Windows Vista. First look for me.

[tomeriker]

Let me start by saying I am a windows XP user/ Suse. I am the guy everyone calls when their PC won't do what it's supposed to. I am also the only person I know trying Linux. I became seriously interested in learning Linux when I started reading about Vista. I do have a severe learning curve when it comes to Linux because of the naming conventions, and just getting things to work. ( eg.. watching movies, video card drivers, etc..) Still, this is no fault of Linux, just me not being literate in Linux..

OK, to the point of this thread:

Yesterday I am at my local coffee house, when someone approaches me with a problem they are having with thier computer. My mind goes to XP mode as he explains the problem. His Yahoo messenger won't install. Asked him a few question but he didn't know the answers. I asked if he had recently downloaded any software....!! "It's a brand new computer" "Just got it home"

This will be my first experience with Vista. He says it's Vista Basic and every time he tries to install Yahoo messenger it says something like 'process not supported'.. This is a pre-installed OS from Compaq and something as basic as a messenger isn't supported?? I have heard that alot of things were left out of Vista basic, but that is crazy.

I am going to work on it today and will post my review of this OS.. Needless to say the new owner wants to get rid of Vista and load XP..

Maybe I can get him to switch to Linux???

[d38dm8nw81k1ng]

hehe, good luck. i personally plan to avoid vista as long as possible (i'll probably last until i get to uni where they'll have us all trained on vista =/). as far as switching to linux, my belief is that you assess the user's needs before trying the switch. if he plays games, it's kinda pointless

[tomeriker]

I think the only thing he does is internet messengers and listen to music.. His other computer quit working so he bought a new one.. I think he would be a prime candidate because Suse does what he needs and he won't have to shell out another $200.00 bucks for Vista Ultimate.. He may just go buy XP and have me set that up for him..

I'm just curious about why it won't install stuff??

I personally will never buy Vista.. XP just for gaming and Suse for everything else.. even though I don't know everything I should about Suse, it still feels like a better system.

[fingal]

A certain local landmark where I live has a big banner taped to it. Something like:

'Wow. Switch to Vista' ... Probably not exactly that, but close. I overheard someone say, 'Look! They're advertising Windows Vista'. He sounded ... interested.

I'm not.

[antidrugue]

Well, according to this Vista software compatibility list, Yahoo Messenger should work.

You won't ever see me defend Vista (just read this and that and you'll find it hard to defend). However, I'm sure you know that most computer users (specially the ones that struggle) are very conservative regarding their machine.

As d38dm8nw81k1ng says it, you can perhaps switch the guy to Linux, if of course he doesn't plan to play any games.

[Emandman]

that's odd. This is what I would try, right click on the install file, properties, then change compatibility mode to xp SP2. Then it should work. If it doesn't, there is another option, which I know works. There is any instant messenger client called trillian, get that for him, it's free, it supports every type of instant messenger, I know it works in vista cause I run it.

Hope I helped!

[cheesecake42]

i've been running a duel-boot with vista rc1 and it sucks ass. The only reason i still have it on there is because for some reason i've been having trouble getting a working copy of xp. I couldn't even get aol im working on it. I had to download some aol beta version that works with vista. It takes forever to burn dvd's on that thing to. Something like 4 or 5 hours. Not to mention the 380 mb of ram that it uses just idly displaying the desktop. and seriously, windows aero? all it is is a transperant toolbar and cascading of windows. longhorn looked like it would have been awesome though. They have a good video of it from 2002 on youtube.

[easuter]

I use this to make Vista advocates shut their noise holes:

http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut00...ista_cost.html

[Vergil83]

Maybe I can get him to switch to Linux???

Or maybe just gaim (or some other FOSS im application). And of course firefox.

[netstrider]

Well since 31 Jan my brother has had the enterprise edition of Vista and he has since re-installed it about 6 times. He recently bought a new Sony DVD-RW and tried playing DVD's in Vista, nothing worked except Lord of the Rings. He thought he had some bad batch of DVD drives since it didn't work on any of his two. He re-installed XP today and everything worked fine again....strange