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Windows is Trying Hard to Push Me Over To a Mac...

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J-Mac:
Frustration level is about at the boiling point all the time now with Windows.  If not one version, then another.

My desktop PC has been the absolute buggiest piece of expensive junk I have ever owned - and I've had some real junker cars in my time.  Lots of Windows issues along the way using XP Pro -- but then again this machine seems to have a myriad of hardware gremlins also.

Now it's my new Dell XPS M-1330 notebook.  Pretty high-end computer, and also not cheap. Decent dual-core Intel processor, 4 GB RAM, lots of other fancy crap on it. And Vista Ultimate along with Office 2007.

First, the fingerprint login disappeared.  Stayed away for three or four startups.  Then returned as if nothing had happened.  Also, a handful of icons on the desktop went away - gone from the computer altogether!  Fixed that manually - the hard way.  I also noticed that a number of shortcuts in the Start>All Programs menu are bad.  All those had to replaced manually.  Some fun on a new machine.

Next, Microsoft Updates.  What else.  It has had 2 critical Office 2007 updates for me for two weeks now, but installation fails every time I install them.  One is Office 2007 SP1.  No good reason noted anywhere for failing.  Just tells me the the installation failed.  Actually it tells me this every time I turn it on.  Of course it always checks my patches, sees that those two are missing, and tries to install them again.  But they have failed 16 times now, so I ignore the update notification.  Pretty persistent, though.  I have searched the MS site, the MSDN site, and everywhere else, but though it seems a lot of users are getting this, there are no good fixes for it.  Reinstall Office, Windows, sacrifice a live chicken and dance around swinging it over my head - no deal.

Next, my brand new, very light Firefox 2.0.0.12 installation crashes often all of a sudden.  If I am on this PC for an hour Firefox will crash 6 or 8 times.  After plenty of troubleshooting, I am using Opera on the notebook.  Can't use RoboForm or other extensions, but at least it isn't crashing.

Then yesterday shortly after starting the notebook I got a good, old-fashioned BSOD!  Damn!  Couldn't see what it said because it restarted too quickly.  So I figured I would look at the Event Viewer to see what happened.  Nope.  Event Viewer cannot start.  Service has not started.  Try to start that manually - won't do it.  Again, I searched high and low, and though a lot of users are seeing this, there are no official solutions from MS. Event Viewer WAS working just fine before.  Now it appears to be gone.

I did read, from a poster on a forum somewhere, that NOD32 was causing similar issues with the latter Vista betas.  So I figured I would shut it down for a while and see if things worked any better.  Guess what?!?!  Can't shut down NOD32!!!  I can on my XP Pro machine.  But not on Vista.  Searched for a workaround for that.  Only solution is to remove it from the startup folder!!

Man, this machine is only a month and a half old!!

When I think back to all the trials and tribulations of Windows 95, 98, and Me, I fully realize that....  it is not rose-colored glasses that are blinding me;  none of those were actually as buggy - at least for me -- as these two computers!!

Sorry - Just needed a good whine.

Jim

mouser:
maybe back up your hd and downgrade to XP Pro.

lanux128:
if you had these problems right from the beginning then it is time to bring Dell into the matter.

J-Mac:
if you had these problems right from the beginning then it is time to bring Dell into the matter.
-lanux128 (April 22, 2008, 12:59 AM)
--- End quote ---

I will.  But Dell and I have a history, so I was hoping to avoid it.  Having a long purchase history there over the years and seeing their product quality and support go downhill, I was not looking forward to this.

Jim

lanux128:
then i assume that you had bought your desktop & notebook at the same time and both came up pretty badly. and as mouser suggested, try to get a downgrade to WinXP since XP has more stable drivers.

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