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Windows Vista Problems of the Day – another day, another list of woes

Vistavomit

Windows Vista Problems of the Day – The case of the lost peripherals. (previously) (clipart)

Well well well, yesterday Vista decided to lose my mouse. I’m right in the middle of a straightforward image editing session, everything going well (got to say I like the new image editing features in the Vista image viewer) when all of a sudden, pop. Mouse gone. Totally. Logitech wireless model. Took the USB wireless dongle out, padded over to nearby second laptop, popped it in, mouse working fine. Padded back to Vista machine, popped it in again. Nothing. In the end had to place dongle in new USB slot, reboot and it reappeared again. Woo-hoo, haven’t had this much fun since Windows 95.

Last night? Printer disappeared. Actually at first it just stopped working. Worked perfectly for a day or so, then paff. Gone. Samsung wireless colour laser, brand new, installed perfectly. My mistake was to try and correct the problem by restarting the printer and rebooting Vista. BIG no-no. The printer completely disappeared, rather than merely showing as an offline icon. Eventually got it back by going to Add A Printer, using the existing driver to reinstall. Why did Vista remove it? Your guess is as good as mine.

Generally, in the last few days? Discovered that Vista won’t let Acronis True Image Workstation 9.1 automatically back up my machine via a schedule as it used to happily do on the previous XP laptop. Called TrueImage tech support, really nice guy gave me a few tips (e.g. “try running the exe as administrator” – common suggestion this), nothing worked. Still waiting to hear back from Acronis support to see if this is salvageable.

Oh and the wireless connection is still failing to revive after sleep mode. Not sure why. I can get it back if I disable the wireless network adapter from Device Manager before leaving the machine, then enable it again when I return. Sheesh! The odd thing – and this is strange – is that I’ve got the Power settings pointing to Never Sleep. So Vista obviously ignores that for a start and puts the laptop or adapter to sleep. Ho-hum, I’m beginning to enjoy this. It’s like one of those awful movies that gets so bad it starts to get cult status good, know what I mean?

The sad thing is if this goes on for much longer I’m going to have to admit defeat, format the disk and return to the peace and sanctity of XP. I hate being beaten by a terrible bit of coding, really I do.

11 Comments

  • I’m sure M$ have a solution for this – “Buy Windows 7!”

  • It may be anthropomorphizing the problem which is kind of foolish, but when Vista decides to hate someone and hold a grudge, it really fights dirty. It’s the only way I can explain it. It runs really well for one person, and then for another, it can despoil any and every computer they try to run it on. Pre SP1 is garbage. Try to figure out which periperal or software package you have installed on every failed Vista attempt. Bad drivers and incompatible software usually is what is crossing the line.

    The cure for Vista Grudge is to wait six months, buy a complete new system, all new software and all new peripherals, cross your fingers and hope. You have a 50% chance that Vista still remembers you.

    It runs pretty well as long as you stick to the Professional version and get the compatibilities in a row. Stay away from the consumer grade “Home” cruft.

  • Nige you seem to have a lot of peripheral failures. Is there something deeper afoot, like a problem with your USB or something?

  • with all the problems you are having I would like to know what the specs of your computer system you have

    because I have run vista ultimate with all the bells and whistles turned on for over a year now and the only serious problem I’ve had is every once in a while upon boot up my mouse doesn’t seem to connect
    all I have to do to cure the problem is to unplug the USB mouse and re connect it it takes about 5 seconds and its all because I don’t want the razer divers and I am using the standard Microsoft drivers

  • OSX.
    Nuff said

  • Bad mainboard?

    That's what first popped into my head. That could explain both USB and Wifi issues… just a guess.

    Does that USB port work with other devices? flash sticks? separately powered devices (ie: scanner), it could be just a lemon of a machine, since USB doesn't usually cough up the ghost in the middle of a session.

  • After listening to his issues I’m personally starting to lean towards a bad piece of hardware. Its just my gut feeling, but I’m usually not too far off when it comes to rough troubleshooting. If your lappie is still under warranty, or you can return it still, I would have it checked into. I’ve rarely had issues with Vista or XP, but when I have and they have been very unusual, like vanishing connectivity, slow or unstable USB connections, it’s usually tracked back to some crap hardware.

  • I love the idea that Vista hates you!

    Vista – it’s making a list, it’s checking it twice

  • Stephen Fry agrees with you!
    http://gizmodo.com/5103966/the-unflappable-stephen-fry-becomes-quite-flapped-over-vista
    (lots of hilariously bad language)

  • Heh, BSGuy, I can totally understand the language. Not a day goes by when I don’t utter uncharitable words about this heap of trash called Vista.

  • All the above comments are from Microsoft Employers, Windows Vista is a problem.
    Because Microsoft itself admitted that It is Slow and Thus It indicates that It has Lots of Bugs in it. MS already knows.
    Its acually alpha version of Windows 7. MS Test there machince in real enveriment to get the good results. In 28 years Windows developed that little. See Bill Gates He's Bad Evil Thinking. Microsoft was/is/will be Evil. Welcome to Linux. It takes a bit to Learn after Then all Start is Fun.Welcome Google Crome OS. on the other partition of Linux.PC

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