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by mad
im sure there are user-created plugins/extensions available which would do most of the things you require.
this IS open source, after all...

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I did a whole flow diagram but while typing this I figured it wouldn't really be very on topic and way too techy for most people who would expecting some light reading on Vista.

To make a long story short, yes for most of my tasks there are pretty good solutions available however the most work intensive one is very very very specific and has been developed especially for this tasks many years ago.... and the person that did it is gone and there is no documentation of any sort.

Converters and brokers can only partly offer a solution as some of the scripts / apps don't wine (so no output to broker / convert) and as I can be both initiator and receiver in this process that would involve me rewriting all 3 of the larger scripts for Linux and ensure they still work with the rest of the Windows users. To be honest..... I have better things to do than rewrite old muck especially seeing as we'll probably not be using this system for very much longer (probably 6 months).

(Edited by Chambler 03/03/2007 23:13)

my brother bought a laptop last night - a core duo T2060, 1Gb RAM, with vista basic, and im not impressed.
takes a couple of minutes to boot up, runs really slowly, and froze while trying to install windows live messenger.
so far, all i want to do is chuck kubuntu on it...

I'm not surprised that system runs slow, the spec is rubbish

For a start, 2gb is the reccomended amount of RAM, and the CPU is at the slower end of the Core Duo scale. Home Premium would have been advised too, cos there are key features missing from Basic that make it, well, basic.

I've had no problems getting apps to run, getting device drivers and no stability problems, but it seemd to be a bit hit and miss. My system is a Dell, and i gather they are pretty good with providing stuff for the new OSs.

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by Maffrew
I'm not surprised that system runs slow, the spec is rubbish

For a start, 2gb is the reccomended amount of RAM, and the CPU is at the slower end of the Core Duo scale. Home Premium would have been advised too, cos there are key features missing from Basic that make it, well, basic.

I've had no problems getting apps to run, getting device drivers and no stability problems, but it seemd to be a bit hit and miss. My system is a Dell, and i gather they are pretty good with providing stuff for the new OSs.

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there were plenty of machines below that pricepoint (£500) with worse specs - mostly 1.6GHz single core celerons, a couple of 1.73GHz celerons, and most of those only had 512Mb RAM.
getting a 1.6GHz core duo for that price was pretty good then, i thought.
we had a play with it in the shop, and it seemed ok, but its been nothing but trouble setting it up.
even worse, hes refusing to give me his admin password, on the grounds i wouldnt give him an admin password for any of MY pooters* - but as im going to be the one doing sysadmin work on it when it dies for whatever reason, i think it would be easier for me to have it as well.
i actually rebooted it earlier, and it seemed a fair bit faster on boot, so wether that was just a problem with norton installing the updates, i dont know - we shall see when he gets back later.


*technically, he HAS got the admin password for one of my linux boxen which i had downstairs at one point, but then, everyone had the password for that.
i really must get round to changing the password on that, seeing as i always put in the wrong one when doing any work on there...

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by mad
even worse, hes refusing to give me his admin password, on the grounds i wouldnt give him an admin password for any of MY pooters* - but as im going to be the one doing sysadmin work on it when it dies for whatever reason, i think it would be easier for me to have it as well.
i actually rebooted it earlier, and it seemed a fair bit faster on boot, so wether that was just a problem with norton installing the updates, i dont know - we shall see when he gets back later.

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First of all whenever you get a computer from a shop you do a clean install and you certainly don't put resource hungry stuff like Norton on it. There are virus / firewall solutions out there which are not only free, but also better and less resource hungry. You'd be amazed how fast things run when the machine is not cluttered with stuff.

Under NT / 2000 / XP it didn't matter if you knew the admin password or not as with tools like EBCD you could just overwrite the admin password hash. Don't know if those are available yet for Vista or not though...

Yeah, Norton is a pig on any operating system, and i'm sure i read some stuff about it not being very good on Vista either. AVG Free is supposed to be excellent, and fully Vista compatible.

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by Chambler
(quotes)
First of all whenever you get a computer from a shop you do a clean install and you certainly don't put resource hungry stuff like Norton on it. There are virus / firewall solutions out there which are not only free, but also better and less resource hungry. You'd be amazed how fast things run when the machine is not cluttered with stuff.

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yeah - ive told him that im taking norton off, i just need to find a free or open source firewall, seeing as zonealarm doesnt work.
which reminds me - ive got a copy of comodo firewall around somewhere that ive been meaning to try.
avg free is vista compatible, as is clamwin, so thats his AV soloutions sorted, just got to install them.
in WAS intending doing a full re-install, but it took a while to find the install disks, and he wanted to play with his new toy, so ill see about doing that later this week.

posting this from leons new laptop...
norton has gone bye-bye, the system is now running a hell of a lot faster (although it still feels slower than XPSP2), and the annoying system freezes and hangups appear to be a thing of the past.
avgfree & clamwin are doing the honours in the anti-virus stakes, and im just trying to track down something to replace windows firewall - any recs?
(remember, its got to be something a non-techy like my brother can figure out!)
dont think im liking vista basic - its trying so hard to be OSX, but everything is buried under so many layers of windows and menus it not funny, so customisability has gone right out of the window - i used to be able to change screen resoloution with just a few clicks of the mouse, now i have to go digging in all sorts of weird places to do it.
slightly more geeky stuff is even worse!!
still want to play with some of the added features in Premium/Ultimate, though
although, having said that, its still not going to drag me away from OSX/Linux - especially when i get beryl/compiz figured out!!
all ive got to do now is figure out why im only getting a ow-quality wireless signal, even when right next to my router - i get better reception on my other (XP) laptops from halfway down the street than i do on this - plus it keeps dropping the connection...
still, its not my lappy, i didnt pay 500 quid for it, so what do i care??