Problems with Vista - Feedback for MS

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Guest

I am a software developer and have recently downloaded Vista Beta 2 build
5384 x64 edition. I have experienced a number of issues with Vista which I
would like to encourage some discussion about:

1. The Vista setup program does not support USB mice - I had to use the
keyboard to control it until Vista finished installing, upon which my Dell
USB mouse was finally recognised and started working.

2. The display settings UI does not seem well thought out. The initial user
interface presents a page of hyper-links to different settings which looks
good. When you actually click on say the "Display Settings" link, it doesn't
take you to a new page which you can navigate with the forward and back
buttons like you'd expect a hyperlink to, instead it pops up a dialog of
settings similar to the old Windows XP Display property sheet. The new Vista
UI is supposed to use a browser style interface - why is it mixing metaphores
like this?

3. Performance in general seems to be very slow on a Dual 3.4GHz Xeon with
Hyper-Threading, 1GB of RAM and an NVIDIA 6800 Ultra card (Vista rating 3)
and it is obvious that not everything is being double buffered. Our own
scientific imaging application, Volocity (www.improvision.com/Volocity) is
unable to use hardware accelerated Open GL (probably due to the beta NVIDIA
drivers) and even 2-D drawing with DirectDraw is incredibly slow and flickery
due to the selective lack of double-buffering.

4. My monitors resync every time a security dialog appears - this is not
good as it puts a strain on them.

5. There are way too many security dialogs - do I really need to click on
one just to change the date and time?

5. Multiple monitor support seems messed up - I was not able to set my LCD
panel to use its highest res (1024x768). Whenever I tried, the settings
would reset, my LCD would set itself back to 800x600 and my CRT would become
the secondary monitor instead of the primary monitor like it is supposed to
be. Maybe this is a problem with the beta NVIDIA drivers?

6. The start menu is too cluttered and the distinction between individual
items has been lost due to the removal of the icons. In particular, the
"Computer" option needs to be much more distinctive and belongs near the top
as it one of the most frequently used items.

7. The new inplace browser to view available programs in the start menu is
awkward to use because the available space is very cramped and requires much
more clicking just to see what programs are available. I much prefer the old
hierarchical menu system.

8. I haven't seen any sign of the new 3-D Alt-Tab window navigation system.
Is this something I have to turn on?

Personally I think MS still has a lot of work to do on this release (yeah, I
know - it's still a beta). The UI is starting to grow on me, though. It
doesn't seem to have the ton of flashy 3-D animations I was expecting (mostly
just subtle things like the scale-down window minimisation animation), but
possibly this is a good thing.
 
Performance is secondary issue at this point. About the mouse issue you
described seems bit odd. Maybe its some bios setting and usb timings. I
believe that will be fixed as releases go forth. Nvidia beta drivers with
your card should trigger the aero glass as well the win+tab selections. UI
itself, who knows. Its just something new imho.
 
Sorry about all the dups - the newsgroup system kept giving me an error every
time I tried to post, but it was actually silently posting my message. The
last dup contains the most recent "version" of my msg :-)
 
I doubt it's anything to do with my BIOS - I'm using a bog standard Dell
Precision Workstation 670 with an Intel E7525 chip. There are no USB timing
settings to speak of (there are no USB settings at all, actually). I suspect
that the setup program simply doesn't try to load drivers for USB mice, just
PS/2. I'm sure it will be fixed.

I'm not sure all the UI problems can be dismissed as it being "new" or
"different." The in-place program navigator browser in the start menu, for
example, is just clumsy - I can't see any actually benefit over the
hierarchical menu. I have no problem with the look and feel changing, but I
don't think there is anything to gain in replacing standard UI features with
things that are harder to use and provide no improvements.
 
Well my mouse is usb and it works fine. 2 different pcs with usb mouse and
no issues at all.
 
My Usb Bluetooth mouse and keyboard were recognised without problem.

Have you logged this with Microsoft?
 
Legacy USB support in the BIOS is so that a USB keyboard can be used to
navigate the BIOS settings screen without an OS being loaded.

There is no reason why Vista setup can't load a generic USB mouse driver
without requiring any support from the BIOS.
 
If it's just a simple bug then that's great - I've reported the problem to MS
using the Vista feedback web page anyway.
 
What I found amazing is that when I plug my mouse from one usb port to another, it takes a few seconds
for the mouse to be ???Installed???

I recall plugging the same usb mouse on a mac (A Microsoft intelimouse) and the moment it was pluged in, it worked.
(Same goes with DV camera)

also, speaking out the mouse, it seem Vista still got a case of the 'jerky' with the mouse freezing with some operations.
Its also not in sync with the beam (Even so its a 100hz capable mouse)... (X800XT + 1gig of 128bit DDR memory + 3200XP processor)

Is this a beta 2 thing, or MS think of shiping the OS this way ?

Stephan
 
Just a thought here, but just because you personally don't care for some of
the features doesn't mean they are problems. And I doubt the code has been
optimized yet, so of course it runs slow! It's a beta.
 
Just a thought here, but just because you personally don't care for some of
the features doesn't mean they are problems
Click to expand...

I mean problems as in "problems that I am experiencing with the beta that I
consider to be problems" - in other words, yes this is all my opinion (other
than the USB mouse issue, which definitely happened to me).

:
.. And I doubt the code has been
optimized yet, so of course it runs slow! It's a beta.
Click to expand...

"I doubt all the bugs have been fixed yet so of course not everything works!
It's a beta."

See how useful that attitude is? No one would report a bug and nothing would
get fixed! MS have released a public beta so they can get feedback. I don't
personally care if the slowdowns are because of debug code or because no
optimisations have been done. I am simply reporting a performance problem
with Vista. It's up to MS to either discard my feedback because they know
it's all explainable due to Vista being a beta or to follow it up because
they are not expecting this.
 
Of course we are reporting the bugs we find. But, at least for me, I don't
rant on a message board about a beta operating system having bugs. I
actually expect there to be bugs. Isn't that the point of a beta release,
finding the bugs? Have you reported the issues you are having with bug
reports?

And yes, I would agree that the lack of USB support for the mouse is a bug.
So, report it.
 
Of course we are reporting the bugs we find. But, at least for me, I don't
rant on a message board about a beta operating system having bugs.
Click to expand...

Ermm... most of the issues I reported on were issues I had with the UI, not
bugs per se.

What rant? You're coming across as a bit of a fan boy here. Beta releases
are made to solicit bug fixes and feedback. I'm providing feedback. Are you
going to post these kind of unhelpful messages after every bug report or
usability comment in this newsgroup?
actually expect there to be bugs. Isn't that the point of a beta release,
finding the bugs? Have you reported the issues you are having with bug
reports?
Click to expand...

Yes, I have.
And yes, I would agree that the lack of USB support for the mouse is a bug.
So, report it.
Click to expand...

Yes, I did.
 
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