M. Adam Davis wrote:
> Well, I run Vista 64 on a custom built system and while it has its
> annoyances, I just don't see why people are having such difficulty.
> Just as in XP I've disabled certain 'features' and changed some
> defaults, but I can use all three interchangeably and really not think
> about it.

Yes, there's good and bad, but there are also other ways to bring those changes 
to market and/or force users to use them.

As I said, the compatibility feature is the best yet, as is the firewall, but 
while inbound alerts are an OPTION, outbound alerts are NOT EVEN AN OPTION... 
My cron service will never have a way to launch simple apps or reminders, since 
no user interaction of any service spawned app can occur without flipping to a 
separate desktop and several annoying reminders to not do that... Explorer 
settings seem to always revert. The firewall will randomly stop certain ports. 
Turn the FW off then on (simple netsh command, no rule changes) and it works 
again. Win32 app compatibility, especially drivers, is poor.

I even wrote a simple program for my wife that changes the time zone on her pc 
back and forth. She crosses a zone and she just has to click a button. Uses a 
couple registry settings to pull the zones and to set them - taken from 
Microsoft's own recommended examples on how to do it. Runs great, except on 
Vista... It not only added a time zone between US Eastern and US Central, but 
when you click, the app makes the change but Vista doesn't change.... and it 
can't be more simple...

w2k was like an open house plan - one big room you could do anything with. 
Vista is a divided, pre-decorated house that comes with Deed Restrictions and 
Covenants restricting changes. That's fine if you like the decorating, and the 
colors, and always will. I just prefer being able to wall off half the house 
and turn it into a smithy, or pottery studio, or whatever... ;)

I'm toying with this idea and throw it out to those putting off Vista:

- There are websites that will make a bootable VM for you online for free. You 
tell it the OS, disk sizes, etc you want and it makes the 'skeleton'. Make one 
for Win2k.

- Get VM player (much lighter weight than server) and free.

- Strip down Vista so it's just the base. Maybe turn on file sharing to just 
your VM.

- Boot the VM and insert your Win2k disk. It will install it into the VM per 
your instructions.

- You now have Win2k, in a VM which provides generic hardware to the appliance 
and thus translates the real hardware to virtual ones Win2k has drivers for, 
obviating the need for 'current drivers' for win2k.

On a modern system this will run faster than anything you might have, you can 
mount the host filesystem or use the built in shared drive (even better) and 
there are drivers that allow the host to access the virtual drives of the vm as 
well - 2 way access. Should you NEED something Vista, you can hotkey to it.

It's the way the technology is going anyway, with the VM being more important 
than a particular host...




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