Microsoft Forgot To Tell Me?/ Writing A Note To Someone
Table of contents for 4/Topics And TV
- Women Dump Tupperware for Tasers / Lessons From Virginia Tech Massacre
- Rusty Ruminations/ Sweeney Todd Would Be Proud
- Microsoft Forgot To Tell Me?/ Writing A Note To Someone
- The Blogger Is Sick / The Last Act
- Angelina Jolie And Brad Pitt
I recently upgraded one of my computers to Vista. I didn’t start out planning to do it. But somewhere in the process of reformatting my computer it seemed like a good idea. I think it was probably about the time that I realized I didn’t have the series of numbers and letters necessary to complete the reformatting process. Somehow they had skipped town and there was nothing printed on the computer case either.
So I was stuck without an operating system for awhile there. And then I decided to make lemonade out of lemons and bought the two hundred dollar Vista OS. And installed it.
And everything was fine until I read where Microsoft would upgrade my Vista from 32 bit to 64 bit if I sent them ten more clam shells.
Well that sounded like a pretty good deal so I did that and (wonders never cease) along in the mail awhile later came a slim cardboard container and my upgrade. And I installed it.
And everything was fine until I tried to run my printer and/or my Linksys wireless network. And neither of them worked! I had no internet in my inner sanctum. And that was a problem.
So I went to Best Buy and asked one of the Geek Squad about it and this is what he told me.
Nothing works with Vista 64-Bit OS. Every computer they have sold with it has been returned. There are no drivers that coordinate all the things you normally hook up with your computer.
Now you would have thought that maybe that bit of information would be out here somewhere so that we would all know about it and be able to make informed decisions.
Hey Microsoft! It’s the information age! How about sharing some of it with all of us.
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Update: Someone stumbled this post and it went crazy on StumbleUpon. I watched over 3500 views go by on Clicky/Spy. It seemed like a new reader was coming in every second for awhile. But it has stopped now. Somebody thumbed it down.
Maybe that stopped it. Or maybe it just ran its natural course for awhile. My stumbles tend to come back days and weeks later if they are popular. He wrote:
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Bollocks. Total Bollocks. I am running Vista 64-Bit and all of my devices have drivers. Once again, more FUD against Vista.
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And this is a very well written article but somewhat technical:
“On the positive side, the x64 versions of Windows Vista are more secure and reliable than the 32-bit versions. They also support enormous amounts of system memory, which can be important in markets such as digital content creation, engineering, and even gaming. On the other hand, the x64 versions are also far less compatible than their predecessors, with both hardware devices and software, and these incompatibilities will ultimately make the x64 Vista versions less attractive to most users.”
http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/winvista_ff_x64.asp
After reading these two articles I understand enough about what is going on to know that I need to reformat my computer again and reinstall the Vista 32-bit OS .
Because my speakers don’t work with the Vista 64-bit OS either. And it is easy enough to do this because I bought the 32 bit system from CompUSA. But what if I had felt very prosperous that day and bought the 64 bit system for 3oo dollars? I would have been out of luck! You can return a computer with it installed as many have been doing apparently. But you are not going to find returning software so easy!
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9 responses so far
Silly old MS.
This is why I like open source/free software so much. If you have the source of the program you want, it doesn’t matter at all if your computer is compatible with the normally compiled program. Just compile it yourself and as long as there is a version of gcc for it (there always is), then the program almost always works. And if it doesn’t, you can fix it yourself. And it’s free. What’s better than that?
Screw proprietary software!
I’m with Nick - why pay a few hundred dollars for an OS and software when you can get something that performs as well if not better in almost all areas - for free.
You’re never stuck without information, if something isn’t already mentioned online the open source community is always willing to help out.
Davidlind,
Your problem here is your assumption that MS is a software company and that it is customer-centric.
But MS is in fact, a marketing company that just happens to market software.
MS is a fantastically successful marketing company. However, as a software company, mediocre is a profound overstatement.
Amen Nick, Hazel, Mark,
I had no connection to the internet for 3 years and once I came back to it ….. wow!
You have Open Office, Abiword, Audacity,Gimp, Firefox, and way, way more apps and utilities than mentionable. Many of these programs were around previously but a little buggy.
Don’t buy anything you absolutely don’t need, there are great apps for free on the net. If you stumble a bit , you can find a lot of what you’re looking for. I wasted time and money buying a new Del*laptop with vi*ta installed. It didn’t work with the company firewall from M*afee so I used an old version of xp. I would like to ask for my money back from MicroJunk because I have no use for visata. If I had known previously of the problems that followed, I would have gone with Linux. I’m currently playing with Ubuntu. I have no Idea how to run it but it’s already more reliable than any MicroJunk product that I have ever owned and the interface is not that different from Msxp . Internet access is nonstop with the 100mbps connection. I have never had it freeze. When you get sick of Ms and learn Linux you will probably save $100 to $300 on your next computer purchase. If you can support open source products please do, they are the future of freedom of software.
Usually their price is anything that you can give or completely free. Can’t beat the price. I paid 100 buks for my xp home….why??? I paid a lot more fixing it.
MicroJunk = Ms. No disrespect to them, but their time has come and gone. Inferior service leads to the death of trust.
I could write pages after 16 years of Ms wtf but would fall into mootillity. Where did my Amiga go?
Microsoft makes a Vista Upgrade Adviser wizard that analyzes your system for driver compatibility. This tool is available, and recommended at the Vista homepage. I guess you forget to check first!
The Geek Squad guy at Best Buy said that every computer that they sold with the Vista 64-Bit OS came back because the customers couldn’t hook up their stuff to it. And the reason they couldn’t do that was because there were no drivers available that would work with their hardware and Vista. My computer can run the Vista 64-bit system without a problem. It is a very advanced computer.
“The Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor will help you to determine if your Windows XP-based PC can run Windows Vista. You can also use the Upgrade Advisor to determine if your Windows Vista-based PC is ready for an upgrade to a more powerful edition of Windows Vista.”
hardware drivers are written for Windows not the other way around, hence every time a new Windows OS upgrade comes out everything is completely fubared. that’s a very strange concept for those of us who use open source *nix systems as our upgrades almost always increase driver support, not break it. Windows being proprietary [source is kept secret] can not be recompiled to add hardware support, tweaked for speed or audited for security flaws like BSD/linux can. it’s also the reason Vista can support DRM as much as it does while preventing you from disabling it. fantastic isn’t it…?
I have been using Vista x64 for several months now and have yet to encounter a component which does not work with my system — I have several printers, and all kinds of components attached [my two USB hubs are totally full at this time].
Actually — the vast majority of my hardware worked without installing ANY drivers when I first installed x64 and several problems that I had I corrected by uninstalling the drivers that were supplied by my laptop vendor and using the original Microsoft drivers.
A few things:
1) The VAST majority of people who sell computers at Best Buy have not a single clue about computers. There are a FEW but they are rare.
2) Windows does not need to be recompiled to add hardware support — that’s the WHOLE point of drivers. Windows can be tweaked for speed in many different ways — disable services you don’t need, changing themes, turning features on/off, etc. etc. And DO NOT make me laugh about !@#$% driver support in *nix. IT SUCKS. I have a rather old Inspiron 8100 which took me quite a few flavors of *nix before I found one which would provide wireless support out of the box; and even THEN it is fairly flaky. I’m sorry but I have yet to find a version of *nix which is REALLY acceptable for the end-user [read "somebody who isn't very computer literate].
3) Open Source is NOT the future of software. I’m sorry — I’d LOVE it if that was the case, but it just isn’t. Quite a few open source things are good, but they are always going to be eclisped by software which has a paid backing. Gimp is good, but Photoshop is better. The open source .NET editors are good, visual studio blows them away even with its issues.
I’m not saying that Microsoft is without its faults — of course it has them. Some of the changes they made in Vista are totally dumb/pointless; however, I feel, without Microsoft driving forward in OSes, we would be in a much worse state than without Microsoft.
Thank you for your comments. It sounds like you really know the deal about this stuff. I am sort of in the middle because I am listening to all these people with different opinions. However I do know that my Linksys wireless system would not work and there was no driver for it. And Linksys did not claim there was one on the box even. I worked many hrs with that sucker trying to get it to work. What was I doing wrong?
Also the guy at Best Buy was not selling computers. He was fixing them behind the counter. So maybe he was a little more knowledgeable.