Ive got it running on my hp laptop and my homebuilt with no problems whatsoever.

John Freas, I loved your comments, and I agree.

Linux is not ready for the masses...YET. With the open dev community I'm really surprised it's taken so long and we've seen so little fruit when it comes to the linux gui.

The amateurs at Apple seemed to have had little difficulty putting a front end onto a *nix core OS. Why, then, you Linux lovers, has it taken you so long? You're much smarter than the 50 or so coders at Apple.

Speaking of OSX, it's full of bugs, etc. Take a look at BugTraq. How come? It's new. Apple's never really had a place in the "real world" before, and the coders are newbies at dealing with real security issues inherent with an intel based OS.

Personally, I truly wish there were a GOOD, SIMPLE TO USE Linux distro..I'd switch from WinBlows in a heartbeat.

Perhaps by (insert stupid animal name here) 16.7 OSX will be a mature OS such as *nix is....or, dare I say, Windows XP, but, until there is software to run on an OS that the masses can operate with little or no difficulty, (2 fold problem there), we're forced to us MicroCrap OS'.

Stop with the immature "Get a REAL OS" garbage...and look at the real world around you....

believe it or not I saw one today, running Vista on a mac notebook because he could not find any XP drivers for the display and things. Vista runs fine but he has not run SP1 yet; he may dual boot with ubuntu.

I have... so I've ordered the 10 yr old an eee running xandros, though I might hack it for ubuntu 8.04 when that is released in April. School is attempting to tell them that you need M$ Word to write a letter , and that you need M$ PowerPoint to do a simple drawing. I actually had my kid crying when I showed him Office 2004 (student edition) on the Mac and Open Office on the Ubuntu 7.10 ktorrent download box, he was insisting that he had to do the same as his teacher told him.

After a bit of 1:1 teaching, he's happy using Pages on OS X, and Keynote on OSX and - you might not believe this - he's getting top marks in class for his projects (half 'cos they look so good) (mostly 'cos they look how he wants and he had the time to build the design properly) I take my work Vista Laptops home so that the kids can play the 2 or 3 new games bundled with the shiny but utterly slow cr@p, and they play the rest of time on Shiny Apples and recycled Linuxes.

I think it's important to open up the childrens perspective on computing, as lets face it, for those of us who typed pages of BASIC commands into a ZX81 in a previous life, then later learned IBM VM/CMS, whatever we do at age ten isn't how the world is going to be when we grow up . Microsoft, unless they complete their long term total world domination project, will not be around in ubiquitous computing in 15 years.

This iced Vista update is just a small part of their inevitable decline and fall. Think of the children, give them a *nix based laptop and prepare them for the future.

As IBM said. "Think!" As Apple said "Think Different!" as Microsoft said "WGA!!"

Read the whole thread...some entertaining and colorful comments for sure. I think that I might have the answer to the point that was raised re: why MS-related issues seem to get a "lot of exposure" compared to *nix-related issues. It has to do with the transaction and ownership process: when software is purchased (actually, more like rented if you get right down to the EULA) from MS, the customer's involvement is to hand over the cash, and then use the product. They depend on MS to take care of them, and have no recourse if and when things "go south" but to complain (and possibly submit an error report).

The *nix group, on the other hand, usually gets their software for nothing, and tends to be a bit more self-sufficient as they provide much of their own support via web support sites. So if and when things go south, they take action themselves and need to vocalize less, having taken more ownership of their system. The big issue with this flaky MS update is that it requires MS-users to take some action (system restore or system rebuild). Just my theory...

Yes, eight months down, no crashes, freezes, conflicts... Just happy PC using.

Go figure.

This is really confusing - apparently two of the prerequisite KB updates aren't being made available to Vista Ultimate.

Then why are they on my (Vista Ultimate) PC?

As with any new M$ Operating System there's bugs and problems - I honestly prefer Vista to XP Pro. Every time I have to go back to an XP Pro computer I spend 5 minutes remembering how to do something that would be so simple in Vista.

But I will be bulk buying some XP Pro licences in case of problems....

Oh and to all the Penguin fanboys - we have to use M$ products as that's what my company's clients require - and I'm glad.

(PS I have a life - I don't go home from work and spend the rest of the day tweaking the latest issue of fluffy bunny or what-ever-its-called-and-no-I'm-not-interested-either ubuntu so it will actually work with all my devices. If you enjoy fine - but I'll never take you seriously so don't try)

As if by magic Windows update on my Vista 64 bit machine has just offered me SP1. I am just a regular user!! Seem they are shipping early.

CJ

Is what I call anyone installing a pre-release on client machines and then moaning it isn't working.

R.I.P : Vista - the pretty but useless child of the Microsoft inbreeding program.

Step 1: format hd

Step 2: reinstall xp sp2 (or linux distro of your choice)

Step 3: enjoy a system that works

Step 4: pop vista dvd into microwave for 90 - 120 secs (@ 500w) and also enjoy a new fractal patterned ashtray (remember to tape up the hole)

To those of you like me that installed the Beta of Vista SP1, Beware!....after waiting 9 full hours while vista tried to uninstall the beta version of SP1 from my pc (required if you want to install the RTM version), and several BSOD's later, the operation failed after reaching 100% and now the machine is several hours into the backout from the "uninstall".

I have a couple of new Vista - I think they are 'Dull' XPS 2 x 2.20GHz Core2Duo laptops with 2GB ram each, came from Dell Canada, tax free, long story.

Nice shiny screen, very bright - after 5 minutes unuse the screen dims to 50%, and for a week I couldn't find how to make it bright again other than after a restart. the GUI is filled with hundreds of clickable things, most of which won't go away or do what I expect, it will NOT connect to my home 802.11n WPA Wifi using 802.11b/g compatibility, it will only try and connect to a neighbours WEP network, even when I put the Vista on top of the Wifi router. I went as far as loading the driver dvd for my Wifi. Still no connection. When I found an old 802.11g+ Wifi router and plugged in a subnet of my 802.11n then finally Vista connected. It popped up a screen, amongst many others, which mentioned that there might be problems with my Vista. of the 2 firewalls installed, both were off.

After reading the page several times I realised it might want me to do something, I downloaded a few KBxxxxxxx.exe which 'were necessary on my system', these ran and stated that 'your system does not need KBxxxxxxx', so all clear then!

And it is dog-slow. of the 2GB ram, I was informed - running only a diagnostic program that 750MB is free. Ubuntu would do the h/w justice!!! Vista Personal Ultimate is ME2. Where's the ice?

From the explanation you give it sounds like you have the same problem as most of the people complaining about Vista - You just don't know how to configure and use it. It means you now have to learn something new. And for those claiming OSX or (insert preferred linux here) is the answer, to move from xp to either of those the learning curve is just as steep - in some versions of linux MUCH steeper.

Most of the anti-Vista arguments (and quite a lot of the problems) are exactly the same as when XP was introduced (why do I need so much RAM, why doesn't this work, how do I....., bring back 98) and the same as when OSX was launched (don't like the interface, where is...., why can't I......, this doesn't work) and I have no doubt that many of the complainers have either

a) never used it

b) seen it once on somebody elses computer and decided they didn't like it

c) so anti-microsoft they won't give anything by them a chance

d) installed it, couldn't figure it out in 5 mins so removed it

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/949358

Its part of the the security updates also. So i have a Non-IT person having a problem with this.. The machine has to go back to PC world of course they dont get given the install disk.

very poor show, I cant believe you can break into the loop.

OK, so, I liked Windows Vista. I thought they made some AWESOME improvements in it, and generally, I think they are heading the right direction and with great change is coming quite a bit of pain.

I was on linux for a year. It's a great OS. It has it's pro's and con's. Then, I switched to XP, then to Vista. Loved Vista over XP (but, granted, I had to throw a lot more ram at it). It had it's quirks. SP1 fixed a lot of them for me, and I was glad to participate in the beta.

Recently, I hopped over to a mac. I had a lot of problems with Leopard until Leopard 10.5.2 came out (which fixed a lot of my issues, thanks apple!).

Windows (and linux) has a bit more burden to carry than Apple, because it allows you to install it on just about any hardware out there. I'm just grateful progress is being made and that the options all exist.