windows-update

http://live.pirillo.com/ – Community member Thomas Harrington writes:

Recently, I purchased a few PCs equipped with Vista for our home network. Everything was running smoothly, until I decided to check and see if Windows had any worthwhile additional updates available to us. My girlfriend is a language geek and I noticed that there were a number of "Language Packs" that had not been installed on our computers. So I went through the process of downloading and installing these updates for her desktop and for my laptop. Upon our next restart, our computers did not start up properly and we were forced to run the "Startup Repair Tool" instead of booting up normally. The tool fixed our problem, but it took close to an hour to do so and we were, all the while, left to twiddle our thumbs and wonder, "Should we just stay away from any Windows Updates that aren’t necessary?" Have you experienced these types of problems? Or, perhaps, has anyone else expressed them to you?

Read more on Windows Update Problems…

I warn you: this is a long one, but my perspective seems to resonate with hundreds of geeks from around the world. Unfortunately, I completely forgot to sneak in a plug for my sponsors (GoDaddy and AMD).

Read more on Windows Vista vs. XP…

Daniel Miessler has thrown down the gauntlet:

There’s not much suspense here, as I’m sure you know what I’m going to say, but I’ll say it anyway. Dude, enough already. Spend 60 days in OS X and see if you want to go back to XP/Vista. If you do, I’ll pay you $250 cash, plus I’m donating $100 to get you your first Mac. I’m not even playing, Chris. Windows is beneath you, man. If you don’t go OS X then do Ubuntu. Just do SOMETHING. Stop messing with Windows 95 Version 4; it’s a waste of your time.

Read more on He’s paying me to move to the Mac?!…

I was getting ready to post a follow-up on my switch from Vista, but it turned into my next article for CPU Magazine (sorry, you’ll have to wait for it to hit newsstands in a few months). Suffice it to say, it seems I really struck chords and nerves the other day.

Read more on Switching from XP to Vista to XP to…?…

I’m really starting to get pissed off with the distributed lynch mob that’s forming around my recent decision to drop VIsta for XP. Now, the saddest part of this is – I’m not pissed off at the people telling me to switch to OS X, I’m really pissed off at the people who are blaming me for Vista’s shortcomings. Witness Ed Bott’s jabs:

Read more on Where Windows Pundits Went Wrong…

No, seriously. When I have the time, I’m “upgrading” from Windows Vista to Windows XP. My keyboard is completely ambiguous.

I stand by my original assertion that the shipping version of this OS is late beta, at best. I realize that other enthusiasts are leaving Windows altogether (and leaping instead to Apple’s OS X), but there’s not yet enough momentum behind my willingness to do that. I’ll leave the installs of Vista 32 and 64 on this PC, but I’ll spend most (if not all) of my time back in tried-and-true Windows XP.

Read more on Windows Vista: I’m Breaking up with You…

Ya know, despite the operating system’s countless shortcomings, I have to say that Windows Vista’s driver support has exceeded my expectations. Let me give you two living examples.

Story #1: My Silicon Image 3531 (eSATA controller) was not recognized when I first installed Vista. I didn’t think much of it, as I don’t own any eSATA drives. Still, it’s annoying when a piece of hardware isn’t recogn… wait a second. Tonight, Windows Update tells me there’s a new driver available for my motherboard’s chipset. I install it, reboot, and am promptly prompted with the newly-familiar “I don’t know what the heck this is” hardware wizard. Did it not take? Well, it took the chipset update for Windows to recognize the Silicon Image controller. To my surprise, the wizard downloaded and installed the updated Silicon Image driver from the Windows Update repository. Smooth as silk.

Read more on Windows Vista Drivers…