Microsoft Victim

[Cybersciver]

I'm with the antivisterites. Sure, XP wasn't so hot at first but you'd think (or hope!) the guys in Seattle would've learnt a few lessons from that. Instead they came up with the klunkiest OS ever. It's too big, been put together by too many teams, squabbles with itself. And DX10 appears to be a con-trick to get gamers on board (and I fell for it!). I run XP and Vista on the same rig and the difference in speed and accessibility is remarkable, considering that Vista was supposed to be a step foreward. When you're told you don't have sufficient administrative rights to install chipset drivers in a new motherboard, and you're the only user on a home network you have to wonder what's going on. I mean, who does have full administrative rights? Bill Gates? Doh!

 

[mscrx]

I do not agree with everything you said but this is a question of the point of view of course.
so, is your question how to install the drivers or did you just want to state your opinion?

 

[Cybersciver]

Hi, thanks for the interest. I was just having a rant. I can usually get my way with Vista, it just takes longer. Cheers!

 

[Blind Dragon]

I actually enjoy it, I had to build basically a whole new system to run it, but I like the features even though they are sometimes hard to find. Now that I pretty much know where everything is - I prefer it to vista and the new system doesn't have probs running it at all

If you are the only user on a home network, you could always turn off UAC. To do this go to Start-> control panel -> user accounts -> turn UAC on or off (should be the bottom link)

 

[mscrx]

for the uac thing there is a tool available called tweakuac:

http://www.tweak-uac.com/

it will not disable the uac but the popups.

 

[Cybersciver]

Thanks mscrx, the trouble is Vista can't get used to the idea and keeps sending irritating messages. Anyway the fact that I have to resort to compromising security when I'm the administrator and there's no-one else around kind of makes my point, don't you think?

 

[Cybersciver]

Sorry, that last message should've gone to Blind Dragon. Cheers!

 

[Cybersciver]

Thanks mscrx that looks interesting, will check it out. Cheers!

 

[Cybersciver]

Wow, cheers mscrx, that was an eye-opener. Should be required reading for all Visterites! Will give uac a tweak.

 

[Blind Dragon]

I just disable it, as I don't see it use for it when you have Teatimer and comodo firewall running

 

[mscrx]

if you feel you're protected enough than it is of course ok to disable it.
I don't remember all the dependencies but as far as I know almost all or even all security features in vista are somehow connected to eachother. means, if you disable one you disable all.
thats why I'd prefer the tweak and let uac do its (excuse my french) bs in the background. but you do what suites you best....

 

[Blind Dragon]

Completely agree that it is whatever the user feels more comfortable with, Vista's built in protection OR 3rd party protection software. Personally I have a lot of faith in spybot, more than with microsoft, I check for updates daily, immunize, and scan every day, also love the teatimer which notifies of registry changes, and my favorite part of it is being able to control what programs run at startup, changing them through spybot is easier vs msconfig. I recently even disabled JavaUpdate (jusched.exe) which runs at every startup just to monitor for updates once a month, then set through task scheduler to run jusched.exe on the last day of every month.

 

[mscrx]

I am still running on XP but I do use spybot (incl. teatimer) as well and a different firewall - not the build in.
as for the startup stuff you might find this tool interesting:

http://www.mlin.net/StartupCPL.shtml

 

[Blind Dragon]

basically the same thing as spybots system startup in advanced view/ tools but with Icons?

Another tool I just started using a little bit this year is System Mechanic -> http://www.iolo.com/downloads.aspx (30day free trial) It is great tool for checking if your hostsfile has been changed, cleans registry, compresses registry, backup registry, Defrags RAM, Defrags HDD, checks for security vulnerabilities, It does a decent job of catching minor stuff that the other sometimes can miss, and the reason I actually got it was to easily move files from C:\ partition to D:\partition -> it changes everything associated with the file all the way back to the registry entries.

 

[mscrx]

sounds good. I think I will give it a try. thanks!