Archive for September, 2006
Vista Update… RC1
Well a couple of things to correct from my last post and a couple of updates.? The Aero problem I was having on my last install wasn?t due to Vista but a bunk Video card, which has now been replaced and all is working great on that front.? Second, I found that the reason why I couldn?t get so many programs to work properly is because I was running the X64 version of RC1.? The X64 version is much more locked down than the x86 version and I couldn?t get any virtual drive program to run or burning software.?Last week I installed RC1 of the X86 version and I have been able to get Skype, Nero 6, and daemon tools to run great (daemon tools needs to be run as admin to work… but it works).? My only beef now is that several games just have all around issues with Vista, either not running, failing on startup, or just flaking out after a few min.? WC3 works great but has no sounds, Half-life fails with some odd error, and oblivion just crashes at random times.? I was able to install K-like mega codec pack and I can run any video file I want.? ? The strangest error I was getting was while I was running my Bit-Torrent client, I was getting a read/write error while a download was happening so I thought my hard drive was failing.? So I moved it to another drive (I have 4 on my system) and got the same error, after trying 5 different clients and all my drives I did some research.? Turns out that there is only a few places in Vista where you have full and complete access to download whatever you want, however you want.? One of those places is under your user account( c:\users\*username*\ ) So I downloaded my files to the download directory under my user account and haven?t had a problem since.? The main problem now is that drive is a 34GB raptor and after a couple downloads of good size it takes my drive to dangerous levels. 
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? I would like to go back to XP mainly for the compatibility issues with the games (and even running then with XP compatibility they still don?t work) but I keep finding work arounds for most of it.? Hopefully they will come out with patches that will correct the various issues and I can get back to a worry free life on my computer…. but then again I am running M$. 
Filed under Tech : Comments (4) : Sep 20th, 2006
Vista… Ready my butt.
Ok so thanks to Chris I have been able to test Vista for the past 5 days.? So far… im not impressed.? For starters I have yet to get Aero to work, I think I saw a glimpse of it once but I think it was a mirage.? I have tried every driver under the sun to get the 3D desktop to run on this and every time all I get is the lovely black screen… of nothingness.? On top of that I had to revert back to Nero v6.6.0.18 to get CD burning working.? And I finally got daemon tools running but only in version 3.0.2 and you have to manually run it under admin rights to get it to run.? So 2 days after I install Vista (5536) Microsoft says that Vista is done and they release v5600 for free download.? So here I am thinking… could they really have corrected these issues in such a short amount of time!? So with hope once again I download the final version of Vista that will one day soon be released to the waiting world.
? So tonight I get home burn the image with my outdated nero and install Vista once again.? After the install process windows tries to detect my computers hardware… black screen.? Waited bout 5 min to make sure it wasn’t kidding and rebooted.? Got into windows and still could not make Aero work for even a few seconds.? The Nvidia driver wont even install saying that this version is for vista and it doesn’t know what version of windows i have.? I have not tried to reinstall nero… frankly I am a little scared to do so.? I think i will be heading back the windows XP way for the time being and leave Vista to the keener’s.? Oh and IE7… not even going to go there.
So this isn’t a total M$ bash, here are the good points.? Vista is vastly faster than any previous version that I have tried (beta 1 and longhorn).? I like the way they are going with keeping programs locked down and needing Admin privileges to install programs.? That should help keep some bad stuff from getting onto the computer… at the same time it can be quite annoying.?
Final thoughts… I just think Vista needs to be out a bit longer.? Its still a baby and wont get much more mature sitting in the Microsoft lab.? Give the OEM manufactures a few months to hash away at it and then a while on the open market and it will get better.? Same as it was with XP, it really wasn’t a good OS when it hit the open market.
Anyway let me know what you think.
Filed under Uncategorized : Comments (4) : Sep 7th, 2006
Website update!
Well here is the new site. Thanks to Guin I now have new software to learn. This new software makes it really easy to change the look of the site so once I get a bit to have a look at this new setup I will try a few out. So far I like this one the best.
I am currently messing with windows Vista… and not having too much fun… I will post about my adventures soon… I promise.
Filed under Uncategorized : Comments (7) : Sep 6th, 2006