Monday, June 16, 2008

Microsoft Vista Oy Vey!

I needed a new laptop for my home. OK, maybe "need" is not the correct word, but you get my picture.

So I did what I always do. I navigated to dell.com and purchased a Inspiron 1525 with a 15" screen, 4G of RAM and Microsoft Windows Vista Home. I went through all the normal setup things and had it on my wireless network in about 15 minutes.

So far, so good. Then I tried to add a network printer [Accept or Deny] that was attached [Accept or Deny] to my W2K desktop. Since W2K doesn't serve the drivers like XP, I had to install the drivers [Accept or Deny] for my printer before I could print. Then I had to tweak my firewall settings [Accept or Deny] so that I could print to my network printer. I used to think that the Apple Commercial was exaggerating, but it's not.

Then, to add insult to injury, I tried to print a document. First I had to activate Microsoft Word, which was simple. I typed in some text and...

Wait a second, where's the "save" button...

And what happened to the "File" menu...

Arg, even "Help" isn't on the menu any more.

I finally figured out that you have to click that stupid looking button at the top before you can "Save", "Print", "Open" or do anything you are used to.

Great way to enhance my productivity. Now it takes me 5 minutes to open and print a document instead of two mouse clicks. Word 2007 is a step backwards.

3 comments:

Tim... said...

Hi.

Are you using 32bit Windows? If so, your losing about 1G of RAM. :(

Note. Dell ship 4G because although you can't use the extra Gig, the dual channel stuff means the remaining 3G runs faster...

Cheers

Tim...

Niall said...

hey, I got a new machine (from mesh) with "free double memory" - 8gb. Still shipped with 32bit Vista OEM though - wtf why waste 1gb ram when you can waste 5!

I only sort of agree about office2007 by the way, for those of us who have used Office since before it had dates attached to the end of the name it is a very steep learning curve, but I actually do think that the usability is better.

Alex Gorbachev said...

You should change you habits and got to apple.com instead of dell.com. ;-)