Vista Weirdness
I have been working with Vista now for a couple of weeks and I an starting to get a feel for some of the odd quirks that are occurring to me. Many of these are because of how I have done things in the past and I will probably have to make some changes in how I do things in the future.
But, I thought that I would start documenting some of these odd things, what caused them, and how I have worked around them. Please keep in mind that I am writing this after only working with the system for a couple of weeks. I am no where even close to being an expert with this OS and I would greatly appreciate any (gentle) correction and addition that you can supply.
Too Far On the Secure Side
One of the things that I have discovered over time is that there is a sliding scale between a secure system and an easy to use system.
The further you go toward one, the farther you get from the other. I think that Vista may have sacrificed some of the ease of use while attempting to make it more secure.
I have found that if you are having difficulty with an application working properly, most of the problems can be resolved by right clicking on the application or the shortcut and clicking on Run as administrator. This goes for installing applications as well. Of course, if you are not a member of the local administrator’s group, this will be of little help to you.
Can I Get Some Services Please…
The vast majority of the old services that worked under Windows 2003 and Windows XP simple do not work. This is understandable because of how the entire services engine has been rebuilt in Vista. I’m sure that it is just a matter of time before someone comes up with a Windows XP service on Vista wrapper but I have not found anything like this yet.
…And a Side of Resource Kits?
I miss my resource kit tools. There is a whole pile of resource kits available for pretty much every Microsoft product out there but I have yet to see one for Vista. I’m sure it is on the way but it can’t arrive too soon for me.
No, That’s Not a Network Drive
For some reason, Vista sometimes mistakes my TrueCrypt mounted volume, which is on X:, to be a network drive. What’s more, it seems to not like working with some of the files and mistakes them for read-only at times. I know that this is not necessarily a Vista issue since TrueCrypt is just newly release for Vista but it is still a Vista related annoyance.
What Makes One Application Good and Others Evil?
I am having a hard time figuring out how Vista determines whether or not to block or allow an application to perform a specific action. I’ve had signed application get stopped in their tracks and yet potentially destructive batch files run without pause. This definitely needs further scrutiny.
More DCoT Research Needed
As I stated earlier on, I am still very new to this and a lot of the answers to these issues may become obvious in due course. I think with more time and experience, I will come to enjoy working with Vista. Until then, it will have to be Google to the rescue!
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6 Responses to “Vista Weirdness”
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Litbea Says:
March 30th, 2007 at 7:45 amHi all,
The most annoying problem I’m facing with Vista is with using not secured WiFi networks. I think Vista thinks it is too dangerous to do so and blocks ALL TCP incoming traffic. Not Firewall, not public/private network, nor Advanced FW Policies have solved the problem yet. The laptop catches DHCP data but that’s all. It just says “Only local access”.
Using other WiFi networks that force the user to authenticate it goes smoothly. And in this case it says “Internet access”.
Regards from Spain. Sorry for my english…
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David Says:
March 30th, 2007 at 8:00 am“One of the things that I have discovered over time is that there is a sliding scale between a secure system and an easy to use system.”
Wrong.
Take your diagram and next to the “Secure” arrow write “Mac OS X”.
Next to the “Easy to use” arrow write “Mac OS X”.
Now do you see where you’ve been going wrong? Are you coming to a sad realization? Cancel or Allow?
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Tim Fehlman Says:
March 30th, 2007 at 8:45 amDavid,
Excellent point. When I was writing this, I was definitely thinking Windows only and since my experience with Mac OSX is limited (I have one but I only use it for specific tasks) I cannot comment either way.In the Windows world, this is definitely the case. If we throw in Mac and Linux, this may change.
Thanks for the insight.
Tim
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Shaun Kester Says:
March 30th, 2007 at 10:25 amI feel your pain. My trouble with Vista comes with gaming. Most of the multiplayer games have anti-cheating software that monitors your system processes and itself to keep you on the straight and narrow. Vista doesn’t allow this, and I get booted about every 5 minutes. When I can get in to play, some of the transform & lighting is screwy, I get white outlines of boxes instead of light coming down from a ceiling.
Not to mention, my frame rates drop significantly. I am currently triple booting between 2000 server, xp, and Vista, so I am able to directly compare performance between the three. I realize Vista uses more resources to prefetch, etc, but it just feels slow. File copy, USB, and my gaming are all taking hits. The only thing that feels faster is network discovery of my other workgroup systems.
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angry customer Says:
March 31st, 2007 at 1:10 amIt thinks PhotoShop is dangerous and doesn’t let it launch.
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Alex Says:
April 6th, 2007 at 12:10 amThe windows vista resource kit is now available http://windowsvistablog.com/blogs/windowsvista/archive/2007/04/03/announcing-the-windows-vista-resource-kit.aspx
