The worst operating system ever?

Question

I have never had so many problems with an operating system in my life. A factory restore, blue screens everywere, DEP randomly shutting down programs. I'm a keen video maker, It rejected my usual ripping software, I found another and it worked.. paid £16 for a years subscription and suddenly that is freezing up - my friend has this software, no problems.. why has vista started interfearing? also vista has now randomly started crashing movie maker despite the fact it worked just a few hours ago with the vista codec pack.

Absoloutely pathetic OS. Really considering installing xp on this machine, except it will void my warranty.

Any help is appreciated with debugging this absoloutely awful piece of software.

mombodog · Answer

Yeah, its still in beta.  :smileyvery-happy:   It will not void your hardware warranty, you just will not get software support from Dell if you install another OS.   Upgrade to XP now.

C3PO5 · Answer

Absoloutely pathetic OS. Really considering installing XP on this machine, except it will void my warranty.

Installing XP will not void your hardware warranty it only effects the software warranty !

Really considering installing XP on this machine, go for it !

Absoloutely pathetic OS {i totally disagree}

Debug the person at the computer first when installed the other software it more that likey took the Vista codes away!!

msgale · Answer

Worst ever, I doubt it.  SCOPE 3.1.6 was a real gem.  Early releases of EXEC 8, were to say the least interesting.  I now have two Vista PCs, with no problems.  One I got about a year ago, and the other yesterday.  I run Visual Studio, Flex, and Adobe CS3, with a little MS Office thrown in.

everhope · Answer

Well the worst maybe exagarating but it's pretty poor.

My problems are movie maker crashing due to DEP, with installed vista codec pack (was working yesterday)

And a program called AVS VIDEO CONVERTER which works on my friends vista machine and did, until about 3 o clock yesterday when it stopped working.

Picky? Much

If I do install XP, can I use my disk I've used on my other computer or will I need a new disk and how should I go about downgrading - havn't done so before?

I'm on an inspiron 1720 notebook, what about drivers etc.? I've also heard dell systems do not allow you to backdate to XP without changing a certain setting. Anybody know about this, and if I should wipe my hard drive first or just boot from the XP disk?

Thanks

Message Edited by everhope on 02-03-2008 05:07 AM

Message Edited by everhope on 02-03-2008 05:42 AM

eskymi · Answer

Whether or not VISTA is poor or what have you, (I Personally like and have had minimal problems, I experienced more problems on my older XP machines than my new VISTA machines)....but that's not the point.

If the program AVS VIDEO was working up until yesterday and then stopped, it might be a good idea to look at what updates may have occurred in that time frame, what other software was installed, anything that might have caused a conflict. Sometimes you might do a windows update and something might mess that up. Try event viewer to see if it lists anything strange. Most of that is nothing, but once in a while it might help narrow down the problem.

About the disk, I don't know. I was under the impression that it was only for that one pc, but I have read other posts that stated that you can use it on other computers also. Who knows? Hopefully someone with more knowledge will jump in.

About the drivers,if you go to the download drivers page, it lists a bunch of drivers for XP for the 1720. Just find out what you need, download all the drivers and save them on a cd or thumb drive, then do the install. That way you'll have all the drivers ready to go.

Message Edited by eskymi on 02-03-2008 08:02 AM

C3PO5 · Answer

If I do install XP, can I use my disk I've used on my other computer or will I need a new disk and how should I go about downgrading .

Hi

To be legal you can not use a Dell OEM XP CD from one computer to use it on another Dell computer that came with Vista but if the XP disk is a Retail disk you have to remove XP OFF OF THE OTHER COMPUTER then you can use it on the new computer !

Even if the old OEM computer has quite working or died the XP software is tied to that computer and it dies with it !

So to be legal you have to buy a Retail copy or a OEM copy from like the internet or a computer shop near you !

When you install XP you have to format the hard drive it will not install over Vista so you lose all of the info you had for Vista back up all of your data before you format the drive to install XP!

I have Vista on all 8 of my computers and do not have any problems at all Vista is a good OS if you do things right and the XP software does work for Vista ether out right or in XP compatible mode !

If you do use XP i hope you the best !

Good Luck

everhope · Answer

Hey,
I did a system restore to yesterday morning and movie maker now works - bizarre?! But the AVS is stiill freezing. So I'm waiting for a response from AVS. I've also managed to permently remove DEP, and so far no blue screening or unwanted crashing from other things, but only time will tell with that.

If AVS problem continues, or other problems start cropping up again, it is helpful to know I can switch to XP. Which I still might, as I got vista working nicely only a week ago to have to restore it to factory settings after my AVG messed up. So I've come to expect, that something will always mess up.

Thankyou very much for the information.

Hydralisk00222 · Answer

garbage software is apparently microsoft's fault ... what is your logic, i am curious.

everhope · Answer

You obvisously havn't read my thread as one of the programs that was freezing was windows movie maker... funny that all the software I'm using is supposedly 'vista approved' as well.

discostu668 · Answer

everhope,

if you're as serious about video work as you claim you are, you wouldn't be using windows movie maker to begin with. anyone with half of a clue know that that isn't good software to begin with - use the new CS3 production suite. it's the same with a mac - you use final cut pro, not imovie, if you're going to do any serious video editing.

i'm sick of people who are clearly (for a lack of a better term) inept complaining about an OS which is perfectly fine. if windows movie maker isn't working properly, you're doing something wrong. plain and simple.

everhope · Answer

I also use adobe premier, however vista swamps the memory so much I have to use movie maker for the final editing. I'm not saying I'm not making mistakes using the OS as well, but it clearly has problems being in beta and all and I'm not the only one.

Edit: oh look it blue screened again with the mysterious MEMORY MANAGEMENT despite the fact I have checked all my software all vista approved and turned off DEP completely.

Message Edited by everhope on 02-04-2008 03:37 AM

eskymi · Answer

Everhope,

It's blue screening and saying something about memory manager....what type of computer do you have? Also, do you have an NVIDIA graphics card, if so which one?

There is a link on Nvidia's page that takes you to hotfix number 940105 (I believe it is) and this will address the virtual memory manager problem that comes with a combination of high end graphics cards and VISTA.

Also, we had this happen after the patch listed above and it was about a week ago....I downloaded BIOS A03 for our XPS 420 and it hasn't happened since. Do you have the XPS 420? If so, you can try that.

discostu668 · Answer

the OS is not in beta.

how much memory does your system have? i would always argue that if you're doing anything creative (i.e. photoshop/illustrator or video editing) on your system, you need at least 3GB of ram in order not to experience a severe lack of performance.

reddice · Answer

Argue with me the end of time but those Blue Screens are 100% windows fault.

mombodog · Answer

'Argue with me the end of time but those Blue Screens are 100% windows fault'   Everything is Windows fault, geeez.   I suppose you would blame Ford because you put crummy gas in the tank and it quit running.

Windows General

The worst operating system ever?

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