I’ve written a bit about my experiences with Vista Ultimate since early 2007. I’ve also written/presented about it and you can see my latest CLE materials on the subject by downloading the session PDF called “Taming Microsoft Word and Windows Vista in Your Practice” by clicking here – it’s the first session listed in the table as of 1/11/08. In my continuing odyssey of Vista experiences, I’ve reached the end of my rope in dealing with its idiotic behavior and positively autistic approach to operation. I’ve reached the same conclusion John Dvorak did in his PC Magazine column from late last year (see my own post on this at http://rossipsa.com/?p=161. My conclusion is now that NO ONE who values their sanity, their time, their psyche and general sense of well-being should use Vista. At all. Under any circumstances. In fact, after giving it more than a fair shake over 11 months of daily use, I know think it deserves to be classified internationally as a Weapon of Mass Data Destruction. In fact, perhaps the best way to defeat Al Quaida or any other terrorist group would be to send them free copies of a particularly brain-dead version of Vista like “Home Basic” – it would stop them in their tracks, as it has done with me and so many others.

Just look at the proliferation of anti-Vista websites. Sites such as BadVista.org, VistaSucks and any number of disturbingly hilarious YouTube videos on the subject such as http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiG7KFDYkLI or my personal favorite called “Windows Vista SUCKS HORRIBLY v. XP.” You get the point.

Here’s my take on what the Vista logo should be changed to – from it’s tagline-less vague standard to this:

The subject of Vista issues and problems came up yet again on the ABA’s Solosez listserve yesterday. I responded to my friend Bruce Dorner’s query about troubles using an SD card with Vista’s ReadyBoost function. I responded and I thought you might find my comments useful in some way – especially my rant about my latest Vista time-sucking debacle. Here’s the message:

Techno.pal Bruce Dorner asked on Solosez yesterday:

“OK, got a strange one. New portable running Windows Vista Home Premium. Machine has a built-in card reader. I have a high speed 2GB SD card which serves as a ReadyBoost device. (It works great!)

I turn off the machine. I remove the SD card. I replace it with one from my camera with pictures already on it to be moved to the computer. When the computer finds the SD card it insists that I have to format it before it will read it. Now I’m not stupid enough to agree as I’m not going to erase all the pictures on the card. So, just for giggles I have an external USB card reader and toss the picture-laden SD card into the reader and plug it into a USB port. It works just fine.

Try it a second time in the card slot on the computer and it still insists that I have to format it. So, why won’t the internal card reader acknowledge that there are pictures present?”

My response was:

“Welcome to the wonderful world of Vista (for a similar reference see: “Dante’s Inferno” – impossible to distinguish between the two). The only way to do this is to put the ReadyBoost SD card back in, click in the drive in My Computer and then turn off ReadyBoost. Then you can use your other SD card. Been there, done that with MOPH (My Own Personal Hell – what I’ve so affectionately been referring to Vista as). But take a half-step back for a moment. Why is ReadyBoost needed at all? Because MOPH is such an utter memory pig – it devours whatever you can through at it.

Or other fun MOPH things like – drive space disappearing at the rate of sometimes several gigabytes per day. Well documented, as most Vista issues are – it’s because the System Restore function goes completely bonkers and gobbles up tons of space because it creates multiple restore points every day on some systems . . . with no good explanation.

With that said, on my nearly new Thinkpad T61 which I finally decided to transition to, Vista has so thoroughly screwed itself up and in such a complete unrepairable way (won’t download updates and as I found, hasn’t done so since August – nice). And with that, a what-should-be-screaming T7500 machine with ReadyBoost built-in, it feels more like a Pentium III with 256 Mb of RAM. And Microsoft? They won’t touch it because it’s an OEM copy and say Lenovo needs to help. Lenovo of course says “duh, no clue, call Microsoft.” Think about that absurdity – aren’t virtually 90+% of Windows copies OEM copies that come pre-installed on new PC systems???? That means MS doesn’t have to support virtually ANY Windows issues without charging $99 for a service incident? Oh, but wait – Microsoft says they WILL support for free, any issues related to update problems with Windows. But I challenge anyone to try and find out how to contact them for free on such an issue. On the U.S. Microsoft site, if you click on ANY of the links on this subject, you get jetted off on a digital Concorde to the MS U.K. website – pages having nothing to do with support. That’s nice (said in a mocking Borat voice).

Bruce, before you get too deep into setting up that new Vista machine, you should read my newest CLE materials on Vista. I’m uploading it to the following page on MicroLaw.com right now – give it an hour or so for me to get it formatted for downloading – it will be the one listed for the Maine Bar 2007 presentations. If you’re going the masochistic route and staying with MOPH, then by all means, please do the things I’ve recommended – all learned the hard way after nearly a year with this (p)OS.

But for me, faced with the prospect of having no choice but to do a clean install (which is about three days of screwing around reloading apps, data, etc.), I’m giving up on Vista on this machine. I’ve already asked Lenovo to send me their Vista to XP Pro “downgrade” kit. Which for me, will most certainly feel like an upgrade after logging over 6 days of totally wasted time – blood-pressure-increasing, angst-inducing wasted time. I hate f%383king Vista more than I have ever had previously – which was considerable previously. As CNet reported last September, Microsoft had been “quietly” telling laptop makers they could offer a legal downgrade from Vista Business or Ultimate to XP Pro.

There’s NOTHING. NOTHING whatsoever I like in any way about this (p)OS. Oh yeah, forgot to mention the last straw from last night. I had already upgraded the T61 to 2 GB of RAM when I ordered it. I wanted to see if doubling to 4 GB might have any positive effect on performance. So I installed the 2 x 2 GB SODIMMs and lo and behold, Vista reported only 3046 GB of RAM. After three hours of diagnosis including installing the RAM in other machines, I thought to check the T61’s BIOS and sure enough, there was 4096 GB of RAM showing. So no issue with the T61, no issue with the RAM itself, yet another Vista BS issue. Google the issue of underreported RAM on Vista systems and a flood of hits point out that everyone has faced the same frustration because the 32-bit version of MOPH is limited to only 3 GB of RAM while the 64 GB version can go up to 8. Again, nice.

Vista is the biggest software clusterf&5k of all time. I’ve lived with its irritations for nearly a year. While I will keep it running on my Toshiba laptop, it’s going away as fast as I can make it happen on my primary production T61.

Vista is the #1 reason Apple has been so successful in the overnight turnaround of its Mac product line. The best feature of the Macbook and iMac series is they DON’T have Vista, not the fact they now have Leopard.

Vista is Windows ME (”Malevolent Edition”) but many degrees worse.

Vista is Microsoft BOB but much less reliable.

Vista is MOPH and deserves to die. Painfully. Slowly. With as much agony as can possibly be inflicted on an inanimate intangible object.

So Bruce, unless you subscribe to self-flagellation as form of personal amusement, “downgrade” now – virtually every laptop maker offers a legal Microsoft-endorsed Vista-to-XP “downgrade” plan upon request. From one friend to another, “Friends don’t let friends compute with Vista.”"

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