Vista, first impressions

[Belisarius]

I just installed Vista to see what it was like. First thing I do is go to the Control Panel. The *very* first thing that occurs is that a popup dialog box appears asking me if I requested to open up the Control Panel.

Vista's security seems to *assume* the machine is infected and being operated by an idiot. Where's the option to say "I know what I'm doing, now stop bugging me"?

[DJMaze]

You can configure that in the Control Panel somewhere deep within a wizard

But, you're warned. I did install something (Firebird SQL) and didn't get a warning and no the Control Panel and Explorer keeps crashing on me.
So it is wisely to keep it turned on and never install anything!

[Belisarius]

Ok, after some persistence and googling, I figured out how to turn off those annoying nag screens. Next question:

How do I change the file dialog? The one that comes with Vista is atrocious.



I've never seen so much change for the sake of change before.

EDIT: My mistake - apparently they just grafted the clunky File Explorer into the dialog, so 90% of the problem isn't the file dialog, but rather the file explorer itself. How do I just go up a directory? Seriously, what was wrong with the way it was?

[DJMaze]

You maybe get used to it.
I gave up and switched to GNU/Linux

[Belisarius]

Well, two problems. First off, I have a lot of software that only really runs in Windows. I'd need to spend a lot of time figuring out how to do similar stuff in Linux. I've been in a Windows-Workstation/Unix-Server setup for some time now, and I've gotten pretty comfortable with that kind of setup.

But the main problem is that I want/need to learn how to use Vista because we're switching to it at work, and I'd rather figure out all my work-arounds now rather than get frustrated trying to help a non-techy at work while fighting the OS.

[DJMaze]

Oh so true! I understand you Belisarius.

I work at a small company so it was easy. With a business license you are allowed to downgrade from Vista Business editions to XP Pro.
So i called MS that i'm downgrading from Vista to XP and are in need of the license keys and the 10 new PC's only have Vista.
After some struggles they gave me the 10 keys.

Now all 18 workstations use XP Pro.

Switching from XP to Vista inside a corporation is asking for trouble.
Sure Vista has nice features but the new Samba, IE and Outlook 2007 will give you more headaches then you could imagine.

For example the Outlook 2007 use the Word HTML renderer and this means:
- no background images in email
- no gif animations in email
- no css in email
- etc.

[Belisarius]

Having worked for them for a few years now it seems that the brass don't care too much about the practical impact of their IT directives - they're more interested in seeing "big things" get done. Upgrading everyone to Vista means they're on the cutting edge. Any pushback from us at lower levels (and middle management seems too wimpy to really put up a fight) is ignored as just the grumbling of the peons needing to do a little more work.

Maybe I'm being unfair, but a lot of the directives seem arbitrary and are given without explaination (at least to those of us who have to implement them). Get's frustrating after a while.

[DJMaze]

I did leave a company last year. One reason was for bad management. They did put the sales department on Vist Home computers on a corporate network.
The only thing management could do was complain why the Vista Home computers failed to connect with the network!

I couldn't convince them to use Vista Business nor XP Pro just for the fact they "cost to much"

So i went and this new company did buy the Business edition, however since programmers need to do special tasks like finding word phrases inside C or PHP files, Vista is not an option since it refuses to search in ALL files and only can find word documents.
Word itself is also a problem since as of April this year the European government only allows documents in the ODF ISO format (OpenOffice) so that documents are interchangeable between departments and operating systems.

Another issue arose at the design department that Photoshop CS3 was horribly slow.
Main reasons why i convinced the chiefs to stay away.

But you have real PITA with your management.

I might reconsider Vista when it is at the SP2 level if that ever comes since MS is already ranting about its Windows 7 version.