Chris Dunphy ([info]radven) wrote,
@ 2007-04-16 16:02:00
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Current location:Indian Harbour Beach, FL
Current mood: frustrated
Entry tags:annoyances, geekery, macintosh

Windows Vista is Bad News...
[info]serolynne has upgraded to a new laptop - a Dell D820 that is indeed a beautiful piece of hardware. It has an incredible 1920x1200 resolution screen, amazing battery life, it runs silent, is built solid, and it is nearly as small and light (if not as silver-sexy) as my MacBook Pro.

I've had some serious hardware envy the past few days as we've been playing around with getting it set up.

Hardware envy - but software nightmares. Windows Vista is bad news.

Problem #1: Microsoft's own developer tools (Visual Studio) have yet to be updated to properly support Vista. Installing Visual Studio 2005 generated all sorts of warnings about needing service packs and Vista compatibility patches that were totally cryptic to understand and act on. Once we did figure out what needed to be installed, the 500MB's of service packs and patches took literally hours of watching an unmoving pulsing green "progress" bar to get installed. Ugh.

Problem #2: The Microsoft Office 2007 install required an OS reboot - annoying (why should installing a word processor ever mandate a reboot?!!?), but not unexpected. But then upon first starting any Office application a long 10 minute "configuring your machine" process is initiated. Followed by a request for another reboot (!!!). Reboot, try again, trigger the same 10 minute long configuring process. Repeat again, until frustration sets in and you throw Office out and download Open Office instead - which "just works" with no fuss at all.

Problem #3: Vista would not connect to Cherie's company VPN - and it wouldn't even give any sort of error message explaining why not. Only after hours of research was I able to discover that Vista has dropped support for the MS-CHAP v1 protocol (in favor of v2) for VPN authentication. Older Cisco firewalls do not support v2 - leaving no clear way short of a $3000 firewall upgrade for Vista to connect to the remote servers that Cherie needs to manage. It seems that Microsoft is refusing to enable v1 support in Vista to force people to move to v2, and Cisco is refusing to offer a v2 software upgrade for older firewalls to force people to buy newer hardware. Ugh.
(BTW - I was amused to confirm that on Mac OS X connecting to the VPN "just worked" without needing to do any configuration at all...)

Problems #4-50: Exploring Vista, there have been plenty of other strange behaviors and compatibility glitches that just shouldn't be there on a stable mainstream operating system like Vista is marketed to be.


Solution: We are now in the process of "downgrading" Cherie's D820 to Windows XP. And XP is currently busy downloading the 80+ (!!!!) critical security patches necessary to bring itself up to date. I wonder - hasn't anyone at Microsoft ever heard of a cumulative update? Geesh!

In some ways it feels wrong to invest a lot of effort configuring a new machine with an officially obsolete operating system like XP - but Vista is not yet ready for prime time, leaving us seemingly no choice. If even Microsoft's own other products are not yet ready to work with Vista glitch free, it is no wonder that so many third party applications also seem to be having trouble. At this pace, Vista may not be ready to fully replace XP for years...


To recap - Microsoft's own newest developer tools and office suite both have major issues working properly with Microsoft's new flagship operating system, despite Vista having been in beta testing for well over a year and under development almost forever. If Vista points towards the future of Microsoft operating systems, I dread what that future may look like. What a mess.

Scanning the net and talking to other geeks, I am amazed at the flood of Vista horror stories that I am hearing. I don't think I've ever seen such a negative reaction to a new Microsoft OS before - not even towards the unloved Windows ME.

In so many ways Vista is very clearly an improvement over XP for "everyday users" that I was hoping I could start recommending it to friends and family - but there seems to be too much that feels broken in the overall Vista experience right now to make this recommendation seem wise.

I am sad to say that my official geek recommendation regarding Vista right now is this:
AVOID

As [info]alchmst mentioned recently (he just bough my old PowerBook) - "once you go Mac, you never go back". And I have to say - I've come to discover that I couldn't agree more.


(21 comments) - (Post a new comment)


[info]unseelie23
2007-04-16 09:21 pm UTC (link)
VPN is a nightmare on Vista across the board, but I suspect that making people upgrade is not the reason that MS isn't supporting v1. It likely has more to do with the new security model for Vista.

Right now, assuming you can get VPN working, you still end up having to disable large amounts of the secuity built in. I'm not talking "open a port on the firewall", I'm talking "Disable the UAC, secure desktop, and run as built-in administrator... or wait for developers to rework their client for Vista."

Damned annoying... of course, MS would prefer that everyone just use RDP but that's not an option for me.

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[info]unseelie23
2007-04-16 09:22 pm UTC (link)
Oh, and as for requiring a restart after installing Office 2007... that's a pretty good indicator that they have installed a driver or some other piece of software that requires privleged access to the kernal.

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[info]radven
2007-04-16 09:30 pm UTC (link)
In other words - "a pretty good indicator that they have done something likely to make your system less stable".

I always feel wary of software that requires a reboot to install.

There is no good reason for a word processor to be mucking around inside the kernel anyway. *ugh*

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

[info]unseelie23
2007-04-16 09:38 pm UTC (link)
Pure conjecture on my point, but if I were to hazard a guess... likely it's related to DRM controls since Office does allow for the creation and administration of DRM protected documents. Again, just guessing.

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[info]roadriverrail
2007-04-16 09:41 pm UTC (link)
I doubt it's the "kernel proper" and is likely either SERVICES.EXE or DEVICES.EXE. I can imagine a few different reasons for wanting to install drivers or services on as part of an integrated office suite, ranging from filter drivers over things like printing to DRM to OLE and many more.

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[info]roadriverrail
2007-04-16 09:39 pm UTC (link)
The majority of the time this happens on Windows Mobile, it's because the program has modified a registry key that is only read at launch, which can mean it installed a driver, installed a serivce, or altered some other configuration. These components could be built to be restarted on the fly, but at that point, you're so close to a reboot that it makes no difference.

If I had to wager a guess with Office, it'd be a service, although I can imagine a number of reasons Office might create drivers.

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[info]unseelie23
2007-04-16 09:51 pm UTC (link)
True, though with Vista, the registry is altered in a virtualized space. It *should* be possible to avoid the reboot, if I understand things correctly.

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[info]roadriverrail
2007-04-16 10:34 pm UTC (link)
Maybe, but it's not just flushing the registry that I'm talking about. If you're changing, say, the driver load order or the services load order, you're now in a position where conceivably every driver or service may need to be reloaded because the new addition to the load list can have side effects on other drivers. A less invasive solution might be to completely restart DEVICES.EXE and SERVICES.EXE. Theoretically, an even more minimal choice would be to restart drivers and services with a higher load order number, but you're adding complexity to shave off a few driver reloads.

I wasn't trying to imply all registry mods require a reboot. I'd imagine Vista treats the registry as a file system of its own, since they do that in many other OSes. Certain critical registry mods, though, require reinitializing critical modules.

(Reply to this) (Parent)
No reboot under XP...
[info]radven
2007-04-16 11:02 pm UTC (link)
Amusingly - we just installed Office 2007 onto XP. It did not require a reboot at all.

- chris

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)
Re: No reboot under XP...
[info]roadriverrail
2007-04-16 11:22 pm UTC (link)
Uh. That's really interesting. Either it detects Vista and has to add or modify a boot-critical component, or it's just plain Vista-incompatible.

If the latter, that's sad.

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[info]alchmst
2007-04-17 01:47 am UTC (link)
Totally out of my element here, but an interesting side bar....

Any Gov't computer I have used in the past 18 months has been programmed with windows 2000 ME. Yes you heard that right. Why do you suppose? According to the IT geeks, the security patches for XP were't compatible or not secure enough for the incredibly tough VPN protocol we have to go through to connect to the Gov't mainframes. We were warned MANY MANY times not to add any files not strictly approved by the gov IT geeks. Just before I left Hope, we got a memo from HQ that said under NO circumstances was ANYBODY to install Vista on any GOV 'puter and they said because of 'compatibility' issues. That means security issues because that is why nobody that I saw in the Gov't. used XP.
I say 'incredibly tough' only from what the IT geeks told me. Apparently the Gov't has some kind of super duper encryption algorithm security firewall that they are pretty proud of.

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[info]roadriverrail
2007-04-17 06:11 am UTC (link)
Apparently the Gov't has some kind of super duper encryption algorithm security firewall that they are pretty proud of.

Their encryption scheme is amazing and so simple. Just XOR what the press secretary for the President says with the plaintext message to get your cyphertext. Since everything the Presidential press secretary says is random nonsense so absurd it cannot be repeated, the scheme is already protected against most forms of replay attack and plaintext discovery.

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[info]unwiredben
2007-04-17 05:30 am UTC (link)
I just bought my mom a new computer to replace her Win98 box that finally bit the dust. I specifically got it from Computer Geeks as a refurb'd desktop so it would have XP on it instead of Vista. She'd really prefer Win2000, but I didn't see any decent hardware that had that installed.

(Reply to this)

since when?
[info]andrewkoransky
2007-04-17 05:18 pm UTC (link)
Since when has it ever been a good idea to go with an initial release of a Microsoft OS? I've always waited at least until SP1. It's nice to be on the cutting edge, but like you say, sometimes you need something that just works.

Heh... Of course, I'm still on Office 2000. It still "just works." :-)

(Reply to this) (Thread)
Re: since when?
[info]radven
2007-04-17 05:34 pm UTC (link)
Actually - Windows XP was better from day #1 for almost all uses than Windows 2000 and Windows 98/ME both....

Welcome to LJ. :-)

- chris

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)
Re: since when?
[info]andrewkoransky
2007-04-17 05:42 pm UTC (link)
XP still had its issues. I can't recall the size of SP1, but it was huge. It was certainly (hopefully?) fixing something?

Also, don't forget, Vista has a whole new network stack, so there are bound to be huge issues. I've heard of horror stories just trying to get Vista Home to talk to XP via SMB. It's just not ready yet for prime time. They'll get there eventually though. Wait for SP1... that's my advice. :-)

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)
Re: since when?
[info]radven
2007-04-22 11:12 pm UTC (link)
Indeed, SP1 fixed a ton of issues in XP. But from day one, XP was a workable replacement for both Windows 2000 and (especially) Windows 98 and ME.

I had hoped that Vista would be at least as polished as XP had been. Clearly Microsoft's standards have dropped. I expected a lot better after such a long beta period!

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[info]joreth
2007-04-18 04:53 pm UTC (link)
Unfortunately, I have an OEM license for Vista, so they won't send me an installation CD, so I can't get the fucking thing off! I've had the occasional offer to help me fix the problem, but my social calendar has been taken over by my work and "fix the crisis" calendar so I haven't been able to take anyone up on their offer of help yet.

Vista sucks and the sheer volume of problems leads me to agree with you, that it won't be ready for years. I can't believe I'm about to say this, but ... I miss XP!

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[info]james_the_evil1
2007-04-20 04:58 am UTC (link)
I paid Gateway $50 extra to get my new CX210X laptop with XP sp2.
I've read wayyyyyy too much about Vista and how most of the software & hardware out there won't work with it.
Adobe's concerned about their new CS3 pack faulting, in fact.
The sad thing is, Vista's so late coming out that they're well on the way to generating its replacement, so by the time they get sp's for the bugs, they'll have a new OS ready.
It's like a bad joke, even by Gates' standards.

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(Anonymous)
2008-04-08 07:41 pm UTC (link)
Vista has support for CHAP and PAP built in, and older firewalls can use both to auth. Don't be so quick to judge large companies' motives here...there are several ways to use old hardware AND vista at the same time.
Doesn't speak for Office 2007's seeming bloatedness or Vista's inability to perform basic OS tasks, but still..

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]radven
2008-04-08 08:04 pm UTC (link)
Vista has removed support for CHAP v1. Old Cisco firewalls do not support CHAP v2.

There really is no possible way to get Vista to talk to the old Firewall, short of a hardware upgrade.

Very annoying.

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