Well, I've had some time to work with Vista.

All I can say is "Wow!"

It is far worse than I had imagined. The "Windows Experience" for Vista was obviously designed by running XP through a salad shooter and drawing new icons for whatever came out wherever it landed, and then "fixing" everything that still worked right.

If you get "access denied" or "you need permission to perform this" messages the only solution is to reformat the hard disk and start over. The file security features simply don't work. You can take ownership, propagating it down the tree, then give yourself full rights to everything and it goes through the motions but doesn't actually change anything. You still have no access and no permission. It doesn't matter if you have that "User Access Control" thing turned on or off either.

Fortunately, reformatting was not a problem because the client's daughter had already tried to install Vista and it wiped all her precious documents, music and pictures completely, creating inaccessable directories with nothing in them. All that was left was some birthday party pictures that had been put in a non-Windows folder.

Yes, I examined the disk thoroughly on a Linux system with NTFS-3g (and copied off that one surviving folder).

If an install fails and you have to install over, you're stuck with a 7 or 8 gig folder structure from the previous install that you just can't get rid of. If you turn your back on the install, instead of coming up on the hard disk when it restarts, it comes up on the CD and restarts the install. You figure the install failed, go through again and now you have another 8-gig folder you can't get rid of.

Typically, Defrag runs silently with no "details" button. It doesn't show you the condition of the disk before or after or what it's doing or how far along it is. That must be to make it consistent with the error and message pop-ups which provide no interpretable information whatever. Everything is dumbed down to the moron level to hide the fact that it doesn't actually work right.

My researches on the Internet show that others are having similar or even worse experiences and workable solutions to problems are rarely posted - most of the replies are just wild guesses or insults. And over on Groklaw some poor Dutchman has just posted his experiences trying to get Vista to write a CD.

I could go on and on and on but my brain has mercifully deleted most of my Vista experience due to the bad smell.

I'm pretty sure Vista was released in this sorry state because development efforts to make it actually work were just making it worse.

"Vista file permissions problems" snags 1.12 M! Already.

That's 1/300th of the US population (all ages) and, it's barely out. Boy, is it Out.

(Hmmm maybe results of my 'joint project', vetting the slick 70 MB Puppy Linux on a bunch of local machines - can prove handy for the legions of the disaffected, eventually.)

Did I mention that the developer speaks fluent English, realizes his clients are mostly being weaned off Beastware.. and sees his project as a decent *nix intro, whatever demanding types might eventually want to move to.

I like.. that he defaults to Abiword; thus the whole collection can reside on Ramdisk (or most any other medium.)

Billy and Shrub appear to share a certain Standard of _Excellence.
Is this a Great Country / or What.

Post #284,094 by Andrew Grygus 5/6/07 5:39:01 PM Reply	Well, I've had some time to work with Vista. All I can say is "Wow!" It is far worse than I had imagined. The "Windows Experience" for Vista was obviously designed by running XP through a salad shooter and drawing new icons for whatever came out wherever it landed, and then "fixing" everything that still worked right. If you get "access denied" or "you need permission to perform this" messages the only solution is to reformat the hard disk and start over. The file security features simply don't work. You can take ownership, propagating it down the tree, then give yourself full rights to everything and it goes through the motions but doesn't actually change anything. You still have no access and no permission. It doesn't matter if you have that "User Access Control" thing turned on or off either. Fortunately, reformatting was not a problem because the client's daughter had already tried to install Vista and it wiped all her precious documents, music and pictures completely, creating inaccessable directories with nothing in them. All that was left was some birthday party pictures that had been put in a non-Windows folder. Yes, I examined the disk thoroughly on a Linux system with NTFS-3g (and copied off that one surviving folder). If an install fails and you have to install over, you're stuck with a 7 or 8 gig folder structure from the previous install that you just can't get rid of. If you turn your back on the install, instead of coming up on the hard disk when it restarts, it comes up on the CD and restarts the install. You figure the install failed, go through again and now you have another 8-gig folder you can't get rid of. Typically, Defrag runs silently with no "details" button. It doesn't show you the condition of the disk before or after or what it's doing or how far along it is. That must be to make it consistent with the error and message pop-ups which provide no interpretable information whatever. Everything is dumbed down to the moron level to hide the fact that it doesn't actually work right. My researches on the Internet show that others are having similar or even worse experiences and workable solutions to problems are rarely posted - most of the replies are just wild guesses or insults. And over on Groklaw some poor Dutchman has just posted his experiences trying to get Vista to write a CD. I could go on and on and on but my brain has mercifully deleted most of my Vista experience due to the bad smell. I'm pretty sure Vista was released in this sorry state because development efforts to make it actually work were just making it worse. [link\|http://www.aaxnet.com\|AAx]
Post #284,096 by folkert 5/6/07 6:40:45 PM Reply	"You are coming to a sad realization, allow or deny?" Dunnah it just fit? -- [link\|mailto:greg@gregfolkert.net\|greg], [link\|http://www.iwethey.org/ed_curry\|REMEMBER ED CURRY!] @ *i_wethey* `PGP key: 1024D/B524687C 2003-08-05 Fingerprint: E1D3 E3D7 5850 957E FED0 2B3A ED66 6971 B524 687C Alternate Fingerprint: 09F9 1102 9D74 E35B D841 56C5 6356 88C0`
Post #284,099 by Steve Lowe 5/6/07 7:29:50 PM Reply	:-) -- Steve [link\|http://www.ubuntulinux.org\|Ubuntu]
Post #284,124 by Ashton 5/7/07 7:01:56 AM Reply	'Vista file permissions woes' gets 97K hits.. but - "Vista file permissions problems" snags 1.12 M! Already. That's 1/300th of the US population (all ages) and, it's barely out. Boy, is it Out. (Hmmm maybe results of my 'joint project', vetting the slick 70 MB Puppy Linux on a bunch of local machines - can prove handy for the legions of the disaffected, eventually.) Did I mention that the developer speaks fluent English, realizes his clients are mostly being weaned off Beastware.. and sees his project as a decent *nix intro, whatever demanding types might eventually want to move to. I like.. that he defaults to Abiword; thus the whole collection can reside on Ramdisk (or most any other medium.) Billy and Shrub appear to share a certain Standard of _Excellence. Is this a Great Country / or What.

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