Windows Vista beta 2 experiences...........

[GomJabbar]

Well, I finally got home and installed Windows Vista beta 2, build 5384, on my spare drive for my T42 yesterday.

Pros (so far)
1. Appearance of the desktop.
2. Appearance of Internet Explorer 7 beta.
3. Security (permissions) can be changed without booting to Safe Mode.
4. My Intel 2200BG wireless card works after downloading Windows Update.
5. Windows Update includes the Lenovo PM device (power management).
6. I was able to install my printer and scanner drivers (EPSON CX6600), although I could not install all the printer software.
7. I was able to install Adobe Reader without a hitch.
8. I installed Opera 9.01 without any problems so far. EDIT: Just updated to version 9.02.
9. I like how Vista handles internet connections, specifically wireless connections. The icon in the notification area shows when you have a connection to your router, and when you truly have a connection to the internet, a globe also appears with the icon. In XP, the Access Connections icon would indicate a good connection, but in actuallity I did not always have a connection to the internet.
10. I installed Winamp without any problems.
11. I was able to install the driver and communications software (Sierra Wireless Watcher) for my Sierra Wireless 860 Aircard for my cellular HSDPA/UTMS/EDGE internet connection through Cingular.
12. I was able to install the ThinkPad modem driver by going to Device Manager and choosing to Update Driver. I pointed to the C:\DRIVERS_OLD\MODEM\ directory (the original drivers directory which I had saved and renamed on my XP drive). I had both the Vista drive and XP drive in the ThinkPad.
13. I was able to install the new Vista UltraNav driver, and now the TrackPoint and TouchPad seem to work just like in XP.
14. I was able to install the UltraNav Wizard. This allows me to disable the TrackPad without a reboot. Has other features as well.
15. I was able to install the Hotkey Features driver. Seems to work fine except no Fn + F5 for the Intel 2200BG WiFi. Fn + F3 likewise has no effect (for blanking the display).
16. Power Plan settings work as advertised. Similar to Battery Maximiser Wizard, just a little different to set up.
17. Discovered the Mobility Center in Control Panel, from which you can turn off the Wireless adapter. There are other settings there as well.


Cons (so far)
1. No modem driver that works that I have found - EDIT fixed.
2. TrackPoint scrolling does not work, and the UltraNav driver will not install - EDIT fixed.
3. I hate the search feature. Indexing is forced - no way to turn it off. I can't seem to search for text in all the files. I can't seem to search by file extension. Maybe I just need to play with it some more.....
4. Permissions are a real pain. As Administrator, initially I could not view the Documents and Settings folder. I changed permissions to grant access to that folder, but the subfolders would not inherit the permissions. I'll have to change permissions on all the subfolders as well if I want to look in them. How time-consuming it will be to give myself access to all the folders on my hard drive.
5. When you click on almost anything it seems, a dialog box pops up asking if you want to allow the change to your computer. I have not used it enough to see if it learns your choice and stops popping up for the same thing all the time.
6. I could not easily remove a dial-up connection that I created in Internet Options > Connections. I highlighted the connection and clicked on the Remove button, but nothing happened. In the process of creating the connection, I named it Earthlink. I launched regedt32 and deleted all references to Earthlink, but it was still showing up. So evidently, the connection with the word Earthlink is stored someplace else besides the registry. I finally got rid of it from Control Panel > Network list.
7. Using the Rescue and Recovery Restore Diskette to fix the MBR and try and get the service partition back, broke Windows Vista. Not entirely unexpected......
8. I downloaded and installed the trial version of AVG which I thought supported Vista, and it did seem to work at first. However, later, after a reboot, it would not load up.
9. At least in Opera 9.01 and 9.02, Macromedia Flash files play, but no sound can be heard. I did read on the Opera forums that a newer build of Vista supposedly fixes this problem.

[pianowizard]

8. I downloaded and installed the trial version of AVG which I thought supported Vista, and it did seem to work at first. However, later, after a reboot, it would not load up.

Symantec AntiVirus doesn't work in Vista either.

[jjesusfreak01]

4. Permissions are a real pain. As Administrator, initially I could not view the Documents and Settings folder. I changed permissions to grant access to that folder, but the subfolders would not inherit the permissions. I'll have to change permissions on all the subfolders as well if I want to look in them. How time-consuming it will be to give myself access to all the folders on my hard drive.

Sounds like OSX

[GomJabbar]

In this thread, I explain how I put Vista on a second hard drive in the Ultrabay Slim adapter without hosing the service partition on the main hard drive with the IBM (XP) preload. I found out that if you install Vista in the second hard drive, with the main hard drive also in the ThinkPad, Vista will install a boot loader on the main hard drive which disables the service partition.

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=29681

[Kyocera]

jjesusfreak01

Sounds like OSX

There are a number of other suttle and not so suttle similarities.

[Humpa]

5. When you click on almost anything it seems, a dialog box pops up asking if you want to allow the change to your computer. I have not used it enough to see if it learns your choice and stops popping up for the same thing all the time.

Control Panel > User Accounts > Turn off "User Account Control"

And I have managed to get limited scrolling, but so far it seems limited to IE. It doesn't work in the system folders or in notepad, and so far I haven't installed any other programs.
But the scrolling properties are still missing for the trackpoint (they are grayed out). The scrolling is forced to the automatic scrolling mode where you press the center button to activate/deactivate it, and then just use the pointer to move/scroll the page in any direction.
To enable the scrolling, I went to device manager > mouse and clicked Update Driver and pointed it to where I unpacked the UNAV utility - it now labels the mouse as a "ThinkPad UltraNav Pointing Device" as well.

That's all I have so far - I'm using 5600 RC1 of Vista. I love the Aero Glass.

[mattbiernat]

jjesusfreak01

Sounds like OSX

There are a number of other suttle and not so suttle similarities.

that reminds me of the last time i played with OSX permissions. I end up not being able to change any setting in OSX system, files and folders. Furthermore OSX would not permit me to back up any data since it also disallowed copying files. The only thing i was allowed to do was opening files. the final solution was formatting hard drive and loosing all the data. oh yeah I could have called the apple tech support for $50 per call but i decided not to.

[GomJabbar]

A couple of additions to the original post. Added items 10, 11, and 12 under Pros, and edited item 1 under Cons. No more errors showing in Device Manager.

I still cannot get the Ultranav driver to work - so no scrolling. The TrackPoint and TouchPad do function as a pointing device, and I can use the two red mouse buttons for left and right clicking.

[GomJabbar]

Made some additions to the original post. Items 13 -17 have been added to Pros column. Several edit updates in both columns.

New Vista UltraNav driver working just fine. Vertical and Horizontal scrolling in IE with the TrackPoint.

[jdhurst]

I have spent some time now with this version and have some of the same issues. Further:

1. The Netscreen Client I use will not install with drivers (and therefore will not work). I am using V8.6 (Safenet 10.5.1 Build 8 ) which seems to be the latest version. (Edit: I have contacted Juniper and will await their response)

2. UltraEdit menus don't appear properly and are hard to use.
(Edit: Problem is known in the UltraEdit forum, and they are in the early stages of denial claiming it is a Vista problem. It may, but given the video and display changes for Vista, UltraEdit may have to adapt.)

3. MailCall didn't work, but PopTray does and is an equal upgrade.
4. IE 7 Back Buttons don't work properly with this Forum. It seems to back up two steps or some such. Not a lock up problem, just not proper action.
5. As noted, setting permissions looks like a royal pain in the butt.

6. I haven't tried Symantec Corporate yet, but I expect problems with it (pianowizard's post). (Edit: Symantec claim to be working on being Vista compatible. They will have to be in order to stay on top of Microsoft.)

7. The revised UltraNav driver works great and the wireless driver works with my IBM Atheros card.

So there still is a long way to go, and no rush, in my opinion, to migrate. ... JD Hurst

[jdhurst]

I have heard back from Juniper (today 10/9/2006) and they said there is no ETA for a version of the Netscreen Remote Client to work with Vista. Netscreen is far from the only Remote VPN application that doesn't work with Vista, so as long as secure remote access remains an issue, businesses will go slow on Vista.

In another thread, Gom pointed to an Information Week article that said the Microsoft was closing the kernel to everyone (meaning that Symantec Corporate will not work properly at this point).

Microsoft's own tools for VPN, firewall and malware are much, much weaker than competent, professional third party software. I would much rather pay for good tools than get weak ones for free. Homeowners might like free, but businesses need reliability and robustness.

No rush any more for Vista - just a play toy at this point with no real business meaning or intent.
.. JD Hurst

[pianowizard]

Has anyone tried RC2 yet? Perhaps some of the issues get resolved in this "final" prerelease? It looks like no one has reported their experiences with RC2 yet, in this or other threads. I downloaded it and burned the ISO to a DVD, and plan to test it on an extra hard drive on my Dell Dimension B110 desktop once its memory has been increased to 2GB.

[marcos]

One of the 2 T43 that I bought from a forum member came with vista. I had unpack the machines as they delivered to my place in the morning (whatever morning means for me) and still sleepy quickly turned them on for a check.

I noticed the loading progress thingie appears more definite and nice, until the thing booted up and I realized what it was.

The machine has 512 MB and was considerably slower to boot than XP. A simple operation like changing time had to be confirmed by the added security features. But everything looked embellished.

Then at friends place some guy tells me I can flip the windows or whatever, but I couldn't because lack of Win key (!!!).
I couldn't net to the forum for how to have a Win key so I gave up.

Next morning the beta expired so thank you MS for the choice of not having me look at vista more and possibly convince for a future upgrade.

Now if MS could make a faster and lighter OS that would be something good.

[GomJabbar]

Then at friends place some guy tells me I can flip the windows or whatever, but I couldn't because lack of Win key (!!!).
I couldn't net to the forum for how to have a Win key so I gave up.

Next morning the beta expired so thank you MS for the choice of not having me look at vista more and possibly convince for a future upgrade.

It happened that I did not activate Vista within the 30-day window. I needed to download a Vista driver for my Sierra Wireless AirCard 860, so that I could access the internet to activate Vista. I was in a catch 22. A little digging around, and I found out I could activate over the phone. You call a microsoft activation number, key in numbers on the phone that you see on the screen, and the phone system gives you other numbers to type in on the keyboard of the computer. So you can activate without internet access.

Also I noticed that the CD I received allowed up to 10 activations.

[Buccaneerfan]

Sorry, but:

This is a Beta resp. RC that you are complaining about.......

What are you expecting? Of course there are some activation issues, driver issues, stability issues, handling issues etc. etc.

Some of the discussions here seem to me as if people forgot that this is still supposed to be a non-productive system pre-release, i repeat PRE-Release.

[taz42zero]

i have installed vista rc1 on my t41 w/ 1.25 gigs ram, it is much faster to boot than xp on my machine, loads programs faster, and MUCH faster networking w/ my pc on my home network. i am impressed so far. i don't like how they organized the programs in the start menu, but i like the fact that i can hit the start button, type the name of the program and hit enter (before the results even come up), and the correct program opens.

i have not had many compatibility issues yet that weren't fixable, but i like aVast antivirus, and although their website said the build i have would work, it doesn't. so i am using CA antivirus for now, which i found for free linked from the vista web site.

the other thing is its just wierd getting used to is how there are so many things placed in different locations that they are in xp. so far, i'm mixed, impressed with some features, not liking others....

[jdhurst]

<snip>
the other thing is its just wierd getting used to is how there are so many things placed in different locations that they are in xp. so far, i'm mixed, impressed with some features, not liking others....

What Microsoft did was to move the signal light lever to the right hand side of the steering wheel (a la older French Citroen's IIRC). Works, can be learned, but no reason to do it, no intrinstic value in the new way and nothing gained. Microsoft continues to show signficant signs of the inmates running the asylum.
... JD Hurst

[taz42zero]

...Microsoft continues to show signficant signs of the inmates running the asylum.
... JD Hurst

haha, yeah, no kidding....

[tyito2000]

Sounds like your T41 is faster with the boot, programs, and networking. I am wondering how your T41's ATI 9000 graphic chip performs. ATI's Vista Readiness program indicates that the ATI 9000 needs a 2.0 pixel shader. The 2379-DJU has a 1.4 pixel shader. Can you tell the difference? And, how does the Vista aero glass feature perform.

Tom

T41 2379-DJU

[taz42zero]

the graphics card doesn't meet the minimum requirements for aero, so it doesn't even give me the option to enable it, which is fine with me cuz i care more about performance and features than i do about appearance. it still has the great resolution and picture, but none of the "advanced" features will function....

[makaveli559m]

Hey how did you fix the driver issues? I have a Thinkpad A20m I cant install the modem or network drivers and cant fix the serial port. Can you tell me what to do>

[GomJabbar]

To install XP drivers in Vista, instead of using Setup.exe, Software Installer, or System Update, you need to Update the driver in Device Manager or I believe you can use the Add Hardware Wizard in Control Panel.

When installing a particular driver, browse to the directory where that driver is located (the drivers must be extracted to your hard drive, but fortunately, when you download the driver from the ThinkPad driver matrix for your model and double-click on it, generally it extracts the files to your hard drive without actually installing them). I am not using Vista at the moment to remember the details clearly, but I did install a modem driver for my T42 successfully (see my first post in this thread). If you have XP available on another partition or hard drive, you can just point to the appropriate driver directory in XP when installing the driver in Vista.

EDIT: I just noticed you are from Dinuba. My grandmother and her son (my uncle) lived there for about a decade in the 70's until they both passed away (about 6-months apart). They had been living previously in Hollywood, but the smog there was aggravating my grandmother's emphysema forcing them to move. My grandmother's other daughter, son-in-law, and their daughter lived in Orosi. My uncle, aunt, and cousin there, ran the Cutler-Orosi Currier newspaper. When I was a kid, I used to love climbing my grandmother's sycamore tree. That was the best climbing tree ever.