Don't rush to Windows Vista - lots of unfriendly glitches!

OK, I know this has NOTHING (or very little) to do with travel, but in a way it does - but I have to WARN people of the perils of Windows Vista if thinking of upgrading - WAIT! I don't doubt in the end, it will be good, but by golly, I'm fast finding out why I usually wait a bit (although I wsa quite content to wait this time as well, but circumstances overtook me...)

• Firstly - do you have a diploma in network security? If not, you are going to be paralysed within a week of using Vista...
• Secondly, if you don't have a broadband connection, don't even bother - there are so many (large) patches and updates to download...
• At this point, its so damn new, no useful books are out (and any you'd want be how to disable all the security features and regain control of your computer - so Microsoft probably didn't endorse them for people writing in trial phases..) - and people are stil tripping over the problems so there are hardly any useful tips on the web.

Just before Xmas, my HP computer gave up the ghost - 3 months into warranty. 7 weeks later, HP Customer Service offered to refund me the money for my computer as their Technical Services department apparently reports to no one, least of all Customer Services and the Customer. This heartache is a whole tale I am not going to go into here.

So I had to go out and purchase a new laptop as hey, I travel and need my computer for a variety of things when on the road. Utterly coincidently, I bought the new laptop the day Windows Vista came out. So coincidently, I wasn't even aware it was the day it was released. So I bought my new laptop, vaguely concerned it had Windows Vista on it (had no option to get Windows XP), but hoped (very naively) that Microsoft had ironed out many bugs. Yeah, right!

At first, its a real snazzy system - the Windows Aero is pretty neat, although I like it more for the ghost windows showing the items on the task bar than the tab through the angled windows on the desktop thing. All my major programs installed fine, even quicker. There was a noticeable difference in speeds - generally biased towards the faster side. So far so good. Mind you - its not like Microsoft thought to actually give you instructions on how to use the Aero interface in their tour of the Windows environment or help centre... No, I had to go on the web to find out how to get the best out of Aero!!!!

Copying from one folder to another was not to bad either - now you are given the optoion to copy and replace, copy conflicting files across and have the second one renamed (great if copying photographs with same file given by camera...), not copy... Restore etc is also improved and if willing to go beyond the Home versions, I hear the Shadow copies are good... But. I don't like the partitioned hard drive (especially as everything goes on 1 hard drive and the 'backup' is supposed to go on the other partition). Every time I have 'lost' data its usually been accompanied by a lost computer and lost hard drive as well. I would say that for most people, when they loose their computer, they loose their hard drive - so its all rather stupid to back up to a partition on the same hard drive. And even though you can adjust the space on the SECOND partition, you can't merge the two and you can't transfer space from the 2nd partition to the 1st. I want my full 160Gb on one hard drive!

Then I activated the Norton Internet Security that came with a free 3 month trial on the computer - I had paid for a subscription that was going idle on my previous computer so just reactivated that. The first time I rebooted, I was deluged by a number of windows from Vista start up informing me that it had "blocked programs - click here to see programs." Well, to click on the bubble doesn't reveal the blocked programs at all - it starts off a cascading avalanche of bubbles with Windows asking to stop opening one program and open another. After a few reboots, I worked out that Windows Firewall wanted to block Norton's firewall, but despite going into the Windows Security centre, I was damned if could work out how to turn off Windows Firewall - and keep it off during any reboots as every reboot resulted in Windows wanting to insist it was the default firewall.

Peeved, I emailed Microsoft - and got no response, and Norton - and got a response to download their latest version (40+Mb) - depressing given the computer at this stage as only 3 days old and Vista brand new... That seems to have fixed the problem for half the reboots.

Data migration produced some problems - it seemed some of my folders had security limits on them that I knew nothing about from my previous computer. So there was some more, er, sounds of exasperation, as I bumbled and stumbled around in Windows Security trying to remove all security restrictions on my data. Honestly - people are going to have SERIOUS issues with this sudden explosion of security on their computer where it didn't exist before. Especially when we are talking things like Word documents you had harmlessly saved into a folder on your previous computer, and now suddenly you no longer have permission??? Hence my recommendation for a Network Security diploma...

(For the record, since you are set up as the main user, you do have admin rights - but you have to reassert them by right clicking on the top level folder that is giving you problems, selecting Properties > Security tab > And then clicking on the 3 users there and making sure they all have "Full Control." Frequently the 3rd user - "Me"in the below example, does not have full control.) Addendum (3 days later)- Seriously - turn Security off first thing as per instructions! My stress levels have plummeted since I stopped being harassed by Vista for permission to do the most minor of tasks!

Then there was some mild headaches when I migrated all my data across - to find out that fonts... where do fonts go?? Before they were under Windows > Fonts. Easy! A search for ttf files produced results only for the 6 new fonts that come with Vista. Whoopty doo. I knew the rest were there somewhere - I was still formatting my documents using Times New Roman. A quick surf on the web turned up nothing - I guess no one else had had to migrate their fonts across from one computer to another. In the end, I stumbled across opening up the Control Panel, typing fonts into the Search area, and voila! A window appeared which allowed me to view installed fonts. I copied and pasted my fonts to that window - and to this day, I have no idea where they are on my computer, but they are there in Word and Photoshop...

But the real problems began when this road warrior decided to install a new batch of language programs on the old Pocket PC. Turns out just about, no, lets make that, every single program I have bought for the Pocket PC synchronises with the Pocket PC via Microsoft ActiveSync. Guess what? Microsoft has discontinued that with the advent of Vista. Now we have to use Microsoft Mobile Device Manager (yet another download (10Mb) - heaven help you if you don't have a broadband connection!). Well, it took about 3 attempts just to get that to synchronise with my contacts, but I have yet to get any 3rd part software to recognise I am hooked up to my pocket pc, so I guess I will be travelling without my usual spoken language dictionary to my next destination.

And the GPS? Again, installed the Waypoint Manager and it opened - once. Then I was driving nearly to throwing the computer at the wall with a circular message from Vista assuring me I - the only user on this computer - did not have access to this program and I should contact my administrator to get the rights! I nearly went beserk trying to apply full rights to myself in the security tab over the Garmin folder. As far as I could make out, there wasn't one administrator (as there was on Windows XP) but 3 right now - a "System" a "My-PC" and "Me" (made up names). "System" and "My-PC" seemed to have full control, but "Me" despite being the only User on the computer was still restricted.

So it was back to the web to find out if anyone else was having problems synchronising their GPS system with Vista. Ya see, being one of the first to use Vista, everyone else is only just beginning to stumble across the perils of Vista as well so there is very little help out there. Fortunately it turned out that Mapsource does not work with Vista, so they issued an update to fix some bugs with North American topo maps (irrelevant to me) but also mentioned in passing it worked on Windows Vista. So I downloaded that (44Mb patch) and now I can use Mapsource again...

By now the pop up windows constantly asking me for permission to do things was driving me nuts. See here for how to turn that annoying feature off - if I have clicked to intall a program then of COURSE I want the damn thing installed AND I want it to have access to my computer!

But in the good old days, I'd download all these patches, trial software etc to a specially created download folder in C:\\My Programs\Downloads - and now I, the administrator (!!!) apparently don't have the right to do that! And there was NOTHING I could do about that - I could only download programs to "Me>Download" which peeved me because on MY computer I want to put things where I want to put them! I am sure that all this forced emplacement of data also will make it easier for virus makers down the road to target parts of someone's computer....

I am sure there will be more headaches. But for now, I can't wait for other people to find themselves wishing to throw their computer at the wall and the the low-level mumbling to rise to a furious roar as people demand their computer back - and start posting tips on the web on how they managed to fix these problems. Because if nothing else, I want to be able to update my pocket PC with langauges and other handy travel programs!

PS: (3 hours later). Getting there... Turning off the Security barrage REALLY helps and I've started to resolve more of the issues. But seriously - does anyone want to go through this much trouble to simply reinstall programs and data on their computer???? There HAS to be an easier way (I think Windows 95 was pleasantly easy or... the Apple?!)

To date it has cost me 100Mb in downloaded patches and upgrades to software $120 in purchasing new versions of software which simply isn't supported on Vista in its old style, about 1.5 hours just to set up Vista, 10 hours to install programs (including downloading and installing patches etc), 3 hours to transfer data (because I had to scrape around on the web for tips on disabling all the security features that had miraculously locked me out of my previously unsecured data), about 2 hissy fits over the security features, and an additional 3 hours surfing on the web for answers just on how to use Windows Vista because nothing is listed in the Windows help system or welcome modules.... I don't recall it being this hard to go from Windows 3.1 to Windows 95 to Windows 98 to Windows XP!!!!
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PPS: OK, 3 days after setting it up and 3 day after turning off the annoying security permission request bubbles (the turning point in my relationship with Vista...), I have settled down with Vista. It's nice enough to say it will be hard to go back to Windows XP (which I have to do at work...). Is it worth upgrading? No. Is it nice enough to get eventually? Yes. Will Microsoft make it easier for those who barely know how to turn on their computer let alone deal with a bubble telling them to contact their administrator on their home computer when installing a program? Time will tell...