Having put up with Vista ultimate for 8 months now, I've decided to
format the hard disk of my notebook and install XP professional
again.

The reason for my decision is not Vista's dreaded UAC, which I find a
good thing actually, but rather the fact that I am much less productive
using Vista than using XP. I spend much too much time doing stuff
like searching for things that are no longer where they used to be
under XP. That's just a never-ending nuisance.

Under XP, I can instruct someone to click his way to the IP settings of his
network adapter with my eyes closed. Under Vista, I'm lucky if I can
get it done myself .
Stuff like network connections, WLAN connections, the "common"'
and "user" desktop folder etcetera are just no longer where I expect
them to be and are buried much too deep.

It just makes no sense to find my "personal" start menu under
"C:\Users\Arthur\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows \Start Menu"
and the "common" start menu under
"C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu", the guy who
thought that out must have been smoking something illegal.

Anyway, I'm really looking foreward to be with my old friend XP
again.

> Under XP, I can instruct someone to click his way to the IP settings of his
> network adapter with my eyes closed. Under Vista, I'm lucky if I can
> get it done myself .
> Stuff like network connections, WLAN connections, the "common"'
> and "user" desktop folder etcetera are just no longer where I expect
> them to be and are buried much too deep.

I've not tried Vista yet properly myself, but surely your argument above
is a reason to *persist* with Vista. In time, the new locations
will become familiar, and you will need to instruct others how to find this
stuff in Vista as well as in XP, so you need to practice!

> It just makes no sense to find my "personal" start menu under
> "C:\Users\Arthur\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows \Start Menu"
> and the "common" start menu under
> "C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu", the guy who
> thought that out must have been smoking something illegal.

At least they have got rid of some of the unecessary spaces
in directory paths! The XP locations for profile data are no more
logical IIRC.

In my opinion, Vista looks awful - the 1st thing I will do
is turn off Aero and revert to the w2k look, but the UAC is,
as you say, bassically a good idea.
It will be difficult to avoid Vista all together, as end-users will
expect it, and expect our software to behave properly on it.

cheers,

Chris

> It just makes no sense to find my "personal" start menu under
> "C:\Users\Arthur\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows \Start Menu"
> and the "common" start menu under
> "C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu", the guy who
> thought that out must have been smoking something illegal.

ROTFLMAO!

I think that most MS technologies are conceived in some Amsterdam Cafe. But
the only illegal thing to smoke there these days is the old tobacco. Other
stuff is perfectly legal! ;)

Regards.

Chris Morgan wrote:

> I've not tried Vista yet properly myself, but surely your argument
> above is a reason to persist with Vista. In time, the new locations
> will become familiar

Strangely enough, it doesn't seem to matter how long I've persisted;
it's still hard to find them, possibly because they're less intuitive
now.

Arthur Hoornweg wrote:
[..]
> them to be and are buried much too deep.
>
> It just makes no sense to find my "personal" start menu under
> "C:\Users\Arthur\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows \Start Menu"
> and the "common" start menu under
> "C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu", the guy who
> thought that out must have been smoking something illegal.
>
> Anyway, I'm really looking foreward to be with my old friend XP
> again.

My old workstation had Win2k on and I simply *loved* it.
Unfortunately, the MBR/FAT went south. While I can recover
the stuff, I don't have time. So I got myself a new
system with Vista on. The first Vista machine at work,
and I have to say it looks nice. The rolodex effect looks
cool.

Please note. I have a Core2 Dual 2.33 system here with
2GB ram and a half decent graphics card. This system
can be slower than my OLD machine(it was running a P4
1.8 CPU w/ 2GB memory).

I'm certain that there are tweaks to the system that
I need to make to get this thing running 'half' decent.
The UAC irritates me to heck. Sure, it might prevent
viruses and the like from running, but it also
prevents half my program to run. In order to get
my programs to run I need certification (am I
correct here?) or I just hack up some manifest
file?

Anyway, I'm going to have to get used to the
quirks with Vista. I really don't like Vista.
Windows XP is a lot better. W2k is the best
(and had M$ actually continued to patch
W2K, it would still be my priority. Of
course, one can't buy Win2k anymore.)
(Well, not at the 'usual' price.)

Just my $0.02

Edmund

> My old workstation had Win2k on and I simply *loved* it.
> Unfortunately, the MBR/FAT went south. While I can recover
> the stuff, I don't have time. So I got myself a new
> system with Vista on. The first Vista machine at work,
> and I have to say it looks nice. The rolodex effect looks
> cool.
>
> Please note. I have a Core2 Dual 2.33 system here with
> 2GB ram and a half decent graphics card. This system
> can be slower than my OLD machine(it was running a P4
> 1.8 CPU w/ 2GB memory).

Spending a few dollars to go to 4Gb will be well worth it on Vista. A dual
core machine is always a good start, but the performance difference between
2 and 4Gb is noticable.


> I'm certain that there are tweaks to the system that
> I need to make to get this thing running 'half' decent.
> The UAC irritates me to heck. Sure, it might prevent
> viruses and the like from running, but it also
> prevents half my program to run. In order to get
> my programs to run I need certification (am I
> correct here?) or I just hack up some manifest
> file?

For UAC you could try using http://www.tweak-uac.com/ . While UAC generally
doesn't bother me all that much, I have seen people recommending Tweak which
can silence some of the prompts (but not actually disable). Haven't tried it
myself though.

As far as it blocking programs - a lot of the warnings come about since most
programs are not digitally signed. A software SSL certificate is a
reasonable cost, and then always certifies that a program came from you. It
also comes down to whether your app does anything that Vista considers to be
insecure (such as writing information to the Program Files folder etc).

Cheers,

Dave

I agree with your decision to revert to XP - you obviously aren't able to
cope with change very well. As for me, I much prefer Vista and wouldn't go
back (though I run XP on my laptop).

> It just makes no sense to find my "personal" start menu under
> "C:\Users\Arthur\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows \Start Menu"
> and the "common" start menu under
> "C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu", the guy who
> thought that out must have been smoking something illegal.

Hilarious! Who gives a toss where Microsoft place their system folders?
Just right click on the orb and choose 'Explore'. <rolls eyes>

SteveT

Chris Morgan wrote:

> I've not tried Vista yet properly myself, but surely your argument above
> is a reason to *persist* with Vista. In time, the new locations
> will become familiar, and you will need to instruct others how to find this
> stuff in Vista as well as in XP, so you need to practice!

I must do a lot of telephone support to people using XP, 2000, 2003
and even 98. I can "fly blind" on any of these. On Vista, I just keep
hitting
walls.

Today's example: Just 15 minutes ago, a colleague came into my room
asking how you can view the available workgroups in Vista.
We don't have a domain in the office where I am currently, just a
bunch of workgroups.

Under XP, it was dead simple (just view networks ->Microsoft Windows
Network, and all nodes directly below that level are either workgroups or
domains. The "computer" nodes are 1 level deeper).

Under Vista, I'm still stumped. Directly below the "network" node it
displays the computers, the intermediate "workgroup" nodes are
simply missing. Boy, how I hate it when the operating system is hiding
things from me.



> At least they have got rid of some of the unecessary spaces
> in directory paths! The XP locations for profile data are no more
> logical IIRC.

Nope, "Program Files" (with blank) is still there in Vista.
Only my German language pack displays it as "Programme" in the explorer.
To make that "virtual" directory and some others work, Vista probably made
some NTFS junctions. Not a bad idea, actually.

XP was much more consistent. It differentiated between "user" and "all
users"
rather than making completely separate directory trees with names that are
impossible to remember (and localized in the explorer...). Just imagine
what happens if you must give telephone support to someone who uses
a different locale.

>
> In my opinion, Vista looks awful - the 1st thing I will do
> is turn off Aero and revert to the w2k look, but the UAC is,
> as you say, bassically a good idea.

I reverted to the W2k look two weeks ago and the difference in speed is
remarkable.

> It will be difficult to avoid Vista all together, as end-users will
> expect it, and expect our software to behave properly on it.

End users get it forced down their throats, they are not offered a
choice. I agree that our software must run properly on Vista so
I'll move it to a virtual machine for testing.

> .......but it also
> prevents half my program to run.

In that case you should upgrade your programs. If programs generate UAC
prompts in Vista it means they don't comply with the XP programming
guidelines - yes, I said the **XP** guidelines - which were released years
ago.

XP let them run anyway, hence its famous security vulnerabilities. Vista
merely polices the guidelines properly, and about time, frankly.

SteveT

Dave Nottage [TeamB] wrote:

> Strangely enough, it doesn't seem to matter how long I've persisted;
> it's still hard to find them, possibly because they're less intuitive
> now.




http://lab-riot.com/vista.jpg

> For UAC you could try using http://www.tweak-uac.com/ . While UAC
> generally doesn't bother me all that much, I have seen people recommending
> Tweak which can silence some of the prompts (but not actually disable).
> Haven't tried it myself though.

I have, and it works well. The fact is, though, it effectively just answers
'yes' to every UAC prompt, so although the code is running (i.e. not
disabled) and - importantly - IE still gets to run in its sandbox, I would
argue that it is, effectively, disabled. It's like disconnecting the wires
to your burglar alarm siren.

I'm pleased that Vista prompts me when something with security implications
is about to happen. After all, it's not much different from Linux and MacOS
X in that respect.

I've updated my non-compliant software and these days pretty well the only
UAC prompts I get are when I'm installing a new program. Other than that
they are very rare and really no problem.

SteveT

Steve Thackery wrote:

> Hilarious! Who gives a toss where Microsoft place their system folders?
> Just right click on the orb and choose 'Explore'. <rolls eyes>

Where's the orb for the "common" and "user" start menu?


The reason why I'm bothered by this is, that under XP, I had organized my
start menu neatly into categories like this:

Start
Programs
Development
Delphi
Visual Studio
Eclipse
Office
Msoffice
Openoffice
Graphical
Adobe Acrobat
Adobe Photoshop
Paint.NET
Video
Video Studio
WinDVD
Audio
......

I did this by manually creating subfolders in the common start menu
folder and moving/renaming existing folders. I even moved a lot of
folders from the "user" start menu to the "common" start menu.


This kept my start menu compact (no scrolling off the screen) and
all programs were dead easy to find by category, even if you didn't
remember the name of the program.
I have lots of shareware stuff like Xnview, Irfanview, Paint.NET etc and
just can't remember all these names.


Under Vista, this is nearly impossible. The "All Programs" list is now a
simple scrolling linear list, you can't easily organize your applications
into categories. The "search" field in the start menu is a nice idea but
it requires that you know the name of the application you want to start.
If you don't remember the name of the application, all that remains
is trial and error. I spend much more time in the start menu than I care
for.

Dave Nottage [TeamB] wrote:

> Strangely enough, it doesn't seem to matter how long I've persisted;
> it's still hard to find them, possibly because they're less intuitive
> now.

Like you I've been using Vista almost a year, and while I can find most
things myself, there's no way I could tell other people where to find
things!

And, I expect MS will churn the interface AGAIN with the next Windows
release, sending us all back to square one, so persisting with it
longer may be pointless anyway.

- Roddy

> Where's the orb for the "common" and "user" start menu?

I'm beginning to think I don't understand your question, but here goes
anyway.....

Right click the orb and select either 'Open' or 'Open All Users'. It opens
an Explorer window right at the relevant Start folder. Like you, I've
customised mine considerably.

SteveT

Roddy Pratt wrote:
> And, I expect MS will churn the interface AGAIN with the next Windows
> release, sending us all back to square one, so persisting with it
> longer may be pointless anyway.

Changing all the interfaces around with each release, not only of its OS
line but with all the MS products I've worked with, is part of MS's cunning
plan to keep developers running a wild goose chase in order to stop them
actually having the time to learn or explore any of the alternatives.

Maybe the alternatives give the same impression as well, but I couldn't tell
you that <g>.