DJofSD
12-07-2008, 12:53 PM
I come here to neither praise or bury Vista. But, I do offer a cautionary tale.
Background: early in 2008 I bought a new laptop to replace an ancient slow one and it had Vista with SP1 preinstalled. Worked just fine out of the box. No complaints except being new to Vista there were some new things for me to learn but overall it was just another MS OS.
More background: a little further into 2008, I bought an iPod and installed iTunes. After that I bought an HP MediaSmart server. The server runs a lite version of Windows Server 2003 called Windows Home Server (WHS) -- something straightforward enough for the typical home user who wants to use a server but it does not require you to get an MCE certification to use it. Of a few different things the HP server running WHS will do is allow you to install and use iTunes which is not anything new or earth shattering but it was what I was looking for and appeared to be a KISS solution.
After a short while of running the WHS I discovered a problem with a S/W upgrade for both iTunes and the connector S/W for WHS. Bottom line was the two desktop PCs where I was having the problems needed to be upgraded from XP MCE 2002 to something more current. Unfortunately, there is not a migration path from MCE 2002 to a more current MCE version. So, it was either a fresh install of a more current XP Pro or Vista. Both PCs would work just fine under Vista according the MS Vista upgrade advisor. Vista was the choice.
First PC was an HP MediaCenter that is used for video editing and the such. The point is there wasn't that much software installed and whatever data was on the system it was on the 2nd HDD. The boot HDD was swapped out for a newer WD Raptor 10K RPM drive and a full (new) install version of Vista was acquired, (Ya, I know, this costs more money but I always like to have one full version installables for whatever OS I run.) The installation of Vista was flawless and the software re-installs went quickly. And, everything is working just expected. It even fixed a couple of little issues with the MS Media Center software.
So far, so good. But here's where the worm turns.
The last PC was upgraded via the Vista upgrade for XP. Back ups were created -- multiple back ups: many versions of back ups on the WHS were there automatically from nightly unattended back up sessions, critical data manually copied to DVDs and duplicated onto other PCs.
The migration process worked fine. No glitches, no surprises. It took longer than I would have guessed but it finished after multiple hours and the PC booted under Vista.
Problems started when I tried to re organize the folders from the XP "My Documents" which was now just a folder named "documents". For those that don't know about Vista, MS introduced a flatter folder structure for user data which is referred to as a namespace and provides compatibility junctions which provides an equivalent function to shortcuts but on an operating system/programming level. Copying and/or deleting files took a very long time. And even though this appears to be a known problem and was recognized a long time ago, there does not appear to be any kind of fix -- software patch or user work around. And while some people have posted things on various forums on the internet, their solutions did not apply to me. I think the problem has something to do with folders being shared. Since I finished the "reorganization" of the folders that use to be under "My Documents" this slow copy/delete issue is now a non-issue.
Another problem is the strange behavior of the BRIS Custom PP Generator. On the PC that was migrated to Vista, it produces error pop up windows and eventually has to be terminated using Task Manager. This is even after removing it and reinstalling. The program works OK on the other Vista systems. Got no clue about why it behaves differently.
So, from where I sit, Vista is OK as long as you get a new PC with it preinstalled or do a clean, fresh, empty HDD installation. However, migrating from XP to Vista could result in a few problems. If you plan to do an upgrade make allowances for a lot of additional time being wasted trying to figure problems that will most certainly crop up afterwards.
Background: early in 2008 I bought a new laptop to replace an ancient slow one and it had Vista with SP1 preinstalled. Worked just fine out of the box. No complaints except being new to Vista there were some new things for me to learn but overall it was just another MS OS.
More background: a little further into 2008, I bought an iPod and installed iTunes. After that I bought an HP MediaSmart server. The server runs a lite version of Windows Server 2003 called Windows Home Server (WHS) -- something straightforward enough for the typical home user who wants to use a server but it does not require you to get an MCE certification to use it. Of a few different things the HP server running WHS will do is allow you to install and use iTunes which is not anything new or earth shattering but it was what I was looking for and appeared to be a KISS solution.
After a short while of running the WHS I discovered a problem with a S/W upgrade for both iTunes and the connector S/W for WHS. Bottom line was the two desktop PCs where I was having the problems needed to be upgraded from XP MCE 2002 to something more current. Unfortunately, there is not a migration path from MCE 2002 to a more current MCE version. So, it was either a fresh install of a more current XP Pro or Vista. Both PCs would work just fine under Vista according the MS Vista upgrade advisor. Vista was the choice.
First PC was an HP MediaCenter that is used for video editing and the such. The point is there wasn't that much software installed and whatever data was on the system it was on the 2nd HDD. The boot HDD was swapped out for a newer WD Raptor 10K RPM drive and a full (new) install version of Vista was acquired, (Ya, I know, this costs more money but I always like to have one full version installables for whatever OS I run.) The installation of Vista was flawless and the software re-installs went quickly. And, everything is working just expected. It even fixed a couple of little issues with the MS Media Center software.
So far, so good. But here's where the worm turns.
The last PC was upgraded via the Vista upgrade for XP. Back ups were created -- multiple back ups: many versions of back ups on the WHS were there automatically from nightly unattended back up sessions, critical data manually copied to DVDs and duplicated onto other PCs.
The migration process worked fine. No glitches, no surprises. It took longer than I would have guessed but it finished after multiple hours and the PC booted under Vista.
Problems started when I tried to re organize the folders from the XP "My Documents" which was now just a folder named "documents". For those that don't know about Vista, MS introduced a flatter folder structure for user data which is referred to as a namespace and provides compatibility junctions which provides an equivalent function to shortcuts but on an operating system/programming level. Copying and/or deleting files took a very long time. And even though this appears to be a known problem and was recognized a long time ago, there does not appear to be any kind of fix -- software patch or user work around. And while some people have posted things on various forums on the internet, their solutions did not apply to me. I think the problem has something to do with folders being shared. Since I finished the "reorganization" of the folders that use to be under "My Documents" this slow copy/delete issue is now a non-issue.
Another problem is the strange behavior of the BRIS Custom PP Generator. On the PC that was migrated to Vista, it produces error pop up windows and eventually has to be terminated using Task Manager. This is even after removing it and reinstalling. The program works OK on the other Vista systems. Got no clue about why it behaves differently.
So, from where I sit, Vista is OK as long as you get a new PC with it preinstalled or do a clean, fresh, empty HDD installation. However, migrating from XP to Vista could result in a few problems. If you plan to do an upgrade make allowances for a lot of additional time being wasted trying to figure problems that will most certainly crop up afterwards.