Bye Bye Vista!

falcon409

falcon409

Moderator
Staff member
Well, after a processor and motherboard were fried and then a week later a HD crash that left me without FS9 briefly I started having little quirky things happening with FS9 again, programs that installed but not really, addons that work one day but not the next and a general dislike for Vista in general that has developed over time and I've decided to wipe the slate clean, install a fresh version of XP and get back to normal.

So, If I disappear from view for a period of time, you'll know that this didn't go well either, lol. Fingers and toes crossed.
 
falcon409 said:
Well, after a processor and motherboard were fried and then a week later a HD crash that left me without FS9 briefly I started having little quirky things happening with FS9 again, programs that installed but not really, addons that work one day but not the next and a general dislike for Vista in general that has developed over time and I've decided to wipe the slate clean, install a fresh version of XP and get back to normal.

So, If I disappear from view for a period of time, you'll know that this didn't go well either, lol. Fingers and toes crossed.
Click to expand...

And I think you will find you will have the same problems all over. Not the OS that fries your processor and Motherboard and also the hard drive. I would be checking your electricity supply. More likely power spikes that are causing it.

Cheers
Pat
 
Good luck!

falcon409 said:
... a general dislike for Vista in general that has developed over time and I've decided to wipe the slate clean, install a fresh version of XP and get back to normal...
Click to expand...

First of all: GOOD LUCK falcon409!!!

And allthough I understand an share your dislike for Vista, Aussieman is right though to point out that frying that CPU and MoBo of yours more than likely has more to do with power surges, than with Vista.

If I were you, I would look out for a good UPS. They provide a barrier between the power outlet and the PC. One added advantage is that when the power fails alltogether, you can continue working for a short time and finish your work before shutting down the pc.

Is electricity that erratic in the States???

Cheers,

PB
 
PurpleBubble said:
. . . . .And allthough I understand an share your dislike for Vista, Aussieman is right though to point out that frying that CPU and MoBo of yours more than likely has more to do with power surges, than with Vista.
Cheers,
PB
Click to expand...
Yep totally agree guys, I didn't mean to infer that Vista was the cause of those power surge catastrophes. I have a better setup to catch those now. Vista has just been a bit of a pain with drivers that don't drive, functions that don't function correctly and so on.

Hopefully I will come out of this in somewhat better shape.
 
I haven't experienced Vista, but have read plenty about it. A new flightsim computer has been ordered, it will arrive pre-loaded with Vista. That hard drive will come right out and go into a drawer for later analysis, while two new HD's go in, the master loaded with XP. No time to waste.
 
Before the servicepacks people hated XP too. I have been using Vista for more then a year, there were a few differences that you have to get used to but otherwise it works just the same as XP. The only problems I had were due to old drivers. Microsoft cant help it that some manufacturers are slow with their updates.
 
Ok, This was apparently not meant to be and someone was REALLY watching out for me big time.

Windows will not allow you to downgrade to an operating system earlier than the current one. . .this means you have to wipe the current OS clean and start over from scratch. The suggested utility for this is DBan which normally does a very thorough job of wiping the disk clean for a new OS. I downloaded the program, burned a CD to boot from and I had already copied or backed up everything I could think of that I wanted to save.

All is ready, I restart the computer, set the BIOS to accept the CD as the bootable drive, reboot and start the DBAN program, click the appropriate selection for my needs and the "wipe" process begins. Almost immediately it stops with a message that it was finished with "NON-FATAL ERRORS". . .oh great, it couldn't just be finished, it had to be finished with errors? Just what I needed.

At any rate I restart the computer, this time with the XP Installation disk inserted. The process starts, it tells me that there is no windows OS Installed and asked me what I wanted to do, I select to install Windows XP. It starts installing the necessary files for startup and installation. . . .done with all that, I click continue and then it says that I need to insert. . . .The Windows XP Installation Disk. . . .huh? I open the CD door, close it again (maybe it didn't realize it was there all the time, lol), I get the same message. . . .I check the CD, yep it says Windows XP Home Edition. . . .so what gives? I try several more times, but it ain't budging, it wants that disk and it wants it now or it ain't gonna do nuthin'. . . .so I look one more time at the disk and up in the left hand corner there, in smnaller letters it says "upgrade".

Two things saved me here. . .one, the DBan utility, for whatever reason, did not run despite what it said and. . .two, I didn't somehow screw up the current OS to the point that it wouldn't reboot. So, lesson learned. . . .if it ain't really, really, really broke. . . .don't try to fix it and a little side note, Windows XP Home Edition "upgrade" is not considered a full version.

I'll be sticking with Vista.
 
Just hang on until W7 final is released. You can't upgrade to W7 from XP anyway without a lot of grief.
 
I see vista as garbage. microsoft really did us wrong with that one, and they tried to force us to using it as well. That was the worst part. Having computers designed to 'not' accept WinXP installers was ruthless and shows that some computer manufacturers would side with a software company and not their customers, such as hp did.

Heck with them.....


Supposedly Win7 is looking good. I hope so for the peoples sake. I no longer trust ms nor hp. I look forward to the day when I can run FS on my Mac in Mac mode (on MacOSX).


Falcon, you can get brand new, sealed WinXP and Media Center 'full packages' on Ebay through computer companies that sell online. They will have lots of say 5 to 70 units for sale, with 'Buy Now' abilities. I always get my XP CD sets from there. Just check their credibility. Some have sold tons and have golden credit. My average price I have paid (more then once) is $135.00.

:d


Bill


Companies are learning that customers are very smart and no longer very stupid.
 
Falcon,

glad you got lucky, that coulda bee a right royal one!!

I'm an XP holdout, but today bought a new rig with Vista, guess I'll be joining you, lol. Didn't really want to upgrade, put a Gateway with a Pentium Quad core for the bargain price of £150 was to hard to resist. Will have to get it set up soon, wish me luck!! Got a dual core for even less for the wife (we're both single core hold outs) so according to the Sims 3 website, her old rig should run it, so the new one should be better.

Jamie
 
I really enjoy Vista 64.

XP has always been an OOM error nightmare for me. Good riddance, XP.
 
microsoft really did us wrong with that one, and they tried to force us to using it as well.
Click to expand...

Not the first time...anyone remember Windows ME?
 
I think you may want to run CHKDSK from the START/RUN box...since you had errors! 1st is fast check other is complete(may take hour or more)

Type CHKDSK /F

or

Type CHKDSK /R
 
Falcon, wait a lil while and get Windows 7, at this moment I`m using the portuguese (brazilian`s) version RC and it`s smoooooooth Vista is :173go1:
Try it, I think you`ll enjoy it a lot
 
Agung said:
Something weird is going on: Microsoft gives more details on Windows 7 XP Mode.

The more I read about Microsoft's intentions the more confused I get. I crave reassurance that I'm not alone :isadizzy:
Click to expand...

Please realize that the reason many companies have not migrated to Windows Vista is that they have a ton of legacy apps that will not run on Vista; at least not the 64-bit version. The Windows 7 XP mode talked about is really a virtual machine running under Windows 7 (way more complicated, but still similiar in concept to the wowexec, or Windows on Windows, that allows 32-bit Windows XP to run Windows 3.x and even earlier applications.)

It does what myself and others thought Microsoft should have done with Vista and XP 64 bit - develop a means to running these legacy applications (saying you can't "thunk" from 16-bit to 64 bit is no excuse.) However, it also seperates the code base from the main Windows 7 code base, so you can start trimming out the code that is still in Windows 7 to make it more capatible with applications written in previous versions of Windows. That will make Windows itself much smaller, and less prone to bugs.

It should be noted that many applications that rely on legacy drivers and services such as Direct-X may still not work; or that is my understanding; anyway.

-James
 
James thanks for explaining it so well. I just couldn't get my head around the fact that in W7 they would have an XP Mode instead of a Vista Mode; what with the claim that Vista is so much better than XP.
Sorry for straying OT.
 
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