Post by PeterW on Jul 4, 2007 18:38:25 GMT -5
Well, on my new computer I think I gave Vista a fair trial, but there were several things I wasn't keen on. The first was its graphical interface which hogged a lot of memory. The second was that to my mind it was written for the computer equivalent of the point and shoot brigade. It would insist on trying to anticipate what I wanted and I had to train it and say no, I don't want to do that every time, please don't keep asking. Then all the ikons were too big and took up too much screen room.
I could have lived with these things, fitted more RAM, trained Vista to do what I wanted it to do, and put a lot of the ikons in folders. But what killed it for me was the attitude of a peripheral hardware maker - Hewlett Packard.
I've got an HP colour laser printer, the 1500L which, although it's not a hideously expensive 100ppm pro model, and has been superseded, is still available new at £650 ($1300). When I went to download the Vista driver for it , HP said on its website 'we no longer support the 1500L and a Vista driver is not available'.
I also have a very expensive (like £three grand) big floor-standing HP 8000 DN black and white duplexing laser printer which, if I want it to, will also multi-task, sort, staple and pack for me. Same story, but I found a third party driver that would work.
Couldn't find one for the colour laser, so I rang one of the marketing people at HP UK and got the same story as the website. I told him I knew what I'd like to do with the colour printer, but asked for his suggestion. This was to write it off and buy a later model.
I said I was sorely tempted to carry out my first inclination, but it was less trouble to take Vista out of my computer and 'upgrade' back to XP Pro. Then he suggested that this might invalidate the warranty on my new computer.
At this point I almost lost my temper and my reply wasn't for delicate ears, but the gist of it was that it might invalidate a warranty written by HP's legal experts with a view to wriggling out of any claim, but I was assured by the makers of my computer that it wouldn't. Nor, with his qualifications and certifications, would John fitting and piggy-backing an extra 160 Gb hard drive inside for data storage. He declined to comment.
This is a pity because I like the general quality of HP's products.
It also contasts sharply with the attitude of Epson who have upgraded their free TWAIN scanner driver to suit Vista and, what's more, it's compatible with older scanners three or four models back down the line, and the Windows 2000 version is still available.
I also rang ABBYY Software in Ireland to enquire about their OCR program I use. I was told that if I had any problems they would email me a TWAK to fix them. When I asked what a TWAK was I was told, deadpan: "Ah, to be sure, a TWAK is something a TWAIN wuns on, so it is".
So, I'm back on XP Pro, and the computer runs faster than on Vista.
If anyone's thinking of changing to Vista, or getting a new computer with Vista already loaded, check first that drivers are available for all your expensive peripherals like printers, scanners and so on. Otherwise you might find yourself with a lot of hardware you can't use.
PeterW
I could have lived with these things, fitted more RAM, trained Vista to do what I wanted it to do, and put a lot of the ikons in folders. But what killed it for me was the attitude of a peripheral hardware maker - Hewlett Packard.
I've got an HP colour laser printer, the 1500L which, although it's not a hideously expensive 100ppm pro model, and has been superseded, is still available new at £650 ($1300). When I went to download the Vista driver for it , HP said on its website 'we no longer support the 1500L and a Vista driver is not available'.
I also have a very expensive (like £three grand) big floor-standing HP 8000 DN black and white duplexing laser printer which, if I want it to, will also multi-task, sort, staple and pack for me. Same story, but I found a third party driver that would work.
Couldn't find one for the colour laser, so I rang one of the marketing people at HP UK and got the same story as the website. I told him I knew what I'd like to do with the colour printer, but asked for his suggestion. This was to write it off and buy a later model.
I said I was sorely tempted to carry out my first inclination, but it was less trouble to take Vista out of my computer and 'upgrade' back to XP Pro. Then he suggested that this might invalidate the warranty on my new computer.
At this point I almost lost my temper and my reply wasn't for delicate ears, but the gist of it was that it might invalidate a warranty written by HP's legal experts with a view to wriggling out of any claim, but I was assured by the makers of my computer that it wouldn't. Nor, with his qualifications and certifications, would John fitting and piggy-backing an extra 160 Gb hard drive inside for data storage. He declined to comment.
This is a pity because I like the general quality of HP's products.
It also contasts sharply with the attitude of Epson who have upgraded their free TWAIN scanner driver to suit Vista and, what's more, it's compatible with older scanners three or four models back down the line, and the Windows 2000 version is still available.
I also rang ABBYY Software in Ireland to enquire about their OCR program I use. I was told that if I had any problems they would email me a TWAK to fix them. When I asked what a TWAK was I was told, deadpan: "Ah, to be sure, a TWAK is something a TWAIN wuns on, so it is".
So, I'm back on XP Pro, and the computer runs faster than on Vista.
If anyone's thinking of changing to Vista, or getting a new computer with Vista already loaded, check first that drivers are available for all your expensive peripherals like printers, scanners and so on. Otherwise you might find yourself with a lot of hardware you can't use.
PeterW
