Diary of a Vista User - Part Two

[Nick]

Yep, more ineptitude and less hair...

My experiences with Vista continue... I swear running this OS is more nerve shredding than riding the Pepsi Max Big One with a dodgy safety harness...

This issue - Where's my DVD drive gone?

Read all about it in my Diary of a Vista User - Part Two.

[dangel]

Hmmm, that’s a tad irritating. Vista’s less desktop hungry program tree from the start menu is all well and good, but why have Microsoft chosen to essentially turn it upside down? In XP, folders were at the top of each pane with individual files below... Now it’s the other way up. I suppose I’ll get used to it but with the amount of stuff I have to install for work, I now have a scroll bar to wheel up and down... so that’s not exactly more accessible than the old way is it?"

I'm not a huge fan of the new Start Menu when using it with a mouse - yes it's a good thing to get rid of all those nested levels off 'programs' but it still feels restrictive. However, the big plus is the built-in instant search - I now launch things by hitting start and typing one (or maybe two) letters of what I want and then either click on it or select it with the keyboard.

"Problem two is the utter lack of a ‘Run’ box on the start menu. Why’s that gone?"

Try Windows + R or type 'cmd' after hitting the Start button or type 'run'. It's gone because (I guess) the search is more useful to more people (and power users knew about the shortcut - didn't they Nick? )

Weird problems with DVD drive there - not seen that at all myself.

[starbuck]

the problem you have is exactly the reason I'm holding off upgrading to vista - driver support, or lack thereof.

I'm not necessarily blaming microsoft, driver support from other companies for their own products can be aweful too. You would think though, that microsoft would have built in generic drivers for things as basic as dvd drives etc.

I was running the beta version for a long time(from beta 2 to rc 1 and 2) and the reason I uninstalled it is that it would not pick up on my generic usb hub or my external card reader. When plugged into xp, they worked straight away.

[dangel]

As a developer, i've had the RTM build of Vista for two months.. I'd probably have managed to get a driver done in that time tbh.

Companies not supporting Vista properly look pretty stupid right now - nVidia anyone? ATI seem to have done a great job by comparison.

[Blademrk]

My copy of Ultimate arived this morning, looks like I've got some housekeeping to do on my system tonight to sort out a dual boot (as well as a fresh install of XP MCE).


...or maybe not, as I've just remembered I'm watching the little one tonight (doh!)

[Nick]

You would think though, that microsoft would have built in generic drivers for things as basic as dvd drives etc.

It does have them... it was fine from the install but for some reason they screwed up and Vista decided, or was unable, to do anything...

[dangel]

Oh - one thing that's arsing me off right now is GoogleTalk - when I resume from sleep on my work PC it's eating my CPU for breakfast. Close it down, restart and it's fine..

Does Google have any software _not_ in beta?

[Nick]

As a developer, i've had the RTM build of Vista for two months.. I'd probably have managed to get a driver done in that time tbh.

Companies not supporting Vista properly look pretty stupid right now - nVidia anyone? ATI seem to have done a great job by comparison.

Aye, that previously mentioned NF4 install I did was on the HEXUS.gaming rig, which has 6800s in SLI.

So that was a waste of time... Even my NVIDIA contact, who I rang in the hope of getting some sort of beta driver, was himself without a way of running SLI under Vista.

I'd dual booted that machine though, so once it was obvious I couldn't game under Vista with the pre-release version I was using (RC2), it came off again sharpish.

No idea what the support is like now, I'm in no hurry to switch the gaming rig to Vista.

[redlight]

Nick did you find the run command. If you did not

1. Right-click on the Start menu and choose Properties.
2. Select the Start Menu tab and click on the Customize button.
3. Check the "Run command" option.

and now your run is at the bottom of the menu. Sorry if I missed you posting this somewhere.

[sawyen]

Well, my experiences with Vista is pretty problematic.. now NONE of my softwares work. Best of all, HP never figured its important to provide a reinstallation DVD for Vista, so now I'm left with a system that I cannot format to install XP then Vista..

Great...

[dangel]

Nick did you find the run command. If you did not

1. Right-click on the Start menu and choose Properties.
2. Select the Start Menu tab and click on the Customize button.
3. Check the "Run command" option.

and now your run is at the bottom of the menu. Sorry if I missed you posting this somewhere.

Or just hit WINDOWS + R. Or just type Run (with start menu open). Or just type Cmd.

[redlight]

Or just hit WINDOWS + R. Or just type Run (with start menu open). Or just type Cmd.

Why would I want to type anything when I can click run?

[dangel]

Why would I want to type anything when I can click run?

Why would I want to click anything when I'm using the keyboard? That's usually what i'm doing if I'm using the run command for something..

In any case, I was merely pointing out the alternatives not questioning your solution

[redlight]

Of course. Its just me I do anything to avoid typing needless things and the more shortcuts I can get away with the better.
I did attain RSA stage 3 in typing(no I was not doing secretarial skills) back in the 80s but the went out the window a long time ago.

[johnyhy1]

i had same problem with the dvd drive thing only happned after i installed deamontools for some reason.

after some google's i managed to find the fix and it sorted it out but meh...

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314060/

[Nick]

I do have deamon tools, but only in a zip file should I want to install it.

The disappearing drive was on a fresh install, updated with just Office 2007, iTunes and AVG loaded.

But now I'm starting to suspect iTunes as I get an error message from that telling me to re-install iTunes as the CD drivers have been overwritten, possibly because I've installed CD burning software... which I haven't.