• Welcome to the Off-Topic/Schweb's Lounge

    In addition to the Mac-Forums Community Guidelines, there are a few things you should pay attention to while in The Lounge.

    Lounge Rules
    • If your post belongs in a different forum, please post it there.
    • While this area is for off-topic conversations, that doesn't mean that every conversation will be permitted. The moderators will, at their sole discretion, close or delete any threads which do not serve a beneficial purpose to the community.

    Understand that while The Lounge is here as a place to relax and discuss random topics, that doesn't mean we will allow any topic. Topics which are inflammatory, hurtful, or otherwise clash with our Mac-Forums Community Guidelines will be removed.

Vista rant ... sooooo glad I'm a long time switcher!

Joined
Apr 25, 2003
Messages
1,301
Reaction score
62
Points
48
Location
The home of the free and the land that did for Bra
Your Mac's Specs
24"iMac, 15"MB-Pro, MacBook, G4 iMac, PM G5 2x2Ghz, G4 iBook & Some PCs
Firstly, I'm a PC builder, have been for many years, but not big time. i.e I usually only do it to order for friends and family (apart from a brief dalliance with mobile, car and boat, computers).

Secondly, my personal choice of OS is OS X follower by Ubuntu as a close second. My MacBook has dual boot OSX and XP (using the BootCamp Beta) AND Parallels with XP and two Linux Distros installed, so I do know a thing or two about installing OSs.

Today as a favour to a friend I offered to upgrade their PC to the 21st century, so one new motherboard (a 939 AMD mini ATX card), one new PSU and some RAM I had knocking around later I was ready to install a version of Windoze. It just so happened that the already installed XP-Pro OS was of dubious origin (a "friend" of hers had installed it some time ago, no discs, no activation code etc) and the activation code sticky (for XP-Home version) on the machine was useless as there was no OS Install disc for it.

Obviously the existing OS did not like the new motherboard (wouldn't even boot into safe mode) so I, stupidly as it turned out, decided to install Vista for her, a brand spanking new OEM version labelled "Home-Premium". They even throw in a plastic DVD case for it which is a first for MS OEM OSs.

It flatly refuses to install and as I was already aware that it can be a little finicky about hardware I tried everything, 4 different hard drives, several differnt video cards, even different RAM sticks, all to no avail.

Rather frustrated that I couldn't get the thing to install (after all in the last 25 years I've never actually failed completely to install an MS OS) I decided to visit the "Vista install problems" forum, it is currently 245 pages long, not a single thread of 245 pages mind you, that is 245 pages of threads!

No help there either, currently I'm trying the install XP first then Vista on top approach, I'll let you know how I get on. ;)

God how I hate PCs!

Amen-Moses
 
M

MacHeadCase

Guest
Yuck is right!

I never could understand the logic behind that OS myself but then again I have seldom used it. On those rare occasions, I never saw anything that sparked an interest in me nor make me want to pursue the experience longer. Meh.
 
Joined
Apr 29, 2006
Messages
4,576
Reaction score
378
Points
83
Location
St. Somewhere
Your Mac's Specs
Mac Studio, M1 Max, 32 GB RAM, 2 TB SSD
Yep, and quite aside from being pigish about installing, it is also just a pig. It seems to eat RAM for breakfast and ask for more. So far, all the reports I have seen suggest that 1 GB of RAM is the *minimum* - to behave even remotely decently you need 2 GB! Bad, very bad.

I am running Mac OS X Tiger on my Mac. I have 2.5 GB and a meter that runs in my Menu Bar that tells me about RAM usage. I usually have nearly 2 GB free, except when I have Photoshop running (... it seems to eat RAM too!). Mac OS X is much more economical with RAM!
 
OP
A
Joined
Apr 25, 2003
Messages
1,301
Reaction score
62
Points
48
Location
The home of the free and the land that did for Bra
Your Mac's Specs
24"iMac, 15"MB-Pro, MacBook, G4 iMac, PM G5 2x2Ghz, G4 iBook & Some PCs
Here's an update:

My beasty-PC (the family games machine) is currently "upgrading" to Vista, MS finally tell the truth as the current prompt on the screen says "Your upgrade may take several hours to complete". As it has been saying that for at least 3 hours and currently says "Completing upgrade (42%)" I actually believe them! ;)

My intention is to give my friend the old XP installation from the beasty and keep Vista for myself but I'll see just how compatible Vista is after the "upgrade".

On the other machine, which now that is has XP on it is at least working, I am installing FireFox and will shortly be installing Open Office.

Amen-Moses
 
OP
A
Joined
Apr 25, 2003
Messages
1,301
Reaction score
62
Points
48
Location
The home of the free and the land that did for Bra
Your Mac's Specs
24"iMac, 15"MB-Pro, MacBook, G4 iMac, PM G5 2x2Ghz, G4 iBook & Some PCs
Another update:

My main PC is totally screwed, when the Vista install got to 53% complete it rebooted the PC and now it refuses to even recognise the previous XP installation. So now it's installing from scratch (it says the old files will be put in windows.old, we'll see!).

Methinks I will end up sending this heap of **** back on Monday!

Amen-Moses
 
OP
A
Joined
Apr 25, 2003
Messages
1,301
Reaction score
62
Points
48
Location
The home of the free and the land that did for Bra
Your Mac's Specs
24"iMac, 15"MB-Pro, MacBook, G4 iMac, PM G5 2x2Ghz, G4 iBook & Some PCs
Another update:

Vista is finally installed and working on my beasty PC ...

... it's absolutely rubbish!

It reckons that my graphics card doesn't do 3d, it's a ATI 1950 card! I has supposedly copied my old stuff to windoze.old yet only MS software shows up in the file window!

It will take me a few days to work out where the **** everything has gone but first impressions are not good!

Amen-Moses
 
Joined
Dec 15, 2006
Messages
913
Reaction score
59
Points
28
Location
Oak Harbor, WA
Your Mac's Specs
2.33Ghz Core2Duo MacBook Pro /// 2.2Ghz Core2Duo MacBook
Ugh. I'm sorry you even bothered with it!
 
Joined
Apr 29, 2006
Messages
4,576
Reaction score
378
Points
83
Location
St. Somewhere
Your Mac's Specs
Mac Studio, M1 Max, 32 GB RAM, 2 TB SSD
Not to throw too many stones at Microsoft, but hey, why not one more? :)

This is consistent with my experience with every Windows *upgrade* I have ever tried. Except in one case, I have always had to give up in exasperation and do a clean install. Microsoft can't seem to get their heads around upgrades vs. installs.

I'm sorry you have had such a bad time of it. I agree, throw that trash in the bin where it belongs! ...oh wait, get your money back first! :)
 

Shop Amazon


Shop for your Apple, Mac, iPhone and other computer products on Amazon.
We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon and affiliated sites.
Top