I can sum up my first Windows Vista Home Premium experience with two words: "Kernel Error". Yep, not a half hour after I first booted up and started installing my usual programs I received a driver incompatibility message after installing the latest Java Runtime Environment, or at least that's what I assumed the incompatibility had to do with. I looked at the system events and saw that Kernel Error. I did a system restore to right before I installed JRE and I still received the driver incompatibility warning. The problem is, it doesn't say when, where or why. It did give the who and what but when I went to my device manager there were no ominous error icons and everything looked okay.
A little upset, and a little confused I ripped open my Dell Driver CD and re-installation disk and wagged it at the monitor but I quickly decided I wasn't ready for a 7:00pm operating system re-instillation, especially because I was used to Dell's typical 1 CD re-installation kit. Vista for Dell has three CDs - one for the OS, one for the drivers and one for the Vista upgrade. Not that I couldn't handle the pressure of two extra CDs (pffft, please) but I just wasn't in the mood because I had a bigger fish to fry.
Graphics. When I customized my Dell, I knew I needed 2 GB of RAM to live comfortably, I knew I needed the faster processor and hard drive but when it came to the graphics card I had an attack of thriftiness. There were 4 choices and two of them weren't compatible with the nice purdy glossy monitor I chose. I wound up choosing the cheaper of the two graphics cards to save about $200 and because of that, my monitor isn't as glossy as it could be and my graphics are a little grainy. If I had Windows XP pro on here this thing would be high-speed and amazing, yet despite the upgrades and a hog of an operating system I have a mediocre machine with a "Windows Index Experience Base Score" of 3.0 thanks to the graphics card. Yes, I said, "Windows Index Experience Base Score" but I will discuss that a little later.
So why did I choose the lower-quality graphics card? Simple. I'm not a gamer. I don't need high-speed 3D graphics and all that, so my IT instincts told me I would be fine. I'm all about aesthetics so if I had known that my glossy monitor would look grainier I would have spent that extra money in a heartbeat. Lesson learned.
Now back to the Windows Index Experience Base Score. Each hardware component receives its own score, 5 being the best regarding compatibility and speed. Your base score is determined by the lowest subscore, mine being 3.0 despite my 4.6s and 4.8 on the other important components. When Windows Vista-compatible software comes out it will have a minimum base score somewhere on the label. Microsoft suggests you don't purchase software graded higher than your base score as it won't run very well.
As far as general functionality, a seasoned Windows System Administrator will notice changes in certain semantics but these changes aren't so foreign that you can't find your way to areas regarding your system's performance and networking, which will make it easier to administer to others once Vista becomes more mainstream. So far the only thing I had to hunt down was the old add and remove programs section. It's no longer in the Control Panel. You go to the proverbial start menu and select Default Programs on the right and then select Programs and Features on the left. Then it will show. As for the rest of the control panel it is easy to navigate through plus you can switch it back to classic style the same way you could in XP. Also, there is no Start/Run to access the command prompt. Instead you access it from the Start menu at the bottom where it says, "Start Search". I typed in CMD and there it was. I haven't found an easier way to access it but it's really no different than entering cmd into Start/Run in the old OS.
As far as software compatibility, minus that pesky driver error, I've been able to install and run all of my basic standards such as iTunes, Adaware, Spybot Search and Destroy, Firefox, Photoshop and the entire Macromedia suite.
Windows Vista Home Premium, despite its misleading moniker, is only sufficient for basic end users as one is not allowed to remote into other computers, change OS languages and pretty much all other convinces one took for granted with XP Professional. To get these options without already having Vista Business Edition, you have to upgrade to Vista Ultimate. Unless you opted in for the free upgrade at the time of your original purchase, the upgrade to Ultimate will cost $157.
Also, if you purchased Microsoft Home and Student 2007, the Word documents are not compatible with earlier Office versions, plus the extension is .docx on other platforms and not doc. I found out the hard way when I E-mailed a .docx page to my other computer and it looked all encrypted and said it needed pro11.msi for the conversion but I didn't have my old Office CD handy.
Ever more frustrated with the limitations of Vista Home Premium, I'm currently upgrading my new laptop to Ultimate as I write this. I have a while as, "The upgrade may take several hours". Awesome.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Runtime blunder - Everything That we Need to Know About a Runtime blunder
doubt a software update doesn't , you might possess issues together with the mental recall on your mechanism. regulating that kind of problem might take contacting a builder of a memory and presumably smooth the maker of your Personal Computer.Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/operating-systems-articles/stop-c0000221-unknown-hard-error-fix-1629202.html
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