10 Vista Problems You Didn't Know You Had

[Guest]

I frequent Tom's quite a bit and generally like these kind-of articles - but, like I said before, the title is very mis-leading. It seems, and this may of not been your intent, that lately posters write Vista articles and give them these titles in order to get views when in fact they have nothing to do with the flame-catching title.

So much has been made about Vista's lacking over XP since its release, but no one really focuses on the high points and real reasons to move away from XP - enterprise enhancements.

I will admit that I hate most things Apple; mainly because I am subjected to fixing issues with our company head's mac books when *surprisingly* they can't seem to figure out even the simplest tasks. And I openly admit that I am so very much a Microsoft fan boy, mainly because the products that come from MS for the enterprise are absolutely amazing. I can site many great things - most of which people here have never used - such as System Center enterprise suit which includes: Operations Manager, Data Protection Manager, Virtual Machine Manger and Configuration Manger all for a paltry $1,200!! DP alone with worth so much more than that and has saved my bacon numerous times -- all these tools work in-tune with the enterprise enhancements MS makes to their OS (server & workstation) - this is where the real value resides and these are the articles that should be written.

"Living with Vista: It is Possible" - you are #$%@ right it is possible; the move to image based OS loads alone is worthy of an upgrade -- (yes I know others have been doing this for some time). Not to mention the additional group policy additions - which is one of the best anti-malware/spyware tools in the box.

XP is/was a great OS, and we still use quite a bit of them in our network - but the time for change is here and if that means waiting for Win7 or jumping on Vista then so be it - but please, please, please stop misleading faithful readers into these bait/switch titles!!

Most people that have had issues with both XP and Vista are usually self-inflicted -- meaning that they choose to install wrong/old/bad drivers, didn't read the release notes on software updates and/or driver updates, or generally just don't know what they are doing and instead of asking for advise or using the generally accepted universal tool Google.com -- they just go it alone and click "yes, go ahead and install that useless junk on my computer" -- the same damage can be done to ANY OS in the same manner and usually there is no easy turn-around with them.

And lastly (if you have even read this far), as the UAC goes vs. the competition (Apple), I just has to install a new Verizon air-card on a brand-new powerbook (osx 10.5.5) and I had to click allow (or continue) about eight times which didn't include the typing of the admin password at the beginning. On my Vista laptop it was two including the admin pass - just food for thought... you know, not believing the MAC vs. PC (over)hype ads.

 

[Guest]

Guys, if u dun like or think it is too simple or waste of time, please move on and leave. I have using many types of OS at work and all has its pro and con, but I still find this article good to read. What's wrong for reading something you already know? Guess people likes to blah blah blah as they think it is their right...wait that's what we American like to do.....sometime, people needs to stop and think back what "you" had contribute to the society, the world or even your friends and families..

 

[Guest]

Guys, if you don't like what you read or think it is waste of your time, then move on. What's wrong to read something you already knew and acting as you know it all?
I have been using many different OS at work and all has its pro and con. I guess people with knowledge know nothing is perfect and it is up to you to decide what yo want to do with it. Is this what we American like to do just want to blah blah blah all our way out to make sure others heard us as this is our freedom of speech? Let's go back a step and think back, what have you done so far to appreciate others people contributions, to the society, the world, and even your family and friends? It is times to really do something better...

To the editor(s), keep up the good work~

 

[cruiseoveride]

Whats wrong with tom's readers these days? They're so sensitive and confused.

Just relax guys.

 

[VTOLfreak]

2) One of the first thing you do when you install a Vista box is set how much disk space system restore and shadow copies can use. Then you never have the problem in the first place and don't have to resort to command line tools.
3) This is the first time I have ever seen anyone map-out their USB ports. Wich motherboard comes with both 1.1 and 2.0 ports? They are either all 1.1 or all 2.0. Unless you add a PCI card to an old box to add USB 2.0. But then you'd know where the 2.0 ports are wouldn't you? BTW: If you stick a 2.0 high-speed device into a 1.1 port Windows will yell at you automaticly to move it to another port.
4) I've never needed to use any of those tools you list. The trick to thatone? Know your hardware. If you know what chipset you have and what other chips the mobo manufacturor has bolted on you can search for any updates yourself. And I do mean the actual *chip* inside. For example: If you buy a "D-link PCI netwerk adapter", take a look and find out if its using a Realtek, Broadcom or some other chip. Don't bother looking for drivers at D-link, go straight to the chip manufacturor. With some brands like Asus this is almost mandatory because the drivers at their site are always lagging 2 versions behind.
5) The reliability monitor is a nice tool but again if you are not asleep at the wheel you don't need to resort to such measures.
6) Select the folder you can't get into, open the Properties dialog, go to the security tab and click the little "Advanced" button. Now you change everything you want and get into everything you want. There are some files you still can't get into but I have to ask you: Why are you trying to get into them in the first place? You are not supposed to delete things like page files yourself. Hint: There's another dialog somewhere in Windows where you can set the behavior of the page file. And I do mean dialog, not some registry hack. I swear if I see one more person dive into the registry to change settings where Windows provides its own dialogs to change those exact same settings I will pull them through the screen and strangle them.
7) Good suggestion but like #5, you usually don't need more then common sense. First thing you do with an OC'ed box that bluescreens is to go back to stock settings and see if it still crashes. If it stops crashing you know. It it doesn't keep looking.
8) Good suggestion if you only have one drive. Personally I've switched over to RAID 5. I don't even want to spend the time restoring a backup. I want my system to march on in a degraded state and still be fully functional. Ontop of that I suggest using Shadow copies or some other backup tool with live snapshot functions. If you are working on something and your last backup is 4 days old you are still boned. Shadow copies can keep track of every change to the filesystem AS IT HAPPENS. Not 12 hours later when your daily backup procedure starts running.
9) Manually starting and stopping services on Vista is not needed. Windows Vista is allot smarter when it comes to things like memory management than XP is. Use a tool like Process Explorer and look at an idle service and where its actually consuming memory. Wanna bet that its almost completely swapped out? Vista will even swap out idle services to prefetch programs you are more likely to use. And look at the CPU time while your are there: Idle processes do not slow the system down. My point is that its not worth playing around with this yourself, any speedup you achieve is going to be so small you will hardly notice.
10) Good suggestion but again you dont need the command line to achieve this. The Windows cleanup tool will also sugggest to throw away those files. (I first noticed this ability when it suggested to remove some uneeded files from an MS Office service pack)
11) In your situation of often testing software a good cleanup tool is a good idea. For everybody else: Don't let the crap get onto your system in the first place. When you first installed AOL onto your dad's machine, did you really expect it to NOT explode and catch on fire?

I understand you wrote allot of books and have been doing this for a long time. But some of these suggestions come from another era and do not apply to Vista. For example: Turning off the swap file. On 2000 or XP this was a good idea since the memory manager was clueless and swapped out the wrong stuff. Vista however does have a good memory manager and removing the swap file will slow you down, not speed you up.

Do I think Vista is perfect? No, for example I've got an USB to serial port adapter plugged into my system that I need to get into a managed switch. It doesn't have signed x64 drivers. I have to remember hitting F8 everytime I boot so Vista x64 will load the unsigned drivers. And we had to wait for SP1 to get some mayor bugs resolved. (Like the slow file copying thing) But even with annoyances like that I still like Vista better then I like XP.

 

[malveaux]

Lol, ok...

"It was written for total OS noobs..."
Well who the hell do you think reads this stuff? Noobs don't seek it to read, that's why they're noobs. What a freak'n cop out.

"Write better! Put your money where your mouth is!"
Pay me.

Very best,

 

[malveaux]

Oh,

And for all the "lighten up" crap, you guys need to come back to reality. This is a hardware tech website. The audience is not your local school's budding IT guy who volunteers his service. It's tech heads and internet hardware forum goers. You don't see hardware articles on CNN's website do you? You don't see muscle and fitness on Tom's Hardware do you? No. Intended audience. It doesn't take much critical thinking to figure out what that means. Coming to Tom's, we expect some quality articles. Toms' has become a house-hold name. *Go ahead and pat yourselves on the back, you have done well*. But that doesn't mean you get a free pass, it means your critics get keen because if you want to give quality, we want to demand it, and when you stop giving quality, we notice--big time.

Articles here should have way more information rather than this mindless rambling. There's nothing of content in this article that any `new OS user' can use, and nothing at all of interest for any `veteran OS user' to read and not just scoff. Come on guys. We're harsh because we expected to read some interesting new stuff about Vista, and instead, found something that was essentially fabricated for the `preview release' type reader--as if the OS didn't already exist, for years.

This kind of article is extremely late in the game. We're in SP1, for a long time now, and several updates upwards since then. There's zillions of INFORMATIVE articles and websites out there regarding someone who actually wants to fine tune Vista (who don't already know about it). THIS IS NOT ONE OF THOSE ARTICLES. Yet the title screams out like it was supposed to be.

Thus, criticism is harsh.

Don't like it? Don't publish empty bloated `nothingness' on a tech hardware site with a title like this article has, ie, an informative title--for an article that lacks information.

And no, I'm not just trying or going out of my way to be an ass. I actually like it here, and would love nothing more than to see INFORMATIVE new articles hitting the front page, and not this useless pile of text.

Very best,

 

[Denisimo]

For one, People are touchy on Toms now days because of very common articles like this one.

Speaking of writing an article towards newbies to Vista. Seriously?? They use words "newbies" in books?? Newbies of what exactly? But then you tell those "NEWBIES to use Linux?? I want some of what you are smoking.

If you actually did the research, then you should know by now, that people that use Vista, dont have USB1.1, its outdated since P4 era. USB 2.0 came out 7 years ago. And if you have USB 1.1, then running Vista on such PC is just plain dumb.

6 month ago i would agree with you that Vista HAD issues, and i wouldn't use it. But ive been happily using it for the past 6 months, without tweaking it, or doing nonsense tricks to keep it stable. Vista Works.
So you spent 6 month of research of what exactly? Solving those problems? What problems?? Where are they???

I can perfectly understand why so many people are frustrated from reading this article.

 

[WheelsOfConfusion]

I'm a bit baffled by the recommendation to boot into a live GUI-less Linux distro and use the command line to manage files on the Vista drive. Would that really go over well with the target audience?

 

[zodiacfml]

i find them too complicated for a newbie, and i'm too lazy for those. command lines for me, is reserved for those who work maintaining computers. the command line mainstream can use is msconfig.
i think, disabling services won't do much good even in boot times. i've installed vista on a dual core, 1gb ram laptop and boots as fast as XP.
also, i don't find much problems with vista, very stable. though i always disable visual effects like sliding,animate and fading window which i felt too slow for my use.

 

[Claimintru]

Why not just title the article something more along the lines of "Vista Maitenance, Tricks, and blah blah"? Otherwise there were a few things in there that I learned. (Not a Vista user, some compatibility issues with my setup)

 

[fwupow]

How about something useful like stopping the damn User Account Control popup everytime I run certain programs that I use like every single fricken day for the last 6 months !!!! !! !!!

That alone makes me want Vista and Microsoft to suffer the most shocking and ignominious deaths ever!

 

[amorrd]

I enjoyed the article, thanks.

 

[mitch074]

Errr... Yes? True?

I was looking for something enlightening, and I got a, well, generic "Windows servicing kit". Here's a more powerful version:
- checking minidumps is possible ever since Windows 2000; Vista's only addition is of a more user-friendly, but optional, debugger. Installing version 1.33 of TweakUI can allow you to disable instant reboot on blue screening, soling the problem at the root: you can read the BSOD's message!
- switching services off will ALWAYS free some memory, and will VERY OFTEN reduce latency and boot times. Windows' habit to have almost all services on by default (the wireless discovery service is always on, even when there's NO wireless device plugged in) is a pain, and Vista added layers on top of layers to make these inextricable. If you don't have network shares on you rcomputer and don't use it on a network, why have Server and Computers Explorer services on? Why have the MS Client and MS Server components installed by default on all network connections? And why removing the latters not shut down the formers?
- cleaning up after a service pack or an update has been a good idea ever since Windows started having periodic updates and fixes (Win95): recently, I cleaned up a 2002 XP machine, where a mere fix cleanup freed 2.5 Gb of disk space (removing the pretty much useless ServicePackFiles freed an extra 300 Mb of disk space), and cleaning up snapshots forgotten by the OS in System Volume Information directory freed an extra Gb. Vista is fatter but younger, expect similar space savings in the future.
- Personally, I HATE "Restore points": they slow down all updates to a crawl, are a virus' best friend, and consume disk space like crazy - and increase HD wear and fragmentation. Disable them, clean up the hard disk, reserve only 2% of disk space and re-enable them after doing a system backup; that should be enough to roll back on an hazardous driver install without wasting space with two years old snapshots.
- using Linux to clean up "locked down" directories is required if you have the Home editions of Windows: otherwise, editing security settings of these directories is enough to give yourself (temporary - lock them down after use) access to them; works with SysVolInfo too, and the latter can be emptied without looking back: it doesn't actually contain file system data (these are in other hidden files at the root of the directory, that can only be modified through chkdsk and fsutil command line utilities), only snapshots and file contents indexes.

 

[mitch074]

I'll add to my above post that:
- all current Linux distributions can access NTFS drives flawlessly: if you don't want to deal with command line tools, use a live CD (Ubuntu, etc.); if you want to resize NTFS partitions, Knoppix provides Qtparted; if you want to create perfect, compressed clone images, use partimage (on an existing Live CD or downloaded separately as a static binary)
- disabling UAC should be done ONLY if you set up an administrator account and a locked-down user account, and that you use the former only to install software and do system maintenance. Disabling UAC for any other reason is THE dumbest thing you can do.
- setting up your system so that system files and applications are on a partition separate from user files and settings may reduce the need for system maintenance: enabling shadow copy on the system partition and disabling it on the data partition will prevent the creation of stale image files, like the one you got when moving your music files. Yes, Documents and Settins (or Users) directory can be moved to another drive, and Vista makes it easier than XP or 2K.

That's it.

 

[DFGum]

A comment about the USB article part.
You dont need any programs or anything for your USB ports to tell the speed. When you plug in a flash drive it will give a popup that says if the port is slower then your drive. Unless of course you click do not show this message again.

 

[LightWeightX]

Overall this was a good article, though I do agree that the title is a little misleading or just doesn't clearly fit the article. I knew some of the things and learned a couple of things, so thanks for taking the time to write this and share it. You can use a Linux boot disk for file access however I find that BART-PE works great and uses Windows tools.

 

[royalcrown]

@Ed

While not everything is going to be useful to everyone, I am saying thanks, that tip on the revo uninstaller is great, my gf just happens to have a machine her ex hosed up and unfortunately, I cant wipe it just yet. This seems like a good app to catch bits and peices of what i may have missed cleaning without hosing up the system like CClean. Also the reliability report info was great, I never knew it existed.

For all the flaming/flamers, even if you just pick up a cpl tips or find out about some decent software, it's worth it. You paid zero and got some info, so shut up and quit hacking on Ed and write your own articles.

 

[myriad46]

GOOD LORD!!! Get a life, people! If you have so much to say, why don't you work for an internet review/tech sight, instead of sitting home in your dark room reading articles and commenting novels on how they could be better? Or have better titles?!?!?! Give it a rest.

Also, I am pretty sure the people running this sight have a much better idea of who their readers are than any of the readers.

Find another site if you don't like this one, and stop being a bunch of whiny babies.

Nice article, Tom's. Good links and some good workarounds.

 

[malveaux]

Get a life?

There's too much crap in the world and too many people to just nod our heads and accept bogus junk and give praise. Sadly, our culture here seems to think that's how you do it. In the East, articles like this are taken off the internet because the people who read them--the point of the article--would rip them to shreds.

Quality is key. Attention to detail. This is a HARDWARE tech site.

Very best,