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Thread: A warning against Vista

  1. #21
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    Re: A warning against Vista

    Quote Originally Posted by Beowulf1970 View Post
    ok it's far from perfect but Several 4.7gb DVD-R's are better than nothing. I have a software package I wrote to use a best fit algorithm to split directories so each disk (except the last one usually) is full.
    Well, forward it, dear Liza dear Liza dear Liza, forward it!

    My pictures are all backed up on DVD, but I've always taken the position up to now that the risk of losing my music files, multiplibed by the effect it would have on my life, is not such a large number that I can be bothered to back them up, then back them up again when I get more, and so on and so on.

    If Vista is simply going to play silly buggers, though, the balance of the equation might change.

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    Re: A warning against Vista

    Quote Originally Posted by Barry Shnikov View Post
    My original post was a protest at the way Vista produced a result which was counter-intuitive and inexplicable. If any persons with more expertise than myself (a fairly large subset of society) can explain why it did what it did and what purpose Microsoft believes that such a function will serve, that might shut me up. I can't imagine what it would be, though.
    Oh - on that front, yeah - I agree that Vista is hardly a shining example of a good interface, undeniably pretty though parts of it look - although given M$'s previous OS track record, I struggle to understand why anyone expected it to be.

    If it's a good user interface you want, go with Apple. Had to be said

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    Re: A warning against Vista

    Quote Originally Posted by straycat264 View Post
    Oh - on that front, yeah - I agree that Vista is hardly a shining example of a good interface, undeniably pretty though parts of it look - although given M$'s previous OS track record, I struggle to understand why anyone expected it to be.

    If it's a good user interface you want, go with Apple. Had to be said
    Are you going to provide me with the £4,000 or so I'd need for the replacement hardware and replacement software?

    Thought not.

    Apple is overpriced because people are bamboozled into thinking it's better than it is. Plenty of people have had problems with the Mac OS in their time.

    Back in the 80s there was a cartoon of a man in a computer shop at the Repairs counter. He has a PC. "What's the problem?" asketh the tech guy. "It fell off the back of the IBM badge", is the reply.

    For IBM now, read Apple...

  4. #24
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    Re: A warning against Vista

    Quote Originally Posted by straycat264 View Post
    Again risking sounding unsympathetic, but most tech support people would read your account of how it happened, and assume human error.
    I'm not looking for sympathy, so don't worry about that!

    I agree, human error. But it is an error that should not have been possible. It's one thing to ignore a warning Msgbox, it's another to carefully read an explorer window and have it lie to you. My error was in half-believing what the OS told me, and that's not really a human error, since you should be able to trust what the OS says, otherwise you might as well insist everybody learns machine code.

  5. #25
    Registered User Mezzosoprano's Avatar
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    Re: A warning against Vista

    Quote Originally Posted by Clueless View Post
    Sorry to be pro Vista here but so far I haven't had any problems (touch wood) granted it doesn't like other firewalls being installed (Zone alarm) so with that you get the blue screen of death and the securit questions can get a bit tedious at times but they are the only gripes I have.


    I like how user friendly it can be (at times).
    My partner bought a new laptop - came with Vista no other choice.... it's doing okay - but my music files are regularly backed up.....

    comiserations Barry...

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    Re: A warning against Vista

    Quote Originally Posted by Barry Shnikov View Post
    Well, forward it, dear Liza dear Liza dear Liza, forward it!
    What? give out my hard written software for Free?

    Oh ok then..

    Give me a little time to tweak the UI. As I wrote it for myself it's not the most user friendly application out there. it's also not the fastest either.

    Best fitting different sized files to a set disk size requires an implementation of the knapsack problem which is an NP-Complete equation. That is, the only way to ensure you have the best fit is to calculate EVERY permutation.

    I however have a three pass system that's quicker than working out every permutation.. but still takes an hour or so to run for LOTS of files.

    And in the end you'll have x-directories (0 < x < infinity ) where one directory for each disk you need to burn. Sadly I didn't give it the ability to burn CDs/DVD's itself. You'll have to burn each disk manually.

    I'll pm you a link to my website once I've uploaded it.

    But only since you asked so nicely

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    Re: A warning against Vista

    Quote Originally Posted by Barry Shnikov View Post
    Are you going to provide me with the £4,000 or so I'd need for the replacement hardware and replacement software?
    Nah. The time you'd save using a better interface should do that for me

    Quote Originally Posted by Barry Shnikov View Post
    Apple is overpriced because people are bamboozled into thinking it's better than it is. Plenty of people have had problems with the Mac OS in their time.
    Yeah - I got bamboozled by spending huge amounts of time learning using each system, and using my own free will and intelligence to decide which was better. I think it's a kind of mental judo technique they've employed against me. Cunning, these Apple people. As for overpriced - well - maybe, in the same way PCs are (like for like, they've pretty much achieved parity on pricing, when compared to the major PC manufacturers)

    Expensive, yes - I'll grant you. But you get what you pay for.

    Thing is - if an interface gives you problems, it can be worth looking at alternatives. Vista is clearly giving you problems, so why put up with it? Thought of Linux? That way you wouldn't have to invest in new hardware, and there's some excellent Linux UI alternatives...

    Quote Originally Posted by Barry Shnikov View Post
    Back in the 80s there was a cartoon of a man in a computer shop at the Repairs counter. He has a PC. "What's the problem?" asketh the tech guy. "It fell off the back of the IBM badge", is the reply.

    For IBM now, read Apple...
    I don't get it

  8. #28
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    Re: A warning against Vista

    Hi Barry,

    Sorry to hear about your loss!

    Very frustrating losing data that way but more importantly the lost of time and stress to yourself is just so annoying.

    Think we have all been in similar situations though, I lost 3 months worth of data once due to a virus attack on my secondary PC which I let my parents use. Wasn't to bad as I was able to restore the whole file system from a CD backup that I had taken 3 months before the attack but was frustrating wasting that weekend doing the restore.

    As least that wasn't user error like the time I told my works Unix machine to back it's hard disk up to it's own hard disk and not to tape. God it work fast and screwed up the whole file system in 3 seconds flat. No nice warning dialogue boxes in Unix, it expects that you know what your doing haha as if!


    Backups are important think we should have a separate thread in the geeks corner about the easiest methods.

    Cheers DD.

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    Re: A warning against Vista

    Quote Originally Posted by straycat264 View Post
    Nah. The time you'd save using a better interface should do that for me
    Seeing that I am not an IT professional, the time I (hypothetically) save is worth £0.
    Yeah - I got bamboozled by spending huge amounts of time learning using each system, and using my own free will and intelligence to decide which was better. I think it's a kind of mental judo technique they've employed against me. Cunning, these Apple people. As for overpriced - well - maybe, in the same way PCs are (like for like, they've pretty much achieved parity on pricing, when compared to the major PC manufacturers)
    Apple has never been a financial option. Initially, Macs were even more expensive than IBMs. Very shortly after they were even more, more expensive than PC compatibles. By the time Apple's grip on the GUI market was wrenched away by the porting of the great graphic-intensive software to PCs (Quark, Photoshop, etc.) those of us who had absolutely no chance of buying Macs at any earlier point were in a cleft stick - maybe we might prefer a Mac but the migration costs were quite simply prohibitive.
    Expensive, yes - I'll grant you. But you get what you pay for.
    Up to a point. But see my post above about migration costs.
    Thing is - if an interface gives you problems, it can be worth looking at alternatives. Vista is clearly giving you problems, so why put up with it? Thought of Linux? That way you wouldn't have to invest in new hardware, and there's some excellent Linux UI alternatives...
    I have tried the GIMP and it's like using Photoshop with both hands tied behind your back. Plus, it's not just the program itself; there's a whole industry based around learning and teaching Photoshop whereas with GIMP, you're pretty much on your own. Fine you can go onto boards and forums and ask questions but that's not nearly as good as using Lynda.com's training videos...
    I don't get it
    It was said that people bought IBM because 'nobody ever got fired for buying IBM', in other words what the thing did was less important than the fact that it was IBM. Of course, IBM machines were not, any time, useless (though they had a damn good shot at it with the PS/2). This is now true of Apple - people slept outside shops to get an iPhone. Is it any more use than any other mobile phone? Er - no.

  10. #30
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    Re: A warning against Vista

    Quote Originally Posted by Beowulf1970 View Post
    What? give out my hard written software for Free?

    Oh ok then..

    I'll pm you a link to my website once I've uploaded it.

    But only since you asked so nicely
    Cheers, chum.

  11. #31
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    Re: A warning against Vista

    Quote Originally Posted by Barry Shnikov View Post
    Seeing that I am not an IT professional, the time I (hypothetically) save is worth £0.
    I was going on the 'time is money' principle. You only have to use a computer for some professional purpose for efficiency of use to save money - you don't need to be an IT professional.

    Anyway - the main thing I'm trying to point out is that there is, today, no reason why anyone has to suffer using an OS that causes them loads of grief. There are other OS's than Windows (you can even drop back to XP if you prefer it to Vista). There are other OS's than MacOS X. There are other great graphics packages than Photoshop (discounting GIMP). There are other great Office-type packages than MS Office. We have choice in this, difficult though it may be to appreciate that.

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    Re: A warning against Vista

    Quote Originally Posted by straycat264 View Post
    I was going on the 'time is money' principle. You only have to use a computer for some professional purpose for efficiency of use to save money - you don't need to be an IT professional.

    Anyway - the main thing I'm trying to point out is that there is, today, no reason why anyone has to suffer using an OS that causes them loads of grief. There are other OS's than Windows (you can even drop back to XP if you prefer it to Vista). There are other OS's than MacOS X. There are other great graphics packages than Photoshop (discounting GIMP). There are other great Office-type packages than MS Office. We have choice in this, difficult though it may be to appreciate that.
    I'd accept that there are options, but not much choice. I could go back to XP but that would itself be tremendously time consuming, as you must be aware. Since I already have Photoshop, saying that there are other (not even closely comparable) editing packages isn't much help either. If I had £4000 and no computer, would I buy a Mac tomorrow? Possibly. But that isn't the position. In the words of the famous country bumpkin "If Oi was you, m'darlin', Oi wouldn't start from 'ere!"

    Purely by chance, I stumbled across this, in re Apple's fortunes.

  13. #33
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    Re: A warning against Vista

    Quote Originally Posted by Barry Shnikov View Post
    ...I made mistakes, but they were mistakes that the operating system shouldn't have made possible. Why would it delete files from the D: drive which it was reporting were on the C: drive?
    While I don't have Vista, I guessing the problem is actually a feature from Unix (and hence Linux / Mac OS) which Microsoft have started supporting to a greater degree (but still not fully) in Vista called symbolic links.

    Essentially symbolic links allow a file or folder on one local disk partition (such as C:\) be a link to a file or folder on another (such as D:\). To most software using it (such as media player software) the file or folder is on the C:\ drive. It doesn't know or care the data is actually coming from the D:\ drive.

    This can be a extremely useful feature and for my purposes is a very strong reason to buy Vista. Particularly for organising collections of big files or big collections of files.


    Symbolic links for folders (but not files) also exist in Windows 2000 and Windows XP. Windows Explorer has always made a hash of it of handling them. When you delete a folder on the C:\ if it is a symbolic link it should delete the link, but not the folder and its contents on the D:\ drive.

    Instead Windows Explorer goes and deletes the folder on the D:\ drive (If you use the command line instead of Window Explorer the link only is correctly deleted) - Microsoft have had year and years to fix it, but never have.

    This hasn't caught many people out because of the feature was so little used.


    So I'm thinking it is just a continuation in the sequence of bad handling by Windows Explorer. By creating symbolic links automatically they are exposing users who know something about Windows but don't know specifically about them to risk.

    If in doubt the command line usually more likely to tell the truth than Windows Explorer.

  14. #34
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    Re: A warning against Vista

    Quote Originally Posted by frodo View Post
    While I don't have Vista, I guessing the problem is actually a feature from Unix (and hence Linux / Mac OS) which Microsoft have started supporting to a greater degree (but still not fully) in Vista called symbolic links.
    Frodo, that seems likely.

    Gosh, I bet it would be really difficult to add all the lines of code necessary to get the OS to say - 'actually, this data is all on a different drive from the one I've just this second told you it is on. Do you still want to delete it?'

    Especially since as W98 and XP user you get used to 'Shortcuts' and Vista has shortcuts too, why would it occur to the user that a new (and completely unadvertised) way of referring from one folder to another on a different drive had been incorporated?

    Bah.

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    Re: A warning against Vista

    While we're at it, I wish they'd get their act together. I'm sick to death of opening an images folder to find that Windows has mysteriously re-structured it as a music folder, with categories of artist and album and rating all blank; or opening a music folder only to find Windows has changed it to a data folder, with no categoreis for artist and album; and it doesn't matter how often you try to sort things out Windows just does whatever the F U C K it feels like doing and Microsoft never accept any responsibility for the problem; it's a feature you just haven't understood properly or there's a hardware problem.


    ARRRRGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!

    At this time I am actually looking at Vista's 'Pictures' folder, which is the equivalent of XP's 'My Pictures', a folder within 'My Documents' and supposedly one of the sacrosanct folders that Windows retains control of, never allowing the user to edit.

    So the 'Customise this folder' option is unavailable. That is the method by which I would ensure that a folder was set up to show Images - image dimensions, date picture was taken, that sort of stuff. But I can't change that. So the folder is giving me columns for Artist, Album, Track number, Genre and so forth.

    ...for pictures.

    ...and Windows won't let me change it.

    This is stupid.
    Last edited by Barry Shnikov; 17th-September-2007 at 10:01 PM.

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    Re: A warning against Vista

    Quote Originally Posted by Barry Shnikov View Post
    ...
    At this time I am actually looking at Vista's 'Pictures' folder, which is the equivalent of XP's 'My Pictures', a folder within 'My Documents' and supposedly one of the sacrosanct folders that Windows retains control of, never allowing the user to edit.
    ...
    ...and Windows won't let me change it.

    This is stupid.
    Mmmm. This one drove me Up The Wall for a while (under XP though, not Vista) - I don't think I ever did figure out how to fix the problem. I'm certain it's fixable, but every suggestion I found didn't work.

    My earlier comments aside, Vista has some extremely nice ideas in it, and some wonderful touches, which makes it utterly infuriating that so much of the interface is such a badly thought out mess.

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    Re: A warning against Vista

    I use picassa or prior to that existing, I used Acdsee to view all my images. Simply because windows is absolutely terrible at this. I've never used the "My Pictures", "My Documents" or other designated areas Windows thinks are a good idea - I'd delete them if i could. I would also delete lots of other useless stuff (e.g. outlook express, messenger, media player...) if windows would let me, but it thinks it knows best. I think for a lot of new users, windows possibly does know best, but the majority quite easily find something to complain about .

  18. #38
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    Re: A warning against Vista

    Quote Originally Posted by Brian Doolan View Post
    Barry, encode your files at 80kbps mp3Pro and back them up to DVDs, you won't notice the difference between 80kbps and 128 or more while listening and you'll be able to squeeze about 3000 tracks onto each DVD.
    Nero has a good mp3Pro encoder.
    mp3pro is not a good format of choice – unless all the music players you have support it (and not many do – it's really a dead format.)

    To do 80kbps it does a 40kbps MP3 encoding, plus a 40kbps encoding using an AAC-like codec. The end result is quite good when played back using an mp3pro decoder, but if you don't have that in your music player you end up listening to the 40kbps MP3 encoding which is going to be no-where near as good as the 128kbps MP3 you chose not to make.

    If you're trying to save space without compromising quality, use a good AAC codec. Most good music players now support this format.
    Let your mind go and your body will follow. – Steve Martin, LA Story

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    Re: A warning against Vista

    Quote Originally Posted by straycat264 View Post
    Mmmm. This one drove me Up The Wall for a while (under XP though, not Vista) - I don't think I ever did figure out how to fix the problem. I'm certain it's fixable, but every suggestion I found didn't work.

    My earlier comments aside, Vista has some extremely nice ideas in it, and some wonderful touches, which makes it utterly infuriating that so much of the interface is such a badly thought out mess.
    Oh hey, I found a solution, if you are interested I'll email it to you, or whatever.

    It's a little slice of VB written by one of the Vista MVPs that hover around Microsoft's support forums. You need to run it just before shutting down; gives you the option to select one or more folders and then runs a routine on it to 're-set' the customisation. When you power up again, the folders are now basic folders, with the standard size, type and date modified columns in the Details view.

    Might not work in XP, I suppose.

    The problem - I learned - is with something called 'content sniffing' which windows does to folders in order to determine what is the most appropriate type of custom folder to use. Clearly content sniffing is completely and totally useless if it can look at a folder that contains nothing but picture files together with folders containing more picture files, and nevertheless decide that it's a music folder. So my next job will be to find out HOW TO SWITCH CONTENT SNIFFING OFF!!! (One wonders why it's switched on at all with the critical folders - Computer, C: drive, My Documents, My Music, and so forth.)

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    Re: A warning against Vista

    im wondering if the new Vista Tweak ui here controls that annoyance.

    Quote Originally Posted by ducasi
    If you're trying to save space without compromising quality, use a good AAC codec. Most good music players now support this format.
    really ? not heard great things about aac - heres one review - it was always my understanding that ogg vorbis was about the best and most good music players now suport that

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