| The
so called enhanced security features of Vista are so annoying they are
beyond belief. Every software install has to be ok'd in duplicate
before proceeding as do many common tasks throughout the system.
This new "user account control" is for the birds.
So what do you do? Find where to shut it off, right. Well,
that would be great if shutting it off disabled the feature. Soon
after you do this, you will find that installs won't work at all and
you'll be getting messages about a full or write protected disk.
It seems that turning "off" the user account control is
misleading at best. Turning it off actually locks everything down,
it does not disable the "feature".
Example: When
you install Adobe Reader 8 on Windows Vista you see the error message,
"The Temp folder is on a drive that is full or is inaccessible.
Free up space on the drive or verify that you have write permission on
the Temp folder."
Reason: You have
turned off User Account Control or you are logged in using the default
administrator account.
What kind of nonsense is that?
There are restrictions to the core admin account? In the immortal words
of Pooh Bear... "Oh bother..." So, back on it goes.
You'll also quickly find out that any
drivers not MS certified will simply be ignored and not found by the
system. Whether they are there or not, it just won't let you
install them. I guess everyone has to go buy new
accessories. Does anyone else smell a rat? However, if the
device came with a setup.exe for driver install, you can adjust the
properties of the exe to run in WINXP "compatibility
mode". You will quickly find that this is your best
friend. At this point, most software seems to be either
"unknown" to Vista or "not compatible" with Vista;
or at least that's what the system tells me when I install things. (or
attempt to) The best thing I've found to do at the moment is to
install all of my beloved old software to a custom path outside of the
MS controlled "program files" location. I just made a
c:\old programs\ folder and use it for my goodies. Seems to
work just fine; even for those things that Vista says are not
compatible. (like call of duty 2 for example)
By the way, if you do install a program
to the default location in the p.f. folder, and wind up with some
cryptic nonsense about ntl.dll exception 00x0009fge_blah friggin' blah
blah whatever. Uninstall and reinstall to a custom location as
described above. Another glorious side effect of the "we'll
keep you safe from yourself" b.s. that's in play here is that some
kinds of program file operations aren't allowed in that folder
anymore. Sure, they could have just said read/write permission
error, but that makes far too much sense and would not require the end
user to ponder more upgrades.
The short of all this is on the surface
it looks as if this newest entry on the OS front by MS is fully intent
on driving sales of new peripherals and updated software versions for
the average user not patient or savvy enough to figure out how to work
around it; whether they need it or not.
It
also seems that system changes and software installs require more
reboots with Vista than XP. Progress? I don't think so.
It is purdy tho, and I do like the
window preview popup on the taskbar.
I HATE the new start menu. It takes longer to access
programs with it. It doesn't scale to the screen size, which IMO it
should to at least give you some more view.
I also find it gloriously humorous that the wheel mouse fails to work in
some of the new "system" windows.
Oh, and don't put a clock with a second hand on the side bar unless you
want processor hits that seem to get preference over everything else
every second or so...
Review: At this point,
Vista is not worth the time, money and aggravation for the sake of a
prettier display interface that beats the ever loving hell out of your
video card to perform simple tasks.
But alas, you will be
assimilated... sooner or later...
Now... With that said, let's be
fair. As Vista moves in to the mainstream of the computer
landscape one of two things will happen. Either MS will patch out
the non productive over annoyances and resolve the gross amount of
backwards compatibility issues OR Vista, like MS ME will be short lived.
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