and Vista. I used Partition magic to divide my HD, 40GB for
the XP and all my programs (FAT32) (drive C:\), 20GB for the Vista (NTFS)
(drive D:\), 20GB for the backup files (NTFS) (drive F:\), and my DVD
remained at drive E:\.
7- Previously, I installed Microsoft Office 2007 Beta, and Internet Explorer
7 Beta 2, and they were working very wonderful on my XP (I had some problems
with them, but using Microsoft help made me solve that), and I read somewhere
a comment that I should uninstall Office 2007 before attempting to install
Windows Vista..... I think that comment was for upgrading a previous version
of windows to Vista, but I uninstalled anyway, and I discovered no relation
after that. (This is the first time in my 15 years computer using life to use
dual booting operating systems, so that was also a new experience to me).
8- I did the first easiest thing to start installing from the ISO file, I
mounted it to a Daemon tools driver under my Windows XP, and the installation
window poped up, I pointed to drive D:\ , it started to install, and it gave
me an error "at least one device driver that maybe required to boot this
system is not available......" it asked me to load the necessary boot
critical device..... the device name is D347prt SCSI controller. A search for
what this device is showed me it is the Daemon tools driver. And I couldn't
find an answer to how to bypass this, So I cancelled installing Vista this
way.
9- While Daemon tools still running, I copied all the files and folders
extracted from the ISO to the C:\ driver (I created a folder for that), then
I uninstalled Daemon tools, rebooted, and made sure this SCSI controller is
not on my device manager anymore. Under my XP again, I started the
installation from the setup.exe file.... started, drive D:\ decision, and it
finished copying and extracting the files to my computer.... then at boot
time, another error "Vista installation encountered an error and needs to
close" without specifying what that error is, and only an ok button that
ended the installation.
10- I burned the ISO image to a DVD, and started the Vista installation
under XP, and the same happened like in step 8.
11- I decided to boot from the DVD, and I made the DVD drive is the first
boot drive from the setup menu (right after starting the laptop), this time
the installation went without any single problem, installed to drive D:\ as I
wanted, became a dual boot operating system laptop, and I could REALLY see
the Vista on my computer
......... I started this step at 4:20 pm , and Ifinished installing and starting the Vista at 5:34 pm (74 minutes) ... which
is not bad at all, but I think it can be faster (I don't understand what is
the reason of copying files the extracting file!! Maybe there is a reason for
this).
12- The Vista starting was easy, but it took too much time (between black
screens and restarting the computer many times).
13- Vista is a cinematic operating system, very wonderful, colorful, and
very pleasant in media playing.
14- Despite what Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor told me about Aero, I could
use it with ATI Mobility Radeon x600 with 64 MB VRAM, and the first thing I
did was installing the new ATI drivers, and it REALLY made the Aero an AERO
.... so the first lesson I learned is to find drivers for all the devicesthat are designed for Vista, it's very different that those for XP (or I
think).
15- Most companies are still sleeping I guess, either no drivers update
(they stopped at XP SP2), or their programs will not run on Windows Vista
(All anti viruses, antispyware, and Yahoo messenger..... at least what is a
freeware of them, and what I trust more). So most errors in Vista are related
to device drivers being old and needs updating. What devices I found updated
online really meant better performance in Vista.
16- Internet Explorer 7 that is bundled in Vista is very strange!! I have it
installed on the XP system without problems, but in Vista each time I answer
a cookie (with yes or no) it gives me an error msg "Internet Explorer stopped
working....... Windows will close the program and notify you for solution if
available..... close program button...." then nothing is closed!! but the
behavior of the IE becomes strange after that specially if I want to download
a file, it will not download. In problem report and solutions, I found
something related to ntdll.dll ! And I am not sure what is the problem or how
to find what is causing it.
17- I choose to autohide the taskbar, and I have to press the windows button
to get it while any window is opened, not just to move the mouse pointer
down. I don't know how to get around this.
18- The tool tips are wonderful, very clear.
19- The local network connection is a breath, I found myself online without
any effort, and also windows detected all the network components (still I
have some old drivers issue but they work).
20- Windows Explorer in my opinion is a crowded mess. Comparing to any
previous version of windows, it is very hard to get around in this one, I had
to stay 2 hours to see where I am in what and how! and that small arrows to
the left of the folders are hard to be detected, I have to aim the mouse
pointer very good to be able to open a folder to see it's sub folders, or it
will open in the right pane... which is something hard for me to learn again,
or maybe I am old
. And these " my contacts, my photos, my videos....etc"takes a lot of space as if they are that important to life, for an old user
like me, they don't mean a lot, I need the drive letters, the folders in
these drives, then the files.... easy old me!
21- When I boot Vista, the Vista drive is read "C:\" and the XP drive is
"D:\" .... When I boot the XP, the XP drive is "C:\" and the Vista drive is
"D:\".... but since this is the first time for me to use 2 operating systems
on one computer, I don't know if it's right or something is wrong.
22- As I said previously, there is an antivirus crises in Vista beta 2, I
hope it will be solved, I read here
http://www.iexbeta.com/wiki/index.php/Windows_Vista_Beta_1_Software_Compatibility_List,
but it is for Vista beta 1, and I don't trust to force an installation that
could harm the operating system, so I am waiting for any news. I think the
same goes for the anti spyware programs.
23- Windows media player 11 is WONDERFUL, and as the Vista has improved
media (visual and audio), it makes it x10 times better than what you can see
in XP.
24- I am surprised that my rating is 3.... First I don't know 3 out of what,
but I thought I had a nice configuration laptop, at least to have 5
.... Isuggest to review again what resources Vista is needing, because like this
many people will be afraid to buy the new operating system. A remark from me
is that last year most companies were trying to quickly sell it's old stock
of computers at lower prices for them to make new computers for Vista, and I
guess a huge amount of people bought computers last year, so it is not likely
to buy another computer again this year. My own opinion.
25- The side bar is a meaningless disaster, and the clock there are strange,
always showing the wrong time
.... besides adding weight to the systemresources, the side bar has some issues making the windows slow in shutdown.
the same about shutdown goes to Windows Defender.
26- Why winsat.exe reports critical error in the event viewer when I start
Windows? Although it works fine.
These are my remarks until now and I still didn't test Office 2007 beta and
other programs, which I will do soon and continue telling you the experiance
(if I am not boring). Final conclusions:
1- Vista is very great, but not a big difference than XP, it is just a
cinematic XP. So it is not a big jump in a future operating systems or
anything.
2- The effects can be rated 10 out of 10, the ease of use 7 out of 10, the
overall rate for the operating system is 8 out of 10.
3- I would definitely buy Windows Vista when it is out and tested, although
until now I am still in love with XP.
4- All the betas I tested from Microsoft last month (IE7, Office 2007, and
Vista) are wonderful. I say, keep working on the issues and don't listen to
someone who will tell you other products in the market are better.... I try
or tried everything out there (operating systems, office suites, and internet
browsers) and they don't reach half the distance to Microsoft products. I
hope you still can keep being the best.