Running back to Vista

Photo by Alan Light

Summary: Some people dissatisfied with the "downgrade" from Vista to Vista 7; even Vista cameo Jerry Seinfeld allegedly abandons Windows

VERY recent examples of Microsoft incompatibilities in Vista 7 include [1, 2]. An informant of ours, Eruaran, wrote to us last night: "You should see the emails I'm looking at right now [...] Windows 7 [is] not working with Dlink or Netgear wireless cards [...] "Netgear & Dlink standard wireless network card doesn't work with window 7. Expect the new WN-type but cost more" [...] "TP Link standard wireless card worked!" [...] reply from head office: "D-Link DWA-520 works natively with Win 7" [...] reply: "The DWA-510 & WG311 both 54Mbps cards didn't work. Need to work out to get the 54Mbps works with Window 7 then." [...] As a side note, Netgear wireless cards work with popular Linux distros without the user needing to do anything."

We are appending other new examples as footnotes/appendices (e.g. one person who escaped from Vista 7 back to Vista and also explores GNU/Linux at the moment). We recently showed that more people were learning about GNU/Linux because of Vista 7. According to the headline of the following news article, "Windows 7 upgrade problems vex users"

Much of the talk about Windows 7 now seems to revolve around problems encountered while installing the operating system. Moving to Windows 7 hasn’t been as easy for the users as it initially seemed.

iPhone syncing can be real trouble in Vista 7, as noted a few days ago. There is no solution yet and Intel too is investigating. What a disaster.

"If we determine this to be a problem specific to Windows 7, we will post an update on the Microsoft Answers site," Microsoft told The Register.

Jerry Seinfeld Jumps Ship

Since Microsoft's very own Vista symbol is now spotted with his Mac, he may not have to worry much about iPhone compatibility. The Mac sites are loving it.

Seinfeld takes Microsoft’s $10 million for Windows ads, then goes right back to Apple Mac

[...]

"But that measly amount bought only one year of his loyalty -- and he's legally free to defect to the competition," Shen reports. "The funnyman is currently appearing on TV sitting behind a conspicuously placed MacBook Pro. He showed up with his Mac a week ago on an episode of the HBO comedy series 'Curb Your Enthusiasm,' where he and series star Larry David are shown putting together a 'Seinfeld' reunion program."

It has already been pointed out that Mac popularity continues to increase despite Vista 7. The same goes for GNU/Linux, but it is not possible to measure because Free software does not sell actual PCs that can be quantified (unlike phones). ⬆

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From: philo <philo@privacy.net>€ € ("dis" organization) Date: Saturday 07 Nov 2009 10:19:50 Groups: comp.os.linux.advocacy

As I've mentioned here before I do a lot of operating system evaluations... So I feel obligated to keep current with what Microsoft is doing.

A few weeks back I did a Win 7 install and compared to Vista... it looked pretty good.

Yesterday, the system did not boot... the OS was just starting to load and I got a 0xC00000e9€ € error.

I posted on the one Win 7 group I could find... but in 24 hours not one of the Windows people could even guess at the€  problem... so that's why I've posted here.

I've noticed quite a few here with excellent technical knowledge of all operating systems.

I attempted to repair the install... but booting with the Win7 DVD gave no such option.

Oh well, the system was simply for evaluation... I deleted the two partitions on the drive and performed a clean install... and darn...got the same error.

The machine has removable drive kits, and there is no problem with any€ of the other operating systems I run, but I did all the normal hardware€ tests...

The diagnostic on the HD did re-allocate a few sectors... but otherwise all H/W perfect.

So I tried a different hard drive with a different caddy and did another fresh install and still got the same error!

sheesh

I was going to give up... but then had the idea to try an install on the existing partition (not€ take the "format" option) and let the installer archive the original Win7 install

Now it's working.

What the heck is it with Win 7 ?

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From: ceed <cdposter-usenet@yahoo.com>€ € (Individual.NET) Date: Sunday 08 Nov 2009 14:24:05 Groups: comp.os.linux.advocacy

Hi,

Yesterday I sat down to update two computers: One is my friends HP laptop.€ € He wanted Windows 7. The other is my ASUS laptop. I wanted a Koala. To be€ € a good polite friend I did his Windows 7 upgrade first. I had to run the€ € install twice. It halted around lunch so I do not know exactly what€ € happened because I was not there.€ € It simply would not proceed. So I€ € started over. This time it went fine, but his multimedia buttons didn't€ € work. He couldn't launch programs from them like he used to. Major€ € crisis.€ € Also, he had some version of the .Net framework installed which€ € caused some other programs (he said he couldn't live without) not to work.€ € I found a complicated fix for that, but by that time I got started he had€ € decided he wanted Vista back since his multimedia buttons didn't work.€ € Also this .Net issue freaked him out and he realized during all this that€ € he would need an updated license for his AV to have it work with 7 It was€ € $50. He didn't like having to pay. So back to Vista we went. As a Linux€ € user for over 10 years I am amazed how long a clean Vista install took. It€ € must have been almost 90 minutes? And then all the updates and HP crap I€ € had to install! Finally I had to install all his malware protection and€ € move all his files back over. Yikes!

So finally I got around to the Koala sometime late in the afternoon.€ € Took€ € 35 minutes to install. I kept my old /home partition so I was expecting€ € some config troubles for a few apps. Didin't happen. Then I did a bunch of€ € updates the Koala wanted. It was *many* updates indeed! But I like to do€ € those before I check everything out. To be fair, I have never been able to€ € get all the multimedia buttons to work with Linux on this laptop. They€ € didn't all work now either. I do not use them anyway, but Karmic Koala€ € added another one to the working category: The launch of preferred media€ € player. It opens the "wrong" media player€ € though, but that was easily€ € fixed. I had some problems with wireless (always been my sore spot in€ €  Linux). The connection came up and worked, but during heavy loads the it€ € suddenly died and I had to reboot to get it back. Slowed the updates down€ € a lot. I figured that one out though. It had to do with some advanced DNS€ € service option on my D-Linux router which the wireless driver on my laptop€ € interpreted as trouble and shut down.€ € It took a little time to figure it€ € out: I had to disable this service on my router. To be honest I do not€ € even know what it does, so maybe it's not a major loss?€ € Everything else€ € works. I added the Skype beta from their site and it works much better€ € than before. I do not know if that is Karmic or Skype being improved.€ € Prolly both. Since all my stuff was stored on the /home partition there€ € were no moving files around from back-ups and such. I was done.

All in all, I spent 7 hours on Windows 7 update (that must be why it is€ € called Windows 7?) and all I got was a clean Vista install (and a friend€ € who is going to "look into" this Linux thing). I spent almost 2 hours€ € total on the Karmic Koala update, and I'm typing happily from it now. My€ € friend called and told me his fresh Vista install "is great". His computer€ € runs much faster since all the malware and his messed up registry got€ € wiped during this process. He told me that unless he does Linux next time€ € he has decided to reinstall his current version of Windows every time I€ € update my Ubuntu laptop. I think he should do Linux, but the clean install€ € of Windows "Whatever" every six months is not a bad idea. It's like€ € starting over and keeps you on a relatively smoothly running Windows€ €  systems for a few months.