Vista RANT: I am a PC of CRAP!
Last Updated on Monday, 13 October 2008 14:31
After delaying what seemed like the inevitable for a long time I finally chose to switch to Windows Vista in order to get familiar with the OS and see if I could recommend it. I switched to an IBM x series tablet PC running Vista Business which I am VERY impressed with..... Let me rephrase that. I am impressed with the new x series and not so much with Vista.
So now after using the OS for about two months, things are running pretty stable but I occasionally get stuck on a minor issue that just wastes large amounts of time. The other day I ran into one such issue while programming a switch and decided to write this......
So, let me see. Before I start ranting, maybe I should explain a few of the things that I actually like about the OS.
What I like:
It is pretty
Even though sometimes the effects make things pretty resource intensive and most of the time there is no reason to be running them. I have always been a sucker for a pretty interface. Back when Linux was first getting popular I was constantly playing and tweaking window managers and learning new operating systems is still one of my favorite things to do.
Tablet Mode
I do prefer the Vista tablet utilities over XP tablet PC edition. I like how the hadwriting recognition bar/keyboard hovers on the side of the screen vs. the old XP overlay design and the handwriting recognition does work very well.
What I disliked:
Nag warnings
By default Vista comes with all these annoying privilege escalation "nag screens." While I can handle some of them I find it annoying and stupid that a domain administrator needs to say ok TWICE in order to install a piece of software or make a change. That being said, I was able to setup automatic escalation for Administrators which made my life easier but I still rant because in my opinion this is annoying.
Missing Space
After hours of research, several chkdsk’s, and disabling applications I am missing about 30GB of space on the hard disk.
- First I disabled System Protection (which was also causing my installs to take three times as long)
- Second I disabled the hibernation file
- Third I disabled IBM Rescue and recovery, deleted the backups and uninstalled the software.
I am still missing 30GB and what is even stranger is I actually watched my hard disk go from 17GB available to 10GB available without even adding any new files or applications over the period of one month! Am I missing something here?
Update 10/13/2008: After wasting more of my time I finally took ownership of the System Volume Information folder and I found 40GB of snapshots??? Huh, I thought I disabled these! I checked and yes they are disabled! To fix this I had to limit the space of snapshots:
- Open an Administrator command prompt (right click on command prompt and run-as administrator)
- Type "vssadmin resize shadowstorage /for=c: /on=c: /maxsize=2GB"
- Watched as 40GB of used space slowly reappeared as free space!!! Did I mention I was down to 8GB free space and now I have 50GB free space! Really, really LAME!
Save me from myself!!! Please!!!
So, I am an Administrator and I am running a command prompt as an Administrator but I cannot access certain directories…. Ok, so I am an Administrator and I cannot access certain directories in Windows Explorer. Wait, I am an Administrator and I can’t take ownership of one of these protected directories….. I must be missing something here!
This came up looking at my Missing Space issue. I can’t see directory sizes on certain directories so I can’t track down the missing space through the file system. When I had a Rescue and Recovery backup I couldn’t tell through the file system…. What does this lead too? A file system I don’t trust…..
I can’t trust the file system
Windows Explorer reports 10.7GB free and 67.3GB used BUT if I check file and directory sizes to track down larger directories I show 30.4 GB used which equals 36.9 GB free. No I am not using this much space.
Which way did he go?
So, I undock my laptop from my dock and switch on wireless but I cannot connect to the internet. I disable wireless and re-enable and I still cannot access the internet. I “repair” my internet connection through the gui but I still cannot access the internet. I am however connected to the local network and can access computers on the wireless network….. Pretty funny, the default route isn’t updating when I switch networks, disable/enable the nic, “repair” connection, ipconfig /release / renew….. I have to reboot! THE OPERATING SYSTEM OF THE FUTURE!
Still waiting for my mouse
So, I want to use a mouse instead of the little eraser head mouse. I plug the mouse in and I wait..... wait some more......... wait some more and....... wait some more. Finally after close to ten minutes the mouse is added. What is happening? The OS is automatically searching for driver updates. After disabling this “feature” it is now just as fast as XP. Whoohoo!
My opinion so far?
Ok, so maybe it isnt so horrible but there are some pretty stupid things going on here and I want my 30GB back!!!...... Update 10/13/2008: I was able to recover 40GB that Windows took for snapshots (Even though I had already disabled them).
