Things that Bug Me About Vista

Posted on Dec 03, 2007 in Desktop Apps, Personal

I think the world has seen enough over the top Vista bashing. I did want to share some of my bad experiences for others though. I have to say I am amazed by reading the press that I didn’t have more problems than I did. If you believe what a number of reviewers and tech minds would have to believe you would think that Vista was about as useful to you as a newspaper is to a homeless man in the rain.

User Account Control in Vista is annoying, but not driving me crazy yet.

The only device I had trouble with getting to work with Vista was my old Logitech keyboard. Other than that though, all my other gadgets seem to have worked the first time around.

Had to finally upgrade my old version of NoteTab Pro to the newest version (actually ended up buying NoteTab Std cause it got the job done for me.

I don’t like it that Vista sometimes forgets how I want my folder options to be set as. Some I want to keep in one view type and others at a different view type. Shouldn’t be that hard to do.

I’m miffed that they couldn’t be bothered to update some of the old traditional Windows apps – like the calculator, sound recorder or even add a spell checker to notepad (or WordPad).

I finally figured it out, but it took about three hours to find the best way to network the Vista and XP machines in my house to talk to one another. They’re now good friends.

Next time, I’ll tackle some of things I actually like and enjoy about Vista.

…now read about the good things about Windows Vista!

  • http://www.softtechreviews.com/ Alisha

    It’s great to see someone not out to just bash Vista. I’m kind of tired of hearing about all the problems Vista creates.

    I agree with you about listening to what others have said about Vista – don’t do it. I’ve heard about so many problems with Vista and I just got a new computer last week that came with Vista. I was very surprised to not experience problems most people complain about.

    I can use every program I used in XP. Vista is not slow, but I also have the hardware to support it. I had to search for a Vista driver for my Wifi Max dongle, otherwise everything else works fine.

    I have one issue with Vista: not being able to connect to my work’s VPN. So, I am forced to use a virtual machine with XP on it.

    I would like to hear about you got Vista and XP to be friendly on the network. There are plenty of XP computers in the network and only one running Vista here.

  • http://www.softtechreviews.com Alisha

    It’s great to see someone not out to just bash Vista. I’m kind of tired of hearing about all the problems Vista creates.

    I agree with you about listening to what others have said about Vista – don’t do it. I’ve heard about so many problems with Vista and I just got a new computer last week that came with Vista. I was very surprised to not experience problems most people complain about.

    I can use every program I used in XP. Vista is not slow, but I also have the hardware to support it. I had to search for a Vista driver for my Wifi Max dongle, otherwise everything else works fine.

    I have one issue with Vista: not being able to connect to my work’s VPN. So, I am forced to use a virtual machine with XP on it.

    I would like to hear about you got Vista and XP to be friendly on the network. There are plenty of XP computers in the network and only one running Vista here.

  • http://www.mitchkeeler.com/ Mitch

    Hi Alisha, just subscribed to your site – lots of good stuff over there. :) I think having a PC that could support Vista played a big roll in my ease of use too. With the networking issues – the short version of the story would be I had to re-setup the network on each PC (4 in all) and then I had to find where exactly to change the name for the network in Vista “Which is nowhere near networking, it is under Control Panel > System and Maintenance > System”. After that, I restarted them all and it worked.

    I might have just been lucky in that regard though. :)

  • http://www.mitchkeeler.com Mitch

    Hi Alisha, just subscribed to your site – lots of good stuff over there. :) I think having a PC that could support Vista played a big roll in my ease of use too. With the networking issues – the short version of the story would be I had to re-setup the network on each PC (4 in all) and then I had to find where exactly to change the name for the network in Vista “Which is nowhere near networking, it is under Control Panel > System and Maintenance > System”. After that, I restarted them all and it worked.

    I might have just been lucky in that regard though. :)

  • Mike

    Kind of off topic but since I see you posted here did you change colors on the layout again Mitch?

  • Mike

    Kind of off topic but since I see you posted here did you change colors on the layout again Mitch?

  • http://www.softtechreviews.com/ Alisha

    Hi Mitch, thanks. I actually just subscribed to your site a little bit ago as well. First time I’ve been here. (Found a link to this post on Twitter and had to read it.)

    Thanks for sharing the solution for networking. I’ll have to try it out and see if it works for me.

  • http://www.softtechreviews.com Alisha

    Hi Mitch, thanks. I actually just subscribed to your site a little bit ago as well. First time I’ve been here. (Found a link to this post on Twitter and had to read it.)

    Thanks for sharing the solution for networking. I’ll have to try it out and see if it works for me.

  • http://thoughtstook.com/ Jonathan

    Mitch, I have about the same position as you on Vista…I’m not thrilled, but there haven’t been any major problems.

    Though, I am having a bear of a time networking my (XP) laptop with my (Vista) Desktop. Could you possibly give detailed instructions on the best way you found to do this? Vista’s help file seems to only be a dictionary on this topic.

  • http://thoughtstook.com Jonathan

    Mitch, I have about the same position as you on Vista…I’m not thrilled, but there haven’t been any major problems.

    Though, I am having a bear of a time networking my (XP) laptop with my (Vista) Desktop. Could you possibly give detailed instructions on the best way you found to do this? Vista’s help file seems to only be a dictionary on this topic.

  • http://www.mitchkeeler.com/ Mitch

    @ Mike – yes. :)
    @ Alisha – awesome! :)
    @Jonathan – Here are some links I collected along the way, hope they can help out in your situation:

    + Vista on XP Network
    + Teach XP and Vista to play nice on networks

    I also ended up going with the public network option in Vista (I think default is private). Hope that helps!

  • http://www.mitchkeeler.com Mitch

    @ Mike – yes. :)
    @ Alisha – awesome! :)
    @Jonathan – Here are some links I collected along the way, hope they can help out in your situation:

    + Vista on XP Network
    + Teach XP and Vista to play nice on networks

    I also ended up going with the public network option in Vista (I think default is private). Hope that helps!

  • http://www.softtechreviews.com/technology/my-new-computer/ My New Computer : Soft Tech Reviews | Software, technology, reviews and more.

    [...] over at Mitchelaneous has written about things he likes and doesn’t like about Vista.  I’m glad to see someone not just pointing out the bad things and then going [...]

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    See the link I provided you below that has a good list of routers within your price range. The main thing to remember is how you configure the security, the stronger the password, the harder you make it for wardrivers to figure it out. You should also talk to your Internet service provider so that they can open the port to allow VPN access. Some providers automatically block the port for security purposes, so that’s why you should call who ever you use just to be certain. I use Linksys and found they are good, but just make sure you change the password to a minimum of 15 characters with a mix of caps, lowercase, symbols etc., the ID name so wardrivers don’t know what type of router they are dealing with unless they try harder then they can figure it out by the MAC address. Also set security settings for example WEP, WPA2 etc. Good luck.

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