Vista: Two Drivers Away From Linux

My seasonal shifting between Windows and Linux has stopped. However, I recently switch back to Vista since there are no drivers for my sound card or tv tuner. Both are being developed, so that shouldn't be too long of a wait.

Going back to Vista allowed for my sound card and tv tuner to work. The nice part of it has been using my computer to record my favorite TV programs. Yes, I am using Windows Media Center at the moment. While it does the job, there are several options for Linux.

When I installed Vista, I had to make the dreaded call to activate Vista. The phone activation system had problems of not recognizing what I said, not recognizing what numbers I punched into the keypad and took far too long.

Once those two drivers work with Linux, I'll be switching. I don't plan on having a dual booting system. I plan on having only Linux installed.

Vista SP1

There was an update with Vista SP1 that caused my fist install to run into frequent problems. Not being able to shut down properly was one. A complete reinstall of everything seems to have done the trick.

Granted, I only use Windows for one game I play rarely.

I actually use Kubuntu. It has everything I used to use in Windows. It also has better performance.

Re-Installed

I've re-installed. Being very, very careful and paranoid with this install. Using high levels of security on everything.

Hope I never have to go through that again!

Activation

I had to call Microsoft in order to activate my computer. This happened once.

I'm not sure why it happened. They had asked me if Vista were installed on another computer or if hardware had changed. My copy of Vista has never been installed on another computer. My hardware has never upgraded since I purchased the computer in December 2006!


Another update: I still have no 64-bit version of Vista. I do have a 64-bit version of Linux installed. Should I Vista ever want to activate again and Microsoft says no, I'll just tell them I'm moving to Linux since their software would have been the cause of the problem.

Wasn't this feature in the product since 1.0?

I've continued to track down solutions for the multiple file selection problem. The solution to delete the Bags and Streams registry keys did not work on my computer.

Also, this problem is on all user accounts.

Dell Vista Troubles

I got my Dell Vista Express Upgrade package on Friday, 16 March 2007. The upgrade process was... interesting.

The upgrade process with the Dell Upgrade Assistant DVD went smoothly up until Vista Express Upgrade DVD was going through its process. After the first reboot, blue screen of death (bsod). Tried it again. Same error, same numbers. Consistency is usually good. But not in this case.

Switching to a clean install, by booting the Vista DVD, produced a bsod immediately after clicking the "Custom (Advanced)" (i.e. clean install) button. Tried it again. Same error, same numbers, but different addresses than the upgrade process. Again, consistency is usually good. But not in this case.

After an hour on the phone with Dell support (thankfully I still have priority support), the tech remembered a trick they had to use once before: delete and format the partition. Of course, the Vista DVD wouldn't get to the partitioning. My old XP Pro CD, oddly enough, also blue screened. My Linux Knoppix CD came to the rescue.

So here I am in a clean install of Windows Vista. My only other disappointment with moving to Vista is that the Express Upgrade Vista DVD contains only the 32-bit edition. I originally had planned on moving to the 64-bit edition of Windows Vista with this upgrade. From what I was reading, both 32- and 64-bit versions were bundled together. Now I've decided that unless I get a DVD free (free shipping, too), I won't move to a 64-bit version of Windows until it's necessary to upgrade. I'm thinking another couple of versions of Windows.

Vista looks nice. The clean install appears to have slightly better performance than XP MCE. Application compatibility is the only drawback. I'm only installing applications that have been shown to work with Vista.

I'm still waiting for that "wow" moment I'm supposed to get with Windows Vista.